April 13 thru 16, 2017


News and Views


VERY SAD NEWS. I DO HOPE THERE WAS NO FOUL PLAY HERE, BUT I CAN’T HELP NOTICING THAT SHE IS MUSLIM AND IN A HIGH POSITION. THAT MAKES SOME PEOPLE JEALOUS AND ANGRY.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/12/nyregion/judge-dead-hudson-river-sheila-abdus-salaam.html
Sheila Abdus-Salaam, Judge on New York’s Top Court, Is Found Dead in Hudson River
By MATTHEW HAAG and WILLIAM K. RASHBAUM
APRIL 12, 2017

Photograph -- Judge Sheila Abdus-Salaam at the Court of Appeals in Albany last year. Credit Hans Pennink/Associated Press

Sheila Abdus-Salaam, an associate judge on New York State’s highest court and the first African-American woman to serve on that bench, was found dead on Wednesday in the Hudson River, the authorities said.

Officers with the New York Police Department’s Harbor Unit responded about 1:45 p.m. to a report of a person floating by the shore near West 132nd Street in Upper Manhattan. Judge Abdus-Salaam, 65, was taken to a pier on the Hudson River and was pronounced dead by paramedics shortly after 2 p.m.

The police were investigating how she ended up in the river, and it was not clear how long Judge Abdus-Salaam, who lived nearby in Harlem, had been missing. There were no signs of trauma on her body, the police said. She was fully clothed.

A law enforcement official said investigators had found no signs of criminality. Her husband identified her body.

Since 2013, Judge Abdus-Salaam had been one of seven judges on the State Court of Appeals. Before that, she served for about four years as an associate justice on the First Appellate Division of the State Supreme Court, and for 15 years as a State Supreme Court justice in Manhattan. She was previously a lawyer in the city’s Law Department.

Zakiyyah Muhammad, the founding director of the Institute of Muslim American Studies, said Judge Abdus-Salaam became the first female Muslim judge in the United States when she started serving on the State Supreme Court in 1994.

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Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo said in a statement on Wednesday that Judge Abdus-Salaam was a pioneer with an “unshakable moral compass.” He added, “Justice Sheila Abdus-Salaam was a trailblazing jurist whose life in public service was in pursuit of a more fair and more just New York for all.”

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Justice Sheila Abdus-Salaam was a trailblazing jurist and a force for good.
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In nominating her to the highest court in 2013, Mr. Cuomo praised her “working-class roots” and her “deep understanding of the everyday issues facing New Yorkers.” Her nomination was part of a push by Mr. Cuomo to diversify the court. When another judge, Rowan D. Wilson, joined the court this year, it was the first time the Court of Appeals had two African-American judges in its 169-year history.

On the court, Judge Abdus-Salaam was among the most reliable and steadfast liberal voices, regularly siding with vulnerable parties — the poor, impoverished immigrants and people with mental illnesses, for instance — against more powerful and established interests. She also tended to lean toward injured parties who brought claims of misconduct, fraud or breach of contract against wealthy corporations.

Among her colleagues, she was admired for her thoughtfulness, her candor and her finely crafted and restrained writing style. She was not one to use her decisions as a soapbox to make high-sounding political points or to wax poetic, even when her rulings were precedent-setting.

In a statement, Chief Judge Janet DiFiore said, “Her personal warmth, uncompromising sense of fairness and bright legal mind were an inspiration to all of us who had the good fortune to know her.”

Last summer, Judge Abdus-Salaam wrote an important decision, Matter of Brooke S.B. v. Elizabeth A.C.C., that expanded the definition of what it means to be a parent, overturning a previous ruling. For 25 years, the court had held that the nonbiological parent in a same-sex couple had no standing to seek custody or visitation rights after a breakup.

But Judge Abdus-Salaam wrote that the previous ruling had become “unworkable when applied to increasingly varied familial relationships.” In a tightly reasoned decision, she determined that nonbiological parents did have standing to seek custody if they showed “by clear and convincing evidence that all parties agreed to conceive a child and to raise the child together.”

Judge Abdus-Salaam, left, after being sworn in by the state’s chief judge, Jonathan Lippman, in Albany in 2013. Credit Hans Pennink/Associated Press

The Court of Appeals last heard oral arguments at the end of March and issued opinions on April 4. It is scheduled to be back in session on April 25.

Judge Abdus-Salaam grew up in Washington, one of seven children in a poor family, and earned her law degree at Columbia University in 1977. After law school, she became a public defender in Brooklyn, representing people who could not afford lawyers, and then served as an assistant attorney general in the Civil Rights Bureau of the New York State attorney general’s office. In one of her first cases, she won an anti-discrimination suit for more than 30 female New York City bus drivers who had been denied promotions.

Seymour W. James Jr., the attorney in chief of the Legal Aid Society, the nation’s largest provider of free legal services, said he had first met Judge Abdus-Salaam in the early 1980s, when she worked at the Civil Rights Bureau. Mr. James said her upbringing and years spent representing the poor and disenfranchised had shaped her perspective on the bench. “She was a strong believer in equal rights and equal access to justice,” he said in an interview.

In an interview in 2014 about black history, Judge Abdus-Salaam said that she had become interested in her family’s history as a young girl in public school and that her research had led her to discover that her great-grandfather was a slave in Virginia.

“All the way from Arrington, [sic] Va., where my family was the property of someone else, to my sitting on the highest court of the State of New York is amazing and huge,” she said. “It tells you and me what it is to know who we are and what we can do.”

Eric H. Holder Jr., the former United States attorney general, was classmates with Judge Abdus-Salaam at Columbia Law School and sang her praises at her swearing-in ceremony in 2013, according to The Associated Press.

It was clear that she was intelligent, serious and witty, he said at the time, according to The Associated Press. But she could have fun, too: “Sheila could boogie,” he said.

Niraj Chokshi, James C. McKinley Jr. and Jesse McKinley contributed reporting.



I AM UNABLE TO FIND A DATE ON THIS ARTICLE, THE DAY OF COLLECTION IS APRIL 16, 2017. I ALSO DIDN'T FIND ANY MSM REPORT OF THE STORY, BUT LA PROGRESSIVE ALSO CLAIMS THE FALSIFICATION OF EVIDENCE. I WILL TRY TO FIND MORE LATER.

http://vetsforbernie.org/why-congress-must-immediately-censure-trumps-reckless-usurpation-of-war-powers/
Why Congress Must Immediately Censure Trump’s Reckless Usurpation of War Powers
By Ernest A. Canning


“Mankind must put an end to war before war puts an end to mankind” – President John F. Kennedy

By recklessly following up on his unconstitutional decision to commit an act of war (Syrian missile strike) with a reckless exercise in nuclear brinksmanship (North Korea), President Donald J. Trump has brought us to the edge of a precipice.

Unless Congress, currently on an 18-day holiday recess, immediately acts to Censure him for his dangerous usurpations of its exclusive Constitutional power to decide whether we are at war or at peace, our nation, indeed the world, could plunge into a nuclear abyss.

The Constitution

Our nation’s Founding Fathers could not have been more clear when they explained why the United States Constitution placed the awesome power to take this nation to war exclusively in the deliberative hands of our legislative branch of government:


“The constitution supposes, what the History of all Governments demonstrates, that the Executive is the branch of power most interested in war, and the most prone to it. It has accordingly, with studied care, vested the question of war to the Legislature” – James Madison, 1798.

“Considering that Congress alone is constitutionally invested with the power of changing our condition from peace to war, I have thought it my duty to await their authority for using force in any degree which could be avoided.” – President Thomas Jefferson, 1805

Significantly, the framers of the U.S. Constitution arrived at their conclusion that Congress should have the exclusive power to declare war at a time when this nation was led by such intellectual giants as Jefferson, George Washington and John Adams. It was a determination made centuries before a reckless decision to initiate a war could carry with it the prospect of the nuclear annihilation of all life on this planet.

Today our nation is led by a raging narcissist, whom the Los Angeles Times, aptly described as an intellectually challenged and mentally unbalanced “demagogue,” who has displayed a “shocking lack of respect” for the “fundamental rules and institutions” upon which our constitutional democracy is founded; a man who displays an “utter lack of regard for truth.”

Constitutional authority is not “use it or lose it”

No doubt many of the proponents of unchecked executive power would argue that it would be unfair to single-out Trump for Censure. After all, there have been multiple occasions, starting with President Harry Truman’s introduction of U.S. troops into South Korea in 1950 to carry out what he euphemistically referred to as a “Police Action,” in which past Presidents have circumvented Congress’s exclusive power to decide if and when this nation should go to war. Yet, none of those Presidents were Censured.

There are three fundamental reasons why that reasoning should be rejected as unsound.

First, on prior occasions, Presidents ostensibly relied on treaty obligations as a source of Congressional authorization — The United Nations, for example, for our incursion in Korea in the 1950’s or NATO for our military response in Kosovo in the 1990’s. Trump, according to Harvard Law Professor Jack Goldsmith, the former head of the Office of Legal Counsel of the Department of Justice during the George W. Bush administration, went well beyond those earlier precedents. If Congress acquiesced to Trump’s impetuous unilateral act of war against a sovereign nation (Syria), it would mean, according to Goldsmith, that there would be “no limit on the President’s ability to use significant military force unilaterally.”

