September 16, 17 and 18, 2017


THIS LOOKS LIKE A GOOD STEP FORWARD TOWARD PROVING AN IMPEACHABLE OFFENSE. I DO WANT THE STEALING OF AN ELECTION WITH THE AID OF AN ENEMY NATION TO BE PROVEN AND IF IT IS, PUNISHED. I LIKE THE FACT THAT MUELLER IS BEING THOROUGH AND CAREFUL. I WANT TO SEE A SOLID CASE WHICH WILL KEEP TRUMP FROM GETTING BACK INTO THE PUBLIC'S GOOD GRACES. IF IT CAN'T BE PROVEN, THEN THAT'S THAT.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/why-facebook-warrant-could-signal-a-turning-point-in-muellers-investigation/
CBS NEWS September 17, 2017, 4:53 PM
Why a Facebook warrant could signal a turning point in Mueller's investigation

Play VIDEO -- Special counsel Robert Mueller intensifies his efforts

Former federal prosecutor Renato Mariotti says reports that special counsel Robert Mueller got a search warrant for Facebook content could be "the biggest news" related to Mueller's investigation since a raid on Paul Manafort's home.

CBS News has confirmed that Facebook turned over materials about Russian ad buys to Mueller's team, which is investigating Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election and any ties to the Trump campaign.

Last week, Facebook acknowledged that phony accounts appearing to have originated in Russia bought $100,000 in advertising on its platform during the 2016 presidential election cycle and in the months after.

The Wall Street Journal first reported that Facebook gave Mueller detailed information about the ad buys that far exceeded the information it gave to Congress. Facebook policy dictates that the company will only turn over "stored contents" of an account with a warrant, sources told the Journal. CNN subsequently reported a warrant was used to obtain the information.

In an interview with CBSN on Sunday, Mariotti said that until now, Mueller and his investigators were looking into fairly "narrow" and "specific crimes."

"Things like false disclosures on forms that Mr. Manafort or Michael Flynn made or Jared Kushner; things like obstruction as to the firing of James Comey. For the first time here, what we've learned -- assuming that The Wall Street Journal's report about a search warrant is correct -- is that Bob Muller went to a federal judge and presented evidence and convinced the judge that a crime was committed involving foreign individuals contributing to a political election here in the United States through their actions on Facebook," Mariotti told CBS News' Elaine Quijano.

Special counsel Robert Mueller intensifies his efforts
Play VIDEO
Special counsel Robert Mueller intensifies his efforts

Mariotti believes this indicates that Mueller is "closing in on charging foreign individuals in connection with that, which is much more like the sort of thing I think lot of people speculated could come from the Mueller investigation, but frankly we hadn't seen up until now."

Mariotti said Mueller would have needed to do two things to secure the search warrant: prove there's good reason to believe a crime occurred and lay out evidence that the crime existed on Facebook.

"[Mueller] would have to sort of lay out evidence showing that this crime had occurred, not just merely say so, but actually, you know, records that he had obtained, testimony that had been given or interviews that people gave to the FBI, that prove to this judge that there is a good reason to believe that a crime had occurred. It's a very serious and significant move forward for the Mueller investigation," Mariotti said.

He said the development likely creates "potential liability" for people in the United States. "If an associate of the president worked with a Russian to further these efforts. For example, if somebody knew about the Russian operation and helped it succeed, they could also be criminally liable," he said.

He also said the development suggests Mueller is pursuing charges against Russian individuals.

"For the first time, we are seeing the potential that a Russian name and an American name, someone who is associated with the Trump campaign, could appear in the same indictment and I think that is really big news."

Mueller has convened a grand jury in his investigation.

When asked how often Facebook works with law enforcement and what sort of information the company might share, Mariotti said, "Facebook's attitude towards law enforcement is aggressive."

"They kind of have a reputation within law enforcement for being less cooperative, and only giving information when they've received court orders and they're sticklers about that," he said. "But certainly the fact that Facebook would require a court order doesn't surprise me at all."



I DO WISH TRUMP WOULDN’T GO ON THE OFFENSIVE FIRST, AND INVESTIGATE THE SITUATION SECOND.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/trump-seeks-un-help-against-n-korea/
CBS NEWS September 18, 2017, 8:12 AM
After bad-mouthing U.N., Trump seeks world body's help against N. Korea

This weekend United States bombers and fighter jets took part in a new show of force against North Korea. Military video released overnight shows warplanes dropping live bombs during the joint missions involving American, Japanese, and South Korean forces. The practice attacks followed Friday's missile test by North Korea.

Trump kicks off week on the U.N. world stage with a tweet mocking North Korea's leader
Play VIDEO
Trump kicks off week on the U.N. world stage with a tweet mocking North Korea's leader

Pyongyang's nuclear program is a major focus right now at the United Nations, where President Donald Trump starts a weeklong series of meetings this morning.

He will speak to the General Assembly for the first time tomorrow.

Mr. Trump campaigned on the slogan "America first." In March 2016 he spoke against the U.N., saying, "The United Nations is not a friend of democracy. It's not a friend to freedom."

As president he has frequently made clear he's willing to go at it alone if other nations won't follow America's lead.

RELATED:
How would Trump's budget hit UN programs? (CBS News)
U.S.-U.N. relationship may be headed for rocky waters (CBS News)
U.N. rights chief denounces Trump's "incitement" against press (CBS News)
U.N. climate negotiator slams White House for having "no idea" how Paris Agreement works (CBS News)

But now, as CBS News correspondent Chip Reid reports, with numerous crises brewing around the world, Mr. Trump will be looking to other world leaders for help.

Trump to embrace allies, warn foes in U.N. speech debut
Play VIDEO
Trump to embrace allies, warn foes in U.N. speech debut

Ambassador Nikki Haley said military options for North Korea are on the table, and the United States will be forceful in its response. "We have pretty much exhausted all the things that we could do at the Security Council at this point," she told CNN's "State of the Union." "If the United States has to defend itself or defend its allies in any way, North Korea will be destroyed."

But on "Face the Nation" yesterday, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said diplomacy was still the administration's preferred option. "To be clear, we seek a peaceful solution to this," he said.

Crippling economic sanctions haven't slowed down North Korea's missile tests, and the president needs continued support from the U.N. to enforce a package that cuts off 90 percent of North Korea's trade exports.

Trump's first U.N. General Assembly: An insider's guide (CBS News)

What to expect from Trump's first U.N. speech ("CBS This Morning")

That will require Mr. Trump to persuade a group he's ridiculed as inefficient and elitist … "a club for people to get together, talk and have a good time," he tweeted in December.

But ahead of the president's speech Tuesday, Ambassador Haley claimed Mr. Trump's critical tone has already brought change.

"We can say it's a new day at the U.N.," she said. "You've got a United Nations that's action-oriented. We've passed two resolutions on North Korea just in the last month. And you also have a United Nations that is totally moving towards reform."

The president will have a chance to personally deliver his message during a meeting today with 120 other world leaders.

National security adviser H.R. McMaster told ABC News' "This Week" that the "is going to say the United Nations can't be effective unless it reforms its bureaucracy and unless it achieves a higher degree of accountability for member states."

On Sunday, the president tweeted that he spoke with the leader of South Korea about the North's threat, calling Kim Jong Un "Rocket Man." But North Korea isn't the only thorny policy issue facing Mr. Trump this week. His dismissive attitude toward cooperation agreements like the Iran nuclear deal and the Paris climate accords have been worrying America's allies for months.

