quote:

Op zaterdag 23 september 2017 01:19 schreef ExtraWaskracht het volgende:
Nog een artikel over Russische hacking:

[..]

quote:

In the majority of the states, the Department of Homeland Security only saw preparations for hacking, like scanning to find potential modes for attack. Voting machines are not connected to the internet and cannot be scanned in this way, but other systems, including those housing voter rolls, can be.

quote:

Starting Nmap 6.40 ( http://nmap.org ) at 2017 xxx EDT
Nmap scan report for sos.ga.gov (50.232.155.157)
Host is up (0.053s latency).
rDNS record for 50.232.155.157: 50-232-155-157-static.hfc.c...
Not shown: 997 filtered ports
PORT STATE SERVICE
80/tcp open http
443/tcp closed https
8080/tcp closed http-proxy

Nmap done: 1 IP address (1 host up) scanned in 6.91 seconds

Look, I just did too.

quote:

Verkiezingen VS in 21 staten gehackt door Russen

Russische hackers hebben vorig jaar tijdens de Amerikaanse presidentsverkiezingen in 21 Amerikaanse staten geprobeerd de verkiezingen te manipuleren.

quote:

Senior aides to President Trump repeatedly warned him not to deliver a personal attack on North Korea’s leader at the United Nations this week, saying insulting the young despot in such a prominent venue could irreparably escalate tensions and shut off any chance for negotiations to defuse the nuclear crisis.

Trump’s derisive description of Kim Jong Un as “Rocket Man” on “a suicide mission” and his threat to “totally destroy” North Korea were not in a speech draft that several senior officials reviewed and vetted Monday, the day before Trump gave his first address to the U.N. General Assembly, two U.S. officials said.

Some of Trump’s top aides, including national security advisor H.R. McMaster, had argued for months against making the attacks on North Korea’s leader personal, warning it could backfire.

But Trump, who relishes belittling his rivals and enemies with crude nicknames, felt compelled to make a dramatic splash in the global forum.
[...]
John Park, a specialist on Northeast Asia at Harvard’s Kennedy School, said the tit-for-tat insults have created a “new reality” and probably have shut off any chance of starting talks to curb North Korea’s fast-growing nuclear arms program.

“If the belief centers around sanctions being the last hope to averting war and getting North Korea back to the negotiating table, it’s too late,” Park said.

Since taking office, Kim has pushed the nuclear and missile programs far faster than U.S. experts had expected, sharply accelerating the pace of development and tests. Kim has conducted four of the country’s six nuclear tests.

U.S. officials now believe that North Korea has fully one-third of its economy invested in its nuclear and missile programs.

quote:

Op vrijdag 22 september 2017 11:09 schreef ExtraWaskracht het volgende:
En zo is een nieuwe bijnaam voor Trump geboren:
Het is echt de raarste tijdslijn...

quote:

Op zaterdag 23 september 2017 08:14 schreef crystal_meth het volgende:

[..]

http://www.latimes.com/po(...)-20170922-story.html

quote:

As Trump campaigns for Strange in Alabama, he expresses some doubts: ‘I might have made a mistake’

(..)

“I’ll be honest, I might have made a mistake,” Trump told the crowd at one point during his nearly 90 minutes of remarks.

“If Luther doesn’t win they’re not going to say, we picked up 25 points in a short period of time,” he added, referring to the media. “If his opponent wins, I’m going to be here campaigning like hell for him.”

After some musing, he seemed to catch himself.

“Luther will definitely win,” Trump said.

It may not have been exactly the ringing endorsement Strange’s campaign had hoped for, but it would have to do.

https://www.washingtonpos(...)have-made-a-mistake/

quote:

The president delivered a signature rally speech, meandering from topic to topic, prompting laughter, and chants of “Lock her up!” from the crowd when he mentioned his former Democratic opponent, Hillary Clinton.

quote:

Op zaterdag 23 september 2017 10:18 schreef Falco het volgende:
Ik denk dat dit tot nu toe de beste maand van Trump is. En dit is vermoedelijk vooral een grote verdienste van John Kelly.

quote:

Op zaterdag 23 september 2017 10:24 schreef Ulx het volgende:

[..]

Laat Trump het maar niet horen. Zodra de pers gaat schrijven over Kelly's goede invloed kan Trump dat niet aan en ontslaat hij hem. Het is tenslotte Trump en Trump alleen.

quote:

Op zaterdag 23 september 2017 06:57 schreef crystal_meth het volgende:

[..]

[..]

http://thehill.com/policy(...)gets-russian-hacking
Om één van de comments te quoten:

[..]

het AD kopt:

[..]

https://www.ad.nl/buitenl(...)oor-russen~a980a524/
In haast alle gevallen betrof het enkel scans, en die zijn niet illegaal. In de twee gevallen waar ze blijkbaar hackten en ook binnenraakten was er geen aanwijzing dat men de verkiezingen heeft willen manipuleren. Misschien omdat dat helemaal niet mogelijk was, die computers bevatten geen stemmen, enkel de gegevens van geregistreerde kiezers.En als het computers waren waarmee de resultaten van de tellingen werden doorgegeven, dan zou manipulatie daarvan haast zeker opgemerkt worden (kan me moeilijk voorstellen dat een official die de cijfers van z'n district doorgeeft later niet de officiele resultaten van dat district bekijkt).

twitter:

dcexaminer twitterde op zaterdag 23-09-2017 om 02:48:23 Trump wishes NFL owners would tell anthem protesters "get that son of a bitch off the field right now" https://t.co/gq4EH3lNoY reageer retweet

quote:

Op zaterdag 23 september 2017 11:03 schreef Nintex het volgende:

twitter:

dcexaminer twitterde op zaterdag 23-09-2017 om 02:48:23 Trump wishes NFL owners would tell anthem protesters "get that son of a bitch off the field right now" https://t.co/gq4EH3lNoY reageer retweet

Donald Trump op zijn best

quote:

Op zaterdag 23 september 2017 11:07 schreef Barbusse het volgende:

[..]

Je kunt toch niet serieus menen dat je dit soort uitspraken van hem goed/grappig/juist vind he?

quote:

Op zaterdag 23 september 2017 11:09 schreef ExtraWaskracht het volgende:
Rusland doet ook een duit in het zakje over The Dotard en Rocket Man: Russia: Trump and Kim are like 'children in a kindergarten'

quote:

Op zaterdag 23 september 2017 10:35 schreef ExtraWaskracht het volgende:

[..]

Een portscan meteen een hack noemen is me wel wat te kort door de bocht. Staat wel tegenover dat als de voting rolls aangepast zouden zijn (waar zogezegd klaarblijkelijk geen bewijs voor is) dat je daarmee wel de verkiezing zou kunnen hacken (bv. zwarten, hispanics, jongeren van de roll afgooien om maar wat te noemen).
Sowieso blijft natuurlijk de vraag: waarom zouden ze trachten naar binnen te komen als ze niks wilden doen? Alleen kijken of ze de mogelijkheid hadden en dan eventueel wat doen als het order zou komen?

quote:

Op zaterdag 23 september 2017 11:48 schreef KoosVogels het volgende:

[..]

Figuren zoals Nintex snappen niet dat Trump de VS keihard voor lul zet. Niemand heeft respect voor VS onder Trump. De hele wereld lacht het land uit.

twitter:

realDonaldTrump twitterde op zaterdag 23-09-2017 om 13:04:21 I know Rand Paul and I think he may find a way to get there for the good of the Party! reageer retweet

quote:

Op zaterdag 23 september 2017 11:03 schreef Nintex het volgende:

twitter:

dcexaminer twitterde op zaterdag 23-09-2017 om 02:48:23 Trump wishes NFL owners would tell anthem protesters "get that son of a bitch off the field right now" https://t.co/gq4EH3lNoY reageer retweet

Donald Trump op zijn best

Obama discusses Kaepernick's anthem protest

quote:

Op zaterdag 23 september 2017 14:23 schreef livelink het volgende:

[..]

Tja, en ik krijg dan toch weer heimwee naar Obama

Obama discusses Kaepernick's anthem protest

quote:

Op zaterdag 23 september 2017 09:10 schreef Montov het volgende:

[..]

Wat, persoonlijke beledigingen zijn niet constructief in politiek beleid? Maar het voelt zo goed, en het is goed voor Trumps ego. Laten we het 4d schaken noemen om er een positieve draai aan te geven.

quote:

Op zaterdag 23 september 2017 14:31 schreef crystal_meth het volgende:

[..]

Of Trump wil een conflict uitlokken, om de aandacht af te leiden van Mueller's onderzoek.

quote:

Op zaterdag 23 september 2017 14:37 schreef Nintex het volgende:

[..]

In 1 Tweet de oorlog verklaren aan Noord Korea en Manafort een presidential pardon geven.

twitter:

realDonaldTrump twitterde op zaterdag 23-09-2017 om 14:45:19 Going to the White House is considered a great honor for a championship team.Stephen Curry is hesitating,therefore invitation is withdrawn! reageer retweet

quote:

Op zaterdag 23 september 2017 14:51 schreef Kijkertje het volgende:
Stephen Curry Says He'll Vote No on Warriors' Potential White House Trip

twitter:

realDonaldTrump twitterde op zaterdag 23-09-2017 om 14:45:19 Going to the White House is considered a great honor for a championship team.Stephen Curry is hesitating,therefore invitation is withdrawn! reageer retweet

quote:

Op zaterdag 23 september 2017 14:31 schreef crystal_meth het volgende:

[..]

Of Trump wil een conflict uitlokken, om de aandacht af te leiden van Mueller's onderzoek.

quote:

Op zaterdag 23 september 2017 14:51 schreef Kijkertje het volgende:
Stephen Curry Says He'll Vote No on Warriors' Potential White House Trip

twitter:

realDonaldTrump twitterde op zaterdag 23-09-2017 om 14:45:19 Going to the White House is considered a great honor for a championship team.Stephen Curry is hesitating,therefore invitation is withdrawn! reageer retweet

quote:

Op zaterdag 23 september 2017 14:51 schreef Kijkertje het volgende:
Stephen Curry Says He'll Vote No on Warriors' Potential White House Trip

twitter:

realDonaldTrump twitterde op zaterdag 23-09-2017 om 14:45:19 Going to the White House is considered a great honor for a championship team.Stephen Curry is hesitating,therefore invitation is withdrawn! reageer retweet

quote:

Op zaterdag 23 september 2017 14:51 schreef Kijkertje het volgende:
Stephen Curry Says He'll Vote No on Warriors' Potential White House Trip

twitter:

realDonaldTrump twitterde op zaterdag 23-09-2017 om 14:45:19 Going to the White House is considered a great honor for a championship team.Stephen Curry is hesitating,therefore invitation is withdrawn! reageer retweet

quote:

Op zaterdag 23 september 2017 15:17 schreef Nintex het volgende:
T R U M P baas

quote:

“Where’s General? Where is he? Where is he?” Trump said. “General! Come up here. Quick! Come here, come here. Four star. Come here. Come, come, come, come.”

Kelly ran onstage and shook the president’s hand. Trump pulled him toward the lectern, but Kelly declined to say anything. Instead, he pointed at the president with a smile and told the audience to direct their applause to Trump, not him. He then slowly backed his way off the stage.

“He just wants to work,” Trump said. “He’s done a good job. Four-star Marine. That’s good.”

https://www.washingtonpos(...)-in-rambling-speech/

quote:

“Believe me, folks,” he said. “The wall is happening.”

Trump said that there’s already a wall along the border and that the administration is renovating it over the next six to seven months to be “pristine, perfect, just as good as new, although we may go a little bit higher than that, but that’s okay.” And Trump said that he’s collecting samples for building a new wall that’s “see through.”

quote:

“Wouldn’t you love to see one of these NFL owners, when somebody disrespects our flag, to say, ‘Get that son of a b---- off the field right now. Out. He’s fired. He’s FIRED!’” Trump boomed.

As the crowd burst into cheers, the president threw his hands into the air and shook his head. For the fourth time that night, the crowd began to chant: “USA! USA! USA!”

“That’s a total disrespect of our heritage,” Trump said. “That’s a total disrespect of everything that we stand for. Okay? Everything that we stand for. And I know we have freedoms, and we have freedom of choice and many, many different freedoms, but you know what? It’s still totally disrespectful.”

quote:

Op zaterdag 23 september 2017 15:21 schreef Whiskers2009 het volgende:

[..]

https://mobile.twitter.co(...)s/911580376660942848

twitter:

VicBergerIV twitterde op zaterdag 23-09-2017 om 16:23:41 @realDonaldTrump True, it's usually a great honor. https://t.co/gJUKK3k8TF reageer retweet

twitter:

cnni twitterde op zaterdag 23-09-2017 om 18:43:35 Democrats can't decide: Blame Bernie Sanders or rally around him? | Analysis by CNN's @GregJKrieg… https://t.co/evajMiaV2R reageer retweet

quote:

Op zaterdag 23 september 2017 18:48 schreef Kijkertje het volgende:

[..]

twitter:

VicBergerIV twitterde op zaterdag 23-09-2017 om 16:23:41 @realDonaldTrump True, it's usually a great honor. https://t.co/gJUKK3k8TF reageer retweet

twitter:

KingJames twitterde op zaterdag 23-09-2017 om 17:17:24 U bum @StephenCurry30 already said he ain't going! So therefore ain't no invite. Going to White House was a great honor until you showed up! reageer retweet

quote:

The following statement is in response to President Donald Trump’s comments last night...

STATEMENT FROM NFL COMMISSIONER ROGER GOODELL

The NFL and our players are at our best when we help create a sense of unity in our country and our culture. There is no better example than the amazing response from our clubs and players to the terrible natural disasters we've experienced over the last month. Divisive comments like these demonstrate an unfortunate lack of respect for the NFL, our great game and all of our players, and a failure to understand the overwhelming force for good our clubs and players represent in our communities.

quote:

To Donald

I believe in the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution of this country even though at the time they were drafted, their tenets of life, liberty justice for all and eventual freedom of speech, religion, assembly, press and petition amendment ratified in Dec 1791, only applied to a select group of people and not ones that looked like me.

Donald Trump, I listened to your Alabama rally rant and could not believe how easily you say what you say.

We have become numb to your outlandish acts, tweets and recent retweet of you knocking down Hillary Clinton with a golf ball that you hit.

Donald Trump, your boorish and disgusting actions are not funny. They actually promote violence against women especially when your followers act out what you say.

I used to walk the grounds of UVA in Charlottesville, VA as a graduate student only to watch in horror as those same grounds became a battlefield being trod by Nazi and anti-Semitic worshippers armed with assault style weapons ready to fight to make America White again. (their words). You actually said there were nice people on both sides. People armed and ready to kill other Americans for the purpose of eradicating Blacks, Jews, Hispanics, Mexicans, Asians, Latinas and even the first real Americans, Native Americans to make America Great Again were “nice people”?

Comparing this to what you say in condemnation of an unarmed black man peacefully protesting by exercising his constitutional First Amendment rights by silently taking a knee is appalling, unnerving and reprehensible.

Today, you called Colin Kaepernick “a son-of-a-bitch.”

You said he should be fired.

You are calling his white mother a bitch.

The strong contrast in language for a black man and a Nazi is very telling. Do you have any sense of decency or shame in what you say to the American people that are part of your duty to serve respectfully with dignity, presidentially?

Our National Anthem has been edited to try not to offend, because when Francis Scott Key penned the song he watched freed slaves fighting for the British and wrote this stanza:

“And where is that band who so vauntingly swore,
That the havoc of war and the battle’s confusion
A home and a Country should leave us no more?
Their blood has wash’d out their foul footstep’s pollution.
No refuge could save the hireling and slave
From the terror of flight or the gloom of the grave,
And the star-spangled banner in triumph doth wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave.”

I guess if I were a slave back then I probably would have done anything to obtain freedom from my American oppressors who were whipping, killing, raping, dismembering, hanging or releasing the dogs on people like me all under our Constitution.

In 1814 former slaves fought with the British for their freedom from their American enslavers.

Key witnessed a battle from a ship off the Maryland shore at Fort McHenry, which inspired him to write what became our National Anthem.

I served my country not in the military, but as 1 of 362 American Astronauts that have explored the universe to help advance our civilization. Not just Americans, but all humans. I also was briefly in the NFL and stood for the National Anthem with my hand over my heart. What makes us great is our differences and respecting that we are all created equally even if not always treated that way.

Looking back at our planet from space really helps one get a bigger perspective on how petty and divisive we can be. Donald Trump, maybe you should ask your good friend Mr. Putin to give you a ride on a Soyuz rocket to our International Space Station and see what it’s like to work together with people we used to fight against, where your life depends on it. See the world and get a greater sense of what it means to be part of the human race, we call it the Orbital Perspective.

Donald Trump, please know that you are supposed to be a unifier and a compassionate and empathetic leader. If you can’t do the job then please step down and let someone else try. I pray that you do the right thing.

May God bless you.

Sincerely,

Leland Melvin
Former Astronaut and NFL Player

quote:

Donald Trump, maybe you should ask your good friend Mr. Putin to give you a ride on a Soyuz rocket to our International Space Station

quote:

Op zaterdag 23 september 2017 20:09 schreef Monolith het volgende:
Het aantal Indiërs dat naar de VS komt voor werk of studie neemt af:
https://buff.ly/2foOoZf

quote:

Op zaterdag 23 september 2017 20:10 schreef WhiteBeard1965 het volgende:
Ik nodig gaarne Leland Melvin uit om in Berkeley op de universiteit Ann Coulter binnen te loodsen als hij echt zo bezig is met free speech

quote:

Op zaterdag 23 september 2017 18:48 schreef Kijkertje het volgende:

[..]

twitter:

VicBergerIV twitterde op zaterdag 23-09-2017 om 16:23:41 @realDonaldTrump True, it's usually a great honor. https://t.co/gJUKK3k8TF reageer retweet

quote:

Op zaterdag 23 september 2017 21:24 schreef clumsy_clown het volgende:
Ondertussen gaat de ver-pis-wedstrijd tussen de VS en NK gestaag door: http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-41375302

quote:

How the NFL responds to Donald Trump’s spit-foaming is hardly a test case for whether the republic will stand. Nevertheless, the league is a maker of manners in this country, so it means something that Commissioner Roger Goodell and others are getting it right, striking the perfect calm but resistant tone in response to Trump’s gutter-mouthing, a tone that says, “We’re not your personal WrestleMania, and don’t use us for your sham body slams.” The NFL, faced with whether to play to the basest instincts of the audience, declined. It adhered to civility.

The league is apparently unifying around the notion that, whatever side you may be on in the siege-controversy over NFL players kneeling during the anthem to protest racial injustice, whether you see it as a matter of patriotism, activism or some tangled intersection of the two, it is important to talk about it without calling each other “sons of bitches.”

Who knows what Trump’s real gripe is with the NFL. Maybe he’s still angry that owners denied him entry to their club years ago. Or maybe Colin Kaepernick’s mute but unrepentant protest really arouses his spittle. Or maybe he’s just creating an “Are you not entertained!” circus-maximus spectacle by bull-baiting a wealthy league that is easy to resent by cash-strapped, job-insecure fans.

Regardless, Trump misreads what Americans love about the NFL.

SPOILER

It’s beloved not so much for its violence or crudity, but rather the skill that results in violence averted. It’s a game, ultimately, of restraint. As opposed to this:

“Wouldn’t you love to see one of these NFL owners, when somebody disrespects our flag, to say, ‘Get that son of a bitch off the field right now. Out! He’s fired. He’s fired!’ ” Trump roared at a rally in Alabama on Friday night. “You know, some owner is going to do that. He’s going to say, ‘That guy disrespects our flag; he’s fired.’ And that owner . . . they’ll be the most popular person in this country.”

Not content to drive one wedge, Trump also called for a fan boycott and suggested the league has gone soft, lamenting the fact that amid CTE concerns it has passed rules trying to protect players from head injuries. “Because you know today if you hit too hard — 15 yards!” Trump said. “It’s hurting the game.” As opposed to hurting, you know, the cattle.

Wisely, Goodell and other owners refused Trump’s bid to separate players from fans by playing on their economic and racial differences. “Divisive comments like these demonstrate an unfortunate lack of respect for the NFL, our great game, and all of our players, and a failure to understand the overwhelming force for good our clubs and players represent in our communities,” Goodell said in a statement. It’s at its best as a league when it has “unity,” Goodell stressed.

Now, you can quarrel over whether Zygi Wilf’s stadium tax breaks are a force for good, or what John Mara has ever really done for New Jersey. But Goodell is basically right: NFL players are a huge boon to their communities, and a unifying force.

You cannot think otherwise after watching what J.J. Watt did, raising more than $37 million for local relief in Houston after Hurricane Harvey. Or after observing scores of NFL players fundraise for everything from free mammograms for women to free books for kids.

The vast majority of the men on the field are not spoiled millionaires abusing their freedoms, as Trump charges. Rather, they have worked as hard as any farmers for their short-lived incomes and are dedicated to using their privilege to make things better for the people they play in front of. Brandon Marshall’s Project Borderline foundation combats mental illness. Doug Baldwin is raising money for a family community center in Renton, Wash. And Kaepernick has given away $1 million to various organizations.

