January 11, 2017


News and Views


THE RUSSIANS AND DONALD TRUMP, THE LATEST

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/01/11/donald-trump-kremlin-blast-fabricated-report-russian-ties-asfbi/

News Live Donald Trump: It's a disgrace the intelligence agencies allowed false news out - it's like Nazi Germany
BY David Lawler, washington Barney Henderson, new york Louise Burke
11 JANUARY 2017 • 7:43PM

Trump: intelligence agencies could have released alleged Russian dossier
President-elect blasts report as 'like Nazi Germany'
Trump 'builds a wall' between presidency and organisation
President-elect: 'Buzzfeed will suffer consequences'
Trump: 'I'm a germophobe.. and always check hotel rooms'
Rex Tillerson grilled over appointment as secretary of state


"Does anyone really believe that story?" he said. "I'm also very much of a germophobe by the way, believe me."

He said the publishing of the report had been done by "sick people" and suggested intelligence agencies had leaked it,

"I think it was disgraceful, disgraceful that the intelligence agencies allowed any information that turned out to be so false and fake out there," he said.

He called the dossier that makes salacious claims about him "fake news" and "phony stuff".

"I think it's a disgrace ... That's something that Nazi Germany would have done," the Republican said days ahead of his inauguration.

Mr Trump acknowledged that Russia likely hacked the Democratic National Committee and the emails of other top Democrats during the 2016 presidential election, but defended his goal of better ties with Moscow.

"If Putin likes Donald Trump, I consider that an asset, not a liability," he said.

adams trump cartoon

7:55pm
Tillerson backs 'full review' of Iran nuclear deal
An update from Rex Tillerson's Senate confirmation hearing: He has said he would recommend a "full review" of the nuclear deal with Iran, but he did not call for an outright rejection of the 2015 accord.

He also said he did not oppose the Trans Pacific Partnership free trade deal, but said he shares some of Mr Trump's views about whether the pact as negotiated reflects all the best interests of the United States.

He would not commit to whether he would allow a travelling press corps with him on foreign trips:

7:43pm
White House criticises Mr Trump 'secrecy' on financial dealings with Russia
The White House has said Mr Trump and his transition team have refused to make public information that would put to rest questions about his and his family's possible financial entanglements in Russia.

"There's ample evidence that they could marshal, to make public to refute those claims, those accusations that they say are baseless. But they refuse to do so," spokesman Josh Earnest said at a news briefing. "That kind of secrecy only serves to sow public doubt."

7:39pm
'No pressure'
Mr Trump said at the end of his press conference that if his two sons did not perform satisfactorily while running his business empire, he would not hesitate to use his catch-phrase: "You're fired!"

Donald Jr has responded:

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Donald Trump Jr. ✔ @DonaldJTrumpJr
Well this could be interesting in 4 to 8 years. 😂🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸 #nopressure https://twitter.com/bpolitics/status/819232260121624577 …
12:25 PM - 11 Jan 2017
844 844 Retweets 4,166 4,166 likes

6:10pm
What he said v What he meant
"I think it was Russian"

Donald Trump made the strongest statement yet that he has been convinced that Russia was behind the hacking of the Democratic National Committee and Hillary Clinton's campaign chairman. He did repeat his argument that too much attention is being paid to these hacks compared to other foreign-orchestrated cyber attacks but it appears that we're now all on the same page as far as the culprit.

"Hacking is bad. And it shouldn't be done...but look what was learned from that hacking"

Pointing the finger at Russia does not mean Mr Trump is upset that the hacking took place. He said valuable information about Mrs Clinton and her associates was gleaned from the hacks.

"There's a good chance I don't" get along with Vladimir Putin

Mr Trump is sticking to his guns. He says it's a good thing that "Putin likes Trump", and that it is important to pursue stronger relations with Moscow. If that relationship breaks down though, the president-elect said he will be tougher on Mr Putin than Mrs Clinton ever would have been.

"In those rooms, you have cameras in the strangest places"

Mr Trump denied that the most salacious elements of a dossier reportedly prepared by a former British spy could be accurate for multiple reasons. First, he has always been wary of hidden cameras when travelling abroad ("I'm a pretty high profile person, would you say?). Second, he's "very much of a germophobe".

"It's a tremendous blot on their record if they in fact did that"

Mr Trump says it is a "disgrace" that information that should have been restricted to the intelligence community made its way into media reports. He did not go so far as to say it was leaked by top intelligence officials, but reacted angrily to the idea that it could have been.

"I won"

Mr Trump said the American people do not care about his decision not to release his tax returns, and possible conflicts of interest with his business, because they elected him president.

