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Red Scares, Then and Now
The United States experienced its first “Red Scare” immediately after World War I. For three years, Russians were said to be inciting worker revolts and strikes as part of an orchestrated campaign to undermine American capitalism. Then, on April 29, 1920, US Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer warned that two days hence, on May Day, American workers would rise up to topple the US government by force. It didn’t happen, and the Red Scare vanished almost as quickly as it had appeared. (Carnegie).

SPOILER

The US suffered another Red Scare following World War II. The Soviet Union’s development of its own atomic bomb, together with the “loss” of China to Mao Zedong and the Chinese Communists, fueled a febrile terror within the US that, in retrospect, hardly seems believable. American companies, particularly Hollywood film studios, created blacklists of suspected leftists, ruining countless lives.

In Washington, DC, proceedings in the US Congress indiscriminately labeled renowned figures from General George C. Marshall to Secretary of State Dean Acheson as communist stooges. Senator Joseph McCarthy of Wisconsin – whose henchman, Roy Cohn, would later mentor Donald Trump – established such a lasting legacy of calumny that his methods still bear his name: McCarthyism. And yet, soon enough, congressional hearings and a television documentary exposed McCarthy as a liar and a demagogue. As in 1920, the Red Scare of the early 1950s faded almost as quickly as it had begun.

The paranoid style in American Kremlinology
Just when we are marking the centenary of the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia, another Red Scare seems to be underway, owing to revelations that Russia interfered in the 2016 US presidential election. With Special Counsel Robert S. Mueller having begun to unearth substantive links between members of the Trump presidential campaign and official Russian circles, a sense of Russia-centered paranoia is setting in.

New revelations that hundreds of malignant Russian social media trolls were active during the US election, as well as the Brexit referendum campaign, has helped to elevate this fear even more. But, while those trolls certainly aimed to mock Western democracy, suggesting that they meaningfully subverted either of those votes is to give them far too much credit.

The danger now is that valid concerns about Russian interference in the US political system will give way to conspiracy theories, as in past Red Scares. At a congressional hearing in September, Representative Gwen Moore of Wisconsin complained that, during the 2016 presidential election, she received a robocall from a speaker with “clearly a Slavic voice” urging her to vote against Hillary Clinton. Other commentators have pointed to links between the National Rifle Association and Russia, as if Russian President Vladimir Putin is somehow responsible for America’s many mass shootings. And still others suggest that Russia has sought to destabilize the US through the mobile game Pokémon Go.

All of these claims are focused strictly on US politics, rather than on larger geopolitical considerations. But, given that Soviet communism collapsed more than a quarter-century ago, it is worth asking what threat the Kremlin really poses to the US. From what we know, the Kremlin’s main objective in the 2016 election was merely to embarrass a rival politician – Clinton – and buttress Trump, with whom it hoped to forge a working relationship.

The fact is that modern Russia does not pose a great threat to the US, the European Union, or the West generally. China is a far wealthier authoritarian power than Russia. And now that he has consolidated his power, Chinese President Xi Jinping enjoys a level of global influence that Putin can only dream of.

Beyond China, Saudi Arabia is crueler and more erratic than Russia; and Pakistan is more volatile. Even Turkey, a member of NATO, is a more flagrant abuser of human rights than Russia. Since the failed coup there in July 2016, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s government has imprisoned thousands of journalists, civil servants, and opposition figures. Moreover, Turkey has a unique capacity to destabilize Europe by creating a thoroughfare for undocumented migrants and refugees from Syria and other parts of the region.

The Western ID
But Russia poses a different kind of challenge, rooted in Putin’s claims to represent an alternative vision for the West. As Europeans, Russians are supposed to be like us, but following a different script. Like the Bolsheviks a century ago, Putin has been openly challenging European and American notions of what the future is supposed to look like.

In 1917, Western Europeans and Americans were shocked by the Bolsheviks’ abolition of private property and proclamation of universal equality. During the first Red Scare, Western leaders feared that reports from the newly formed Soviet Union would spark a chain reaction of workers’ revolts across Europe and America. For a few years, Germany, at least, seemed to be on the brink of following in the Bolsheviks’ footsteps, with Lenin himself anticipating that it would happen any day.

Compared to Lenin’s project, Putin’s has been reactive and intellectually incoherent. Rather than issuing a clarion call for forward-looking social progress, and offering a blueprint for how to achieve it, Putin would pull Europe backwards, into the same sort of moral and economic cul-de-sac in which Russia now finds itself. In Putin’s Russia, the goal is a return to a putative Golden Age based on the “traditional family,” Christianity, and heavy industry.

According to Putin and leading Russian politicians, the West, with its focus on individual autonomy, including gay rights, has forgotten the terms father and mother, husband and wife. “We see how many Euro-Atlantic countries have basically set off on a path of rejecting their roots, including the Christian values that comprise the foundation of Western civilization,” Putin told Western delegates at the 2013 Valdai Forum. “This is a policy in which a family with many children and a single-sex marriage, belief in God and belief in the Devil, are put on the same level.”

Though Putin’s ideological project is radically different from that of the Soviet Union, it does share Bolshevism’s proselytizing fervor. In fact, just last month, Russia revived the Soviet-era World Festival of Youth and Students in Sochi, and invited young people from across Europe to join in the “struggle against imperialism.”

With messages like these, Russia plays the role of Europe’s id. It is a militarist, populist, patriotic, dynamic, politically incorrect response to the ego of European elites. Intellectually, Putin’s project is a sloppy bricolage of old leftist ideas and conservative dogmas. But it still manages to expose European and American insecurities about the “Western project” – and appeal to Western populists of both the left and the right. In fact, Russian officials have been amazed, and sometimes delighted, by the moral panic that they have sown in the West. As Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov told CNN in October 2016, “It’s flattering, of course, to get this kind of attention – for a regional power, as President [Barack] Obama called us some time ago.”

Getting Russia right
So how should the West, and particularly the US, respond? For starters, we should remember that Russia is dangerous only so far as Western societies allow it to sow confusion in their midst. Politically and economically, its power is quite limited. Consider the big story of the day: Russia’s intervention in the 2016 election, which was effective, but hardly decisive. The story has persisted largely for two reasons. First, the Democrats are desperate to explain how they lost an election they had expected to win. And, second, reports continue to emerge about members of the Trump campaign showing a brazen willingness to accept assistance from a foreign power.

But this story tells us much more about the sad state of US politics than it does about the capabilities of the Kremlin. Russia’s smaller neighbors, not least Georgia and Ukraine, have real reasons to regard Russia as a threat to their sovereignty. Britain, the US, and Germany do not. Russia’s GDP is half that of California. Its defense budget is one-tenth that of the US. And the channels through which it exports its propaganda, RT and Sputnik, are marginal media outlets that few in the West watch.

Moreover, Putin’s Russia, like Xi’s China, has a paucity of strategic allies. At the United Nations General Assembly in March 2014, only 11 small countries – including Armenia, North Korea, and Zimbabwe – opposed a resolution condemning Russia’s seizure of Crimea. That is a far cry from the influence the Soviet Union once enjoyed.

The Putin government’s unpredictable and provocative behavior may appear threatening, but it really amounts to an effort to compensate for the Kremlin’s inability to project real power. The fact that Russia has scored any geopolitical successes at all in recent years is largely due to its adversaries’ weaknesses. A power vacuum in Ukraine allowed it to capture Crimea with troops it already had on the ground at Sebastopol. And a cyber-illiterate Democratic National Committee gave Russian hackers easy access to its email server.

In both cases, tactical success elided strategic failure. Yes, Russia now controls Crimea; but it has forever lost Ukraine as a friendly neighbor on its border. Similarly, the election meddling has united America’s two major political parties against Russia, perhaps for a generation. Congressional Republicans and Democrats can agree on little else, but they came together to impose further sanctions on Russia, against the wishes of the Trump administration.

The way ahead
As it happens, the best way for Western countries to respond to Russian posturing is to boost their own resilience – morally and practically. For starters, Western countries need to fix easily exploitable flaws in their political systems. A prime example is the Electoral College in the US, which dates back to 1787, and in 2016 produced precisely the type of perverse result that it was intended to prevent.

More broadly, Western countries must do more than merely assert their moral superiority in response to Russian deception and aggression in Syria, Ukraine, the Caucasus, and elsewhere. American and European claims of representing a “values- and rules-based system” ring hollow in the Kremlin, and not without reason. Lest we forget, the US invaded Iraq unilaterally in 2003, has refused to join international rules-based institutions such as the International Criminal Court, and is now the only country not participating in the Paris climate agreement.

The EU is even more committed to multilateralism and the rules-based order than the US is; but it, too, behaves in ways that contradict its professed values. In 2013, after getting into a geopolitical bidding war with Russia over Ukraine, the EU offered an Association Agreement to then-Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych – a man now reviled as a kleptocratic tyrant. Russian leaders are happy to hold up a mirror to the West and say, “Take a good look. You are just like us.”

Westerners should acknowledge their own moral failings and maintain a sense of humility when calling out Russian transgressions. Only in that spirit are they entitled to recall that the Kremlin’s record of double standards is far worse. After all, Russia killed tens of thousands of its own citizens in Chechnya, all in the name of preserving its “territorial integrity,” and then blithely changed international borders by force in both Georgia and Ukraine.

Moreover, as Western leaders develop a Russia strategy, they should keep in mind the country’s internal dynamics. Russia is no longer as clearly divided between workers, peasants, and aristocrats as it was in 1917. Since Putin came to power in 2000, an urban middle class has emerged, and its values are more conventionally European than those of any other social group in Russian history.

Metropolitan centers such as Moscow and St. Petersburg now have bicycle lanes, yoga classes, and latte-serving cafes. These amenities reflect much more than lifestyle choices. They show that when Russians have the money, they will travel to Europe or the US, learn European languages, and adopt Western culture. On occasion, they will even make political demands, as they did in the street protests of 2011-2012, and in Moscow’s recent municipal elections. Unlike the Bolsheviks, the Putin regime has not cracked down on this class of Russians. It merely regards them as “internal exiles” who should be kept out of political life.

Tear down that wall
If the US and European governments really want to demonstrate that their version of Western culture is the better one, they need to devise policies for reaching out to Russia’s urban middle class. The message should be that the West’s problem is with Putin’s regime, not Russia itself.

This is not the message that Russians have been getting. It is worth remembering that for the first eight years of Putin’s rule, he held out the prospect of visa-free travel to the EU. But now the Kremlin wants the opposite: to restrict Russian citizens’ interactions with the West. If the EU had made a greater effort to meet the Kremlin halfway during that earlier period, it is hard to imagine that the diplomatic wall between Russia and Western Europe would be as high as it is today.

Similarly, the US has closed consulates and curtailed visa services outside of Moscow, forcing Russians in Siberia and other remote regions to travel thousands of miles to obtain permission to travel to America. As a result, exchange programs and cooperative arrangements between Russian and other Western universities have been wound down.

The West’s failure to engage with the Russian people has been a godsend for Putin and his regime, especially given the poor state of the Russian economy. As long as the neo-Bolshevik bogeyman in the Kremlin can claim to represent the “other Europe,” he will likely maintain his hold on power, and the red-less Red Scares will continue.

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The last time a GOP president faced a Roy Moore-esque dilemma, his response was very different
President Trump signaled Tuesday that he would be A-okay if Alabama voters elect a man accused of sexual misconduct with teenage girls. Echoing Kellyanne Conway's comments from the day before, Trump suggested he needs votes in the Senate, and he said Roy Moore's Democratic opponent is too liberal.

For GOP consultant Stuart Stevens, it made him long for the days when the GOP didn't make such bargains. Stevens pointed specifically to another off-year election in the Deep South: the 1991 Louisiana governor's race in which former KKK leader David Duke became the GOP standard-bearer. (Washington Post).

SPOILER

No two political races are completely analogous, but there are certainly some commonalities here. There are also some key differences.

There was considerably less at stake for Republicans when it came to losing 1 of 50 governor's seats, for example. In the case of Moore, losing a seat would mean the GOP's Senate majority would be cut in half, from 52-48 to 51-49. And for the GOP's tax bill, like its Obamacare replacement, one vote could easily prove to be the difference.

The other big difference is that, while Duke had a confirmed racist past, Moore has denied all of the allegations against him. But Duke at the time also tried to give the Republican Party plausible deniability, explaining that his conversion to Christianity had taken the bigotry out of his heart.

But the GOP, led by President George H.W. Bush, decided not to give him the benefit of the doubt — even as they had to massage the delicate politics of the day in the South.

A year after the GOP establishment thwarted Duke's candidacy in a GOP Senate primary, Duke ran for governor. The state had an open primary system in which every candidate ran in the same primary, with the top two going to the general election. Thanks to unhappiness with then-Gov. Buddy Roemer, who switched from Democrat to Republican earlier that year, Duke beat out the incumbent for second place with 32 percent of the vote. He headed for a general election matchup against former governor Edwin Edwards (D), and Republicans suddenly had a very big problem on their hands.

They acted swiftly. Primary day was Oct. 19, and a day later, the White House clearly disowned Duke. Bush's chief of staff, John Sununu, told ABCs “This Week” that Duke was “not the Republican nominee.”

“He is an individual that has chosen to call himself a Republican,” Sununu said. “He was not supported by the party. He is not supported by the national party.”

By Nov. 6, Bush upped the ante and called Duke an “insincere charlatan.”

“When someone has a long record, an ugly record of racism and of bigotry, that record simply cannot be erased by the glib rhetoric of a political campaign,” Bush said of Duke. “So I believe David Duke is an insincere charlatan. I believe he's attempting to hoodwink the voters of Louisiana, I believe he should be rejected for what he is and what he stands for.”

But it's important to note that the White House didn't technically endorse Edwards either.

Even the same day that Bush made his “insincere charlatan” comment, he added that: “I have got to be careful, because I don't want to tell the voters of Louisiana how to cast their ballot.” And indeed, shortly after the primary, White House spokesman Marlin Fitzwater had said the White House wouldn't be endorsing in the race. “We'd like them both to lose and Buddy Roemer to win on a write-in,” Fitzwater said. Roemer didn't pursue such a campaign.

There were also reasons for Bush to distance himself from Duke, besides basic decency. Some at the time were linking Duke's political rise to the tone set by Bush's 1988 campaign — particularly with regard to the controversial and racially tinged “Willie Horton” ad against Democratic nominee Michael Dukakis. The White House had also been instrumental in getting Roemer to switch parties, hoping it would hurt Duke's candidacy. But the state GOP wound up endorsing another candidate, Republican Rep. Clyde Holloway, and with the GOP establishment split, Duke eventually wound up atop a crowded GOP field. The Roemer gambit had backfired.

And finally, there were Bush's own political considerations. Even as Duke was running for governor, there were indications he might wage a Republican presidential campaign against Bush in 1992. He had run in 1988 as a Democrat before switching parties and winning his state House seat in 1989. But while the earlier campaign didn't go anywhere, Duke's stock was rising after his state House win and running well for Senate and now governor. There was real concern that he might take serious GOP presidential primary votes, especially across the South, and further embarrass the Republican Party.

Here's how the Los Angeles Times put it shortly before the primary:

While Duke himself professes to have no political ambitions beyond the governorship, analysts point out that entering the Southern primaries against Bush would be the next logical step in his steady effort to gain national prominence.

...

“If he can knock off a major politician, it establishes him as a formidable political power,” said John Maginnis, editor of the Louisiana Political Review, a longtime Duke watcher.

“Duke could run a pretty good national race,” said presidential biographer Stephen Ambrose, who teaches history here at the University of New Orleans. He said Duke appeals to much the same combination of racial resentment and populist discontent that fired the political success of Alabama Gov. George C. Wallace two decades ago. “But he is way ahead of Wallace,” Ambrose said. “He is more youthful, better looking and smoother.”

Today, Duke is viewed as an also-ran whose time in the national spotlight quickly faded. But at the time, he was viewed as a major threat to the GOP's reputation. The party's response was to do what it took to halt his rise, and it largely succeeded. Duke lost the governor's race to Edwards 61 percent to 39 percent, and the next year he was an also-ran in the GOP presidential primaries, hitting a high-water mark of 11 percent in Mississippi. Later campaigns would fail to come as close as his 1990 and 1991 campaigns.

In fact, about the only time Duke has been on the national radar since then was last year, when he strongly backed Trump's campaign. Feeding Duke's prominence in that case? Trump's noncommittal response to his support.

Moore doesn't perhaps pose quite so big a problem as Duke did to the GOP as an institution, but he's certainly proved to be a headache for it already. And if he wins on Dec. 12, Republicans may rue the day Trump gave his candidacy a wink and a nod.

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In fact, about the only time Duke has been on the national radar since then was last year, when he strongly backed Trump's campaign. Feeding Duke's prominence in that case? Trump's noncommittal response to his support.

twitter:

realDonaldTrump twitterde op woensdag 17-10-2012 om 18:54:28 Obama talks about what he is going to do--why the hell didn't he just do it, especially in the first 2 years when he had all votes necessary reageer retweet

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Op woensdag 22 november 2017 22:21 schreef Kijkertje het volgende:
Tja Trump kreeg natuurlijk allerlei journalisten op zijn dak nadat hij Duke niet duidelijk afkeurde

Donald Trump Refuses To Disavow David Duke Or The KKK

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Op woensdag 22 november 2017 22:22 schreef Ulx het volgende:
https://twitter.com/IngrahamAngle/status/933147495085039616?s=17

Trump retweet dit net. Kan iemand deze even leesbaar maken. Ik zit mobiel.

Het lijkt me een heel absurd statement.

twitter:

IngrahamAngle twitterde op woensdag 22-11-2017 om 02:37:54 “Far right”? You mean “right so far,” as in @realDonaldTrump has been right so far abt how to kick the economy into… https://t.co/PjeA2feEHl reageer retweet

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Op woensdag 22 november 2017 22:22 schreef ExtraWaskracht het volgende:

[..]

Ja, precies, dus wat in het artikeltje staat klopt gewoon.

Trump denounces David Duke as a bigot racist to NBC ....in 2000.

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I get great intel,” the president suddenly boasted, as prideful as if he were bragging about the amenities at one of his company’s hotels. “I have people brief me on great intel every day.”

He quickly went on to share with representatives of a foreign adversary not only the broad outlines of the plot to turn laptop computers into airborne bombs but also at least one highly classified operational detail—the sort of sensitive, locked-in-the-vault intel that was not shared with even Congress or friendly governments. The president did not name the U.S. partner who had spearheaded the operation. (Journalists, immediately all over the astonishing story, would soon out Israel). But, more problematic, President Trump cavalierly identified the specific city in ISIS-held territory where the threat had been detected.

As for the two Russians, there’s no record of their response. Their silence would be understandable: why interrupt the flow of information? But in their minds, no doubt they were already drafting the cable they’d send to the Kremlin detailing their great espionage coup.

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Op woensdag 22 november 2017 22:34 schreef Mike het volgende:
Trump wist heel goed wie David Duke was toen Trump nog Democraat was in 2000. Zodra hij kandidaat werd voor de republikeinen zei hij dat hij niet wist wie het was: http://www.factcheck.org/2016/03/trumps-david-duke-amnesia/

Wel vermoeiend overigens, want dit is, net als dat verhaaltje over Byrd, al tig keer voorbij gekomen hier.

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Op woensdag 22 november 2017 22:58 schreef MrRatio het volgende:

De associatie tussen de KKK en Hillary Clinton is sterker dan de associatie tussen de KKK en Trump.

Robert Byrd had weliswaar ooit de KKK verlaten, toch waren er daarna ook nog er incidenten.
http://www.washingtonpost(...)005061801105_pf.html

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Op woensdag 22 november 2017 22:58 schreef MrRatio het volgende:

[..]

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Op woensdag 22 november 2017 22:58 schreef MrRatio het volgende:

[..]

De interviewer had ook kunnen weten hoe Trump over de KKK en David Duke dacht. Het was gewoon weer een doorzichtige poging om Trump in een val te lokken. Als Trump 30x David Duke disavowt, en een keer zich op de vlakte houdt is het opeens nieuws. De vraag ging ook over allerlei groepen. Trump had wel gelijk met of hij nu opeens ook groepen moet gaan disavowen die hij niet kent?

Het is goed om politici tot de orde te roepen wanneer die onfrisse symphatiën hebben. Maar waarom dan meten met twee maten? Hillary Clinton wordt niet gevraagd of ze geen afstand neemt van een KKK aanhanger in haar directe omgeving. De taak van de media is officieel om een venster te bieden op de wereld. Hier wordt een propaganda-show van gemaakt. Aanvallen op conservatieven en Republikeinse politici (precies zoals ook al op Nixon, Reagan, de Bushes, Palin en Romney gebeurde).
Ik zou wel willen weten hoe het zit tussen Robert Byrd en Hillary Clinton. Waar zijn de nieuwsgierige journalisten dan? Fact-checkers?
Jammer dat de meeste media het als hun rol zien om verkiezingsuitslagen te sturen.
De associatie tussen de KKK en Hillary Clinton is sterker dan de associatie tussen de KKK en Trump.

Robert Byrd had weliswaar ooit de KKK verlaten, toch waren er daarna ook nog er incidenten.
http://www.washingtonpost(...)005061801105_pf.html

Ach, in de media wordt Trump ook vergeleken met Hitler en recent nog met Charles Manson. Waarom dan diezelfde media serieus nemen?

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Op woensdag 22 november 2017 22:58 schreef MrRatio het volgende:
Trump had wel gelijk met of hij nu opeens ook groepen moet gaan disavowen die hij niet kent?

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Op donderdag 23 november 2017 00:04 schreef Nintex het volgende:
Zag de Mar-a-lago weer een paar keer voorbij komen.

De familie Trump verblijft daar op aanraden van de secret service. Trump had liever vaker naar Trump Tower gegaan, maar New York is nogal moeilijk te beveiligen dus dat is of de halve stad afzetten voor de auto's of het vliegverkeer voor Marine 1, vandaar dat ze nu wisselen tussen het Witte Huis en de Mar-a-lago.

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Op donderdag 23 november 2017 00:07 schreef Whiskers2009 het volgende:

[..]

Uhuh, en het zijn ook geen verkapte "ik ga gewoon alleen maar golfen"-trips...

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John Rogers, communications director for Alabama GOP Senate candidate Roy Moore, has resigned, the campaign confirmed on Wednesday.

"As we all know, campaigns make changes throughout the duration of the campaign, as do those working in the campaign," Campaign Chairman Bill Armistead said in a statement. "John made the decision to leave the campaign last Friday - any representations to the contrary are false - and we wish him well."

Washingtonian Magazine first reported the news of Rogers' departure on Wednesday.

The decision comes as Moore faces multiple allegations of sexual misconduct, including accusations that he made advances on teenagers when he was in his 30s.

President Trump on Tuesday appeared to back Moore and downplayed the allegations against him.

“He denies it. He totally denies it,” Trump said. “Roy Moore denies it — that’s all I can say.”

Numerous Republicans have called on Moore to step aside in the race.

Moore has been defiant, refusing to drop out and calling the allegations an effort by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) to steal the election from Alabama voters.

Moore’s chief political strategist, Dean Young, on Tuesday attacked the media, establishment Republicans and Moore’s accusers.

Judge Roy Moore's Communications Director John Rogers Leaves Campaign | MSNBC

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President Donald Trump and his children are abandoning the Trump SoHo Hotel, an epically misbegotten and mismanaged project in lower Manhattan that sullied the family's reputation even before it formally opened its doors in 2010.

But -- like visitors to the Hotel California (cue The Eagles) -- the Trumps can check out of the Trump SoHo any time they like, but they can never leave.

That's because the family's dealings with the building remain of particular interest to Robert Mueller, as my Bloomberg News colleagues have reported. Mueller is, of course, the Justice Department's special counsel who is examining possible wrongdoing stemming from Trump's financial and political ties -- as well as those of his family members and his presidential campaign -- to Russia.

SPOILER

Here's how the Trump SoHo fits in the picture. Mueller is examining "suspicious financial activity" in Trumplandia involving "Russian operatives," according to the Washington Post. He is investigating whether Trump associates laundered financial payoffs from Russian officials by channeling them through offshore accounts, as the New York Times has reported.

That sort of stuff has hung in the air around the Trump SoHo for more than a decade, and one doesn't need to go to Moscow to pick up some of the details. They can be found at 246 Spring Street, where the Trump SoHo stands, and in court papers and various media accounts over the years including some of my own.

The basic outlines are these: Trump and his two eldest children, Donald Jr. and Ivanka, partnered with a real estate firm, the Bayrock Group, on a series of real estate deals between 2002 and about 2011, the most prominent being the Trump SoHo.

Bayrock was also a conduit for murky European funding that went into a number of projects in the U.S. to which the president once lent his name in exchange for hefty fees.

Icelandic banks that dealt with Bayrock, for example, were easy marks for money launderers and foreign influence, according to interviews I conducted earlier this year with government investigators, legislators and others in Reykjavik, Brussels, Paris and London.

Trump testified under oath in a 2007 deposition that Bayrock brought Russian investors to his Trump Tower office to discuss deals in Moscow, and said he was pondering investing there.

One of Bayrock's principals was a career criminal named Felix Sater, who had ties to Russian and American organized crime groups. Before linking up with the company and with Trump, he had worked as a mob informant for the U.S. government, and fled to Moscow to avoid criminal charges while boasting of his KGB and Kremlin contacts there.

In a lawsuit and a series of interviews with me, a former Bayrock insider, Jody Kriss, claimed that he eventually departed the firm because he became convinced that Bayrock was a front for money laundering. Bayrock has disputed Kriss's charges.

(I have my own history in court with the president. Trump sued me in 2006 when I worked at the New York Times, alleging that my biography, “TrumpNation,” had misrepresented his business record and his wealth. Trump lost the suit in 2011; my lawyers deposed Trump and Sater during the litigation.)

Trump has been fuzzy over the years about his relationship with Sater, saying that he barely knew him. In fact, Sater continued to be a bridge for Trump and his team for deals and diplomacy in Russia and Ukraine until at least earlier this year.

The Trump SoHo -- a mixed-use hotel and condominium building -- failed to sell many of its condo units after it opened, and many of the early buyers sued Bayrock and the Trumps for misrepresenting the project's prospects. The hotel, which perennially struggled to attract guests, went into foreclosure in 2013. A new company took control of the property from Bayrock and the Trumps. The Trumps stayed on as managers of the hotel -- until today.

It's a holiday evening, and it's a good time for media-savvy businesspeople to stealthily uncork bad news. The Trumps may be media-savvy, but they've never been particularly great businesspeople. Although their name will disappear from the Trump SoHo, Robert Mueller is making sure that they can't really leave -- at least not yet.

twitter:

SchreckReports twitterde op donderdag 23-11-2017 om 01:30:48 Apparently it was reported in the Israeli press that the CIA casually told Mossad in a January meeting at Langley that Putin has "leverage" on Trump. Missed that. https://t.co/58KiZ4ZSkS reageer retweet

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Op donderdag 23 november 2017 01:40 schreef Nibb-it het volgende:

twitter:

SchreckReports twitterde op donderdag 23-11-2017 om 01:30:48 Apparently it was reported in the Israeli press that the CIA casually told Mossad in a January meeting at Langley that Putin has "leverage" on Trump. Missed that. https://t.co/58KiZ4ZSkS reageer retweet

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Exclusive: What Trump Really Told Kislyak After Comey Was Canned
During a May 10 meeting in the Oval Office, the president betrayed his intelligence community by leaking the content of a classified, and highly sensitive, Israeli intelligence operation to two high-ranking Russian envoys, Sergey Kislyak and Sergey Lavrov. This is what he told them—and the ramifications.

On a dark night at the tail end of last winter, just a month after the inauguration of the new American president, an evening when only a sickle moon hung in the Levantine sky, two Israeli Sikorsky CH-53 helicopters flew low across Jordan and then, staying under the radar, veered north toward the twisting ribbon of shadows that was the Euphrates River. On board, waiting with a professional stillness as they headed into the hostile heart of Syria, were Sayeret Matkal commandos, the Jewish state’s elite counterterrorism force, along with members of the technological unit of the Mossad, its foreign-espionage agency. Their target: an ISIS cell that was racing to get a deadly new weapon thought to have been devised by Ibrahim al-Asiri, the Saudi national who was al-Qaeda’s master bombmaker in Yemen. (Vanity Fair).

SPOILER

It was a covert mission whose details were reconstructed for Vanity Fair by two experts on Israeli intelligence operations. It would lead to the unnerving discovery that ISIS terrorists were working on transforming laptop computers into bombs that could pass undetected through airport security. U.S. Homeland Security officials—quickly followed by British authorities—banned passengers traveling from an accusatory list of Muslim-majority countries from carrying laptops and other portable electronic devices larger than a cell phone on arriving planes. It would not be until four tense months later, as foreign airports began to comply with new, stringent American security directives, that the ban would be lifted on an airport-by-airport basis.

In the secretive corridors of the American espionage community, the Israeli mission was praised by knowledgeable officials as a casebook example of a valued ally’s hard-won field intelligence being put to good, arguably even lifesaving, use.