Whether you agree with their cause, Kaepernick and his followers see themselves as activists who are simply trying to take “a reasonable and peaceful approach to something that is important to our society and the health and wellness of our communities,” according to Baldwin. Their intent is not to insult the flag but simply to call for equal treatment under it. That may offend you. But it is not un-American.

As the abolitionist senator Charles Sumner once said, “Our country, be she right or wrong: a sentiment dethroning God and enthroning the devil.”

The NFL is in a difficult state: It has a health crisis, an uncertain future in a fragmenting entertainment market, a coming labor fight. And it’s in the midst of a tough but needed conversation about race in a league in which the owners are almost universally white and the players are almost 70 percent black. Kaepernick remains unemployed and no one will admit exactly why, though suspicions abound.

Still, Trump is finding that the league is not easily fractured, even by this divisive issue. Just because owners have certain powers doesn’t mean they want to exercise them. Could an NFL owner fire a player for taking a knee? Certainly. The First Amendment only protects a citizen’s free speech from being interfered with by the government. It doesn’t protect anyone from their employer, and every NFL player is subject to “conduct” clauses. But a player could also bring a grievance and a more than viable argument that firing anyone over the anthem protest is race discrimination or unfair retaliation.

What’s interesting is that none of it has happened.

Instead, what has happened are things like Arthur Blank’s statement, the owner of the Atlanta Falcons standing with the players: “Creating division or demonizing viewpoints that are different from our own accomplishes nothing positive and undermines our collective ability to achieve the ideals of our democracy. The NFL has historically been a strong catalyst for positive change and I’m proud of the way our players, coaches and staff use that platform.”

And the statement from Giants owners Mara and Steve Tisch calling Trump’s statements “offensive and divisive,” and adding, “We are proud of our players, the vast majority of whom use their NFL platform to make a positive difference in our society.”

All of this may be becuase of what happened in Cleveland a couple of weeks ago. When a dozen players there took knees to earn the ire of police, ownership stepped in, not to fire players but broker talks with local authorities that resulted in players locking arms with cops and firefighters.

Owner Dee Haslam told ESPN.com, “Until we start talking about race and equality and building up neighborhoods and working together, we’re not going to be able to solve the problem.”

Underneath the splintering violence of the NFL is an underpinning of discipline and intelligence. This juxtaposition is what’s really at the heart of its appeal: It’s not a game about pure unleashed power but rather about the constraint of power for a purpose. And in this case, the league showed that it understands the difference between power for a purpose, and power to just throw weight around.

Confronted with Trump’s vulgarity, rather than take him head on, it chose simply to outclass him.

“I do believe that this will be a unifying moment in the sports world,” Baldwin said. “And with as much influence as athletes have on the younger generation, this can be an opportunity for us to change the narrative of society and point to the president as a poor example of what you can become if you remain closed-minded, ignorant and uneducated.”

Long Live the Republic.

twitter:

realDonaldTrump twitterde op zondag 24-09-2017 om 05:08:07 Just heard Foreign Minister of North Korea speak at U.N. If he echoes thoughts of Little Rocket Man, they won't be around much longer! reageer retweet

quote:

Op zondag 24 september 2017 08:28 schreef ItaloDancer het volgende:
https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/911789314169823232

quote:

Op zondag 24 september 2017 08:31 schreef Boze_Appel het volgende:

[..]

Ja, echt super. Via Twitter dreigen 25 miljoen mensen van de aardbodem te vagen.

quote:

Op zondag 24 september 2017 08:31 schreef Boze_Appel het volgende:

[..]

Ja, echt super. Via Twitter dreigen 25 miljoen mensen van de aardbodem te vagen.

quote:

Op zondag 24 september 2017 08:28 schreef ItaloDancer het volgende:

twitter:

realDonaldTrump twitterde op zondag 24-09-2017 om 05:08:07 Just heard Foreign Minister of North Korea speak at U.N. If he echoes thoughts of Little Rocket Man, they won't be around much longer! reageer retweet

quote:

Op zondag 24 september 2017 08:31 schreef Boze_Appel het volgende:

[..]

Ja, echt super. Via Twitter dreigen 25 miljoen mensen van de aardbodem te vagen.

quote:

Op zondag 24 september 2017 08:59 schreef Janneke141 het volgende:

[..]

Beangstigend, dat dit figuur bij de rode knop kan.

quote:

Op zondag 24 september 2017 09:58 schreef Monolith het volgende:

[..]

Ach, Noord-Korea slaat dezelfde taal uit. Zolang het maar bij loze dreigementen blijft is er niet veel aan de hand.

quote:

Op zondag 24 september 2017 10:04 schreef AnneX het volgende:
Zó griezelig...is er nou niemand die de kerel - lees Trump - kan remmen?
Struikelen van de trap ofzo...

En dank kijkertje voor verhelderend verhaal over NFL en owners en spelers.

quote:

Op zondag 24 september 2017 10:00 schreef Janneke141 het volgende:

[..]

Nee, maar met twee van die idioten die met mekaar aan het bekvechten zijn is het maar de vraag hoe lang die dreigementen loos blijven.

quote:

Op zondag 24 september 2017 10:25 schreef Monolith het volgende:

[..]

Nou ja, het regime in Noord-Korea weet ook wel dat het voor hen einde oefening is als ze te ver gaan en de VS zal ook niet echt staan te springen om een dergelijk conflict.

quote:

Op zondag 24 september 2017 10:32 schreef Terreros85 het volgende:
Die speech in Alabama ook weer. Hij roept alles voor applaus. Ongeacht de ophef die dat weer veroorzaakt. Hij is de ultieme demagoog.

quote:

Op zondag 24 september 2017 10:49 schreef Re het volgende:
Ik maak me eigenlijk meer zorgen over zijn Iran retoriek

quote:

Op zondag 24 september 2017 10:04 schreef AnneX het volgende:
Zó griezelig...is er nou niemand die de kerel - lees Trump - kan remmen?
Struikelen van de trap ofzo...

quote:

Op zondag 24 september 2017 10:49 schreef Re het volgende:
Ik maak me eigenlijk meer zorgen over zijn Iran retoriek

quote:

Op zondag 24 september 2017 10:49 schreef Re het volgende:
Ik maak me eigenlijk meer zorgen over zijn Iran retoriek

quote:

Op zondag 24 september 2017 12:50 schreef Falco het volgende:
Gaat dat Twitter-gedrag van Trump niet in tegen hun Terms and Conditions?

Check: https://support.twitter.com/articles/20175050 en https://support.twitter.com/articles/18311

twitter:

realDonaldTrump twitterde op zondag 24-09-2017 om 12:44:52 If NFL fans refuse to go to games until players stop disrespecting our Flag & Country, you will see change take place fast. Fire or suspend! reageer retweet

twitter:

realDonaldTrump twitterde op zondag 24-09-2017 om 13:13:11 ...NFL attendance and ratings are WAY DOWN. Boring games yes, but many stay away because they love our country. League should back U.S. reageer retweet

quote:

Op zondag 24 september 2017 13:28 schreef Montov het volgende:

twitter:

realDonaldTrump twitterde op zondag 24-09-2017 om 12:44:52 If NFL fans refuse to go to games until players stop disrespecting our Flag & Country, you will see change take place fast. Fire or suspend! reageer retweet

twitter:

realDonaldTrump twitterde op zondag 24-09-2017 om 13:13:11 ...NFL attendance and ratings are WAY DOWN. Boring games yes, but many stay away because they love our country. League should back U.S. reageer retweet

Tsja, hoe moet je hier nu weer op reageren?

quote:

Op zondag 24 september 2017 09:52 schreef clumsy_clown het volgende:

[..]

Ik betrap mezelf erop dat ik steeds vaker denk dat de beste man het westen toch in serieuze problemen kan brengen. Het is steeds minder grappig en almaar dreigender aan het worden.

quote:

Op zondag 24 september 2017 12:37 schreef FlipjeHolland het volgende:
kunnen ze geen kinderslot op het internet zetten daar in t witte huis?

quote:

Op zondag 24 september 2017 15:24 schreef brokjespoes het volgende:
Trump heeft alleen Twitter op zijn telefoon en loopt al constant te klagen dat hij nooit meer iets van Breitbart of The Daily Caller te zien krijgt.

quote:

Another reason that the president cannot resist commenting on every non-political issue in American life is that he seemingly cannot stand the actual work of American governance—a preference made salient at a moment when lawmakers are busy trying to repeal the signature legislative achievement of Trump’s predecessor. Several Republican lawmakers said the president never mastered the details of health care policy. The president’s recent NFL commentary suggests that national anthem protests, on the other hand, are a debate he can engage with.

As a candidate, Trump promised to take a firm leadership role in changing American health care, tax policy, infrastructure spending, drug abuse, and regional inequality. But as president, Trump has given no national address endorsing a specific health care plan. He has given no national address endorsing a specific tax reform plan. His administration has no clear plan to begin rebuilding American infrastructure, no real urgency to address the opioid crisis, and no outline to confront the economic issues that supposedly buffeted his candidacy, like regional inequality. Instead, the president has been more inclined to reserve the precious power of his bully pulpit to target his nemeses, by name, as in the case of Colin Kaepernick and Stephen Curry.

It has been said that the age of Trump is the politicization of everything. The claim is impossible to dispute, especially one week after an Emmy’s ceremony that felt like an extended presidential roast. But it’s important to note that Trump is choosing to politicize sports and entertainment, not only because he is inclined toward controversy, but also because he is so demonstrably uninterested in actual policy and the political process.

Nobody is forcing the president to morph into a sports radio commentator. It is merely the role that best suits the skills that come most naturally to the former game-show host. Consider the simple, uncontroversial fact that in his ninth month in office, the U.S. president has a clearer position on Stephen Curry’s White House clearance than on any single detail of health care or tax reform. Trump is so bored by the quotidian demands of his surprisingly “complicated” job, which requires guiding policy through a complex political process, that he uses his position to instead harass Americans on the internet. Judging by the attention his sports commentary received this weekend, one can assume that Trump’s shock-jock-in-chief routine will be a long-running show.

The Atlantic

quote:

Op zondag 24 september 2017 15:37 schreef ExtraWaskracht het volgende:
Maar ehm, hij zal toch wel bekend zijn met het feit dat hij een browser op zijn foon kan gebruiken om naar die sites te gaan?

quote:

Op zondag 24 september 2017 15:41 schreef brokjespoes het volgende:

[..]

Nee. (Dat valt onder "de cyber" dus hij hield het bij printouts die door Bannon etc voor hem waren gemaakt.)

zie o.a.: http://www.washingtontime(...)aily-caller-article/

quote:

Op zondag 24 september 2017 15:49 schreef Sloggi het volgende:
In het Witte Huis zijn ze toch wel geabonneerd op de grote kranten mag ik aannemen?

quote:

Op zondag 24 september 2017 15:38 schreef Kijkertje het volgende:

[..]

quote:

Op zondag 24 september 2017 15:58 schreef livelink het volgende:

[..]

De moraal van het verhaal is dat je Trump moet negeren als hij los gaat over dit soort zaken. Geen media-aandacht voor zijn stompzinnige rally's en tweets als het om niet-essentiële zaken gaat.

quote:

Op zondag 24 september 2017 09:52 schreef clumsy_clown het volgende:

[..]

Ik betrap mezelf erop dat ik steeds vaker denk dat de beste man het westen toch in serieuze problemen kan brengen. Het is steeds minder grappig en almaar dreigender aan het worden.

Stephen Colbert Monologue 9/22/2017: The President 'Dotard' Vs Kim 'Rocket Man' September 22, 2017

quote:

Around two dozen NFL players knelt while the American national anthem played at Wembley Stadium in London, defying Donald Trump after he suggested players who take a knee during the anthem should be fired.

SPOILER

quote:

Op zondag 24 september 2017 17:14 schreef Puddington het volgende:
Momenteel zit die gast weer te kankeren op de NFL terwijl Puerto Rico (Amerikaans grondgebied!) zonder elektriciteit en water zit. Tering he, prioriteiten stellen is ook een kunst.

twitter:

matt_slotnick twitterde op zondag 24-09-2017 om 02:01:26 you know what's actually pretty disrespectful to the american flag? the confederate flag reageer retweet

quote:

Op zondag 24 september 2017 17:54 schreef ExtraWaskracht het volgende:

twitter:

matt_slotnick twitterde op zondag 24-09-2017 om 02:01:26 you know what's actually pretty disrespectful to the american flag? the confederate flag reageer retweet

twitter:

RVAwonk twitterde op zaterdag 23-09-2017 om 15:52:27 L: "Very fine people"R: "Sons of bitches"#TakeAKnee https://t.co/GOwZmzo8CF reageer retweet

quote:

Op zondag 24 september 2017 17:51 schreef JanCees het volgende:
NFL mongolen

quote:

Op zondag 24 september 2017 17:14 schreef Puddington het volgende:
Momenteel zit die gast weer te kankeren op de NFL terwijl Puerto Rico (Amerikaans grondgebied!) zonder elektriciteit en water zit.

quote:

Op zondag 24 september 2017 18:03 schreef Kijkertje het volgende:

[..]

twitter:

RVAwonk twitterde op zaterdag 23-09-2017 om 15:52:27 L: "Very fine people"R: "Sons of bitches"#TakeAKnee https://t.co/GOwZmzo8CF reageer retweet

[ afbeelding ]

quote:

Op zondag 24 september 2017 18:33 schreef brokjespoes het volgende:
Eigenaar van de Jacksonville Jaguars (ooit nog een $1M Trump-donor) sluit zich aan bij protesten: klik!wat willen ze bereiken?

[ afbeelding ]

quote:

Op zondag 24 september 2017 18:36 schreef Falco het volgende:

[..]

[ afbeelding ]

twitter:

TomNamako twitterde op zondag 24-09-2017 om 18:11:18 .@terrybradshaw: "Not sure if our president understands those rights, that every American has the right to speak o… https://t.co/VvcRmXC3MT reageer retweet

quote:

Op zondag 24 september 2017 17:12 schreef Kijkertje het volgende:
Take a knee: Dozens of NFL players stage biggest protest yet in response to Donald Trump comments

[..]

SPOILER

[ afbeelding ]

quote:

Op zondag 24 september 2017 18:33 schreef brokjespoes het volgende:
Eigenaar van de Jacksonville Jaguars (ooit nog een $1M Trump-donor) sluit zich aan bij protesten: klik!

[ afbeelding ]

quote:

Op zondag 24 september 2017 19:13 schreef brokjespoes het volgende:
Who's da sunnovabeetch now?

[ afbeelding ]
For every tweet....

quote:

Op zondag 24 september 2017 19:14 schreef Whiskers2009 het volgende:
Die is nep begreep ik eerder.

quote:

Op zondag 24 september 2017 19:18 schreef brokjespoes het volgende:

[..]

inderdaad: http://www.snopes.com/donald-trump-flag-salute/

Anders pakken we toch gewoon dat flimpje waarin Melania haastig Donalds handje op harthoogte plaatst.

Feit blijft: hij vergeet het nogal eens. (En really knap dat ze 'm zo snel kon vinden zonder vergrootglas enzo.)

quote:

Op zondag 24 september 2017 18:22 schreef Monolith het volgende:
Niveautje weer hier.

Cruz en Lee lijken mogelijk ook niet voor Graham-Cassidy te gaan stemmen:
http://www.politico.com/s(...)macare-repeal-243067

quote:

Op zondag 24 september 2017 17:14 schreef Puddington het volgende:
Momenteel zit die gast weer te kankeren op de NFL terwijl Puerto Rico (Amerikaans grondgebied!) zonder elektriciteit en water zit. Tering he, prioriteiten stellen is ook een kunst.

quote:

Op zondag 24 september 2017 21:01 schreef Zwoerd het volgende:

[..]

Zou hij weten dat Puerto Rico Amerikaans is?

quote:

Op zondag 24 september 2017 21:04 schreef Whiskers2009 het volgende:
Trump heeft er zelf ook weer over getweet: https://mobile.twitter.co(...)s/912018945158402049

En over een team dat wel wil komen: https://mobile.twitter.co(...)s/912019957243883520

quote:

Op zondag 24 september 2017 21:17 schreef brokjespoes het volgende:
oeps, foutje, dat was het amateurteam v/d Penguins

hier zijn de echte... wat ontbreekt er? *zoek zoek zoek*
[ afbeelding ]

quote:

Op zondag 24 september 2017 21:18 schreef Kijkertje het volgende:

[..]

En nog een retweet die te walgelijk is om te posten

quote:

Op zondag 24 september 2017 21:27 schreef Kijkertje het volgende:

[..]

Geen vrouwen!

quote:

Op zondag 24 september 2017 21:27 schreef Kijkertje het volgende:
Geen vrouwen!

quote:

Op zondag 24 september 2017 21:28 schreef Whiskers2009 het volgende:
maar dat bedoelt ze niet

quote:

Op zondag 24 september 2017 21:17 schreef brokjespoes het volgende:
oeps, foutje, dat was het amateurteam v/d Penguins

hier zijn de echte... wat ontbreekt er? *zoek zoek zoek*
[ afbeelding ]

quote:

Op zondag 24 september 2017 21:28 schreef brokjespoes het volgende:

[..]

Helemaal goed!

[..]

Het gaat hier opeens erg snel vanavond

quote:

Op zondag 24 september 2017 21:40 schreef Whiskers2009 het volgende:

[..]

Maar zitten er uberhaupt wel (veel) afro americans, latin americans etc in de NHL of is dat sowieso al een blank feestje?

quote:

Op zondag 24 september 2017 21:42 schreef Kijkertje het volgende:

[..]

Ik geloof dat vrijwel alles wat op schaatsen staat voornamelijk blank is idd.

quote:

The NHL is composed of 93% of players who designate themselves as white with the remaining 7% of varying ethnicities.[9] The NHL currently has 32 players of African-American descent. Some notable NHL stars of African-American descent are Dustin Byfuglien, Evander Kane, and Joel Ward.

quote:

According to racial equality activist Richard Lapchick, the NBA in 2015 was composed of 74.4 percent black players, 23.3 percent white players, 1.8 percent Latino players, and 0.2 percent Asian players

quote:

At the start of the 2014 season, NFL surveys revealed that the league was approximately 68% African-American[35] and about 28% white, with the remaining 4% comprising Asian/Pacific Islander, non-white Hispanics, and those preferring a Mixed Race category

quote:

Op zondag 24 september 2017 21:49 schreef ExtraWaskracht het volgende:
Er is op Wikipedia te lezen:

[..]

In verhouding idd weinig niet-blanken. Het is gemiddeld zo'n 61% blank (non Hispanic/Latino) of 77% incl Hispanics & Latinos in de VS.

In de NBA zie je juist het omgekeerde in extremis:

[..]

NFL ook het omgekeerde van de VS als geheel

quote:

Op zondag 24 september 2017 21:53 schreef Szura het volgende:
http://www.politico.com/s(...)l-white-house-243071

LOCK HIM UP

twitter:

ScottAdamsSays twitterde op zondag 24-09-2017 om 21:48:37 Scott Adams talks about the NFL protests and how Trump played them. https://t.co/Drek5TkeJO reageer retweet

quote:

Op zondag 24 september 2017 22:02 schreef Nintex het volgende:

twitter:

ScottAdamsSays twitterde op zondag 24-09-2017 om 21:48:37 Scott Adams talks about the NFL protests and how Trump played them. https://t.co/Drek5TkeJO reageer retweet

Hehe Scott heeft weer helemaal gelijk.

Het protest gaat nu niet meer over de vlag en het volkslied maar over Trump en zijn vijanden knielen nu voor hem uit protest.

quote:

Op zondag 24 september 2017 21:53 schreef Szura het volgende:
http://www.politico.com/s(...)l-white-house-243071

LOCK HIM UP

quote:

Op zondag 24 september 2017 22:06 schreef Boze_Appel het volgende:
Scott Adams kan het beter gewoon bij stripjes houden

quote:

Op zondag 24 september 2017 22:09 schreef ExtraWaskracht het volgende:
Je moet haast een tor in je hoofd hebben om met zo'n uitleg te komen.

Als er al enige strategie achter zit is het afleiding voor de rampzalige plannen van Trump&co omtrent ziekenzorgverzekering en budget dmv een stukje identity politics zoals we nu wel kennen van hem.

quote:

The Pittsburgh Penguins respect the institution of the Office of the President, and the long tradition of championship teams visiting the White House. We attended White House ceremonies after previous championships - touring the historic building and visiting briefly with Presidents George H.W. Bush and Barack Obama - and have accepted an invitation to attend again this year.

Any agreement or disagreement with a president's politics, policies or agenda can be expressed in other ways. However, we very much respect the rights of other individuals and groups to express themselves as they see fit.

quote:

Op zondag 24 september 2017 22:11 schreef Nintex het volgende:

[..]

Heb je het filmpje gezien?

Scott zegt zelf dat Trump het allemaal niet zo geplanned heeft, maar het naar zijn hand heeft weten te zetten door de onderwerpen vlag en volkslied te vervangen met Trump. Waardoor een protest (knielen) ineens een hele andere invulling krijgt.

quote:

Op zondag 24 september 2017 22:11 schreef Nintex het volgende:

[..]

Heb je het filmpje gezien?

