APRIL 24 THROUGH 26, 2018


News and Views


REPORTERS WITHOUT BORDERS -- LOOSE LIPS SINK SHIPS. UNFORTUNATELY, THE LIPS OF PRESIDENT TRUMP ARE THE LOOSEST OF ALL; AND IT ALMOST SEEMS TO BE THE CASE THAT THE AVERAGE AMERICAN IS NOT PAYING VERY MUCH ATTENTION. THEY’RE WAITING FOR TRUMP’S LAST WORD ON WHICH MEMBERS OF THE PRESS ARE THE ENEMY. ARE YOU READY FOR THE NEW AMERICA? I’M NOT.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/u-press-freedom-ranking-falls-133902650.html
U.S. Press Freedom Ranking Falls Again, Thanks To 'Media-Bashing Enthusiast' Trump
Marina Fang
HuffPost • April 25, 2018

Photograph -- WASHINGTON ― President Donald Trump's unrelenting attacks on the free press

WASHINGTON ― President Donald Trump’s unrelenting attacks on the free press have created a “Trump effect” promoting antagonism against journalists in the U.S. and abroad, the media watchdog and advocacy group Reporters Without Borders said Wednesday in its annual World Press Freedom Index.

The U.S. dropped two spots in the world ranking, to 45th, from last year. The group, also known as Reporters Sans Frontières, attributed the downgrade to Trump’s incendiary anti-press rhetoric and his attempts to curtail media access.

The rankings cite an overall decline in GLOBAL PRESS FREEDOM, with a “climate of hatred” for the press that is “openly encouraged by political leaders.” The report said this is occurring in authoritarian countries that regularly rank at the bottom, including Egypt, Syria, Turkey, Russia, China and North Korea.

But the group also warned anti-media hatred is rising in democratic nations like the United States, which is “disappointing for the country of the First Amendment,” Margaux Ewen, the group’s North America executive director, said at an event unveiling the rankings. Reporters Without Borders blamed Trump, calling him “a media-bashing enthusiast.”

“More and more democratically elected leaders no longer see the media as part of democracy’s essential underpinning, but as an adversary to which they openly display their aversion,” the group wrote.

Trump’s “violent anti-press rhetoric” and attempts to block access to government information has influenced local officials, and has led to the arrests of journalists for covering protests or for asking questions of public officials.TR Reporters also have faced violent attacks by public figures, such as Montana Republican Greg Gianforte’s body-slam of Guardian reporter Ben Jacobs last year during a congressional campaign.

This “Trump effect” has spread outside the U.S., Reporters Without Borders said, citing examples of other world leaders adopting Trump’s anti-media slur “fake news” for unfavorable coverage.

Reporters Without Borders also warned against Trump’s crusade against the media in its 2017 rankings. It said the president’s rhetoric was part of “a highly toxic anti-media discourse that drove the world into a new era of post-truth,* disinformation and fake news.”

While an overall decline in press freedom preceded Trump’s presidency, “the Trump effect has only served to amplify the disappointing press freedom climate,” the group wrote in this year’s report.

Ewen said that the danger is that “this rhetoric is coming down from the highest office in the country,” and sets a bad example around the world.

Reporters Without Borders presented this year’s rankings Wednesday at an event in Washington co-hosted by The Washington Post ― a frequent target of Trump’s “fake news” derision for its deep reporting on the investigation into his campaign’s ties to Russia.

Read the report’s full rankings and methodology here.

This article originally appeared on HuffPost.


WHAT IS A DEFINITION OF “POST-TRUTH?”

[https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/word-of-the-year/word-of-the-year-2016, After much discussion, debate, and research, the Oxford Dictionaries Word of the Year 2016 is post-truth – an adjective defined as ‘relating to or denoting circumstances in which objective facts are less influential in shaping public opinion than appeals to emotion and personal belief’. – The script was provided by a guest writer, the cultural commentator Neil Midgley. -- Why was this chosen?