Regarding the Paris agreement, U.S. officials at a climate change conference in Montreal this weekend reportedly opened the door to staying in the deal. That was immediately knocked down as false by several White House officials. But then, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson told John Dickerson on "Face the Nation" that the administration would remain in the accord "under the right conditions."



THIS IS PROBABLY THE PATTERN OF THE FUTURE, AS BLACK PEOPLE BECOME MORE RESISTANT AND POLICE MORE BELLIGERENT. I HOPE NOT, BUT I THINK A REVOLUTION OF SORTS REALLY MAY BE OCCURRING NOW, AND THIS ISN’T A BERNIE SANDERS REVOLUTION, THOUGH HE IS IN FAVOR OF CIVIL RIGHTS, AND MAY HAVE SOME THINGS TO SAY ABOUT IT.

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/st-louis-protests-enter-fourth-day-in-wake-of-ex-cops-acquittal/ar-AAs95ZY
St. Louis protests enter fourth day in wake of ex-cop's acquittal
Reuters
Valerie Volcovici
September 18, 2017

1 to 21 slides -- © Jeff Roberson/AP Photo; People run after vandalizing as demonstrators march in response to a not guilty verdict in the trial of former St. Louis police officer Jason Stockley, Sunday, Sept. 17, 2017, in St. Louis. Stockley was acquitted in the 2011 killing of a black man following a high-speed chase.

Protesters took to the streets of downtown St. Louis on Monday after three nights of arrests and scuffles with police during demonstrations against the acquittal of a former police officer for killing a black man in 2011.

More than 80 people were arrested late Sunday, when police in riot gear used pepper spray and detained demonstrators who had defied orders to disperse following larger, peaceful protests. The violence evoked memories of riots following the 2014 shooting of a black teenager by a white officer in nearby Ferguson.

The protests followed a judge's ruling Friday finding Jason Stockley, 36, not guilty of first-degree murder in the 2011 shooting death of Anthony Lamar Smith, 24.

However, on Monday some demonstrators in St. Louis vowed the protests would continue as 75 assembled downtown before the start of business.

"We are the system. We make up the system. That's the new narrative. We will affect your peace. We will make you uncomfortable," said Bruce Franks, a Ferguson activist who was elected to the state legislature.

The U.S. Department of Justice disclosed on Monday it had decided there was insufficient evidence to pursue federal civil rights charges against Stockley. That decision was made a year ago but not announced to avoid influencing the trial, the Department of Justice said in an email.

Also on Monday, about 100 students in one suburban St. Louis high school staged an hour-long walkout to protest the verdict, a Kirkwood school district spokeswoman said.

A woman says a prayer next to a police officer during protests after the not guilty verdict in the murder trial of Jason Stockley, a former St. Louis police officer charged with the 2011 shooting of Anthony Lamar Smith, in St. Louis, Missouri, U.S. September 17, 2017.

© Lawrence Bryant A woman says a prayer next to a police officer during protests after the not guilty verdict in the murder trial of Jason Stockley, a former St. Louis police officer charged with the 2011…

Throughout the weekend, protesters marched for miles around different sections of the city, from downtown to college districts to shopping malls, disrupting the city's economic heart.

Dozens of events were canceled, including concerts by U2, Ed Sheeran and the St. Louis Symphony Orchestra.

"We made racism very expensive this weekend," said Tory Russell, one of several organizers of this weekend’s actions.

While most protests were peaceful, some turned violent at night with some people in the streets carrying guns, bats and hammers.

Police took a tougher stance toward arrests on Sunday. Officers at one point chanted, "Whose streets? Our streets," commandeering a refrain used by protesters, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported.

"We're in control, this is our city and we're going to protect it," acting police commissioner Lawrence O'Toole said on Monday.

Some shop owners in one neighborhood had cleaned up smashed windows on Sunday.

"Most of the businesses here were supportive of the peaceful protest. But you get a handful of bad apples who want to come around and destroy things and it puts a bad spin on what needed to be done," said local artist Adell Blackmon, 59, who was painting over plywood covering up a guitar shop.

(Reporting and writing by Chris Kenning in Chicago; Editing by Ben Klayman and Matthew Lewis)


I THOUGHT I WOULD FIND A STORY THAT WOULD MAKE SENSE HERE, BUT UNLESS I JUST NEED TO STOP READING NOW AND GO TO BED, THERE ISN’T MUCH SENSE TO BE FOUND HERE.

http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/putins-favorite-congressman-sought-deal-wikileaks-founder?cid=eml_mra_20170918
‘Putin’s favorite congressman’ sought deal for WikiLeaks founder
09/18/17 11:00 AM
By Steve Benen

Photograph -- This file photo taken on Feb. 05, 2016 shows WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange coming out on the balcony of the Ecuadorian embassy to address the media in central London. Photo by Ben Stansall/AFP/Getty

As a rule, it’s best not to get too worked up about random quips from Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-Calif.). The California Republican, for example, recently argued that last month’s violence in Charlottesville was staged by liberals and was “a total hoax.”

But while foolish palaver like this is easy to dismiss, some of Rohrabacher’s antics are harder to overlook. The Wall Street Journal reported the other day, for example, that the GOP lawmaker reached out to the White House last week about brokering a deal in which Donald Trump would help WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, and in exchange, Assange would provide evidence exonerating Russia in the scandal surrounding the attack on American elections.

The proposal made by Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R., Calif.), in a phone call Wednesday with White House Chief of Staff John Kelly, was apparently aimed at resolving the probe of WikiLeaks prompted by Mr. Assange’s publication of secret U.S. government documents in 2010 through a pardon or other act of clemency from President Donald Trump.

The possible “deal” – a term used by Mr. Rohrabacher during the Wednesday phone call – would involve a pardon of Mr. Assange or “something like that,” Mr. Rohrabacher said. In exchange, Mr. Assange would probably present a computer drive or other data-storage device that Mr. Rohrabacher said would exonerate Russia in the long-running controversy about who was the source of hacked and stolen material aimed at embarrassing the Democratic Party during the 2016 election.

So let me get this straight. A pro-Putin congressman wants to help an operative who’s alleged to have helped Putin’s election attack, all as part of an agreement that the congressman believes would exonerate Putin’s government.

For context, let’s not forget that Dana Rohrabacher has been described as “Putin’s favorite congressman,” and in a closed-door event last year, House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) told GOP lawmakers, “There’s two people I think Putin pays: Rohrabacher and Trump,” (The GOP leadership later said McCarthy was kidding. I wonder why Republicans would considered this funny.)

After the Wall Street Journal article was published, Rohrabacher complained to the Washington Examiner about his outreach to the White House leaking.

“I don’t know who it is, all I know is I’m up against an array of very powerful forces, including the intelligence services and major newspapers that are basically allied with the liberal Left who have every reason to undermine communication on this issue,” the Republican congressman said, He added,

“Look, there are very powerful forces at work,” he added. “We’ve got the NSA, the FBI and the CIA, all of whom confirmed a major lie that was being used for political purposes and a lie that was repeated and repeated in order to undercut our new president.”

The irony of Rohrabacher whining about a leak was apparently lost on him.