5:43pm
Trump blasts CNN as 'fake news'

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CNN ✔ @CNN
Donald Trump refuses to take a question from CNN's Senior White House Correspondent @Acosta http://cnn.it/2ijZgX7
12:18 PM - 11 Jan 2017
5,999 5,999 Retweets 5,701 5,701 likes

5:12pm
Trump: 'Buzzfeed will suffer the consequences'
Watch | Donald Trump has on air dispute with Buzzfeed
00:55
Describing Buzzfeed as a "failing" news organisation, Mr Trump states that it will "suffer the consequences" for releasing the alleged Russian dossier.

“As far as Buzzfeed which is a failing pile of garbage writing it, I think they’re going to suffer the consequences, and they already are,” he stated.

He then refuses to answer questions from Buzzfeed and CNN, branding them "fake news".

Next question from the BBC. "That's another beauty," he states.

5:06pm
'We're going to start building the wall'
Mr Trump says he wants to start immediately on building the border wall between the US and Mexico.

He states that negotiations with Mexico on the funding of wall will begin immediately after he takes office.

He said Mr Pence is "leading an effort to get final approvals through various agencies and through Congress for the wall to begin".

"Mexico in some form ... will reimburse us," he insisted.

4:59pm
Trump: Obamacare is a complete and total disaster
"Finally Obamacare!" Mr Trump jokes. He says it is the Democrats' problem and "we're gonna take it off the shelves".

"We could sit back and wait and watch and criticise" in 2017, he says. "We are going to be submitting a plan - it will be repeal and replace, it will be essentially simultaneously... Very complicated stuff. We're gonna get healthcare taken care of in this country."

He states that Mr Tillerson is "brilliant", and that: “I think we have one of the great cabinets ever put together, and we’ve heard that from so many people.”

4:47pm
Trump 'builds a wall' between Trump organisation and the Trump presidency
Mr Trump has said he is voluntarily handing over control of his business empire to his two sons Donald Jr and Eric.

No new foreign deals will be made during the Trump presidency, his lawyer, Sheri Dillon, has said, stating all conflict of interest issues will be resolved by these actions.

"The business empire built by President-elect Trump over the years is massive - not dissimilar to the fortunes of Nelson Rockefeller when he became vice-president, but at that time no-one was so concerned," she said.

She said Mr Trump wanted voters to "rest assured that all of his efforts are directed to pursuing the people's business and not his own".

He had instructed her firm to set up a structure for his businesses that would "completely isolate him from the management of the company" and ensure "that the activities of the Trump Organisation cannot be perceived to be exploitative of the presidency", she said.

"He instructed us to take all steps realistically possible to make clear that he is not exploiting the office of the president for his personal benefit."

4:41pm
Trump: 'I'm very much of a germaphobe - believe me'
Watch | Trump: "I am extremely careful, there are cameras in the strangest places"
00:52
The president-elect has said that on foreign trips - such as when he went to Russia with the Miss Universe franchise - he was always very aware of security such as hidden cameras in hotel rooms.

"I am extremely careful. I always tell [my people] be very careful, because in those rooms you have cameras in the strangest places -you can’t see them and you won’t know," he said.

"You better be careful or you will be watching yourself on nightly television.”

4:37pm
Trump supports allowing government to negotiate over drug prices
Donald Trump just came out in favour of allowing the government to negotiate over drug prices. That is massive news for the pharmaceutical industry, and could have a significant impact on the markets.

The likes of Bernie Sanders have been pushing for a more open drug market for years, but it marks a significant policy shift for the Republicans if Mr Trump includes it in his healthcare plan. Sky high drug prices are a big part of what makes healthcare in the US more expensive than almost anywhere else in the world.

The Pharma lobby, which Mr Trump just said is too powerful, will fight him tooth and nail.

4:35pm
Donald Trump: "If Putin likes Donald Trump, that's an asset!'
Watch | Trump: "If Putin likes Donald Trump, that's an asset!'
00:26
The president-elect is referring to himself frequently in the third person.

"If Putin likes Donald Trump I consider that an asset, not a liability because we have a horrible relationship with Russia," he said.

"Russia can help us fight Isis, which, by the way, is number one tricky.

"If you look, this administration created Isis by leaving at the wrong time."

He added: "I don't know that I'm going to get along with Vladimir Putin. I hope I do, but there's a good chance I won't.

"And, if I don't, do you honestly believe Hillary would be tougher on Putin than me? Does anybody in this room honestly believe that? Give me a break."

He states he has no deals or loans with Russia.

4:33pm
Trump: I think it was Russia behind election hacking
Mr Trump confirms that he accepts Russia was involved in hacking the 2016 presidential election. However, he said Russia was not the only country hacking and that the Democratic party was "open" to hacking.

"Look at what was learned from that hacking: that Hillary Clinton got the questions to the debate and didn't report it."

He said that if "Donald Trump had got the questions and didn't report it, it wold be the biggest story in the history of stories".

4:28pm
Donald Trump suggests intelligence agencies could have released alleged Russian dossier
Mr Trump said the report was "released - who knows - maybe by the intelligence agencies... It should never have been released".