Scott zegt zelf dat Trump het allemaal niet zo geplanned heeft, maar het naar zijn hand heeft weten te zetten door de onderwerpen vlag en volkslied te vervangen met Trump. Waardoor een protest (knielen) ineens een hele andere invulling krijgt.

quote:

Op zondag 24 september 2017 22:14 schreef Kijkertje het volgende:
Overigens heeft de NHL in een verklaring ook laten weten respect te hebben voor het recht van anderen om zich te uiten zoals zij juist achten.

[..]

quote:

Op zondag 24 september 2017 22:17 schreef Whiskers2009 het volgende:

[..]

Prima

En heb je een link/bron? Ik wil dat citaat even jatten voor een ander topic

twitter:

ShaunKing twitterde op zondag 24-09-2017 om 22:15:21 Not a single player from the Titans or the Seahawks participated in the National Anthem just now. https://t.co/yskxkpFYL0 reageer retweet

quote:

Op zondag 24 september 2017 22:20 schreef Kijkertje het volgende:

[..]

Statement

quote:

Op zondag 24 september 2017 22:21 schreef Nintex het volgende:

twitter:

ShaunKing twitterde op zondag 24-09-2017 om 22:15:21 Not a single player from the Titans or the Seahawks participated in the National Anthem just now. https://t.co/yskxkpFYL0 reageer retweet

Hahahaha

quote:

Op zondag 24 september 2017 22:24 schreef popolon het volgende:
Het hele team team van de Pittsburgh Steelers kam niet eens opdagen. Well done Cheetard.

quote:

Op zondag 24 september 2017 22:20 schreef kladderadatsch het volgende:
Grappig is trouwens ook dat de NFL er eerder was dan het huidige Amerikaanse volkslied. Iemand op MSNBC maakte me hier vanmiddag op attent. Ook dat ze tot niet zo heel lang geleden altijd eerst het volkslied speelden en dat pas daarna de spelers het veld op kwamen, dit hele gedoe schijnt pas recent ingevoerd te zijn, zou me niets verbazen als dit na 911/tijdens de Irak oorlog geweest is.

quote:

Op zondag 24 september 2017 22:24 schreef popolon het volgende:
Het hele team team van de Pittsburgh Steelers kam niet eens opdagen. Well done Cheetard.

quote:

Op zondag 24 september 2017 22:21 schreef Nintex het volgende:

twitter:

ShaunKing twitterde op zondag 24-09-2017 om 22:15:21 Not a single player from the Titans or the Seahawks participated in the National Anthem just now. https://t.co/yskxkpFYL0 reageer retweet

Hahahaha

quote:

Op zondag 24 september 2017 22:20 schreef kladderadatsch het volgende:
Grappig is trouwens ook dat de NFL er eerder was dan het huidige Amerikaanse volkslied. Iemand op MSNBC maakte me hier vanmiddag op attent. Ook dat ze tot niet zo heel lang geleden altijd eerst het volkslied speelden en dat pas daarna de spelers het veld op kwamen, dit hele gedoe schijnt pas recent ingevoerd te zijn, zou me niets verbazen als dit na 911/tijdens de Irak oorlog geweest is.

quote:

Op zondag 24 september 2017 22:28 schreef Whiskers2009 het volgende:

[..]

Je denkt toch niet dat ze Trump daar mee steunen hoop ik?

quote:

Op zondag 24 september 2017 22:28 schreef Whiskers2009 het volgende:

[..]

Je denkt toch niet dat ze Trump daar mee steunen hoop ik?

quote:

Op zondag 24 september 2017 22:31 schreef Nintex het volgende:

[..]

Nee doen ze ook niet, maar het is wel hilarisch hoe gemakkelijk hij weer aan de touwtjes trekt.

quote:

Op zondag 24 september 2017 22:32 schreef Kijkertje het volgende:

[..]

Begreep al niet waarom hij er zo'n lol over had

quote:

Op zondag 24 september 2017 22:31 schreef Nintex het volgende:

[..]

Nee doen ze ook niet, maar het is wel hilarisch hoe gemakkelijk hij weer aan de touwtjes trekt.

quote:

Op zondag 24 september 2017 22:33 schreef KoosVogels het volgende:

[..]

Trump begint te schelden op Twitter waarmee hij zichzelf en de VS weer keihard voor lul zet en waardoor de hele NFL zich tegen hem keert. Vreemde manier van de touwtjes in handen hebben.

quote:

Op zondag 24 september 2017 22:34 schreef KoosVogels het volgende:

[..]

Volgens Nintex is Trump weer 38D aan het schaken.

quote:

Op zondag 24 september 2017 22:36 schreef Nintex het volgende:

[..]

Vroeger ging iedereen gewoon netjes het volkslied zingen en bleven ze staan. Trump roept er iets over en het gedrag veranderd.

En dan wat Scott zegt. Kneeling to protest the dictator.

Gemakkelijkste manier om Trump tegen te gaan is eigenlijk 'gewoon doen', maar ze moeten weer eens paniekvoetbal gaan spelen, omdat hij iets geroepen heeft.

quote:

Op zondag 24 september 2017 22:38 schreef KoosVogels het volgende:

[..]

Maar wat hoopt meesterschaker Trump nou precies te bereiken met zijn gescheld? Want de protesten houden niet op. Sterker, er lijkt sprake te zijn van een sneeuwbaleffect. Niet waar Trump op hoopte.

quote:

Op zondag 24 september 2017 22:31 schreef Nintex het volgende:

[..]

Nee doen ze ook niet, maar het is wel hilarisch hoe gemakkelijk hij weer aan de touwtjes trekt.

quote:

Op zondag 24 september 2017 22:36 schreef Nintex het volgende:

[..]

Vroeger ging iedereen gewoon netjes het volkslied zingen en bleven ze staan. Trump roept er iets over en het gedrag veranderd.

En dan wat Scott zegt. Kneeling to protest the dictator.

Gemakkelijkste manier om Trump tegen te gaan is eigenlijk 'gewoon doen', maar ze moeten weer eens paniekvoetbal gaan spelen, omdat hij iets geroepen heeft.

quote:

Op zondag 24 september 2017 22:43 schreef Whiskers2009 het volgende:
Niemand speelt paniekvoetbal. Er wordt duidelijk gemaakt dat Trump zich er niet (dictatoriaal) tegen aan moet bemoeien.

quote:

Op zondag 24 september 2017 22:42 schreef Nintex het volgende:

[..]

Hij hoopt juist wel op protesten. Hij wakkert dat vuurtje aan.

Het protest heeft ook totaal geen zin. Het is een uitputtingslag en volgende maand roept hij weer wat anders op een rally waardoor men 'triggered' is.

Wat is het nut van dit protest? Gaat het iets aan zijn beleid veranderen?

quote:

Op zondag 24 september 2017 22:42 schreef Nintex het volgende:

[..]

Hij hoopt juist wel op protesten. Hij wakkert dat vuurtje aan.

Het protest heeft ook totaal geen zin. Het is een uitputtingslag en volgende maand roept hij weer wat anders op een rally waardoor men 'triggered' is.

Wat is het nut van dit protest? Gaat het iets aan zijn beleid veranderen?

quote:

Op zondag 24 september 2017 22:42 schreef Nintex het volgende:

[..]

Hij hoopt juist wel op protesten. Hij wakkert dat vuurtje aan.

Het protest heeft ook totaal geen zin. Het is een uitputtingslag en volgende maand roept hij weer wat anders op een rally waardoor men 'triggered' is.

Wat is het nut van dit protest? Gaat het iets aan zijn beleid veranderen?

quote:

Op zondag 24 september 2017 22:44 schreef Nintex het volgende:

[..]

Door precies te doen wat hij wil? Namelijk niet het veld op te gaan?

De VS is een real-life versie van South Park geworden en Donald Trump schrijft dagelijks het script.

quote:

Op zondag 24 september 2017 22:45 schreef Boze_Appel het volgende:

[..]

Hij ging ranten nadat het de eerste keer gedaan werd. Hij heeft weer iets wat hij denkt te snappen en makkelijker is dan zijn echte werk.

quote:

Op zondag 24 september 2017 22:46 schreef Whiskers2009 het volgende:

[..]

You are out of your mind, sorry dat ik het zeg. Je leeft in een paralelle werkelijkheid ofzo..

quote:

Op zondag 24 september 2017 22:46 schreef Nintex het volgende:

[..]

Hij heeft weer een afleiding gevonden ja. Een afleiding van het feit dat de VS een (nucleaire) oorlog met Noord Korea aan het uitlokken is.

[..]

Zelfs in Nederland opent het nieuws met wat Trump die dag nu weer gezegd heeft. "Trump heeft Noord Koreaanse Leider Kim Jong Un beledigd"

Als Trump morgen tweet dat gras blauw is dan staan morgen de kranten vol met artikelen over dat hij kleurenblind zou zijn.

quote:

Op zondag 24 september 2017 22:46 schreef Nintex het volgende:

[..]

Hij heeft weer een afleiding gevonden ja. Een afleiding van het feit dat de VS een (nucleaire) oorlog met Noord Korea aan het uitlokken is.

quote:

Op zondag 24 september 2017 22:46 schreef Nintex het volgende:

[..]

Hij heeft weer een afleiding gevonden ja. Een afleiding van het feit dat de VS een (nucleaire) oorlog met Noord Korea aan het uitlokken is.

[..]

Zelfs in Nederland opent het nieuws met wat Trump die dag nu weer gezegd heeft. "Trump heeft Noord Koreaanse Leider Kim Jong Un beledigd"

Als Trump morgen tweet dat gras blauw is dan staan morgen de kranten vol met artikelen over dat hij kleurenblind zou zijn.

quote:

Op zondag 24 september 2017 22:51 schreef Boze_Appel het volgende:

[..]

Het is geen afleiding. Politiek en wetten maken is gewoon te ingewikkeld voor hem.

quote:

Op zondag 24 september 2017 22:55 schreef Kijkertje het volgende:

[..]

Precies! Hij heeft niet echt gespreksonderwerpen op dat gebied door gebrek aan kennis.

Ik heb hem ook nog geen tv-optreden zien geven voor een publiek met kritische vragen, zoals Obama dat deed.

quote:

Op zondag 24 september 2017 23:00 schreef Boze_Appel het volgende:

[..]

Townhalls doet hij inderdaad niet aan. Alleen rallies waar hij zelf kan oreren en applaus in ontvangst nemen zonder uitleg of keuzes voor bepaalde plannen, want dat legt hij allemaal bij congress neer, nee enkel telkens dezelfde soundbytes waar het publiek een jaar na dato nog steeds 'lock her up' schreeuwt.

quote:

Op zondag 24 september 2017 21:53 schreef Szura het volgende:
http://www.politico.com/s(...)l-white-house-243071

LOCK HIM UP

quote:

Op zondag 24 september 2017 23:04 schreef Nibb-it het volgende:

[..]

Maar dat is anders...

twitter:

ComfortablySmug twitterde op zondag 24-09-2017 om 21:59:43 OMG you guys crucified Hillary for doing the same thing!!!Yeah we did. We had an election to win. And you know what?Mission Accomplished reageer retweet

quote:

NASCAR owners say they wouldn’t tolerate national anthem protests at races
Several NASCAR team owners said Sunday they would not condone racers protesting during the national anthem, amid protests by sports players at football and baseball games. (The Hill).

SPOILER

There were no protests reported during “The Star-Spangled Banner" at the Monster Energy NASCAR Cup Series in New Hampshire, according to The Associated Press.

Former NASCAR champion Richard Petty told the AP that any member of his team would be fired if they chose to protest the national anthem. Petty now owns Richard Petty Motorsports.

“Anybody that don’t stand up for the anthem oughta be out of the country. Period. What got ’em where they’re at? The United States,” Petty said in comments reported by The AP.

Richard Childress, a former drive who owns Richard Childress Racing, said any protests from his team members would “get you a ride on a Greyhound bus.”

“Anybody that works for me should respect the country we live in. So many people gave their lives for it. This is America,” Childress reportedly said.

The comments from the NASCAR owners come as NFL players took part in protests at games across the country after Trump slammed players who take a knee, rather than stand, during the national anthem.

"Wouldn't you love to see one of these NFL owners, when somebody disrespects our flag, to say, 'Get that son of a b---- off the field right now,'" Trump said during a Friday rally. "'He is fired.'"

twitter:

michaelmalice twitterde op zondag 24-09-2017 om 23:05:36 Trump is getting people to force their kids to bow down, and then post photos of it.I need to leave the earth. https://t.co/2lszb8JceP reageer retweet

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Op zondag 24 september 2017 23:14 schreef Nintex het volgende:

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Deze republican (leuk account om te volgen trouwens) vat het mooi samen

twitter:

ComfortablySmug twitterde op zondag 24-09-2017 om 21:59:43 OMG you guys crucified Hillary for doing the same thing!!!Yeah we did. We had an election to win. And you know what?Mission Accomplished reageer retweet

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Op zondag 24 september 2017 21:53 schreef Szura het volgende:
http://www.politico.com/s(...)l-white-house-243071

LOCK HIM UP

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Op zondag 24 september 2017 23:15 schreef Nintex het volgende:

twitter:

michaelmalice twitterde op zondag 24-09-2017 om 23:05:36 Trump is getting people to force their kids to bow down, and then post photos of it.I need to leave the earth. https://t.co/2lszb8JceP reageer retweet

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Op zondag 24 september 2017 23:17 schreef Whiskers2009 het volgende:

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Dát is geen goede samenvatting. Dat is bizar hypocriet.

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Op zondag 24 september 2017 23:19 schreef brokjespoes het volgende:
"Kniel! Buig! Kniel voor de God-Keizer van Sol-3!"

Donald, stoppen nou, dit gaat zo niet goed hoor!

quote:

Op zondag 24 september 2017 23:15 schreef Nintex het volgende:

twitter:

michaelmalice twitterde op zondag 24-09-2017 om 23:05:36 Trump is getting people to force their kids to bow down, and then post photos of it.I need to leave the earth. https://t.co/2lszb8JceP reageer retweet

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Op zondag 24 september 2017 23:19 schreef KoosVogels het volgende:

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Trump weet niet wat Sol-3 is.

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Op zondag 24 september 2017 23:20 schreef Whiskers2009 het volgende:

[..]

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Op zondag 24 september 2017 23:22 schreef Whiskers2009 het volgende:
Komt zeker uit een film?

quote:

Op zondag 24 september 2017 23:15 schreef Nintex het volgende:

twitter:

michaelmalice twitterde op zondag 24-09-2017 om 23:05:36 Trump is getting people to force their kids to bow down, and then post photos of it.I need to leave the earth. https://t.co/2lszb8JceP reageer retweet

Nine Inch Nails - Head Like A Hole

Muse - Take A Bow

quote:

Op zondag 24 september 2017 23:19 schreef Nintex het volgende:

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Dat roept Bill Maher toch ook al jaren? Dat de Democrats niet van die purity tests moeten houden.

Republicans zetten zonder meer Donald Trump op het zadel om te 'winnen'. Dat is hetzelfde als Newt Gingrich die Clinton fileerde vanwege het Monica schandaal en op hetzelfde moment een affaire had terwijl zijn vrouw ziek was door kanker.

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Op zondag 24 september 2017 23:22 schreef Whiskers2009 het volgende:

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Ik ook niet

Komt zeker uit een film?

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Op zondag 24 september 2017 23:22 schreef Nintex het volgende:

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Wat dacht je van de Trump petjes.

Allemaal Made in China, terwijl Trump aan het tieren was dat Chinezen de banen van zijn toeschouwers hadden ingepikt.


Sta je dan met een Chinees petje, met de tekst: "Make America Great Again" boos te zijn op China.

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Op zondag 24 september 2017 23:22 schreef brokjespoes het volgende:

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Diverse films. Sol-3 is de derde planeet van de ster Sol, de aarde dus.

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Op zondag 24 september 2017 23:23 schreef Zwoerd het volgende:

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En dat soort dingen vind jij mooi?

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Op zondag 24 september 2017 23:23 schreef Zwoerd het volgende:

[..]

En dat soort dingen vind jij mooi?

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Op zondag 24 september 2017 23:26 schreef Nintex het volgende:

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Dit is allemaal puur entertainment. Donald Trump als president, je zou uitgelachen worden in Hollywood als je het filmscript had geschreven. "Niet geloofwaardig"

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Op zondag 24 september 2017 23:25 schreef Whiskers2009 het volgende:

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Veel onvolwassenen van geest vinden dat mooi... Net als trollen enzo..

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Op zondag 24 september 2017 23:26 schreef Nintex het volgende:

[..]

Dit is allemaal puur entertainment. Donald Trump als president, je zou uitgelachen worden in Hollywood als je het filmscript had geschreven. "Niet geloofwaardig"

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Trump Poised to Drop Some Limits on Drone Strikes and Commando Raids
WASHINGTON — The Trump administration is preparing to dismantle key Obama-era limits on drone strikes and commando raids outside conventional battlefields, according to officials familiar with internal deliberations. The changes would lay the groundwork for possible counterterrorism missions in countries where Islamic militants are active but the United States has not previously tried to kill or capture them.

President Trump's top national security advisers have proposed relaxing two rules, the officials said. First, the targets of kill missions by the military and the C.I.A., now generally limited to high-level militants deemed to pose a "continuing and imminent threat" to Americans, would be expanded to include foot-soldier jihadists with no special skills or leadership roles. And second, proposed drone attacks and raids would no longer undergo high-level vetting. (New York Times).

SPOILER

But administration officials have also agreed that they should keep in place one important constraint for such attacks: a requirement of “near certainty” that no civilian bystanders will be killed.

The proposal to overhaul the rules has quietly taken shape over months of debate among administration officials and awaits Mr. Trump’s expected signature. Despite the preservation of the protections for civilians, the other changes seemed likely to draw criticism from human rights groups.

The policy paves the way for broader and more frequent operations against Al Qaeda, the Islamic State and other jihadists. It would also apply in countries where the United States has targeted Islamist militants outside of regular combat for years, including Yemen, Somalia and Libya, and would ease the way to expanding such gray-zone acts of sporadic warfare to elsewhere in Africa, Asia and the Middle East where terrorists operate.

However, the new plan would still require higher-level approval to start conducting strikes or raids in new countries under “country plans” that would be reviewed every 12 months. And under international law, the United States would probably also still need to obtain consent from a country’s leaders to use force on their soil to strike at lower-level militants who pose no direct threat to the United States, weakening any self-defense argument.

Even before Mr. Obama left office, the evolving terrorism threat put pressure on the limits that were imposed in 2013. At the time, Al Qaeda was still reeling from the killing of Osama bin Laden, combat troops had left Iraq and were being reduced in Afghanistan, and operations outside war theaters seemed destined to be limited to occasional airstrikes aimed at individual “high-value targets” in Pakistan and Yemen, such as Qaeda leaders.

But the Islamic State has arisen and spread in the years since, and the military, especially while partnering with local governments, has found ways to get exceptions to Mr. Obama’s rules — winning temporary exemptions to strike in various regions or justifying airstrikes on groups of lower-level militants as a matter of self-defense.

Several Obama administration counterterrorism officials had been bracing for a more complete dismantling of their handiwork, and they offered tentative praise for the prospect that their successors will keep in place heightened standards to protect civilians outside war zones. They had argued that avoiding bystander deaths was crucial not just for humanitarian reasons, but also to maintain support among allied governments and local populations and to keep from fueling terrorist propaganda and recruiting.

If the requirement of near certainty that no civilians be killed remains in place, “that’s a real testament to the fact that it was not political or Obama being overly concerned about human rights; preventing civilian casualties is something our operators have seen as really important,” said Luke Hartig, a senior director for counterterrorism at the National Security Council during the Obama administration.

It remains to be seen whether Mr. Trump will sign off on keeping the protections for civilians. During deliberations, some officials had argued for more leniency, but administration officials decided the risks outweighed the benefits.

International law governing war or self-defense allows countries to knowingly kill some civilians as an incidental consequence of attacking a legitimate military target, so long as the bystander deaths are deemed necessary and proportionate.

But some international law scholars, European allies and human rights groups disagree with the United States’ position that war zone rules — like a right to attack militants based only on their status as enemy fighters, even if they do not pose a literally imminent threat at that moment — apply to counterterrorism strikes outside conventional battlefields.

Zeke Johnson, senior director of programs for Amnesty International USA, objected to the prospect of Mr. Trump eliminating the requirement that individual targets each pose a threat to Americans.

“The Obama administration’s policy guidance on the use of lethal force was a positive step but fell far short on human rights protections,” he said. “Any decision to weaken those standards would be a grave mistake.”

The updated rules would continue to limit such strikes to members of groups that the executive branch has deemed to be covered by the aging congressional Authorization for Use of Military Force against the perpetrators of the Sept. 11 attacks, including Al Qaeda, the Islamic State and their associated forces.

Earlier this year, Mr. Trump agreed to a Pentagon request to exempt large swaths of Yemen and Somalia from the 2013 rules by declaring them to be “areas of active hostilities,” temporarily bringing them under less restrictive war-zone rules. However, the head of the military’s Africa Command, Gen. Thomas D. Waldhauser, decided on his own to keep the targeting limit of near-certainty that no civilians would die for strikes in Somalia.

quote:

Op zondag 24 september 2017 23:26 schreef Nintex het volgende:

[..]