Last week’s Syria missile strike did not fall within the ambit of a legal response to Syria’s alleged violation of the Chemical Weapons Convention. The U.N. Charter mandates that Trump first obtain authorization from the United Nations Security Council before resorting to military force. And, unlike the ongoing “war on terror,” a missile strike on Syria’s airfield clearly exceeded the scope of the 2001 Authorization to Use Military Force (AUMF), which was limited to Afghanistan and terrorists organizations.

Second, Trump’s usurpation of Congress’s broad and exclusive power must be placed within the context of what Yale Law Professor Bruce Ackerman described as an across-the-board authoritarian “assault on the separation of powers” that in the realm of foreign policy has previously been reflected by Trump’s unprecedented refusal to disclose the levels of troop deployments in Iraq and Syria.

Third, and most importantly, there is simply no validity in the suggestion that past Congressional acquiescence to executive usurpations serves to erase the ability and right of Congress to forcefully assert its exclusive power over matters of war and peace — especially at a time when the reckless whims of a mentally unstable demagogue (Trump) portend to nuclear catastrophe.

War Powers Act

On November 7, 1973, after securing the necessary 2/3 majority in both chambers of Congress to override President Richard Nixon’s veto, Congress enacted the War Powers Act ( 50 U.S. Code §§1541-1548).

In Section 1541(c) Congress expressly delineates the limits of executive power:


“The constitutional powers of the President as Commander-in-Chief to introduce United States Armed Forces into hostilities, or into situations where imminent involvement in hostilities is clearly indicated by the circumstances, are exercised only pursuant to (1) a declaration of war, (2) specific statutory authorization, or (3) a national emergency created by attack upon the United States, its territories or possessions, or its armed forces.”

These limitations are by no means diminished by the Act’s reporting requirements, which, pursuant to 50 U.S. Code §1543, are applicable only “in the absence of a declaration of war.” In other words, where U.S. Armed Forces are introduced into hostilities either pursuant to a “specific authorization” or pursuant to “a national emergency created by attack upon the United States, its territories or possessions, or its armed forces,” the Act imposes upon the President the additional duty to submit to the Speaker of the House and President pro tempore of the Senate, a written report that sets forth “(A) the circumstances necessitating the introduction of United States Armed Forces; (B) the constitutional and legislative authority under which such introduction took place; and (C) the estimated scope and duration of the hostilities or involvement.”

Trump’s twin violations of the War Powers Act

Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) did not learn of the strike in Syria until being informed by the Director of National Intelligence after the missiles had been launched. That’s quite significant. As the Ranking Member of the House Intelligence Committee, Schiff is a part of the so-called Gang of Eight (the Republican and Democratic leaders in both chambers, as well as the chair and ranking member of each chamber’s Intelligence Committees), which is entitled to be kept fully and currently informed of all U.S. intelligence activities.

Thus, although Trump saw fit to reportedly provide advance notice of the missile strike to Russia — a factor that may have contributed to the strike’s “ineffective” impact on the Syrian airbase — it appears that Trump did not so much as inform Congress, let alone seek its advance approval.

Trump own words in his post strike statement reveal that his attack on the Syrian airbase violated the War Powers Act. The only rationale he offered was his belief that Assad had ordered the chemical weapons attack. As previously noted, the UN Charter does not support unilateral military action sans Security Council approval. If Assad has personally ordered a chemical weapons attack on his own people, that fact would warrant a war crimes investigation and prosecution.

That’s a big IF.

After examining a four-page report released by the Trump administration to support its claim that Syrian aircraft dropped a munition designed to disperse deadly sarin gas and a satellite image of the bomb crater, Theodore Postel, an MIT Professor of Science, Technology and National Security, who had previously served as a scientific advisor to the US Chief of Naval Operations, concludedconcluded that there was “absolutely no evidence that the crater was created by a munition designed to disperse sarin after it [was] dropped from an aircraft.” To the contrary, the “data cited by the White House is more consistent with the possibility that the munition was placed on the ground rather than dropped from a plane.” If that were the case, and, according to Postel, “no competent analyst” would say otherwise, it raises a serious question as to whether the Syrian government had anything to do with the attack. The crater was located in an area that had been under al Qaeda control.

In a subsequent analysis, the renowned scientist concluded that President Trump “ordered this cruise missile strike without any valid intelligence to back it up,” and that the NSC, led by National Security Advisor, Lt. General H.R. McMaster, then generated a “fraudulent intelligence report” as part of “a dedicated attempt to manufacture a false claim that the intelligence actually supported the president’s decision to attack Syria.“ (Emphasis added).

Even assuming Assad ordered the chemical weapons attack, that’s a far cry from an attack on the U.S., its territories or its armed forces. These are the only War Powers Act justifications that can be cited when a President seeks to engage in an act of war without Congressional authorization.

It is important to note that the War Powers Act also constrains a President’s ability to deploy our armed forces “into situations where imminent involvement in hostilities is clearly indicated by the circumstances.” Trump’s North Korea nuclear brinksmanship violates that aspect of the Act. Contemporaneous with his administration’s refusal to take “the option of pre-emptive military strikes on North Korea…off the table,” Trump deployed to the waters near North Korea a nuclear-armed Naval strike force — what Trump boasted to be an “armada” — that not only includes the aircraft carrier USS Vincent but also “very powerful” submarines. He did so even after North Korea issued this stern warning: “Our revolutionary strong army is keenly watching every move by enemy elements with our nuclear sight focused on the U.S…bases not only in South Korea and the Pacific operation theater but also in the U.S. mainland.”

In other words, a nuclear-armed U.S. President, whom many regard as unhinged, has elected to play a dangerous game of nuclear brinksmanship with a nuclear-armed North Korean dictator who is regarded as so mentally unstable that he threatened all-out war simply because Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) called him a “crazy fat kid” during a television interview.

While it is doubtful that North Korea currently possesses the technological capacity to launch a nuclear inter-continental ballistic missile strike on the Continental U.S., it is clear that by placing the nuclear-armed U.S. Navy strike force in waters off the Korean peninsula, Trump has made both the Naval strike force and U.S. military personnel stationed in South Korea potential targets of a North Korean missile strike, nuclear or otherwise.

Censure

Although the ability of Congress to Censure a President is not expressly provided for by the Constitution and has only been used once in our nation’s history (Andrew Jackson 1834), it is generally recognized as a valid, if not binding, means for expressing the will of Congress. One would hope that, coupled with a threat of future impeachment, a mere debate over a formal Censure Resolution would be enough to persuade our irrational Commander-in-Chief to step away from the precipice.

That may be overly optimistic given the reluctance of a Republican-controlled Congress to hold this President accountable and the repeated failures of the corporate-owned media that have been soundly criticized for “cheerleading” in favor of acts of war. This was exemplified by MSNBC’s Brian Williams description of the missile launch against Syria as “beautiful” and by the utterly unnecessary question postulated on Twitter by his network: “Does the U.S. missile strike on an airbase in Syria constitute an act of war?”

How absurd! If Russia launched a missile strike on an American airbase, would any American journalist question whether that strike amounted to an “act of war?” Indeed, while it differed wildly in scope, rationale and lethality, there was little difference conceptually between Trump’s decision to strike a Syrian airbase and former Japanese Prime Minister Hideki Tojo’s decision to bomb Pearl Harbor.

Despite previous inadequacies in both Congressional and media performance, one would hope that the gravity of this situation would have a sobering effect on the heretofore irresponsible; that we can rely upon both Congress and the media to successfully pull this nation back from the brink of catastrophe.


* * *
Ernest A. Canning is a retired attorney, author, Vietnam Veteran (4th Infantry, Central Highlands 1968) and a Senior Advisor to Veterans For Bernie. He has been a member of the California state bar since 1977. In addition to a juris doctor, he has received both undergraduate and graduate degrees in political science. Follow him on twitter: @cann4ing



https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/06/us/trump-russia-cia-john-brennan.html
C.I.A. Had Evidence of Russian Effort to Help Trump Earlier Than Believed
By ERIC LICHTBLAU APRIL 6, 2017

Photograph -- John O. Brennan in July when he was the C.I.A. director. Mr. Brennan was said to be so concerned about increasing evidence of Russia’s election meddling that in late August he began a series of individual briefings for eight top members of Congress. Credit Al Drago/The New York Times

WASHINGTON — The C.I.A. told senior lawmakers in classified briefings last summer that it had information indicating that Russia was working to help elect Donald J. Trump president, a finding that did not emerge publicly until after Mr. Trump’s victory months later, former government officials say.

The briefings indicate that intelligence officials had evidence of Russia’s intentions to help Mr. Trump much earlier in the presidential campaign than previously thought. The briefings also reveal a critical split last summer between the C.I.A. and counterparts at the F.B.I., where a number of senior officials continued to believe through last fall that Russia’s cyberattacks were aimed primarily at disrupting America’s political system, and not at getting Mr. Trump elected, according to interviews.

The former officials said that in late August — 10 weeks before the election — John O. Brennan, then the C.I.A. director, was so concerned about increasing evidence of Russia’s election meddling that he began a series of urgent, individual briefings for eight top members of Congress, some of them on secure phone lines while they were on their summer break.

It is unclear what new intelligence might have prompted the classified briefings. But with concerns growing both internally and publicly at the time about a significant Russian breach of the Democratic National Committee, the C.I.A. began seeing signs of possible connections to the Trump campaign, the officials said. By the campaign’s final weeks, Congress and the intelligence agencies were racing to understand the scope of the Russia threat.