Explore:
The MaddowBlog, Dana Rohrabacher and Wikileaks


I’LL BET THERE’S GOLD IN THESE HYERE HILLS. THE WHOLE PROFITING WHILE IN OFFICE IS PERHAPS IN EVIDENCE HERE. THIS PLACE HAS BEEN IN THE NEWS AT LEAST HALF A DOZEN TIMES SINCE TRUMP CAME INTO THE WHITE HOUSE, AND THAT EVENT WITH THE SAUDI CROWN PRINCE IS MOST INTERESTING.

http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/trump-admin-shields-mar-lago-visitor-logs-scrutiny?cid=eml_mra_20170918
Trump admin shields Mar-a-Lago visitor logs from scrutiny
09/18/17 09:30 AM
By Steve Benen

Americans wondering about the visitors getting an audience with Donald Trump at the White House will have to keep wondering: soon after taking office, Trump World decided to scrap Obama-era transparency rules and announced White House visitor logs would be kept secret.

But this president doesn’t just hold meetings with visitors to the presidential residence; Trump also hosts conversations at the Florida resort he still owns and profits from. Perhaps the public can see the visitor logs from Mar-a-Lago?

In July, a federal judge sided with watchdog organizations, which sued to gain access to the information, asking not for club members’ names, but only the names of those who’d met with the president. On Friday afternoon, following a hurricane-related delay, the Trump administration responded to the request, and as the Washington Post reported, it wasn’t much of an answer.

The list had just 22 names, all from the same group of visitors: a delegation of Japanese officials and assistants who accompanied Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on a February stay at Trump’s resort…. Of course, that’s not the full list of visitors to Mar-a-Lago.

Many hundreds of other people entered the club during the days when the president was there. They included club members: Initiation now costs $200,000. Nonmembers, who came for one of the charity galas in the club’s ballrooms. Members’ friends, who joined them on the dining terrace. Chinese officials, including President Xi Jinping, who famously shared “the most beautiful piece of chocolate cake” (in Trump’s words) with the president at the club while U.S. Navy ships were preparing to launch missiles at military installations in Syria.

None of those names were released.

But if a court already sided with the watchdog groups, including Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) and the National Security Archive, on the FOIA request, how exactly is the Trump administration choosing secrecy over transparency? The New York Times summarized the basics of the legal dispute:

Federal law exempts the White House from the Freedom of Information Act, or FOIA, which requires public disclosure of government documents. But CREW and its partners argued that because the presidential visitor records are typically maintained by the Secret Service — which is part of the Department of Homeland Security — they should not be exempt from public release.

In July, Judge Katherine Polk Failla of Federal District Court in Manhattan ordered the Trump administration to release by September the “records of presidential visitors at Mar-a-Lago” that are subject to the open records law.

But the Justice Department, in a statement it sent to CREW, said it had decided not to release the names of everyone visiting with the president at Mar-a-Lago, arguing that many of the records are not covered by the law.

As Trump’s DOJ sees it, the list of presidential visitors “relate to” the president’s schedule, and that schedule is not subject to the Freedom of Information Act.

So, is this the end of the conversation? Not at all: CREW’s lawyers are reportedly prepared to return to court and argue that the Trump administration did not fully comply with the judge’s decision. Watch this space.

Postscript: The Justice Department recently asked for a delay related to Hurricane Irma, which the federal district court agreed to. If the lawyers only intended to produce a one-page list of Japanese visitors from one event, why did they bother to ask a judge for a delay?

Second postscript: Remember when Trump said Barack Obama was “the least transparent president ever”? That hasn’t aged well.

Explore:
The MaddowBlog, Crew and Donald Trump



THIS IS JUST ANOTHER OF THOSE STORIES THAT APPEARS TO BE ABOUT A SERIES OF TRUMP FAMILY LIES. THE PURPOSE MAY BE TO MAKE TRUMP LOOK PROSPEROUS AS HE ALWAYS CLAIMS TO BE, OR IT MAY BE TO DISTRACT FROM SOMETHING REALLY COMPROMISING. RACHEL MADDOW POINTED TOWARD THAT PARTICULAR HABIT OF TRUMPS, ESPECIALLY IN THE FORM OF TWEETS OF A BIZARRE NATURE. SLEIGHT OF HAND. I AT FIRST WAS SHOCKED, THEN ANGRY AND NOW I’M EMBARRASSED.

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/us/the-trumps-say-they%E2%80%99re-opening-hotels-in-dallas-nashville-and-elsewhere-we-couldn%E2%80%99t-find-evidence-of-them/ar-AAs8oPh
The Trumps Say They’re Opening Hotels in Dallas, Nashville and Elsewhere. We Couldn’t Find Evidence of Them.
ProPublica
Derek Kravitz
September 18, 2017

Photograph -- © Olivier Douliery/Pool/Getty Images

Earlier this summer, the Trump Organization announced big plans to open a line of hotels across the country. The new brand, American IDEA, would be modestly priced and patriotically themed. “The product is very hometown and fits in every hometown in the United States,” Trump Hotels CEO Eric Danziger said during a presentation at Trump Tower in Manhattan, the same place where Donald Trump had announced his presidential campaign two years earlier.

American IDEA would be part of a wider rollout with another higher-end hotel line, Scion, that the Trumps had already unveiled. Progress on the hotels would be swift, Danziger said.

The Trump Organization had said it signed deals for Scion hotels in Nashville, Dallas, Cincinnati, Austin and New York. At various times, company officials have cited anywhere from 10 to 39 impending deals.

The Trumps declined to release any details about the deals. The Trump Organization wouldn’t name the developers partnering with it, or where the planned hotels would be. So we asked readers and journalists to help us figure out who the president’s company was working with and where.

What we’ve found are false starts, fizzled-out partnerships and, for a number of cities that the Trumps said they had deals in, no evidence of deals at all.

Nashville faced petitions after the Trump Organization said it was coming to town. But development and tourism officials we spoke to said they were unaware of any Trump hotel being planned. Bobby Bowers, senior vice president of operations for Hendersonville, Tennessee-based hotel industry research firm STR, said his company has no information about a Trump hotel partnership in Nashville, even among its “unconfirmed” listings. A spokesperson for the city’s convention and visitors bureau said the same thing.

In Dallas, a developer who had been working with the Trumps had declared the deal dead two months before the Trump Organization identified the city as a hotel site. (He also had plans for a Trump hotel in downtown St. Louis before political pressure and protests derailed it.)

The developer, Mukemmel “Mike” Sarimsakci, did not respond to a request for comment. If the plan is back on with Sarimsakci or a different partner in Dallas, city officials don’t appear to know about it. Requests for correspondence between the city and representatives of the Trump Organization, as well as requests submitted to Dallas’ Office of Economic Development, turned up no records.

Officials and hotel developers in Cincinnati also said they had not heard of any deals involving Trump.

And in Austin, the deal “died before Trump was elected,” the head of a firm that had been working on the project told the Austin Business Journal. “It’s absolutely 100 percent dead.”

Danziger declined to comment for this story. Other representatives for the Trump Organization’s hotel business did not respond to requests for comment.

As we previously detailed, the Trumps are moving forward on four hotels in the Mississippi Delta. The deals are in partnership with a pair of Indian-American hoteliers, one of whom had met Donald Trump on the campaign trail and later gave money to his presidential campaign.

Suresh Chawla met Trump at a private fundraiser in August 2016 and donated $50,000, split between Trump’s campaign and the Republican National Committee. Months later, Chawla, along with his business partner and brother Dinesh, reached an agreement with the Trump Organization on a $20 million Scion hotel and three other franchise agreements to convert existing hotels to the American IDEA brand.