Yet this triumph would be overshadowed by an astonishing conversation in the Oval Office in May, when an intemperate President Trump revealed details about the classified mission to Russia’s foreign minister, Sergey V. Lavrov, and Sergey I. Kislyak, then Russia’s ambassador to the U.S. Along with the tempest of far-reaching geopolitical consequences that raged as a result of the president’s disclosure, fresh blood was spilled in his long-running combative relationship with the nation’s clandestine services. Israel—as well as America’s other allies—would rethink its willingness to share raw intelligence, and pretty much the entire Free World was left shaking its collective head in bewilderment as it wondered, not for the first time, what was going on with Trump and Russia. (In fact, Trump’s disturbing choice to hand over highly sensitive intelligence to the Russians is now a focus of special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Trump’s relationship with Russia, both before and after the election.) In the hand-wringing aftermath, the entire event became, as is so often the case with spy stories, a tale about trust and betrayal.

And yet, the Israelis cannot say they weren’t warned.

In the American-Israeli intelligence relationship, it is customary for the Mossad station chief and his operatives working under diplomatic cover out of the embassy in Washington to go to the C.I.A.’s Langley, Virginia, headquarters when a meeting is scheduled. This deferential protocol is based on a realistic appraisal of the situation: America is a superpower, and Israel, as one of the country’s senior intelligence officials recently conceded with self-effacing candor, is “a speck of dust in the wind.”

Nevertheless, over the years the Israeli dust has been sprinkled with flecks of pure intel gold. It was back in 1956, when the Cold War was running hot, that Israeli diplomats in Warsaw managed to get their hands on the text of Soviet premier Nikita Khrushchev’s top-secret speech to the Twentieth Party Congress in Moscow. Khrushchev’s startling words were a scathing indictment of Stalin’s three dec­ades of oppressive rule, and signalled a huge shift in Soviet dogma—just the sort of invaluable intelligence the C.I.A. was eager to get its hands on. Recognizing the value of what they had, the Israelis quickly delivered the text to U.S. officials. And with this unexpected gift, a mutually beneficial relationship between the resourceful Jewish spies and the American intelligence Leviathan began to take root.

Over the ensuing decades it has expanded into a true working partnership. The two countries have gone as far as to institutionalize their joint spying. The purloined documents released to the press by Edward Snowden, for example, revealed that the N.S.A., the American electronic-intelligence agency that eavesdrops on the world, and Unit 8200, its Israeli counterpart, have an agreement to share the holiest of intelligence holies: raw electronic intercepts. And the two countries inventively worked in tandem, during the administration of George W. Bush and continuing with President Obama, on Operation Olympic Games, creating and disseminating the pernicious computer viruses that succeeded in damaging Iran’s uranium-enrichment centrifuges. American and Israeli spooks have even killed together. In 2008, after President George W. Bush signed off on the operation, the C.I.A. cooperated with agents from the Mossad’s Kidon—the Hebrew word for “bayonet,” an appropriate name for a sharp-edged unit that specializes in what Israeli officials euphemistically call “targeted prevention.” The shared target was Imad Mughniyah, the Hezbollah international operations chief, and any further terrorist acts he’d been planning were quite effectively prevented: Mughniyah was blown to pieces, body parts flying across a Damascus parking lot, as he passed an S.U.V. containing a specially-designed C.I.A. bomb. But like any marriage, the cozy—yet inherently unequal—partnership between the American and Israeli intelligence agencies has had its share of stormy weather. In fact, an irreparable divorce seemed likely in 1985 after it was discovered that Israel was running a very productive agent, Jonathan Pollard, inside U.S. Naval Intelligence. For a difficult period—measured out in years, not months—the American spymasters fumed, and the relationship was more tentative than collaborative.

But spies are by instinct and profession a pragmatic breed, and so by the 1990s the existence of shared enemies, as well as shared threats, worked to foster a reconciliation. Besides, each had something the other needed: Israel had agents buried deep in neighboring Arab countries, producing “HUMINT,” as the jargon of the trade refers to information obtained by human assets. While the U.S. possessed the best technological toys its vast wealth could buy; its “SIGINT,” or signals intelligence, could pick up the chatter in most any souk in the Arab world.

And so by the time of Trump’s election, despite the snarky, rather personal feud between Prime Minister Netanyahu and President Obama, the two countries’ spies were back playing their old tricks. Together they were taking on a rogues’ gallery of common villains: al-Qaeda, Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Islamic State. “We are the front line,” a high-ranking Israeli military official bragged to me, “in America’s war on terror.” Over recent months, the U.S. intelligence windfall has been particularly bountiful. Israel, according to sources with access to the activities of the Mossad and Unit 8200, has delivered information about Russia’s interaction with the Syrian, Iranian, and Hezbollah forces taking the field in the Syrian civil war. And there is little that gets American military strategists more excited than learning what sort of tactics Russia is employing.

It was against this reassuring backdrop of recent successes and shared history, an Israeli source told Vanity Fair, that a small group of Mossad officers and other Israeli intelligence officials took their seats in a Langley conference room on a January morning just weeks before the inauguration of Donald Trump. The meeting proceeded uneventfully; updates on a variety of ongoing classified operations were dutifully shared. It was only as the meeting was about to break up that an American spymaster solemnly announced there was one more thing: American intelligence agencies had come to believe that Russian president Vladimir Putin had “leverages of pressure” over Trump, he declared without offering further specifics, according to a report in the Israeli press. Israel, the American officials continued, should “be careful” after January 20—the date of Trump’s inauguration. It was possible that sensitive information shared with the White House and the National Security Council could be leaked to the Russians. A moment later the officials added what many of the Israelis had already deduced: it was reasonable to presume that the Kremlin would share some of what they learned with their ally Iran, Israel’s most dangerous adversary.

Currents of alarm and anger raced through those pres­ent at the meeting, says the Israeli source, but their superiors in Israel remained unconvinced—no supporting evidence, after all, had been provided—and chose to ignore the prognostication.

The covert mission into the forbidden plains of northern Syria was a “blue and white” undertaking, as Israel, referring to the colors of its flag, calls ops that are carried out solely by agents of the Jewish state.

Yet—and this is an ironclad operational rule—getting agents in and then swiftly out of enemy territory under the protection of the nighttime darkness can be accomplished only if there is sufficient reconnaissance: the units need to know exactly where to strike, what to expect, what might be out there waiting for them in the shadows. For the mission last winter that targeted a cell of terrorist bombers, according to ABC News, citing American officials, the dangerous groundwork was done by an Israeli spy planted deep inside ISIS territory. Whether he was a double agent Israel had either turned or infiltrated into the ISIS cell, or whether he was simply a local who’d happened to stumble upon some provocative information he realized he could sell—those details remain locked in the secret history of the mission.

What is apparent after interviews with intelligence sources both in Israel and the U.S. is that on the night of the infiltration the helicopters carrying the blue-and-white units came down several miles from their target. Two jeeps bearing Syrian Army markings were unloaded, the men hopped in, and, hearts racing, they drove as if it had been the most natural of patrols into the pre-dawn stillness of an enemy city.

“A shadow unit of ghosts” is what the generals of Aman, Israel’s military-intelligence organization, envisioned when they set up Sayeret Matkal. And on this night the soldiers fanned out like ghosts in the shadows, armed and on protective alert, as the Mossad tech agents did their work.

Again, the operational details are sparse, and even contradictory. One source said the actual room where the ISIS cell would meet was spiked, a tiny marvel of a microphone placed where it would never be noticed. Another maintained that an adjacent telephone junction box had been ingeniously manipulated so that every word spoken in a specific location would be overheard.

The sources agree, however, that the teams got in and out that night, and, even before the returning choppers landed back in Israel, it was confirmed to the jubilant operatives that the audio intercept was already up and running.

Now the waiting began. From an antenna-strewn base near the summit of the Golan Heights, on Israel’s border with Syria, listeners from Unit 8200 monitored the transmissions traveling across the ether from the target in northern Syria. Surveillance is a game played long, but after several wasted days 8200’s analysts were starting to suspect that their colleagues had been misinformed, possibly deliberately, by the source in the field. They were beginning to fear that all the risk had been taken without any genuine prospect of reward.

Then what they’d been waiting for was suddenly coming in loud and clear, according to Israeli sources familiar with the operation: it was, as a sullen spy official described it, “a primer in constructing a terror weapon.” With an unemotional precision, an ISIS soldier detailed how to turn a laptop computer into a terror weapon that could pass through airport security and be carried on board a passenger plane. ISIS had obtained a new way to cause airliners to explode suddenly, free-falling from the sky in flames. When the news of this frightening ISIS lecture arrived at Mossad’s headquarters outside Tel Aviv, officials quickly decided to share the field intelligence with their American counterparts. The urgency of the highly classified information trumped any security misgivings. Still, as one senior Israeli military official suggested, the Israeli decision was also egged on by a professional vanity: they wanted their partners in Washington to marvel at the sort of impossible missions they could pull off.

They did. It was a much-admired, as well as appreciated, gift—and it scared the living hell out of the American spymasters who received it.

On the cloudy spring morning of May 10, just an uneasy day after the president’s sudden firing of F.B.I. director James B. Comey, who had been leading the probe into possible collusion between the Trump campaign and Russian operatives, a beaming President Trump huddled in the Oval Office with Sergey Lavrov and Sergey Kislyak.

And, no less improbably, Trump seemed not to notice, or feel restrained by, the unfortunate timing of his conversation with Russian officials who were quite possibly co-conspirators in a plot to undermine the U.S. electoral process. Instead, full of a chummy candor, the president turned to his Russian guests and blithely acknowledged the elephant lurking in the room. “I just fired the head of the F.B.I.,” he said, according to a record of the meeting shared with The New York Times. “He was crazy, a real nut job.” With the sort of gruff pragmatism a Mafia don would use to justify the necessity of a hit, he further explained, “I faced great pressure because of Russia. That’s taken off.” Yet that was only the morning’s perplexing prelude. What had been an unseemly conversation between the president and two high-ranking Russian officials soon turned into something more dangerous.

“I get great intel,” the president suddenly boasted, as prideful as if he were bragging about the amenities at one of his company’s hotels. “I have people brief me on great intel every day.”

He quickly went on to share with representatives of a foreign adversary not only the broad outlines of the plot to turn laptop computers into airborne bombs but also at least one highly classified operational detail—the sort of sensitive, locked-in-the-vault intel that was not shared with even Congress or friendly governments. The president did not name the U.S. partner who had spearheaded the operation. (Journalists, immediately all over the astonishing story, would soon out Israel). But, more problematic, President Trump cavalierly identified the specific city in ISIS-held territory where the threat had been detected.

As for the two Russians, there’s no record of their response. Their silence would be understandable: why interrupt the flow of information? But in their minds, no doubt they were already drafting the cable they’d send to the Kremlin detailing their great espionage coup.

So why? Why did a president who has time after volatile time railed against leakers, who has attacked Hillary Clinton for playing fast and loose with classified information, cozy up to a couple of Russian bigwigs in the Oval Office and breezily offer government secrets?

Any answer is at best conjecture. Yet in the search for an important truth, consider these hypotheses, each of which has its own supporters among past and current members of the U.S. intelligence community.

The first is a bit of armchair psychology. In Trump’s irrepressible way of living in the world, wealth is real only if other people believe you’re rich. If you don’t flaunt it, then you might as well not have it.

So there is the new president, shaky as any bounder might be in the complicated world of international politics, sitting down to a head-to-head with a pair of experienced Russians. How can he impress them? Get them to appreciate that he’s not some lightweight, but rather a genuine player on the world stage?

There’s also the school of thought that the episode is another unfortunate example of Trump’s impressionable worldview being routinely shaped by the last thing he’s heard, be it that morning’s broadcast of Fox & Friends or an intelligence briefing in the Oval Office. As advocates of this theory point out, the president was likely told that one of the issues still on his guests’ minds would be the terrorist explosion back in October 2015 that brought down a Russian passenger plane flying above Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula, killing all 224 people on board. With that seed planted in the president’s undisciplined mind, it’s a short leap for him to be off and running to the Russians about what he knew about an ISIS scheme to target passenger aircraft.

Yet there is also a more sinister way to connect all the dots. There are some petulant voices in official Washington who insist that the president’s treachery was deliberate, part of his longtime collaboration with the Russians. It is a true believer’s orthodoxy, one which predicts that the meeting will wind up being one more damning count in an indictment that Robert Mueller, the special counsel, will ultimately nail to the White House door.

But, for now, to bolster their still very circumstantial case, they point to a curiosity surrounding the meeting in the Oval Office—U.S. journalists were kept out. And, no less an oddity, the Russian press was allowed in. It was the photographer from TASS, the state-run Russian news agency, who snapped the only shots that documented the occasion for posterity. Or, for that matter, for the grand jury.

But ultimately it is the actions of men, not their motives, that propel history forward. And the president’s reckless disclosure continues to wreak havoc. On one level, the greatest casualty was trust. The president was already waging a perilous verbal war with the U.S. intelligence agencies. His sharing secrets with the Russians has very likely ground whatever remnants of a working relationship had survived into irreparable pieces. “How can the agency continue to provide the White House with intel,” challenged one former operative, “without wondering where it will wind up?” And he added ominously, “Those leaks to The New York Times and The Washington Post about the investigations into Trump and his cohorts is no accident. Trust me: you don’t want to get into a pissing match with a bunch of spooks. This is war.”

And what about America’s vital intelligence relationships with its allies? Former C.I.A. deputy director Michael Morell publicly worried, “Third countries who provide the United States with intelligence information will now have pause.”

In Israel, though, the mood is more than merely wary. “Mr. Netanyahu’s intelligence chiefs . . . are up in arms,” a prominent Israeli journalist insisted in The New York Times. In recent interviews with Israeli intelligence sources the frequently used operative verb was “whiten”—as in “certain units from now on will whiten their reports before passing them on to agencies in America.”

What further exacerbates Israel’s concerns—“keeps me up at night” was how a government spymaster put it—is that if Trump is handing over Israel’s secrets to the Russians, then he just might as well be delivering them to Iran, Russia’s current regional ally. And it is an expansionist Iran, one Israeli after another was determined to point out in the course of discussions, that is arming Hez­bol­lah with sophisticated rockets and weaponry while at the same time becoming an increasingly visible economic and military presence in Syria.

“Trump betrayed us,” said a senior Israeli military official bluntly, his voice stern with reproach. “And if we can’t trust him, then we’re going to have to do what is necessary on our own if our back is up against the wall with Iran.” Yet while appalled governments are now forced to rethink their tactics in future dealings with a wayward president, there is also the dismaying possibility that a more tangible, and more lethal, consequence has already occurred. “The Russians will undoubtedly try to figure out the source or the method of this information to make sure that it is not also collecting on their activities in Syria—and in trying to do that they could well disrupt the source,” said Michael Morell.

What, then, was the fate of Israel’s agent in Syria? Was the operative exfiltrated to safety? Has he gone to ground in enemy territory? Or was he hunted down and killed? One former Mossad officer with knowledge of the operation and its aftermath will not say. Except to add pointedly, “Whatever happened to him, it’s a hell of price to pay for a president’s mistake.”

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Op woensdag 22 november 2017 23:06 schreef Whiskers2009 het volgende:
Pff, het wordt met de dag vermoeiender dit topic te volgen...

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Op donderdag 23 november 2017 02:01 schreef Boze_Appel het volgende:

[..]

Maar er komt tussen alles door wel genoeg goede info hier.

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Mike Flynn business partner Bijan Kian now subject of Mueller probe
WASHINGTON — A former business associate of Michael Flynn has become a subject of Special Counsel Robert Mueller's investigation for his role in the failure of Flynn's former lobbying firm to disclose its work on behalf of foreign governments, three sources familiar with the investigation told NBC News.

Federal investigators are zeroing in on Bijan Kian, an Iranian-American who was a partner at the now-dissolved Flynn Intel Group, and have questioned multiple witnesses in recent weeks about his lobbying work on behalf of Turkey. The grand jury convened for the investigation will soon have a chance to question some of those witnesses, the sources say. (NBC).

SPOILER

Mueller recently indicted former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort and his business partner Rick Gates simultaneously. Manafort and Gates have pleaded not guilty. Both Flynn's and Manafort's lobbying firms have come under investigation for failing to disclose lobbying work on behalf of foreign governments.

Mueller is leading the federal investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 election and possible collusion by the Trump campaign, which led him to probe the work of Flynn and Manafort, who both served on the Trump campaign and lobbied on behalf of foreign governments without initially disclosing it.

The Flynn Intel Group, managed by Flynn, who was briefly President Donald Trump's national security adviser, was paid $530,000 for lobbying on behalf of a Netherlands-based firm called Inovo BV, owned by Turkish-American businessman Ekim Alptekin. Months later, the firm filed the required paperwork under the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA), acknowledging that the work "could be construed to have principally benefitted the Republic of Turkey," according to the filing.

Mueller's team is interested in Kian's role in the Inovo contract as well as foreign lobbying efforts that the Flynn Intel Group may have yet to disclose, according to the sources familiar with the investigation. Emails subpoenaed by the Special Counsel's Office revealed a September 20, 2016, meeting between Kian, Flynn and pro-Russia Congressman Dana Rohrabacher.

That meeting has been the subject of prosecutors' recent questions to witnesses in the case, the three sources said. Rohrabacher, a California Republican, has pushed for better relations with Russia, traveled to Moscow to meet with officials and advocated to overturn the Magnitsky Act, the 2012 bill that froze assets of Russian investigators and prosecutors.

The Flynn Intel Group did not disclose this meeting even after the company retroactively filed as a foreign agent under FARA, which has led to scrutiny by Mueller's team, two people familiar with the investigation told NBC.

Reuters previously reported that Mueller was interested in Kian, but not that he was a subject of the investigation or that witnesses would be testifying about his actions in front of the grand jury.

Kian previously served as a board member of the Export-Import Bank. He is also a co-founder of the Nowruz Commission, a D.C.-based nonprofit that hosts an opulent annual Nowruz, or Iranian New Year, gala, which Flynn and Alptekin both attended in the past.

NBC News has reported that Mueller has gathered enough evidence to bring charges in the investigation into Flynn and his son Michael G. Flynn. The elder Flynn was fired after just 24 days on the job for misleading Vice President Mike Pence about his conversations with Russia's ambassador to the U.S., Sergey Kislyak.

Kian's attorney did not respond to a request for comment. Flynn and Rohrabacher did not immediately respond to requests for comment. The Special Counsel's office also did not respond.

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Op woensdag 22 november 2017 23:15 schreef Euribob het volgende:

[..]

Ik wil je vriendelijk verzoeken niet meer bewezen onzin in dit topic te gooien. Ten eerste zijn dergelijke verwijten aan het adres van Clinton niet relevant omdat ze geen politieke functie vervult, ten tweede klopt van al die verwijten geen drol en ten derde is het nu al de honderdste keer dat het hier genoemd wordt.

Gelieve er mee te kappen, het is slecht voor de discussie in dit topic.

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A Russian Journalist Explains How the Kremlin Instructed Him to Cover the 2016 Election
On a recent Saturday in November, Dimitri Skorobutov, a former editor at Russia’s largest state media company, sat in a bar in Maastricht, a college town in the Netherlands, with journalists from around the world and discussed covering Donald Trump. Skorobutov opened a packet of documents and explained that they were planning guides from Russian state media that showed how the Kremlin wanted the 2016 U.S. Presidential election covered. (New Yorker).

SPOILER

Among the journalists, Skorobutov’s perspective was unique. Aside from Fox News, no network worked as hard as Rossiya, as Russian state TV is called, to boost Donald Trump and denigrate Hillary Clinton. Skorobutov, who was fired from his job after a dispute with a colleague that ended in a physical altercation, went public with his story of how Russian state media works, in June, talking to the U.S. government-funded broadcaster Radio Liberty. The organizers of the Maastricht conference learned of his story and invited him to speak. He flipped through his pages and pointed to the coverage guide for August 9, 2016, when Clinton stumbled while climbing some steps. The Kremlin wanted to play the story up big.

Skorobutov started working in Russian state media companies when he was seventeen years old, and has worked in print, radio, and TV. During the 2016 campaign, he was an editor for “Vesti,” a daily news program. Skorobutov described it as a mid-level position, with four layers of bureaucrats separating him and the Kremlin. His supervisor was a news director who, he said, got his job after making a laudatory documentary about Putin. Before joining “Vesti,” Skorobutov worked as the press secretary of the Russian Geographical Society, a pet project of Putin, which made headlines last year when Putin declared at a Society event that Russian borders “do not end anywhere.”

In his speech at the journalism conference, Skorobutov explained that as a young journalist he believed that working for the state media was not necessarily corrupting. “When I came to TV, in 2000,” he said, in his prepared remarks, “there was another Russia: with independent media, so-called freedom of speech, with a hope for a better life associated with the new President Vladimir Putin. I was convinced that everything we do on TV is for the better life to come soon. But the life was getting worse and worse.”

In his telling, it was the 2011-2012 protests in Moscow that changed everything. Those protests, which Putin blamed on Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, spooked the Russian President, according to Skorobutov. “People were imprisoned. Media were taken under control of the State. Censorship introduced,” he said. “It was a point of reflection for me. The state was against its people. Human freedoms, including freedom of speech, were gradually eliminated.” (Others would note that this is a self-serving chronology, as Putin’s dismantling of democracy began long before 2011, and that Skorobutov remained at state TV through the annexation of Crimea and the war in eastern Ukraine, when Russian media propaganda was especially noxious.)

After the suppression of the 2012 protests, Skorobutov said, he became increasingly disturbed by his role in “helping the state to create this new and unpleasant reality,” resigned his job as the press secretary at the Russian Geographical Society, and began looking for a new job, but without any luck.

As is often the case with state censorship, the workings of Kremlin-controlled media, as Skorobutov described them, were far more subtle than is popularly imagined. He described a system that depended on a news staff that knew what issues to avoid and what issues to highlight rather than one that had every decision dictated to it. “We knew what is allowed or forbidden to broadcast,” he explained. Any event that included Putin or the Russian Prime Minister “must be broadcast,” while events such as “terroristic attacks, airplane crashes, arrests of politicians and officials” had to be approved by the news director or his deputy. He offered a list of embargoed subjects: “critique of the State, coming from inside or outside of Russia; all kinds of social protests, strikes, discontent of people and so on; political protests and opposition leaders, especially Alexey Navalny,” an anti-corruption figure despised by the Kremlin. Skorobutov said that he overcame censorship rules and convinced his network to cover stories only twice: for a story about a protest against the construction of a Siberian chemical plant and for one about the food poisoning of children at a kindergarten.

During the 2016 election, the directions from the Kremlin were less subtle than usual. “Me and my colleagues, we were given a clear instruction: to show Donald Trump in a positive way, and his opponent, Hillary Clinton, in a negative way,” he said in his speech. In a later interview, he explained to me how the instructions were relayed. “Sometimes it was a phone call. Sometimes it was a conversation,” he told me. “If Donald Trump has a successful press conference, we broadcast it for sure. And if something goes wrong with Clinton, we underline it.”

Skorobutov said in his speech that the pro-Trump perspective extended from Kremlin-controlled media to the Moscow élite.

“There was even a slogan among Russian political élite,” he said. “ ‘Trump is our president.’ And, when he won the elections, on 9th November, 2016, Russian Parliament or State Duma even applauded him and arranged a champagne party celebrating the victory of Donald Trump.” That night, Skorobutov and his colleagues played clips of the party on the news.

In Skorobutov’s opinion, Putin’s effort to make Trump a reliable ally ultimately failed. He said that Trump’s airstrike in Syria in April ended the romance for Russian élites. “Russian authorities failed with their hopes that financial and media support will make Trump really Russian,” he said. “They were wrong as they didn’t take into consideration the U.S. political system and mentality. Russian authorities hoped—literally—to buy Donald Trump, using bribes and tricks. But they failed.”

Skorobutov, who is back in Moscow now, told me that he left state media after a drunken colleague beat him up at work and, in his telling, the Kremlin-controlled network tried to cover up the assault. Being away from the network allowed him to think about his role as a longtime Russian-government propagandist and led him to start speaking out.

“I have to say that me and my colleagues, we didn’t think too much about censorship or propaganda,” he said in his speech. “We get used to it. As we were inside the system, inside television, inside a virtual reality. When you are inside, you can’t see outside. But I’m glad that I escaped from that wonderland, like Alice of Lewis Carroll. Better late than never.”

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Turkey on Valentine's Day: Did Trump Obstruct Investigation of Flynn as a Foreign Agent?
When President Donald Trump tried to stop the FBI investigation of his national security adviser, retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, was Trump aware of Flynn's meetings with Turkish officials? If so, it could significantly increase the president's exposure to political liability and legal wrongdoing involving obstruction of justice.

On Valentine's Day 2017, the president asked FBI Director James Comey if he could see his "way clear to letting this go, to letting Flynn go," according to Comey's congressional testimony (see also interview with Donald Trump Jr.). What was Trump wanting Comey to let go exactly? So far the media has focused on federal investigators' ongoing probe at the time into whether Flynn lied to the FBI, but at the same time there was also an ongoing federal investigation into Flynn's work on behalf of Turkey-and the White House knew about it. We also now know that on Sept. 19, 2016, and in mid-December 2016, Flynn reportedly met with senior Turkish officials, and discussed the prospect of kidnapping and secretly removing a US resident, cleric Fethullah Gülen, from the United States into Turkey's custody. If Trump knew about the Turkey meetings at the time of the Feb. 14 exchange with Comey, that would raise a "different order of problem for the President," Ben Wittes exclaimed on Lawfare's podcast. (Just Security).

SPOILER

Ben's right.

In this article, we look at several data points on the timeline, as well as statements provided to Just Security by former CIA Director James Woolsey's spokesperson.

One important point to know at the outset: First, it is not only important what the president knew on Feb. 14, but also what he became aware of in the weeks and months afterward. That's because the president took additional steps to try stop the investigation of Flynn following the Oval Office meeting with Comey. A crucial part of the timeline, for example, is the efforts of the White House to stop the investigation of Flynn in late March 2017 and the revelation of Flynn's September 2016 meeting with Turkish officials around that same time.

At the same time, we do not want to lose focus on another significant legal dimension here. Even if the president had no knowledge of the potential kidnapping meetings, if he tried to obstruct the federal investigation into Flynn's work as an agent of a foreign government (Turkey), it would significantly raise the prospect of legal and political liability beyond his potential liability for obstructing the Russia-related investigation.

We offer the timeline and analysis below for others to assess. Our own conclusions are threefold. First, the mounting evidence of Flynn's having been a paid foreign agent for Turkey presumably figured into Trump's calculus in relieving him of duty. Second, the White House knew of the threatening nature of an active federal investigation of Flynn's work on behalf of Turkey when the president asked Comey to let Flynn go on Feb. 14. Third, the information contained in Flynn's filing as a foreign agent in early March was likely on the minds of White House senior officials when they attempted to get top intelligence officials to intervene with Comey to drop the Flynn investigation that month.

These claims may sound strong when stacked together. But they are also each qualified and relatively modest all things considered. That's because we don't know the full picture. Even if Flynn's foreign agent filings were on senior officials' minds, they may have acted for other reasons, for example. And when they asked top intelligence officials to get Comey to halt the Flynn investigation, maybe they limited their inquiry to the Russia-related part. The Trump campaign and administration have also suffered from disorganization, which makes it hard to infer that any one set of individuals were aware of what others knew or were doing. All that said, there's a mountain of information here to raise serious questions, and that lend circumstantial support to our conclusions.

I. When did the Flynn-Turkey federal investigation start?
When did the Justice Department start looking into Flynn's ties to Turkey? It may have started once former CIA Director James Woolsey alerted U.S. officials to the September 2016 meeting around that time. Woolsey's spokesperson clarified in a story for NBC that the FBI was already "in communication" with Woolsey before the matter was taken over by Mueller in May. More importantly, in a letter dated Nov. 30, 2016, the Justice Department notified Flynn that it was scrutinizing his lobbying work on behalf of the Turkish government. That appears to be a step shy of an open investigation. But by Jan. 4, 2017, at the latest, the Justice Department was reportedly investigating the matter to the point that Flynn was told of the investigation. (Note: as discussed below, Flynn informed the Trump transition team on January 4 that he was under federal investigation for his work for Turkey.) In short, we know generally when the FBI started looking into Flynn's Turkey lobbying work, but we still don't know when the FBI became aware of the potential kidnapping plot.

Flynn also came under a different criminal investigation sometime after Jan. 24 2017, with respect to to his statements to the FBI about his contacts with Russian Amb. Sergey Kislyak. In an interview with the FBI on Jan. 24, Flynn may have lied to the FBI about whether he discussed sanctions with the Russian ambassador. It is after that point that Flynn came under criminal investigation for potentially lying to the FBI.
At an unknown date, Flynn's son, Michael G. Flynn, also became a subject of the federal investigation into Russia, NBC reported in September 2017. Mueller is now also looking into what role Flynn's son may have played in efforts involving Turkey, including the December 2016 meeting, NBC reported more recently.