In an Aug. 25 briefing for Harry Reid, then the top Democrat in the Senate, Mr. Brennan indicated that Russia’s hackings appeared aimed at helping Mr. Trump win the November election, according to two former officials with knowledge of the briefing.

The officials said Mr. Brennan also indicated that unnamed advisers to Mr. Trump might be working with the Russians to interfere in the election. The F.B.I. and two congressional committees are now investigating that claim, focusing on possible communications and financial dealings between Russian affiliates and a handful of former advisers to Mr. Trump. So far, no proof of collusion has emerged publicly.

Mr. Trump has rejected any suggestion of a Russian connection as “ridiculous” and “fake news.” The White House has also sought to redirect the focus from the investigation and toward what Mr. Trump has said, with no evidence, was President Barack Obama’s wiretapping of phones in Trump Tower during the presidential campaign.

The C.I.A. and the F.B.I. declined to comment for this article, as did Mr. Brennan and senior lawmakers who were part of the summer briefings.

In the August briefing for Mr. Reid, the two former officials said, Mr. Brennan indicated that the C.I.A., focused on foreign intelligence, was limited in its legal ability to investigate possible connections to Mr. Trump. The officials said Mr. Brennan told Mr. Reid that the F.B.I., in charge of domestic intelligence, would have to lead the way.

Days later, Mr. Reid wrote to James B. Comey, director of the F.B.I. Without mentioning the C.I.A. briefing, Mr. Reid told Mr. Comey that he had “recently become concerned” that Russia’s interference was “more extensive than widely known.”

Photograph -- In August, Harry Reid, then the Senate minority leader, told James B. Comey, the F.B.I. director, that he had “become concerned” that Russia’s interference was “more extensive than widely known.” Credit Al Drago/The New York Times

In his letter, the senator cited what he called mounting evidence “of a direct connection between the Russian government and Donald Trump’s presidential campaign” and said it was crucial for the F.B.I. to “use every resource available” to investigate.

Unknown to Mr. Reid, the F.B.I. had already opened a counterintelligence inquiry a month before, in late July, to examine possible links between Russia and people tied to the Trump campaign. But its existence was kept secret even from members of Congress.

Well into the fall, law enforcement officials said that the F.B.I. — including the bureau’s intelligence analysts — had not found any conclusive or direct link between Mr. Trump and the Russian government, as The New York Times reported on Oct. 31.

But as the election approached and new batches of hacked Democratic emails poured out, some F.B.I. officials began to change their view about Russia’s intentions and eventually came to believe, as the C.I.A. had months earlier, that Moscow was trying to help get Mr. Trump elected, officials said.

It was not until early December, a month after the election, that it became publicly known in news reports that the C.I.A. had concluded that Moscow’s motivation was to get Mr. Trump elected.

In January, intelligence officials publicly released a declassified version of their findings, concluding that President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia had “aspired to help” Mr. Trump to win the election and harm Hillary Clinton, a longtime adversary.

By then, both the F.B.I. and the C.I.A. said they had “high confidence” that Russia was trying to help Mr. Trump by hacking into the internal emails of the Democratic National Committee and of some Clinton aides. (The National Security Agency expressed only “moderate confidence” that the Russians were trying to help him.)

Last month, Mr. Comey publicly acknowledged the continuing investigation for the first time at a House hearing on Russia’s influence on the election and said the F.B.I. was examining possible links between Trump associates and Russia for evidence of collusion.

One factor in the C.I.A. analysis last summer was that American intelligence agencies learned that Russia’s cyberattacks had breached Republican targets as well as Democrats. But virtually none of the hacked Republican material came out publicly, while the Russians, working through WikiLeaks and other public outlets, dumped substantial amounts of Democratic material damaging to Mrs. Clinton’s campaign.

Some intelligence officials were wary of pushing too aggressively before the election with questions about possible links between Russia and the Trump campaign because of concerns it might be seen as an improper political attempt to help Mrs. Clinton.

But after her loss, a number of Mrs. Clinton’s supporters have said that Mr. Comey and other government officials should have revealed more to the public during the campaign season about what they knew of Russia’s motivations and possible connections to the Trump campaign.


WHO’S ON FIRST?

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/14/business/united-airlines-passenger-doctor.html
United’s Apologies: A Timeline
The airline was criticized for mishandling its response to videos that showed a passenger being dragged off one of its flights on Sunday.
By ERIN McCANN
APRIL 14, 2017

Photograph -- The United Airlines ticket counter at Terminal 1 in O’Hare International Airport in Chicago. CreditNam Y. Huh/Associated Press

The week began when video of a passenger being forcibly removed from a United Airlines fight on Sunday started to spread widely on social media. The passenger was eventually identified as Dr. David Dao, 69, of Kentucky, who sustained a concussion, a broken nose and lost two teeth during the episode. United has issued several evolving statements since Monday after receiving criticism that it had mishandled its initial response.

MONDAY

‘An upsetting event’
The company’s first response placed the blame for the episode on Dr. Dao. In a statement on Monday morning, United said, “We apologize for the overbook situation,” but made no reference to Dr. Dao or the video. (Later, the company would clarify that the flight was not actually overbooked.)

Later Monday, the company released a statement from Oscar Munoz, its chief executive, calling the episode “an upsetting event.” He apologized to the other passengers on the plane, but did not speak directly about Dr. Dao’s treatment.

“This is an upsetting event to all of us here at United. I apologize for having to re-accommodate these customers. Our team is moving with a sense of urgency to work with the authorities and conduct our own detailed review of what happened. We are also reaching out to this passenger to talk directly to him and further address and resolve this situation.” – Oscar Munoz, CEO., United Airlines

On Monday evening, a letter from Mr. Munoz to United employees became public. In it, he told them that he stood by them.

Like you, I was upset to see and hear about what happened last night aboard United Express Flight 3411 headed from Chicago to Louisville. While the facts and circumstances are still evolving, especially with respect to why this customer defied Chicago Aviation Security Officers the way he did, to give you a clearer picture of what transpired, I’ve included below a recap from the preliminary reports filed by our employees.

As you will read, this situation was unfortunately compounded when one of the passengers we politely asked to deplane refused and it became necessary to contact Chicago Aviation Security Officers to help. Our employees followed established procedures for dealing with situations like this. While I deeply regret this situation arose, I also emphatically stand behind all of you, and I want to commend you for continuing to go above and beyond to ensure we fly right.

I do, however, believe there are lessons we can learn from this experience, and we are taking a close look at the circumstances surrounding this incident. Treating our customers and each other with respect and dignity is at the core of who we are, and we must always remember this no matter how challenging the situation.

Oscar


The letter included a recap of the events on the airplane, in which Mr. Munoz described Dr. Dao as having been “disruptive and belligerent.”

Summary of Flight 3411

• On Sunday, April 9, after United Express Flight 3411 was fully boarded, United’s gate agents were approached by crewmembers that were told they needed to board the flight.

• We sought volunteers and then followed our involuntary denial of boarding process (including offering up to $1,000 in compensation) and when we approached one of these passengers to explain apologetically that he was being denied boarding, he raised his voice and refused to comply with crew member instructions.

• He was approached a few more times after that in order to gain his compliance to come off the aircraft, and each time he refused and became more and more disruptive and belligerent.

• Our agents were left with no choice but to call Chicago Aviation Security Officers to assist in removing the customer from the flight. He repeatedly declined to leave.

• Chicago Aviation Security Officers were unable to gain his cooperation and physically removed him from the flight as he continued to resist — running back onto the aircraft in defiance of both our crew and security officials.

Image
Oscar Munoz, the chief executive of United Airlines, last June. CreditLucas Jackson/Reuters


TUESDAY

‘Never too late to do the right thing’

A public relations crisis was unfolding as potential customers, objecting to United’s early statements, threatened a boycott. Lawmakers called for an investigation.

United changed course on Tuesday with another statement from Mr. Munoz, in which he said the airline took “full responsibility” for the episode.

The truly horrific event that occurred on this flight has elicited many responses from all of us: outrage, anger, disappointment. I share all of those sentiments, and one above all: my deepest apologies for what happened. Like you, I continue to be disturbed by what happened on this flight and I deeply apologize to the customer forcibly removed and to all the customers aboard. No one should ever be mistreated this way.

I want you to know that we take full responsibility and we will work to make it right.

It’s never too late to do the right thing. I have committed to our customers and our employees that we are going to fix what’s broken so this never happens again. This will include a thorough review of crew movement, our policies for incentivizing volunteers in these situations, how we handle oversold situations and an examination of how we partner with airport authorities and local law enforcement. We’ll communicate the results of our review by April 30th.

I promise you we will do better.

WEDNESDAY

‘Shame’ and another apology

On Wednesday morning, Mr. Munoz appeared, solemnly, on ABC’s “Good Morning, America,” and said he felt “shame” when he saw the video of Dr. Dao being dragged from the flight.

“This can never — will never — happen again on a United Airlines flight. That’s my premise and that’s my promise,” he said.

Later Wednesday, United said it would offer a full refund to every passenger on the flight.

Image
Crystal Dao Pepper, daughter of Dr. David Dao, with her lawyer Stephen Golan at a news conference on Thursday in Chicago. CreditJoshua Lott/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
THURSDAY

‘A harsh learning experience’

Moments after Dr. Dao’s lawyer and daughter spoke at a news conference in Chicago, United responded again, with an apology and a promise to “make this right.” The statement repeated the assertion that Mr. Munoz had reached out to Dr. Dao to apologize, which the doctor’s daughter said did not happen.