Dit is allemaal puur entertainment. Donald Trump als president, je zou uitgelachen worden in Hollywood als je het filmscript had geschreven. "Niet geloofwaardig"

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Op zondag 24 september 2017 23:28 schreef Boze_Appel het volgende:

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Wel wat jammer dat dat entertainment toegang heeft tot de nukecodes.

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Op zondag 24 september 2017 23:30 schreef Zwoerd het volgende:

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Maar dan kan je Trump toch moeilijk een goede leider noemen die Amerika positie als wereldleider weer in ere herstelt?

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Op zondag 24 september 2017 23:33 schreef Nintex het volgende:

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Hoezo niet? De hele wereld doet wat de VS zegt om geen ruzie te krijgen met Donald Trump.

quote:

Op zondag 24 september 2017 23:28 schreef Boze_Appel het volgende:

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Wel wat jammer dat dat entertainment toegang heeft tot de nukecodes.

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Op zondag 24 september 2017 23:33 schreef Nintex het volgende:

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De enige die ooit nukes heeft gebruikt was een Democraat genaamd Truman. Zelfs Nixon kon zich inhouden.

[..]

Hoezo niet? De hele wereld doet wat de VS zegt om geen ruzie te krijgen met Donald Trump.
Helemaal na die paar raketjes op Syrie is het wat betreft landjepik weer rustig in Oost Europa / Midden Oosten.

quote:

Op zondag 24 september 2017 23:33 schreef Nintex het volgende:

[..]

Hoezo niet? De hele wereld doet wat de VS zegt om geen ruzie te krijgen met Donald Trump.

quote:

Op zondag 24 september 2017 23:33 schreef Nintex het volgende:

De hele wereld doet wat de VS zegt om geen ruzie te krijgen met Donald Trump.

quote:

Op zondag 24 september 2017 23:33 schreef Nintex het volgende:

[..]

De enige die ooit nukes heeft gebruikt was een Democraat genaamd Truman. Zelfs Nixon kon zich inhouden.

[..]

Hoezo niet? De hele wereld doet wat de VS zegt om geen ruzie te krijgen met Donald Trump.
Helemaal na die paar raketjes op Syrie is het wat betreft landjepik weer rustig in Oost Europa / Midden Oosten.

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Reminder: The “Travel Ban” Expires This Morning (Probably Ending the Case, At Least for Now)
By the time you read this, the heart of the so-called “travel ban” will probably be no more.

Since June 29, the Executive branch, acting pursuant to Section 2(c) of Executive Order 13,780, has prohibited the nationals of six countries (Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, and Yemen) from entering the United States unless they have a bona fide relationship with a person or entity in the United States. Section 2(c) expires 90 days after its “effective date,” which, according to a June 14 presidential memorandum, was the morning of June 26, the date and time at which the Supreme Court partially stayed preliminary injunctions against its operation. The entry ban, in other words, expires this morning, at approximately 10:30 a.m.

Therefore, unless and until the President acts further, nationals of the six nations who do not have a bona fide relationship with a person or entity in the United States will once more be permitted to enter the United States under the same terms and conditions as they could before June 29. (A separate entry ban, applying to all refugees who lack such a bona fide relationship with a person or entity in the United States, expires in one month, on October 24.) (Just Security).

SPOILER

By all accounts, however, the President will soon act to impose new conditions and limitations on entry.

According to a July 12 State Department cable, the Secretary of Homeland Security, in consultation with the Secretary of State and the Director of National Intelligence, provided a report to the President in early July outlining what information was deemed needed from every country on earth “in order to sufficiently vet the nationals of that country in order to obtain a visa, admission at a port of entry, or other immigration benefit.” That report “prioritize[d] country engagement based on certain risk factors,” and recommended new standards “related to (1) identity management and (2) information sharing on security and public safety threats.” The report also included a classified list of countries preliminarily assessed as not meeting the report’s new standards, as well as a list of other countries deemed to be “at risk” of not meeting them.

On or shortly after July 12, the State Department asked virtually every government on the planet to “provide the requested information or develop a plan to do so.” The contemplated 50-day period for consultation and communications with all those nations ended on or shortly after August 31. According to government officials, governments the world over were told that if they failed to comply with the U.S. requests within those 50 days, their nationals would face the threat of “severe travel restrictions.”

Most countries reportedly satisfied the U.S. conditions during that period (they “added measures to improve security for passports and to better identify potential terrorist threats”), but others “either could not meet the tougher vetting standards or willfully refused to engage with the United States government.” The nationals of the latter group of countries therefore will soon be subject to a reported “spectrum” of new conditions and limitations on their entry into the United States. It apparently will not be one-size-fits-all: The new rules are “tailored and specific to each country,” said Miles Taylor, counselor to the DHS secretary.

As of Friday afternoon, the government was not yet ready to announce what that “spectrum” of new rules would be, nor which countries’ nationals they will cover. Some of the original six Muslim-majority counties presumably will be affected, but others might not be, and the new rules reportedly will apply to some countries that were not among the original six. According to Laura Meckler, the President has tentatively approved restrictions for the nationals of nine nations, including more than one that is not majority Muslim.

What if the President, DHS and State are not prepared to impose the new rules by this morning? According to Chris Geidner, a White House principal deputy press secretary acknowledged that “[t]here are some contingency plans” in that case, but “he wouldn’t say what those are.”

In any event, the new rules will likely be in place by October 3, and therefore the Solicitor General presumably will explain them to the Supreme Court in the reply brief he files that day in the consolidated cases challenging the Section 2(c) entry ban.

What happens to the cases then? I assume they will be moot, at least as to Section 2(c), because the challenged government action will simply no longer be operative and thus there will be no ongoing dispute about whether it should be enjoined. Likewise, Section 6(b)’s cap of 50,000 refugees in Fiscal Year 2017 will be moot as of this coming Saturday, when that fiscal year ends. (Sometime this week, the President will set a new quota for the Fiscal Year 2018 that begins October 1. Reports are that it might be substantially lower than 50,000–that DHS has recommended 40,000 and that Stephen Miller has pushed for 15,000.) The third challenged provision–the Section 6(a) moratorium on entry of refugees–expires on October 24, two weeks after the scheduled October 10 oral argument, and so that will soon be moot, too.

To be sure, the forthcoming new restrictions and conditions on entry might themselves be subject to legal challenge, including on the statutory question that has (properly) become the lead argument in the current cases, namely, whether 8 U.S.C. 1182(f) authorizes the President’s actions. Perhaps it will be appropriate to raise those challenges in the existing suits, or perhaps it will be necessary to file new cases, involving new plaintiffs–that all depends on what the terms of the new rules are, who they affect, and how. One thing is fairly certain, however: As I wrote back in June, the new challenges will be based on a different factual record, different national security assessments, and, presumably, different restrictions affecting different (if perhaps overlapping) sets of immigrants, families and institutions.*

*The Solicitor General argues that if the Court does conclude that the appeals are moot, “the appropriate course would be to vacate the courts of appeals’ judgments upholding the injunctions barring enforcement of Section 2(c).” For substantially the reasons offered in Part III of Seth Waxman’s brief on behalf of FedCourts scholars, I think the more appropriate course would be not to vacate the court of appeals’ judgments. If a party chooses to invade the legal rights of another party for only a short period of time—a period that does not allow for the full scope of appellate litigation, up to and including the Supreme Court’s disposition after full briefing and argument, absent extraordinary expedited proceedings—that party should not be entitled to have any adverse judgments vacated simply by virtue of the fact that it chose not to extend its conduct for a longer period and that the plaintiffs chose to seek only injunctive relief.

That said, I have serious doubts whether the question of vacatur will have much, if any, practical effect on any subsequent litigation in this context, especially because the federal government is not subject to nonmutual collateral estoppel and because the follow-on litigation is likely to be resolved, in the end, by en banc courts of appeals and/or the Supreme Court, such that any stare decisis impact from the past preliminary injunction proceedings will be limited, at best. I therefore would not be surprised if the Court vacates the lower court judgments.

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What the FISA Warrants Against Paul Manafort Tell Us About Mueller’s Investigation
The Trump-Russia saga has more characters than War and Peace and plot twists harder to follow than Game of Thrones. So making sense of the latest news – that the FBI had taken out not one, but two surveillance orders under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) on former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort – can be difficult to put into context. But in fact, this new piece of information actually can help connect the counterintelligence and criminal investigations that Special Counsel Robert Mueller is overseeing, and show how a FISA warrant may have played a role in each. (Just Security).

SPOILER

I have already provided a detailed description of the (onerous) process of obtaining a FISA order, and the legal standards it requires. The only thing to add in Manafort’s case is that since he is a U.S. person (or USPER, in intel slang), the standards to obtain a FISA warrant on him are slightly higher than the generic process I described in my earlier piece. First, the probable cause standard required the FBI to provide evidence that Manafort was “knowingly engaging in clandestine intelligence activities” (rather than merely being “an agent of a foreign power”)– in other words, that he wasn’t just acting on behalf of a foreign power, but that he was doing so with full knowledge that what he was doing involved spying. Second, in order to continue monitoring Manafort, the FBI would have been required to check in with the FISA court every 90 days and show that their surveillance had, in fact, produced foreign intelligence information. Only with this continuing, additional evidence would the FISA order be renewed for an additional 90 days at a time. Keeping these factors in mind, let’s look at what we know. We know that the FBI had one FISA surveillance order on Manafort on or about 2014. This was in relation to his consulting work on behalf of the pro-Russia ruling party in Ukraine at the time. We also know that the surveillance ceased at some point before Manafort joined President Trump’s campaign in 2016. It then recommenced at some point after that, based on his connections with Russian intelligence and evidence suggesting that he was encouraging them to interfere in the presidential election. That surveillance continued into at least early 2017. The “gap” covered the period of time when Manafort, Donald Trump Jr., and Jared Kushner met with Russians at Trump Tower to discuss – depending on whose version you believe – “adoptions” or incriminating information the Russians claimed to have on Hillary Clinton. Following along so far? Good.

Let’s look at the “gap.” According to reporting, the initial FISA surveillance ceased after a court found that the FBI was no longer collecting foreign intelligence based on that order. This likely would have occurred at one of the 90-day renewal points after the surveillance began. Now, one conclusion might be that there was no foreign intelligence activity actually happening – or perhaps that the basis for this order itself was somewhat flimsy. However, if the order had been renewed at least once since it commenced, which would be likely even if it began in late 2014 or early 2015, that was probably not the case: After all, in order to renew the order at any point prior to it ceasing, the FBI would have had to produce ongoing foreign intelligence collection.

I invite you to consider another possibility. If Manafort was already being developed by Russian intelligence since 2014, and was approached in a more concrete, operational way around summer 2016, then they would likely want him to begin communicating with them through other means than he was already using. If this happened, collection on the lines, accounts, or facilities targeted by the initial FISA order would go dry, and would explain why the surveillance ceased. In other words, there was no longer any foreign intelligence activity happening on the first FISA – but that’s because it was happening somewhere else.

(It’s worth noting here that a FISA order would not necessarily need to cover only phone lines, or even a single mode of communication; as long as the FBI could prove that the mode of communication was being used by the target and likely to produce foreign intelligence, multiple communication channels could be authorized in the same order – you don’t need to obtain a separate FISA warrant for a phone number and an email address, for example, as long as you can demonstrate that both belong to and are used by the target.)

That the first FISA order ceased because Manafort became “operational” is admittedly purely speculative. But based on my experience working against foreign intelligence targets, this would be consistent with the timeline in several respects. First, the June 2016 Trump Tower meeting has been characterized by many intelligence experts as a “test run” – an experiment to see how open members of the Trump campaign might be to engaging in some potentially illegal behavior in order to benefit the campaign. Having Manafort already on board would make sense in this scenario: Even if this might have been only an initial approach to Donald Trump, Jr. and Jared Kushner, the Russians would know they had at least one person in the campaign – Manafort – at that point who was “all in,” and could make the meeting less threatening for the newbies.

Second, it helps explain why a second FISA order was brought before the FISA court. It would make sense that after the initial FISA surveillance ceased and Manafort “went dark,” the FBI would be trying to determine what he was up to. We know that in this period the FBI obtained new intelligence that Manafort was in contact with the Russians and had enough evidence to substantiate a second FISA application. The new intelligence may have formed the basis to go back on the same lines or accounts as in the initial FISA. But if the FBI uncovered new channels or modes of communication that Manafort was using with the Russians, this could also be the reason for the second FISA warrant: Just because the FBI went up for a second time on the same target does not mean that they recommenced surveillance on the same channels as before. (This latter possibility implies some uncharacteristic operational sloppiness on the part of the Russians, but considering that Manafort was taking notes from the Trump Tower meeting on his iPhone and emailing directly with a Russian oligarch in code about offering secret briefings on the Trump campaign, this is not necessarily a stretch.)

Third, this theory would explain Mueller’s keen interest in Manafort in particular. Mueller’s investigation is first and foremost a counterintelligence investigation. Regardless of whether Don Jr. or Jared Kushner had any subsequent meetings or contacts with the Russians or colluded with them in their active measures, the FISAs suggest that Manafort holds the real keys to the kingdom. Namely, how was election interference plan conceived? What operational measures were involved? Was there any quid pro quo? Who else was in on it? This is to emphasize that Mueller may be just as – if not, more – interested in Manafort spilling the identities and methods of the Russians in this whole scenario as in those of any Americans members of the Trump campaign who were involved. After all, we know that with the Facebook search warrant that Mueller is potentially interested in pursuing Russians living in Russia who tried to disseminate disinformation in the U.S. He would surely be as interested in identifying and nailing the Russian operatives who participated in active measures to influence the election here in the States.

Which brings us to Mueller’s criminal investigation on Manafort. To get Manafort to talk, Mueller needs some, shall we say, “incentives.” The prospect of serious jail time for not cooperating is usually effective. The problem is, that for all of Manafort’s redflaggy behavior with the Ukranians and the Russians, there aren’t really a lot of laws against spying. There’s the Espionage Act, which relates to defense and classified information and doesn’t apply in the current scenario. And there’s the Foreign Agent Registration Act, which as Steve Vladeck explains is a procedural statute: People or entities officially designated as foreign agents must register if the Department of Justice asks them to, but as long as they comply with that request they may be out of the crosshairs of criminal prosecution. Manafort retroactively registered as a foreign agent in June. Even if Mueller chose to prosecute Manafort’s failure to register earlier, FARA carries a weak penalty — only a five-year maximum — and a low likelihood of being able to prove willful evasion of the law. Because of that combination, FARA wouldn’t likely create enough leverage on its own.

Financial crimes, by contrast, carry significant penalties, particularly when multiple charges are added together. Here is where the FISA orders could have come into play again. It’s important to emphasize that the goal of using a FISA warrant is not to collect evidence of a crime; it’s to collect foreign intelligence information. However, since 9/11 and the passage of the USA PATRIOT Act, evidence of criminal activity that is obtained through the course of a FISA investigation can be used to open a criminal case, as long as a “significant purpose” of the FISA inquiry was to obtain foreign intelligence. Here, the FISA warrants on Manafort were based on his intelligence connections. But if he was engaging in financial shenanigans, related or unrelated to his alleged intelligence activities, signs of it may have become apparent during the FISA monitoring, allowing the FBI to open a separate criminal case on Manafort – which is where we are now.

We don’t know the content of the communications monitored under the FISA orders, which might really add the missing links to what connections, if any, existed between the Trump campaign and Russia. But the existence of the FISA warrantss themselves on Manafort, and their timing, gives us a way to understand the facts so far. So even if, like me, you’ve never made it all the way through War and Peace (I don’t even watch Game of Thrones), you can still follow along with Mueller: There’s a method to his madness against Manafort.

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Op zondag 24 september 2017 23:37 schreef Nibb-it het volgende:

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Op zondag 24 september 2017 23:37 schreef KoosVogels het volgende:

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Wacht, wat? In welk parallel universum leef jij?

Trump daagt Noord-Korea en Iran uit en direct laten deze landen zien dat ze schijt aan hem hebben. Trump wil uit Klimaatakkoord stoppen en direct slaat de rest van de wereld de handen ineen. Trump houdt Nazi's het boven het hoofd en direct laten alle wereldleiders weten zijn uitspraken belachelijk te vinden.

Helemaal niemand doet meer wat de VS zegt. Iedereen lacht het land uit.

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Op zondag 24 september 2017 23:37 schreef KoosVogels het volgende:

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Wacht, wat? In welk parallel universum leef jij?

Trump daagt Noord-Korea en Iran uit en direct laten deze landen zien dat ze schijt aan hem hebben. Trump wil uit Klimaatakkoord stoppen en direct slaat de rest van de wereld de handen ineen. Trump houdt Nazi's het boven het hoofd en direct laten alle wereldleiders weten zijn uitspraken belachelijk te vinden.

Helemaal niemand doet meer wat de VS zegt. Iedereen lacht het land uit.

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Op zondag 24 september 2017 23:33 schreef Nintex het volgende:
De hele wereld doet wat de VS zegt om geen ruzie te krijgen met Donald Trump.

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Op zondag 24 september 2017 23:58 schreef chibibo het volgende:

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Je analyses zijn humoristischer dan je zelfverzonnen Engelstalige gesprekjes.

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Op zondag 24 september 2017 23:29 schreef Nibb-it het volgende:

[..]

quote:

Trump’s New Drone Strike Policy: What’s Any Different? Why It Matters
After months of continued tough talk and recent assurances that the United States is getting “nasty” in confronting our terrorist threats, Charlie Savage and Eric Schmitt of The New York Times report Thursday evening that President Trump may soon approve a new drone strike policy recommended to him by his senior national security team. And based on initial reports, it’s actually not nearly as bad as we might have feared. The reported new Principles, Standards, and Procedures (PSP) document, which replaces President Obama’s Presidential Policy Guidance (PPG) as policy guidelines for use of force outside of hot warzones, seeks to streamline bureaucratic review processes and modify the high threshold for the use of force adopted by Obama. But in a substantial about face on Trump’s tough talk, including promises to kill the civilian family members of terrorists, the new guidance preserves the Obama-era imperative to take the utmost care to prevent civilian casualties. More details are needed to fully assess the wisdom and efficacy of the new policy. Nonetheless, there are some significant points we can draw out based on what’s now publicly available through the Times reporting. (Just Security).

SPOILER

First, the mere fact that the President is replacing the PPG with another document with a similar architecture is a huge vindication of the Obama approach to overseeing drone operations and the extent to which that approach has been institutionalized by career counterterrorism professionals. President Trump’s team could have just as easily recommended that he cancel the guidance and govern operations through a patchwork of policies that apply different standards to different locations. But preserving an overarching document and the basic division in standards for operations conducted in conventional battlefields versus those outside areas of active hostilities largely mimics the approach that had not existed before Obama.

The reported new document is also a dramatic affirmation that minimizing civilian casualties is both a moral and strategic imperative. A centerpiece of President Obama’s PPG, released in May 2013, was the stipulation that lethal force could be used only when commanders could assess with “near certainty” that civilians would not be harmed in the operation. To Obama’s critics, this extraordinary care to prevent civilian casualties reflected a liberal weakness and unwillingness to take the tough actions needed to defeat America’s enemies. Yet anybody who has closely followed counterterrorism and counterinsurgency operations evolve over President Bush’s second term and throughout the Obama Administration would have noticed a remarkable focus on preventing civilian casualties at all levels of the counterterrorism and intelligence community. As I commented in January, no lesser authorities on the use of lethal force than former Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, former Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) Commander Stanley McChrystal, General David Petraeus, and then-General, now Secretary of Defense James Mattis have all prioritized the prevention of civilian casualties in their respective roles combating terrorist and insurgent groups. In April, our top commander in Africa affirmed that he was sticking to the “near certainty” standard in Somalia, despite a temporary waiver that the White House reportedly issued for that country. Preventing civilian casualties is a moral imperative, but it is also essential to a range of strategic objectives including shoring up our partner governments, ensuring local support or at least tolerance for our actions, and preventing terrorists from using civilian casualties as a rallying and recruitment cry. In the PSP, we see that what the counterterrorism community has long known about civilian protection is now poised to be appropriately reaffirmed in presidential policy.

The most notable departure from the Obama policy is doing away with the threat threshold that must be met before lethal action can be taken. Under the old PPG, lethal action can be taken only against terrorist targets that pose a “continuing, imminent threat to U.S. persons.” This requirement is gone under the new guidance, which reportedly allows for strikes against what the Times characterizes as “foot-soldier jihadists with no unique skills or leadership roles” and who are not bound to a threat standard. The removal of the continuing, imminent threat standard is a loss for those who think that U.S. policy should hew more closely to international human rights law, in which lethal action can be taken only when the threat is imminent and cannot be addressed by other means. While debate will continue on whether human rights obligations are required in these situations, and even whether the law of armed conflict itself calls for heightened standards when applied to lethal force outside the pressures and conditions of a battlefield, it is important to squarely face the security rationale for doing away with this standard. The problem with the continuing, imminent threat standard is that it often conflicts with best practices for targeting terrorist networks. Over 16 years of operations, our counterterrorism professionals have become adept at analyzing the structure of terrorist networks and targeting them based on the understanding that there are particular nodes that, if removed, could have a devastating impact on the entire network. In many cases, those nodes may be couriers, bodyguards, or propagandists who, while lawful military targets under the laws of war, may not pose a continuing, imminent threat to U.S. persons. The new policy appears to give operators greater leeway to target according to what will be considerably more effective in disrupting and defeating terrorist networks. The challenge for the Trump Administration under this new standard will be establishing governing principles that limit the pace of strikes (as the continuing, imminent threat standard did), since there are few countries outside of hot warzones that will give the United States blanket approvals for unfettered drone campaigns.