The concept of post-truth has been in existence for the past decade, but Oxford Dictionaries has seen a spike in frequency this year in the context of the EU referendum in the United Kingdom and the presidential election in the United States. It has also become associated with a particular noun, in the phrase post-truth politics.

Post-truth has gone from being a peripheral term to being a mainstay in political commentary, now often being used by major publications without the need for clarification or definition in their headlines.


The Economist
✔
@TheEconomist
Obama founded ISIS. George Bush was behind 9/11. Welcome to post-truth politics http://econ.st/2eCASwE

7:28 AM - Nov 1, 2016

Post-truth politics
Art of the lie

Politicians have always lied. Does it matter if they leave the truth behind entirely?

CONSIDER how far Donald Trump is estranged from fact. He inhabits a fantastical realm where Barack Obama’s birth certificate was faked, the president founded Islamic State (IS), the Clintons are killers and the father of a rival was with Lee Harvey Oswald before he shot John F. Kennedy.

Mr Trump is the leading exponent of “post-truth” politics—a reliance on assertions that “feel true” but have no basis in fact. His brazenness is not punished, but taken as evidence of his willingness to stand up to elite power. And he is not alone. Members of Poland’s government assert that a previous president, who died in a plane crash, was assassinated by Russia. Turkish politicians claim the perpetrators of the recent bungled coup were acting on orders issued by the CIA. The successful campaign for Britain to leave the European Union warned of the hordes of immigrants that would result from Turkey’s imminent accession to the union. ....”]



FROM WHAT I’VE SEEN OF THE UNITARY EXECUTIVE FORM OF PRESIDENCY OF THE BUSHES AND NOW DONALD TRUMP, I BELIEVE THAT A WEAKENED PRESIDENCY WHICH WILL NOT CONTROL EVERYTHING THAT HAPPENS IS EXACTLY WHAT WE NEED. DIVISIONS OF POWER, REMEMBER? THEY WEREN’T WRITTEN IN JUST TO MAKE THE PROCESSES MORE CONVOLUTED; THOUGH THE FACT THAT THEY DO THAT HAS HELPED US IN THE CASE OF TRUMP’S SEVERAL ATTEMPTS TO GUT THE LEGAL SYSTEM. CHAMPIONS LIKE KNIGHTS OF THE ROUND TABLE HAVE STEPPED FORWARD TO STOP HIM, ONE OR TWO AT A TIME. OUR DIVIDED POWER STRUCTURE IN 2017 AND NOW 2018 HAS HELD TRUMP BACK SEVERAL TIMES ON POWER OVERREACHES. WERE WE TO ELECT A “STRONGMAN,” HE MAY BE A COMPOSITE OF INCOMPETENCE AND TOTAL DISHONESTY. I THINK MEGALOMANIACS USUALLY ARE. I’M NOT SAYING ANY NAMES HERE, OF COURSE. IT’S AN ACADEMIC QUESTION.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/can-rein-president-without-weakening-presidency-090048039.html?soc_trk=gcm&soc_src=dbb2094c-7d9a-37c0-96b9-7f844af62e78&.tsrc=notification-brknews
Can you rein in the president without weakening the presidency?
Matt Bai, Yahoo News • April 26, 2018

Yahoo News photo illustration; photos: AP, Getty

Having now heard arguments for and against President Trump’s immigration ban, the justices of the Supreme Court will have to weigh a couple of novel objections to the law.

One, summarized nicely in an op-ed this week by some of the elder statesmen in the president’s own party, holds that the Constitution clearly gives authority over immigration law to Congress, not the president, and that the court has an opportunity — if not an obligation — to restore the rightful balance of power between the two branches.

The second main indictment of the law rests on what the law calls “animus” toward a single religious group. In a brief supporting the state of Hawaii, which brought the case, more than 40 constitutional scholars argued that what matters here is Trump’s intent, made clear by his campaign rhetoric and his voluminous tweets from the Oval Office.

Trump seeks not to solve any real national security crisis, they say, but rather to stop Muslims from entering the country, period, which violates the very first amendment to the Constitution. (That amendment is already one of Trump’s least favorite, of course, since it contains that whole nettlesome thing about a free press, too.)