II. When did President Trump try to intercede?
There are three relevant points on the timeline.

1. February 14, 2017: Trump directly to Comey:
Flynn resigns on Feb. 13, 2017. The following day, Trump directly asks Comey, in a private one-on-one conversation, if the FBI Director could see his "way clear to letting this go, to letting Flynn go," according to Comey's prepared congressional testimony on June 8, 2017. Comey testified that the president "added that he had other concerns about Flynn, which he did not then specify." Comey also testifies about whether he thought the president was asking to let go of the entire Russia investigation or more specifically Flynn's legal problems. Comey writes:

"I had understood the President to be requesting that we drop any investigation of Flynn in connection with false statements about his conversations with the Russian ambassador in December. I did not understand the President to be talking about the broader investigation into Russia or possible links to his campaign. I could be wrong, but I took him to be focusing on what had just happened with Flynn's departure and the controversy around his account of his phone calls."
That passage suggests that Comey thought the President was asking only about the Flynn-Russia related investigation and not the Flynn-Turkey investigation. But it is difficult to know what the president actually knew at that time. Important to that evaluation, Comey was not at liberty to testify publicly about the Turkey-related investigation. It is also relevant that Trump told Comey in general that Flynn "is a good guy and has been through a lot"-suggesting he was trying to absolve Flynn personally from any investigation. It would also be unusual for Trump to say drop Flynn on one investigation but not another. What's more, Trump's interest in broad protection from liability for Flynn may also be indicated by the president's tweet on March 31, 2017, that "Flynn should ask for immunity." Finally, the headache created for the White House by Flynn's Turkey-related wrongdoing was presumably part of the decision-making that led to his departure (see the timeline below).

2. Mid-to-late March 2017: Trump and WH officials indirectly via senior intelligence officials

On March 22, the president reportedly asks Director of National Intelligence Daniel Coats and CIA Director Mike Pompeo, in a private conversation, to intervene with Comey to get the FBI to stop investigating Flynn. Coats reportedly "discussed the conversation with other officials and decided that intervening with Comey as Trump had suggested would be inappropriate." Also around that same time, "senior White House officials sounded out top intelligence officials about the possibility of intervening directly with Comey to encourage the FBI to drop its probe of Michael Flynn," according to the Washington Post.

3. May 9, 2017: Trump fires Comey

III. What President Trump and his team knew about Flynn-Turkey and when they knew it
August 9-November 15, 2016: On Aug. 9, 2016, Flynn's firm signs a contract with a Dutch company, Inovo, which is owned by Ekim Alptekin, the chairman of the Turkish-American Business Council. Alpetkin is widely reported to have ties to the Turkish government, including helping organize Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's 2016 visit to Washington, D.C. Flynn's subsequent filing as a foreign agent in March 2017 (see entry below in timeline) will reveal that Alptekin's company paid Flynn's firm over $500,000 for work performed from August to November 2016. The Associated Press reported, "Alptekin, the Turkish businessman, has denied having any ties to Erdogan's government."

September 19, 2016: Flynn participates in a meeting with senior Turkish officials in which the group reportedly discusses the option of kidnapping the cleric Gulen and removing him from the United States, according to a Wall Street Journal story (published in March 2017). Alptekin invited Flynn to the meeting, according to Flynn's firm, and Alptekin is present at the meeting. Woolsey, who was affiliated with Flynn's firm at the time, was present for part of the meeting's discussion,the contents of which he said greatly disturbed him. Woolsey thought the proposal for Gulen would "pretty clearly be a violation of law" and he reported it to "several people," including U.S. government officials at the time, specifically including an intermediary to Vice President Joseph Biden.

Note: Woolsey's spokesman, Jonathan Franks, told Just Security that Woolsey did not inform members of the Trump campaign about the September meeting. An important question is whether, either through the "several people" Woolsey informed or through others, Trump or his inner circle learned of the September meeting. If the Trump campaign was aware of the meeting before the WSJ story broke in March, it was apparently not directly from Woolsey.

Sept. 19, 2016: On the same day as his Turkish meeting, Flynn joins Trump and Jeff Sessions in a meeting with Egypt's president, Abdel Fattah el-sisi.

Sept. 30, 2016: Flynn's firm publicly registers as a lobbyist for Alptekin's company Inovo. (This is not the same as registering as a foreign agent, which occurs on March 7, 2017.)

Sometime between Nov. 8, 2016 and Jan. 20, 2017: Flynn's personal lawyer alerted the Trump transition team prior to the inauguration that Flynn might register as a foreign agent of Turkey. Don McGahn, the campaign's top lawyer and now White House Counsel, was reportedly among those told at the time.

Nov. 8, 2016: The Hill publishes an Op-Ed by Flynn titled, "Our ally Turkey is in crisis and needs our support." It calls for orienting several aspects of U.S. foreign policy toward Turkey's interests. In reference to the cleric Gulen, Flynn writes, "From Turkey's point of view, Washington is harboring Turkey's Osama bin Laden....We need to see the world from Turkey's perspective. What would we have done if right after 9/11 we heard the news that Osama bin Laden lives in a nice villa at a Turkish resort...?...We should not provide him safe haven. In this crisis, it is imperative that we remember who our real friends are."

Nov. 10, 2016: President Barack Obama privately warns Trump about Flynn during their Oval Office meeting two days after the election. At least one person familiar with the meeting told Politico that "Obama forcefully told Trump to steer clear of Flynn." There are no publicly available details about why exactly Obama warned Trump and whether Obama stated specific concerns about Flynn.

Prior to Nov. 11, 2016: Chris Christie, who headed the transition team until Nov. 11, 2016, has subsequently said he directly warned Trump about Flynn, but he has not said specifically what those warnings entailed or the basis for them. "I didn't think that he was someone who would bring benefit to the President or to the administration, and I made that very clear to candidate Trump, and I made it very clear to President-elect Trump," Christie said in May 2017. Politico reports that as chief of the transition team, Christie "mounted a campaign against Flynn for the national security adviser job." Christie told associates as early as August 2016 of his concerns about Flynn.

Nov. 11, 2016: On Nov. 11, the Daily Caller's Chuck Ross publishes a detailed story titled, "Trump's Top Military Adviser Is Lobbying For Obscure Company With Ties To Turkish Government." It is an expose that includes Dutch business records and other information tying Alptekin to Flynn's firm and work on behalf of the government of Turkey, and it also notes that Flynn failed to disclose any of this information in his op-ed for The Hill. (Months later The Hill adds a disclosure and notes that Flynn failed to inform them when he wrote the essay.)

Nov. 15, 2016: Flynn's contract with Alptekin is terminated.
Flynn has voiced interest in being Director of National Intelligence, and was on a list of candidates for the position shortly after the election. He also expressed interest in being secretary of state, secretary of defense, or national security adviser. It's recognized, however, that Senate confirmation could be difficult in part due to his connections to Turkey, according to a person who spoke on the condition of anonymity to the Washington Post about the internal transition team discussions.

Nov. 18, 2016: Rep. Elijah Cummings, the top Democrat on the House Oversight Committee, sends a letter to Vice President-elect Mike Pence, in his capacity as chairman of the Trump transition team, warning about conflicts created by Flynn's work on behalf of Turkey, and Flynn's firm being hired by Alptekin's company. The transition team's office of legislative affairs sends Cummings a receipt that confirmed they received the letter and pledged to "review your letter carefully."

Later, Pence denies ever receiving the letter. On March 9, Pence states in a Fox News interview that Flynn's registration as a foreign agent is "the first I heard of it [Flynn's Turkey-related lobbying work] and I think it is an affirmation of the President's decision to ask General Flynn to resign." Likewise, on May 19, Pence's office told NBC News that "Rep. Cummings letter did not reach the vice president." On the same day, Cummings responded to CNN, "Either he's not telling the truth, or he was running a sloppy shop because we have a receipt...that says they received the letter."

What's more, Cummings did not just send a quiet letter. He issued a press release with the text of the letter, and received media coverage across major media outlets at the time, likely increasing the salience of the issue for the transition team.

Nov. 19, 2016: Trump campaign lawyer, William McGinley, holds a conference call with members of the Flynn firm "seeking more information" about the group's foreign work on Turkey and "to review the particulars of Flynn's piece in The Hill," according to the New York Times and New Yorker's Nicholas Schmidle. (McGinley was subsequently appointed as White House Cabinet Secretary.)

Dec. 9, 2016: Sens. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) and Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.) send a letter to FBI Director James Comey, DNI James Clapper, and OPM Acting Director Beth Cobert calling for a re-evaluation of Flynn's security clearance. They cite his "repeated mishandling of classified information," his paid visit to Moscow, and his business interests as CEO of Flynn Intel Group.

They write:

"General Flynn appears to have an unresolved conflict of interest in his ownership of the Flynn Intel Group. His company has previously registered to lobby on behalf of Turkish businessman Kamil Ekim Alptekin and received compensation to persuade U.S. public opinion in favor of Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan."

"This ongoing business relationship of Flynn Intel Group, owned by General Flynn and operated by his son, creates the potential for pressure, coercion, and exploitation by foreign agents."
Blumenthal and Shaheen's letter receives significant media coverage, likely increasing the salience for the White House.b

Mid-Dec. 2016: In a second meeting with Turkish government representatives, Flynn reportedly discusses the idea of he and his son helping to forcibly remove Gulen and deliver the cleric to Turkish custody using a private jet, in a plot that would have paid the Flynns $15 million, according to the Wall Street Journal. "Flynn also was prepared to use his influence in the White House to further the legal extradition of the cleric," according to the story. Michael Flynn's lawyers dispute the story.

Jan. 4, 2017: Flynn reportedly tells the transition team, including McGahn, that he is under federal investigation for secretly working as a paid lobbyist for Turkey.

After Jan. 20: Flynn's lawyers have "a second conversation with Trump lawyers ... and made clear the national security adviser would indeed be registering [as a foreign agent] with the Justice Department," the AP reported.

Feb. 7, 2017: Trump and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan have their first telephone call in which they discuss a range of policy issues. Flynn is still national security advisor at this point.

Feb. 13, 2017: A PAC aligned with the Democratic Party, the Democratic Coalition Against Trump files a report with the National Security Agency alleging that Flynn has sought "to influence the White House on behalf of Turkey and its president, Recep Erdogan, while failing to register as an agent with the Department of Justice."

Feb.13, 2017: Flynn resigns
REMINDER: It is on Feb. 14, 2017 that Trump asks Comey to drop the investigation of Flynn.

March 7, 2017: Flynn retroactively files as a foreign agent of the government of Turkey in the first week of March 2017. In a filing on March 7, Flynn's firm reports the Sept. 19, 2016 meeting with senior Turkish officials (describing the event as "for the purpose of understanding better the political climate in Turkey at the time"). The document also states that Flynn's firm was invited to the September meeting by Alptekin. In a separate filing, Flynn's firm states that Alptekin's Dutch company, Inovo, paid Flynn's firm over $500,000 for work performed from August to November 2016, which the firm said "could be construed to have principally benefited the Republic of Turkey."

A blanket of media coverage details the information in Flynn's foreign agent filings, including noticing the Sept. 19, 2016 meeting. The New Yorker's Nicholas Schmidle reports on March 16: "Though the full breadth of the group's conversation is not known, the same source told me that the Turks sought, among other things, Flynn's assistance in maligning Fethullah Gülen."

SIGNIFICANCE: It is hard to believe that the Flynn filings of his Turkey work were not on the minds of the White House when they engaged in efforts later that month to try to get other intelligence officials to intervene with Comey to drop the Flynn investigation.

March 24 (and days prior to March 24?):
The Wall Street Journal published a news report and exclusive video interview with Woolsey in which he publicly discloses that the Sept. 19, 2016 meeting included the discussion of kidnapping and removing the cleric from the United States.

SIGNIFICANCE: Did Trump and White House officials know before the Wall Street Journal story went public? Trump and his team were certainly made aware on March 24 of the potentially outrageous nature of the September meeting, when the interview with Woolsey was published. Were they alerted to this information before March 24, for example, through the people the Journal's reporters contacted for comment? The story does state, for example, that the Journal reached out to the chairman and president of Flynn's firm and to Mr. Alptekin for comment when researching the story. The Journal also reached out to the spokesperson for Erdogan's son-in-law, who is also the Turkish energy minister, and was present at the Sept. 19 meeting. That spokesperson referred the Journal to the Turkish Embassy in Washington, which provided a written statement prior to publication. The story does not indicate whether the White House was contacted prior to publication.

Why is this timing vitally important? As we discussed earlier, on March 22, Trump held his private conversation with Coats and Pompeo to see if they could help get Comey to drop the Flynn investigation, and apparently around that same time in March senior White House officials reached out to top intelligence officials for the same purpose. It would expose the White House politically and legally if they knew at the time about the September meeting that included the kidnapping discussion.

Woolsey's spokesman, Jonathan Franks, told Just Security that Woolsey did not inform the White House about the September meeting before the publication of the Wall Street Journal story in March. So, if the Trump campaign or the White House were aware of the Sept. 19 meeting before the Wall Street Journal story broke, it was not directly from Woolsey.

Early April: Flynn's associates receive grand jury subpoenas, from the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Eastern District of Virginia, seeking business records and communications involving clients tied to the Turkish government, according to CNN and the Wall Street Journal. The subpoenas show that federal prosecutors are investigating arrangements involving Flynn and Alptekin, according to the New York Times, Wall Street Journal and Reuters, which each obtained copies of the subpoenas. (Recall that Alptekin was reportedly at the Sept. 19 meeting, and according to Flynn's firms documents, he invited Flynn to the meeting.)

SIGNIFICANCE: On May 9, Trump fires Comey. As an indication of the close timing, CNN reports that it "learned of the subpoenas hours before President Donald Trump fired FBI director James Comey." The Wall Street Journal also raised a question similar to ours in a story about the timing of the subpoenas: "The subpoena that the Journal reviewed was sent out in early April, nearly a month before Mr. Trump fired Mr. Comey, raising questions about whether the president learned the investigation into Mr. Flynn was escalating before firing Mr. Comey, who was overseeing the probe."

Pattern of denials
One final note, the White House and senior officials have repeatedly denied knowledge of Flynn's connections to Turkey or work he did on behalf of Turkey. Those statements were later revealed to be false. Shortly after Flynn filed as a foreign agent, for example, White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer told reporters on March 9, 2017, that Trump was not aware that Flynn acted as a foreign agent when he appointed him as national security adviser. Within 24 hours, the Associated Press reported that Flynn's lawyers informed the Trump transition team that Flynn might have to file as a foreign agent. When confronted with the AP story the following day, Spicer essentially downplayed the significance of the lawyer's inquiry:

Q: Could you clear up what appears to be some tension between what you said yesterday about when the administration or the president was made aware of General Flynn's foreign lobbying ties and the AP reporting today that the transition team was informed of Flynn's potential need to register?

SPICER: So there's a big difference between when he filed, which was the other day -- two days ago -- and what happened then. What the AP is reporting, just so we're clear, is that a personal lawyer of General Flynn's contacted a transition lawyer and asked for guidance on what he should or should not do.
But why would it take Flynn's formally filing as a foreign agent for Trump and the transition team to be aware of Flynn's activities? We now know that Flynn told the transition team on Jan. 4 that he was under federal investigation for his work on behalf of Turkey. That was reported by the New York Times on May 17, 2017. Recall as well the conference call on Nov. 19, 2016 when Trump campaign lawyer and now White House Cabinet Secretary, William McGinley spoke with members of the Flynn firm to obtain information about the group's work for Turkey. That too was reported after Spicer's March 9 and 10, 2017 press conferences. Why did the White House deny it?

[Editor's Note: You may also be interested in Ryan Goodman's "Ability to Charge Flynn Strengthens Case of Obstruction of Justice against Trump" and Alex Whiting's "Could Trump Have Obstructed Justice if a Grand Jury Hadn't Convened Yet?"]

quote:

Michael Flynn and the Turkish Connection
When he started investigating General Michael T. Flynn, Special Counsel Robert Mueller concentrated on his income and undisclosed contacts with Russian officials. Now, however, Mueller’s investigation has broadened to include Flynn’s business with Turkey. Flynn faces possible fraud and money-laundering charges for failing to disclose a payment of $530,000 from the Turkish government. (The Foreign Agent Registration Act, FARA, requires disclosure of work for foreign governments, including details about compensation.) Flynn could also face conspiracy and kidnapping charges for allegedly negotiating a payment of $15 million to deliver to Turkey Fethullah Gülen, an Islamic cleric and political foe of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. Gülen has lived in exile in the United States since 1999; he was granted permanent residence in 2008. The Turkish government accuses him of orchestrating the coup attempt in July 2016 and imprisoned thousands of his followers. (New York Review of Books).

SPOILER

If indicted on these charges, Flynn could end up in jail for a long time. (Lawyers for Flynn have denied the kidnapping allegations, which were first reported by The Wall Street Journal.) Alternatively, Flynn and his son, Michael Flynn Jr., who works with him at the Flynn Intel Group, a lobbying firm in Virginia, can avoid jail time by becoming cooperating witnesses in Mueller’s investigation. Flynn was an integral part of the Trump campaign and briefly served the Trump administration as national security adviser. If the Trump campaign colluded with Russians—for example, to coordinate the release of hacked emails embarrassing to Hillary Clinton and a social media campaign to influence voters—Flynn would probably know. Mueller has already brought charges against Trump’s former campaign manager, Paul Manafort, his associate Rick Gates, and a campaign foreign policy adviser, George Papadoupoulos. Flynn may be next.

Flynn has a history of cutting corners and breaking rules. Flynn failed to disclose income from three Russian companies, including a 2016 speaking fee of $45,000 from RT, an official propaganda arm of the Kremlin. He failed to disclose contact with Russia’s ambassador to the United States, Sergey Kislyak, to FBI investigators conducting a background check to renew Flynn’s security clearance. Intercepts of Flynn’s phone calls with Kislyak reportedly showed that Flynn discussed sanctions on Russia and suggested the possibility of sanctions relief once Trump became president. Flynn also failed to disclose his involvement in a $100 billion nuclear energy deal, which he explored during an undisclosed trip to Israel and Egypt in 2015.

Flynn’s work for the Turkish government is also under investigation. The Flynn Intel Group was paid $530,000 by Inovo BV, a thinly capitalized Dutch company that serves as a front for Inovo Turkije, whose principal, Ekim Alptekin, is a close associate of President Erdoğan. Public records in the Netherlands confirmed that Inovo BV is a shell company. Flynn should have known that Inovo BV was a pass-through and, given Alptekin’s close relationship with Erdoğan, that Inovo BV’s funds originated from the Turkish government. Flynn hid the origins of the money and the fact that his payment was funneled through a third party. When details of the contract surfaced in press reports, Flynn acknowledged his service for the Turkish government by belatedly registering under FARA.

The contract with Inovo BV required Flynn to lobby on appropriations bills for the departments of State and Defense. Flynn’s duties also included keeping his client informed about “the transition between President Obama and President-Elect Trump.” In effect, Flynn was also hired to conduct a smear campaign of Gülen. In an article published by Flynn in The Hill on election day, November 8, 2016, Flynn referred to Gülen as a “shady Islamic mullah residing in Pennsylvania.” He wrote: “To professionals in the intelligence community, the stamp of terror is all over Mullah Gülen’s statements.… Washington is hoodwinked by this masked source of terror and instability nestled comfortably in our own backyard.” Flynn endorsed Turkey’s demand for extradition. “The forces of radical Islam derive their ideology from radical clerics like Gülen, who is running a scam. We should not provide him safe haven.”

Flynn was apparently willing to consider more drastic action. James Woolsey, a former director of the CIA, attended a meeting with Flynn in September 2016 during which Flynn discussed abducting Gülen and delivering him to Turkish authorities at the Imrali Island Prison off the coast of Turkey. The meeting was also attended by Berat Albayrak, Erdoğan’s son-in-law, and Turkey’s foreign minister, Mevlut Cavusoglu. Woolsey described the proposed extradition outside of the US legal system as “a covert step in the dead of night to whisk this guy away.” He and Flynn were both working for the Trump campaign at the time.

Earlier this month, The Wall Street Journal reported that Flynn and his son rejoined discussions about Gülen at a meeting in December in New York at the 21 Club, where Flynn was offered as much as $15 million to deliver Gülen. The Turkish government denies that this meeting took place; Flynn’s lawyers also called the Journal report false. If the story is true, however, Flynn and his son could be prosecuted under the RICO law (Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations).

Despite Flynn’s pattern of illegal and unethical behavior, President Trump took extraordinary steps to protect him. On February 14, 2017, Trump met with the then-FBI director, James Comey, in the Oval Office. “I hope you can let this go,” said Trump, alluding to Comey’s investigation of Flynn. Comey took it as an order, but did not comply. Trump fired Comey on May 9.

Trump had already fired, in March, Preet Bharara, the US Attorney for the Southern District of New York. Among the cases Bharara was pursuing was the prosecution of Reza Zarrab, a gold trader and Erdoğan crony charged with violating US sanctions on Iran. According to the indictment published shortly after Bharara was fired, Zarrab’s economic crimes involve illicit gold sales on behalf of the Iranian government, which were deposited into Turkey’s HalkBank; the proceeds helped support Iran’s nuclear program and business enterprises linked to the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps. Mehmet Hakan Attila, a Halkbank executive, was also arrested, on charges of conspiring with Zarrab to evade US sanctions against Iran.

It is not unusual for an incoming president to replace US attorneys. But the manner and timing of Bharara’s dismissal raised red flags. Trump acted improperly toward Bharara, initiating direct contact by calling Bharara three times. Bharara, who had jurisdiction to investigate suspected criminal conduct in business in New York, rightly refused to take the calls. Bharara believes that Trump would have asked him “to do something inappropriate,” had they spoken. Trump removed Bharara after having assured him in November 2016 that he would retain his job. Turkey has invested heavily in efforts to influence the US government, spending millions of dollars annually to hire former members of Congress as lobbyists, sponsoring junkets for members of Congress in the Turkey Caucus, and making large contributions to think-tanks such as the Atlantic Council. Was Turkey’s influence a factor in Trump’s decision to fire Bharara?

Erdoğan appears intensely interested in the Zarrab case, repeatedly asking US officials to drop the charges against him. An FBI source told me that the allegations against Zarrab include selling a ton of gold each week and taking a 15 percent commission. A superseding indictment filed by prosecutors in September charges that Zarrab conspired with senior Turkish government officials, including Erdoğan’s then-minister of the economy, in a scheme to dodge US sanctions on Iran that involved “laundering funds in connection with those illegal transactions, including millions of dollars in bribe payments.”

Zarrab hired Michael Mukasey, an attorney general in the George W. Bush administration, and Rudy Giuliani, a former Republican mayor of New York City and a notorious hard-liner on Iran, in March. According to Zarrab’s attorney, Benjamin Brafman, Giuliani and Mukasey were not hired to participate in Zarrab’s legal defense team; they were paid instead “to explore a potential disposition of the criminal charges”—in other words, to get the case closed down by influencing senior US government officials. That means, in effect, going over the head of prosecutors and bypassing the normal plea bargain channels—thereby undermining the administration of justice. Greenberg Traurig, Giuliani’s firm, is a registered agent for the Turkish government. Both Giuliani and Mukasey, who acted as advisers to the Trump campaign, appear to be cashing in on their connections to the White House.

The Zarrab case is a further example of Turkish efforts to circumvent the US legal system, but lobbying to get the charges dropped in the case has become a fool’s errand. Reports suggest that Zarrab recently agreed to act as a cooperating witness. Judicial interference, however, is part of an established pattern of conduct by Turkey, which has also become adept at buying influence in Washington. Turkey has many reasons for its largesse: it wants to deflect attention from its support to Syrian jihadis, official corruption, the killing of Kurds, and the systematic arrest of opponents under the guise of fighting terrorism.

The United States needs leadership that is steely-eyed toward Turkey as well as toward Russia. Yet Turkey’s influence-buying efforts are paying off. The Trump administration ignores Erdoğan’s human rights abuses and election irregularities. The White House turned a blind eye when Erdoğan’s security guards beat up US citizens outside the Turkish ambassador’s D.C. residence in May. The Trump administration was virtually silent when Turkey bought S-400 anti-aircraft missiles from Russia for $2.6 billion. Trump calls Erdoğan “a friend of mine” and praises his job performance, saying: “He’s getting very high marks.” Trump has his own interests to think about—stakes in major real-estate developments in Istanbul, as well as in a luxury furniture company in Turkey.

Trump’s disparaging of the US justice system undermines judicial independence. He has already issued a controversial pardon for Sheriff Joe Arpaio, who was convicted of disobeying a federal judge’s order. Knowing there is a potential presidential pardon in the works could dissuade Flynn from telling the truth as a cooperating witness. Efforts to subvert our democracy—by enemies foreign and domestic—may succeed unless the rule of law is fully and effectively applied in the case of Michael Flynn.

quote:

Fighting Gay Rights and Abortion With the First Amendment
WASHINGTON — The details were spare when the event appeared this summer on Attorney General Jeff Sessions’s public schedule. He would speak on religious liberty to a group called Alliance Defending Freedom. No exact location was specified. No news media would be allowed in.

Only after an outcry over such secrecy — and the anti-gay rights positions of its sponsor — did a transcript of Mr. Sessions’s remarks emerge on a conservative website. “Many Americans have felt that their freedom to practice their faith has been under attack,” he told the gathering in Orange County, Calif. “The challenges our nation faces today concerning our historic First Amendment right to the ‘free exercise’ of our faith have become acute.” (New York Times).

SPOILER

Mr. Sessions’s focus was not an accident. The First Amendment has become the most powerful weapon of social conservatives fighting to limit the separation of church and state and to roll back laws on same-sex marriage and abortion rights.

Few groups have done more to advance this body of legal thinking than the Alliance Defending Freedom, which has more than 3,000 lawyers working on behalf of its causes around the world and brings in $51.5 million in revenue for the 2015-16 tax year, more than the American Civil Liberties Union.

Among the alliance’s successes has been bringing cases involving relatively minor disputes to the Supreme Court — a law limiting the size of church signs, a church seeking funding for a playground — and winning rulings that establish major constitutional precedents.

But it hopes to carve out an even wider sphere of protected religious expression this term when the justices are to hear two more of its cases, one a challenge to a California law that requires “crisis pregnancy centers,” which are run by abortion opponents, to provide women with information on how to obtain an abortion, and another in which it represents a Colorado baker who refused to make a cake for a gay couple’s wedding.

While the abortion case is the latest legal volley in a generation-long battle by social conservatives to limit the effect of Roe v. Wade, the Colorado baker’s case, which the court will hear next month, will test whether groups like the alliance can persuade the court to similarly blunt the sweep of Obergefell v. Hodges, the ruling that enshrined same-sex marriage into law, as well as the anti-discrimination laws protecting gay men and lesbians.

If there is a battle somewhere to restrict protections for gay men, lesbians or transgender people, chances are the alliance is there fighting it. The alliance has defended the owners of a wedding chapel in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, who did not want to perform same-sex ceremonies. It has tried to stop a Charlotte, N.C., law that gave transgender people the right to use the bathroom of their choice. It backed the failed attempt by the Arizona legislature in 2014 to allow businesses to cite religious freedom in turning away same-sex couples.

“We think that in a free society people who believe that marriage is between a man and a woman shouldn’t be coerced by the government to promote a different view of marriage,” said Jeremy Tedesco, a senior counsel and vice president of United States advocacy for the group, which is based in Scottsdale, Ariz. “We have to figure out how to live in a society with pluralistic and diverse views.”

But civil liberties groups and gay rights advocates say that Alliance Defending Freedom’s arguments about religious liberty and free expression mask another motivation: a deep-seated belief that gay people are immoral and that no one should be forced to recognize them as ordinary members of society.

“They are a very powerful part of this broader movement, which is trying to bring a very particular biblical worldview into dominance at all levels of government and society,” said Peter Montgomery, a senior fellow at People for the American Way, a liberal advocacy group.

“They’ve got some very big, very clear goals,” said Mr. Montgomery, who has studied Alliance Defending Freedom since the group’s founding in 1994.

One of those goals was to defend laws that criminalized gay and lesbian sexual conduct.

In a brief the alliance filed urging the Supreme Court not to overturn a Texas law that made homosexual activity illegal, its lawyers described gay men as diseased and as public health risks. The court decided 6 to 3 that the law was unconstitutional.

The United States is not the only place the group has been active. Before Belize’s highest court struck down a law last year that banned “carnal intercourse against the order of nature,” the group sent activists there to work with local lawyers who were trying to keep the prohibition in place. In India, an Alliance Defending Freedom-affiliated lawyer was part of the legal team that has defended a similar law in the country’s Supreme Court. That law remains in place, though the Indian court recently signaled that it may revisit the issue.

And when Russia approved a law in 2013 that imposed a fine for what it called propagandizing “nontraditional” sexual relationships among minors — a move that led for calls to boycott the 2014 Olympics there — Alliance Defending Freedom produced a nine-page memo in support of the law, saying its aim was to safeguard “the psychological or physical well-being of minors.”

Mr. Tedisco said the group had never supported the criminalization of homosexual activity. In Belize and India, he noted, the laws the group supported applied to heterosexual sodomy as well. He described the alliance’s involvement in both countries as “a small group of attorneys” who wanted “to resist the foreign activists that were trying to challenge their public health law.”