We continue to express our sincerest apology to Dr. Dao. We cannot stress enough that we remain steadfast in our commitment to make this right.

This horrible situation has provided a harsh learning experience from which we will take immediate, concrete action. We have committed to our customers and our employees that we are going to fix what’s broken so this never happens again.

First, we are committing that United will not ask law enforcement officers to remove passengers from our flights unless it is a matter of safety and security. Second, we’ve started a thorough review of policies that govern crew movement, incentivizing volunteers in these situations, how we handle oversold situations and an examination of how we partner with airport authorities and local law enforcement. Third, we will fully review and improve our training programs to ensure our employees are prepared and empowered to put our customers first. Our values – not just systems – will guide everything we do. We’ll communicate the results of our review and the actions we will take by April 30.

United CEO Oscar Munoz and the company called Dr. Dao on numerous occasions to express our heartfelt and deepest apologies.

Sapna Maheshwari, Matt Stevens and Daniel Victor contributed reporting.



THE APOLOGY

http://www.vanityfair.com/news/2017/04/oscar-munoz-united-airlines-latest-apology
UNITED AIRLINES FINALLY APOLOGIZES AFTER ITS STOCK FALLS OFF A CLIFF
Levin Report
BY BESS LEVIN
APRIL 11, 2017 5:12 PM

On Monday, after video footage of law enforcement forcibly dragging a ticketed passenger from a United Airlines plane went viral, the company’s C.E.O., Oscar Munoz, issued what we in the business call a “Sorry I’m Not Sorry” letter, essentially blaming the 69-year-old victim for getting himself ejected from an overbooked flight. Notably, on Monday, shares of United Airlines were unaffected by the scandal, closing out the day at $71.40. But as the social-media backlash grew stronger, and more videos of the incident emerged, the company’s stock began to fall, dropping as much as 4 percent, with the company losing nearly $800 million in value at one point on Tuesday. And there’s nothing like the threat of angry shareholders to get a corporate C.E.O. to offer an actual, true apology—even if it was his third attempt. Here’s what Munoz now has to say about the events that transpired at Chicago O’Hare Sunday, per Business Insider:

The truly horrific event that occurred on this flight has elicited many responses from all of us: outrage, anger, disappointment. I share all of those sentiments, and one above all: my deepest apologies for what happened. Like you, I continue to be disturbed by what happened on this flight and I deeply apologize to the customer forcibly removed and to all the customers aboard. No one should ever be mistreated this way.

I want you to know that we take full responsibility and we will work to make it right.

It’s never too late to do the right thing. I have committed to our customers and our employees that we are going to fix what’s broken so this never happens again. This will include a thorough review of crew movement, our policies for incentivizing volunteers in these situations, how we handle oversold situations and an examination of how we partner with airport authorities and local law enforcement. We’ll communicate the results of our review by April 30th.

I promise you we will do better.

Sincerely,

Oscar



SENATE RUN?

http://digital.vpr.net/post/despite-fundraising-re-election-sanders-campaign-says-plans-not-formally-announced#stream/0
VPR News
Despite Fundraising For Re-Election, Sanders Campaign Says Plans Not Formally Announced
By BOB KINZEL • APR 12, 2017

Photograph -- Sen. Bernie Sanders, seen here at a rally in Boston at the end of March 2017, let Vermonters know he's running for re-election via a fundraising email.
STEVEN SENNE / AP

Tuesday, Sen. Bernie Sanders sent an email to supporters asking them to make contributions to support a seven-state tour. The email also indicated for the first time that Sanders’ will seek re-election to a third term in the U.S. Senate.

The fundraising email, sent from Sanders’ campaign organization “Friends Of Bernie Sanders”, asked supporters to help pay for his trip next week to seven states. Sanders plans to use the trip to challenge many of the policies of the Trump Administration.

The email wrapped up with a request:

"Please make a $27 contribution to my re-election campaign to help fund this national tour."

VPR wanted to ask Sanders about his decision to seek another term in office, his role as a spokesperson for the Democratic Party, and his plan to use campaign funds for his national tour.

Numerous attempts to talk to Sanders or members of his Senate staff were made and went unanswered before publication.

Sanders' office later put out a statement saying that the language in the email referring to Sanders' re-election effort was not meant to be a "formal" campaign announcement and that "the people of Vermont will be the first to know about Bernie's political plans, which will not be announced for several months."

Regardless of when a formal announcement is made, it doesn't appear that Sanders will have a difficult time winning another term.

Jeff Bartley, the executive director of the Vermont Republican Party, says the GOP wants to focus on statewide and legislative races in 2018, not the U.S. Senate contest.

“It would be a huge task, an accomplishment in itself if we're able to find a candidate that can challenge and raise enough money to run against Sen. Sanders,” said Bartley. “As a Party, it's not really on our immediate radar."

"It would be a huge task ... to run against Sen. Sanders. As a Party, it's not really on our immediate radar." — Jeff Bartley director of the Vermont Republican Party UVM political science professor Garrison Nelson thinks Sanders ran a very strong race for the Democratic Presidential nomination in 2016 and that he's now taken on an important leadership role within the Party.

"His stature grew tremendously during that campaign and Bernie's going to be a player as long as he wants to be," Nelson says, "and I think the campaign fundraiser is all about that."

Former Middlebury College political science professor Eric Davis thinks Sanders' national message will play well with many Vermont voters, as long as Sanders also addresses how these issues will directly affect the state.

"He'll go around the country and criticize the Trump Administration and the Republican Congress for their policies on the environment, climate change and so forth,” says Davis. “But Vermont voters will want him to do as much as he can to make sure that the EPA continues funding the long-term program for the clean-up of Lake Champlain."

And Davis says Sanders is poised to play a key role in shaping the Democratic presidential primary campaign in 2020.

"If he doesn't run himself, will he support a candidate for the nomination during the primary phase in 2020?" Davis says. "And he has some resources that can be of great assistance to other candidates there: his list of supporters' email addresses, contact information, as well as a lot of money."

Davis also expects that Sanders will spend a fair amount of time during the 2018 campaign season working to support the election of Democratic congressional candidates throughout the country.

Update 10:30 a.m. 4/13/2017: this post has been updated to include comment from the Sanders campaign.



2020 RACE PREDICTIONS?

http://www.politicususa.com/2017/03/31/republicans-stunned-poll-shows-joe-biden-bernie-sanders-crushing-trump-2020.html
Republicans Stunned As Poll Shows Joe Biden And Bernie Sanders Crushing Trump In 2020
By Jason Easley on Fri, Mar 31st, 2017 at 12:38 pm
Friday, April 14, 2017

Photographs -- Both former vice president Joe Biden, and Sen. Bernie Sanders hold double-digit leads over President Donald Trump in a way too early poll of potential 2020 matchups.

OTHER SUGGESTED ARTICLES:
Both former vice president Joe Biden, and Sen. Bernie Sanders hold double-digit leads over President Donald Trump in a way too early poll of potential 2020 matchups.

PPP found, “Joe Biden 54/40, Bernie Sanders 52/41, Elizabeth Warren 48/43, Al Franken 46/41, and Cory Booker 45/42 in head to head matchups. Biden (56/33 favorability) and Sanders (53/36) are among the most popular political figures in the country. Voters are more divided on Warren (42/39) and Franken (34/34). Booker is not as well known nationally as the rest of this group yet, coming in at 27/24.”

The answer for Democrats in 2020 isn’t running a nearly 80-year-old Joe Biden or Bernie Sanders. Sen. Warren will be 70 by the time the 2020 election rolls around, which means that she will be younger than Donald Trump, but she wouldn’t fit the contrast of youth that Democrats would hope to project to voters when potentially facing the nearly 75-year-old Trump. Sen. Franken will also be nearing 70 years of age by 2020, so while all of these figures are popular with the Democratic base, none of them really fit a message that Democrats are the diverse political party of the future.

Sen. Cory Booker is the one potential candidate on the list who stands out. As PPP pointed out, Booker is not as well known nationally, which means that he will not be as easy for Trump and the Republicans define.

It was reported that Republicans have a brutal opposition file assembled against Bernie Sanders that is two feet thick. When Trump says that he would love to run against a Warren or a Sanders, he isn’t kidding. Republicans are already prepared for each of the progressive favorites.

The fact that every potential Democratic candidate leads Donald Trump shows the weakness of the incumbent president. Biden and Sanders are the two potential candidates with the biggest leads because they are the two most nationally well-known figures in the poll.

As much fun as it would be to see a Biden or Sanders go head to head with Trump, the future of the party is with people in the age range of Cory Booker and younger. There is a reason why the last two victorious Democratic presidents were 46 (Bill Clinton) and 47 years old (Barack Obama) when they won their first terms.

Trump looks like he will be a historically weak incumbent president. The opportunity will be there Democrats to win back the White House, but they will need to put aside nostalgia and run a new face against an old and unpopular president.