As a non-lawyer, I can’t weigh in with any authority on the technical validity of these arguments. As a critic of Trump’s odious proclamation — which I consider fundamentally un-American, legal or not — I’d certainly be relieved if the justices saw enough there to strike it down once and for all, which didn’t impress observers of the court as very likely.

But as someone who’s closely covered several presidential campaigns and administrations, I harbor some doubts about the logic of these objections, however noble the ends.

As with so much else about Trump, I worry that the inventive measures deployed to stop him might wind up weakening the presidency itself.

Both principal arguments here ask the high court to establish some new precedent on executive authority. The first point, about the separation of powers, is just the kind of argument that might appeal to conservative jurists, since it relies on a strict reading of the Constitution. But it also requires that the justices overlook decades of presidential action on immigration, as well as some long-standing case law.

The second line of attack is potentially even more consequential. Those who challenge the law on the basis of the establishment clause point out that the court has long enjoined Congress and state governments from enacting policies that are intended to discriminate against one group or another, even if the policy itself, in another context, might be lawful.

For instance, in the early 1990s, the City Council in Hialeah, Fla., reacting to the arrival of a church practicing the Caribbean rituals of Santeria, passed what seemed like a reasonable measure outlawing the possession of animals for sacrifice or slaughter. The Supreme Court ultimately invalidated the law, because its sole purpose was to thwart a single religious group from exercising its faith.
In the immigration case, the constitutional experts in their amicus brief cited numerous examples of Trump spewing hateful rhetoric, both before and after his election, as a way of justifying what he himself had called a ban on Muslims.

“The reason everyone thinks this policy targets Muslims,” Joshua Matz, a lawyer who co-authored the brief, told me recently, “is because the president has ostentatiously gone around saying it targets Muslims.”

He’s got a point. Except that the White House isn’t the Hialeah City Council, and this reasoning has never actually been applied to a president. (Largely because no modern president has done anything outrageous enough to test it.)

It’s not at all unusual — in fact, it’s the norm — for candidates and presidents to say whatever crazy stuff will rally their most ardent supporters to the cause, while doing something entirely more defensible when it comes to actually making policy.

In most presidencies, unfortunately, projecting defiance and even extremism while crafting more conventional law in private isn’t considered masking your true agenda. It’s what we call governing.

In this case, the administration rewrote its order twice in an effort to make the policy constitutionally viable — a process Trump complained bitterly had “watered down” his proposal. By Matz’s logic, however, Trump can’t actually do anything to restrict immigration that’s legally sound, because anything he tries to do has already been tainted by his own indiscreet blather.

Taken to its extreme, this means a president’s power can be curtailed by the presumption of motive, no matter what he or she might have proposed in terms of actual policy. Hypothetically, you can see how a president might be better off enacting sensitive policies without ever making a public case for them at all.

Trump’s critics would argue that this fear is specious, because Trump represents an extraordinary challenge to the norms of responsible governance, and as such the moment needs to be met with extraordinary measures. I get that, and no one would be happier to see him lose this fight than I would.


The danger, though, is that with each extraordinary measure they unleash, they risk permanently defining down the presidency. To use a sports metaphor, we’re not so much moving the goalposts on Trump as we are trying to bring in the sidelines, in order to shrink the field on which he can play.

Take, for instance, the congressional move to shield the special counsel, Robert Mueller, from being fired, which would give Congress rare purview over who stays and who goes in the executive branch. Precedents like that don’t go away once the crisis has passed.

The better option, as I’ve written, is to let Trump fire whomever he wants and have confidence that the voters will ultimately render a verdict. It’s their constitutional republic, after all.

Maybe the benefit here is pretty solidly worth the risk. Maybe you do what you have to do in the moment to contain an existential threat to American values, and you hope that the institution of the presidency will endure more or less as it has.

Were I a lawyer trying to win a case with grave implications, or a politician trying to cut short this presidency, that’s probably how I’d look at it.