Asked if he and other alliance lawyers believed gay men and lesbians were immoral, Mr. Tedisco said, “I’m not going to get into what the Bible says or teaches about homosexuality.”

Alliance leaders have not always been so reticent.

Alan Sears, one of the founders of the group and its longtime president until recently, wrote a book in 2003 with Craig Osten titled “The Homosexual Agenda” in which they described possible consequences of same-sex marriage. “Why not two men and three women, or two men, one woman, and a dog and a chimpanzee?” the book said. “This means marriage will be no better than anonymous sodomy in a bathhouse.”

How the alliance is approaching the case of the Colorado baker, Jack Phillips, is an illustration of its evolving public relations strategy. Gone are the fiery denunciations of gay men and lesbians as sinners and reprobates.

A sophisticated multimedia campaign, called “Justice for Jack,” portrays Mr. Phillips as the victim of heavy-handed state bureaucrats. Set to soft piano music, one video describes how Mr. Phillips has received death threats, hateful phone calls and lost 40 percent of his business.

“It’s not about refusing business,” Mr. Phillips’s daughter says to the camera. “It’s about having the freedom for him to artistically create something that allows him to honor Christ.”

Donald Knapp, the Coeur d’Alene chapel owner who sued the city because he worried a new nondiscrimination ordinance would force him to marry same-sex couples, said the alliance not only took up his case but also provided him with media training and flew him to Scottsdale to meet with other Christian business owners in similar positions.

“The A.D.F. was just trying to help us know what to say, how to state our position, what we believe in,” Mr. Knapp said in an interview. “They spent a great deal of time with us.”

Gay rights advocates acknowledge what they are up against. “They know those are messages that work better, and they are no longer leading with the messages they used to, which are ‘gay people are pedophiles and we need to keep them away from our kids,’” said James Esseks, an A.C.L.U. lawyer who focuses on gender identity and sexual orientation issues. “It’s a very intentional shift, a very strategic shift.”

Back in Washington, the alliance’s close connections with Mr. Sessions’s Justice Department seem to be deepening. In September, the department filed a brief arguing that Mr. Phillips should not be forced to violate his faith.

“There is no clear line between his speech and his clients,’” it said. “He is giving effect to their message by crafting a unique product with his own two hands.”

Correction: November 22, 2017
Because of an editing error, an earlier version of a capsule summary for this article misstated the name of a group that uses the First Amendment to challenge gay rights and abortion laws. It is the Alliance Defending Freedom, not the Alliance Defending Justice.

quote:

The Nationalist's Delusion
Trump’s supporters backed a time-honored American political tradition, disavowing racism while promising to enact a broad agenda of discrimination.

THIRTY YEARS AGO, nearly half of Louisiana voted for a Klansman, and the media struggled to explain why. It was 1990 and David Duke, the former grand wizard of the Ku Klux Klan, astonished political observers when he came within striking distance of defeating incumbent Democratic U.S. Senator J. Bennett Johnston, earning 43 percent of the vote. If Johnston’s Republican rival hadn’t dropped out of the race and endorsed him at the last minute, the outcome might have been different. (The Atlantic).

SPOILER

Was it economic anxiety? The Washington Post reported that the state had “a large working class that has suffered through a long recession.” Was it a blow against the state’s hated political establishment? An editorial from United Press International explained, “Louisianans showed the nation by voting for Duke that they were mad as hell and not going to take it any more.” Was it anti-Washington rage? A Loyola University pollster argued, “There were the voters who liked Duke, those who hated J. Bennett Johnston, and those who just wanted to send a message to Washington.”

What message would those voters have been trying to send by putting a Klansman into office?

“There’s definitely a message bigger than Louisiana here,” Susan Howell, then the director of the Survey Research Center at the University of New Orleans, told the Los Angeles Times. “There is a tremendous amount of anger and frustration among working-class whites, particularly where there is an economic downturn. These people feel left out; they feel government is not responsive to them.”

Duke’s strong showing, however, wasn’t powered merely by poor or working-class whites—and the poorest demographic in the state, black voters, backed Johnston. Duke “clobbered Johnston in white working-class districts, ran even with him in predominantly white middle-class suburbs, and lost only because black Louisianans, representing one-quarter of the electorate, voted against him in overwhelming numbers,” The Washington Post reported in 1990. Duke picked up nearly 60 percent of the white vote. Faced with Duke’s popularity among whites of all income levels, the press framed his strong showing largely as the result of the economic suffering of the white working classes. Louisiana had “one of the least-educated electorates in the nation; and a large working class that has suffered through a long recession,” The Post stated.

By accepting the economic theory of Duke’s success, the media were buying into the candidate’s own vision of himself as a savior of the working class. He had appealed to voters in economic terms: He tore into welfare and foreign aid, affirmative action and outsourcing, and attacked political-action committees for subverting the interests of the common man. He even tried to appeal to black voters, buying a 30-minute ad in which he declared, “I’m not your enemy.”

Duke’s candidacy had initially seemed like a joke. He was a former Klan leader who had showed up to public events in a Nazi uniform and lied about having served in the Vietnam War, a cartoonishly vain supervillain whose belief in his own status as a genetic Übermensch was belied by his plastic surgeries. The joke soon soured, as many white Louisiana voters made clear that Duke’s past didn’t bother them.

Many of Duke’s voters steadfastly denied that the former Klan leader was a racist. The St. Petersburg Times reported in 1990 that Duke supporters “are likely to blame the media for making him look like a racist.” The paper quoted G. D. Miller, a “59-year-old oil-and-gas lease buyer,” who said, “The way I understood the Klan, it’s not anti-this or anti-that.”

Duke’s rejoinder to the ads framing him as a racist resonated with his supporters. “Remember,” he told them at rallies, “when they smear me, they are really smearing you.”

The economic explanation carried the day: Duke was a freak creature of the bayou who had managed to tap into the frustrations of a struggling sector of the Louisiana electorate with an abnormally high tolerance for racist messaging.

While the rest of the country gawked at Louisiana and the Duke fiasco, Walker Percy, a Louisiana author, gave a prophetic warning to The New York Times.

“Don’t make the mistake of thinking David Duke is a unique phenomenon confined to Louisiana rednecks and yahoos. He’s not,” Percy said. “He’s not just appealing to the old Klan constituency, he’s appealing to the white middle class. And don’t think that he or somebody like him won’t appeal to the white middle class of Chicago or Queens.”

A few days after Duke’s strong showing, the Queens-born businessman Donald Trump appeared on CNN’s Larry King Live.

“It’s anger. I mean, that’s an anger vote. People are angry about what’s happened. People are angry about the jobs. If you look at Louisiana, they’re really in deep trouble,” Trump told King.

Trump later predicted that Duke, if he ran for president, would siphon most of his votes away from the incumbent, George H. W. Bush—in the process revealing his own understanding of the effectiveness of white-nationalist appeals to the GOP base.

“Whether that be good or bad, David Duke is going to get a lot of votes. Pat Buchanan—who really has many of the same theories, except it's in a better package—Pat Buchanan is going to take a lot of votes away from George Bush,” Trump said. “So if you have these two guys running, or even one of them running, I think George Bush could be in big trouble.” Little more than a year later, Buchanan embarrassed Bush by drawing 37 percent of the vote in New Hampshire’s Republican primary.

In February 2016, Trump was asked by a different CNN host about the former Klan leader’s endorsement of his Republican presidential bid.

“Well, just so you understand, I don’t know anything about David Duke. Okay?,” Trump said. “I don’t know anything about what you’re even talking about with white supremacy or white supremacists. So I don’t know.”

Less than three weeks before the 2016 presidential election, Donald Trump declared himself “the least racist person you have ever met.”

Even before he won, the United States was consumed by a debate over the nature of his appeal. Was racism the driving force behind Trump’s candidacy? If so, how could Americans, the vast majority of whom say they oppose racism, back a racist candidate?

During the final few weeks of the campaign, I asked dozens of Trump supporters about their candidate’s remarks regarding Muslims and people of color. I wanted to understand how these average Republicans—those who would never read the neo-Nazi website The Daily Stormer or go to a Klan rally at a Confederate statue—had nevertheless embraced someone who demonized religious and ethnic minorities. What I found was that Trump embodied his supporters’ most profound beliefs—combining an insistence that discriminatory policies were necessary with vehement denials that his policies would discriminate and absolute outrage that the question would even be asked.

It was not just Trump’s supporters who were in denial about what they were voting for, but Americans across the political spectrum, who, as had been the case with those who had backed Duke, searched desperately for any alternative explanation—outsourcing, anti-Washington anger, economic anxiety—to the one staring them in the face. The frequent postelection media expeditions to Trump country to see whether the fever has broken, or whether Trump’s most ardent supporters have changed their minds, are a direct outgrowth of this mistake. These supporters will not change their minds, because this is what they always wanted: a president who embodies the rage they feel toward those they hate and fear, while reassuring them that that rage is nothing to be ashamed of.

“I believe that everybody has a right to be in the United States no matter what your color, no matter what your race, your religion, what sex you prefer to be with, so I’m not against that at all, but I think that some of us just say racial statements without even thinking about it,” a customer-care worker named Pam—who, like several people I spoke with, declined to give her last name—told me at a rally in Pennsylvania. However, she also defended Trump’s remarks on race and religion explicitly when I asked about them. “I think the other party likes to blow it out of proportion and kind of twist his words, but what he says is what he means, and it’s what a lot of us are thinking.”

Most Trump supporters I spoke with were not people who thought of themselves as racist. Rather, they saw themselves as antiracist, as people who held no hostility toward religious and ethnic minorities whatsoever—a sentiment they projected onto their candidate.

“I don’t feel like he’s racist. I don’t personally feel like anybody would have been able to do what he’s been able to do with his personal business if he were a horrible person,” Michelle, a stay-at-home mom in Virginia, told me.

Far more numerous and powerful than the extremists in Berkeley and Charlottesville who have drawn headlines since Trump’s election, these Americans, who would never think of themselves as possessing racial animus, voted for a candidate whose ideal vision of America excludes millions of fellow citizens because of their race or religion.

The specific dissonance of Trumpism—advocacy for discriminatory, even cruel, policies combined with vehement denials that such policies are racially motivated—provides the emotional core of its appeal. It is the most recent manifestation of a contradiction as old as the United States, a society founded by slaveholders on the principle that all men are created equal.

While other factors also led to Trump’s victory—the last-minute letter from former FBI Director James Comey, the sexism that rationalized supporting Trump despite his confession of sexual assault, Hillary Clinton’s neglect of the Midwest—had racism been toxic to the American electorate, Trump’s candidacy would not have been viable.

Nearly a year into his presidency, Trump has reneged or faltered on many of his biggest campaign promises—on renegotiating NAFTA, punishing China, and replacing the Affordable Care Act with something that preserves all its popular provisions but with none of its drawbacks. But his commitment to endorsing state violence to remake the country into something resembling an idealized past has not wavered.

He made a farce of his populist campaign by putting bankers in charge of the economy and industry insiders at the head of the federal agencies established to regulate their businesses. But other campaign promises have been more faithfully enacted: his ban on travelers from Muslim-majority countries; the unleashing of immigration-enforcement agencies against anyone in the country illegally regardless of whether he poses a danger; an attempt to cut legal immigration in half; and an abdication of the Justice Department’s constitutional responsibility to protect black Americans from corrupt or abusive police, discriminatory financial practices, and voter suppression. In his own stumbling manner, Trump has pursued the race-based agenda promoted during his campaign. As the president continues to pursue a program that places the social and political hegemony of white Christians at its core, his supporters have shown few signs of abandoning him.

One hundred thirty-nine years since Reconstruction, and half a century since the tail end of the civil-rights movement, a majority of white voters backed a candidate who explicitly pledged to use the power of the state against people of color and religious minorities, and stood by him as that pledge has been among the few to survive the first year of his presidency. Their support was enough to win the White House, and has solidified a return to a politics of white identity that has been one of the most destructive forces in American history. This all occurred before the eyes of a disbelieving press and political class, who plunged into fierce denial about how and why this had happened. That is the story of the 2016 election.

One of the first mentions of Trump in The New York Times was in 1973, as a result of a federal discrimination lawsuit against his buildings over his company’s refusal to rent to black tenants. In 1989, he took out a full-page newspaper ad suggesting that the Central Park Five, black and Latino youths accused of the assault and rape of a white jogger, should be put to death. They were later exonerated. His rise to prominence in Republican politics was first fueled by his embrace of the conspiracy theory that the first black president of the United States was not an American citizen. “I have people that have been studying [Obama's birth certificate] and they cannot believe what they're finding,” he said in 2011. “If he wasn't born in this country, which is a real possibility ... then he has pulled one of the great cons in the history of politics.”

Trump began his candidacy with a speech announcing that undocumented immigrants from Mexico were “bringing drugs. They’re bringing crime. They’re rapists.” And “some,” he said, were “good people.” To keep them out, he proposed building a wall and humiliating Mexico for its citizens’ transgressions by forcing their government to pay for it. He vowed to ban Muslims from entering the United States. Amid heightened attention to fatal police shootings of unarmed black people and a subsequent cry for accountability, Trump decried a “war on police” while telling black Americans they lived in “war zones,” in communities that were in “the worst shape they’ve ever been in”—a remarkable claim to make in a country that once subjected black people to chattel slavery and Jim Crow. He promised to institute a national “stop and frisk” policy, a police tactic that turns black and Latino Americans into criminal suspects in their own neighborhoods, and which had recently been struck down in his native New York as unconstitutional.

Trump expanded on this vision in his 2016 Republican National Convention speech, which gestured toward the suffering of nonwhites and painted a dark portrait of an America under assault by people of color through crime, immigration, and competition for jobs. Trump promised, “The crime and violence that today afflicts our nation will soon come to an end,” citing “the president’s hometown of Chicago.” He warned that “180,000 illegal immigrants with criminal records, ordered deported from our country, are tonight roaming free to threaten peaceful citizens,” and said that Clinton was “calling for a radical 550 percent increase in Syrian refugees on top of existing massive refugee flows coming into our country under President Obama.”

A bleak vision, but one that any regular Fox News viewer would recognize.

The white-supremacist journal American Renaissance applauded Trump’s message. “Each political party proposes an implicit racial vision,” wrote one contributor. “A Trump Administration is a return to the America that won the West, landed on the moon, and built an economy and military that stunned the world. Non-whites can participate in this, but only if they accept the traditional (which is to say, white) norms of American culture.”

Most Trump supporters I spoke with denied that they endorsed this racial vision—even as they defended Trump’s rhetoric.

“Anytime that you disagree with someone’s point of view—if you say, ‘I don’t like Islam’—people say you’re an Islamophobe, or if you don’t like gay marriage, you’re a homophobe, and you’re hateful against the gays and Islam, or different things like that, where people are entitled to their opinion. But it doesn’t mean that you’re hateful or discriminatory,” Scott Colvin, who identified himself as a Navy veteran, told me at a Trump rally in Virginia. “Seeing how women are treated in the Islamic religion, it’s not very good, and he’s bringing a lot of light to it—that there is a lot of drugs and crime coming across the border, and that Islam does not respect women, does not respect homosexuals—and so calling it out and raising awareness to that is pretty important.”

“There’s very little evidence of Trump being openly racist or sexist,” Colvin insisted. “It wasn’t until he started running for president that all these stories started coming out. I don’t believe it. I’ve done the research.”

The plain meaning of Trumpism exists in tandem with denials of its implications; supporters and opponents alike understand that the president’s policies and rhetoric target religious and ethnic minorities, and behave accordingly. But both supporters and opponents usually stop short of calling these policies racist. It is as if there were a pothole in the middle of the street that every driver studiously avoided, but that most insisted did not exist even as they swerved around it.

That this shared understanding is seldom spoken aloud does not prevent people from acting according to its logic. It is the reason why, when Trump’s Muslim ban was first implemented, immigration officials stopped American citizens with Arabic names; why agencies such as Immigration and Customs Enforcement and the Border Patrol have pursued fathers and mothers outside of schools and churches and deported them, as the administration has insisted that it is prioritizing the deportation of criminals; why Attorney General Jeff Sessions targets drug scofflaws with abandon and has dismantled even cooperative efforts at police accountability; why the president’s voting commission has committed itself to policies that will disenfranchise voters of color; why both schoolchildren and adults know to invoke the president’s name as a taunt against blacks, Latinos, and Muslims; why white supremacists wear hats that say “Make America great again.”

One measure of the allure of Trump’s white identity politics is the extent to which it has overridden other concerns as his administration has faltered.The president’s supporters have stood by him even as he has evinced every quality they described as a deal breaker under Obama. Conservatives attacked Obama’s lack of faith; Trump is a thrice-married libertine who has never asked God for forgiveness. They accused Obama of being under malign foreign influence; Trump eagerly accepted the aid of a foreign adversary during the election. They accused Obama of genuflecting before Russian President Vladimir Putin; Trump has refused to even criticize Putin publicly. They attacked Obama for his ties to Tony Rezko, the crooked real-estate agent; Trump’s ties to organized crime are too numerous to name. Conservatives said Obama was lazy; Trump “gets bored and likes to watch TV.” They said Obama’s golfing was excessive; as of August Trump had spent nearly a fifth of his presidency golfing. They attributed Obama’s intellectual prowess to his teleprompter; Trump seems unable to describe the basics of any of his own policies. They said Obama was a self-obsessed egomaniac; Trump is unable to broach topics of public concern without boasting. Conservatives said Obama quietly used the power of the state to attack his enemies; Trump has publicly attempted to use the power of the state to attack his enemies. Republicans said Obama was racially divisive; Trump has called Nazis “very fine people.” Conservatives portrayed Obama as a vapid celebrity; Trump is a vapid celebrity.

There is virtually no personality defect that conservatives accused Obama of possessing that Trump himself does not actually possess. This, not some uncanny oracular talent, is the reason Trump’s years-old tweets channeling conservative anger at Obama apply so perfectly to his own present conduct.

Trump’s great political insight was that Obama’s time in office inflicted a profound psychological wound upon many white Americans, one that he could remedy by adopting the false narrative that placed the first black president outside the bounds of American citizenship. He intuited that Obama’s presence in the White House decreased the value of what W. E. B. Du Bois described as the “psychological wage” of whiteness across all classes of white Americans, and that the path to their hearts lay in invoking a bygone past when this affront had not taken place, and could not take place.

That the legacy of the first black president could be erased by a birther, that the woman who could have been the first female president was foiled by a man who confessed to sexual assault on tape—these were not drawbacks to Trump’s candidacy, but central to understanding how he would wield power, and on whose behalf.

Americans act with the understanding that Trump’s nationalism promises to restore traditional boundaries of race, gender, and sexuality. The nature of that same nationalism is to deny its essence, the better to salve the conscience and spare the soul.

Among the most popular explanations for Trump’s victory and the Trump phenomenon writ large is the Calamity Thesis: the belief that Trump’s election was the direct result of some great, unacknowledged social catastrophe—the opioid crisis, free trade, a decline in white Americans’ life expectancy—heretofore ignored by cloistered elites in their coastal bubbles. The irony is that the Calamity Thesis is by far the preferred white-elite explanation for Trumpism, and is frequently invoked in arguments among elites as a way of accusing other elites of being out of touch.

Perhaps the most prominent data point for the Calamity Thesis is a pair of recent Brookings Institution studies by the professors Anne Case and Angus Deaton, which showed that life expectancy has fallen among less-educated white Americans due to what they call “deaths of despair” from drugs, alcohol, and suicide. While the studies themselves make no mention of Trump or the election, the effects they describe are frequently invoked as explanations for the president’s appeal: White people without college degrees are living in deprivation, and in their despair, they turned to a racist demagogue who promised to solve their problems.

This explanation appeals to whites across the political spectrum. On the right, it serves as an indictment of elitist liberals who used their power to assist religious and ethnic minorities rather than all Americans; on the left, it offers a glimmer of hope that such voters can be won over by a more left-wing or redistributionist economic policy. It also has the distinct advantage of conferring innocence upon what is often referred to as the “white working class.” After all, it wasn’t white working-class voters’ fault. They were suffering; they had to do something.

The studies’ methodology is sound, as is the researchers’ recognition that many poor and white working-class Americans are struggling. But the research does not support the conclusions many have drawn from it—that economic or social desperation by itself drove white Americans to Donald Trump.

It’s true that most Trump voters framed his appeal in economic terms. Kelly, a health-care worker in North Carolina, echoed other Trump supporters when she told me that to her, “Make America great again” meant “people being able to get jobs, people being able to come off food stamps, welfare, and that sort of thing.” But a closer look at the demographics of the 2016 electorate shows something more complex than a working-class revolt sparked by prolonged suffering.

Clinton defeated Trump handily among Americans making less than $50,000 a year. Among voters making more than that, the two candidates ran roughly even. The electorate, however, skews wealthier than the general population. Voters making less than $50,000, whom Clinton won by a proportion of 53 to 41, accounted for only 36 percent of the votes cast, while those making more than $50,000—whom Trump won by a single point—made up 64 percent. The most economically vulnerable Americans voted for Clinton overwhelmingly; the usual presumption is exactly the opposite.

If you look at white voters alone, a different picture emerges. Trump defeated Clinton among white voters in every income category, winning by a margin of 57 to 34 among whites making less than $30,000; 56 to 37 among those making less than $50,000; 61 to 33 for those making $50,000 to $100,000; 56 to 39 among those making $100,000 to $200,000; 50 to 45 among those making $200,000 to $250,000; and 48 to 43 among those making more than $250,000. In other words, Trump won white voters at every level of class and income. He won workers, he won managers, he won owners, he won robber barons. This is not a working-class coalition; it is a nationalist one.

But Trump’s greater appeal among low-income white voters doesn’t vindicate the Calamity Thesis. White working-class Americans dealing directly with factors that lead to a death of despair were actually less likely to support Trump, and those struggling economically were not any more likely to support him. As a 2017 study by the Public Religion Research Institute and The Atlantic found, “White working-class voters who reported that someone in their household was dealing with a health issue—such as drug addiction, alcohol abuse, or depression—were actually less likely to express support for Trump’s candidacy,” while white working-class voters who had “experienced a loss of social and economic standing were not any more likely to favor Trump than those whose status remained the same or improved.”

Trump’s support among whites decreases the higher you go on the scales of income and education. But the controlling factor seems to be not economic distress but an inclination to see nonwhites as the cause of economic problems. The poorest voters were somewhat less likely to vote for Trump than those a rung or two above them on the economic ladder. The highest-income voters actually supported Trump less than they did Mitt Romney, who in 2012 won 54 percent of voters making more than $100,000—several points more than Trump secured, although he still fared better than Clinton. It was among voters in the middle, those whose economic circumstances were precarious but not bleak, where the benefits of Du Bois’s psychic wage appeared most in danger of being devalued, and where Trump’s message resonated most strongly. They surged toward the Republican column.

Yet when social scientists control for white voters’ racial attitudes—that is, whether those voters hold “racially resentful” views about blacks and immigrants—even the educational divide disappears. In other words, the relevant factor in support for Trump among white voters was not education, or even income, but the ideological frame with which they understood their challenges and misfortunes. It is also why voters of color—who suffered a genuine economic calamity in the decade before Trump’s election—were almost entirely immune to those same appeals.

During the aftermath of the Great Recession, the meager wealth of black and Latino families declined significantly compared with the wealth of white families. According to the Federal Reserve, “Median net worth fell about 30 percent for all groups during the Great Recession. However, for black and Hispanic families, net worth continued to fall an additional 20 percent in the 2010–13 period, while white families' net worth was essentially unchanged.” The predatory financial practices that fueled the housing bubble also targeted people of color— modernized versions of the very same racist plunder that caused the wealth gaps to begin with. But there was no corresponding radicalization of the black and Latino population, no mass election to Congress of ethno-nationalist demagogues promising vengeance on the perpetrators.

Those numbers also reveal a much more complicated story than a Trump base made up of struggling working-class Americans turning to Trump as a result of their personal financial difficulties, not their ideological convictions. An avalanche of stories poured forth from mainstream media outlets, all with the same basic thesis: Trump’s appeal was less about racism than it was about hardship—or, in the euphemism turned running joke, “economic anxiety.” Worse still, euphemisms such as “regular Americans,” typically employed by politicians to refer to white people, were now adopted by political reporters and writers wholesale: To be a regular or working-class American was to be white.

One early use of economic anxiety as an explanation for the Trump phenomenon came from NBC News’s Chuck Todd, in July 2015. “Trump and Sanders supporters are disenchanted with what they see as a broken system, fed up with political correctness and Washington dysfunction,” Todd said. “Economic anxiety is fueling both campaigns, but that’s where the similarities end.”

The idea that economic suffering could lead people to support either Trump or Sanders, two candidates with little in common, illustrates the salience of an ideological frame. Suffering alone doesn’t impel such choices; what does is how the causes of such hardship are understood.

Some Trump voters I spoke with were convinced, for example, that undocumented immigrants had access to a generous welfare state that was denied to everyone else. “You look at all these illegal immigrants coming in who are getting services that most Americans aren’t getting as far as insurance, welfare, Medicaid, all that jazz,” Richard Jenkins, a landscaper in North Carolina, told me. Steve, a Trump supporter who runs a floor-covering business in Virginia’s Tidewater area, told me that it “seems like people coming to this country, whether it’s illegally or through a legal system of immigration, are being treated better than American veterans.” If you believe that other people are getting the assistance you deserve, you are likely to oppose that assistance. But first you have to believe this.

The economic-anxiety argument retains a great deal of currency. As Mark Lilla, a Columbia professor, put it while defending the thesis of his book in an interview with Slate, “Marxists are much more on-point here. Their argument has always been that people become racist—and there are lots of reasons why they do, but the people who might be on the edge are drawn to racist rhetoric and anti-immigrant rhetoric because they’ve been economically disenfranchised, and so they look for a scapegoat, and so the real problems are economic. I think they’re closer to the truth right now than to think that somehow just some racist demon is directing everything in this country. It’s just not where the country is.”

Lilla’s argument falls apart at the slightest scrutiny: Wealth does not insulate one from racism, or the entire slaveholding planter class of the South could not have existed. Rather, racism and nationalism form an ideological lens through which to view suffering and misfortune. It is perhaps too much to expect that people who hope to use Marxist theory to absolve voters of racism cite those Marxist historians whose body of work engages precisely this topic.

In Black Reconstruction in America, W. E. B. Du Bois examined not only the acquiescence of Northern capital to Southern racial hegemony after the Civil War, but also white labor’s decision that preserving a privileged spot in the racial hierarchy was more attractive than standing in solidarity with black workers.

“North and South agreed that laborers must produce profit; the poor white and the Negro wanted to get the profit arising from the laborers’ toil and not to divide it with the employers and landowners,” Du Bois wrote. “When Northern and Southern employers agreed that profit was most important and the method of getting it second, the path to understanding was clear. When white laborers were convinced that the degradation of Negro labor was more fundamental than the uplift of white labor, the end was in sight.” In exchange, white laborers, “while they received a low wage, were compensated in part by a sort of public and psychological wage.” For centuries, capital’s most potent wedge against labor in America has been the belief that it is better to be poor than to be equal to niggers.

Overall, poor and working-class Americans did not support Trump; it was white Americans on all levels of the income spectrum who secured his victory. Clinton was only competitive with Trump among white people making more than $100,000, but the fact that their shares of the vote was nearly identical drives the point home: Economic suffering alone does not explain the rise of Trump. Nor does the Calamity Thesis explain why comparably situated black Americans, who are considerably more vulnerable than their white counterparts, remained so immune to Trump’s appeal. The answer cannot be that black Americans were suffering less than the white working class or the poor, but that Trump’s solutions did not appeal to people of color because they were premised on a national vision that excluded them as full citizens.

When you look at Trump’s strength among white Americans of all income categories, but his weakness among Americans struggling with poverty, the story of Trump looks less like a story of working-class revolt than a story of white backlash. And the stories of struggling white Trump supporters look less like the whole truth than a convenient narrative—one that obscures the racist nature of that backlash, instead casting it as a rebellion against an unfeeling establishment that somehow includes working-class and poor people who happen not to be white.

The nature of racism in America means that when the rich exploit everyone else, there is always an easier and more vulnerable target to punish. The Irish immigrants who in 1863 ignited a pogrom against black Americans in New York City to protest the draft resented a policy that offered the rich the chance to buy their way out; their response was nevertheless to purge black people from the city for a generation.

In 2006, during a televised fund-raiser for victims of Hurricane Katrina, Kanye West said President George W. Bush didn’t care about black people. NBC News’s Matt Lauer later asked Bush, “You say you told Laura at the time it was the worst moment of your presidency?”

“Yes,” Bush replied. “My record was strong, I felt, when it came to race relations and giving people a chance. And it was a disgusting moment.”

Bush singling out West’s criticism as the worst moment of his presidency may seem strange. But his visceral reaction to the implication that he was racist reflects a peculiarly white American cognitive dissonance—that most worry far more about being seen as racist than about the consequences of racism for their fellow citizens. That dissonance spans the ideological spectrum, resulting in blanket explanations for Trump that ignore the plainly obvious.