The final significant revelation in the Times story is that the Trump Administration is throwing out the extensive interagency review process described in the PPG and replacing it with a simpler process in which U.S. operations are governed by a series of country plans — laying out the parameters of U.S. operations against a designated terrorist group(s) in a given nation — that are reviewed and re-approved once a year. The Times quotes a senior administration official saying the new guidance is “primarily aimed” at removing the Obama era bureaucratic processes. The Times story does not provide details on how the country plans are reviewed and approved or what all goes into them. This modification of the review process is perhaps the most direct rebuff of President Obama’s drone strike policy, which critics argued amounted to White House micromanagement of tactical operations. Although I believe those criticisms were unfair, I have also argued for evolving the policy process so that more authority is delegated to the Secretary of Defense, within parameters agreed to by a broader interagency national security team, and holding the Secretary accountable for implementing the President’s overarching policy. At first blush, the PSP appears to do that, but the details of how it is implemented will determine whether the PSP supports sound policy, appropriate involvement of officials outside of the operating agency, and ultimately informed decisionmaking from the President and his national security team. Specifically, the country plans described in the Times story should be campaign concepts that provide substantial detail on the terrorist networks to be targeted, the areas where they will be targeted, the process for obtaining host nation consent (or determining that it is unwilling or unable to provide that consent), any appropriate involvement from the country team (i.e., the ambassador, station chief, military attache) prior to conducting operations, and procedures for addressing any mishaps that may occur. It makes for sound policy that these would be devised on a country-by-country basis, and there is no doubt that Secretary Mattis would feel comfortable being held responsible for implementing the President’s policy. But it will be important that other national security departments and agencies have the opportunity to review and advise the operating agencies on our strike operations on a regular basis, probably far more frequently than once a year.

It will be important for the Trump administration to do a formal public rollout of the new policy, both for transparency’s sake and because the news on the PSP raises many questions about the exact nature of the Trump team’s pivot, even as they reaffirm some of the core tenets of civilian protection and precision in the use of force.

One of the core questions is whether the new policy changes the definition of what constitutes a hot warzone, or “area of active hostilities,” where the elevated targeting rules set forth in the PPG or PSP would not apply. When Obama’s drone policy was established in May 2013, area of active hostilities was understood to be shorthand for Afghanistan or a similar conflict where significant U.S. forces were present on the ground or the conflict was of significant intensity such that placing strictures on lethal action well above what is required under the law of war was both unnecessary and inconsistent with our larger military strategy. Similarly, when the counter-ISIS campaign began in 2014, President Obama decided that Iraq and Syria were areas of active hostilities where the PPG would not apply. Operations in countries like Somalia and Yemen — which were characterized by minimal U.S. military presence beyond a few trainers and advisors and a discrete, relatively well-defined cadre of terrorists plotting against U.S. persons — were deemed to be outside areas of active hostilities and therefore governed by the PPG. Yet in a document released in late 2016, the Obama Administration revealed that a significant portion of Libya, where we reportedly had minimal if any active U.S. military presence on the ground, had been declared an area of active hostilities. This policy allowed for substantial U.S. air support to a coalition of local security forces and irregular fighters in their campaign against ISIS. It also raised significant questions as to the durability of the PPG if it could be waived in particular parts of countries where the United States was not at full-scale war. The Trump Administration followed the Obama Administration’s example and reportedly declared significant portions of Yemen and Somalia to be areas of active hostilities for 180 days, both to enable action against terrorist groups in those countries and to allow for a review of the PPG. So when the PSP is released, it will be important to understand what specific countries or what types of conflicts will be covered by the new guidance and which will not. Only by understanding this patchwork will we be able to understand if the new guidance is a meaningful governor on U.S. use of force or an exceptional framework used only in places that are peripheral to the core counterterrorism fight. Similarly, it will be important to know under what conditions the President or the operating agency might be able to waive the requirements of the PSP, either with regard to constraints on civilian casualties or other restrictions that the PSP might place on U.S. targeting. Indeed, such a proviso, depending on how it is implemented in practice, can effectively create Swiss cheese out of the standards and procedures. And it would further complicate concerns about transparency for the administration to publicly announce the PSP but then have the President or a senior official waive the rules time and again in secret.

The Times story also provides relatively few details on how the new policy treats the capture of suspected terrorists, which was a core section of the Obama PPG and an area of early concern for the Trump Administration. The PPG’s treatment of capture operations is extensive but rests on a couple of core principles, including that lethal action cannot be taken unless capture is assessed to be infeasible and that under no circumstances will detainees be brought to Guantanamo Bay. Counterterrorism professionals generally prefer to capture terrorists, which allows for interrogation and the exploitation of electronic media and other items found at the capture site, but it will be important to understand if the new policy still requires an assessment of the feasibility of capture prior to every strike. And if so, we will need to understand what they mean by “feasibility”: just militarily feasible, or also politically feasible, or something else? As for Guantanamo, President Trump has made statements about taking more terrorists to the detention facility, which would be a departure from more than ten years of presidential policy and could ring alarm bells in Congress and, indeed, among some of our closest allies especially in Europe. It is also unclear whether Secretary Mattis will want his legacy associated with filling up Guantanamo. How the PSP treats Guantanamo will be our first indication of whether the President’s promise on this issue is real or like his empty promise to bring back torture, a case of campaign bravado tempered by professionals.

Detention policy also raises other issues not so acutely faced by the Obama team. Reports have emerged that our Emirati partners have engaged in systematic torture of detainees in Yemen, with U.S. personnel likely aware long before public reports emerged. And last week, a U.S. citizen fighting for ISIS was captured and is currently being held in U.S. military custody under the law of armed conflict, something that has not happened to an American in more than ten years. Whether the new guidance explicitly changes any existing policies on disposition of detainees, including how they apply to U.S. persons like the detainee currently held by U.S. forces, or to the circumstances in which we would transfer detainees to foreign nations, will be a bellwether in understanding whether we will continue to leave the ugly days of post-9/11 detention operations firmly behind.

Finally, whether and how the Administration rolls out the new policy will provide early indicators of whether the Trump team intends to continue the moves toward greater transparency for the overarching counterterrorism legal and policy framework, as well as for specific operations. Thus far, many of the policies that the Obama team began for publicly announcing specific strikes have continued into this administration, but recent reports suggest we could see a decrease in transparency in a range of counterterrorism theaters. What’s more, the rollout of the PSP will raise additional questions — including but certainly not limited to those I have raised here — as to the underlying legal and policy basis for U.S. operations. As I have previously noted, vacancies in key legal positions at the Departments of State and Defense hinder the Administration’s ability to continue the important dialogue with outside groups on the framework for U.S. operations, but the rollout of the PSP will indicate whether the new administration even intends to continue this dialogue.

The Times story gives us some hope that counterterrorism professionals, guided by 16 years of experience and a firm commitment to ethical and legal approaches to our security challenges, are carrying the day in the Trump White House. But the new policy on the use of force raises just as many questions as it answers. Continued scrutiny will be required to understand if our country’s progress in this space continues or is undermined by the President’s bravado and sense of knowing more than the experts.

quote:

US foreign policy as bellicose as ever
Last year it looked as if the US electorate wanted an end to foreign wars. Donald Trump promised he would make it happen. But his hopes of a ‘good deal’ with Russia went nowhere, as his fellow Republicans, Clinton Democrats, intelligence agencies and the media rallied against Putin.

It only took a few months under Donald Trump’s presidency for the US to withdraw from the Paris climate agreement, impose new sanctions on Russia, reverse the normalisation of diplomatic relations with Cuba, announce its intention to pull out of the Iran nuclear deal, warn Pakistan, threaten Venezuela with military intervention, and declare a readiness to strike North Korea with ‘fire and fury ... the likes of which this world has never seen before.’ The Philippines, Saudi Arabia and Israel are the only countries on better terms with the US since Trump’s arrival in the White House on 20 January. (Le Monde diplomatique).

SPOILER

Trump is not solely responsible for this increased tension: Republican neoconservatives, Democrats and the media all applauded him this spring when he ordered military manoeuvres in Asia and the launch of 59 missiles towards an air base in Syria (1). At the same time, he was prevented from acting when he broached a possible rapprochement with Moscow, and was even forced to sign off on new US sanctions against Russia. US foreign policy’s point of equilibrium is effectively being determined by Republican phobias (Iran, Cuba, Venezuela) often shared by Democrats, and by Democrat hatreds (Russia, Syria) endorsed by most Republicans. If there is a peace party in Washington, it’s currently well hidden.

US foreign policy’s point of equilibrium is effectively being determined by Republican phobias often shared by Democrats, and by Democrat hatreds endorsed by most Republicans

Yet last year’s presidential debate suggested the electorate wanted to see an end to US imperial inclinations (2). Foreign policy issues were not initially on Trump’s campaign agenda, and when he did speak about them it was to suggest an approach mostly antithetical to that of the Washington establishment (the military, experts, think-tanks, specialist reviews) and to his current approach. He promised to subordinate geopolitical considerations to US economic interests, speaking both to supporters of economic nationalism (‘America First’) — there are many in states that have suffered economic devastation — and to those convinced it was time for realism after many years of continuous war that had led to stagnation and widespread chaos in Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya. ‘We would have been better off if we [had] never looked at the Middle East for the last 15 years,’ Trump said in April 2016 (3), condemning US ‘arrogance’ that caused ‘one disaster after another’ and cost‘thousands of American lives and many trillions of dollars.’

This diagnosis, unexpected from a Republican candidate, chimed with the view of the Democratic Party’s most progressive wing. Peggy Noonan, who wrote some of the most notable speeches of Ronald Reagan and his successor George HW Bush, said as much during the campaign: ‘He positioned himself to Hillary Clinton’s left on foreign policy — she is hawkish, too eager for assertions of US military power, and has bad judgment. This will be the first time in modern history a Republican presidential candidate is to the left of the Democrat, and that will make things interesting’ (4).

‘Be prepared to walk’
And things are interesting, though not quite as Noonan predicted. While the left holds that peace comes from fairer relations between countries rather than intimidation, Trump, who is completely indifferent to global public opinion, operates like a horse trader looking for the best deal for himself and his voters, irrespective of consequences elsewhere. So for Trump the problem of military alliances is not so much that they risk amplifying conflicts rather than discouraging them, but that they cost the American taxpayer too much; as a result of picking up the tab, the US is becoming a ‘third-world nation’. ‘NATO is obsolete,’ Trump told supporters in April 2016. ‘We defend Japan, we defend Germany, and they pay us only a fraction. Saudi Arabia would not exist, except that we defend them. If we left it, it would fall. You’ve always got to be prepared to walk. If you can’t walk, you don’t make a good deal.’

Trump was after a good deal from Russia. A new partnership would have reversed deteriorating relations between the powers by encouraging their alliance against ISIS and recognising the importance of Ukraine to Russia’s security. Current US paranoia about everything Kremlin-related has encouraged amnesia about what President Barack Obama said in 2016, after the annexation of the Crimea and Russia’s direct intervention in Syria. He too put the danger posed by President Vladimir Putin into perspective: the interventions in Ukraine and the Middle East were, Obama said, improvised ‘in response to a client state that was about to slip out of his grasp’ (5).

Obama went on: ‘The Russians can’t change us or significantly weaken us. They are a smaller country, they are a weaker country, their economy doesn’t produce anything that anybody wants to buy, except oil and gas and arms.’ What he feared most about Putin was the sympathy he inspired in Trump and his supporters: ‘37% of Republican voters approve of Putin, the former head of the KGB. Ronald Reagan would roll over in his grave’ (6).

By January 2017, Reagan’s eternal rest was no longer threatened. ‘Presidents come and go but the policy never changes,’ Putin concluded (7). Historians will study this period when there was a convergence in the objectives of the US intelligence agencies, the leaders of the Hillary Clinton wing of the Democratic Party, the majority of Republican politicians and the anti-Trump media. That common objective was stopping any entente between Moscow and Washington.

Each group had its own motive. The intelligence community and elements in the Pentagon feared a rapprochement between Trump and Putin would deprive them of a ‘presentable’ enemy once ISIS’s military power was destroyed. The Clinton camp was keen to ascribe an unexpected defeat to a cause other than the candidate and her inept campaign; Moscow’s alleged hacking of Democratic Party emails fitted the bill. And the neocons, who ‘promoted the Iraq war, detest Putin and consider Israel’s security non-negotiable’ (8), hated Trump’s neo-isolationist instincts.

The media, especially the New York Times and Washington Post, eagerly sought a new Watergate scandal and knew their middle-class, urban, educated readers loathe Trump for his vulgarity, affection for the far right, violence and lack of culture (9). So they were searching for any information or rumour that could cause his removal or force a resignation. As in Agatha Christie’s Murder on the Orient Express, everyone had his particular motive for striking the same victim.

The intrigue developed quickly as these four areas have fairly porous boundaries. The understanding between Republican hawks such as John McCain, chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, and the military-industrial complex was a given. The architects of recent US imperial adventures, especially Iraq, had not enjoyed the 2016 campaign or Trump’s jibes about their expertise. During the campaign, some 50 intellectuals and officials announced that, despite being Republicans, they would not support Trump because he ‘would put at risk our country’s national security and wellbeing.’ Some went so far as to vote for Clinton (10).

Ambitions of a ‘deep state’?
The press feared that Trump’s incompetence would threaten the US-dominated international order. It had no problem with military crusades, especially when emblazoned with grand humanitarian, internationalist or progressive principles. According to the press criteria, Putin and his predilection for rightwing nationalists were obvious culprits. But so were Saudi Arabia or Israel, though that did not prevent the Saudis being able to count on the ferociously anti-Russian Wall Street Journal, or Israel enjoying the support of almost all US media, despite having a far-right element in its government.

Just over a week before Trump took office, journalist Glenn Greenwald, who broke the Edward Snowden story that revealed the mass surveillance programmes run by the National Security Agency, warned of the direction of travel. He observed that the US media had become the intelligence services’ ‘most valuable instrument, much of which reflexively reveres, serves, believes, and sides with hidden intelligence officials.’ This at a time when ‘Democrats, still reeling from their unexpected and traumatic election loss as well as a systemic collapse of their party, seemingly divorced further and further from reason with each passing day, are willing — eager — to embrace any claim, cheer any tactic, align with any villain, regardless of how unsupported, tawdry and damaging those behaviours might be’ (11).

The anti-Russian coalition hadn’t then achieved all its objectives, but Greenwald already discerned the ambitions of a ‘deep state’. ‘There really is, at this point,’ he said ‘obvious open warfare between this unelected but very powerful faction that resides in Washington and sees presidents come and go, on the one hand, and the person that the American democracy elected to be the president on the other.’ One suspicion, fed by the intelligence services, galvanised all Trump’s enemies: Moscow had compromising secrets about Trump — financial, electoral, sexual — capable of paralysing him should a crisis between the two countries occur (12).

Covert opposition to Trump
The suspicion of such a murky understanding, summed up by the pro-Clinton economist Paul Krugman as a ‘Trump-Putin ticket’, has transformed the anti-Russian activity into a domestic political weapon against a president increasingly hated outside the ultraconservative bloc. It is no longer unusual to hear leftwing activists turn FBI or CIA apologists, since these agencies became a home for a covert opposition to Trump and the source of many leaks.

This is why the Democratic Party data hack, which the US intelligence services allege is the work of the Russians, obsesses the party, and the press. It strikes two targets: delegitimising Trump’s election and stopping his promotion of a thaw with Russia. Has Washington’s aggrieved reaction to a foreign power’s interference in a state’s domestic affairs, and its elections, struck no one as odd? Why do just a handful of people point out that, not long ago, Angela Merkel’s phone was tapped not by the Kremlin but by the Obama administration?

The silence was once broken when the Republican representative for North Carolina, Tom Tillis, questioned former CIA director James Clapper in January: ‘The United States has been involved in one way or another in 81 different elections since World War II. That doesn’t include coups or the regime changes, some tangible evidence where we have tried to affect an outcome to our purpose. Russia has done it some 36 times.’ This perspective rarely disturbs the New York Times’s fulminations against Moscow’s trickery.

The Times also failed to inform younger readers that Russia’s president Boris Yeltsin, who picked Putin as his successor in 1999, had been re-elected in 1996, though seriously ill and often drunk, in a fraudulent election conducted with the assistance of US advisers and the overt support of President Bill Clinton. The Times hailed the result as ‘a victory for Russian democracy’ and declared that ‘the forces of democracy and reform won a vital but not definitive victory in Russia yesterday ... For the first time in history, a free Russia has freely chosen its leader.’

Now the Times is in the vanguard of those preparing psychologically for conflict with Russia. There is almost no remaining resistance to its line. On the right, as the Wall Street Journal called for the US to arm Ukraine on 3 August, Vice-President Mike Pence spoke on a visit to Estonia about ‘the spectre of [Russian] aggression’, encouraged Georgia to join NATO, and paid tribute to Montenegro, NATO’s newest member.

No longer getting his way
But the Times, far from worrying about these provocative gestures coinciding with heightened tensions between great powers (trade sanctions against Russia, Moscow’s expulsion of US diplomats), poured oil on the fire. On 2 August it praised the reaffirmation of ‘America’s commitment to defend democratic nations against those countries that would undermine them’ and regretted that Mike Pence’s views ‘aren’t as eagerly embraced and celebrated by the man he works for back in the White House.’ At this stage, it doesn’t matter any more what Trump thinks. He is no longer able to get his way on the issue. Moscow has noted this and is drawing its own conclusions.

This month Russian military manoeuvres, on a scale unprecedented since the fall of the Berlin Wall, will mobilise up to 100,000 personnel near Ukraine and the Baltic states. This has already provided the Times with material for a front page that recalled the 2002-3 scare campaign against Iraq’s ‘weapons of mass destruction’. It quoted a US colonel: ‘We know when we wake up every morning who the threat is.’ It gave a run-down of Russia’s arsenal, all the more alarming given their tendency for ‘subterfuge, cyber attacks and information warfare.’ It mentioned a NATO convoy from Germany to Bulgaria that permitted children ‘to climb up on the Stryker fighting vehicles.’ The best part of this embedded journalism was when the Times described the location of the Russian exercises, being conducted on its own territory and in Belarus, as ‘around NATO’s periphery’.

Any peacemaking efforts from France or Germany would therefore be treated as appeasement by a neoconservative establishment that has regained control in Washington, and would be attacked by almost all US media. It has come to the point where, seeing the sharp drop in the popularity of President Emmanuel Macron, the Times came up with a false explanation that reflected its own obsession: ‘Mr Macron’s glittering reception of the American and Russian presidents, Donald J Trump and Vladimir V Putin, both disliked in France, especially on the left, did not help’ (13).

Can European states halt this bellicose machinery, and do they want to? The Korean crisis should have reminded them that the US is not much concerned about causing damage far from home. On 1 August Republican Senator Lindsey Graham attempted to lend credibility to Trump’s nuclear threat to North Korea by saying: ‘If thousands die, they’re going to die over there — they’re not going to die here.’ Graham insisted Trump shared his view: ‘He’s told me that to my face.’

(1) See Michael T Klare, ‘Trump the hawk’, Le Monde diplomatique, English edition, May 2017.
(2) See Benoît Bréville, ‘What US foreign policy?’, Le Monde diplomatique, English edition, May 2016.
(3) Donald Trump, ‘Today’, NBC, 21 April 2016.
(4) Peggy Noonan, ‘Simple patriotism trumps ideology’, The Wall Street Journal, New York, 28 April 2016.
(5) ‘The Obama Doctrine’, interview with Jeffrey Goldberg, The Atlantic, Boston, April 2016.
(6) Press conference, 16 December 2016.
(7) Le Figaro, Paris, 31 May 2017.
(8) Michael Crowley, ‘GOP hawks declare war on Trump’, Politico, Arlington, 3 March 2016.
(9) See Serge Halimi, ‘Trump, the know-nothing victor’, Le Monde diplomatique, English edition, December 2016.
(10) ‘Statement by former national security officials’, www.globalsecurity.org/.
(11) Fox News, 12 January 2017. The day before, Greenwald had set out his thoughts in ‘The deep state goes to war with president-elect, using unverified claims, as Democrats cheer’, The Intercept, 11 January 2017.
(12) See Serge Halimi, ‘All Russian puppets?’ and ‘The deep state’, Le Monde diplomatique, English edition, January and May 2017.
(13) Adam Nossiter, ‘Macron’s honeymoon comes to a halt’, The New York Times, 7 August 2017.

quote:

The Right Way to Reform Health Care
To Cut Costs, Empower Patients

Perhaps no U.S. law has been more passionately opposed by Republicans than the Affordable Care Act. For the past eight years, they have repeatedly pledged to abolish Obamacare, with the House of Representatives voting more than 50 times to repeal it. U.S. President Donald Trump took office promising to do just that. In May, after months of heated negotiations, including two failures to corral votes within their own party, House Republicans managed—barely—to pass their first real replacement, the American Health Care Act.