He said it if was the case that intelligence agencies released the report, it would be a “tremendous blot” on their legacy.

He then thanked the news organisations who did not published "that nonsense".

"I want to thank many news organisations - I have great respect for the news and freedom of the press and all that," he said, thanking those organisations who did not publish the alleged report.

Mike Pence said it was an "irresponsible decision of a few news organisations to run with a false report".

4:19pm
Trump spokesman: 'Buzzfeed and CNN reports were sad attempt to gain clicks'
Watch | Trump spokesman: 'Buzzfeed and CNN reports were sad attempt to gain clicks'
00:53
Sean Spicer opens up the press conference by saying the Buzzfeed and CNN reports about an alleged Russian dossier were false and a "sad attempt to gain clicks".

4:10pm
'We need to move Russia from an adversary always to a partner at times'
Mr Tillerson is being pressed on American relations with Russia. He says it would be constructive to make Russia a partner for America "at times".

He said it was important to keep the status quo on Russian sanctions until a new approach is developed.

"I would leave things in the status quo so we are able to convey this can go either way."

"America still holds all the aces, we just need to push them out of that deck," he said.

4:04pm
Trump press conference minutes away
The lobby of Trump Tower - the place where he announced he was running for the presidency on June 16, 2015 - is packed with people, Harriet Alexander reports.

It's his first press conference since July; a total of 167 days. And there is a lot to discuss. The conference was initially scheduled a month ago, to explain how Mr Trump would disentangle himself from his business empire and assuage concerns about conflict of interest.

That will surely feature, certainly in his prepared remarks. But when he opens up to questions, that's when the fireworks will really start.

What is his response to the explosive allegations last night about Russia having "conpromising material" on him?

What will he say about hacking of the DNC emails, now that he has been fully briefed by the intelligence agencies?

How does he feel the hearings of his Cabinet nominees are going - yesterday Jeff Sessions, his choice of attorney general, was interrupted by angry protests and people dressed in KKK robes.

Today his nominee for Secretary of State, Rex Tillerson, is being grilled quite intensely, it seems, about his ties to Russia.

What about Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump - how has he overcome accusations of nepotism? What did he make of President Barack Obama's speech last night? And his urging to preserve Obamacare? What will he do on day one?

3:52pm
Tillerson: Trump and I have not discussed Russia and Putin
Mr Tillerson has been grilled about Russia's aggression in eastern Ukraine in 2014 and said he would have supported providing Kiev with far more military assistance against Moscow at the time.

He was asked whether Mr Trump supported those views, and responded: "The president-elect and I have not had the opportunity to discuss this specific issue, or the specific area."

Senator Bob Menendez responded: “Pretty amazing.”

3:39pm
Tillerson declines to accuse Russia of war crimes in Syria
Both Marco Rubio, a Republican, and Bob Menendez, a Democrat, have pushed Rex Tillerson on whether Russia has committed war crimes in Syria or Ukraine. He told Mr Rubio that he, "would not use that term".

Mr Tillerson also said he does not have sufficient evidence to confirm that Vladimir Putin has been responsible for the deaths of journalists and dissidents.

The former ExxonMobil CEO is struggling to make the sort of strong stand on Russia that he himself advocated in his opening statement.


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CNN ✔ @CNN
Marco Rubio: “Is Vladimir Putin a war criminal?”

Rex Tillerson: “I would not use that term.”http://cnn.it/2iG49Y4
10:32 AM - 11 Jan 2017
1,255 1,255 Retweets 1,344 1,344 likes
2:58pm
McCain: 'Could not judge accuracy' of dossier, passed to FBI

Speaking of John McCain, he has put out a statement this morning confirming that he received "sensitive information" last year. He says he could not determine whether it was accurate, and passed it on to the FBI.

A spokesman has not responded to questions about the source of the information.

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Mark Berman ✔ @markberman
Sen. McCain confirms what has been reported, that he was given info on the Trump/Russia allegations and passed it on to FBI Director Comey
9:13 AM - 11 Jan 2017
926 926 Retweets 1,006 1,006 likes
2:53pm
Tillerson hearing underway

Rex Tillerson, the former ExxonMobil CEO and Donald Trump's nominee for secretary of state, is now facing questions from the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

His nomination has already been criticised by the likes of John McCain over his business ties with the Russian government, but most Republicans and some Democrats have signalled that they are willing to support him.

Tillerson Putin
Rex Tillerson (L) and Vladimir Putin CREDIT: AFP

2:49pm
The wrong Michael Cohen

Holes are continuing to emerge in the dossier which has now made headlines around the world.

Michael Cohen, Donald Trump's lawyer and adviser, has already denied that he was in Prague on the dates mentioned in the document.

Now CNN is reporting that a different Michael Cohen visited Prague on those dates. Maybe a different Donald Trump visited Moscow?


2:13pm
Kellyanne Conway: Trump 'not aware' he was briefed

Kellyanne Conway, Donald Trump's spokeswoman, claims the president-elect "said he's not aware" he was briefed on the reports of Russia having compromising information about him.