The explanation that Trump’s victory wasn’t an expression of support for racism because he got fewer votes than Romney, or because Clinton failed to generate sufficient Democratic enthusiasm, ignores the fact that Trump was a viable—even victorious—candidate while running racist primary- and general-election campaigns. Had his racism been disqualifying, his candidacy would have died in the primaries. Equally strange is the notion that because some white voters defected from Obama to Trump, racism could not have been a factor in the election; many of these voters did, in fact, hold racist views. Particularly during the 2008 campaign, Obama emphasized his uniqueness as an African American—his upbringing by his white grandparents, his elite pedigree, his public scoldings of black Americans for their cultural shortcomings. It takes little imagination at all to see how someone could hold racist views about black people in general and still have warm feelings toward Obama.

Perhaps the CNN pundit Chris Cillizza best encapsulated the mainstream-media consensus when he declared shortly after Election Day that there “is nothing more maddening—and counterproductive—to me than saying that Trump’s 59 million votes were all racist. Ridiculous.” Millions of people of color in the U.S. live a reality that many white Americans find unfathomable; the unfathomable is not the impossible.

quote:

SPOILER

Even before Election Day, that consensus was reflected in the reaction to Clinton's most controversial remarks of the campaign. "You know, to just be grossly generalistic," she said, "you could put half of Trump's supporters into what I call the basket of deplorables. Right? The racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamophobic--you name it." Rolling Stone’s Tim Dickinson, in a since-deleted tweet, observed, “Clinton is talking about trump supporters the way trump talks about mexicans,” whom Trump derided as rapists and criminals. Bloomberg’s John Heilemann said, “This comment kind of gets very close to the dictionary definition of bigoted.” The leftist writer Barbara Ehrenreich wrote on Facebook that Clinton was “an elitist snob who writes off about a quarter of the American electorate as pond scum.” As New York magazine’s Jesse Singal put it, “Not to be too cute but I have racist relatives. I'd like to think they aren't ‘deplorable’ humans.”

These reactions mirrored those of Trump voters. In Lancaster, Pennsylvania, a Trump supporter who gave his name as George acknowledged that “sometimes he says stuff he’s probably better off not saying, because the media’s gonna take everything he says and run with it.” He added, “Hillary can say the same thing, like deplorable, and they won’t talk about that much.”

Another Trump supporter in Lancaster, Beatrice, felt similarly about the “deplorables” remark. “Let’s face facts, calling half of your voter base ‘deplorables’—eh, that’s okay,” Beatrice said. “Trump says something and we have to hear about it again and again and again, and it’s complete bias.”

The defenses of Trump voters against Clinton’s charge share an aversion to acknowledging an unpleasant truth. They are not so much arguments against a proposition as arguments that the proposition is offensive—or, if you prefer, politically incorrect. The same is true of the rejoinder that Democrats cannot hope to win the votes of people they have condemned as racist. This is not a refutation of the point, but an argument against stating it so plainly.

The argument for the innocence of Trump’s backers finds purchase across ideological lines: white Democrats looking for votes from working-class whites, white Republicans who want to tar Democrats as elitists, white leftists who fear that identity politics stifles working-class solidarity, and white Trumpists seeking to weaponize white grievances. But the impetus here is not just ideological, but personal and commercial. No one wants to think of his family, friends, lovers, or colleagues as racist. And no one wants to alienate potential subscribers, listeners, viewers, or fans, either.

Yet nowhere did Clinton vow to use the power of the state to punish the constituencies voting for Trump, whose threats made his own rhetorical gestures toward pluralism risible. Clinton’s arrogance in referring to Trump supporters as “irredeemable” is the truly indefensible part of her statement—in the 2008 Democratic primary, Clinton herself ran as the candidate of “hard-working Americans, white Americans” against Obama, earning her the “exceedingly strange new respect” of conservatives who noted that she was running the “classic Republican race against her opponent.” Eight years later, she lost to an opponent whose mastery of those forces was simply greater than hers.

The reason many equated Clinton’s “deplorables” remark with Trump’s agenda of discriminatory state violence seems to be the widespread perception that racism is primarily an interpersonal matter—that is, it’s about name-calling or rudeness, rather than institutional and political power. This is a belief hardly limited to the president’s supporters, but crucial to their understanding of Trump as lacking personal prejudice. “One thing I like about Trump is he isn’t afraid to tell people what the problems in this country are,” said Ron Whitekettle from Lancaster. “Everything he says is true, but sometimes he doesn’t say it the way it should be said.”

Political correctness is a vague term, perhaps best defined by the conservative scholar Samuel Goldman. “What Trump and others seem to mean by political correctness is an extremely dramatic and rapidly changing set of discursive and social laws that, virtually overnight, people are expected to understand, to which they are expected to adhere.”

From a different vantage point, what Trump’s supporters refer to as political correctness is largely the result of marginalized communities gaining sufficient political power to project their prerogatives onto society at large. What a society finds offensive is not a function of fact or truth, but of power. It is why unpunished murders of black Americans by agents of the state draw less outrage than black football players’ kneeling for the National Anthem in protest against them. It is no coincidence that Trump himself frequently uses the term to belittle what he sees as unnecessary restrictions on state force.

But even as once-acceptable forms of bigotry have become unacceptable to express overtly, white Americans remain politically dominant enough to shape media coverage in a manner that minimizes obvious manifestations of prejudice, such as backing a racist candidate, as something else entirely. The most transgressive political statement of the 2016 election, the one that violated strict societal norms by stating an inconvenient fact that few wanted to acknowledge, the most politically incorrect, was made by the candidate who lost.

Even before Trump, the Republican Party was moving toward an exclusivist nationalism that defined American identity in racial and religious terms, despite some efforts from its leadership to steer it in another direction. George W. Bush signed the 2006 reauthorization of the Voting Rights Act, attempted to bring Latino voters into the party, and spoke in defense of American Muslims’ place in the national fabric. These efforts led to caustic backlashes from the Republican rank and file, who defeated his 2006 immigration-reform legislation, which might have shifted the demographics of the Republican Party for a generation or more. In the aftermath of their 2012 loss, Republican leaders tried again, only to meet with the same anti-immigrant backlash—one that would find an avatar in the person of the next Republican president.

In 2015, the political scientists Marisa Abrajano and Zoltan L. Hajnal published White Backlash, a study of political trends, and found that “whites who hold more negative views of immigrants have a greater tendency to support Republican candidates at the presidential, congressional, and gubernatorial levels, even after controlling for party identification and other major factors purported to drive the vote.”

While that finding may seem obvious, it isn’t simply a description of existing Republicans, but of the trends driving some white Democrats into the Republican Party. Using data from the American National Election Survey, Abrajano and Hajnal conclude that “changes in individual attitudes toward immigrants precede shifts in partisanship,” and that “immigration really is driving individual defections from the Democratic to Republican Party.”

Cautioning that there are limits to social science, Abrajano told me, “All other things being equal, we see that immigration has a strong and consistent effect in moving whites towards the Republican Party. I think having the first African American president elected into the office ... You can't disentangle immigration without talking about race as well, so that dynamic brought to the forefront immigration and racial politics more broadly, and the kind of fear and anxiety that many voters had about the changing demographics and characteristics of the U.S. population.” The Slate writer Jamelle Bouie made a similar observation in an insightful essay in March 2016.

Half a century after Senator Barry Goldwater of Arizona rose to prominence by opposing civil-rights legislation designed to dismantle Jim Crow, the Republican Party’s shift toward nativism foreclosed another path not just to ethnic diversity, but to the moderation and tolerance that sharing power with those unlike you requires.

In the meantime, more than a decade of war nationalism directed at jihadist groups has shaped Republican attitudes toward Muslims—from seeing them as potential Republican voters in the late 1990s to viewing them as internal enemies currently. War nationalism always turns itself inward, but in the past, wars ended. Anti-Irish violence fell following the service of Irish American soldiers in the Civil War; Germans were integrated back into the body politic after World War II; and the Italians, Jews, and eastern Europeans who were targeted by the early 20th century’s great immigration scare would find themselves part of a state-sponsored project of assimilation by the war’s end. But the War on Terror is without end, and so that national consolidation has never occurred. Again, Trump is a manifestation of this trend rather than its impetus, a manifestation that began to rise not long after Obama’s candidacy.

“Birtherism was the beginning. It was a way of tying together his foreignness and his name, in an effort to delegitimize him, from the get-go,” says James Zogby, a Democrat whose Arab American Institute has spent years tracking public opinion about Muslim and Arab Americans. By 2012, the very idea of Muslims in public service “had become an issue in presidential politics, with five of the Republican candidates saying they wouldn't hire a Muslim or appoint one without special loyalty oaths.”

Obama, as the target and inspiration of this resurgent wave of Republican anti-Muslim hostility, was ill-equipped to stem the tide. “The problem was that when situations would occur, and people would say, ‘Why can't [Obama] speak out more forcefully,’ I would say that the people he needs to speak to see him as the problem,” Zogby argues. “It was the responsibility of Republicans to speak out, and they didn't. George Bush was forceful on the issue in the White House, even though he supported policies that fed it … There were no compelling voices on the Republican side to stop it, and so it just festered.”

That anti-Muslim surge on the right also provided a way for some conservatives to rationalize hostility toward Barack Obama by displacing feelings about his race in favor of the belief that he was secretly Muslim—a group about which conservatives felt much more comfortable expressing outright animus.

“In 2004 there's very little relationship between how you felt about the parties and how you felt about Muslims," Michael Tesler, a political scientist, told me. But “Obama really activates anti-Muslim attitudes along party lines.”

In 2012, according to Tesler’s numbers, only 13 percent of voters who believed Obama was Muslim said they would not vote for Obama because of his race. But 60 percent of those voters said they wouldn’t vote for him because of his religion—a frank admission of prejudice inseparable from their perception of Obama’s racial identity.

The scorched-earth Republican politics of the Obama era also helped block the path toward a more diverse, and therefore more tolerant, GOP. In his 2016 book, Post-Racial or Most-Racial?, Tesler found that Obama racialized white opinions about everything from health-care policy to Portuguese water dogs to his closest white associates, such as Joe Biden and Hillary Clinton. Tesler argued, “Barack Obama consistently widened racial divides, despite his best efforts to neutralize the political impact of race,” despite having “discussed race less in his first term than any other Democratic president since Franklin Roosevelt” and having “regularly downplayed accusations of race-based opposition to his presidency” during that time.

“Even after controlling for economic conservatism, moral traditionalism, religious beliefs and activity, and military support, racial attitudes became significantly stronger predictors of white partisanship in the Age of Obama,” Tesler wrote. The “spillover of racialization into mass assessments of public figures will probably make racial attitudes a more powerful determinant of Americans’ 2016 vote choices than they were in pre-Obama presidential elections.”

That was not a foregone conclusion. In other instances, whites’ fears that black political figures would give preferential treatment to black Americans had subsided as those black leaders took action in office. Despite Obama being “the least liberal president since World War II and the biggest moderate in the White House since Dwight Eisenhower,” however, the nature of the Republican opposition—attacking health-care reform as a “civil-rights bill,” and Obama as a foreign-born, terrorist-sympathizing interloper and freedom-destroying socialist—substantiated “any race-based anxieties about an Obama presidency destroying the country,” and prevented consciousness of Obama’s moderation from filtering to white voters, Tesler argued.

Instead, white voters became convinced that they had elected Huey Newton. There was effectively no opportunity for Obama to escape the racist caricature that had been painted of him, even though his challenge to America’s racial hierarchy was more symbolic than substantive. An agenda that included record deportations and targeted killings in Muslim countries abroad did little to stem the conspiracy theories.

“I think you can draw a straight line between Obama and heightened racialization, and the emergence of Trump,” Tesler told me. “Birtherism, the idea that Obama’s a Muslim, anti-Muslim sentiments—these are very strong components of Trump’s rise, and really what makes him popular with this crew in the first place.”

It’s not that Republicans would have been less opposed to Clinton had she become president, or that conservatives are inherently racist. The nature of the partisan opposition to Obama altered white Republicans’ perceptions of themselves and their country, of their social position, and of the religious and ethnic minorities whose growing political power led to Obama’s election.

Birtherism is rightly remembered as a racist conspiracy theory, born of an inability to accept the legitimacy of the first black president. But it is more than that, and the insistence that it was a fringe belief undersells the fact that it was one of the most important political developments of the past decade.

Birtherism is a synthesis of the prejudice toward blacks, immigrants, and Muslims that swelled on the right during the Obama era: Obama was not merely black but also a foreigner, not just black and foreign but also a secret Muslim. Birtherism was not simply racism, but nationalism—a statement of values and a definition of who belongs in America. By embracing the conspiracy theory of Obama’s faith and foreign birth, Trump was also endorsing a definition of being American that excluded the first black president. Birtherism, and then Trumpism, united all three rising strains of prejudice on the right in opposition to the man who had become the sum of their fears.

In this sense only, the Calamity Thesis is correct. The great cataclysm in white America that led to Donald Trump was the election of Barack Obama.

History has a way of altering villains so that we can no longer see ourselves in them.

As the vice president of the Confederacy, Alexander Stephens, in his 1861 “Cornerstone Speech,” articulated that the principle on which the Confederate States had been founded was the “great truth that the negro is not equal to the white man; that slavery, subordination to the superior race, is his natural and normal condition.” That principle was echoed by the declarations of secession from almost all of the Southern states.

Sitting in his cell at Fort Warren years later, the rebels defeated and the Confederacy vanquished, Stephens had second thoughts. He insisted in his diary, “The reporter's notes, which were very imperfect, were hastily corrected by me; and were published without further revision and with several glaring errors.” In fact, Stephens wrote, he didn’t like slavery at all.

“My own opinion of slavery, as often expressed, was that if the institution was not the best, or could not be made the best, for both races, looking to the advancement and progress of both, physically and morally, it ought to be abolished,” Stephens wrote. “Great improvements were, however, going on in the condition of blacks in the South … Much greater would have been made, I verily believe, but for outside agitation.”

Stephens had become first in line to the presidency of the Confederacy, an entity founded to defend white people’s right to own black people as chattel. But that didn’t mean he possessed any hostility toward black people, for whom he truly wanted only the best. The real problem was the crooked media, which had taken him out of context.

The same was true of the rest of the South, he wrote, which had no love for the institution of slavery. “They were ready to sacrifice property, life, everything, for the Cause, which was then simply the right of self-government,” Stephens insisted. “The slavery question had but little influence with the masses.” Again, the problem, as he saw it, was a media that deliberately lied about the cause of disunion. He singled out Horace Greeley, the founder of the New York Tribune, saying that Greeley’s description of the South as seeking to overthrow the Constitution in order to establish a “slave oligarchy” was “utterly unfounded.”

Stephens’s rewriting of his own views on race and slavery, the causes of the Civil War, and the founding principles of the Confederacy laid a different cornerstone. It served as a crucial text in the emerging alternate history of the Lost Cause, the mythology that the South had fought a principled battle for its own liberty and sovereignty and not, in President Ulysses S. Grant’s words, an ideal that was among “the worst for which a people ever fought.” The Lost Cause provided white Southerners—and white Americans in general—with a misunderstanding of the Civil War that allowed them to spare themselves the shame of their own history.

Stephens’s denial of what the Confederacy fought for—a purpose he himself had articulated for the eternity of human memory—is a manifestation of a delusion essential to nationalism in almost all of its American permutations: American history as glorious idealism unpolluted by base tribalism. If a man who helped lead a nation founded to preserve the right to own black people as slaves could believe this lie, it is folly to think that anyone who has done anything short of that would have difficulty doing the same.

James Baldwin wrote about this peculiar American delusion in 1964, arguing that that the Founders of the United States had a “fatal flaw”: that “they could recognize a man when they saw one.” Because “they had already decided that they came here to establish a free country, the only way to justify the role this chattel was playing in one’s life was to say that he was not a man. For if he wasn’t a man, then no crime had been committed. That lie is the basis of our present trouble. It is an extremely complex lie.”

Most important, the overgrown branches of that complex lie have become manifest during nearly every surge in American nationalism, enabling its proponents to act with what they believe is a clear conscience. Just as Stephens implausibly denied that his dream of a society with African servitude as its cornerstone held malice toward black people, so too the Lost Cause myth allowed Northerners to look the other way as Southerners scuttled Reconstruction’s brief experiment with multiracial democracy and replaced it with a society rooted in white supremacy.

That Southern society, like the planter aristocracy that preceded it, impoverished most blacks and whites alike, while concentrating wealth and power in the hands of a white elite. It lasted for decades, through both violence and the acquiescence of those who might have been expected to rise up against it.

Americans tend to portray defenders of Jim Crow in cartoonish, Disney-villain terms. This creates a certain amount of distance, obscuring the reality that segregation enjoyed broad support among white people. As the historian Jason Sokol recounts in his book There Goes My Everything, white Southerners fighting integration imagined themselves not as adhering to an oppressive ideology, but as resisting one. “A certain notion of freedom crystallized among white southerners—and it had little to do with fascism overseas or equal rights. Many began to picture the American government as the fascist, and the white southerner as the victim,” Sokol writes.

One letter (out of many) cited by Sokol, from a World War II veteran in 1964, provides an illustrative example. “Six brothers in my family including myself fought in World War II for our rights and freedom,” a veteran from Charlotte, North Carolina, wrote to his representative. “Then why … am I being forced to use the same wash-room and restrooms with negro[e]s. I highly resent this … I’d be willing to fight and die for my rights, but can’t say this anymore for this country.”

Nor did many white Southerners accept that Jim Crow segregation was a fundamentally unjust arrangement. Sokol recalls Harris Wofford’s 1952 description of his time in Dallas County, Alabama, which a woman who ran the county’s chamber of commerce described as “a nigger heaven.”

“The niggers know their place and seem to keep in their place. They’re the friendly sort around here,” she explained. “If they are hungry, they will come and tell you, and there is not a person who wouldn’t feed and clothe a nigger.”

The formulation is surely familiar: She attested to her intimate and friendly interpersonal relationships with black people as a defense of a violent, kleptocratic system that denied them the same fundamental rights that she enjoyed. In fact, it was the subordinate position of black people that made peaceful relations possible.

Like Stephens, who later denied the essence of the Confederacy as he himself had articulated it, the most-ardent defenders of Jim Crow later denied that the system had been rooted in any kind of malice or injustice.

Four-time Alabama Democratic Governor George Wallace lost his first gubernatorial race when he ran as an economic populist against a candidate with a segregationist platform, and famously vowed never to be “outniggered again”—and he never was. He declared, “Segregation now, segregation forever!” as he took the oath of office in 1963. He stood in a schoolhouse’s door in Tuscaloosa to prevent black students from integrating it. He was responsible for the vicious beating of voting-rights activists in Selma.

By 1984, however, Wallace’s memory of his own actions, like Stephens’s, had changed. “It was not an antagonism towards black people, and that’s what some people can’t understand,” Wallace explained to a reporter from PBS for the documentary Eyes on the Prize. “White Southerners did not believe it was discrimination. They thought it was in the best interest of both the races.”

“I love black people. I love white people. I love yellow people,” Wallace said. “I’m a Christian and, therefore, I don’t have any ill feeling toward anybody because of the race, ’cause our black people are some of our finest citizens.”

In remarkable symmetry with Stephens’s defense of treason in defense of slavery, Wallace recalled his defense of racial apartheid as resistance to tyranny.

“I spoke vehemently against the federal government, not against people. I talked about the, the government of the, the United States and the Supreme Court. I never expressed in any language that would upset anyone about a person’s race. I talked about the Supreme Court usurpation of power. I talked about the big central government,” Wallace said. “Isn’t that what everybody talks about now? Isn’t that what Reagan got elected on? Isn’t that what all the legislators, electors, members of Congress, and the Senate and House both say?”

Trumpism emerged from a haze of delusion, denial, pride, and cruelty—not as a historical anomaly, but as a profoundly American phenomenon. This explains both how tens of millions of white Americans could pull the lever for a candidate running on a racist platform and justify doing so, and why a predominantly white political class would search so desperately for an alternative explanation for what it had just seen. To acknowledge the centrality of racial inequality to American democracy is to question its legitimacy—so it must be denied.

I don’t mean to suggest that Trump’s nationalism is impervious to politics. It is not invincible. Its earlier iterations have been defeated before, and can be defeated now. Abraham Lincoln began the Civil War believing that former slaves would have to be transported to West Africa. Lyndon Johnson began his political career as a segregationist. Both came to realize that the question of black rights in America is not mere identity politics—not a peripheral matter, but the central, existential question of the republic. Nothing is inevitable, people can change. No one is irredeemable. But recognition precedes enlightenment.

Nevertheless, a majority of white voters backed a candidate who assured them that they will never have to share this country with people of color as equals. That is the reality that all Americans will have to deal with, and one that most of the country has yet to confront.

Yet at its core, white nationalism has and always will be a hustle, a con, a fraud that cannot deliver the broad-based prosperity it promises, not even to most white people. Perhaps the most persuasive argument against Trumpist nationalism is not one its opponents can make in a way that his supporters will believe. But the failure of Trump’s promises to white America may yet show that both the fruit and the tree are poison.

twitter:

realDonaldTrump twitterde op woensdag 22-11-2017 om 22:25:11 51 Million American to travel this weekend - highest number in twelve years (AAA). Traffic and airports are running very smoothly! @FoxNews reageer retweet

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Op donderdag 23 november 2017 04:29 schreef Kijkertje het volgende:
Dat is best veel leesvoer

Heb je ook de audio-versie? Kan ik intussen andere dingen doen

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Op donderdag 23 november 2017 00:57 schreef monkyyy het volgende:
Communications director for Roy Moore campaign resigns

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Judge Roy Moore's Communications Director John Rogers Leaves Campaign | MSNBC

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Op donderdag 23 november 2017 10:38 schreef Nibb-it het volgende:

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Heb je wat te doen in de luwte van thanksgiving.

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Op donderdag 23 november 2017 03:17 schreef Zwoerd het volgende:
Uit ervaringen in klimaatverandering-topics weet ik dat het geen zin heeft om [niet nader te noemen users] zoiets te vragen

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Op donderdag 23 november 2017 13:22 schreef DustPuppy het volgende:
Report: Trump Revealed Israeli Commando and Mossad Operation in Syria to Russians

Vast al voorbij gekomen, maar dit is reden dat de CIA tegen Mossad heeft gezegd: "Deel maar even geen gevoelige intel meer met ons."

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On Oct. 16, 11 months after defeating her, President Trump tweeted another of his regular insults about his 2016 opponent, Democrat Hillary Clinton. Sandwiched between boasts about his presumed role in the stock market’s rise and his rally in South Carolina, Trump wrote: “I was recently asked if Crooked Hillary Clinton is going to run in 2020? My answer was, ‘I hope so!’”

Putting aside the reckless braggadocio — and blatant sexism — inherent in such a statement, the entire scenario seemed absurd. Most pundits (and most of the American public) discount the idea of Clinton running in 2020, doubtful she could win the Democratic nomination, let alone the election, after her stunning loss to Trump. Clinton herself has stated that her political career is over, that she is more interested in speaking out against Trump as a private citizen.

Nevertheless, Trump should be careful what he wishes for. Clinton might not be a potential candidate now, but the political winds can change quickly. Recent American history is rife with presidential contenders who lost the primary or general election and then went on to become a candidate in subsequent elections. Dissatisfied with the politics of the day, lured by name recognition and preexisting loyalties, the public gave each of these candidates multiple chances at the presidency and handed several the keys to the White House.

Add to that Trump’s abysmally low approval ratings and inability to deliver on signature campaign promises (building a border wall, ending NAFTA and repealing the Affordable Care Act, to name a few), and Clinton could once more emerge as a serious challenger.

Political comebacks — even seemingly impossible ones — are actually regular occurrences in modern American politics. Richard Nixon remains the most (in)famous example. Nixon narrowly lost to John F. Kennedy in the 1960 election — only about 110,000 votes nationwide separated them — then ran for governor of California in 1962, only to lose that election. Nixon told the press after his defeat in 1962 that he was done with politics. “You don’t have Nixon to kick around anymore,” he proclaimed.

But when Lyndon Johnson trounced conservative Republican Barry Goldwater in 1964 (LBJ won all but six states), Nixon recast himself as the person best able to unite the factions within the GOP. Nixon’s chances were bolstered by a widespread opposition to the Vietnam War that fueled voters’ desire for a change in the White House. Nixon also courted Southern whites — who traditionally voted Democrat — dismayed over civil rights legislation and urban riots in the 1960s. Nixon ran for president again in 1968, capturing the Republican nomination and then the presidency.

Ronald Reagan shifted the Republican Party back to the right in 1980, but it wasn’t his first bid for the presidency. Reagan vied with Nixon in 1968 during the presidential primaries and at the Republican convention, and then challenged Gerald Ford in 1976 for the Republican nomination, where Reagan won enough key states, including Texas and California, to ensure a contested Republican convention that summer. Ford won the nomination at the convention, but after he lost to Jimmy Carter, Reagan became the favorite among Republicans in 1980. Reagan might have lost in 1980, too, had it not been for “stagflation” and the fall of detente between the United States and Soviet Union. High unemployment, inflation rates and oil prices in the late 1970s convinced many Americans that Reagan was right: Government, or at least President Carter, was the problem.

The Democrats have also had their own share of political rebirths since the 1950s, although their experiences may serve more as a caution to Clinton than an inspiration. Adlai Stevenson was nominated for president twice, and almost a third time. His first chance for the presidency came in 1952 where he lost to Dwight Eisenhower — badly. Stevenson won only 89 electoral votes. His humiliating defeat did not deter Democrats from nominating him again in 1956, but the Korean War was over, the economy was booming and Republicans claimed responsibility for both. The result was Stevenson achieving an even more abysmal showing than he had in 1952 — winning only 73 electoral votes.

After his second loss to Eisenhower, Stevenson (like Clinton) announced publicly he would not run in 1960. His decision did not stop his closest supporters, including Eleanor Roosevelt, from creating a “Draft Stevenson” movement at the 1960 Democratic convention. Many Democrats still believed Stevenson was the sole progressive who appealed to both the left and right wings of the party — to the radicals on workers’ rights and civil rights, as well as to southern Democrats. Stevenson changed his mind, but it was too late. John Kennedy was already the clear favorite among Democratic delegates.

Another Democratic candidate in 1960, Minnesota Sen. Hubert Humphrey, was considered by members of his party to be “too liberal” for the presidency. Humphrey lost to the more moderate Kennedy in the 1960 primary, where he was outmatched by Kennedy’s money and political swagger. However, by 1968, now-Vice President Humphrey was the nominee.

Humphrey lost in 1968 for the same reason Nixon won: Vietnam. Voters viewed Humphrey as a patsy of Johnson and the war he (and Democrats) made. Humphrey went from the leading liberal to the liberals’ worst problem in eight short years. Humphrey ran again in 1972, but the 1968 election (and the chaos at the Democratic convention in Chicago that year) cast a pall over his liberal legacy, and the more left-wing George McGovern received the nomination

These are just a few examples from postwar American history. If Americans, including Trump, looked back further, they would find William Jennings Bryan, who was nominated three times for the Democratic ticket (1896, 1900 and 1908), or Democrat Al Smith, who lost the nomination in 1924 but won it in 1928 — and overcame white nationalist, anti-Catholic sentiments in the process. Not to mention Republican Theodore Roosevelt, who ran on the Progressive Party ticket in 1912 after leaving politics in 1909.

Clinton could easily be counted among this distinguished group (in fact, she already is, having lost the Democratic nomination in 2008). Clinton still retains significant support within her party, and Democrats currently have no clear front-runner to replace her. Clinton and her husband, former president Bill Clinton, have numerous financial backers willing to support her campaign, and the former nominee has a vibrant, large, motivated base of supporters angry at Trump, Russian interference in the election and former FBI director James B. Comey — in their minds, the collective robbers of Clinton’s presidency. Moreover, as Trump hates to be reminded, Clinton won the popular vote.

While Trump welcomes a Clinton challenge in 2020, he may find himself regretting it if voters come to believe they made a mistake and look to Clinton to rectify the wrong. Like Nixon and Reagan, Clinton can win the presidency in 2020 thanks to a combination of demographic and electoral shifts among voters and uncertainty about their futures. If Trump pulls Americans into a new economic recession or an unpopular war or fails to follow through on his rhetoric (which looks likely), Hillary Clinton’s time out of office might prove temporary.

It would not be the first time in American history.

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Op donderdag 23 november 2017 14:21 schreef Abschirmdienst het volgende:
Trump gaat toch winnen 2020.

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Op donderdag 23 november 2017 15:05 schreef Ulx het volgende:
Een half jaar? Hij verveelde zich al bij de ambtseed.

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Op donderdag 23 november 2017 15:05 schreef Ulx het volgende:
Hij verveelde zich al bij de ambtseed.

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Op donderdag 23 november 2017 15:27 schreef brokjespoes het volgende:

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Dat was voornamelijk nog irritatie... God die niet stopte met regenen, 3 miljoen mensen die illegaal in de file stonden en niet op tijd bij de kroning konden zijn, trouwens, er *was* niet eens een kroon en er reden geen gouden tanks door de straat, terwijl hij overal toch duidelijk memo's over had geschreven.