Despite this victory, the bill will likely face months of deliberation in the Senate, where legislators on both sides of the aisle have already deplored its hostility to the poor, the old, and the 24 million who stand to lose coverage. Yet the biggest obstacle goes beyond legislative politics. It’s the subtle but unmistakable shift in perspective that Obamacare triggered among the public: for the first time in history, most Americans—60 percent, according to a January 2017 poll by the Pew Research Center—believe that it is the government’s responsibility to ensure access to quality health care. So even though Republicans have full control of the government, they have found it acutely difficult to push through a plan that growing numbers of Americans philosophically oppose. (Foreign Affairs).

SPOILER

The most likely outcome, then, is
that the efforts to repeal Obamacare
will die in the Senate. If that happens,
the more pressing question will become,
How can the Trump administration
address the very real flaws of the U.S.
health-care system, improving care
without taking coverage away? The
answer is to fix Obamacare rather than
replace it.
To accomplish this, policymakers must
target the underlying problem afflicting
health care in the United States: it costs
far too much. Not only does the country
spend much more on health care than
its peers-18 percent of GDP in 2016-
but that investment has failed to translate
into better outcomes. The United States
persistently lags behind other high-income
countries on such measures as life expec-
tancy, infant and maternal mortality, and
rates of chronic disease. This discrep-
ancy between spending and quality
surfaces at the local level, too: as a 2017
study by Yusuke Tsugawa of Harvard
and his co-authors found, even within
the same hospital, physicians who spend
more do not have happier patients or
achieve better outcomes. The corollary
to such findings is that providers could
reduce spending while maintaining or
even improving the quality of care.
Already, hospitals across the country
are experimenting with ways to offer
better care at a lower cost. Eight years ago,
Grand Junction, Colorado, became the
poster child of health-care reform when it
was singled out by Atul Gawande of The
New Yorker for investing in preventive care
and changing the way doctors were paid in
an effort to slash Medicare costs without
sacrificing quality. La Crosse, Wisconsin,
has achieved the lowest costs in the country
for end-of-life care by having nurses ask
patients to fill out advance directives about
how aggressive they want their treatment
to be. And Geisinger Health System, a
network of hospitals in Pennsylvania, has
reduced emergency-room admissions by
focusing on delivering high-quality
primary care, with a view toward cus-
tomer service. (It even offers refunds to
patients who report "uncompassionate
care.") Meanwhile, a bevy of start-ups
inspired by the Affordable Care Act
are doing everything from matching
patients with caregivers to helping people
shop for insurance plans.
If policymakers really want to curb
costs and improve quality, they should
focus on accelerating the growth of such
game changers-by enhancing the incen-
tives of existing high-value providers to
expand their market share and by unleash-
ing the forces of capitalism to create
new such providers.

A MORE DEMANDING DEMAND SIDE
No effort to encourage higher-value health
care can succeed without the support of
patients. Accordingly, the first goal of
policymakers should be to raise demand
for higher-value services by giving patients
the information, incentives, and tools they
need to make better decisions about their
care. Several bodies have already sought to
do just that. In 2011, the American Board
of Internal Medicine rolled out Choosing
Wisely, a campaign that seeks to get
patients more involved in decisions about
their care, and various insurers have exper-
imented with shifting certain costs to
patients. Despite heavy fanfare, however,
these efforts have had little effect: health-
care costs continue to climb faster than
inflation, and the multiplicity of new
efforts aimed at improving outcomes has
resulted in a system that is confusing and
hard to navigate.
More can be done. For starters, both
insurers and providers need to simplify
and expand access to data on costs and
outcomes. Patients are already seeking
this information: a 2014 survey conducted
by Public Agenda, a nonpartisan research
group, found that more than half of
Americans had tried to find out the prices
of various medical services before seeking
care, and one-fifth had comparison-
shopped. And when patients get the
information they're looking for, they use
it to choose providers with better track
records. In a 2015 study of Medicare
claims data from the last decade, Amitabh
Chandra, Amy Finkelstein, Adam Sacarny,
and Chad Syverson found that even for
emergencies such as heart attacks, patients
were willing to travel an extra 1.8 miles
to receive treatment at a hospital with a
one-percentage-point higher survival rate.
They also found that hospitals posting
superior outcomes saw their market share
expand, pulling up the overall survival
rate for Medicare patients.
As things stand now, however, the
data that would help patients make more
informed choices are often inaccessible
or indecipherable. Part of the problem is a
lack of competition among providers.
As health-care systems have expanded,
they have abused their market power
to obscure information about cost and
quality, most commonly by inserting
gag clauses into provider contracts that
forbid such disclosures. Since providers
even within the same area often charge
widely varying prices for their services,
suppressing this data represents nothing
more than a ploy by the dominant players
to protect their competitive advantage.
This lack of transparency deprives patients
and their insurers of any power to negoti-
ate for higher-value care. Companies
that allow employees to comparison-
shop among providers, for instance,
cannot operate without access to key
performance data such as physician-
level costs. In 2012, California passed a
law prohibiting gag clauses in health
insurance contracts; more states should
follow suit.
Another challenge is the lack of
infrastructure to digest and present
data. In recent years, a growing number
of states have established large databases
to collect and organize claims data, which
can help identify low- and high-value
providers. Here, too, however, vested
interests have fought back against data
sharing, and in 2016, the U.S. Supreme
Court sided with insurance companies in
ruling that states can no longer require
employers that fund their employees'
insurance plans to submit claims to a
central database. At the federal level, the
Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services
(cms), the agency that administers Medi-
care and oversees HealthCare.gov, has
expanded access to its data, creating a
special program enabling researchers and
businesses to access its full data set on
claims. But that data set (which is expen-
sive and far from user-friendly) involves
only Medicare; no equivalent informa-
tion is available about the pediatric population
covered by the Children's Health
Insurance Program or about patients with
commercial health insurance.
The federal government can help solve
this problem. It should provide financial
incentives for more states to create central
databases, and it should require employers
that fund their employees' insurance
plans to share their privacy-protected
claims data-if not through new legisla-
tion, then through rules issued by the
U.S. Department of Labor under the
Employee Retirement Income Security
Act, the 1974 law that regulates employ-
ers' health insurance plans. (In spite of
the Supreme Court's ruling, the secretary
of labor retains the authority to issue
new reporting requirements.)
Of course, if newly released data are
to make a dent in health-care costs, then
the information must be made mean-
ingful to patients. The health-care
sector has long struggled to distill the
morass of quality measures into a single,
intuitive index of value. Currently, for
every physician, the average medical
practice spends 15 hours per week
navigating disparate quality reporting
requirements. Patients, for their part,
face a dizzying variety of quality rankings,
from the cMs' Hospital Compare to the
ratings on the website Healthgrades to
those published by US. News & World
Report. So discordant are these rankings
that many hospitals considered top
performers in one system sink to the
bottom in others.
Even Hospital Compare, the gold
standard of performance rankings, has
major shortcomings. Its data are obsolete,
dating back at least three to six years,
and cover only a limited set of diseases
and procedures. But no part of the pro-
gram is more in need of updating than
its process for generating final scores.
Hospital Compare ranks hospitals in just
three categories-worse than the national
average, no worse than the national average,
and better than the national average-
and 97-98 percent end up in the middle
category. A system that exposes such a
small percentage of hospitals as below
average can hardly be expected to culti-
vate major improvements in performance.
To solve this problem, the cms should
increase the number of performance
categories and weight its scores by taking
into account the demographics of
hospitals' patient populations.
Better information alone will not
reduce costs; patients also need the
power to act on it. Accordingly, policy-
makers should seek to increase patients'
sensitivity to variations in quality and
give them the tools to reward higher-
value providers. Traditionally, efforts
have focused on getting patients to
assume a greater share of the cost of
their health care, but that has proved
to be a blunt instrument, indiscrimi-
nately reducing the use of both necessary
care and discretionary care. In recent
years, insurance companies have rolled
out new plans designed to encourage
patients to make smarter decisions:
patients pay more out of pocket for
services that evidence has shown to be
less beneficial (say, surgery for back
pain that could be treated with physical
therapy) and less for services deemed
more beneficial (such as colonoscopies
for patients at risk of colon cancer).
Studies have shown that such schemes
improve outcomes by steering patients
toward primary care and preventive
services, which can catch conditions
before they become serious, and by
making patients more likely to adhere
to their medication regimens, which
keeps chronic diseases in check.
But the government can do more to
promote value. For patients with health
savings accounts-which allow people
to set money aside tax free for medical
expenses-the Internal Revenue Service
should expand its list of eligible expenses
to include more preventive services.
Patients with hypertension, for example,
should be allowed to deduct the cost of
home blood-pressure-monitoring supplies.
For the 55 million patients on Medicare,
the cMs should consider adjusting copays
for services based on how appropriate
they are for a given patient. Diabetics,
for instance, are susceptible to vision
loss, so they should be charged less out
of pocket for an annual eye exam than
everyone else.
Private insurance companies can
embrace the same approach by building
their coverage networks around specific
medical conditions or treatments instead
of around facilities, as they currently
do. Under such a system, insurance
plans would narrow their networks to
doctors who have established an excellent
track record dealing with a single major
condition-in the case of eating disorders,
nutritionists, endocrinologists, psychi-
atrists, and primary-care physicians
who have demonstrably better histories
of treating these diseases.
As they seek to encourage the use
of the highest-value care, policymakers
must make sure they don't further perplex
patients already struggling to make sense
of their plans. No consumer product rivals
health insurance when it comes to com-
plexity, and most Americans remain in
plans that they do not understand and
do not wish to spend time trying to
understand. One survey, by Aflac, found
that nearly a quarter of Americans would
rather clean their toilet than attempt to
decipher their benefits.
The most sustainable innovations, then,
will be those that reimagine insurance
not merely to boost value but also to
design plans that make intuitive sense.
Some new insurance companies, such as
Oscar, have made strides by offering
standardized, easy-to-understand plans
that simplify the process of comparison-
shopping-an approach the federal
government has emulated, debuting
"simple choice" plans on HealthCare.gov
last year. But there is much room for
improvement. Little wonder, then, that
the fastest-growing category of venture-
backed health-care companies is so-called
navigators, concierge services that help
patients use their benefits smartly. Once
patients better understand their insurance
and take an interest in the cost of their
care, demand will become more elastic and
competitive, pushing overall costs down.

SHAKING UP SUPPLY
Just as patients must demand higher-
value care, providers must be given the
incentives to deliver it. The overarching
goal of reforms on the supply side of
health care should be to increase the
market share for those providers that
achieve better care at a lower cost. Often
this means changing the way providers
are paid.
So far, that has proved difficult.
There are some bright spots, with inno-
vative companies such as ChenMed,
Iora Health, HealthCare Partners, and
CareMore pioneering new models of
primary care for the sickest patients.
But these firms are all dwarfed in the
markets they serve by large health-care
systems that are committed to high
prices and the fee-for-service model.
Even Kaiser Permanente, a massive
California-based consortium that practices
integrated care (as opposed to the more
fragmented fee-for-service model), has
struggled to grow. The company entered
its first new market in 20 years this past
January, having previously suffered
heavy losses in its attempts to expand
beyond California.
On this front, the biggest challenge is
to stem the tide of hospital consolidation.
The last 13 years have seen more than
800 mergers of hospital systems in the
United States, leaving many urban areas
with just a few large providers. Although
the big players claim that consolidation
allows them to better coordinate care and
achieve economies of scale, researchers
have repeatedly shown that mergers raise
prices. One study, published by the
National Bureau of Economic Research
in 2015, found that prices in monopolized
markets are 15 percent higher than in
markets serviced by four or more hos-
pitals. Another study, by three Stanford
University economists, documented a
four percent price hike for every one-
percentage-point increase in market
concentration. The truth is that smaller
practices perform just as well as, and
often much better than, the big hospital
networks-and rack up far greater
savings in the process.
To discourage mergers, the Trump
administration should bolster the enforce-
ment of antitrust laws by increasing
funding for the Federal Trade Com-
mission, the agency within the U.S.
Department of Justice charged with
fostering and safeguarding competition.
Congress should also pass a law capping
all hospital prices at a fixed percentage
above Medicare rates, which would
make consolidation less attractive by
reducing the market power of larger
practices. A cap of 25 percent, large
enough to allow providers a healthy
profit margin but small enough to dis-
courage consolidation, would be ideal.
At the state level, policymakers
should empower agencies to take a
more activist approach to combating
anticompetitive behavior. A good model
comes from Massachusetts, which in 2012
established the Massachusetts Health
Policy Commission, a body that conducts
detailed reviews of the impact of hospital
consolidation plans. In 2014, its recom-
mendations led to the blocking of three
acquisitions by the state's largest provider
network, Partners HealthCare, which
the commission estimated would have
increased regional health-care spending
by nearly $50 million a year. In a similar
vein, states and the federal government
should also lower the barriers to entry
in the health-care market. For instance,
they should put an end to regulations
that require doctors to meet their patients
in person, a change that would encourage
the use of low-cost but still effective
telemedical services.
As important as all these reforms would
be, perhaps the most powerful lever for
promoting value is a 2015 law that changed
the way doctors get paid for treating
Medicare patients. Passed with broad
bipartisan support, the Medicare Access
and Children's Health Insurance Program
Reauthorization Act was designed to shift
health care away from the fee-for-service
model and toward one based on value. The
act requires any physician who sees more
than 100 Medicare patients a year to
choose one of two structures through
which to receive payments from the
government: the Merit-based Incentive
Payment System (MiPs) or Alternative
Payment Models (APMs).
The former builds on the traditional
fee-for-service system by adjusting
payments to providers up or down
according to various performance
measures they report, whereas the
latter moves beyond that system,
rewarding providers who use new,
value-based approaches to payment.
For example, so-called medical homes-
where a patient's care is overseen by a
single team led by a personal physician-
qualify for APMs. Under fee-for-service
models, the government must reimburse
providers for services regardless of their
clinical necessity. Apms, by contrast,
offer bonuses for cost-effective care.
The cMs has set a goal of moving at
least 50 percent of providers to APMs by
2018. But as of today, only ten percent
qualify. To reach its goal, the agency
will have to make APMs more attractive.
The cMs currently creates incentives for
providers to move to APMS by eliminating
the reporting requirements they face
under MIPS and by dangling a five percent
payment bonus. These inducements do
not nearly go far enough.
Under current rules, medical practices
that sign up for MIPs can select which
six of more than 200 performance indi-
cators to use in calculating their score.
The cMs should dramatically reduce
this flexibility, both to make sure the
metrics chosen are relevant and to
remove the perception that MIPS offers
an easier path to earning bonuses than
APMs. And to further discourage pro-
viders from sticking with the fee-for-
service model, the cMs should either
curtail or cancel the upside payments
under MiPs-in other words, emphasize
penalties for poor performance over


The Right Way to Reform Health Care
rewards for good performance. At the
same time, the cMs should make it
easier for small medical practices to
participate in APMs by reducing the
financial risk they must take on in order
to sign up. And the agency should
increase APMs' reward payments.
By rewarding providers that stress
primary care, APMs decrease the amount
of time patients spend in hospitals or
nursing homes and lower the number
of visits they make to specialists. A few
innovators using APMs have already
achieved impressive results. ChenMed,
a Miami-based primary-care practice,
serves over 60,000 low- to moderate-
income Medicare patients who suffer
from multiple chronic conditions. By
emphasizing preventive care and physician
accountability, the company has delivered
world-class care for these patients at
costs that are 40 percent lower than the
market average. CareMore, a California-
based network of medical centers that
focus on integrated primary care for the
elderly, serves the highest-risk, highest-
need patients. By investing in early
intervention and social service programs,
the group has reduced hospital admissions
for its members by 20 percent compared
with its fee-for-service counterparts. Both
companies demonstrate that primary-care
doctors can create tremendous value for
their patients while building businesses
that scale. Indeed, in 2012, the kidney-
care company DaVita paid $4.4 billion to
acquire HealthCare Partners, a leader in
integrated care. The key now is to foster
an environment in which more such
companies can succeed.

A BETTER PATH FORWARD
All these fixes will help slow the growth
of costs, but to make the biggest impact,
they need to be grounded in a well-
implemented health-care law and a
stable health-care market. To attain the
Holy Grail of high-quality, affordable
health care-a system in which costs
grow no faster than GDP-policymakers
must take bolder steps.
Above all, they should require every-
one to have health insurance. Congress
must enforce the individual mandate of
Obamacare, and states should follow
Wisconsin's example in introducing
automatic enrollment for patients eligible
for Medicaid. To induce younger, typi-
cally healthier adults to enroll, the cms
should relax the Obamacare rule prohib-
iting insurers from charging seniors rates
that are more than three times as high
as the rates they charge 20-somethings.
Instead, insurers should be allowed to
charge seniors four times as much, which
would broaden the price range of avail-
able plans and lower premiums for
younger people. To offset that change,
the cms should expand tax credits for
older patients. Making these tweaks
would maximize participation in the
insurance market and thereby make
premiums more affordable for everyone.
Policymakers should also take steps
to stabilize the market for individuals
purchasing insurance on their own.
Uncertainty over the future of Obama-
care has caused many insurers to with-
draw from markets across the country.
In order for there to be adequate cover-
age options for all Americans and for
premiums to remain stable and not spiral
upward, both insurers and consumers
must feel that it is safe to participate
in the insurance market. Some counties
are now at risk of having no insurers
that offer Obamacare coverage. Ideally,
the cms would fix that problem by


expanding the size of the regional
markets through which insurers can
sign up to provide coverage.
But if it doesn't, more states should
follow the lead of Vermont and the
District of Columbia in requiring that
all individual insurance policies be
purchased through the state exchanges,
marketplaces established by Obamacare.
Currently, 40 percent of plans in the
individual market are sold off the
exchange, typically to higher-income,
healthier consumers. Because Obama-
care tax credits do not apply to plans
bought outside the exchanges, some
insurers are offering plans only on
the higher-yield, off-exchange market.
Unifying the two markets would close
this loophole and help stabilize prices
on the state exchanges.
At the federal level, Congress
should make permanent its funding for
the provisions of Obamacare that are
designed to prevent insurance premiums
from rising too high. The so-called risk
corridor program, for instance, which
compensates insurers if their enrollees
prove to be costlier than expected, is
particularly valuable for small states,
which remain vulnerable to the pos-
sibility that a small number of patients
will skew overall costs. At the same time,
Congress should reclassify Obamacare's
cost-sharing reduction subsidies-
federal reimbursements for insurers
that cover low-income individuals-as
mandatory funding rather than discre-
tionary funding, thus insulating the
program from the whims of the con-
gressional budgetary process.
Both risk corridors and cost-sharing
reduction subsidies lower overall pre-
miums, but both have become targets
of political infighting. The risk corridor
program never received the funding
it was supposed to, the result of a political
move by Republican Senator Marco
Rubio of Florida, who wanted to signal
his opposition to Obamacare. As a
consequence, some insurance companies
lost money after setting their premiums
based on the assumption that risk corridor
payments would defray unexpected losses,
and they have filed suit against the gov-
ernment, demanding payment. Congress
should accept that Obamacare isn't going
anywhere and appropriate funds for the
risk corridor program.
The cost-sharing reduction subsidies,
for their part, are the victim of both a
lawsuit brought by House Republicans
and a threat by the Trump administration
to stop funding them, causing insurance
companies to worry about these pay-
ments, too. If their anxieties are not
allayed, then insurers will likely raise
premiums to reduce their exposure. It's
time for the Trump administration to
pressure the House to drop its lawsuit
against the cost-sharing reduction sub-
sidies. Action on this front is vital,
because cost-sharing reduction subsidies
have a large impact on premiums. With-
out them, the Kaiser Family Foundation
has estimated, premiums would surge
by an average of 19 percent.
As for the cms, there is a great deal it
can do. To empower patients, it should
make its hospital rating systems more
actionable-first by standardizing quality
measures across the government's many
health-care programs, from Medicaid to
the Department of Veterans Affairs, and
then by introducing personalized rating
schemes based on a patient's values and
preferences. And to create effective incen-
tives for providers, the cms should work
with Congress and state legislatures to


The Right Way to Reform Health Care
lower the barriers to entry for providers
offering innovative models of primary care.

SOMETHING FOR EVERYONE
Given the toxic political climate in
Washington, it would be easy to dismiss
all these proposed changes as dead on
arrival. But outside Washington, legis-
lators should find considerable support
among their constituents for reforming
health care with a view to lowering costs.
A poll by the Kaiser Family Foundation
found that three-quarters of Americans,
and even a majority of Trump supporters,
want the president and his administration
to "do what they can to make the current
health care law work" rather than make
it fail so it can be replaced. Lawmakers
would do well to recognize what behav-
ioral scientists have long understood:
however complicated the politics of
expanding health-care coverage were,
taking away coverage from millions
of Americans would prove infinitely
more painful.
Moreover, most of these recommen-
dations are incremental in nature and
capable of gaining bipartisan support.
Both parties should find something to
love in them: cutting costs and reducing
the debt could motivate even stalwart
Republicans, and expanding coverage
to include the most vulnerable should
inspire Democrats. Indeed, the benefits
of reform are enticing. Billions of dollars
of wasteful spending would be liberated
for use in other parts of the economy.
One of the biggest sources of the na-
tional debt would shrink. Millions of
Americans would gain coverage. If
that's not enough to generate political
will, then what is?

quote:

Op zondag 24 september 2017 23:39 schreef KoosVogels het volgende:
En Rusland houdt zich mede koest omdat de sancties zijn verzwaard, tegen de wens in van Trump.

quote:

Trump announces new travel restrictions on 8 countries

President Trump is replacing his controversial travel ban with a targeted list of restrictions that will enhance vetting for nationals from eight countries, senior administration officials announced Sunday.