All Democrats lead Trump in 2020, Bernie Sanders leads Trump in 2020, Joe Biden leads Trump in 2020, PPP poll

Follow Jason Easley on Twitter
Republicans Stunned As Poll Shows Joe Biden And Bernie Sanders Crushing Trump In 2020 added by Jason Easley on Fri, Mar 31st, 2017
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PPP

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_Policy_Polling
Public Policy Polling
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Public Policy Polling (PPP) is a U.S. Democratic[1] polling firm based in Raleigh, North Carolina.[2][3][4] PPP was founded in 2001 by businessman Dean Debnam, the firm's current president and chief executive officer.[5]
In addition to political issues, the company has polled the public on topics such as the approval rating of God,[6] whether Republican voters believe President Obama would be eligible to enter heaven in the event of the Rapture,[7] whether hipsters should be subjected to a special tax for being annoying,[8] and whether Ted Cruz is the Zodiac Killer.[9][10]



https://www.ft.com/content/40498d94-155b-11e7-80f4-13e067d5072c
Federal Bureau of Investigation Add to myFT
FBI plans to create special unit to co-ordinate Russia probe
Move would allow the agency’s director to have greater insight into the case
APRIL 2, 2017 by: David J Lynch in Washington

The FBI is planning to create a special section based at its Washington headquarters to co-ordinate its investigation of Russian activities designed to influence the 2016 presidential election, according to a person familiar with the plan.

The move, a sign of how seriously the bureau is taking allegations of Russian meddling in American politics, is also aimed at giving FBI director James Comey greater visibility into the investigation’s granular details. “It’s meant to surge resources,” said one FBI agent.

Creation of the temporary unit mirrors the bureau’s approach to other sensitive investigations, including the WikiLeaks disclosure of classified US government documents and Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server while secretary of state.

The FBI generally prefers to run investigations from one of its 56 field offices, but the high-profile nature of the sprawling Russia inquiry is seen as requiring a central manager, according to current and former officials.

“It’s getting unwieldy,” said one person briefed on the plan. “It’s too big and it’s on the front page of the newspaper every day.”

An FBI spokeswoman declined to comment.

The bureau is expected to recall from the field an FBI counter-intelligence specialist to oversee the squad, which is to begin work next month. If the new team — with about 20 dedicated agents drawn from across the country — operates as similar units have in the past, its chief would brief Mr Comey on a weekly basis while providing daily updates for deputy director Andrew McCabe.

“We did it quite regularly,” said Robert Anderson of Navigant, a business consulting group, who was a former executive assistant director of the FBI. “Any time there’s a big case, a giant case, it becomes a huge resource drain across the organisation.”

Russian activities under investigation include alleged hacking into Democratic computer networks and reported contacts between Russians and representatives of the Trump campaign. Michael Flynn, the president’s national security adviser, was fired in February after allegedly lying to vice-president Mike Pence about conversations he had last year with Sergei Kislyak, Russian ambassador to the US.

“The FBI, as part of our counter-intelligence mission, is investigating the Russian government’s efforts to interfere in the 2016 presidential election and that includes investigating the nature of any links between individuals associated with the Trump campaign and the Russian government and whether there was any co-ordination between the campaign and Russia’s efforts,” Mr Comey told the House Intelligence Committee earlier this month.

FBI investigators also will evaluate the potential for criminal charges in the Russia matter. But some investigators are pessimistic about the likelihood of making a case, given the difficulty of obtaining evidence from Russia.

It’s getting unwieldy. It’s too big and it’s on the front page of the newspaper every day
A person briefed on the plan

“Unlike the CIA, we have to bring things that go, potentially, in front of a jury,” said one agent. “We have to certify evidence. A place like Russia is such a black hole. It’s so hard to prove you’re bringing evidence that hasn’t been tampered with.”

As the FBI probe proceeds, both the Senate and House intelligence committees are pursuing their own Russia-related investigations. Republican Senator Richard Burr, who chairs the Senate panel, said on Wednesday that the committee was “looking anywhere intelligence suggests that there might have been any type of relationship of effort to influence US elections”.

In an appearance on Wednesday night before an industry group, Mr Comey declined to discuss the investigation. But he said the FBI would follow the facts without regard for potential political consequences. “We’re not on anybody’s side, ever,” he said. “We’re not considering whose ox will be gored. We just don’t care.”

Follow David J Lynch on Twitter: @davidjlynch



http://www.politicususa.com/2017/04/10/russian-hacker-claims-arrested-involvement-virus-linked-trumps-win.html
Trump’s Russia Scandal Returns As Hacker Says He Was Arrested for Virus Linked to Trump’s Win
By Sarah Jones on Mon, Apr 10th, 2017 at 3:43 pm


This is a weird Russian story about a spam king being arrested, whose wife, Maria Levashova, said on RT he was told it was because of his involvement with a computer virus "linked to Trump's election win." Alleged Russian hacker Pyotor Levashov, aka Peter Severa, was detained over the weekend in Spain.

“Pyotr Levashov was arrested Friday in Barcelona on a U.S. computer crimes warrant, according to a spokeswoman for Spain’s National Court, who spoke on condition of anonymity in line with court rules,” the AP reported early Monday morning.

On RT, Levashov’s wife said armed police stormed into their apartment in Spain and eventually arrested her husband, who told her on a call from the police station that he told her he was told he had created a computer virus that was “linked to Trump’s election win.”

Sheera Frenkel in Buzzfeed pointed out that normally the arrest of a spammer wouldn’t make international headlines, but that he had reportedly been recruited by Russia’s national security service, “In 2012, Russian investigative journalists Andrei Soldatov and Irina Borogan, reported that Russian hacker forums believed that Peter Severa (believed to be Levashov’s online alias) had been recruited by the Russia’s national security service, the FSB. The researchers wrote that Peter Severa had been attempting to recruit hackers on online forums.”

There’s a link here to a virus that spread fake news spam about Putin’s opponent in the 2012 Russian election, “The alias of Peter Severa was also named by a 2012 court filing by Microsoft, which outlined how the extensive spam network had been used to spread a host of computer viruses. One of those, the Kelihos virus, was used to spread spam during the 2012 Russian elections that pushed fake news stories about the candidate running against Russian President Vladimir Putin. Those emails included unsubstantiated allegations that Putin’s opponent, Mikhail D. Prokhorov, had come out as gay.”

The 2016 U.S. election was interfered with by Russians, and one of the ways was fake news, often based in Macedonia, that published rabidly anti-Hillary Clinton news.

Severa is a very successful spammer. One of the top ten in 2009, according to Newsweek, which noted at the time, “7. Pyotr Levashov a.k.a. Peter Severa (Russia) The creator of Trojans and author of spam programs became known to the public last year during a trial of Alan Ralsky’s spam gang from Detroit, the largest in the U.S. Nine others were arrested with Ralsky, but not Severa, who is believed to be living in Russia and still working with hackers.”

It’s unclear what role, if any, Severa played in the 2016 election. That connection is being made through the claims of his wife and his alleged history with election spamming for Putin.

We are repeatedly told that the Russians didn’t hack our voting machines, even though they did hack our voting rolls. They “hacked” the election, we are told, with fake news and in other ways.

If Levashov made a virus linked to Donald Trump’s win, that could mean possibly pushing fake news spam with pro-Trump and anti-Clinton stories. Intelligence experts keep saying the actual results weren’t hacked; rather the election was hacked in other ways.

Given all of the vulnerabilities, though, and the Russian expertise on hacking, malware, viruses, and undermining democracy, this might be a good time to revamp our voting machines so that they can’t be easily hacked in 7 minutes.

The U.S. is going after Russian hackers with a vengeance, and it doesn’t seem to be unrelated to Donald Trump’s Russia problem. Add a dash of skepticism to the Russian hacker’s wife’s claims, because they were made on RT and they could be a way of generating sympathy for him with anger against America. But he is known to be a hacker, and he’s been accused of interfering in a previous election to help Putin with the use of fake news spam.



TRUMP HAS GIVEN HIS MILITARY A BLANK CHECK ON WHAT TO HIT, WHAT TO HIT IT WITH, AND PRESUMABLY WHEN TO STOP HITTING. HE PROBABLY THINKS THAT IS BETTER BECAUSE IT IS EFFICIENT, BUT IT HAS THE POSSIBILITY OF THE GROWTH FROM THAT “SEED” OF A TRUE MILITARY DICTATORSHIP. SO MANY OF THE THINGS I’VE SEEN SINCE TRUMP WAS ELECTED – STARTING EVEN BEFORE HE WAS INAUGURATED – ARE EERILY LIKE MY NIGHTMARES. I, AND MOST AMERICANS I DARE SAY, NEVER BELIEVED THIS NATION WOULD EVER BE ABLE TO GET TO THIS PLACE. IT DOES SHOW, THOUGH, THAT THE AMOUNT OF FREEDOM THAT WE HAVE IS DANGEROUS – THIS AMERICAN POPULATION, BOTH BY INTENTION AND BY DEFAULT, ELECTED THIS GROUP OF PEOPLE.

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/us-drops-mother-of-all-bombs-in-afghanistan-marking-weapons-first-use/
U.S. drops "mother of all bombs" in Afghanistan, marking weapon's first use
CBS NEWS April 13, 2017, 12:58 PM

The U.S. dropped a bomb with an explosive force equal to 11 tons of TNT on a cave complex used by the Afghanistan branch of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) on Thursday, the Pentagon said.

The bomb is officially called a GBU-43 or Massive Ordnance Air Blast (MOAB), the origin of its nickname as the “mother of all bombs.” Weighing more than 21,000 lbs., the weapon is the largest non-nuclear bomb ever used in combat.