We also found a few other cities where the Trumps have had early conversations about partnering with local developers.

Jon Willis, a politically active developer in Mesa, Arizona, said he met Donald Trump Jr. through a mutual connection at Turning Point USA, a conservative PAC, and started working on the Trump campaign last year. When Willis spent time with Donald Jr. at a campaign event in Arizona last year, he said they discussed expansion plans that the Trump Organization had in Las Vegas, where it has a condo-hotel tower in partnership with billionaire Phil Ruffin. “That was the extent of what we talked about,” Willis said, adding that the two “mostly just talked about our kids.”

Willis added that while he wasn’t working with the Trumps on their new hotel line, he would be more than open to it: “I’d love to be involved.”

Three other established hoteliers and financiers in the South told us they’d also welcome working with the Trumps. The Trump Organization has said it is meeting with potential partners in Mississippi.

Len Blackwell, an attorney in Gulfport, Mississippi, said he had heard rumors of the Trumps “poking around” on the coast. (The Trump Organization has said it is meeting with potential partners in Mississippi.)

Blackwell has had experience working with the Trumps. He represented Trump in a planned $80 million casino and hotel project in Gulfport in the mid-1990s. Trump abandoned the deal before ground was broken.

One issue, according to Blackwell, was that Trump’s representatives were reticent about following through on a required $250,000 deposit they had negotiated with the city.

“My experience with the Trump Organization and its attempt to put a casino in Gulfport was: Its representatives, including Mr. Trump, came to town and had a lot of public relations activity, and did in fact work toward a project but, when it came down to it, chose not to go forward,” he said.



60 MINUTES INTERVIEW WITH JOHN LECARRE (DAVID CORNWELL.) THIS ARTICLE AND VIDEO INTERVIEW ARE EXCELLENT, AND THEY CARRY ME BACK TO MY YOUNGER YEARS. THE ARTICLE IS LONG, SO I SUGGEST YOU GO TO THIS WEBSITE AND VIEW IT.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/john-le-carre-ex-british-spys-double-life-as-a-famous-author/
Ex-British spy on leading a "double life" as a famous author
John le Carré is the pen name of David Cornwell, an ex-spy for Britain’s famed MI6, whose page-turner spy thrillers have made him one of the most successful authors of the past 60 years
CORRESPONDENT, Steve Kroft
Sep 17, 2017

The name David Cornwell is probably unfamiliar to most of you, but he's an interesting person to talk to in these days of alleged political conspiracies, espionage and a rekindling of the Cold War. He is an expert on secrets, a former spy himself, and the author of two-dozen books, virtually all of them best sellers, written under the pen name of John le Carré.



I DIDN’T KNOW KAEPERNICK BEFORE THIS ISSUE AROSE, I DON’T KEEP UP WITH SPORTS, BUT I APPROVE OF HIS CHOICE TO PROTEST SILENTLY. WHY SHOULD THAT BE A BIG DEAL?

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/tom-brady-says-colin-kaepernick-deserves-nfl-shot/
By JUSTIN CARISSIMO CBS NEWS September 17, 2017, 6:13 PM
Tom Brady says Colin Kaepernick deserves a shot in the NFL

Patriots quarterback Tom Brady says Colin Kaepernick deserves a spot on an NFL roster.

In an interview with "CBS Sunday Morning," Brady says he admires Kaepernick, the former San Francisco 49ers player and current free agent who made headlines for protesting the national anthem last year.

"I've always watched him and admired him, the way that he's played he was a great young quarterback," Brady told CBS News' Norah O'Donnell. "He came to our stadium and beat us and took his team to the Super Bowl. He accomplished a lot in the pros as a player. And he's certainly qualified and I hope he gets a shot."

Kaepernick began protesting the national anthem during the 2016 preseason to bring awareness to racial injustice. After the regular season, Kaepernick opted out of his contract with the 49ers when it appeared he would be released.

Two weeks into the 2017 season, Kaepernick remains unsigned -- sparking an ongoing debate if the quarterback has been blacklisted for his protests or if he's not good enough for the NFL.

Still, Kaepernick recently told activist Shaun King that he's ready and in shape should a team come calling: "Yes. I've never stopped. I'm ready right now. Working out daily."

49ers Patriots Football
Colin Kaepernick, left, and Tom Brady meet at midfield in Foxborough, Mass., Monday, Dec. 17, 2012. The 49ers won 41-34. AP



THOUGH I HAVEN’T BEEN THERE TO SEE IT, I CAN TELL FROM THE PHOTOS THAT IT IS AN IMPRESSIVE WORK OF ART, AND ALL COMPLETED AT A FRIGHTENING HEIGHT IN MY VIEW. I CAN’T IMAGINE DOING SUCH A THING. I’M GLAD HE HAS FULL CREDIT NOW.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/luigi-del-bianco-the-chief-carver-of-mount-rushmore/
CBS NEWS September 17, 2017, 9:48 AM
Honoring the chief carver of Mount Rushmore

Luigi Del Bianco was arguably A CUT ABOVE the other stone carvers he worked with. But acknowledging that required a rewriting of the history of one of our nation's most beloved monuments. Jim Axelrod takes us to the Black Hills of South Dakota:

Mount Rushmore's designer once said he hoped the faces would remain unchanged "until the wind and rain alone shall wear them away." The monument, carved into granite, was designed to be as enduring as it was inspiring.

mount-rushmore-luigi-del-bianco-244.jpg
Luigi Del Bianco, chief carver of Mount Rushmore. DEL BIANCO FAMILY

Which is why a ceremony held yesterday was so remarkable … as the National Park Service marked a change at Mt. Rushmore -- a small but significant revision to the story of its creation.

Forty-eight years after his death, an Italian immigrant named Luigi Del Bianco was officially recognized as Mt. Rushmore's chief carver.

As Luigi Del Bianco's grandson Lou explained to us, the chief carver was the master craftsman in charge of refining the expressions in the faces.

The twinkle in Abraham Lincoln's eye, and Thomas Jefferson's lips, are Del Bianco's work.

Since Rushmore's completion in 1941, the 400 laborers who worked on the mountain had always been saluted as a group. But for the last 30-plus years, the Del Bianco family has been making the case that Luigi wasn't just part of the crowd.

Axelrod asked, "If we're looking at Rushmore, what of Luigi Del Bianco's work am I seeing that separates him out and makes him deserving of his own plaque?"

"Well, when people tell me their impression of the faces, they say that there's a humanity in that granite," he replied.

mount-rushmore-luigi-del-bianco-jefferson-620.jpg
Chief carver Luigi Del Bianco oversees work on Mount Rushmore. DEL BIANCO FAMILY

And Luigi, his grandson is convinced, was the one who brought that humanity out.

luigi-del-bianco-portrait-244.jpg
A portrait of sculptor Luigi Del Bianco. DEL BIANCO FAMILY

Trained in Italy as a stone carver, Luigi Del Bianco came to America in 1908 at the age of 16, settling eventually in Port Chester, New York, where he opened a business making headstones.

"I can't tell you how many times an older person in town would say, 'Can you believe it? The man who carved the presidents' faces carved my mother's headstone. Unbelievable!'" Lou said.

Lou Del Bianco's grew up knowing all about his grandfather's special role at Rushmore. He obtained historical records from the Library of Congress, including a testimonial from Rushmore's designer, artist Gutzon Borglum: "He is worth any three men I can find in America for this particular type of work here and now."