She made the comments while being interviewed by Seth Meyers on 'Late Night' as the allegations were breaking.

"That concerns me," Meyers shot back.

A two-page summary on the topic was supposedly included in the report on Russia’s interference in the US election which was shown to Mr Trump on Friday. The director of national intelligence and the chiefs of the CIA, FBI and NSA all travelled to Trump Tower for the briefing.

So, now we have three possible scenarios:

A. Trump was briefed but is denying it

B. Trump was briefed but wasn't paying attention

C. Trump was not briefed and this is all news to him

The third scenario appears the most likely, as Mr Trump's advisers say the summary may have been included in the report but was not mentioned in the briefing, and the report was not stored at Trump Tower because it is not considered sufficiently secure.

Conway also said she was concerned intelligence officials "leak to the press" instead of going to the president-elect or the president: "They'd rather go tell the press".

It has been well reported that Trump has been turning away daily intelligence briefings since he was elected.

YouTube ‎@YouTube
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Seth Meyers ✔ @sethmeyers
Here's our full Kellyanne Conway interview from last night https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U_dv5qAsJMU …
8:13 AM - 11 Jan 2017
540 540 Retweets 1,650 1,650 likes

2:01pm
Russia sends more fighter jets to Syria
Telegraph Beirut correspondent Josie Ensor reports on the Syrian "ceasefire":

Russia has sent as many as a dozen more fighter jets to Syria, days after President Putin’s announcement that Moscow was scaling back its military deployment in the war-torn country.

Vladimir Putin declared last week that Russia would begin withdrawing forces following a ceasefire deal between the government and opposition.

However 12 Su-25s were reported to have arrived at Moscow’s base in the coastal city of Latakia on Monday, signalling its intention to remain deeply involved in the conflict.

Experts speculated that the warplanes had been sent to make up for theloss [sic] of its rusting aircraft carrier Admiral Kuznetsov, which was also recalled on Friday.

Read the full story here.

1:58pm
No golden escalator for today's press conference
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BrakktonBookerNPR ✔ @brakktonbooker
One difference from @realDonaldTrump press set up today vs. during on primary nights, no view of golden escalator.
8:50 AM - 11 Jan 2017
11 11 Retweets 36 36 likes

1:39pm
'Deeply embarrassing for Britain'
Telegraph Defence Correspondent Ben Farmer reports:

Prof Anthony Glees, director of Buckingham University's Centre for Security and Intelligence Studies, said if the dossier was compiled by a former MI6 spy, it was highly embarrassing for Britain.

The revelation came as Britain tries to forge a friendship with Mr Trump and sign new trade deals after Brexit.

He said: "If this really was a former MI6 officer and using contacts that they had in MI6 as a private consultant, then that would be a major security breach.

"It's deeply embarrassing to us now in the UK, because of this potential MI6 involvement."

1:37pm
Trump press conference coming up in a few hours
And the MSM (Main stream media if you're not au fait with Trump supporter speak) is champing at the bit... Only one problem: it doesn't start til 11am (4pm GMT).

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BrakktonBookerNPR ✔ @brakktonbooker
Media set up ahead of @realDonaldTrump presser
8:01 AM - 11 Jan 2017
17 17 Retweets 21 21 likes

1:26pm
Can you tell the real Donald Trump tweets from the fakes?
It's quiz time!

Before the US election, CNN (that's the Clinton News Network, remember) made a prescient prediction, writes Guy Kelly:

Just as Franklin D Roosevelt was the first ‘radio president’, John F Kennedy the first ‘television’ president and Barack Obama the first ‘internet’ president, they said, so Donald Trump would be the first to harness the campaigning power of Twitter. Trump was the social media president-in-waiting.

We can now change that to President-elect. Today, Trump's tweets are uniformly newsworthy – whether they respond to something serious, like today's riposte to the claim that the Kremlin has 'compromising' personal information on him ("FAKE NEWS", screamed Donald), or something a little more frivolous, like last Friday's Twitter battle with Arnold Schwarzenegger about television ratings ("Arnold Schwarzenegger got swamped", swaggered the Pres-elect).

God, he really does have us lying mainstream media exactly where he wants us.

Over more than 35,000 tweets and seven years, Trump's followers (numbering 19.2m at the moment) will have noticed the president-elect has an idiosyncratic style of writing online. There's the unexpected CAPITAL letters (plus snarky brackets!), overuse of dashes--and, above all, whiny and patronising exclamation marks!!, followed by one or two extra words thrown in as an afterthought, like a child insistent upon having the final say!! Like this!

But how well do you know The Donald's tweets from some fake alternatives that we – the deceiving, sore-loser MSM – have dreamed up? It's time to put that confidence to the test...