The eight countries on the modified list of countries are Chad, Iran, Libya, North Korea, Somalia, Syria, Venezuela and Yemen.

The officials say these states failed to comply with the U.S. information-sharing requirements that aim to make vetting processes stronger.

Iran, Libya, Syria, Yemen and Somalia are part of the president's initial travel ban, and it has removed its restrictions on Sudan.

Four additional countries have been added to the list of states that do not meet the new American vetting requirements: Iraq, North Korea, Chad and Venezuela.

The officials maintained that the restrictions are based on an objective worldwide review, not based on origin or religion.

quote:

Op maandag 25 september 2017 00:52 schreef Nibb-it het volgende:

[..]

quote:

Op maandag 25 september 2017 07:37 schreef Fir3fly het volgende:

[..]

Wat is de bron hier van?

quote:

Op maandag 25 september 2017 07:37 schreef Fir3fly het volgende:
Wat is de bron hier van?

quote:

Op maandag 25 september 2017 07:42 schreef Ringo het volgende:
Dus Noord-Korea en Venezuela worden er met de haren bijgesleept om onder het verwijt uit te komen dat het inreisverbod een anti-moslimmaatregel is?

quote:

Op zondag 24 september 2017 22:44 schreef Nintex het volgende:

[..]

Door precies te doen wat hij wil? Namelijk niet het veld op te gaan?

quote:

Op maandag 25 september 2017 07:42 schreef Ringo het volgende:
Dus Noord-Korea en Venezuela worden er met de haren bijgesleept om onder het verwijt uit te komen dat het inreisverbod een anti-moslimmaatregel is?

quote:

Op maandag 25 september 2017 08:25 schreef Ludachrist het volgende:

[..]

Je begrijpt dat ze wel gewoon die wedstrijd spelen, toch? Ze komen gewoon niet naar buiten voor het volkslied.

quote:

Op maandag 25 september 2017 08:43 schreef chibibo het volgende:
Een inreisverbod voor Noord-Korea is niets meer dan symboolpolitiek, aangezien Noord-Korea zelf een uitreisverbod heeft voor vrijwel de gehele bevolking.

quote:

Op maandag 25 september 2017 07:38 schreef nostra het volgende:

[..]

Die staat in het bericht.

quote:

Op maandag 25 september 2017 02:17 schreef crystal_meth het volgende:

[..]

Heb je daar enig bewijs voor? Eerder moesten de Amerikanen 60% van het personeel op ambassade en consulaten in Rusland afdanken of terugroepen. Een zelfs tijdens de koude oorlog nooit geziene maatregel. Vorige week vielen de Russen SDF posities aan waar ook VS troepen aanwezig waren, reden voor Amerikaanse generaals om voor de eerste keer hun Russische collega's te ontmoeten. Donderdag uitten de Russen nog extra dreigementen.

Ja, Zapad-2017 is beëindigd zonder invasie van de Baltische staten of offensief in Oekraine. En de geclaimde 100.000 troepen bleken ook niet aanwezig. Misschien noem je dat "koest houden", de zoveelste absurde bangmakerij van de NAVO die niet uitkomt. Hoeveel zulke "imminente invasies" hebben ze de laatste jaren voorspeld, 20, 30? De Baltische staten, Mariupol, landbrug naar de Krim of Transnistrië, opmars naar Kiev, aanval op Polen, bezetting van Wit-Rusland...

quote:

Op maandag 25 september 2017 09:47 schreef KoosVogels het volgende:

[..]

Sorry, Rusland is awesome en slachtoffer van het kwaadaardige westen. Je hebt helemaal gelijk.

quote:

Presidential son-in-law and senior adviser Jared Kushner has corresponded with other administration officials about White House matters through a private email account set up during the transition last December, part of a larger pattern of Trump administration aides using personal email accounts for government business.

Kushner uses his private account alongside his official White House email account, sometimes trading emails with senior White House officials, outside advisers and others about media coverage, event planning and other subjects, according to four people familiar with the correspondence. POLITICO has seen and verified about two dozen emails.[...]

Aides who have exchanged emails with Kushner on his private account since President Donald Trump took office in January include former chief of staff Reince Priebus, former chief strategist Steve Bannon, National Economic Council director Gary Cohn, and spokesman Josh Raffel, according to emails described to or shown to POLITICO. In some cases, those White House officials have emailed Kushner’s account first, said people familiar with the messages. At times, Bannon and Priebus have also used private email accounts to correspond with Kushner and others.

quote:

Op maandag 25 september 2017 09:50 schreef crystal_meth het volgende:

[..]

Jij beweert dat Rusland zich koest houdt, als ik zeg dat dat niet het geval is kom je met zo'n reactie? Erg volwassen.

quote:

Op maandag 25 september 2017 09:58 schreef Ulx het volgende:
http://www.politico.com/s(...)l-white-house-243071

[..]

Lock them up!

quote:

Op maandag 25 september 2017 10:02 schreef Barbusse het volgende:

[..]

Dat is exact dezelfde link die ik 10 minuutjes geleden postte

quote:

Op maandag 25 september 2017 10:02 schreef Barbusse het volgende:

[..]

Dat is exact dezelfde link die ik 10 minuutjes geleden postte

quote:

Op zondag 24 september 2017 23:33 schreef Nintex het volgende:

[..]

De enige die ooit nukes heeft gebruikt was een Democraat genaamd Truman. Zelfs Nixon kon zich inhouden.

[..]

Hoezo niet? De hele wereld doet wat de VS zegt om geen ruzie te krijgen met Donald Trump.
Helemaal na die paar raketjes op Syrie is het wat betreft landjepik weer rustig in Oost Europa / Midden Oosten.

quote:

Op maandag 25 september 2017 10:10 schreef Szura het volgende:

[..]

Hoezo? De Amerikanen zelf zijn nog altijd bezig landjepik in het noordoosten van Syrië hoor.

quote:

Op maandag 25 september 2017 10:12 schreef Barbusse het volgende:

[..]

En staan daarin letterlijk lijnrecht tegenover de Russen atm...

quote:

Op maandag 25 september 2017 10:13 schreef Szura het volgende:

[..]

En die zijn niet illegaal in Syrië, itt de Amerikanen.

quote:

Op maandag 25 september 2017 09:55 schreef Ulx het volgende:
Jared Kushner used private email for White House business

Lock him up!

quote:

Op maandag 25 september 2017 10:17 schreef Wespensteek het volgende:

[..]

kushner@kremlin.ru?

quote:

Op maandag 25 september 2017 10:20 schreef Ulx het volgende:

[..]


Is het eigenlijk illegaal? Met dat onderzoek van Mueller kan dat nog meer problemen geven.

quote:

Op maandag 25 september 2017 10:20 schreef Ulx het volgende:

[..]


Is het eigenlijk illegaal? Met dat onderzoek van Mueller kan dat nog meer problemen geven.

quote:

Op zondag 24 september 2017 23:37 schreef Nibb-it het volgende:

[..]

quote:

The New Entry Suspensions and Restrictions: A Synopsis (with Update on SG Letter to Court)
Based on my very quick and preliminary reading of the President’s new proclamation, below is my summary of who is affected. I’ll update and correct this post as warranted. I wrote earlier today about the likely impact of the new restrictions on the cases pending in the Supreme Court. [UPDATE: Solicitor General Noel Francisco just sent the following letter to the Clerk of the Supreme Court. His proposal–that all parties simultaneously brief the impact of the new rules on Thursday, October 5–is rather odd. (Just Security).

SPOILER

After all, he’ll be filing his reply brief on Tuesday, October 3, and the parties, Justices and clerks will be spending the next couple of weeks preparing for the scheduled October 10 oral argument–an argument that might never happen. One might have thought the SG would instead file a brief now, or in the next few days, explaining to the Court why the cases are moot, and thereby save everyone the trouble of so much unnecessary work so close to oral argument.]:

Dear Mr. Harris:

Earlier today, the President issued the attached Proclamation, pursuant to Section 2(e) of Executive Order No. 13,780, 82 Fed. Reg. 13,209 (Mar. 9, 2017) (Order). The Proclamation takes effect (with certain exceptions) today, September 24, 2017, following the expiration of the 90-day entry suspension in Section 2(c) of the Order, which ends today. See pp. 26-27. As the Proclamation explains, it was issued after the completion of a worldwide review conducted under Section 2(a) of the Order to determine what additional information (if any) is needed from each foreign country to assess whether that country’s nationals who seek to enter the United States pose a security or safety threat. See pp. 1-7. At the recommendation of the Acting Secretary of Homeland Security, and in consultation with the Acting Secretary, the Secretaries of State and Defense, and the Attorney General, the Proclamation imposes certain conditional restrictions on entry into the United States of nationals of a small number of countries based on the President’s findings regarding those countries’ information-sharing capabilities and practices and other serious terrorism-related risks the countries present. See pp. 7-27. The government respectfully suggests that the Court direct the submission of simultaneous supplemental briefs from the parties, to be filed no later than 5:00 p.m. on October 5, 2017, addressing the effects of the Proclamation on the issues currently pending before the Court in these cases.



Sincerely, Noel J. Francisco, Solicitor General]
The entry of nationals of Sudan is no longer restricted.

The entry of the nationals of seven nations as immigrants is suspended indefinitely: Iran, Libya, Somalia, Syria and Yemen, all of which were subject to the March entry ban, as well as Chad and North Korea, which were not covered by the earlier ban. An “immigrant” is defined in the Proclamation as someone admitted on an immigrant visa, who would, when in the U.S., become a lawful permanent resident.

The entry of nonimmigrants is suspended as to some or all of the nationals of seven countries. In descending order of the comprehensiveness of the suspension:

The entry of nonimmigrants of the nationals of North Korea and Syria is suspended, without any country-specific categorical exceptions.

Nationals of Iran may not enter as nonimmigrants except under valid student (F and M) and exchange visitor (J) visas. Iranian nationals entering under those three forms of visas will be “subject to enhanced screening and vetting requirements.”

Nationals of Chad, Libya and Yemen may not enter as nonimmigrants on business (B-1), tourist (B-2), and business/tourist (B-1/B-2) visas, but may otherwise enter as nonimmigrants. This restriction applies as well to a small number of Venezuelan nationals — officials of Venezuelan agencies involved in screening and vetting procedures, including the Ministry of the Popular Power for Interior, Justice and Peace; the Administrative Service of Identification, Migration and Immigration; the Scientific, Penal and Criminal Investigation Service Corps; the Bolivarian National Intelligence Service; and the Ministry of the Popular Power for Foreign Relations, as well as their immediate family members.

All other nationals of Venezuela who are visa holders will be subject to appropriate additional measures to ensure their traveler information remains current.

And “additional scrutiny” will be applied to the visa adjudications and entry decisions regarding Somali nationals, “to determine if applicants are connected to terrorist organizations or otherwise pose a threat to the national security or public safety of the United States.”

* * * *

The suspensions will generally become effective at 12:01 a.m. eastern daylight time on October 18, 2017, except that their effect is immediate–i.e., continuing–for anyone in the covered categories whose entry was already barred by Section 2(c) of the March Executive Order as of this morning (that is to say, covered nationals of Iran, Libya, Somalia, Syria and Yemen who lack a credible claim of a bona fide relationship with a person or entity in the United States).

The suspensions will be regularly reevaluated, and no less frequently than every six months.

* * * *

As I read the proclamation, the various entry suspensions listed above do not apply to the following:

i. Lawful permanent residents of the United States.

ii. Persons who are inside the United States at 12:01 a.m. eastern daylight time on October 18, 2017.

iii. Persons who have a valid visa at 12:01 a.m. eastern daylight time on October 18, 2017.

iv. Any foreign national who has a document other than a visa — such as a transportation letter, an appropriate boarding foil, or an advance parole document — valid on October 18 or issued on any date thereafter, that permits him or her to travel to the United States and seek entry or admission.

v. Any dual national who is traveling on a passport issued by a country other than the eight covered countries.

vi. Anyone admitted to or paroled into the United States on or after October 18.

vii. A person traveling on a diplomatic or diplomatic-type visa, North Atlantic Treaty Organization visa, C-2 visa for travel to the United Nations, or G-1, G-2, G-3, or G-4 visa.

viii. A foreign national who has been granted asylum by the United States.

ix. A person who has been granted withholding of removal, advance parole, or protection under the Convention Against Torture.

x. A person who has already been admitted to the United States as a refugee. [It’s not clear to me what the limiting effect of “already” is supposed to be, because Section 6(e) specifies that an individual otherwise covered by the suspensions may continue to seek refugee status.]

xi. Any person granted a “case-by-case,” individualized waiver by a consular officer or CBP official, which “may be granted only if [the] foreign national demonstrates to the consular officer’s or CBP official’s satisfaction that: (A) denying entry would cause the foreign national undue hardship; (B) entry would not pose a threat to the national security or public safety of the United States; and (C) entry would be in the national interest.”

Five relevant government documents:

Proclamation: Enhancing Vetting Capabilities and Processes for Detecting Attempted Entry into the United States by Terrorists or Other Public-Safety Threats
Responses to Queries (RTQ) – For Internal Use Only
Fact Sheet and FAQ (0924) – Bullets
Fact Sheet V.11 – Narrative
Press Release President Donald J. Trump Announces Enhanced National Security Measures

quote:

Op maandag 25 september 2017 09:59 schreef KoosVogels het volgende:

[..]

Heb eerlijk gezegd geen behoefte aan een discussie over Rusland met iemand die dat land overduidelijk adoreert.

twitter:

SethAbramson twitterde op maandag 25-09-2017 om 03:09:49 (THREAD) This is a thread about Donald Trump. If what it says conforms with how you feel, I hope you'll consider sh… https://t.co/W9qj0slowq reageer retweet

quote:

Op maandag 25 september 2017 10:39 schreef Tijger_m het volgende:

[..]

Ja, Obama heeft de wet veranderd daaromtrent, volgens mij, onder de huidige regels is het illegaal om prive email voor overheidsdoeleinden te gebruiken.

quote:

Op maandag 25 september 2017 13:47 schreef Whiskers2009 het volgende:
Trump blijft gewoon doorzaniken over het knielen tijdens het volkslied:
https://mobile.twitter.co(...)s/912276850793213952
https://mobile.twitter.co(...)s/912278438127525888
https://mobile.twitter.co(...)s/912280282224525312

twitter:

JoeNBC twitterde op zondag 24-09-2017 om 15:16:00 This may be unpopular but it is a political reality:Every NFL player refusing to stand for the national anthem helps Trump politically. reageer retweet

quote:

Op maandag 25 september 2017 14:20 schreef crystal_meth het volgende:

twitter:

JoeNBC twitterde op zondag 24-09-2017 om 15:16:00 This may be unpopular but it is a political reality:Every NFL player refusing to stand for the national anthem helps Trump politically. reageer retweet

Joe Scarborough, MSNBC.
Heeft ie gelijk, levert het Trump meer steun op? Omdat een meerderheid van Amerikanen z'n mening delen, of minstens een hoger percentage dan z'n huidige approval rating? Of bedoelt ie iets anders?
http://thehill.com/homene(...)-to-stand-help-trump

quote:

Op maandag 25 september 2017 14:20 schreef crystal_meth het volgende:

twitter:

JoeNBC twitterde op zondag 24-09-2017 om 15:16:00 This may be unpopular but it is a political reality:Every NFL player refusing to stand for the national anthem helps Trump politically. reageer retweet

Joe Scarborough, MSNBC.
Heeft ie gelijk, levert het Trump meer steun op? Omdat een meerderheid van Amerikanen z'n mening delen, of minstens een hoger percentage dan z'n huidige approval rating? Of bedoelt ie iets anders?
http://thehill.com/homene(...)-to-stand-help-trump

quote:

Op maandag 25 september 2017 10:45 schreef Nibb-it het volgende:

[..]

[..]

quote:

What Does the New Travel Ban Say About Trump’s Relationship to Judges? Stay Tuned…
In coming days and weeks, much of the discussion about President Donald Trump’s new travel ban will focus on its similarities and differences from its predecessors and what those mean for its avowed constitutionality and statutory basis. And rightly so. For the moment, though, it’s worth pausing to reflect on what its very issuance means for this President’s relationship to the courts. (Just Security).

SPOILER

As with other signature Trump activities, from the pardon of former Sheriff Joe Arpaio to the practices of the Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity (a.k.a. the “Pence-Kobach Commission”), the issuance of a new travel ban just weeks before the Supreme Court was scheduled to hear oral argument on the last one may sit uneasily with one’s sense of proper Executive Branch respect for the judiciary. Yet, just as with those other matters, there are ways to see the timing of the new travel ban as cause for special concern about this White House’s approach to the courts, and ways to see it as fairly ordinary Executive practice. It’s important to spell out these different views and to consider why, at this point, each could be valid.

Let’s start with the new travel ban itself. There’s one sense in which Sunday’s new presidential “proclamation” is deeply worrisome when considered in the context of judicial review of Executive Branch actions. Since the very day on which the first travel ban was issued, there has been extensive litigation about whether it, and then its successor, were lawful. And, at last, the highest court in the land was going to serve, as it so often does on critical issues of Executive authority, as the final word—“not final because we are infallible, but . . . infallible only because we are final,” in the famous words of Justice Robert Jackson. Now, it seems as if the Trump Administration has snatched that finality away from all of us. Don’t we all deserve to know whether this centerpiece of Trump’s campaign and the first several months of the Administration was or was not a lawful exercise of his authority? What about the many lives disrupted by the first and second iterations of the travel ban—don’t those individuals deserve their day in court? What if the newest travel ban is successfully challenged and, again, on the eve of the Court’s assessing its legality, the White House were to roll out something new and purportedly different enough to moot the challenge, as the Administration seems likely to argue that Sunday’s proclamation does for the current challenge? (Whether the Court accepts that argument is, of course, an open question for the moment, though it’s a distinct possibility.) All told, there are ways to tell the story of Sunday’s issuance as a sign that, even if the Trump Administration does not intend to flout decisions of the courts outright, it does seek to avoid giving the Supreme Court the chance to declare key Administration actions unlawful.

But there are other ways to tell the story, too. First, the previous travel ban was explicitly “temporary” and therefore set to expire at some point. There was, of course, no obligation on the part of the Administration to renew it simply to preserve the possibility of judicial review. Indeed, one might see the most recent alteration as a triumph of litigation and the adverse judgments of lower federal courts, even if the replacement may offer new fodder to challenge in its own right. But the Administration had to do something upon expiration, and so it chose to make some changes, at least purportedly based on new information and activities that arose in the interim. Second, even if the Administration made the change in part to avoid the Supreme Court’s review of the earlier ban, that’s hardly a stark departure from previous Executive practice. To give just one example, it’s hard to imagine that imminent Supreme Court arguments didn’t hasten the Obama Administration’s efforts to resettle certain Uighurs held at Guantanamo Bay, thus avoiding the Court’s review of thorny questions associated with their detention and resettlement. Indeed, it’s a typical strategy of Executive Branch lawyers to avoid potentially adverse rulings from any federal court, especially the Supreme Court, and that hasn’t been seen traditionally as an improper approach. And, yes, aggrieved plaintiffs generally deserve their day in court, but they do not necessarily get it in the Supreme Court. All told, there’s a way to view Sunday’s issuance of a new travel ban as consistent with what the White House had always said about its travel ban’s status; with the impact of lower court rulings to which the Administration had adhered, however begrudgingly; and with traditional Executive Branch lawyering.

So, one is inclined to look to other examples to assess how much we should worry about this President’s evading and potentially even defying the judiciary. Yet, there are similarly competing stories that can be told about other key examples.

Take the President’s pardon of Arpaio. It too can be argued either way. I’ve written elsewhere that this is, at a minimum, no ordinary pardon—that it takes direct aim at a pronouncement on constitutional rights by the federal judiciary and that it deserves at least heightened scrutiny for that reason. Viewed in this light, the pardon is, like the issuance of a new travel ban, a way for Trump to ignore the judiciary: in the case of the travel ban, by pulling it out from under the Supreme Court’s nose before it can inspect it; in the case of Arpaio, by declaring that he was “doing his job” when one federal judge had found him to be violating constitutional rights and another had found him guilty of criminal contempt for persisting in such violations.

At the same time, there’s another story that could be told, in which any pardon is, in effect, a second-guessing of a judicial determination, whether before or after it’s actually been rendered. That’s when a pardon is issued, after all: when a President elects not to leave a final determination of punishment to a court. While there are reasons that the Arpaio instance may be distinctively troubling (which I explore in the other piece), the key point here is that, again, we’re left uncertain about how to understand it in terms of Trump’s relationship to the federal judiciary. Should we view the Arpaio pardon as a Trumpian defiance and disrespect of the courts or as a relatively traditional exercise of Executive prerogative, perhaps simply unfortunate in how Trump chose to wield and describe it?