But nothing he showed the Park Service would change the narrative ... at least not until Cam Sholley took over the regional office in charge of Rushmore.

The more Sholley read of what Lou sent him, the more he realized the story of Mount Rushmore needed re-writing. "I found myself wondering if we should change course here," Sholley said.

So he dispatched a couple of National Park Service historians to Lou's basement in Port Chester.

"They went through the booklet that I showed you," Lous recalled, "and by the fourth page, one of the historians said, 'Well, you sold me. Let's go have lunch.'"

mount-rushmore-luigi-del-bianco-color-promo.jpg
Luigi Del Bianco, chief carver of Mount Rushmore. DEL BIANCO FAMILY

And after years of making Luigi's case, the official policy was overturned.

"We have Luigi Del Bianco in that visitor center, pictures of him," Sholley said. "His name's in there. We just haven't called him 'chief carver.' And now, we will."

The decision made at headquarters may take a little while to filter down to the tours.

"We've got this recognition coming to Luigi Del Bianco. It's kind of a neat part of the story, isn't it?" Axelrod asked Ranger Dottie Helder.

luigi-del-bianco-plaque.jpg
CBS NEWS

"I don't know know [sic] that part of the story, so I can't say. I'm sorry," Ranger Helder replied.

"Are you going to have to brush up on Luigi?"

"Maybe, maybe!"

But Lou Del Bianco isn't concerned, knowing he's got history on his family's side … and now, a plaque to prove it.

Almanac: Mount Rushmore ("Sunday Morning," 03/03/13)

For more info:

Mount Rushmore National Memorial, South Dakota (National Park Service)
Luigi Del Bianco Plaque Unveiling, Sept. 16 (nps.gov)
luigimountrushmore.com
"Out of Rushmore's Shadow: The Luigi Del Bianco Story - An Italian Immigrant's Unsung Role as Chief Carver" by Lou Del Bianco (Niche Content Press) (available via Amazon)
"Through Lincoln's Eyes: The Fight for Luigi Del Bianco's Legacy" (YouTube)
ap-060718045879.jpg
Mount Rushmore National Memorial near Keystone, S.D. DIRK LAMMERS/AP



THE ELECTORAL COLLEGE AND THE DNC’S SUPER CANDIDATE SYSTEM BOTH INFURIATE ME. THEY’RE AS ANTI-DEMOCRATIC AS TRUMP, AND YET POSE AS BEING A NECESSARY PART OF OUR SYSTEM. THEY DO NO GOOD, AND DIVERT THE VOICE OF THE PUBLIC FROM THEIR CANDIDATES WHO SHOULD BE LISTENING. MAYBE WE SHOULD DO AWAY WITH PARTY PRIMARIES AND “CONVENTIONS” COMPLETELY. MAKE PARTY MEMBERSHIP, AND ESPECIALLY THESE “LITMUS TESTS,” VOLUNTARY. DECIDE THE VICE PRESIDENCY BY WHOEVER COMES IN SECOND IN THE POPULAR VOTE.

SET UP SOME WELL-CONCEIVED RULES FOR WHO WILL BE QUALIFIED AS A PRESIDENT AND THEN WHEN A WOULD-BE CANDIDATE CAN’T MEET THE REQUIREMENTS (CRIMINAL BACKGROUND, FOR INSTANCE) HE SHOULD BE DISQUALIFIED AND OUT OF THE RUNNING. WHEN A CANDIDATE IS DISQUALIFIED, LET THE REASONS FOR THAT BE PUBLISHED UNLESS HE SUES TO RETAIN HIS ANONYMITY ON THE MATTER.

ALSO, WHY VOTE TWICE? WHY ALL THAT CONFUSED AND EXPENSIVE HOOPLA AT THE CONVENTIONS? WHY ACCEPT FINANCIALLY SELECTED PARTY BIGWIGS’ VIEWS OVER OURS? MAKE SURE WITH SOME CLOSE SCRUTINY FROM THE VERY BEGINNING THAT THEY ARE NOT INAPPROPRIATELY, OR SIMPLY UNDEREDUCATED FOR THE TASK OF PRESIDENT; OR FINANCIALLY OR SOCIALLY UNETHICAL – FOR INSTANCE, THE TRUMP UNIVERSITY SCAM, NAZI LEANINGS – AND THEN IF THEY ARE ACCEPTABLE JUST LET THEM ALL RUN AGAINST EACH OTHER WILLY NILLY, LIKE THE KENTUCKY DERBY. SUCH FUN THAT WOULD BE!

THE FOLLOWING ARTICLE IS INCLUDED BECAUSE, THOUGH IT IS OLD NOW, IT IS A GOOD STATEMENT OF HIS VIEWS AND A GREAT PERSONAL INTERVIEW. BERNIE WISDOM OF THE DAY: “MR. TRUMP, WE HAVE COME TOO FAR IN THIS COUNTRY FIGHTING DISCRIMINATION AND BIGOTRY. WE’RE NOT GOING BACK. AND IF YOU’RE GOING TO CONTINUE THAT EFFORT, YOU’RE GOING TO HAVE TO TAKE US ON.”

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/elections/2016/11/13/sanders-backs-trump-protests-questions-electoral-college/93767186/
Sanders backs Trump protests, questions Electoral College
Susan Page, USA TODAY Published 8:03 p.m. ET Nov. 13, 2016 | Updated 1:51 p.m. ET Nov. 14, 2016

Photograph -- Sen. Bernie Sanders called for “rethinking” the Electoral College and warned President-elect Donald Trump that he should expect more street protests if he pursues divisive policies. USA TODAY

Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, the surprisingly strong challenger for the Democratic presidential nomination, sat down Sunday with USA TODAY's Capital Download to talk about last week's election stunner, the future of the Democratic Party and his new book, being published Tuesday by Thomas Dunne Books, Our Revolution: A Future to Believe In. Questions and answers have been edited for length and clarity.

Q: If you had been nominated, would you have won?

Sanders: Monday-morning quarterbacking is always easy. The answer is, I don’t know. Nobody knows. I certainly wish I had had that opportunity. Some of the polls out there suggest that might have been the case.

Q: How much overlap was there between you and Donald Trump in your appeal?

Sanders: There is an overlap, that Trump very successfully understood a lot of people are angry. They feel the economy of this country is not working for them. I mean, Trump was incredibly weak, and its ahistorical, the lack of specificity that he had in any of his proposals. Boy, Hillary Clinton had 87 different proposals all lined up and Trump said, ‘We’re going to do this great. It’s going to be excellent. Really excellent.’ What are you talking about? ‘Excellent, fantastic program.’ No details, no nothing. ...

The overwhelming stuff on television had to do with political gossip. Know everything you want to know about Hillary’s emails and Donald Trump’s attitude toward women. Why is the middle class in decline? Why are we the only major country not to have paid family leave? Why aren’t our kids able to afford to go to college? Those are the issues that we have got to talk about. Does corporate media talk about it? No. ...
.
Our Revolution: A Future to Believe In, by Bernie Sanders
Our Revolution: A Future to Believe In, by Bernie Sanders (Photo: Thomas Dunne Books)
It is naive to not understand who owns the media in America, the major media: large, multinational conglomerates. What is their goal? Their goal is to make money. Is there a basic conflict between making money for large media and having a serious discussion on issues that impact working people? Yeah, I think there are.

Q: We see anti-Trump demonstrations cropping up across the country. Is that a good thing?