Dan eventjes een korte vakantie, en daarna op dag 1 (de échte dag 1) Obamacare vervangen, een moslimban, de mijnen weer open en er was iets met infrastructuur? (Wat dat ook moge zijn.) En dan op dag 2 Parijs opzeggen, een muur bouwen en Mexico met de kosten opzadelen, want je moet *iets* overhouden. O ja, en Hillary opsluiten, bijna vergeten zeg! Hoewel, dat kan ook nog wel op dag 3, dan denkt ze misschien dat ik het écht vergeten ben terwijl ik het beste geheugen van iedereen heb!!!

Goh, viel dat allemaal even tegen.

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Op donderdag 23 november 2017 16:00 schreef AnneX het volgende:

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Goeie recap.

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Op woensdag 22 november 2017 23:22 schreef Stefanovich het volgende:

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Waarom zie jij alles zo zwart-wit?
Waarom continu whataboutism? Waarom heb je continu de insteek dat alles een hetze/complot is tegen trump...? Het vertroebelt je blik. Het gaat om de amerikaanse politiek in dit topic. Dus alles wat de trump administration uitvoert, of beter gezegd niet doet, wordt hier kritisch en rationeel belicht. Je hoeft niet continu in de verdediging te gaan knul.

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Op donderdag 23 november 2017 19:20 schreef MrRatio het volgende:

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Ik zie alles zwart-wit?
Mmmm, Trump kan niets goed doen, en geen kwaad woord over de Clintons of over Obama.
Kijk maar eens naar de titel van dit topic: "Toddler in chief." Peuter aan de macht.
Is dat geen zwart-wit?
Ik zie ook wel minpunten aan Trump, raar zwaaiende handjes, raar mondje, onnodige opmerkingen tijdens de campagne over John McCain en over de vrouw van Ted Cruz.
Kritisch en rationeel belichten? Vandaar gaan meerdere van postings van mij weg?
Kritiek op politici is goed, maar dan wel graag langs dezelfde meetlat. En dat is zeldzaam, helaas.
Trump zou racist zijn. Wat te denken van deze foto:
[ afbeelding ]
1986, Ellis Island medaille naast Rosa Parks en Muhammed Ali. Zou een racist daar naast willen staan? Trump werd pas racist genoemd toen het verkiezingstijd werd.

quote:

Op donderdag 23 november 2017 19:20 schreef MrRatio het volgende:

[..]

Ik zie alles zwart-wit?
Mmmm, Trump kan niets goed doen, en geen kwaad woord over de Clintons of over Obama.

quote:

Op donderdag 23 november 2017 19:20 schreef MrRatio het volgende:

[..]

Ik zie alles zwart-wit?
Mmmm, Trump kan niets goed doen, en geen kwaad woord over de Clintons of over Obama.
Kijk maar eens naar de titel van dit topic: "Toddler in chief." Peuter aan de macht.
Is dat geen zwart-wit?
Ik zie ook wel minpunten aan Trump, raar zwaaiende handjes, raar mondje, onnodige opmerkingen tijdens de campagne over John McCain en over de vrouw van Ted Cruz.
Kritisch en rationeel belichten? Vandaar gaan meerdere van postings van mij weg?
Kritiek op politici is goed, maar dan wel graag langs dezelfde meetlat. En dat is zeldzaam, helaas.
Trump zou racist zijn. Wat te denken van deze foto:
[ afbeelding ]
1986, Ellis Island medaille naast Rosa Parks en Muhammed Ali. Zou een racist daar naast willen staan? Trump werd pas racist genoemd toen het verkiezingstijd werd.

quote:

In fact, discrimination against black people has been a pattern in his career

Workers at Trump’s casinos in Atlantic City, New Jersey, have accused him of racism over the years. The New Jersey Casino Control Commission fined the Trump Plaza Hotel and Casino $200,000 in 1992 because managers would remove African-American card dealers at the request of a certain big-spending gambler. A state appeals court upheld the fine.

The first-person account of at least one black Trump casino employee in Atlantic City suggests the racist practices were consistent with Trump’s personal behavior toward black workers.

“When Donald and Ivana came to the casino, the bosses would order all the black people off the floor,” Kip Brown, a former employee at Trump’s Castle, told the New Yorker for a September article. “It was the eighties, I was a teen-ager, but I remember it: they put us all in the back.”

Trump disparaged his black casino employees as “lazy” in vividly bigoted terms, according to a 1991 book by John O’Donnell, a former president of Trump Plaza Hotel and Casino.

“And isn’t it funny. I’ve got black accountants at Trump Castle and Trump Plaza. Black guys counting my money! I hate it,” O’Donnell recalled Trump saying. “The only kind of people I want counting my money are short guys that wear yarmulkes every day.”

“I think the guy is lazy,” Trump said of a black employee, according to O’Donnell. “And it’s probably not his fault because laziness is a trait in blacks. It really is, I believe that. It’s not anything they can control.”

Trump has also faced charges of reneging on commitments to hire black people. In 1996, 20 African Americans in Indiana sued Trump for failing to honor a promise to hire mostly minority workers for a riverboat casino on Lake Michigan.

quote:

Op donderdag 23 november 2017 19:20 schreef MrRatio het volgende:
Trump werd pas racist genoemd toen het verkiezingstijd werd.

quote:

Op donderdag 23 november 2017 19:20 schreef MrRatio het volgende:

[..]

Ik zie alles zwart-wit?

quote:

Op donderdag 23 november 2017 19:54 schreef Wespensteek het volgende:

[..]

De aanklachten tegen de Trump organisatie, Donald en Fred Trump wegens discriminatie zijn al van ver voor de verkiezingstijd.

quote:

Op donderdag 23 november 2017 20:05 schreef MrRatio het volgende:

[..]

Er speelde wel iets met huurachterstanden en lage inkomens. Tsja, en je vergroot de kansen in een rechtszaak door het op discriminatie te gooien.

quote:

The Justice Department undertook its own investigation and, in 1973, sued Trump Management for discriminating against blacks.

quote:

Op donderdag 23 november 2017 20:05 schreef MrRatio het volgende:

[..]

Er speelde wel iets met huurachterstanden en lage inkomens. Tsja, en je vergroot de kansen in een rechtszaak door het op discriminatie te gooien.

quote:

Op donderdag 23 november 2017 20:14 schreef MrRatio het volgende:
Zijn deze al getoond van senator Al Franken?
[ afbeelding ]

[ afbeelding ]

Arianna Huffington zei zelf het prima te vinden, een getuige bij de shoot zei daarentegen dat ze afwerende gebaren maakt.

Joy Behar:
[ afbeelding ]

Deze meneer treedt af:

https://www.minnpost.com/(...)p-tony-cornish-resig

Een van de twee beschuldigde Trump van seksueel harassment en treedt nu af vanwege...sexiual harassment.
http://americanlookout.co(...)r-sexual-harassment/

quote:

Op donderdag 23 november 2017 20:15 schreef Tijger_m het volgende:

[..]

Dan juich je het dus toe als pussygrabber Trump ook aftreed, neem ik aan?

Trump heeft verkrachting, bezwangeren van een ondergeschikte terwijl hij getrouwd was en het begluren van minderjarige naakte meisjes op zijn naam staan en dat zijn maar drie highlights.

quote:

Op donderdag 23 november 2017 20:15 schreef Tijger_m het volgende:

[..]

Dan juich je het dus toe als pussygrabber Trump ook aftreed, neem ik aan?

Trump heeft verkrachting, bezwangeren van een ondergeschikte terwijl hij getrouwd was en het begluren van minderjarige naakte meisjes op zijn naam staan en dat zijn maar drie highlights.

quote:

Arianna Huffington is defending Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.) against a New York Post story claiming that a photo from 2000 shows the comedian turned politician groping her breast and buttocks.

Huffington denied Tuesday that Franken was inappropriate with her during the 2000 magazine photo shoot, tweeting another photo from the session of her pretending to choke Franken.

The Post's Page Six section published photos from the session on Monday, along with a story from an unnamed source who said Franken was touching Huffington inappropriately that day.

"Just got more photos from the same 'scandalous' photo shoot. Here instead of Al Franken 'groping' me, I'm 'strangling' him," Huffington, the founder and former editor-in-chief of the Huffington Post, said in a tweet.

"I hope the statute of limitations has expired," she added mockingly, along with the hashtag #lockmeup.

quote:

Op donderdag 23 november 2017 20:15 schreef Tijger_m het volgende:

[..]

Nee hoor, er speelde een aantal rechtszaken wegens racisme. Hij werd door de stad NY aangeklaagd, niet door huurders, niet zo liegen.

quote:

Op donderdag 23 november 2017 20:45 schreef MrRatio het volgende:

[..]

Andere insteek: zou een racist zich zo gedragen?: (met Jesse Jackson en Al Sharpton)
[ afbeelding ]
Bron: http://www.newstandardpress.com/the-myth-of-trump-and-the-kkk/

quote:

Op donderdag 23 november 2017 20:45 schreef MrRatio het volgende:

[..]

Andere insteek: zou een racist zich zo gedragen?: (met Jesse Jackson en Al Sharpton)
[ afbeelding ]
Bron: http://www.newstandardpress.com/the-myth-of-trump-and-the-kkk/

quote:

Op donderdag 23 november 2017 20:31 schreef MrRatio het volgende:

[..]

Ik blijf er dan ook bij dat Trump geen structurele racist is.

quote:

Op donderdag 23 november 2017 20:56 schreef archito het volgende:
Ps: En ik hap weer toe

quote:

Op donderdag 23 november 2017 20:58 schreef brokjespoes het volgende:

[..]

Het begint met beseffen dat er iets fout gaat, zodrá het fout gaat. Je doet het dus hartstikke goed!

quote:

Op donderdag 23 november 2017 20:56 schreef archito het volgende:

Overigens is het plaatsen van foto's van iemand naast een persoon met andere achtergrond echt 0 bewijs of iemand racist is.

quote:

Op donderdag 23 november 2017 19:20 schreef MrRatio het volgende:

[..]


Ik zie ook wel minpunten aan Trump, raar zwaaiende handjes, raar mondje, onnodige opmerkingen tijdens de campagne over John McCain en over de vrouw van Ted Cruz.

quote:

Op donderdag 23 november 2017 20:31 schreef MrRatio het volgende:

[..]

Hier een andere kijk op de zaak:
http://www.newstandardpre(...)ent-to-black-people/
Te lang om hier te plaatsen.

Het blijkt vooral om Fred Trump te gaan, en werknemers van de Trump. The Donald wordt nergens genoemd.
Er waren wel beschuldigingen, en geen veroordeling. Kijkend naar de cijfers van de link die ik net plaatste is dat ook te snappen.
Ik blijf er dan ook bij dat Trump geen structurele racist is.

quote:

Op donderdag 23 november 2017 22:03 schreef Mula het volgende:

[..]

Meen je nou serieus dat dit de minpunten zijn die je aan Trump ziet?

quote:

Op donderdag 23 november 2017 22:18 schreef wazzbeer het volgende:

[..]

was ook een hele andere tijd. typisch weer zo'n links dingetje om dingen van decennia terug te beoordelen naar de absurde maatstaven van vandaag.

de clintons hebben jarenlang gegolfd bij een whites-only golfclub.

quote:

Op donderdag 23 november 2017 22:18 schreef wazzbeer het volgende:

[..]

was ook een hele andere tijd. typisch weer zo'n links dingetje om dingen van decennia terug te beoordelen naar de absurde maatstaven van vandaag.

de clintons hebben jarenlang gegolfd bij een whites-only golfclub.

quote:

Op donderdag 23 november 2017 22:29 schreef ExtraWaskracht het volgende:

[..]

Dacht juist dat het met name rechtsen waren die nog mekkeren over wat Mohamed deed met Aisha gehouden tegen hedendaagse maatstaven.

quote:

Op donderdag 23 november 2017 22:30 schreef Ulx het volgende:
Trump schept op over onzichtbare vliegtuigen. In een speech voor leden van de kustwacht.

https://www.theguardian.c(...)ane-coast-guard-f-35

Het gaat om de F35. En de kustwacht is eerder geïnteresseerd in helikopters.

quote:

Op donderdag 23 november 2017 22:29 schreef ExtraWaskracht het volgende:

[..]

Dacht juist dat het met name rechtsen waren die nog mekkeren over wat Mohamed deed met Aisha naar hedendaagse maatstaven.

quote:

Op donderdag 23 november 2017 22:32 schreef wazzbeer het volgende:

[..]

als dat de belangrijkste persoon binnen de religie is die niet bekritiseerd mag worden en waarnaar moslims hun leven moeten vormen, dan is dat uiteraard desastreus voor de acceptabiliteit van het geloof.

daarnaast denk ik niet dat dergelijk gedrag mainstream in die tijd en plek was.

slecht argument dus.

quote:

Op donderdag 23 november 2017 22:32 schreef wazzbeer het volgende:

[..]

als dat de belangrijkste persoon binnen de religie is die niet bekritiseerd mag worden en waarnaar moslims hun leven moeten vormen, dan is dat uiteraard desastreus voor de acceptabiliteit van het geloof.

daarnaast denk ik niet dat dergelijk gedrag mainstream in die tijd en plek was.

slecht argument dus.

quote:

Op donderdag 23 november 2017 22:33 schreef ExtraWaskracht het volgende:

[..]

Ik kom niet met de onzin dat je niet hedendaagse maatstaven zou mogen gebruiken... jij poneerde dat als een links dingetje, terwijl dat gewoon onzin is.

quote:

Op donderdag 23 november 2017 22:34 schreef Tijger_m het volgende:

[..]

Zoals vermeld, de hedendaagse maatstaf in New Hampshire, USA is dat je als volwassen man met een 13 jarige mag trouwen en daar dan sex mee mag hebben.

quote:

Op donderdag 23 november 2017 22:35 schreef ExtraWaskracht het volgende:

[..]

Ik weet niet wat ik met deze informatie moet?

quote:

Op donderdag 23 november 2017 22:30 schreef Ulx het volgende:
Trump schept op over onzichtbare vliegtuigen. In een speech voor leden van de kustwacht.

https://www.theguardian.c(...)ane-coast-guard-f-35

Het gaat om de F35. En de kustwacht is eerder geïnteresseerd in helikopters.

quote:

Op donderdag 23 november 2017 22:36 schreef Tijger_m het volgende:

[..]

Dat dit dus blijkbaar in de VS nog steeds een maatstaf is en niet alleen in het eerste millenium in Arabie zo was.

quote:

Op donderdag 23 november 2017 22:33 schreef ExtraWaskracht het volgende:

[..]

Ik kom niet met de mening dat je niet hedendaagse maatstaven zou mogen gebruiken...

quote:

jij poneerde dat als een links dingetje, terwijl dat gewoon onzin is.

quote:

Op donderdag 23 november 2017 22:33 schreef Tijger_m het volgende:

[..]

Niet? Dan heb je wat koninklijke huwelijken gemist in de vroege en late Middeleeuwen in Europa, zeker.

quote:

Op donderdag 23 november 2017 22:40 schreef wazzbeer het volgende:

[..]

snap niet wat je bedoelt. je argument sloeg nergens op omdat de persoon Mohammed centraal staat binnen de islam en als voorbeeld geldt voor miljoenen moslims. dit maakt het bijvoorbeeld fundamenteel anders dan het Christendom waar de persoon Jezus centraal staat. vandaar dat ''rechtsen'' problemen hebben met de persoon Mohammed. dit is niet strijdig met mijn eerdere opmerking.

[..]

conservatieven worden massaal weggezet als racisten en seksisten voor opvattingen die 20 jaar geleden nog compleet mainstream waren. oftewel een groot deel van links gebruikt de absurde maatstaven van vandaag om zeer nare beoordelingen te maken over grote groepen mensen.

quote:

Op donderdag 23 november 2017 22:42 schreef ExtraWaskracht het volgende:

[..]

Je komt ermee dat linksen een hedendaagse maatstaf zouden projecteren op iets van decennia geleden, terwijl het juist met name de alt-righters zijn die de hedendaagse moraal projecteren op iets van millenia geleden. Daarmee heb je boter op je hoofd. Dat is mijn punt.

quote:

Staat verder los van Christendom en of je kritiek mag hebben.

quote:

[...]

Fully 50 percent of voters think Franken, who has served in the Senate since 2009, should resign, and 22 percent think he should not resign.

The Franken results, though, underscore a partisan divide in how voters view allegations of sexual misconduct against political figures. Democratic voters are more likely to find allegations against Democrats credible and endorse significant punishments than Republican voters are when it comes to allegations against GOP lawmakers and candidates.

When it comes to Franken, the partisan gap is narrow: Forty-nine percent of Democrats think he should resign, along with 56 percent of Republicans and 44 percent of independents.

Contrast Franken with Alabama GOP Senate nominee Roy Moore, however. A 57 percent majority of voters say the Senate should expel Moore if he wins the Dec. 12 special election, but the percentage of Democrats who want Moore expelled (73 percent) is significantly greater than the percentage of Republicans (46 percent) who think he should be kicked out of the Senate.

There are also small differences by party in voter perceptions of the charges of sexual misconduct by former President Bill Clinton. Similar percentages of Democrats (65 percent), Republicans (69 percent) and independents (63 percent) find those allegations to be credible.

But compare that with the allegations against President Donald Trump. "Our polling reveals a stark contrast in how Democrats and Republicans view allegations against politicians from their respective political parties,” said Morning Consult co-founder and Chief Research Officer Kyle Dropp. “For example, while 69 percent of Republicans and 65 percent of Democrats say the sexual assault allegations against Clinton are credible, only 37 percent of Republicans and 64 percent of Democrats say the same about allegations made against Trump."

[...]

(Bron)

quote:

A Split From Trump Indicates That Flynn Is Moving to Cooperate With Mueller

WASHINGTON — Lawyers for Michael T. Flynn, President Trump’s former national security adviser, notified the president’s legal team in recent days that they could no longer discuss the special counsel’s investigation, according to four people involved in the case, an indication that Mr. Flynn is cooperating with prosecutors or negotiating such a deal.

Mr. Flynn’s lawyers had been sharing information with Mr. Trump’s lawyers about the investigation by the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, who is examining whether anyone around Mr. Trump was involved in Russian efforts to undermine Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign.

That agreement has been terminated, the four people said. Defense lawyers frequently share information during investigations, but they must stop when doing so would pose a conflict of interest. It is unethical for lawyers to work together when one client is cooperating with prosecutors and another is still under investigation.

The notification alone does not prove that Mr. Flynn is cooperating with Mr. Mueller. Some lawyers withdraw from information-sharing arrangements as soon as they begin negotiating with prosecutors. And such negotiations sometimes fall apart.

Still, the notification led Mr. Trump’s lawyers to believe that Mr. Flynn — who, along with his son, is seen as having significant criminal exposure — has, at the least, begun discussions with Mr. Mueller about cooperating.

quote:

Op donderdag 23 november 2017 22:51 schreef ExtraWaskracht het volgende:
Lachwekkend treurig dat republikeinen in verhouding tot de democraten op dit punt wel achter Trump aanhuppelen terwijl de rest niet belangrijke verschillen laat zien.

quote:

Op donderdag 23 november 2017 22:50 schreef wazzbeer het volgende:

[..]

de hedendaagse moraal wordt geprojecteerd op Mohammed omdat miljoenen moslims hun leven willen vormen naar het grootste voorbeeld binnen de islam en aldus is zijn gedrag relevant voor vandaag en dient het beoordeeld te worden. het is dus geen willekeurige beoordeling om moslims te pesten.

daarnaast heb je nog niet duidelijk gemaakt of dergelijk gedrag acceptabel was in die tijd en plek.

quote:

nee, dat staat er niet los van. ik snap niet waarom linksen zoveel problemen hebben met terechte vergelijkingen (christendom, clintons). Christendom biedt vergelijkingsmateriaal en heeft een veel acceptabelere centrale figuur. en zo bieden de Clintons ons ook vergelijkingsmateriaal voor wat er normaal was in de jaren '70.

quote:

Op donderdag 23 november 2017 22:30 schreef Ulx het volgende:
Trump schept op over onzichtbare vliegtuigen. In een speech voor leden van de kustwacht.

https://www.theguardian.c(...)ane-coast-guard-f-35

Het gaat om de F35. En de kustwacht is eerder geïnteresseerd in helikopters.

quote:

You can’t see it. You literally can’t see it. It’s hard to fight a plane you can’t see.

quote:

Op donderdag 23 november 2017 22:54 schreef ExtraWaskracht het volgende:

[..]

Ik ontken de relevantie niet, jij ontkent wel de boter op je hoofd.

[..]

Je probeert deze discussie te trekken in een je-mag-de-islam-niet-bekritiseren-van-links discussie, waar ik niet over begonnen ben. Nogmaals, het gaat me om de hypocriete houding van je, niet om het wel of niet mogen bekritiseren.

quote:

Op donderdag 23 november 2017 22:23 schreef ExtraWaskracht het volgende:

[..]

Natuurlijk meent hij dat niet. Hij is pro Trump op elk vlak, omdat Breitbart dat propageert en Trump net als Breitbart soms wel eens wat kritisch zegt over moslims.

quote:

Op donderdag 23 november 2017 22:57 schreef wazzbeer het volgende:

[..]

oh sorry dacht dat je een denker van hoger niveau was. uiteraard zijn er relevante uitzonderingen zoals de persoon Mohammed. als ik zeg dat ik tegen geweld ben bedoel ik dat ook niet als absolute regel en ben ik niet hypocriet als ik zelfverdediging inzet.

quote:

Op donderdag 23 november 2017 23:01 schreef Monolith het volgende:
Ah de trolletjes zijn weer op stoom.

quote:

Op donderdag 23 november 2017 22:56 schreef Wombcat het volgende:

[..]

GVD, wat is die man dom

[..]

quote:

Op donderdag 23 november 2017 23:00 schreef ExtraWaskracht het volgende:

Simpel toch?

quote:

We kunnen het best wel over hypocrisie op links hebben hoor, ik ben het namelijk op dat punt met je eens dat er best wel wat onder het tapijt geschoven is over de islam, wat ook deels te maken heeft met het projecteren op de hele bevolkingsgroep door met name rechtse figuren... maar nogmaals, dat was niet mijn punt.

quote:

Op donderdag 23 november 2017 23:23 schreef Refragmental het volgende:
Arme McCain.
Ergens tussen 14nov en afgelopen dinsdag is zijn rechter been genezen, maar haast tegelijkertijd lijkt zijn linker been opeens iets mee te zijn.

[ afbeelding ]

Het zit hem niet mee.

twitter:

SenJohnMcCain twitterde op donderdag 23-11-2017 om 18:09:55 Thank you for your support & best wishes. My left leg was doing extra work to compensate for the boot, so I'm giving it a break. I still hate wearing this boot, but it won't slow us down from frying 7 turkeys today! reageer retweet

quote:

Op donderdag 23 november 2017 23:26 schreef ExtraWaskracht het volgende:

[..]

Dit had hij erover te zeggen:

twitter:

SenJohnMcCain twitterde op donderdag 23-11-2017 om 18:09:55 Thank you for your support & best wishes. My left leg was doing extra work to compensate for the boot, so I'm giving it a break. I still hate wearing this boot, but it won't slow us down from frying 7 turkeys today! reageer retweet

Vaag verhaal. (Ja, ik ben bekend met de conspiracy-theory dat hij een ankle-bracelet zou hebben vanwege een huisarrest.)

quote:

Op donderdag 23 november 2017 23:30 schreef Monolith het volgende:

[..]

Wat is daar zo vreemd aan? Komt volgens mij regelmatig voor, overbelasting door compensatie.

quote:

Op donderdag 23 november 2017 23:19 schreef wazzbeer het volgende:

[..]

moraliteit is niet zo simpel. jij beoordeelt mensen naar de maatstaven van vandaag. de logische conclusie daaruit zou zijn dat iedereen in de geschiedenis slecht is geweest. jij zou zelf over 100 jaar dan ook slecht zijn geweest (bijvoorbeeld omdat je vlees eet en daarmee hebt bijgedragen aan de massamoord op dieren), simpelweg omdat moraal continu verandert.

als dat niet je positie is bekritiseer dan de trolletjes ook die beginnen over hoe slecht de Trump's zijn omdat in hun bedrijf in de jaren '60/'70 wel eens vooroordelen tegen zwarten zouden zijn geweest.

quote:

ik herken de projectie op alle moslims niet zo. ik kom het niet tegen in publiek debat en ook niet in privé gesprekken met andere rechtse lui. men heeft het wel eens over ''de moslims'' maar dat is normaal taalgebruik net zoals we het hebben over ''de amsterdammers''. niemand pleit serieus over dat moslims allemaal x doen of denken.

quote:

sommige mensen nemen de absurde positie in dat kritiek op islam een aanval op alle moslims is. dit wordt onder andere gezegd door die jongen bij de correspondent. een dergelijke positie getuigt van een onderontwikkelde filosofie (de idee en de persoon niet kunnen scheiden).

quote:

Op donderdag 23 november 2017 22:53 schreef Puddington het volgende:
Ziet er naar uit dat Flynn is overgestapt naar de kant van Mueller:

[..]

https://www.nytimes.com/2(...)er-russia-trump.html

quote:

Op donderdag 23 november 2017 23:33 schreef Puddington het volgende:
Ook is McCain de jongste niet meer.

quote:

Op vrijdag 24 november 2017 02:25 schreef Kijkertje het volgende:
Trump's Thanksgiving boodschap aan de troepen:

Samenvatting: "We're really winning, thanks to me".

President Trump Thanksgiving Message to US Troops, Member Service 11/23/2017

quote:

Op vrijdag 24 november 2017 02:42 schreef Boze_Appel het volgende:

[..]

Hij heeft wel heel erg bigly lettertjes op zijn blaadje en het is zo fucking niet gemeend. Arme militairen.

General hammers Trump’s insulting Thanksgiving address to the troops

quote:

Op vrijdag 24 november 2017 02:50 schreef Kijkertje het volgende:

[..]

En dan beginnen over jobs/ stockmarket/ tax cuts

General hammers Trump’s insulting Thanksgiving address to the troops

President Trump's 2017 Thanksgiving Message

quote:

•President Donald Trump on Thursday bizarrely responded to a tweet suggesting he speaks ill of prominent black people to capitalize on racist sentiment within his base.

twitter:

ThePlumLineGS twitterde op woensdag 22-11-2017 om 16:28:40 New post:Trump's rage-tweets about LaVar Ball are part of a pattern.Trump regularly attacks high-profile Africa… https://t.co/YGEQfMmQzg reageer retweet

•Trump responded to the tweet with: “MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN.”

twitter:

realDonaldTrump twitterde op donderdag 23-11-2017 om 12:31:09 @ThePlumLineGS MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN! reageer retweet

•Minutes later, however, Trump tweeted the same thing on its own.

twitter:

realDonaldTrump twitterde op donderdag 23-11-2017 om 12:44:36 MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN! reageer retweet

SPOILER

President Donald Trump on Thursday offered a bizarre but familiar response to a tweet with an article from The Washington Post’s liberal-leaning Plum Line blog suggesting that he criticizes prominent black people to play on racist sentiment within his base.

The article’s author, Greg Sargent, tweeted, “Trump regularly attacks high-profile African Americans to feed his supporters’ belief that the system is rigged for minorities,”
Trump's rage-tweets about LaVar Ball are part of a pattern.

Earlier this week, Trump went after LaVar Ball – the father of LiAngelo Ball, one of the three UCLA basketball players released from detention in China after Trump’s meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping earlier this month – on Twitter.

After Ball refused to thank Trump for the president’s role in the release of the three players, who were accused of shoplifting from several stores in China, Trump called Ball an “ungrateful fool” and compared him to a “poor man’s version of Don King.”

Sargent’s article linked this to Trump’s other criticisms of well-known black people in sports and politics, calling it “a gratuitously ugly pattern.” It ended by suggesting that Trump engages in a “pattern of race-baiting” that “might be designed to resonate with” his supporters.

Throughout his career, Trump has gone after dozens of politicians, media personalities, and sports stars of many races, but his response to Sargent’s tweet was bizarre because, minutes later, he tweeted the same thing on its own.

Trump has previously tweeted things erroneously. For example, in late October, he wished a happy birthday to Lee Greenwood, the singer who wrote “God Bless the USA,” but tagged another Lee Greenwood who appeared to have protested Trump’s immigration ban.

twitter:

CrimeADay twitterde op vrijdag 24-11-2017 om 01:02:25 16 USC §§705, 707 & Virginia Code §29.1-519(A)(7) make it a federal crime to get a turkey that was killed with a slingshot in Virginia and bring it to any other state. https://t.co/fxUnXLHYLP reageer retweet

quote:

Op vrijdag 24 november 2017 02:51 schreef Boze_Appel het volgende:

[..]

President Trump's 2017 Thanksgiving Message

Officiele statement ook. Man man man, en wat is er mis met zijn ogen?

quote:

Op vrijdag 24 november 2017 03:16 schreef Kijkertje het volgende:

[..]