Or take the recent revelation that the Pence-Kobach Commission flatly disobeyed a previous pledge to share with the public all relevant records before the Commission’s first meeting. The Commission’s Executive Director had promised to make the Commission’s records public; but it failed to do so, including documents discussed by Commission members at the first meeting and even a PowerPoint presentation that the Commission’s staff has acknowledged it knew would be shared at the session. When a federal judge admonishes the Executive Branch that “you didn’t live up to the representations” made before a much-anticipated meeting, there’s good reason to worry that the Commission isn’t operating on the level, despite the massive amount of litigation that’s been brought precisely to increase the transparency associated with its activities. (To be clear, this concern is directed at the Commission itself—not at the able and long-serving Justice Department lawyers who had to bear the judge’s wrath.) At the same time, perhaps these misrepresentations were, as the Administration has subsequently alleged in court, simply growing pains for a new Commission. On that view, whatever other concerns the Commission may raise, these particular mistakes were not so much an example of deliberate misrepresentations to the public and to the judiciary as a symptom of more mundane, organizational disarray.

All in all, what should we make of these early examples of Trump’s relationship to the judiciary? I’m reminded of the answer that Zhoi Enlai purportedly gave to Henry Kissinger when Kissinger asked for Enlai’s assessment of the French Revolution: “too early to say.” One could imagine further evidence emerging over coming months that points toward a firmer conclusion in one direction or the other. For example, accounts of the White House’s decision-making calculus on these and other issues may emerge, tipping the scales. Moreover, if a growing set of data points appears to fit a single explanation—defiance of the judiciary, at least of a sort—that explanation will grow more compelling. Until we reach that point, however, we remain uncertain, not knowing which account is right, and not knowing just how much we should worry about the extent to which this Administration intends to accept or challenge the integrity of our nation’s courts.

quote:

The Only Way to Defend Against Russia’s Information War
WASHINGTON — Since the American presidential election, RT and Sputnik, Russia’s state-funded foreign media networks, have dominated the discussion about the United States’ response to Russian disinformation. This month, the American government debated whether those outlets should be categorized as foreign agents; a recent article in The New York Times Magazine labeled RT “the most effective propaganda operation of the 21st century so far.” (New York Times).

SPOILER

Many Americans seem increasingly to embrace the belief that snuffing out these networks and otherwise responding directly to Russian fakes will win the information war. It won’t. To win this fight, Americans need to think seriously about why RT, Sputnik and “fake news” resonate with so many people in the first place.

RT and Sputnik are bellwethers for the progressing American policy response to disinformation. On Sept. 14, Molly McKew, a writer and consultant who describes herself as an “information warfare expert,” testified before Congress that these “media outlets” and others “deep within the shadow space” have infected America. In response, Ms. McKew would have us “develop a rapid response capability for irregular information warfare” to “secure our information space.” She also recommended more regulation for social media.

Unfortunately, these views are shared by many people who work in the burgeoning anti-fake-news field. They discuss responding directly to Russia by restricting speech, flagging false information on public platforms and opening centers to counter disinformation. The creation of a Western media antidote to RT is floated regularly, even though the channel has only about eight million viewers in the United States each week. (While it has more viewers on YouTube, they are largely brought in by memes or disaster videos, not news.)

What no one seems to care to discuss is the people who are targets of Russian disinformation, why its narratives find fertile ground among them and what can be done to change that.

Continue reading the main story
According to the Pew Research Center, only 20 percent of Americans trust their government. The same low percentage has “a lot” of trust in the national news media. It’s impossible to say definitively what causes this mistrust, but its growth has coincided with the rise of both the adrenaline-driven internet news cycle and the dying of local journalism over the past two decades. Without news that connects people to their town councils or county fair, or stories that analyze how federal policies affect local businesses, people are left with news about big banks in New York and dirty politics in Washington.

Readers compare this coverage with their dwindling bank balances and crumbling infrastructure and feel disconnected and disenfranchised, and latch onto something — anything — that speaks to them. That might be President Trump’s tweets. Or dubious “news” from an extreme right- or left-wing site might ring true. Or they might turn to Russian disinformation, which exploits this trust gap.

All is not lost. Disinformation can be defeated without the establishment of a shiny new initiative cased in the language of Cold War 2.0. Instead of “rapid information operations,” the United States should work to systematically rebuild analytical skills across the American population and invest in the media to ensure that it is driven by truth, not clicks.

The fight starts in people’s minds, and the molding of them. In K-12 curriculums, states should encourage a widespread refocusing on critical reading and analysis skills for the digital age. Introductory seminars at universities should include a crash course in sourcing and emotional manipulation in the media. Similar courses could be created as professional development for adults, beginning with state employees. Large corporations could be offered government incentives to participate, too.

Training like this has a proven track record. In Ukraine, IREX, a nongovernmental organization, trained 15,000 people in critical thinking, source evaluation and emotional manipulation. As a result, IREX measured a 29 percent increase in participants who double check the news they consume. Another neighbor of Russia, Finland, has been resistant to Russian influence in part because of its media education program, which begins in childhood.

The American government should also work to level the information playing field, increasing its investment in public broadcasters and demanding a hefty financial commitment from companies like Facebook and Twitter — the unwitting agents of Russia’s information war — to support the proliferation of local, citizen-focused journalism. If social networks are unwilling to be the arbiters of truth (despite 45 percent of American adults’ getting news from Facebook), they should at the very least provide grants to reporters who cover the local issues that most immediately affect people’s lives and donate advertising to small outlets that cannot compete with national media giants.

Finally, under no circumstances should the United States attempt to restrict freedom of the media. The United States might label RT or Sputnik a foreign agent, but it should never ban them. It also need not reinvent the wheel by creating an American version of RT. These would be grave mistakes that would erode America’s position as a beacon of free speech. They would contribute to the crisis of trust that makes Russian disinformation successful in the first place.

Russia has very deftly exploited America’s weaknesses — but these are weaknesses of our own making. Until policy makers start putting people at the heart of their fight against disinformation, they will continue to be easy targets for Russian lies.

quote:

Op maandag 25 september 2017 14:58 schreef Nibb-it het volgende:
What Does the New Travel Ban Say About Trump’s Relationship to Judges? Stay Tuned…

quote:

Op maandag 25 september 2017 14:39 schreef brokjespoes het volgende:
En er zijn veel Amerikanen die vinden dat #DOTUS moet ophouden met zich gedragen of Puerto Rico van Mexico is en hij dus alle vrijheid heeft om over sport (en sport-ratings) te zeiken.

(Daar sta je dan in Texas, Florida, Puerto Rico & de Maagdeneilanden orkaantroep op te ruimen en het enige waar jouw president zich in de media mee bezig houdt is wat een enorme teven de moeders van gekleurde sporters zijn en dat die sporters maar snel ontslagen moeten worden.)

Puerto Rico wordt bijvoorbeeld nu al "Trump's Katrina" genoemd.

quote:

Op maandag 25 september 2017 15:06 schreef Tchock het volgende:
Hoe cru ook, Puerto Rico is niet zo heel interessant. Het eiland is al decennia achtergesteld en dat interesseert Amerikanen grosso modo helemaal geen fuck. Puerto Ricanen kunnen niet eens kiezen wie zij als hun president willen.

Puerto Rico: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO)

John Oliver had er een jaar geleden een goed item over. Eigenlijk zou Puerto Rico gewoon de 51e staat moeten worden, dat zou veel ongelijkheid oplossen. Maar daar wil Washington niet aan.

quote:

Op maandag 25 september 2017 14:39 schreef brokjespoes het volgende:
En er zijn veel Amerikanen die vinden dat #DOTUS moet ophouden met zich gedragen of Puerto Rico van Mexico is en hij dus alle vrijheid heeft om over sport (en sport-ratings) te zeiken.

(Daar sta je dan in Texas, Florida, Puerto Rico & de Maagdeneilanden orkaantroep op te ruimen en het enige waar jouw president zich in de media mee bezig houdt is wat een enorme teven de moeders van gekleurde sporters zijn en dat die sporters maar snel ontslagen moeten worden.)

Puerto Rico wordt bijvoorbeeld nu al "Trump's Katrina" genoemd.

quote:

Op maandag 25 september 2017 15:25 schreef klappernootopreis het volgende:
het wachten is op Trumps Waterloo.

quote:

Secret Service arrest man near White House with nine guns in his car

Secret Service officers arrested a man near the White House on Sunday for public urination and found nine guns and three knives in his car after taking him into custody, according to reports.

Agents approached the unnamed man by the Renwick Gallery at 17th Street and Pennsylvania Avenue NW. The man told agents he was on his way to speak with National Security Agency Director Adm. Mike Rogers and Defense Secretary Jim Mattis regarding "advice on missing paychecks and how to get the chip out of my head," according to an incident report CNN cited.

SPOILER

[quote]The suspect admitted to Secret Service agents that he had weapons in his 2009 silver Nissan.

Upon searching the car, law enforcement found AR- and AK-style rifles, as well as brass knuckles, suppressors and various types of ammunition.

The man was taken in for "mental observation" before being charged for the weapons violations.
[/quote]

quote:

Where Do Americans Stand on Military Action Against North Korea?
In his debut before the U.N. General Assembly last week, President Trump vowed to “totally destroy North Korea” if the United States “is forced to defend itself or its allies.” Analysts are divided over whether the president’s message aids or undermines efforts to resolve the crisis on the Korean Peninsula. In domestic politics, however, polling suggests that the president’s hawkishness may be outpacing public sentiment. (Lawfare).

SPOILER

Just 33 percent of Americans believe the United States should threaten North Korea with military action to try to settle the current situation, according to a CBS News poll fielded in the days after Trump’s pledge to unleash “fire and fury” against Kim Jong Un’s regime. American attitudes on this question are—perhaps unsurprisingly—strongly colored by partisanship. Ninety percent of Democrats oppose the president’s threats of military action, as do 58 percent of independent voters. Republicans are less monolithic than are Democrats: Nearly two-thirds of Republicans support threats of military action, while 30 percent oppose them.

Americans are also decidedly split on the potential for economic and diplomatic tools to produce a peaceful outcome. A CNN poll released at the end of last week found that just 43 percent of Americans believe the situation in North Korea can be resolved through economic and diplomatic efforts. This figure that includes a thin majority of Democrats (55 percent), and a minority of Independents (43 percent) and Republicans (32 percent). Optimism about prospects for a diplomatic solution appears to have declined in recent weeks, as North Korea continues to launch missiles that may becapable of hitting the United States and its territories. Last month, a Quinnipiac Survey found that 64 percent of Americans believed the U.S. would be able to resolve the situation diplomatically rather than militarily. While the poll questions used slightly different wording, the shift in sentiment is striking. This shift may well be animated by the perception that North Korea poses an “imminent” threat to the United States, a viewpoint held by half of Americans, including a majority of Republicans (61 percent) and a plurality of Democrats (45 percent) and independents (48 percent).

When it comes to commitments to U.S. allies in North Korea’s vicinity, 74 percent of Americans affirm that the United States has a duty to protect its allies, according to a new NPR/Ipsos poll. This view enjoys cross-party support—from roughly three-quarters each of Republicans, Democrats and independents. The support is strongest among Republicans. Forty percent of Republicans say they “strongly agree” that the United States has an obligation to protects its allies in East Asia—nearly twice the share of Democrats who say same. Republican sentiment appears to keep pace with Trump’s apparent about-face from espousing isolationism during the campaign to affirming “ironclad” diplomatic commitments as president.

In a further departure from isolationism, 58 percent of Americans say they would support military action against North Korea if peaceful efforts fail to achieve the United States’ goals. This figure includes a striking share of Republicans: 82 percent. And 55 percent of independents and 46 percent of Democrats say the same. Americans are significantly more hawkish now than they were in January 2003, shortly after North Korea restarted its nuclear reactors and expelled international inspectors. At that time, a Gallup poll found that only 47 percent of Americans said they would support military action if diplomatic efforts fail. Republicans appear to being driving this shift in sentiment: GOP support for military action increased 23 points, from 59 percent to 82 percent. Democrats’ opposition to the use of military force, by contrast, has intensified since 2003, bumping up from 41 t to 46 percent.

The support for military action detailed above is predicated on the failure of diplomatic efforts, and Americans do not yet believe diplomatic efforts have failed. Three quarters (76 percent) support the imposition of even tougher economic sanctions, while just 39 percent of Americans say they would support bombing North Korean military targets, according to a Washington Post/ABC News poll released this weekend.

Defining the point where economic and diplomatic efforts fail is complex as a matter of policy, and the associated politics will almost certainly be fraught with partisan commitments. Americans’ support for military strikes against North Korea may turn on whether the public comes to believe—as national security adviser H.R. McMaster has suggested in recent days—that the United States faces an imminent threat and a dearth of diplomatic options.

quote:

Op maandag 25 september 2017 16:15 schreef Whiskers2009 het volgende:
En hoppa, weer een tweet over hetzelfde https://mobile.twitter.co(...)s/912301271817838593
En nog een retweet erachter aan

quote:

Op maandag 25 september 2017 16:13 schreef klappernootopreis het volgende:
https://www.newyorker.com(...)idence-against-trump

quote:

Op maandag 25 september 2017 16:17 schreef Whiskers2009 het volgende:

[..]

Je weet dat het satire is he?
Even voor de zekerheid

quote:

Op maandag 25 september 2017 16:16 schreef klappernootopreis het volgende:

[..]

Volgens mij is hij dement..

quote:

Op maandag 25 september 2017 00:27 schreef Nibb-it het volgende:

[..]

[..]

quote:

Half-Truths on U.S. Lethal Operations and Policy Constraints
Late last week, Charlie Savage and Eric Schmitt of the New York Times reported that President Donald Trump might soon adopt a new policy on U.S. lethal operations outside hot warzones. As reported, the new policy would make two key changes to the Presidential Policy Guidance (PPG), which President Obama adopted in 2013. First, it would eliminate the requirement that anyone targeted for attack be suspected of posing a “continuing imminent threat” to Americans. The targetable class would be enlarged to include, as Savage and Schmitt put it, “foot-soldier jihadists with no special skills or leadership roles.” Second, the new framework would no longer require “high-level vetting” of decisions to use lethal force; it would devolve decision-making authority to people closer to the operational level. (Just Security).

SPOILER

When the news broke, Luke Hartig wrote an excellent article for Just Security analyzing the reported changes. I agree with a lot of what Luke says and strongly recommend his piece. In particular, he’s right that we need more details before we can assess the implications of any policy change. Still, I’m less optimistic than he seems to be. To explain why, I want to expose the problems with three common claims on the PPG. These claims are not completely wrong, but neither are they completely correct. They obscure why the reported changes have the potential to be both legally and operationally significant—and quite problematic.

1. Half-truth: IHL governs these situations

Start with the U.S. position on the international legal standards that govern these operations. The United States has consistently claimed that it is in a borderless armed conflict with various terrorist groups and that wartime standards—i.e., standards of international humanitarian law (IHL)—apply. To the extent that IHL governs these lethal operations, it effectively displaces or redefines the content of international human rights law, which generally imposes more rigorous conditions on such conduct.

There is little doubt that IHL governs U.S. lethal operations in actual warzones. But there continues to be a heated debate about whether and, if so, to what extent it applies outside those areas—in situations for which the PPG is designed. This uncertainty means that the claim that IHL necessarily governs is misleading.

Luke suggests, as many others do, that the alternative to applying IHL is to apply what are essentially law enforcement standards under human rights law. That suggestion makes the application of IHL seem almost inevitable. (Is the United States really going to adopt the same protocols in, say, Yemen as it uses for everyday policing in New York?) But as I have underscored elsewhere, the standard in human rights law for using lethal force is itself highly context-dependent. Human rights institutions apply the standard more loosely—and afford a state more discretion to kill—when the situation is chaotic, and the state lacks much operational control, compared to when it acts in a typical law enforcement setting. Further, a state might have more wiggle room in certain extraterritorial situations than in its own jurisdiction.

The point is that, for the situations in which the PPG applies, the governing international legal standard on lethal operations remains unsettled. What can be said is that, as a situation’s resemblance to a hot battlefield becomes less apparent, IHL’s application becomes more dubious—and is more likely to be perceived and treated as the wrong legal standard.

The PPG reflects a recognition by the United States that, notwithstanding its legal claim, applying IHL outside areas of active hostilities is usually excessive. It manages that problem with the threat threshold—the requirement that any target be suspected of posing a “continuing, imminent threat to U.S. persons.” This requirement is more restrictive than “pure” IHL would be. Eliminating it would move the U.S. framework closer to an IHL one, in situations in which IHL’s application is already dubious. In other words, the change would make U.S. lethal operations more legally suspect.

The implications could be significant. For example, U.S. allies might be less willing to acquiesce in or assist operations that the United States claims is governed solely by IHL, as the locus of activity looks less and less like a warzone, and more like a normal law enforcement situation. That risk is not mere speculation. Two former National Security Council officials, Chris Fonzone and Stephen Pomper, recently wrote the following in an important article in Just Security:

“[T]he elevated targeting standards of the existing playbook — which, as a default, focus U.S. efforts on “continuing, imminent threats to U.S. persons” when operating away from hot battlefields — are designed to increase the sustainability of U.S. operations by focusing them on high-leverage opportunities and potentially limiting political and local blowback. (They also help align our targeting standards with those of partners who may take the view that an imminent threat must be identified in order for there to be a legal basis to take a strike.)”
2. Half-truth: There are few, if any, civilian casualties

The PPG supplements the application of pure IHL in another respect. It aims to ensure “near certainty” that U.S. lethal operations will not injure or kill civilians outside areas of active hostilities. According to the Savage and Schmitt story, the Trump administration intends to preserve this part of the PPG. Luke says that keeping it would be a “dramatic affirmation that minimizing civilian casualties is both a moral and strategic imperative.”

Yes and no. The near certainty test helps limit civilian casualties, relative to what IHL would do. Under IHL, states may injure or kill civilians, after taking the relevant precautions to protect them and to ensure that their harms do not exceed the military gains of an operation.

But whether the United States satisfies the near certainty test depends on how it defines the categories of “civilian” and “combatant.” In its conflicts against militant Islamist groups, the United States defines “combatant” broadly—to include people who more mainstream definitions classify as civilians. I don’t want to get into the definitional weeds here. What’s important is that the U.S. claim that it causes virtually no civilian casualties might rest on a set of definitions that many others in the international community (including U.S. allies) reject.

The PPG currently limits the practical effect of the U.S. definition with the threat threshold. Again, this threshold defines the targetable class as people who are suspected of posing a “continuing imminent threat to U.S. persons.” If the United States were to eliminate the threshold and begin attacking low-level people who are not known to have any special skills or leadership role, it would increase its risk of killing people who it defines as combatants but by many other accounts are civilians. This would undercut the U.S. claim that its lethal operations outside areas of active hostilities rarely, if ever, harm civilians. Aside from the normative questions that this change would raise, it could create new public relations problems for the government and for U.S. relationships with foreign partners.

The change would also raise new questions about the operations’ legality. IHL permits states to cause proportionate harms to civilians when attacking combatants. But it prohibits states from purposefully directing lethal force at civilians. Because eliminating the threat threshold increases the likelihood that the United States will target for attack people whose combatant designation is dubious, it increases the likelihood that the United States will conduct operations that are, to say the least, legally suspect. The problem here has nothing to do with the relationship between IHL and human rights law. The problem is that the change could make the operations more dubious under IHL. To put the point strongly, deliberately attacking a civilian is a war crime, and the defense against such an accusation might turn on the reasonableness of adopting non-standard definitions of “combatant” and “civilians.”

3. Half-truth: The PPG is not operationally relevant

Finally, some people claim that the PPG does not really constrain the United States. The claim is not entirely unfounded. As Bobby Chesney emphasized last week on Lawfare, the PPG is not binding law. It is an internal executive branch policy. The executive branch thus may change or deviate from it at its discretion (as the Trump administration now seems poised to do). Further, as Savage and Schmitt report, the government seems to have evaded the PPG in specific situations in which it would have had real bite.

But the claim is misleading to the extent that it suggests that the PPG does not materially affect decision-making—and thus that revising the PPG would not be operationally significant. In fact, the PPG establishes the executive branch’s default positions on lethal operations. Once those positions are in place, deviating from them becomes harder, rather than easier, especially for officials who do not have high-level positions in the government. In particular, the PPG vetting process helps limit the extent to which any one official or agency is able to push U.S. practice in a radically new direction, without first defending that change internally and accounting for a broad range of the considerations at stake (including the nonmilitary considerations). Loosening the PPG’s substantive and procedural requirements would, quite simply, make it easier for individual officials to conduct lethal operations—which presumably is why a new administration would spend months assessing how and to what extent to do away with the policy.

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Op maandag 25 september 2017 16:26 schreef Whiskers2009 het volgende:

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Volgens mij wil hij zijn zin doordrammen....

Dat er verder eea niet helemaal ok is in zijn bovenkamer ben ik wel met je eens.

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Op maandag 25 september 2017 09:59 schreef KoosVogels het volgende:

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Heb eerlijk gezegd geen behoefte aan een discussie over Rusland met iemand die dat land overduidelijk adoreert.

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Op maandag 25 september 2017 16:43 schreef Szura het volgende:
21 maanden voor Weiner