The strike had been in the works for a number of months, dating back to the Obama administration, CBS News national security correspondent David Martin reports. The weapon was brought into Afghanistan “some time ago” for use in Thursday’s mission, a Pentagon spokesman said.

Photograph -- bomb-gettyimages-2751809.jpg, In this U.S. Air Force handout, a GBU-43/B bomb, or Massive Ordnance Air Blast (MOAB) bomb, explodes Nov. 21, 2003, at Eglin Air Force Base, Florida. GETTY

At the White House, President Trump called the mission “another very, very successful mission.” Asked if he personally authorized the strike, Mr. Trump said “everybody knows exactly what happened.”

“What I do is I authorize my military,” Mr. Trump said. “We have the greatest military in the world and they’ve done their job as usual. So, we have given them total authorization and that’s what they’re doing.”

Sean Spicer holds short press briefing, addresses Afghanistan bombing
Play VIDEO
Sean Spicer holds short press briefing, addresses Afghanistan bombing

Earlier at the daily White House briefing, press secretary Sean Spicer declined to say whether Mr. Trump had personally authorized the use of the weapon.

Spicer said that the strike targeted a “system of tunnels and caves that ISIS fighters used to move around freely.” He said the U.S. “took all precautions necessary” to minimize civilian casualties.

General John Nicholson, commander of U.S. forces in Afghanistan, sought and obtained permission to use the MOAB, but it’s unclear how far up the chain of command his request traveled, Martin reports.

U.S. officials estimate there are between 600 to 800 ISIS fighters in Afghanistan, mostly concentrated in Nangarhar province along the Pakistan border, site of Tuesday’s strike. A U.S. soldier was killed in combat during an operation in Nangarhar just days before.

In a statement, the U.S. command in Afghanistan said the strike was “designed to minimize the risk to Afghan and U.S. Forces conducting clearing operations in the area while maximizing the destruction of ISIS-K fighters and facilities,” using the term for ISIS’s Afghan contingent.

Photograph -- cbsn-afghanistanmap.jpg, The site where the “mother of all bombs” was dropped on an ISIS complex in Afghanistan. CBS NEWS

Officials “took every precaution to avoid civilian casualties with this strike,” the statement said.

In March 2003, the U.S. military debuted the 21,600-lb. MOAB during a test in Florida shortly before the invasion of Iraq. The test was intended to demonstrate the “enormous incentive” Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein had to relinquish power and “spare the world a conflict,” then-Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said at the time.

The cloud of debris from the ensuing explosion in the 2003 test was visible from more than 20 miles away, according to the Air Force. U.S. and coalition forces invaded Iraq nine days later, and a MOAB was deployed to the region on April 1, 2003, but never used.

Photograph -- moab-gettyimages-668152898.jpg, In this handout provided by the Department of Defense, A Massive Ordnance Air Blast (MOAB) weapon is prepared for testing at the Eglin Air Force Armament Center on March 11, 2003, in Valparaiso, Florida.


CARTER PAGE, TRUMP AND RUSSIA – TWO ARTICLES

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/fbi-obtained-fisa-warrant-to-monitor-former-trump-adviser-carter-page/2017/04/11/620192ea-1e0e-11e7-ad74-3a742a6e93a7_story.html?utm_term=.95dcc56403f0
National Security
FBI obtained FISA warrant to monitor Trump adviser Carter Page
By Ellen Nakashima, Devlin Barrett and Adam Entous
April 11, 2017

Photograph -- The FBI obtained a secret court order to monitor communications from former Trump adviser Carter Page in summer 2016, according to law enforcement and intelligence officials. (Sarah Parnass/The Washington Post)

The FBI obtained a secret court order last summer to monitor the communications of an adviser to presidential candidate Donald Trump, part of an investigation into possible links between Russia and the campaign, law enforcement and other U.S. officials said.

The FBI and the Justice Department obtained the warrant targeting Carter Page’s communications after convincing a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court judge that there was probable cause to believe Page was acting as an agent of a foreign power, in this case Russia, according to the officials.

This is the clearest evidence so far that the FBI had reason to believe during the 2016 presidential campaign that a Trump campaign adviser was in touch with Russian agents. Such contacts are now at the center of an investigation into whether the campaign coordinated with the Russian government to swing the election in Trump’s favor.

Page has not been accused of any crimes, and it is unclear whether the Justice Department might later seek charges against him or others in connection with Russia’s meddling in the 2016 presidential election. The counterintelligence investigation into Russian efforts to influence U.S. elections began in July, officials have said. Most such investigations don’t result in criminal charges.

The officials spoke about the court order on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss details of a counterintelligence probe.

Team Trump’s ties to Russian interests VIEW GRAPHIC
Team Trump’s ties to Russian interests
During an interview with the Washington Post editorial page staff in March 2016, Trump identified Page, who had previously been an investment banker in Moscow, as a foreign policy adviser to his campaign. Campaign spokeswoman Hope Hicks later described Page’s role as “informal.”

Page has repeatedly denied any wrongdoing in his dealings with the Trump campaign or Russia.

“This confirms all of my suspicions about unjustified, politically motivated government surveillance,” Page said in an interview Tuesday. “I have nothing to hide.” He compared surveillance of him to the eavesdropping that the FBI and Justice Department conducted against civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr.

[Despite early denials, growing list of Trump camp contacts with Russians haunts White House]

The White House, FBI and Justice Department declined to comment.

FBI Director James B. Comey disclosed in public testimony to the House Intelligence Committee last month that the bureau is investigating efforts by the Russian government to interfere in the 2016 presidential election.

Comey said this includes investigating the “nature of any links between individuals associated with the Trump campaign and the Russian government and whether there was any coordination between the campaign and Russia’s efforts.”

Trump lists Carter Page among his foreign policy team in 2016 Embed Share Play Video1:12
During an interview with The Washington Post's editorial board on March 21, 2016, then-presidential candidate Donald Trump named Carter Page as one of his foreign policy advisory team members. The FBI obtained a secret court order last summer to monitor Page's communications. (The Washington Post)
Comey declined to comment during the hearing about any individuals, including Page, who worked in Moscow for Merrill Lynch a decade ago and who has said he invested in Russian energy giant Gazprom. In a letter to Comey in September, Page had said he had sold his Gazprom investment.

During the hearing last month, Democratic lawmakers repeatedly singled out Page’s contacts in Russia as a cause for concern.

The judges who rule on Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) requests oversee the nation’s most sensitive national security cases, and their warrants are some of the most closely guarded secrets in the world of U.S. law enforcement and intelligence gathering. Any FISA application has to be approved at the highest levels of the Justice Department and the FBI.

Applications for FISA warrants, Comey said, are often thicker than his wrists, and that thickness represents all the work Justice Department attorneys and FBI agents have to do to convince a judge that such surveillance is appropriate in an investigation.

The government’s application for the surveillance order targeting Page included a lengthy declaration that laid out investigators’ basis for believing that Page was an agent of the Russian government and knowingly engaged in clandestine intelligence activities on behalf of Moscow, officials said.

Among other things, the application cited contacts that he had with a Russian intelligence operative in New York City in 2013, officials said. Those contacts had earlier surfaced in a federal espionage case brought by the Justice Department against the intelligence operative and two other Russian agents. In addition, the application said Page had other contacts with Russian operatives that have not been publicly disclosed, officials said.

[Former Trump adviser admits to 2013 communication with Russian spy]

An application for electronic surveillance under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act need not show evidence of a crime. But the information obtained through the intercepts can be used to open a criminal investigation and may be used in a prosecution.

The application also showed that the FBI and the Justice Department’s national security division have been seeking since July to determine how broad a network of accomplices Russia enlisted in attempting to influence the 2016 presidential election, the officials said.

Since the 90-day warrant was first issued, it has been renewed more than once by the FISA court, the officials said.

In February, Page told “PBS NewsHour” that he was a “junior member of the [Trump] campaign’s foreign policy advisory group.”

A former Trump campaign adviser said Page submitted policy memos to the campaign and several times asked to be given a meeting with Trump, though his request was never granted. “He was one of the more active ones, in terms of being in touch,” the adviser said.

The campaign adviser said Page participated in three dinners held for the campaign’s volunteer foreign policy advisers in the spring and summer of 2016, coming from New York to Washington to meet with the group. Although Trump did not attend, Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.), a top Trump confidant who became his attorney general, attended one meeting of the group with Page in late summer, the campaign adviser said.

Page’s role as an adviser to the Trump campaign drew alarm last year from more-established foreign policy experts in part because of Page’s effusive praise for Russian President Vladimir Putin and his criticism of U.S. sanctions over Moscow’s military intervention in Ukraine.

In July, Page traveled to Moscow, where he delivered a speech harshly critical of the United States’ policy toward Russia.

While there, Page allegedly met with Igor Sechin, a Putin confidant and chief executive of the energy company Rosneft, according to a dossier compiled by a former British intelligence officer and cited at a congressional hearing by Rep. Adam B. Schiff (Calif.), the ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee. Officials said some of the information in the dossier has been verified by U.S. intelligence agencies, and some of it hasn’t, while other parts are unlikely to ever be proved or disproved.

On Tuesday, Page dismissed what he called “the dodgy dossier” of false allegations.