Can you tell the real Donald Trump tweets from the MSM fakes? Take our quiz to find out

1:15pm
Kremlin's Dmitry Peskov says allegations 'completely fake'
We had all better pack up and go home, it's not a story, says Russia:

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Russian Embassy, UK ✔ @RussianEmbassy
Kremlin spox Peskov: Allegations that Russia gathered compromising intel on @RealDonaldTrump is "absolutely fake"
5:28 AM - 11 Jan 2017
118 118 Retweets 175 175 likes

Dmitry Peskov told reporters in Moscow: "This is an evident attempt to harm our bilateral ties. The Kremlin does not engage in collecting compromising information."

Cue collective eye-rolling.

Meanwhile, Boris Johnson is on the nose with the London embassy this morning after his comments last night, when he said hacking was just one of the “dirty tricks” carried out by Vladimir Putin's government.

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Russian Embassy, UK ✔ @RussianEmbassy
Thatcher went to US to mend relations btw Washington & Moscow & end Cold War, @Boris_Johnson pursued the opposite objective
5:26 AM - 11 Jan 2017
40 40 Retweets 51 51 likes

1:06pm
Trump is awake and fired up
It's just gone 8am in New York and Donald Trump has started responding to the latest episode in the Russian hacking story in typical fashion:

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Donald J. Trump ✔ @realDonaldTrump
Russia just said the unverified report paid for by political opponents is "A COMPLETE AND TOTAL FABRICATION, UTTER NONSENSE." Very unfair!
7:13 AM - 11 Jan 2017
13,331 13,331 Retweets 43,552 43,552 likes

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Donald J. Trump ✔ @realDonaldTrump
Russia has never tried to use leverage over me. I HAVE NOTHING TO DO WITH RUSSIA - NO DEALS, NO LOANS, NO NOTHING!
7:31 AM - 11 Jan 2017
16,295 16,295 Retweets 51,532 51,532 likes

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Donald J. Trump ✔ @realDonaldTrump
I win an election easily, a great "movement" is verified, and crooked opponents try to belittle our victory with FAKE NEWS. A sorry state!
7:44 AM - 11 Jan 2017
18,370 18,370 Retweets 65,095 65,095 likes

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Donald J. Trump ✔ @realDonaldTrump
Intelligence agencies should never have allowed this fake news to "leak" into the public. One last shot at me.Are we living in Nazi Germany?
7:48 AM - 11 Jan 2017
21,517 21,517 Retweets 64,013 64,013 likes

1:05pm
Claim Russians have 'compromising' personal information 'a fabrication', Kremlin says
David Lawler and Roland Oliphant report:

The Kremlin says documents suggesting Russia has compromising information about Donald Trump were fabricated in an attempt to damage US-Russia relations.

It emerged on Tuesday night that a former British spy reportedly tipped off US intelligence that Russian operatives are claiming to have compiled damaging information about the president-elect.

The claims were included in an addendum to a top secret report presented last week to Mr Trump and to President Barack Obama, according to CNN.

According to the report, the British source informed the US that Russian operatives were claiming to have compromising personal and financial information about Mr Trump.

The FBI is now investigating the veracity of the Russian claims.

While intelligence sources told CNN they consider the former British agent’s past work credible, doubts were raised after Buzzfeed News published a full version of the agent’s disclosures.

They included factual errors, as well as allegations that Russia was aware of “sexual perversion” engaged in by Mr Trump during a visit to Moscow. According to Buzzfeed, the dossier was prepared for Mr Trump’s political rivals.

On Wednesday morning the Kremlin said the claims had been fabricated in an attempt to damage US-Russia relations.

Mr Trump responded to the report on Twitter:

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Donald J. Trump ✔ @realDonaldTrump
FAKE NEWS - A TOTAL POLITICAL WITCH HUNT!
8:19 PM - 10 Jan 2017
26,777 26,777 Retweets 78,800 78,800 likes

Michael Cohen, special counsel to Mr Trump, also denied allegations in the dossier that he was central to "the ongoing secret liaison relationship between the New York tycoon's campaign and the Russian leadership" and that he met secretly with Kremlin officials in Prague in August 2016.

Mr Cohen tweeted a picture of his passport, saying "I have never been to Prague in my live #fakenews".

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Michael Cohen ✔ @MichaelCohen212
I have never been to Prague in my life. #fakenews
8:21 PM - 10 Jan 2017
8,411 8,411 Retweets 21,292 21,292 likes

A two-page summary of the findings was included in a report on Russia’s interference in the US election which was shown to Mr Trump last week.

The director of national intelligence and the chiefs of the CIA, FBI and NSA all travelled to Trump Tower to brief Mr Trump on the report on Friday.

After the meeting Mr Trump for the first time accepted the possibility that Russia may have been behind the hacks of the Democratic National Committee and Hillary Clinton’s campaign chairman, but insisted that Russia’s efforts did not impact the election result.