Dat komt omdat hij het allemaal van de teleprompter af moet lezen volgens mij.
Hij ziet er dan ook altijd uit alsof ie ieder moment kan ontploffen.

quote:

Op vrijdag 24 november 2017 03:10 schreef Nibb-it het volgende:

twitter:

CrimeADay twitterde op vrijdag 24-11-2017 om 01:02:25 16 USC §§705, 707 & Virginia Code §29.1-519(A)(7) make it a federal crime to get a turkey that was killed with a slingshot in Virginia and bring it to any other state. https://t.co/fxUnXLHYLP reageer retweet

quote:

Op vrijdag 24 november 2017 03:19 schreef Boze_Appel het volgende:

[..]

Vorige statements zag je zijn ogen van links naar rechts bewegen, nu niet, dus wellicht hebben ze de prompter aangepast.

Zoek maar eerste statements op, dan zie je oogjes gaan.

quote:

Op vrijdag 24 november 2017 03:22 schreef Kijkertje het volgende:

[..]

Daardoor zijn de lettertjes natuurlijk kleiner geworden en moet hij zich meer inspannen. Vandaar die kleine oogjes!

quote:

Op donderdag 23 november 2017 01:40 schreef Nibb-it het volgende:

twitter:

SchreckReports twitterde op donderdag 23-11-2017 om 01:30:48 Apparently it was reported in the Israeli press that the CIA casually told Mossad in a January meeting at Langley that Putin has "leverage" on Trump. Missed that. https://t.co/58KiZ4ZSkS reageer retweet

quote:

Op vrijdag 24 november 2017 03:24 schreef Boze_Appel het volgende:

[..]

Ach, vind het al knap van hem dat hij langer kan lezen dan een minuut.

Weekly Address: Coming Together On Thanksgiving

quote:

Op vrijdag 24 november 2017 03:30 schreef Kijkertje het volgende:

[..]

Maar wat een verschil

Weekly Address: Coming Together On Thanksgiving

Key & Peele - Obama and Luther's Farewell Address - Uncensored

quote:

Op vrijdag 24 november 2017 03:26 schreef DeParo het volgende:

[..]

Welke Israelische Media?

quote:

Op vrijdag 24 november 2017 03:35 schreef Nibb-it het volgende:

[..]

Goede vraag, dat staat geloof ik niet in het stuk gespecificeerd.

quote:

Op vrijdag 24 november 2017 03:35 schreef Boze_Appel het volgende:

[..]

Key & Peele - Obama and Luther's Farewell Address - Uncensored

President Obama's Anger Translator (Full + HD)

quote:

Op vrijdag 24 november 2017 03:40 schreef Kijkertje het volgende:

[..]

Ah ja. Luther, Obama's Anger Translator

President Obama's Anger Translator (Full + HD)

quote:

Op vrijdag 24 november 2017 03:10 schreef Nibb-it het volgende:

twitter:

CrimeADay twitterde op vrijdag 24-11-2017 om 01:02:25 16 USC §§705, 707 & Virginia Code §29.1-519(A)(7) make it a federal crime to get a turkey that was killed with a slingshot in Virginia and bring it to any other state. https://t.co/fxUnXLHYLP reageer retweet

quote:

Op vrijdag 24 november 2017 06:32 schreef Ulx het volgende:
Right. Het laatste centje schrapen uit een verouderde techniek.

quote:

Op vrijdag 24 november 2017 07:05 schreef MrRatio het volgende:

[..]

Waarom heeft Obama dit in stand gehouden?

quote:

Op vrijdag 24 november 2017 07:05 schreef MrRatio het volgende:

[..]

Waarom heeft Obama dit in stand gehouden?

quote:

Op vrijdag 24 november 2017 02:51 schreef Boze_Appel het volgende:

[..]

President Trump's 2017 Thanksgiving Message

Officiele statement ook. Man man man, en wat is er mis met zijn ogen?

quote:

Op vrijdag 24 november 2017 07:18 schreef Ulx het volgende:
Olie? It's on it's way out.

quote:

Al Franken And The Right To Lead

It should NOT matter what a man’s politics might be when judging his actions. Unfortunately, it does. A single accusation against Franken, and one that could be considered a case of bad judgment, and we were calling for his resignation. Half a dozen cases against Roy Moore, including child abuse and outright rape, and we have a president who still supports him and a state that may still elect him.

Given the accusations and the fact that, from photographic evidence and his own admission, there is truth that he behaved badly, Franken is an "imperfect messenger." But he is also a human being. When was it that we started demanding perfection of our politicians, anyway?

Take these latest three entirely at their words and here is what you have: Franken, not yet a senator, got some kind of twisted pleasure from squeezing their asses. It may not be sexualized in his case, but it certainly makes him an "imperfect messenger" for women’s issues, doesn’t it? Yet many women who have worked with him argue that he's a wonderful advocate for women. What gives?

I am not suggesting we should simply forgive Senator Franken. By all means, we should have expected better from him. But now that we see that he is human, perhaps we can demonstrate that we too can be human and show that we understand what making stupid decisions and mistakes is all about, and that we know the difference between what he did and what, say, the Roy Moore did. (Or the president.)

Karen Topham (Writer, educator, theatre director, and LGBT advocate)

quote:

Op vrijdag 24 november 2017 08:24 schreef Slaro het volgende:

[..]

Voorlopig nog niet hoor. Bovendien wordt olie voor nog wel meer zaken gebruikt dan je auto volgooien. En buiten dat maakt dit het voor Amerika makkelijker gas te exporteren vooral naar Azie, wat erg voordelig is en bovendien een stuk schoner, plus die markter sneller van bvb steenkool zal doen afstappen om de verbrandingsoven op gang te brengen.

quote:

Op vrijdag 24 november 2017 04:20 schreef DeParo het volgende:
Keystone

- Amerika consumeert ongeveer 19.69 million barrels per dag
- Amerika produceert 9,4 million barrels per dag.
- Amerika importeert 10,1 million barrels per dag (2016).
- Amerika exporteert 500.000 barrels per dag.
- Keystone vervoert na fase 1+2 590.000 barrels richting Amerikaanse raffinaderijen
- Keystone vervoert na fase 3 700.000 barrels richting Amerikaanse raffinaderijen

Gezien het groeiende LNG-gehalte in Amerika kan ik me wel voorstellen dat Keystone zo'n noodzaak is, immers hoe meer je Goedkoop in je eigen land weet te brengen, hoe meer je weer duur kan verkopen.

Als de regering nu de ecologische risico's beter in kaart brengt en de nodige aanpassingen doet dan is het voor iedereen geschikt, maar ach, dat zal wel weer te veel gevraagd zijn.

quote:

Op vrijdag 24 november 2017 08:35 schreef J.B. het volgende:

[..]

Keystone ligt er al, jij doelt op Keystone XL neem ik aan.

quote:

Trump recently traded insults with Ball, whose son LiAngelo Ball was one of the three UCLA basketball players detained in China earlier this month on shoplifting charges. Trump took credit for the trio’s release, but Ball dismissed his involvement.

When asked whether Trump’s attack was down to “what LaVar Ball said or, as some are alleging, how he looks,” Schwartz replied: “Both. He's a tall black man, Trump is half awed and half frightened by black people, and his only way of dealing with them is to attack them. On the other hand, I think he has a zero tolerance for any criticism of any kind, that’s why he goes after anybody who says virtually anything about him that’s negative.”

Biographer Michael D’Antonio agreed: “There are these dual motivations on his part,” he said. “On the one hand, it is racial; on the other hand, he has very thin skin.”

quote:

Op vrijdag 24 november 2017 07:57 schreef Wombcat het volgende:

[..]

Afgaande op zijn uitspraken over de F-35 ("you literally can't see it), is hij blind. Misschien toch te lang in de zon gekeken bij de zonsverduistering?

quote:

Op vrijdag 24 november 2017 08:45 schreef brokjespoes het volgende:
"Trump kent maar één reaktie op lange zwarte mannen: meteen vol in de aanval"

"Hij is er tegelijkertijd door gefascineerd en doodsbang voor," aldus ghostwriter Tony Schwartz ("The Art of the Deal"). Biograaf Michael D’Antonio ("The Truth About Trump") bevestigt dit.

[..]

(NB. wellicht ten overvloede: in tegenstelling tot wat Trump doorlopend beweert zijn de drie winkeldieven niet gearresteerd en gevangen gezet, ze zijn alleen opgepakt en ondervraagd.)

quote:

Op vrijdag 24 november 2017 08:48 schreef Abschirmdienst het volgende:
Hij bedoelt waarschijnlijk gewoon dat je een straaljager op 10km hoogte niet met het blote oog kan zien.

quote:

"They said, 'Well, it wins every time because the enemy cannot see it, even if it's right next to it'."

quote:

Op vrijdag 24 november 2017 08:52 schreef KoosVogels het volgende:

[..]

[..]

quote:

Op vrijdag 24 november 2017 08:53 schreef Abschirmdienst het volgende:

[..]

Oh ok. Dan is het gelul.

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Op vrijdag 24 november 2017 08:56 schreef Ulx het volgende:

[..]

Echt niet. Trump lult nooit.

quote:

Trump slammed for 'insulting' Thanksgiving comments to military by former general

Donald Trump’s comments that US troops were only now winning as a result of his military strategy, were “somewhat insulting”, a retired general has said.

During an address to US forces serving overseas, Mr Trump said US troops were defeating Isis because of changes he had made to the strategy of his predecessor, Barack Obama.

“Everybody’s talking about the progress you’ve made in the last few months since I opened it up,” he said.

“They weren’t letting you win before; they were letting you break even. They weren’t letting you win.”

He also talked about the soaring stock market, record jobs figures and the recent Republican tax.

But retired Lt Gen Mark Hertling said Mr Trump’s comments would not have “rung very well” with him had he still been serving.

“First of all, I’m thankful for the fact that he did address the soldiers,” he said. “But the message I heard and some of the things he said would not have rung very well with me had I been a deployed soldier.”

He added: “We have been winning You’re talking to soldiers and military personnel around the world who have been in this fight for 17 years, and to suddenly be told they’re winning now when they weren’t winning before is somewhat insulting.”

Mr Trump spoke from his Mar-a-Lago estate to troops deployed overseas via video teleconference. During the call, the President praised the military’s recent performance and the state of the economy.

Mr Hertling said he believed troops did not want to be told about the economy or the stock market, but wanted to be thanked for their service.

quote:

Op vrijdag 24 november 2017 08:56 schreef KoosVogels het volgende:
De beste man zal ongetwijfeld snappen dat het gaat om onzichtbaarheid voor de radar, maar het komt er weer zo allejezus tering achterlijk uit. Je zou er toch doodmoe van worden als je zo'n figuur de hele dag om je heen had hangen.

quote:

Op vrijdag 24 november 2017 09:00 schreef KoosVogels het volgende:

[..]

Je blijft lachen met die halve gek.

quote:

Op vrijdag 24 november 2017 10:18 schreef Wespensteek het volgende:

[..]

Elke toespraak van Trump gaat over hoe geweldig Trump is.

quote:

Op vrijdag 24 november 2017 08:56 schreef KoosVogels het volgende:
De beste man zal ongetwijfeld snappen dat het gaat om onzichtbaarheid voor de radar, maar het komt er weer zo allejezus tering achterlijk uit. Je zou er toch doodmoe van worden als je zo'n figuur de hele dag om je heen had hangen.

quote:

Op vrijdag 24 november 2017 11:16 schreef Tijger_m het volgende:

[..]

En zelfs dat is schromelijk overdreven, de F-35 heeft een reduced radar image, het is echter bepaald niet onzichtbaar voor radar.

quote:

While no aircraft is totally invisible to radar, stealth aircraft make it more difficult for conventional radar to detect or track the aircraft effectively, increasing the odds of an aircraft successfully avoiding detection by enemy radar and/or avoiding being successfully targeted by radar guided weapons. Stealth is the combination of passive low observable (LO) features and active emitters such as low-probability-of-intercept radars, radios and laser designators. These are usually combined with active measures such as carefully planning all mission maneuvers in order to minimize the aircraft's radar cross section, since common actions such as hard turns or opening bomb bay doors can more than double an otherwise stealthy aircraft's radar return.[6] It is accomplished by using a complex design philosophy to reduce the ability of an opponent's sensors to detect, track, or attack the stealth aircraft.[7] This philosophy also takes into account the heat, sound, and other emissions of the aircraft as these can also be used to locate it

quote:

Op vrijdag 24 november 2017 07:05 schreef MrRatio het volgende:

[..]

Waarom heeft Obama dit in stand gehouden?

quote:

Op vrijdag 24 november 2017 11:49 schreef Nibb-it het volgende:

[..]

Zodat hij met zijn drones op de overtreders kon schieten, vermoedelijk.

quote:

I don’t know why, but this week seems to have been the low point of what is not yet a full year of having the Pennywise of rodeo clowns in the highest office in the land. For reasons we’ll try to enumerate in a moment, this week has brought into sharp relief the consequences of the Russia-ratfcked, utterly racialized, hock-a-loogie decision that 63 million of our dimmer fellow citizens made to hand the presidency over to Donald Trump because they’d been fed indigestible fried crud by their favorite radio and television stars for the past three decades. When I hear Jeff Flake moaning that he doesn’t want the Republican Party to become “the party of Donald Trump and Roy Moore,” I am compelled to point out that the Republican Party has been the party of Donald Trump and Roy Moore for 30 years. It’s just been waiting for Donald Trump and Roy Moore to come along. It is to laugh, and then it is to weep.

The obvious nadir came on Tuesday, when the president* stopped on the way to his helicopter to essentially argue that it is better to put an accused child molester into the Senate than it is to elect a Democrat.

From The New York Times:

“We don’t need a liberal person in there, a Democrat, Jones,” Mr. Trump said. “I’ve looked at his record. It’s terrible on crime. It’s terrible on the border. It’s terrible on the military.” The president suggested that the passage of time, and the fact that Mr. Moore’s accusers did not come forward earlier, should call into question the accusations. And he noted that Mr. Moore has been elected repeatedly by voters in Alabama. “I do have to say, 40 years is a long time,” Mr. Trump said as he left for a five-day Thanksgiving vacation at his Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach, Fla. “He’s run eight races, and this has never come up. So 40 years is a long time.”

What a sewer this man is.

Of course, there is his ridiculous ongoing Twitter feud with Lavar Ball, a feud that scraped the bottom of the barrel on Wednesday with the president tweeting “IT WAS ME!” at the elder Ball, who is quite a piece of work in his own right. It is safe to speculate that this little exercise in petulance and rage is at least in part an attempt to deflect attention from the fact that Robert Mueller’s footsteps are ringing louder and louder in the corridors of the White House. But still, a president* of the United States calling the father of a basketball player “a poor man’s Don King”?

What a festering landfill this man is.

Then, I came across this little tidbit in The Hill, which, for me, anyway, sent this week into depths beyond which no light can pierce.

Mark Leach, who manages the Shenandoah stores for Delaware North, said NPS and park managers had no role in the wine purchase decisions. He said they simply encourage him to buy local products. The Trump winery is located about 30 miles from Shenandoah. “Primarily, we try to buy from Virginia,” he said. “They ask that we carry regional products as much as possible.” Leach said he hasn’t bought Trump wine since the summer. “We sold it throughout much of 2016 and we did a purchase of the rose back in May or June, primarily because the distributor we purchase from had some,” Leach said. NPS spokesman Jeremy Barnum stressed that it was Delaware North that decided to sell the wine, not the park.

Yes, I’m sure that the name on the label absolutely had nothing to do with the decision by Delaware North to peddle the president*’s brand at a gift shop on land that belongs to all of us. There is a virulent and very contagious strain of corruption that infected every part of the public sphere when this president* was inaugurated.

What a reeking, lifeless wasteland this man is.

Not that it matters. The Republican Party will live with him just as it will live with the concept of Senator Roy Moore (R-Food Court) if it has to do so. The Republican Party is the corrupt vehicle of corrupt interests and has been for so long that the party and the interests are no longer distinguishable from each other. A whopping percentage of Americans are opposed to the tax plan that the Senate is about to pass. On Wednesday, Senator Lisa Murkowski, briefly an independent voice against the shredding of the Affordable Care Act, announced that she would support a tax plan that did away with the individual mandate, which effectively would shred the Affordable Care Act. She’s also very high on drilling for oil in ANWR. The only real problem that the Republicans have with the president* is that his corruption is too obvious, too garish. It scares the donor class. It makes the good crystal rattle.

Never in my lifetime have the politics of the country seemed so removed from the people of the country. Never in my lifetime have the people of the country seemed so removed from its politics. Never in my lifetime have political decisions seemed so removed from their consequences. An election driven by fear and hate and abandoned wrath has produced dangerous chasms into which the entire system may one day fall, and nobody appears to have any idea what to do about it. Adam Serwer’s brilliant piece in The Atlantic is as good an explanation as any about what happened last November, and what may happen as a result.

It was not just Trump’s supporters who were in denial about what they were voting for, but Americans across the political spectrum, who, as had been the case with those who had backed David Duke, searched desperately for any alternative explanation—outsourcing, anti-Washington anger, economic anxiety—to the one staring them in the face. The frequent post-election media expeditions to Trump country to see whether the fever has broken, or whether Trump’s most ardent supporters have changed their minds, are a direct outgrowth of this mistake. These supporters will not change their minds, because this is what they always wanted: a president who embodies the rage they feel toward those they hate and fear, while reassuring them that that rage is nothing to be ashamed of.

You cannot run a democracy on that basis. You perhaps cannot even run a nation, at least not one that doesn't devolve steadily into savagery. These were not unavoidable choices. We made them in the clear light of day. What a poisoned country we have left ourselves.

quote:

Op vrijdag 24 november 2017 12:25 schreef Barbusse het volgende:

[..]

Waarom kunnen de Obama haters dit niveau nooit overstijgen?

[ afbeelding ]

quote:

Op vrijdag 24 november 2017 08:27 schreef Ulx het volgende:

[..]

Van steenkool afstappen? Waarom voert Trump een oorlog tegen kolen?

quote:

Op vrijdag 24 november 2017 13:30 schreef Monolith het volgende:
Aardig stukje van the Upshot over hoe de opvattingen van Democraten en Republikeinen correleren en divergeren naar opleidingsniveau:
https://www.nytimes.com/i(...)ncollection%2Fupshot

quote:

Op vrijdag 24 november 2017 13:48 schreef DeParo het volgende:

[..]

Omdat LNG een stuk schoner is en de Amerikaanse economie al lang is voorbereidt op een overstap naar LNG, of in ieder geval gas, Amerika zag de oliecrisis slim aankomen en overigens gebeurde dit al voordat Trump aan de macht was. Met Keystone kan je flink de LNG die Exxon (bijvoorbeeld) elders vergaart tegen zeer gunstige prijzen op de Aziatische markten afzetten waar binnen enkele jaren naar verwachting een grotere vraag dan voorraad kan zijn fascinerend dus.

quote:

Op vrijdag 24 november 2017 13:48 schreef DeParo het volgende:

[..]

Omdat LNG een stuk schoner is en de Amerikaanse economie al lang is voorbereidt op een overstap naar LNG, of in ieder geval gas, Amerika zag de oliecrisis slim aankomen en overigens gebeurde dit al voordat Trump aan de macht was. Met Keystone kan je flink de LNG die Exxon (bijvoorbeeld) elders vergaart tegen zeer gunstige prijzen op de Aziatische markten afzetten waar binnen enkele jaren naar verwachting een grotere vraag dan voorraad kan zijn fascinerend dus.

quote:

Op vrijdag 24 november 2017 13:59 schreef Tijger_m het volgende:

[..]

Amerika zag de oliecrisis aankomen? Die moet je even uitleggen want volgens mij hebben we daar wat gemist.

quote:

Op vrijdag 24 november 2017 14:08 schreef Ulx het volgende:

[..]

Maar maar de oorlog tegen kolen dan! Van die Keniaan!?! Die voerde oorlog tegen steenkool! We gaan big beautiful clean coal hebben! Dat zei Trump! Iedereen zou weer de mijnen ingaan! Dat beloofde Trump!

quote:

Op vrijdag 24 november 2017 14:17 schreef Ulx het volgende:
Maar dat schept geen banen! Iedereen zou weer de mijnen ingaan! Jobs! Jobs! Jobs! Clean Coal! Jobs!

quote:

Op vrijdag 24 november 2017 14:22 schreef Ulx het volgende:
Maar dat gas gaan ze gebruiken voor gascentrales! Daarmee moeten ze stoppen want die gebruiken geen kolen en dan kun je geen clean coal gebruiken en heb je minder jobs!

quote:

Op vrijdag 24 november 2017 14:03 schreef Nibb-it het volgende:
Dat grafiekje Trust & confidence in mass media is ook wel een interessante.

quote:

Op vrijdag 24 november 2017 14:31 schreef Ulx het volgende:
Maar ze bouwen allemaal gascentrales! Maar met clean coal kun je ook treinen laten rijden1 En dan heb je veel meer mensen in de locomotief nodig! Jobs! Jobs! Jobs!

quote:

Op vrijdag 24 november 2017 14:37 schreef DeParo het volgende:
Je blijft maar dom uit je nek lullen om interessant te doen

quote:

Op vrijdag 24 november 2017 14:44 schreef brokjespoes het volgende:

[..]

Of *jij* snapt nu iets niet, dat kan natuurlijk ook.

.

*grinnik*

quote:

Op vrijdag 24 november 2017 14:47 schreef brokjespoes het volgende:
Ik zeg nu al weer veel te veel... hou het er maar op dat er iets is dat je zou kunnen snappen, misschien daalt het kwartje dan nog in.

twitter:

realDonaldTrump twitterde op vrijdag 24-11-2017 om 13:04:13 Will be speaking to President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey this morning about bringing peace to the mess that I i… https://t.co/1PLdvtd5rj reageer retweet

twitter:

realDonaldTrump twitterde op vrijdag 24-11-2017 om 13:10:46 After Turkey call I will be heading over to Trump National Golf Club, Jupiter, to play golf (quickly) with Tiger Wo… https://t.co/QIHCtDSqgV reageer retweet

twitter:

realDonaldTrump twitterde op vrijdag 24-11-2017 om 16:27:13 Horrible and cowardly terrorist attack on innocent and defenseless worshipers in Egypt. The world cannot tolerate t… https://t.co/73hMjYKjMI reageer retweet

quote:

Op vrijdag 24 november 2017 16:53 schreef Nintex het volgende:

twitter:

realDonaldTrump twitterde op vrijdag 24-11-2017 om 13:04:13 Will be speaking to President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey this morning about bringing peace to the mess that I i… https://t.co/1PLdvtd5rj reageer retweet

twitter:

realDonaldTrump twitterde op vrijdag 24-11-2017 om 13:10:46 After Turkey call I will be heading over to Trump National Golf Club, Jupiter, to play golf (quickly) with Tiger Wo… https://t.co/QIHCtDSqgV reageer retweet

twitter:

realDonaldTrump twitterde op vrijdag 24-11-2017 om 16:27:13 Horrible and cowardly terrorist attack on innocent and defenseless worshipers in Egypt. The world cannot tolerate t… https://t.co/73hMjYKjMI reageer retweet

Erdogan op zijn flikker geven, een snel potje Golf met Tiger Woods en terroristen uitschelden.

Make America Great Again

quote:

Op vrijdag 24 november 2017 14:37 schreef DeParo het volgende:

[..]

Je blijft maar dom uit je nek lullen om interessant te doen, maar wat echt interessant is blijft die focus op LNG, tegelijkertijd heeft Trump beloofd de trade deficit met bvb China weg te werken en LNG zal daar een belangrijke rol in moeten gaan spelen.

quote:

Op vrijdag 24 november 2017 17:45 schreef Ulx het volgende:
De rotzooi die hij heeft geërfd nog wel.
Dat opruimen is vast simpeler dan Obamacare vervangen door iets beters en simpelers en goedkopers.

Of een wet door het Congres loodsen.

quote:

Op vrijdag 24 november 2017 17:25 schreef Szura het volgende:

[..]

Erdogan op z’n flikker geven?

https://www.nu.nl/buitenl(...)es-ypg-in-syrie.html

Bedankt weer, Nontex

quote:

Op vrijdag 24 november 2017 17:56 schreef Falco het volgende:

[..]

Hoe dan? LNG wordt nu vooral door Australië (Prelude en binnenkort Gorgon) en Qatar (Pearl GTL) geëxporteerd (zie o.a.: https://www.statista.com/(...)ng-countries-of-lng/) . De VS heeft helemaal geen LNG-productiecapaciteit. Hoe kunnen ze dan een trade deficit wegwerken? Je weet dat LNG-projecten ook een looptijd hebben van minimaal 5 jaar voordat het een beetje operationeel is. Je lult zelf nog wel meer uit je nek .

quote:

Op donderdag 23 november 2017 19:20 schreef MrRatio het volgende:

[..]

Ik zie alles zwart-wit?
Mmmm, Trump kan niets goed doen, en geen kwaad woord over de Clintons of over Obama.
Kijk maar eens naar de titel van dit topic: "Toddler in chief." Peuter aan de macht.
Is dat geen zwart-wit?
Ik zie ook wel minpunten aan Trump, raar zwaaiende handjes, raar mondje, onnodige opmerkingen tijdens de campagne over John McCain en over de vrouw van Ted Cruz.
Kritisch en rationeel belichten? Vandaar gaan meerdere van postings van mij weg?
Kritiek op politici is goed, maar dan wel graag langs dezelfde meetlat. En dat is zeldzaam, helaas.
Trump zou racist zijn. Wat te denken van deze foto:

[ afbeelding ]
1986, Ellis Island medaille naast Rosa Parks en Muhammed Ali. Zou een racist daar naast willen staan? Trump werd pas racist genoemd toen het verkiezingstijd werd.

quote:

Op vrijdag 24 november 2017 18:09 schreef DeParo het volgende:

[..]

Amerika exporteert LNG sinds 2016. Op dit moment exporteert Amerika natural gas gewonnen uit Amerikaans schaliegas waar enkele jaren geleden massaal gas voor werd ingewonnen en de importbehoefte vrijwel volledig elimineerde. Ander voorbeeld is bijvoorbeeld Alaska waar op dit moment zo'n hype om is ivm de potentie. Shell zit er volgens mij. Al deze productie van natural gas verzadigt op dit moment de Amerikaanse markt voor een groot deel. Amerika zal naar verwachting tegen 2020 na Qatar en Australie de 3e grootste exporteur van LNG worden. https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=32412 Verrekte interessant dus.

quote:

Op vrijdag 24 november 2017 16:53 schreef Nintex het volgende:

twitter:

realDonaldTrump twitterde op vrijdag 24-11-2017 om 13:04:13 Will be speaking to President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey this morning about bringing peace to the mess that I i… https://t.co/1PLdvtd5rj reageer retweet

twitter:

realDonaldTrump twitterde op vrijdag 24-11-2017 om 13:10:46 After Turkey call I will be heading over to Trump National Golf Club, Jupiter, to play golf (quickly) with Tiger Wo… https://t.co/QIHCtDSqgV reageer retweet

twitter:

realDonaldTrump twitterde op vrijdag 24-11-2017 om 16:27:13 Horrible and cowardly terrorist attack on innocent and defenseless worshipers in Egypt. The world cannot tolerate t… https://t.co/73hMjYKjMI reageer retweet

Erdogan op zijn flikker geven, een snel potje Golf met Tiger Woods en terroristen uitschelden.

Make America Great Again

quote:

Op vrijdag 24 november 2017 18:45 schreef Falco het volgende:

[..]

Schaliegas =/= LNG. Alaska ligt erg gevoelig bij natuurorganisaties en olieproducenten en is net als North Dakota niet heel rendabel. Je moet relatief veel effort/geld er in steken om die shit er uit te krijgen en dan ook nog alles transporteren naar LNG-terminals in Texas.. Alles hangt af van de prijs en dat is niet heel hoopvol. Saudi en Iran voeren gemakkelijk hun productiecapaciteit op als het nodig is en ondertussen begint er een hele duurzame energie-transitie op gang t ekomen.

quote:

Op vrijdag 24 november 2017 19:21 schreef Ulx het volgende:
Als Trump even voor vrede zorgt in het Midden-Oosten gaat daar de productie omhoog en is schaliegas uit Alaska niet erg rendabel meer.

quote:

Op vrijdag 24 november 2017 19:21 schreef Ulx het volgende:
Als Trump even voor vrede zorgt in het Midden-Oosten gaat daar de productie omhoog en is schaliegas uit Alaska niet erg rendabel meer.

quote:

Op vrijdag 24 november 2017 19:51 schreef Szura het volgende:

[..]

Dat gaat Trump niet regelen, maar toptalent Jared .

quote:

Op vrijdag 24 november 2017 19:56 schreef Ulx het volgende:

[..]

O ja. Waarom is het hem eigenlijk nog niet gelukt?

quote:

Op vrijdag 24 november 2017 19:58 schreef Nintex het volgende:
Natuurlijk ging de media vol op het orgel om de Chinees neer te zetten als white supremacist.

quote:

Op vrijdag 24 november 2017 20:05 schreef ExtraWaskracht het volgende:

[..]