Page has denied such a meeting occurred, saying he has never met Sechin in his life and that he wants to testify before Congress to clear his name. A spokesman for Rosneft told Politico in September that the notion that Page met with Sechin was “absurd.” Page said in September that he briefly met Russian Deputy Prime Minister Arkady Dvorkovich during that trip.

Comey has declined to discuss the details of the Russia probe, but in an appearance last month, he cited the process for getting FISA warrants as proof that the government’s surveillance powers are very carefully used, with significant oversight.

“It is a pain in the neck to get permission to conduct electronic surveillance in the United States. And that’s good,’’ he told an audience at the University of Texas in Austin.

Officials have said the FBI and the Justice Department were particularly reluctant to seek FISA warrants of campaign figures during the 2016 presidential race because of concerns that agents would inadvertently eavesdrop on political talk. To obtain a FISA warrant, prosecutors must show that a significant purpose of the warrant is to obtain foreign intelligence information.

[How hard is it to get an intelligence wiretap? Pretty hard.]

Page is the only American to have had his communications directly targeted with a FISA warrant in 2016 as part of the Russia probe, officials said.

The FBI routinely obtains FISA warrants to monitor the communications of foreign diplomats in the United States, including the Russian ambassador, Sergey Kislyak. The conversations between Kislyak and Michael Flynn, who became Trump’s first national security adviser, were recorded in December. In February, The Washington Post reported that Flynn misled Vice President-elect Mike Pence and others about his discussions with Kislyak, prompting Trump’s decision to fire him.

In March, Trump made unsubstantiated claims about U.S. surveillance of Trump Tower in New York. Later that month, Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.), chairman of the House Intelligence Committee and a Trump transition official, charged that details about people “associated with the incoming administration, details with little apparent foreign intelligence value” were “widely disseminated” in intelligence community reporting. He said none of the surveillance was related to Russia. The FISA order on Page is unrelated to either charge.


Last month, the former director of national intelligence, James R. Clapper Jr., told NBC’s “Meet the Press” that U.S. law enforcement agencies did not have any FISA orders to monitor the communications of Trump, either as a candidate or as a president-elect, or his campaign. But Clapper did not address whether there were any FISA warrants targeting Trump associates.

Three years before Page became an adviser to the Trump campaign, he came to the attention of FBI counterintelligence agents, who learned that Russian spy suspects had sought to use Page as a source for information.

In that case, one of the Russian suspects, Victor Podobnyy — who was posing as a diplomat and was later charged by federal prosecutors with acting as an unregistered agent of a foreign government — was captured on tape in 2013 discussing an effort to get information and documents from Page. That discussion was detailed in a federal complaint filed against Podobnyy and two others. The court documents in that spy case only identify Page as “Male 1.’’ Officials familiar with the case said that “Male 1’’ is Page.

In one secretly recorded conversation, detailed in the complaint, Podobnyy said Page “wrote that he is sorry, he went to Moscow and forgot to check his inbox, but he wants to meet when he gets back. I think he is an idiot and forgot who I am. Plus he writes to me in Russian [to] practice the language. He flies to Moscow more often than I do. He got hooked on Gazprom thinking that if they have a project, he could rise up. Maybe he can. I don’t know, but it’s obvious that he wants to earn lots of money.’’

The same court document says that in June 2013, Page told FBI agents that he met Podobnyy at an energy symposium in New York, where they exchanged contact information. In subsequent meetings, Page shared with the Russian his outlook on the state of the energy industry, as well as documents about the energy business, according to the court papers.

In the secret tape, Podobnyy said he liked the man’s “enthusiasm” but planned to use him to get information and give him little in return. “You promise a favor for a favor. You get the documents from him and tell him to go f--- himself,’’ Podobnyy said on the tape, according to court papers.

Page has said the information he provided to the Russians in 2013 was innocuous, describing it as “basic immaterial information and publicly available research documents.” He said he had assisted the prosecutors in their case against Evgeny Buryakov, who pleaded guilty to conspiring to act in the United States as an unregistered agent of Russian intelligence.

Rosalind S. Helderman contributed to this report.



https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/trump-advisers-public-comments-ties-to-moscow-stir-unease-in-both-parties/2016/08/05/2e8722fa-5815-11e6-9aee-8075993d73a2_story.html?tid=a_inl&utm_term=.765bdcd5ed0f
Politics
Trump adviser’s public comments, ties to Moscow stir unease in both parties
By Steven Mufson and Tom Hamburger
August 5, 2016

In early June, a little-known adviser to Donald Trump stunned a gathering of high-powered Washington foreign policy experts meeting with the visiting prime minister of India, going off topic with effusive praise for Russian President Vladimir Putin and Trump.

The adviser, Carter Page, hailed Putin as stronger and more reliable than President Obama, according to three people who were present at the closed-door meeting at Blair House — and then touted the positive effect a Trump presidency would have on U.S.-Russia relations.

A month later, Page dumbfounded foreign policy experts again by giving another speech harshly critical of U.S. policy — this time in Moscow.

The United States and other Western nations have “criticized these regions for continuing methods which were prevalent during the Cold War period,” Page said in a lecture at the New Economic School commencement. “Yet ironically, Washington and other Western capitals have impeded potential progress through their often hypocritical focus on ideas such as democratization, inequality, corruption and regime change.”

Page has an ambiguous role in Trump’s campaign. But since being named to the Republican nominee’s team in March, his stature within the foreign policy world has grown considerably, drawing alarm from more-established foreign policy experts who view him as having little real understanding about U.S.-Russia relations. Many also say that Page’s views may be compromised by his investment in Russian energy giant Gazprom.

Meet Donald Trump's 'Economic Advisory Council' Embed Share Play Video0:39
13 names, 6 Steves, 0 women. (Daron Taylor/The Washington Post)

Other foreign policy experts from both parties say they are distressed with Page for his criticism of sanctions, praise for Putin and his advisers, and his tepid response to what most U.S. policymakers see as Russian aggression.

“It scares me,” said David Kramer, who was responsible for Russia and Ukraine at the State Department during the George W. Bush administration. He called Page’s speech in Moscow and recent comments by Trump on the possibility of lifting sanctions against Moscow “deeply unsettling.”

Asked to comment on Page’s public statements and campaign role, Trump spokeswoman Hope Hicks said Page was an “informal foreign policy adviser” who “does not speak for Mr. Trump or the campaign.” Trump first named Page as one of a handful of his foreign policy advisers during a meeting at The Washington Post.

The open embrace of a controversial foreign leader is unusual for an adviser to a presidential candidate — and a break from a decades-old Republican tradition of tough stances­ toward Moscow.

Page, who worked in Moscow for Merrill Lynch a decade ago and who has said he is invested in Gazprom, joins other Trump advisers who have done business in Russia while advocating closer relations. Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort, for example, has wooed investments from oligarchs linked to Putin and advised the now-toppled pro-Russian Ukrainian president Viktor Yanukovych.

Trump has also expressed admiration for Putin, questioned U.S. obligations to defend NATO allies and most recently — after hacked emails were released on the eve of the Democratic National Convention — asked for Russian help to find the deleted emails of presidential candidate Hillary Clinton. At the time he spoke, the FBI was investigating a break-in at the Democratic National Committee by alleged Russian hackers. Later, Trump said the request was made sarcastically.

While his comments have drawn derision from some quarters, friends of the 45-year-old Page say that he is knowledgeable about Russian affairs, and they profess astonishment that he has chosen to advise Trump.

Donald Trump says the U.S. gets 'no respect' from Vladimir Putin Embed Share Play Video1:07
Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump said the United States gets "no respect" from Russian President Vladimir Putin during a town hall event in Scranton, Pa., July 27. (The Washington Post)

Relationship with Gazprom

A graduate of the Naval Academy later posted as a Marine intelligence officer in Western Sahara, Page won a fellowship from the Council on Foreign Relations, where he wrote about Turkey’s role as a hub for oil and natural gas being taken by pipeline from the Caspian Sea region to Europe. After earning a degree from New York University’s business school, Page moved in 2004 to Moscow, where he worked for Merrill Lynch until 2007.

Page, who declined to comment for this article, has said in other media interviews that he also struck up a relationship with Gazprom. His Web biography says he was an adviser “on key transactions for Gazprom,” the Russian electric utility and other energy companies. In a two-hour interview with Bloomberg News in late March, he said he advised Gazprom on its largest deals, including buying a stake in an oil and natural gas field near Russia’s Sakhalin Island and the merging of two classes of Gazprom stock, one of which was restricted to foreigners and the other to Russians.

Page has offered that experience as one of his main areas of expertise, but his boss at Merrill Lynch at the time says that Page’s claims are exaggerated.

Sergey Aleksashenko, former deputy chairman of the Russian central bank and former chairman of Merrill Lynch Russia, says that Page did not play a key role at that time. “He was a vice president, and the job of vice president is not to organize deals but to execute,” Aleksashenko said.

He also said that no one at Merrill Lynch advised Gazprom on its purchase of Sakhalin oil and gas assets from a group led by Royal Dutch Shell, because the deal was driven by the Russian government, which strong-armed Shell by holding back environmental permits, complaining about the extent of local content and slowing Shell’s work to a crawl.

“Gazprom did not need any advice,” Aleksashenko said. “It was not a commercially driven transaction.”

Merrill Lynch was one of three firms that issued a fairness opinion on the price Gazprom eventually paid the Shell group.

Aleksashenko said when he heard that Trump named Page as an adviser, “I was laughing because he was never ready to discuss foreign policy.”