Sanders: We have a First Amendment. People are angry. People are upset. And they want to express their point of view that they are very frightened, in very, very strong disagreement with Mr. Trump, who has made bigotry the cornerstone of his campaign.

I think that people are saying, ‘Mr. Trump, we have come too far in this country fighting discrimination and bigotry. We’re not going back. And if you’re going to continue that effort, you’re going to have to take us on.’ ...

Capital Download - Conversations with Washington's biggest newsmakers

We may want to take a look at the whole Electoral College, which is seating a man for president who didn’t get the most votes. This is something we need a serious discussion on. This campaign revolved around 15 states of the country, right? Battleground states. My state of Vermont is a strong Democratic state; no one paid attention. Wyoming is a Republican state; nobody paid attention to Wyoming. Is that a good way?

Q: Would it be good to change the Electoral College?

A: I think you ought to think about this. ... I think we want to rethink that.

Q: Is it fair to say you wrote this book on the assumption Clinton would win?

Sanders: I thought there was a 2-1 shot she was going to win. I was not one of those who was shocked by a Trump victory. ...

Q: You were in the minority to think there was even a one in three shot that Donald Trump would win.

Sanders: Look, I campaigned in 46 states in this country. The punditry and the inside-the-Beltway mentality really has very little understanding of what’s going on with working people. It’s really almost embarrassing. ...

You’re a working person, you can’t afford child care for your kids. Why is it after working your whole life you can’t afford to send your kid to college? Why is it that you’re having a decent job at a factory, and that factory has gone to China? Why is it that you’re seeing almost all new income and wealth go to the top 1%? People are angry and they’re frustrated.

Q: You’re supporting Minnesota Congressman Keith Ellison for Democratic national chairman. Is he going to win?

Sanders: He stands a good chance....

It’s not just this election where it is still hard to believe that Trump won. But Republicans control the Senate. They control the House. They have done phenomenally well over the past eight years in state legislatures around the country, in governor races. And people are asking: How does it happen that a political party which wants to give tax breaks to billionaires, which nobody supports; which wants to cut programs for working people; wants to cut Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid; many of whose members do not even believe in the reality of climate change – how in God’s name do these guys win elections? Well, the Democratic leadership of today hasn’t figured this out. It is time for profound change. ...

What this book is about -- and I know people are going to say, ‘Oh my God, Bernie talks about the economy, talks about health care, talks about immigration, talks about criminal justice, talks about all these things how boring can it be?’ I know it will be criticized. Boring. It’s wonky. But I think we got to begin talking about real issues.

Q: There are quite a few charts in your book.

Sanders: (Laughs) Yes.

76 Photos with captions -- Sanders walks outside the Capitol on Aug. 2, 2017. Michael Reynolds, European Pressphoto Agency
Fullscreen

76 Photos
Bernie Sanders: A look at his political career

Q: Are you going to run another term in the Senate in 2018?

Sanders: Probably, but I haven’t made that decision.

Q: Is it conceivable you would run for president again?

Sanders: You know, it’s conceivable that I may fly to the moon.

Q: With all respect, it’s not conceivable that you may fly to the moon.

Sanders: If Elon Musk (founder of SpaceX) called me, I could go to Mars. See, you’re wrong. I’m going to make Mars a progressive planet. I’ll be there first, planting the flag. People don’t think big enough!



THIS SALON ARTICLE, WITHOUT NAMING NAMES, IS SPECIFICALLY POINTING AT THE REAL FAILURE OF HILLARY CLINTON IN 2016. IT WASN’T BERNIE SANDERS’ “DISLOYALTY,” OR HIS SERIOUS AND ACTIVE FIGHT TO TAKE THE CROWN FROM THE ANOINTED ONE. IT IS HER FAILURE TO ADMIT THE CURRENT NEEDS OF THE MIDDLE AND LOWER MIDDLE CLASSES, NOT TO MENTION THE VERY POOR. DEMOCRATS JUST AIN’T WHAT THEY USED TO BE.

OBAMACARE WAS HELPFUL, BUT FLAWED; STILL WHEN THE REPUBLICANS TRIED TO TAKE IT AWAY AND THE DEMOCRATS HELD BACK FROM CONCERTED ACTION, THE VISCERAL RESPONSE OF “THE MASSES” AGAINST THE ELITIST ELEMENTS IN OUR GOOD OLD DEMOCRATIC PARTY WAS INTENSE. BERNIE HIT A HOME RUN BECAUSE HE WAS RIGHT IN WHAT HE WAS SAYING, AND ALSO BECAUSE HE WASN’T AT ALL TIMID IN HOW HE VOICED HIS PHILOSOPHY AND HIS WAR CRY. HE IS NOT A WIMP, WHATEVER YOU MAY THINK OF HIM. HE’S A LEADER. HILLARY IS YESTERDAY’S STALE TOAST.

http://www.salon.com/2017/09/17/t/
SUNDAY, SEP 17, 2017 12:00 PM EDT
Bernie’s “Medicare for All” actually is the pragmatic health care solution
Those who claim we have to stick with incremental, "common-sense" measures are living in the political past
PAUL ROSENBERG

Photograph -- Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y.(Credit: AP/Andrew Harnik)

“Medicare for All” is an idea whose time has finally come — at least conceptually, which is more than half the battle. When Sen. Bernie Sanders announced his “Medicare for All” plan last week, he had 16 Senate co-sponsors, compared to exactly none when he proposed a similar bill in 2011. That’s a third of the Senate Democrats, and more importantly, it included several perceived contenders for the 2020 nomination, such as Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, Kamala Harris of California, Kirsten Gillibrand of New York and Cory Booker of New Jersey.

What’s more, there’s now a 53 percent majority supporting the idea, according to a June Kaiser Family Foundation poll, with independent support at 55 percent, up 12 points since 2008-9. Support was malleable in both directions. Arguments against — raising taxes and giving government too much control — could raise opposition up to 62 percent, while arguments in favor — reducing administrative costs and ensuring health care as a right — could raise support to 72 percent. Support among Democrats, at 64 percent, should naturally be expected to rise if the leading primary candidates all support the idea.

Yet there was immediate pushback, and not just from Republicans, as might be expected. The story headlines alone tell the tale of peril — “How Single-Payer Health Care Could Trip Up Democrats,” by Margot Sanger-Katz at the New York Times, “‘Medicare for All’ will be a trap for Democrats if they’re not careful,” by Josh Barro at Business Insider — or folly — “The Single-Payer Insanity,” by Bill Scher at Politico, “Bernie Sanders’s Bill Gets America Zero Percent Closer to Single Payer,” by Jonathan Chait at New York magazine. These knee-jerk responses are all in the name of realism, of course, but it’s more like the “crackpot realism” derided decades ago by C. Wright Mills. The reality it refers to is falling apart all around them, as the underlying assumptions have simply ceased to hold.

What’s now emerging is a clearer-than-ever divide between those still buying into existing politics — even those with undeniable progressive instincts and values — and those who want and demand fundamental change. While it’s still very important to heed “reality-based” arguments, from a larger historical perspective, these arguments themselves lost touch with how rapidly and reality is changing. If the old common-sense assumptions had held, Bernie Sanders would never have won single a primary and Donald Trump certainly wouldn’t be president today.