But we can’t lose sight of the bigger picture here, which is that what Trump threatens to do — through his reality-show antics, through his alarming nepotism and incompetence — is to devalue the office and undermine our faith in the process.

It would be a real travesty to help him along.

Read more from Yahoo News:
• Scooter Libby prosecutor says Trump’s pardon was a loyalty message to Cohen
• Rural districts are the new frontier for women running for office
• In Donald Trump, Israelis hear echoes of an ancient emperor
• Michael Cohen, Donald Trump and the curse of loyalty
• Photos: French President Emmanuel Macron visits Trump in 3-day trip to Washington



THIS IS A VERY SHORT ARTICLE, BUT FULL OF INFORMATION RATHER THAN FLUFF. I PERSONALLY HOPE WE WILL NEVER AGAIN HAVE AN ELECTION SEASON LIKE THE TRUMP/GOP WAR ON THE DEMOCRATIC PARTY IN 2014 TO 2018. ONLINE WAYS OF STOPPING MISINFORMATION ARE IMPORTANT, BUT WHAT WE HAVE FAILED TO HAVE IS A USA AND INTERNATIONAL NETWORK OF LAWS TO DEAL WITH THE USE OF LIES AS A BASIC WAY OF GOVERNING.

INTERFERING AGGRESSIVELY IN ELECTIONS AS RUSSIA SO RECENTLY DID IN OURS (AND AS WE HAVE DONE SOMETIMES IN OTHER NATIONS) SHOULD BE GROUNDS FOR UN SANCTIONS, PEACEKEEPING FORCES, ELECTION MONITORING, PROTECTION OF BELEAGUERED ETHNIC AND RELIGIOUS GROUPS, AND DEMONSTRABLE INCURSIONS SUCH AS THE RUSSIAN TAKEOVER BIT BY BIT OF CRIMEA. POLITICS HAS ALWAYS BEEN “DIRTY,” BUT THE TRUMP ADMINISTRATION’S CAMPAIGN SEASON HAS BEEN THE WORST YET WITHIN MY MEMORY.

PERHAPS THE MOST DANGEROUS THING OF ALL IS THE FACT THAT CITIZENS OF THE US IN PARTICULAR SEEM TO CONDONE IT ALL WITHOUT QUESTION, OR AT ANY RATE TO THROW UP OUR HANDS IN A DISPLAY OF WEAKNESS; EVEN WORSE, LACK OF INTEREST AGAINST BAD ACTORS RATHER THAN STANDING TOGETHER AGAINST THEM.

IN MY OPINION, WHAT WE NEED IS THE CRIMINALIZATION OF THE TOTALLY UNACCEPTABLE RATHER THAN A STORM OF MERE SCOLDING. I UNDERSTAND THAT SHORT OF WAR, THERE MAY BE NO WAY TO ERADICATE IT, BUT INTERNATIONAL DEFENSE GROUPS SUCH AS NATO CAN AND DO FUNCTION AS AN INTERNATIONAL PROTECTIVE POLICE FORCE OF A SORT.

THEY NEED TO BE LESS PASSIVE, HOWEVER, BECAUSE THE “BAD BOYS” WON’T BE PASSIVE. LET’S ALSO MAKE SOME ALLIANCES WITH THE FORCE OF INTERNATIONAL LAW AGAINST DISINFORMATION – AN AGGRESSIVE WEAPON OF WAR. THAT’S WHAT “FAKE NEWS” REALLY IS. OH, YES. THE UN AS A LEGAL TRIBUNAL NEEDS TO BE USED MORE RATHER THAN LESS, ENFORCED BY THE GOOD OLD-FASHIONED TOOLS – BOYCOTTS, BLOCKADES, INTENSIVE NEGOTIATIONS, NEW STRUCTURES, SHAMING AND TRADE AGREEMENTS.