After he left Moscow, Page worked as chief operating officer of Merrill Lynch’s energy and power department in New York. Later, he set up Global Energy Capital, which is around the corner from Trump Tower. But he told Bloomberg News that he failed to raise money for a private-equity fund to buy assets in Turkmenistan. Instead, he says on his website that he advised others on investing in Russia and emerging markets.

Page’s position as a Trump adviser has catapulted him into the most prestigious policy events, such as a closed-door session co-chaired by former secretary of state Madeleine K. Albright and Republican consultant Vin Weber at Cambridge University in July. After his speech at the New Economic School in Moscow, Page spoke briefly with another speaker, Arkady Dvorkovich, who is a graduate of the school, deputy to Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev and now chairman of the Russian Railways board.

Page also went to the Republican National Convention, where he attended a session held by the International Republican Institute and a separate, sponsored foreign policy event.

Page has left a trail of blog posts on the Global Policy Journal that has traditional foreign policy experts scratching their heads. For example, on Feb. 10, 2015, he compared the 2015 National Security Strategy rationale for imposing sanctions on Russia to an 1850 publication offering slaveholders guidance on how to produce “the ideal slave.”

After the Obama administration added Rosneft Chairman Igor Sechin to its sanctions list in 2014, limiting Sechin’s ability to travel to the United States or do business with U.S. firms, Page praised the former deputy prime minister, considered one of Putin’s closest allies over the past 25 years. “Sechin has done more to advance U.S.-Russian relations than any individual in or out of government from either side of the Atlantic over the past decade,” Page wrote.

Another blog post on March 31, 2015, titled “ISIS Response Self-help Principles for Would-be Warriors of the West” approvingly cites Dale Carnegie’s classic “How to Win Friends and Influence People” as a strategy for dealing with the Islamic State.

Since being named as a member of the Trump team in March, Page’s background in Russia has raised questions about potential conflicts of interest.

During his interview with Bloomberg News, he said that he owns shares of Gazprom and that his stock portfolio had suffered since 2014, when the United States and Europe imposed economic sanctions on Russia after its annexation of the Crimean Peninsula.

In his Moscow speech in July, Page suggested that investment was the key to better relations. He said the United States should provide Russia with “emerging technologies and potential capital market access contingent upon the U.S.’s refocus toward resolution of domestic challenges.” Russia would, in turn, approve “collaborative partnerships in the energy industry and other diversified sectors.”

“So many people who I know and have worked with have been so adversely affected by the sanctions policy,” Page told Bloomberg News. “There’s a lot of excitement in terms of the possibilities for creating a better situation.” While acknowledging his own investments in Russia, Page told Bloomberg News his work on the campaign was unlikely to help his portfolio.

All holdings in Russia by members of the Trump team should be fully disclosed, said Michael McFaul, a former U.S. ambassador to Russia under Obama who is now teaching at Stanford University.

‘Refreshing to Russian ears’

Trump is not the first national political figure to suggest improved relations with Russia; Obama and Clinton advocated a “reset” a few years ago, which they have since abandoned. Trump is also not alone in seeking more military spending from U.S. allies in Europe. But he is the first to cast doubt on NATO’s mutual defense commitment or to request help from Russia in undermining his opponent.

“I think what we are offering is a very clear, mature, adult, realistic view of the world,” said Sam Clovis, an Iowa talk-show host and former Senate candidate who backs Trump and makes the case for rethinking U.S. commitments around the globe.

The Republican platform committee at the party’s convention last month was one place Trump campaign aides have promoted that view, according to national security experts who were there. They said Trump campaign staffers weakened language that would have called for military support of Ukraine.

“It was troubling to me that they would want to water down language that supports a country that has been invaded by an aggressive neighbor,” said Rachel Hoff, a member of the platform committee. “I think the U.S. should properly come to Ukraine’s aid in that struggle. In the past, that would not be considered a controversial Republican position.”

Manafort denied on “Meet the Press” this week that the campaign had sought to alter platform language related to Russia. However, those present said they negotiated directly with people who worked for the campaign.

Democrats, however, have suggested something more sinister lies behind Trump’s unusual views on Russia. McFaul, who reviewed Page’s early July speech in Moscow, said he disagreed with the content and added that he knew of no precedent for a presidential campaign adviser publicly criticizing U.S. policy in a foreign capital. The ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, Adam B. Schiff (Calif.), has said that the Russian ties of Trump’s advisers show that the “Kremlin has tentacles into the Trump campaign.”

Meanwhile, in Moscow, all this is being watched closely.

“I think Donald Trump is a very interesting internal American phenomenon,” said Fyodor Lukyanov, editor of Russia in Global Affairs and chairman of the presidium of the Council on Foreign and Defense Policy. He said that in July, Page had not established contacts with the Kremlin and had only met with some university professors for informal coffees.

“I don’t think he has any direct support here,” Lukyanov said of Trump. “What he’s saying sounds very much refreshing to Russian ears. If he by chance were elected president, I think many people in Russia would love it.”

Rosalind S. Helderman, Will Englund and Andrew Roth contributed to this report.



http://www.npr.org/sections/ed/2017/04/12/521944429/where-corporal-punishment-is-still-used-its-roots-go-deep?utm_source=facebook.com&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=npred&utm_term=nprnews&utm_content=20170412&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=npred&utm_term=nprnews&utm_content=20170412
K-12
Where Corporal Punishment Is Still Used In Schools, Its Roots Run Deep
April 12, 2017 6:00 AM ET
JESS CLARK

Photograph -- Robbinsville High School sits among miles of dense forest and steep mountains in N.C., Mike Belleme for NPR
Photograph -- Robbinsville High School sits tucked in the the Nantahala National Forest. Cheri Lynn is an active high school parent and says she — and many other parents — believe in corporal punishment. "They use it at home, and so the school is an extension of home."
Mike Belleme for NPR
Photograph -- Enlarge this image
Principal David Matheson grew up with many of his students' parents. The school's policy is to talk with parents before any student is paddled. "It's something the family decides," Matheson says.
Mike Belleme for NPR



Robbinsville High School sits in a small gap in the Smoky Mountains of North Carolina. Green slopes dotted with cattle hug in around the school before they rise into a thick cover of pine trees.

David Matheson is the principal here. And he's the only high school principal in the state who still performs corporal punishment. At Robbinsville, corporal punishment takes the form of paddling - a few licks on the backside Matheson delivers with a long wooden paddle.

North Carolina state law describes corporal punishment, as "The intentional infliction of physical pain upon the body of a student as a disciplinary measure."

Robbinsville High School's policy allows students to request a paddling in place of in-school-suspension, or ISS. Last year, 22 students chose it.

"Most kids will tell you that they choose the paddling so they don't miss class," Matheson says.

One of those students is Allison Collins. She's a senior now and says she chose to be paddled her sophomore year after her phone went off in class. She describes it as, "My first time ever being in trouble."

Collins went to the assistant principal's office where she was told she had a day of in-school-suspension. Collins told Principal Matheson she'd rather take a paddling and so he called her father to get permission.

"And my dad was like, 'Just paddle her,'" she says. "Because down here in the mountains, we do it the old-school way."

That's the policy here. Principal Matheson paddles a student only if he gets permission from their parent. And, he says, very few parents opt out. Matheson grew up here and went to school with a lot of his students' parents. "It's something that the family decides," he adds.

Nationwide, it's not unusual for parents to support the use of corporal punishment as a form of discipline. Recent surveys show about 75 percent of Americans believe it's sometimes necessary to spank a child.

"I think it goes back to traditional values," says Cheri Lynn, a Robbinsville parent who substitutes as a band teacher and coaches the school's shooting team. "A lot of parents still hold to the traditional values of corporal punishment. They use it at home, and so the school is an extension of home."

In a classroom down the hall, Beau Cronland, a student teacher, says he didn't know the school used corporal punishment until he sent one of his freshman to the office for talking. "Kids talk," he says, "I don't think they should get spanked for it, or paddled."

Tom Vitaglione, of the child-advocacy group NC Child, says for years he's been sending school leaders research papers showing corporal punishment leads to bad outcomes for students: higher drop-out rates, increased rates of depression and substance abuse and increased violent episodes down the road.

Enlarge this image
The school paddle is seen in principal David Matheson's office at Robbinsville High School, one of just a few schools in the state that still use corporal punishment.
Mike Belleme for NPR

Principal Matheson says he's seen that research, but he still believes paddling is an effective form of discipline. "I think if more schools did it, we'd have a whole lot better society. I do, I believe that."

Vitaglione takes issue with that: "When it gets to schools, we now have an agent of the state hitting a child," he says. "And we don't believe that should happen."

When he started this work, more than thirty years ago, thousands of children in North Carolina were struck each year. Now, Robbinsville High is one of just a few schools that still use it. The latest numbers show about 70 students were paddled in the state last school year.

A recent investigation by Education Week shows that in the 2013-2014 school year, about 110,000 students were physically punished nationwide. That's in part because in some states, including Mississippi, Alabama, Arkansas and Texas, tens of thousands of students are paddled every year.

Child advocates are working toward zero paddlings in North Carolina. They're asking state legislators to outlaw the practice in schools for good. That's happening nationwide, too.

As NPR Ed reported in December, dozens of groups, including the National PTA, Children's Defense Fund and American Academy of Pediatrics signed a letter of their own, supporting an end to corporal punishment.