Not just here in America but across Europe as well, the existing political consensus is eroding. Something new is almost surely going to replace it — the only question is what. It won’t mean throwing everything out, wholesale. But it will mean reassessing things in a whole new light. The common sense of what “everybody knows” is changing and everybody knows that, even those who are still clinging desperately to their denial.

At the New Republic, Clio Chang’s lucid rebuttal, “Why Bernie Sanders’s Medicare for All Plan Is Good Politics,” highlights some of the key false assumptions made by critics. To begin with, she quotes Sanger-Katz:

Like “repeal and replace,” “single-payer” is a broadly popular slogan that papers over intraparty disagreements and wrenching policy choices. … If the Democrats eventually wrested back power, they could find themselves similarly factionalized and stymied over the details.

And Chait:

At no point does [Sanders] grant that the most important source of opposition will come from actual American voters concerned about losing their current plan or paying higher taxes.

Then Chang observes:

What these criticisms share is an underlying belief that Democrats are racing leftward on health care for short-term political gain — namely, appeasing the demands of the progressive base — without taking into account the long-term repercussions and whether Medicare for All is even feasible. But Sanders’s proposal is not a cynical slogan like “repeal and replace,” nor is it an inflexible roadmap that will invariably lead to a political dead end. It is better understood as a historic breakthrough in the way that Democrats approach health care, opening the door for all kinds of fixes to a system that nearly everyone agrees is too expensive and too inefficient.

Chang’s point ought to be so obvious it goes without saying. But clearly it’s not. But fast forward two years to 2019, with the 2020 Democratic primary in full swing, and it almost certainly will be. “Repeal and replace” had no content to it — it was all sizzle, no steak. There was no “there” there. It was the hollowest of slogans, even apart from the cynicism involved. “Medicare for All,” in contrast, stakes out an aspiration of universal coverage already achieved by other advanced industrial nations. It overflows with possible alternatives, even as Sanders has thought carefully about how to craft the specific proposal he advanced this week.

As Chang goes on to note:

[A] party that is united in this goal, but divided on the means of attaining it, can still be an effective one. Amidst Sanders’s push for single-payer, we have seen alternatives being developed by other Democrats like Chris Murphy and Brian Schatz, both of whom are committed to the goal of universal coverage. Critics say Sanders’s plan precludes more incremental approaches, but you can also say that the momentum Sanders is building helps generate more of them.

At Think Progress, Ian Millhiser posed “7 tough questions single-payer advocates must answer before their ideas can become law,” which can function as a sort of Rorschach test. It can be read in naysaying fashion, as a corollary to the knee-jerk criticisms Chang was responding to — especially when referencing an early August article in the Nation, “Medicare-for-All Isn’t the Solution for Universal Health Care,” by Joshua Holland. But it can also be read positively, as a serious to-do list for those working to make Medicare for All a reality, in one form or another.

Indeed, even Holland’s piece is more complicated than its title suggests, as shown by how he draws on arguments from economist Dean Baker, co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research, who is a himself a single-payer advocate. Baker points out that the enormous cost savings other countries enjoy are the cumulative products of decades of cost controls. They can’t simply be realized with the wave of a magic wand.

This is a crucial point that has to be addressed down the line. But it should not distract us from the fact that such savings are clearly possible. Gradual changes in cost structures that turn drastic over time are routine stuff in the world of budget wonkery. What’s not routine is making them work for ordinary Americans, rather than against them.

Sher’s piece at Politico adds something different, however. He argues:

The Democratic Party now is, for all intents and purposes, the party of single-payer health insurance.

Big mistake.

Democrats are committing themselves to years more of a treacherous health care debate, at a time when there are more pressing issues to confront.

There are two things wrong with Scher’s argument here: First, it’s ludicrous to think that health care would disappear as an issue if not for single-payer advocacy.

Sanders has a much more realistic sense of what’s going on when he points out that the GOP attack on health care is going to continue, regardless of what Democrats do. The GOP attempt to destroy Obamacare was not just about tax cuts for the rich, as he told the Nation’s John Nichols in a recent interview, it was about the whole Koch brothers’ ideology of dismantling government:

This is the beginning. If they are successful in destroying Medicaid, Medicare certainly will be next and Social Security not far behind that — and the Veterans Administration, as well. So this is part of a massive effort by the Koch brothers and other billionaires to take us back to the 1920s and to do away with virtually every major piece of legislation passed since the 1930s to meet the needs of our people.

An effort that grand in scope and sweeping in vision requires something equally grand and sweeping in opposition — and 50 years of history shows how desperately such a grand opposition is needed. This is the second problem with Scher’s argument: It ignores the potential catalytic role that Medicare for All can play in helping to provide progressives and Democrats with much-needed coherence and sense of shared vision.

In their landmark 1967 book, “The Political Beliefs of Americans: A Study of Public Opinion,” Lloyd Free and Hadley Cantril showed that Americans overwhelmingly favor specific liberal social programs for the results they produce — by roughly two-to-one — while more narrowly favoring small government and the free market in the abstract, as a matter of ideology. This “schizoid condition” is troubling when it comes to making public policy. In the book’s closing section, “The Need for a Restatement of American Ideology,” they said, “There is little doubt that the time has come for a restatement of American ideology to bring it in line with what the great majority of people want and approve.”

Of course, that never happened, which is a big part of the problem confronting progressives and Democrats to this very day. The fight for Medicare for All could help change that, precisely because it has an ideological dimension — the belief that government has a vital constructive role to play in helping to make people’s lives better — and because health care is so intimately important to virtually everyone in American society.

More recently, the book “Asymmetric Politics: Ideological Republicans and Group Interest Democrats” by Matt Grossmann and David A. Hopkins (Salon review here), showed how the attitudinal divide discovered by Free and Cantril is reflected and amplified by different aspects of party political culture. The GOP has flourished as the agent of a coherent movement-conservative philosophy, while the Democratic Party has represented a pragmatic coalition of group interests advancing specific problem-solving policies. Each party would clearly benefit from being more like the other. If GOP policies actually produced promised real-world results, their governance record would improve significantly. And Democrats would surely win more elections if they better expressed what they stood for more broadly, as Free and Cantril argued 50 years ago.

That’s where Medicare for All comes in. It engages virtually all the interest groups represented by the Democrats, so it’s grounded in the party-as-it-is, even as it embodies an ideological perspective with the potential to unite them. The exact form that ideology takes is not predetermined: There are any number of ways that government can help make people’s lives better, and a vigorous effort to come up with the best possible solution will only help make this abstract possibility increasingly concrete for tens of millions of Americans in the next few years.

Another reason why Medicare for All can be so crucial is its mobilizing potential. As Chang notes:

Setting up Medicare for All as a goal is a way to activate movement politics, to give people a reason to go to the polls and make phone calls. We have already seen the fruits of those efforts: that 16 senators have signed on to the plan is due more to sustained grassroots organizing than anything else.

Maintaining turnout — especially in down-ballot and midterm elections — has been a key Democratic weakness for the past 25 years, most notably in the disastrous 1994 and 2010 elections. The 1999 book “Reading Mixed Signals: Ambivalence in American Public Opinion about Government,” by Albert H. Cantril and Susan Davis Cantril, found that critics of government made up 45 percent of likely voters, the same number as supporters. But among non-voters, supporters outnumbered critics by 55 to 32 percent. It could not be more clear: Consistently motivating voters who support government action is absolutely crucial for the future of progressive politics.