FBI Director James Comey
FBI Director James Comey CREDIT: GARY CAMERON/REUTERS
He also emphasised the importance of warmer relations with Moscow.

James Comey, the FBI director, declined to answer when asked during a Senate hearing on Tuesday whether the FBI was conducting an investigation into ties between Mr Trump or his associates and Russia.

The Senate's Foreign Relations Committee will hold a confirmation hearing for Rex Tillerson, Mr Trump’s nominee for be secretary of state, on Wednesday.

Senators from both parties have expressed concern about the former ExxonMobil chief executive’s close working relationship with key figures in the Kremlin during his time at the oil company.

Rex Tillerson, chairman and CEO of ExxonMobil
Rex Tillerson, chairman and CEO of ExxonMobil CREDIT: JOSHUA ROBERTS / REUTERS

While Mr Trump has said he will improve relations with Russia, the country’s relationship with the UK may be souring.

Russia has claimed Britain is launching an “official witch-hunt” against Mr Putin’s administration in an 800-word statement posted online on Tuesday by the country’s embassy in London.

The outburst railed against Western "hysterics" and said the "elite" were protecting their interests with money from TV licences.

"It seems that the Western elites will go to great lengths to save their own world with its Washington consensus, Davos and austerity, even if it does no longer benefit anybody else," the statement said. "Its demise is presented as the end of the world, another twilight of Europe.

"This panic and hysterics is a response to the overall loss of control, which brought about war a hundred years ago.

"It is also a loss of control over the public debate, exercised by way of the Orwellian newspeak of political correctness. Will the elite protect its vested interest with taxpayers’ money and that of TV licences?"

The long-ranging statement, which also set out Russia's interpretation of world events including the "successful humanitarian evacuation of East Aleppo", came amid a war of words between Britain and Russia.

Boris Johnson said on Tuesday that hacking was just one of the “dirty tricks” carried out by Vladimir Putin's government, revealing for the first time that British officials share the assessment by American intelligence agencies that the Kremlin interfered in the US election.

Speaking in the House of Commons, Mr Johnson said it was "pretty clear" Moscow was behind the hacking and that the Russian government "is up to all sorts of very dirty tricks, such as cyber-warfare."

The foreign secretary made the comments as he briefed the House about a meeting with senior advisers to Mr Trump on the weekend.

“If you look at what the Russians have done in the western Balkans and on cyber-warfare, it is clear they are up to no good,” Mr Johnson said.

However, he said, it “would be folly further to demonise Russia or to push Russia into a corner.”



WHEN “RADICALS” UNITE, GOOD THINGS CAN HAPPEN

https://www.laprogressive.com/anti-trump-protesters/

What Women Suffragists Can Teach Anti-Trump Protesters
BY PETER DREIER
POSTED ON JANUARY 9, 2017


For Anti-Trump Protesters: Lessons From the First White House Protests — For Women’s Suffrage — 100 Years Ago
Many Americans will traveling to Washington, D.C. next week to protesting against Donald Trump on his inauguration day. Many will continue to demonstrate outside the White House after he takes office.

Today’s activists can learn valuable lessons from the first protest outside the White House that took place 100 years ago – on January 10, 1917. The activists were part of the National Woman’s Party (NWP), a group that was fighting for women’s suffrage. It took three more years before women won the right to vote, but the ongoing protests at the White House played a crucial role in that victory.

The NWP suffragists, who to Washington from all over the country, called their protest “silent sentinels.” Woodrow Wilson, who had won his second term as president in November 1916, was not an advocate of women’s suffrage. The NWP activists carried purple, white, and gold banners with the words, “Mr. President what will you do for woman suffrage?” and “Mr. President how long must women wait for liberty?” When Wilson traveled to other cities, he was often greeted by NWP members carrying banners with the same message.

The NWP was persistent. Its members protested at the White House six days a week, every week, until June 4, 1919 when Congress finally passed the 19th Amendment giving women the right to vote. During this two-and-a-half year long campaign, many of the activists were harassed and arrested, and mistreated while in prison. But their persistence and civil disobedience paid off.

Alice Paul was the leader of the NWP and the silent sentinels. After graduating from Swarthmore, Paul earned a master’s degree in sociology at the University of Pennsylvania. In 1907 she moved to England to practice social work among the poor at a Quaker-run settlement house in Birmingham. One day she heard a speech by Christabel Pankhurst, the daughter of Emmeline Pankhurst, the leader of the radical wing of England’s feminist movement. Paul was intrigued by the Pankhursts’ motto, “Deeds not words,” which they translated into direct action, including heckling, rock throwing, and window smashing, to draw attention to the cause of women’s rights. Not surprisingly, the women often got arrested for such protests, which led to newspaper photos of activists being carried away in handcuffs by the police.

Hesitant at first to join their militant crusade, Paul eventually overcame her fears and was arrested and jailed several times. In prison, she and other suffragettes protested their confinement with hunger strikes. Their jailers force-fed them. Paul took solace in a motto that one of her fellow activists carved into the prison wall: “Resistance to tyranny is obedience to God.”