Ik volg toch wel redelijk wat media, maar ben ben dit niet tegengekomen. Welke media gingen vol op het orgel om de Chinees neer te zetten als white supremacist?

quote:

Op vrijdag 24 november 2017 08:45 schreef brokjespoes het volgende:
"Trump kent maar één reaktie op lange zwarte mannen: meteen vol in de aanval"

"Hij is er tegelijkertijd door gefascineerd en doodsbang voor," aldus ghostwriter Tony Schwartz ("The Art of the Deal"). Biograaf Michael D’Antonio ("The Truth About Trump") bevestigt dit.

[..]

(NB. wellicht ten overvloede: in tegenstelling tot wat Trump doorlopend beweert zijn de drie winkeldieven niet gearresteerd en gevangen gezet, ze zijn alleen opgepakt en ondervraagd.)

quote:

Op vrijdag 24 november 2017 21:36 schreef brokjespoes het volgende:
Zoars bijvoolbeerd beglaven ranceelpraatsen van ulanium- en prutoniumlaketten.

quote:

Op vrijdag 24 november 2017 22:25 schreef thesiren.nl het volgende:
Konten knijpen en kindertjes neuken het is nogal een verschil. Ik snap niet dat jullie het laatste verdedigen.

quote:

Op vrijdag 24 november 2017 21:39 schreef ExtraWaskracht het volgende:

[..]

[ afbeelding ]

twitter:

realDonaldTrump twitterde op vrijdag 24-11-2017 om 23:40:26 Time Magazine called to say that I was PROBABLY going to be named “Man (Person) of the Year,” like last year, but I… https://t.co/yFDS5Pz9yB reageer retweet

quote:

Op vrijdag 24 november 2017 03:30 schreef Kijkertje het volgende:

[..]

Maar wat een verschil

Weekly Address: Coming Together On Thanksgiving

quote:

Op vrijdag 24 november 2017 23:31 schreef Boze_Appel het volgende:

[..]

ik hou van je waspoeder.

quote:

Op vrijdag 24 november 2017 23:43 schreef Kijkertje het volgende:

twitter:

realDonaldTrump twitterde op vrijdag 24-11-2017 om 23:40:26 Time Magazine called to say that I was PROBABLY going to be named “Man (Person) of the Year,” like last year, but I… https://t.co/yFDS5Pz9yB reageer retweet

quote:

Mueller Probe Looks at Mike Flynn’s Work on Documentary Targeting Exiled Turkish Cleric
Special counsel focuses on links to Turkey as legal team’s move signals possible cooperation with investigators

WASHINGTON—Special Counsel Robert Mueller is investigating former White House national security adviser Mike Flynn’s work on an unfinished film financed by Turkish interests as part of its wider probe into whether Mr. Flynn improperly concealed financial ties to Turkey and to Russia, according to people familiar with the matter.

The focus on the film comes amid signs that Mr. Flynn may be working on a deal with Mr. Mueller. Mr. Flynn’s lawyers this week stopped cooperating with White House attorneys defending the president, according to other people familiar with the matter, a possible sign that Mr. Flynn is sharing information with investigators.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation is preparing to interview consultants hired by Mr. Flynn to work on a documentary film targeting an exiled Turkish cleric who Ankara accuses of trying to overthrow the country’s president, according to people familiar with the investigation. Details of the unfinished film project were first reported by The Wall Street Journal in May.

The film was at the heart of Mr. Flynn’s work for Turkish interests while he served as top adviser on then-candidate Donald Trump’s presidential campaign. While working to get Mr. Trump elected, Mr. Flynn’s company signed a $530,000 contract with a Turkish businessman with close ties to President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

Mr. Flynn and his business partner, Bijan Kian, hired consultants to create a film attacking the Muslim cleric, Fethullah Gulen, who has been accused of orchestrating a failed July 2016 coup attempt in Turkey from his home in rural Pennsylvania. Mr. Gulen has denied playing any role in the short-lived putsch.

SPOILER

Mr. Flynn’s consulting firm, the Flynn Intel Group, tried to conceal its role in the documentary, said David Enders, a Beirut-based freelance journalist hired to film interviews. Mr. Enders said that Mr. Kian told him that he didn’t want anyone to know who was behind the movie.

“He said: ‘We don’t want anyone to know the Flynn Intel Group has anything to do with this,’ ” Mr. Enders told the Journal in May.

Mr. Kian didn’t respond to a request for comment. Peter Carr, a spokesman for Mr. Mueller, likewise declined to comment.

Mr. Flynn’s lawyer, Robert Kelner, wasn’t immediately available for comment.

FBI agents have contacted Mr. Enders as well as Rudi Bakhtiar, a former CNN anchor hired to work on the documentary, to ask them about their roles in the venture, according to people familiar with the matter.

Others who have already spoken to the FBI have said that investigators have been asking detailed questions about Mr. Kian, former vice chair of the now-defunct Flynn Intel Group.

Mr. Flynn waited until March of this year to file federal documents showing that he was paid to represent Turkish interests. He is now the focus of investigators looking into whether he improperly concealed his financial ties to Turkey as well as Russia.

Mr. Mueller also is probing the alleged role played by Mr. Flynn and his son, Michael Flynn Jr. , in a plan to forcibly remove Mr. Gulen and deliver him to Turkey in return for millions of dollars, the Journal previously reported. Under the alleged proposal, Mr. Flynn and his son were to be paid as much as $15 million for delivering Mr. Gulen to the Turkish government.

Mr. Flynn’s lawyer and the Turkish government have said the plot allegations are false.

The developments come as lawyers for Mr. Flynn abruptly stopped cooperating with White House attorneys defending the president, according to two people familiar with the matter, raising the possibility that the former national security adviser could be looking to cut a deal. Mr. Flynn’s attorneys this week alerted the president’s legal team that they could no longer discuss the special counsel’s investigation of Trump associates’ ties to Russia, according to two people familiar with the matter.

Mr. Flynn’s lawyers earlier had entered into a joint defense agreement with the president’s legal team that allowed them to share information surrounding Mr. Mueller’s investigation that would otherwise be subject to attorney-client privilege. On Wednesday, Mr. Flynn’s lawyers called John Dowd, who heads Mr. Trump’s legal team, and told him they were ending the agreement, according to the people.

There are several possible reasons for taking this step, which was first reported by the New York Times on Thursday.

Terminating a joint defense agreement could mean that Mr. Flynn, a longtime campaign aide who was ousted from the Trump administration in February, is cooperating in the special counsel’s investigation. It would be an ethical breach for one party of a joint defense agreement to begin cooperating with an investigation while continuing to share information.

Mr. Flynn’s move to end the agreement could also mean that he has entered plea deal discussions with Mr. Mueller’s team, which would mean that Mr. Mueller is moving toward charging the former national security adviser. The special counsel has already charged two former Trump campaign aides— Paul Manafort and Rick Gates, who both pleaded not guilty—and has obtained a guilty plea from a third, George Papadopoulos.

Mr. Flynn’s lawyer, Mr. Kelner, declined to comment on the move.

“It was not unexpected to us that Gen. Flynn’s lawyers might be entering into discussions with the special counsel and potential pleas,” said Jay Sekulow, a member of the team, said. “No one should draw the conclusion from that that this means anything about Gen. Flynn cooperating against the president.”

Mr. Mueller’s team is investigating whether Trump associates colluded in Russia’s efforts to interfere in the 2016 U.S. election, and has a broad mandate to examine any matters that arise from that probe. Mr. Trump has denied any collusion by him or his campaign, and Moscow has denied meddling in the election.

quote:

In final act, Cordray blocks Trump from naming his successor at consumer protection bureau

Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Director Richard Cordray on Friday appointed the agency’s chief of staff, Leandra English, as the CFPB’s deputy director, establishing her as his successor when he steps down at the end of the day.

The move appears designed to thwart any move by President Donald Trump to name another temporary official to head the controversial agency. Trump has been reported to be considering White House Budget Director Mick Mulvaney for the role.

The 2010 Dodd-Frank Act, which created the CFPB, explicitly says the consumer bureau's deputy director shall "serve as acting Director in the absence or unavailability of the Director."

Trump will likely now have to nominate someone who must be confirmed by the Senate before he can oust English.

Cordray's chess move is the latest drama to engulf an agency that Republicans have targeted since its inception. GOP lawmakers and business executives argue that the consumer bureau regulates through enforcement rather than rulemaking and that its single director has unconstitutional power.

SPOILER

In deciding to leave at the end of the day today, Cordray is speeding up his original timetable of departing at the end of the month, which he announced on Nov. 15.

"Upon my departure, [English] will become the acting Director pursuant to section 1011(b)(5) of the Dodd-Frank Act," Cordray said in a note to staff.

"In considering how to ensure an orderly succession for this independent agency, I determined that it would be best to avoid leaving this key position filled only in an acting capacity," he added. "In consultation over the past few days, I have also come to recognize that appointing the current chief of staff to the deputy director position would minimize operational disruption and provide for a smooth transition given her operational expertise."

Cordray has been rumored to be considering a run for governor of Ohio but has given no indication of his plans.

In his resignation letter, he called serving as the CFPB's first director "one of the great joys of my life."

English will officially take the role that has been filled on an acting basis since 2015, most recently by David Silberman, who will continue to serve as CFPB’s associate director of research, markets and regulations.

She has held several leadership positions at the CFPB, including deputy chief operating officer, acting chief of staff, and deputy chief of staff.

“Leandra is a seasoned professional who has spent her career of public service focused on promoting smooth and efficient operations,” Cordray said in his statement. “As deputy director, we will continue to benefit from Leandra’s in-depth knowledge of the operational needs of this agency and its staff.”

English has also previously held senior positions at the Office of Management and Budget and the Office of Personnel Management.

Financial companies, which have long criticized Cordray as overly aggressive, decried the move.

“Today’s actions by former CFPB Director Richard Cordray in appointing his own Acting Director to lead the bureau reinforces the problematic nature of having a single and completely unaccountable leader," said Chris Stinebert, head of the American Financial Services Association, which represents installment lenders, in a statement.

"The decision to choose who should lead the country’s consumer protection agency, and confusion that’s been caused by Cordray’s own ‘succession plan,’ should not be made by one individual and for this reason AFSA has long advocated the need for a bipartisan commission,” he added.

quote:

Op zaterdag 25 november 2017 00:10 schreef ExtraWaskracht het volgende:
Na gister het bericht dat Flynn ws meewerkt... ik weet niet goed wat hiervan te maken... qua intrige is natuurlijk wel bekend dat Rusland en Turkije wel goede partners zijn en beide autoritaire leiders hebben, to put it mildly:

[..]

quote:

Op zaterdag 25 november 2017 00:48 schreef Kijkertje het volgende:

[..]

Het verbaast me allemaal niets meer. Trump's verkiezingscampagne was één grote amateuristische chaos. Daar komen de intriganten natuurlijk als vliegen op de stroop op af.
En als je Trump goed weet te bespelen krijg je dingen gedaan, nog afgezien van wat er wellicht achter zijn rug bekokstooft werd.

quote:

Op vrijdag 24 november 2017 22:03 schreef MrRatio het volgende:
Weer een politicus met losse handjes: Raul Bocanegra
http://ktla.com/2017/11/2(...)f-sexual-harassment/

quote:

Op zaterdag 25 november 2017 00:47 schreef ExtraWaskracht het volgende:

[..]

De laatste paragraaf voor de spoiler heeft het over dat republikeinen vinden dat het niet grondwettelijk is, maar wat ik me daarbij dan altijd afvraag ... ze hebben daar een rechtstaat waarbij je zaken tegen de grondwet kunt toetsen, dus na zoveel jaar, waar gaat het over?

quote:

Op zaterdag 25 november 2017 01:18 schreef Nintex het volgende:
Het idee dat de Russen actief zouden samenwerken met de Trump campagne is te bespottelijk voor woorden.

quote:

Op zaterdag 25 november 2017 01:27 schreef Kijkertje het volgende:

[..]

Omdat ze door deze benoeming van English door Cordray de kans zijn misgelopen om zonder toestemming van de Senaat Mulvaney te benoemen als nieuwe Director? Dat is wat ik er uit begrijp.

quote:

Op zaterdag 25 november 2017 01:28 schreef ExtraWaskracht het volgende:

[..]

De directe link met Trump zelf is mss lastig gemaakt, maar met de campagne heb ik daar toch wel mijn twijfels over...

- Klaarblijkelijk stond de Trump campagne er bij monde van Trump Jr. voor open. "I love it"
- Er zijn verscheidene rapportages waaruit blijkt dat Rusland er net zo over dacht
- De gehackte DNC mails was bekend bij de campagne via een Russisch kanaal voordat het publiekelijk bekend was
- Campagne uitingen kwamen overeen met verzoeken uit wikileaks

En dit is wat me toevallig tebinnen schiet ... laat staan wat een stel daadwerkelijk competente lui zien...

quote:

Op zaterdag 25 november 2017 01:43 schreef Nintex het volgende:

[..]

De ommekeer was de deplorables speech van Clinton

quote:

Op zaterdag 25 november 2017 01:30 schreef ExtraWaskracht het volgende:

[..]

Ja, nee, maar dat is het gevolg, maar ik had het over de klacht dat iets al dan niet grondwettelijk zou zijn.

quote:

Op zaterdag 25 november 2017 01:47 schreef Kijkertje het volgende:

[..]

Dat de macht van Cordray ongrondwettelijk was omdat hij niet zonder 'cause' ontslagen kon worden bedoel je?

quote:

GOP lawmakers and business executives argue that the consumer bureau regulates through enforcement rather than rulemaking and that its single director has unconstitutional power.

quote:

Op zaterdag 25 november 2017 01:45 schreef ExtraWaskracht het volgende:

[..]

Hm ja, wat dat betreft vraag ik me altijd af als iemand erover begint of mensen die dit aanhalen wel de hele quote kennen of slechts de helft. Dus naja, bij deze stel ik de vraag...

quote:

Op zaterdag 25 november 2017 01:43 schreef Nintex het volgende:
Nog liever Donald Trump dan een president die dood neervalt.

quote:

Op zaterdag 25 november 2017 01:49 schreef ExtraWaskracht het volgende:

[..]

Nee, ik doel oa hierop:

[..]

quote:

Op zaterdag 25 november 2017 01:55 schreef Nintex het volgende:

[..]

Tot dan liet ze zich niet gek maken.

Maar toen ze begon te praten over 4chan trolls en iemand heel hard PEPE! riep vanuit de zaal, was ze fucked.

South Park deed kort daar na een geweldige aflevering (zij hadden het ook door), waarbij Garrison letterlijk zegt: "I'm giving you this lady" en ze het totaal verprutst. Iedereen die niet met zijn hoofd in het zand zat wist toen dat het over was voor Clinton.

quote:

Op zaterdag 25 november 2017 02:02 schreef Kijkertje het volgende:

[..]

Omdat Trump hem nu wil ontslaan toch? Of vonden de Reps. het al eerder ongrondwettelijk?

quote:

Op zaterdag 25 november 2017 02:08 schreef ExtraWaskracht het volgende:

[..]

Kende je nou de tweede helft van de quote of niet?

quote:

To just be grossly generalistic, you can put half of Trump supporters into what I call the basket of deplorables. Right? Racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamaphobic, you name it.

Deplorable Entrance: Trump Takes Stage to ‘Les Mis’ Song

quote:

Op zaterdag 25 november 2017 02:16 schreef Nintex het volgende:

[..]


[..]

Zo een ontzettend domme uitspraak

quote:

I know there are only 60 days left to make our case — and don't get complacent; don't see the latest outrageous, offensive, inappropriate comment and think, “Well, he’s done this time.” We are living in a volatile political environment.

You know, to just be grossly generalistic, you could put half of Trump's supporters into what I call the basket of deplorables. (Laughter/applause) Right? (Laughter/applause) They’re racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic — Islamophobic — you name it. And unfortunately, there are people like that. And he has lifted them up. He has given voice to their websites that used to only have 11,000 people — now have 11 million. He tweets and retweets their offensive hateful mean-spirited rhetoric. Now, some of those folks — they are irredeemable, but thankfully, they are not America.

But the "other" basket — the other basket — and I know because I look at this crowd I see friends from all over America here: I see friends from Florida and Georgia and South Carolina and Texas and — as well as, you know, New York and California — but that "other" basket of people are people who feel the government has let them down, the economy has let them down, nobody cares about them, nobody worries about what happens to their lives and their futures; and they’re just desperate for change. It doesn’t really even matter where it comes from. They don’t buy everything he says, but — he seems to hold out some hope that their lives will be different. They won’t wake up and see their jobs disappear, lose a kid to heroin, feel like they’re in a dead-end. Those are people we have to understand and empathize with as well.

quote:

Op vrijdag 24 november 2017 18:45 schreef Falco het volgende:

[..]

Schaliegas =/= LNG. Alaska ligt erg gevoelig bij natuurorganisaties en olieproducenten en is net als North Dakota niet heel rendabel. Je moet relatief veel effort/geld er in steken om die shit er uit te krijgen en dan ook nog alles transporteren naar LNG-terminals in Texas.. Alles hangt af van de prijs en dat is niet heel hoopvol. Saudi en Iran voeren gemakkelijk hun productiecapaciteit op als het nodig is en ondertussen begint er een hele duurzame energie-transitie op gang t ekomen.

quote:

Op vrijdag 24 november 2017 23:43 schreef Kijkertje het volgende:

twitter:

realDonaldTrump twitterde op vrijdag 24-11-2017 om 23:40:26 Time Magazine called to say that I was PROBABLY going to be named “Man (Person) of the Year,” like last year, but I… https://t.co/yFDS5Pz9yB reageer retweet

quote:

The magazine issued a statement disputing the President's account.

"The President is incorrect about how we choose Person of the Year. TIME does not comment on our choice until publication, which is December 6," a spokeswoman told CNN.
Bron

twitter:

alansmurray twitterde op zaterdag 25-11-2017 om 03:12:07 Amazing. Not a speck of truth here—Trump tweets he 'took a pass' at being named TIME's person of the year https://t.co/D6SJgyTpcY reageer retweet

quote:

Op zaterdag 25 november 2017 01:28 schreef ExtraWaskracht het volgende:

[..]

De directe link met Trump zelf is mss lastig gemaakt, maar met de campagne heb ik daar toch wel mijn twijfels over...

- Klaarblijkelijk stond de Trump campagne er bij monde van Trump Jr. voor open. "I love it"
- Er zijn verscheidene rapportages waaruit blijkt dat Rusland er net zo over dacht
- De gehackte DNC mails was bekend bij de campagne via een Russisch kanaal voordat het publiekelijk bekend was
- Campagne uitingen kwamen overeen met verzoeken uit wikileaks

En dit is wat me toevallig tebinnen schiet ... laat staan wat een stel daadwerkelijk competente lui zien...

quote:

Op zaterdag 25 november 2017 02:21 schreef ExtraWaskracht het volgende:

[..]

Ja, in isolatie wel. Dit is de hele quote:

[..]

Heb wat ik bedoelde met tweede gedeelte bold gemaakt.

quote:

Op zaterdag 25 november 2017 05:33 schreef Kijkertje het volgende:

[..]

Goh, het schijnt toch niet helemaal te kloppen

[..]

twitter:

alansmurray twitterde op zaterdag 25-11-2017 om 03:12:07 Amazing. Not a speck of truth here—Trump tweets he 'took a pass' at being named TIME's person of the year https://t.co/D6SJgyTpcY reageer retweet

quote:

Op zaterdag 25 november 2017 01:43 schreef Nintex het volgende:

[..]

Trump Tower werd plat gelopen door allerlei lui die wilde meeliften op het succes van Trump.

quote:

Op zaterdag 25 november 2017 05:33 schreef Kijkertje het volgende:

[..]

Goh, het schijnt toch niet helemaal te kloppen

[..]

twitter:

alansmurray twitterde op zaterdag 25-11-2017 om 03:12:07 Amazing. Not a speck of truth here—Trump tweets he 'took a pass' at being named TIME's person of the year https://t.co/D6SJgyTpcY reageer retweet

quote:

Op zaterdag 25 november 2017 08:33 schreef Zwoerd het volgende:

[..]

Zo bizar. Het is niet een klein leugentje waarbij je de waarheid iets verdraaid, maar gewoon puur dingen verzinnen.

De Trump-fans hier zien dat als liegen zoals politici dat vaker doen; 'Rutte liegt ook wel eens' werd hier gezegd. Maar wat Trump doet is van een compleet andere orde. Die man heeft een psychische afwijking.

quote:

Op zaterdag 25 november 2017 08:44 schreef Barbusse het volgende:

[..]

Dit is van dezelfde kinderachtige orde als die fake Time covers een tijdje terug. Wat de motivatie erachter is; wie kan het zeggen?

quote:

Op zaterdag 25 november 2017 08:53 schreef Zwoerd het volgende:

[..]

Hij is enorm onzeker, wil heel graag als de grote man gezien worden. Doordat er een aantal schakels verkeerd staan in z'n hoofd gaat hij dan z'n eigen fantasiewereld creëeren, waar hij waarschijnlijk ook nog zelf in gaat geloven.
Dat is iig mijn theorie

quote:

Op zaterdag 25 november 2017 08:44 schreef Barbusse het volgende:

[..]

Dit is van dezelfde kinderachtige orde als die fake Time covers een tijdje terug. Wat de motivatie erachter is; wie kan het zeggen?

quote:

Op zaterdag 25 november 2017 08:57 schreef Barbusse het volgende:

[..]

Er moet idd iets mis zijn met je als je denkt dat dit soort leugens niet uitkomen... Dit zijn geen 'politieke' leugentjes - ie; wat verdraaien van feiten om een wetsvoorstel gunstiger te laten lijken oid, dit is liegen zonder enige rationele motivatie erachter. Kinderen doen dat.

quote:

Op zaterdag 25 november 2017 09:08 schreef Zwoerd het volgende:
Ik snap niet dat hij er gewoon mee wegkomt.

quote:

Op zaterdag 25 november 2017 09:08 schreef Zwoerd het volgende:

[..]

Ik snap niet dat hij er gewoon mee wegkomt. Stel dat Rutte bijvoorbeeld zou zeggen dat hij een telefoontje van Merkel heeft gekregen die hem vol lof heeft geprezen met wat hij doet. Als dan blijkt dat dat volledig is verzonnen, zou dat toch gewoon het einde van Rutte betekenen?

quote:

Op donderdag 23 november 2017 08:58 schreef Ulx het volgende:

twitter:

realDonaldTrump twitterde op woensdag 22-11-2017 om 22:25:11 51 Million American to travel this weekend - highest number in twelve years (AAA). Traffic and airports are running very smoothly! @FoxNews reageer retweet

Hij voorkomt ook files.

quote:

Op zaterdag 25 november 2017 07:40 schreef vipergts het volgende:

[..]

Veel doet dat tweede gedeelte er niet toe omdat degene waar ze het in het tweede gedeelte overheeft toch al op haar stemt. Dat stukje had ze met haar ervaring gewoon beter moeten weten

quote:

Op zaterdag 25 november 2017 09:37 schreef Glijdt_licht het volgende:

[..]

opvallend dat ik tussen Pebble beach en San Francisco vandaag 2u in de file heb gestaan... Heel smoothly inderdaad.

quote:

Op zaterdag 25 november 2017 09:12 schreef brokjespoes het volgende:

[..]

In de VS is "politici liegen" een gegeven. In de tijd dat ik in Illinois zat moest ik ooit uitleggen waarom een vers Nederlands 2e Kamerlid meteen weer opstapte omdat hij een aantal "adult entertainment"-sites zou bezitten en hij dat niet van te voren had gemeld.

Was dus echt niet te doen zelfs niet met de automatische weerzin tegen alles met "adult". (Zwarte Piet uitleggen was makkelijker. )

Maar alle politici liegen nu eenmaal en als het uitkomt is dat alleen maar goed, dan weet je alvast waaróver hij/zij gelogen heeft. (Aan de andere kant begrepen mijn vrienden/kennissen aldaar evenmin dat ik mijn NL tandarts niet meteen voor de rechter sleepte toen ik 2 nieuwe hoektanden niet mooi vond geworden, ik in plaats daarvan een tekening had gemaakt hoe ik het had willen hebben en hij dat toen zo maakte zonder schadeclaims over en weer. Zéér revolutionaire benadering!)

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Op zaterdag 25 november 2017 10:15 schreef Szura het volgende:
https://twitter.com/andy_murray/status/934205813731848192

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Op zaterdag 25 november 2017 10:10 schreef Ulx het volgende:
Je kunt wel roepen dat je alleen rechtdoor gaat rijden en nooit zult stoppen. Maar als je dan op een ravijn afkoerst is afslaan of remmen misschien wel een idee. Alleen heb je dan wel gelogen.

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Op zaterdag 25 november 2017 03:50 schreef DeParo het volgende:

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Schaliegas wordt omgezet in LNG om het te kunnen vervoeren en dus exporteren over de hele wereld. De prijs is zeer Hoopvol en gezie de ontwikkelingen in Azie ook zeker een reden om door te zetten. Bovendien een stuk milieuvriendelijker, beter niet kijken naar olie in Saudie-Arabie en Iran, het heeft met de steenkoolafhankelijkheid in Azie te maken:

https://in.reuters.com/ar(...)Q3G04bS0hjnqag%3D%3D

En dat ziet er dus veelbelovend uit om het maar even te onderstrepen in deze.

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Op zaterdag 25 november 2017 10:30 schreef Falco het volgende:

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Ik heb mijn twijfels erover. Uiteraard kun je schaliegas omzetten in LNG en dat zo'n 3000 km verder transporteren naar een LNG-terminal, maar je betaalt gewoon een flinke prijs. Ook voor het milieu trouwens, want de meningen over de milieuvriendelijkheid van schaliegaswinning zijn erg verdeeld. De productie in North Dakota is overigens inmiddels wel uitgetopt:

[ afbeelding ]

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Op zaterdag 25 november 2017 09:49 schreef ExtraWaskracht het volgende:

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Dat tweede stuk ging over de tweede helft van Trump supporters.

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Op zaterdag 25 november 2017 10:15 schreef Szura het volgende:
https://twitter.com/andy_murray/status/934205813731848192

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Donald Trump bekvecht via Twitter met het weekblad Time over de kans dat hij voor het tweede jaar op rij Persoon van het Jaar wordt. Volgens de Amerikaanse president was dat waarschijnlijk, maar het magazine noemt dat onzin.

Trump heeft een haat-liefdeverhouding met het weekblad. Zo vergeleek hij het blad ooit met een armetierige flyer en voorspelde hij de ondergang ervan, maar beklaagde hij zich er in 2012 ook over dat hij niet in een top-100 stond. Daarnaast pochte hij ten onrechte dat hij het vaakst op de cover had gestaan.

The Washington Post ontdekte eerder dit jaar dat er nepomslagen van het blad ingelijst aan de muur hingen in meerdere golfclubs van Trump, waaronder zijn geliefde buitenverblijf Mar-a-Lago. Het Witte Huis en Trumps bedrijf wilden geen commentaar geven. Time vroeg om de nepcovers weg te halen.

Time benadrukt dat de titel niet als eerbetoon is bedoeld; zo sierde Hitler in 1938 het omslag en Stalin een jaar later en in 1942.

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Op vrijdag 24 november 2017 23:43 schreef Kijkertje het volgende:

twitter:

realDonaldTrump twitterde op vrijdag 24-11-2017 om 23:40:26 Time Magazine called to say that I was PROBABLY going to be named “Man (Person) of the Year,” like last year, but I… https://t.co/yFDS5Pz9yB reageer retweet

twitter:

TIME twitterde op zaterdag 25-11-2017 om 02:27:16 The President is incorrect about how we choose Person of the Year. TIME does not comment on our choice until public… https://t.co/cFgPgaJ3lv reageer retweet

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Op zaterdag 25 november 2017 12:30 schreef Ulx het volgende:
Geen Mueller? Dat zou de ultieme Fuck You zijn!

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Op zaterdag 25 november 2017 11:51 schreef brokjespoes het volgende:
Je kunt trouwens meestemmen: http://time.com/5026497/time-person-of-the-year-2017-poll/

Tussenstand:

1. Mohammed bin Salman (21%)
2. #MeToo (6%)
3. Donald Trump (5%)
4. Hillary Clinton (4%)
5. The Dreamers (4%)
6. Colin Kaepernick (4%)
7. Vladimir Putin (4%)
8. Taylor Swift (4%)
9. Justin Trudeau (4%)
10. Carmen Yulín Cruz (inderdaad, die van San Juan ) (4%)

http://time.com/5027387/time-person-year-2017-poll-results/

.
en een stukje in het Nederlands: https://nos.nl/artikel/22(...)on-van-het-jaar.html

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Op zaterdag 25 november 2017 12:30 schreef Ulx het volgende:
Geen Mueller? Dat zou de ultieme Fuck You zijn!

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Op zaterdag 25 november 2017 09:01 schreef pullup het volgende:

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Het maakt hem geen reet uit. Zijn naam komt weer in het nieuws in combinatie met 'Man of the year' Veel verder zullen de meeste mensen niet eens lezen en dat blijft dan toch plakken

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Op zaterdag 25 november 2017 12:40 schreef Whiskers2009 het volgende:

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Staat er gewoon tussen hoor (het rijtje waar je op kunt stemmen)