I should be clear: I am not arguing that nothing else matters. Scher asks, “[W]hy should Democrats prioritize junking what was just successfully defended, at enormous political risk, when there are so many other moral imperatives that warrant a robust and urgent policy response?” He mentions climate change, immigration reform, rebuilding infrastructure, etc.

He’s not wrong. These and other issues are also vitally important. But Democrats aren’t likely to make headway on any of them nationally, without winning back power at least in the House in 2018 — with a few rare exceptions, such as the chance to turn DACA repeal into passage of the DREAM Act. What’s more, they are all connected ideologically by the belief that government is a vital part of the solution. So making that belief more salient, via Medicare for All advocacy — will help to advance them all.

Democrats can and do walk and chew gum at the same time. They’ve been doing it for decades. It’s what their political culture is all about, as Grossman and Hopkins show in detail. What they haven’t been doing is clearly communicating about what they are doing in a way that reaches and mobilizes voters when it really counts. They lack a clear, coherent message that resonates across issue areas, and into people’s everyday lives. Medicare for All is not a unitary, quick-fix answer to that problem and no one should pretend it is. But it represents a clear path forward toward developing that message and nurturing the emergence of a new common sense. We’d be foolish not to take that path forward.

Paul Rosenberg is a California-based writer/activist, senior editor for Random Lengths News, and a columnist for Al Jazeera English. Follow him on Twitter at @PaulHRosenberg.


MADDOW ON THE NEWS

EXCLUSIVE ACCESS? WHAT IS THAT? IS IT LIKE THE CLINTON’S SUPPOSEDLY ALLOWING BIG DONORS TO SLEEP IN THE WHITE HOUSE IN RETURN? THEY WERE SAVAGED FOR THAT, BUT HERE SOMETHING LIKE IT TURNS UP AGAIN.

http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/questions-surround-trumps-25-million-inaugural-concert
The Rachel Maddow Show / The MaddowBlog
Questions surround Trump’s $25 million inaugural concert
09/18/17 08:30 AM
By Steve Benen

We’ve been keeping an eye in recent months on Donald Trump’s inaugural committee, which by some metrics, was a great success. After his election, the Republican eliminated caps on individual contributions – caps that George W. Bush and Barack Obama both utilized – and sold “exclusive access” for seven-figure contributions.

The result was a fundraising juggernaut: Trump’s inaugural committee took in $107 million, much of which went unspent during poorly attended festivities.

The Associated Press picked up on the thread over the weekend, shining a light on an increasingly interesting mystery.

President Donald Trump’s inaugural committee raised an unprecedented $107 million for a ceremony that officials promised would be “workmanlike,” and the committee pledged to give leftover funds to charity. Nearly eight months later, the group has helped pay for redecorating at the White House and the vice president’s residence in Washington.

But nothing has yet gone to charity.

What is left from the massive fundraising is a mystery, clouded by messy and, at times, budget-busting management of a private fund that requires little public disclosure.

Of particular interest was the AP’s discovery that Trump’s committee spent $25 million on a pre-inaugural concert at the Lincoln Memorial, which the Associated Press described as “head-scratching” for good reason. Barack Obama’s pre-inaugural concert at the same location eight years earlier featured far higher-profile entertainers, roughly 40 times as many attendees, and cost one-fifth as much.

As for the leftover money going to charity, Trump’s committee originally said it’d release the details of its charitable donations in April, but that didn’t happen. Instead, the committee said in April that it was still “identifying charities toward which it would direct leftover money.” That was nearly five months ago.

Making matters slightly worse, we don’t know why we don’t know. Consider this excerpt from the Associated Press piece:

Leaders of previous inaugurations expressed surprise at the slow timeline. They say they had a general handle on their finances – and had already started giving money away – within three months of Inauguration Day, though formally closing down the committees took many months longer.

“The thing about inaugural expenses, they’re not complicated,” said Steve Kerrigan, head of President Barack Obama’s 2013 inaugural committee. “You take money in, you pay it out, and then you know what you’re left with when it’s done.”

Something is clearly very different about Trump’s inauguration, and no one involved has explained why.

Tom Barrack, a friend of the president’s who heads the inaugural committee, told the AP there’s already been an audit of the committee’s finances, but the committee “would not share a copy with AP or say who performed it.”

The more it seems like these guys have something to hide, the more I’m curious what that might be.

Explore:
The MaddowBlog, Donald Trump, Fundraising and Inauguration


CHECK OUT MADDOW’S BLOG ON THIS RUSSIA INVESTIGATION. SHE ALWAYS CLARIFIES AND ADDS TIDBITS. SHE IS ALSO HIGHLY ENTERTAINING.

http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/russia-scandal-moves-forward-team-mueller-isnt-done-growing?cid=eml_mra_20170918
As Russia scandal moves forward, Team Mueller isn’t done growing
09/18/17 11:30 AM
By Steve Benen

Photograph -- FBI Director Robert Mueller testifies before the House Select Intelligence Committee on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC, on April 11, 2013. Saul Loeb/AFP/Getty Images

It might’ve been easy to miss this Politico piece – it was published around midnight on Friday evening – but for those following the Trump-Russia scandal closely, the piece was chock full of interesting news. Let’s start with the 16th lawyers to join the Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s legal team.

An attorney working on the Justice Department’s highest-profile money-laundering case recently transferred off that assignment in order to join the staff of the special prosecutor investigating the Trump campaign’s potential ties to Russia, POLITICO has learned.

Attorney Kyle Freeny was among the prosecutors on hand Friday as Jason Maloni, a spokesman for former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort, testified before a grand jury at federal court in Washington.

Freeny’s background in examining potential money-laundering is significant given the money-laundering questions surrounding this controversy. See this TRMS segment from mid-August, for example.

Also note, Freeny has been working on the Justice Department’s case related to profits from the film “The Wolf of Wall Street,” which as the Politico article noted, was allegedly financed “with assets looted from the Malaysian government.” (Donald Trump hosted a controversial meeting with Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak at the White House last week.)

The same Politico piece also noted that the “Wolf of Wall Street” case is a product of the Justice Department’s Kleptocracy Asset Recovery Initiative, “an effort to pursue the proceeds of foreign corruption and return such monies to the public in the affected countries.” This is the same initiative that’s investigating Ukrainian officials, including former President Viktor Yanukovych – who was a benefactor of Paul Manafort, Donald Trump’s former campaign chairman.

And that wasn’t the only news related to the scandal that emerged over the weekend:

* The Wall Street Journal reported late Friday that Facebook has “handed over to special counsel Robert Mueller detailed records about the Russian ad purchases on its platform that go beyond what the company shared with Congress last week, according to people familiar with the matter.”

* NBC News reported that attorney Michael Cohen, one of Donald Trump’s closest business advisers, is scheduled to testify tomorrow to the Senate Intelligence Committee, as part of its investigation into the Russia scandal. (The hearing will reportedly be held behind closed doors.)

* And Politico reported that former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn’s family has created a legal defense fund on his behalf. According to the article, “The fund will not accept donations from foreign governments, nor will it accept money from the Trump campaign or the Trump Organization.”

This news follows an NBC News report from Wednesday that Michael G. Flynn, the son of the scandal-plagued former Trump aide, is himself “a subject of the federal investigation into Russian meddling in the presidential election and possible collusion between Moscow and the Trump campaign…. The inquiry into Flynn is focused at least in part on his work with his father’s lobbying firm, Flynn Intel Group, three of the officials said.”

Explore:
The MaddowBlog, Russia and Scandals