When Paul returned to the United States in 1910, she was determined to inject the radical ideas she had learned in England into the women’s rights movement. While earning her Ph.D. in economics at the University of Pennsylvania (her dissertation examined women’s legal status), she joined the National American Woman Suffrage Association (NAWSA). At the suggestion of reformer Jane Addams, founder of Chicago’s Hull House and the settlement house movement, Paul was soon appointed head of the committee responsible for working for a federal women’s suffrage amendment.

In 1912 she moved to Washington, DC, and joined forces with Lucy Burns, another American, whom she had met when they were both arrested in a London suffrage protest. The duo began planning an elaborate parade on the eve of Woodrow Wilson’s presidential inauguration, scheduled for March 4, 1913. About 8,000 college, professional, middle- and working-class women marched with banners and floats down Pennsylvania Avenue from the Capitol to the White House. The crowd watching the march was estimated at half a million people; many harassed the marchers while the police stood by. Troops were called to restore order and to help the suffragists get to their destination—six hours after the parade started. The melee generated headlines, making the issue of women’s suffrage a topic of conversation around the country.

Although Wilson showed some interest in the women’s cause, he said the time was not yet right. Paul never believed that Wilson was the least bit sympathetic to women’s suffrage. He would only support them, she thought, if public opinion compelled him to.

In this and other respects, Paul disagreed with NAWSA leaders. They endorsed Wilson, despite his opposition to women’s suffrage, hoping they could eventually convince him. They worried that Paul’s tactics could trigger a backlash. They also disagreed with Paul’s emphasis on winning a federal amendment. The NAWSA’s main focus was on winning women the vote one state at a time, hoping to build momentum that could later lead to a federal constitutional change. By 1912, however, only nine states had granted women the vote.

In reality, the two strategies complemented each other: even if the amendment was passed by Congress, it would have to be ratified in the states, where NAWSA was building its base.

During the 18 months of the “silent sentinels” outside the White House, more than 1,000 women picketed, including Alice Paul, every day except Sunday.

But the broader disagreements led to a split. Paul and her followers first formed the Congressional Union in 1914, which became the NWP, which recruited women prepared to engage in direct action. The NWP published a weekly paper and staged demonstrations, parades, mass meetings, picketing, hunger strikes, and lobbying vigils. Suffragists released from prison, wearing prison uniforms, rode a “Prison Special” train, speaking throughout the country.
During the 18 months of the “silent sentinels” outside the White House, more than 1,000 women picketed, including Alice Paul, every day except Sunday.

President Wilson initially patronized the protesters, tipping his hat to them when he passed by. But when the United States entered World War I, the president and others became irate over the idea of women picketing outside the White House while the nation was at war.

Between June and November 1917, police arrested 218 protesters on the trumped up charge of “obstructing traffic.” Most of these women were imprisoned in the Occoquan Workhouse in Virginia.

Usually, after three days in prison, the women were released. But they returned to the White House to continue picketing. The battle between the police and the protesters escalated. Inside the prison, the women faced harsh living conditions, rancid food, and the denial of medical care when they were ill. They were denied visitors.

Their jailers beat them and confined them to cold, unsanitary, rat-infested cells. Some were placed in solitary confinement and subjected to force-feeding.

On November 13, 1917, an angry crowd began attacking the White House picketers. Some stole and tore the women’s banners. Rather than restrain the hostile mob, the police instead arrested the peaceful protesters and sent them to jail in paddy wagons.

When they arrived at the prison, they met some of their NWP comrades who were already in jail. Alice Paul had been there since October 22nd, serving sentences totaling seven months. Paul and her colleagues adopted the tactics she had learned in England. They demanded to be treated as political prisoners. On November 5, she began a hunger strike. She was force-fed three times a day.

On the night of November 14, 33 NWP prisoners were brutally tortured and beaten by the workhouse guards and the superintendent, W.H. Whittaker. Whittaker ordered the nearly 40 guards to brutalize the suffragists. They beat Lucy Burns, chained her hands to the cell bars above her head, and left her there for the night. They threw Dora Lewis into a dark cell and smashed her head against an iron bed, which knocked her out. Her cellmate, Alice Cosu, who believed Lewis to be dead, suffered a heart attack. The guards grabbed, dragged, beat, choked, pinched, and kicked other women.

The press reported on the suffragists’ terrible experiences in prison, and politicians and activist groups demanded their release. On November 27 and 28, all the protesters were released. The following March, the Washington, D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals declared that 218 suffragists had had been illegally arrested, illegally convicted and illegally imprisoned. The women could have filed suits for damages, false arrest and imprisonment, but they chose not to do so.

The public outcry played a role in Wilson’s decision in 1917 to reverse his stance and announce his support for a suffrage amendment. He explained that it was a “war measure”—to stop the controversy over women’s rights from dividing the country during wartime.

But it was not until the war was over, in 1919, that both the House and the Senate passed the Nineteenth Amendment. Because the suffrage movement had invested heavily in state-level campaigns, its leaders were confident they could garner the three-fourths of the states needed to ratify the amendment.

peter dreierBy the summer of 1920, they needed just one more state to vote in favor; the Tennessee legislature met in August 1920 to vote on the issue. The deciding vote was cast by Harry Burn, at twenty-four the youngest member of the Tennessee assembly. He initially intended to vote “no” but changed his vote after receiving a telegram from his mother asking him to support women’s suffrage. Women had finally gained the right to vote – 72 years after the first women’s suffrage meeting took place in Seneca Falls, New York in 1848. The persistent and militant protests at the White House 100 years ago were a turning point in the struggle for women’s rights.

Peter Dreier

Republished from Huffington Post with the author’s permission.




https://www.laprogressive.com/repeal-replace-obamacare/

3 Big Reasons Republicans Can’t Replace Obamacare
BY ROBERT REICH
POSTED ON JANUARY 8, 2017


Republicans are preparing to repeal the Affordable Care Act, and have promised to replace it with something that doesn’t leave more than 20 million Americans stranded without health insurance.

But they still haven’t come up with a replacement. “We haven’t coalesced around a solution for six years,” Republican Senator Tom Cotton admitted last week. “Kicking the can down the road for a year or two years isn’t going to make it any easier to solve.“

They won’t solve it. They can’t and won’t replace Obamacare, for three big reasons.

First, Republicans say they want their replacement to be “market-based.” But Obamacare is already market based – relying on private, for profit health insurers.

Republicans can’t come up with a replacement. Revoking the tax increases in Obamacare – a key part of the repeal – would make it impossible to finance these subsidies.

That’s already a problem. The biggest health insurers – Anthem, Aetna, Humana, Cigna, and United Health – are so big they can get the deals they want from the government by threatening to drop out of any insurance system Republicans come up with. Several have already dropped out of Obamacare.

Even now they’re trying to merge into far bigger behemoths that will be able to extort even better terms from the Republicans.

Second, every part of Obamacare depends on every other part. Trump says he’d like to continue to bar insurers from denying coverage to individuals with preexisting conditions.

But this popular provision depends on healthy people being required to pay into the insurance pool, a mandate that Republicans vow to eliminate.

The GOP also wants to keep overall costs down, but they haven’t indicated how. More than 80 percent of Americans who buy health insurance through Obamacare receive federal subsidies. Yet Republicans have no plan for raising the necessary sums.

Which gets us to the third big reason Republicans can’t come up with a replacement. Revoking the tax increases in Obamacare – a key part of the repeal – would make it impossible to finance these subsidies.

The two biggest of these taxes – a 3.8-percentage-point surtax on dividends, interest and other unearned income; and a 0.9-percentage-point increase in the payroll tax that helps fund Medicare – are also the most progressive. They apply only to people earning more than $200,000 per year.

Immediately repealing these taxes, as the GOP says it intends to do, will put an average of $33,000 in the hands of the richest 1 percent this year alone, and a whopping $197,000 into the hands of the top 0.1 percent, according to the Tax Policy Center.

It would also increase the taxes of families earning between $10,000 and $75,000 – including just about all of Trump’s working class voters.

Worse yet, eliminating the payroll tax increase immediately pushes Medicare’s hospital fund back toward the insolvency that was looming before Obamacare became law.

Ultimately, the only practical answer to these three dilemmas is Medicare for all – a single payer system. But Republicans would never go for it.

Robert ReichSo without Obamacare, Republicans are left with nothing. Zilch. Nada.

Except the prospect of more than 20 million people losing their health insurance, and a huge redistribution from the working class to the very rich.

Robert Reich

Republished with permission from Robert Reich’s Blog.

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POSTED ON JANUARY 8, 2017


DISCLAIMER: The opinions expressed here are those of the individual contributor(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the LA Progressive, its publisher, editor or any of its other contributors.
About Robert Reich
Robert B. Reich is Professor of Public Policy at the Goldman School of Public Policy at the University of California at Berkeley. He has served in three national administrations, most recently as secretary of labor under President Bill Clinton. He has written eleven books, including The Work of Nations, which has been translated into 22 languages; the best-sellers The Future of Success and Locked in the Cabinet, and his most recent book, Supercapitalism. His articles have appeared in the New Yorker, Atlantic Monthly, New York Times, Washington Post, and Wall Street Journal. Mr. Reich is co-founding editor of The American Prospect magazine.
Reich has been a member of the faculties of Harvard’s John F. Kennedy School of Government and of Brandeis University. He received his B.A. from Dartmouth College, his M.A. from Oxford University, where he was a Rhodes Scholar, and his J.D. from Yale Law School.


Republished with permission from Robert Reich’s Blog.

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