IF, WHEN RUSSIA AMASSED ITS’ FORCES ON THE BORDERS OF UKRAINE, WE ALONG WITH BRITAIN, FRANCE, GERMANY, POLAND AND MORE HAD PUT OUR TROOPS OUT AS WELL ON THE UKRAINE SIDE OF THE BORDERS, RUSSIA WOULD HAVE MOVED ITS’ TROOPS BACK. THEY ALWAYS DO. THEY WANT TO WIN, BUT NOT IN A WAY THAT LOSES THEM ANY SOLDIERS AT ALL. AND AS FAR AS RUSSIA’S BEING WILLING TO ENTER INTO A NUCLEAR EXCHANGE, THEY’RE MUCH TOO SMART TO DO THAT. NOBODY BEATS RADIATION POISONING.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/eu-fake-news-with-a-code-of-conduct/
CBS/AP April 26, 2018, 8:44 AM
EU wants to squash fake news with a code of conduct

BRUSSELS — The European Union's executive wants online giants like Facebook, Twitter and Google to sign a special code of conduct to weed out fake news, which it says has become an increasingly invasive issue during elections.

The European Commission said Thursday it wants online platforms by July to flag sponsored political content, introduce rules to close fake accounts, better monitor disinformation and set up an independent network of fact-checkers.

With the self-regulation tools, the EU Commission wants to counter online manipulation and disinformation increasingly seen in elections.

EU Commissioner Julian King said that "internet platforms have a vital role to play in countering the abuse of their infrastructure by hostile actors and in keeping their users, and society, safe."

© 2018 CBS Interactive Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.


IT’S NOT THAT THIS STATEMENT IS SO SURPRISING TO ME IN ITS’ CONTENT, BUT THAT HE WOULD ADMIT TO IT OPENLY IS. THERE IS A DEEP CRACK IN AMERICAN POLITICS THAT RUNS ALONG THE LINE OF MONEY IN THE DECISION-MAKING PROCESS, PARALLEL WITH AMERICAN MORALITY. DEMOCRATS LIE ON ONE SIDE OF IT, AND REPUBLICANS ON THE OTHER. I BELIEVE THAT THE DIFFERENCE IS THAT WE AS A CITIZENRY HAVE STOPPED PRETENDING TO DO ANYTHING FOR SEMI-PURE NON-MERCENARY REASONS. THE CONCEPT OF “STATESMANSHIP” HAS ALMOST DIED OF STARVATION.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/trump-apos-budget-director-admits-043744553.html
Trump's Budget Director Admits He Spoke Only To Lobbyists Who Paid Him
Ed Mazza
HuffPost • April 25, 2018

Photograph -- Mick Mulvaney, President Donald Trump's budget director, raised eyebrows

Mick Mulvaney, President Donald Trump’s budget director, raised eyebrows on Tuesday with an anecdote about his time in the House of Representatives.

“We had a hierarchy in my office in Congress,” he said at the American Bankers Association conference in Washington, according to The New York Times. “If you’re a lobbyist who never gave us money, I didn’t talk to you. If you’re a lobbyist who gave us money, I might talk to you.”

Mulvaney, a Republican who represented a South Carolina district from 2011 through early 2017, said he also spoke with constituents even if they hadn’t paid him.

The newspaper reported that he was encouraging the industry to lobby lawmakers:

“Mr. Mulvaney said that trying to sway legislators was one of the ‘fundamental underpinnings of our representative democracy. And you have to continue to do it.’”

He has come under fire for his cozy ties to the financial industry, especially payday lenders. As the Times noted, he collected $63,000 from such lenders.

Since being named acting head of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau last year (in addition to running the Office of Management and Budget), he had not taken any enforcement actions against payday lenders, banks or other financial firms until last week’s $1 billion fine against Wells Fargo.

He has also specifically moved to ease regulations on payday lenders.

During a Senate Banking Committee hearing earlier this month, someone dressed as Rich Uncle Pennybags (aka “The Monopoly Man”) sat behind him.

This article originally appeared on HuffPost.

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Jim
Jimyesterday
So Mulvaney is an advocate for "pay to play"? Isn't that what trump said he would "drain the swamp" of?
ReplyReplies (25)3743

erroneoUS
erroneoUSyesterday
Who knew draining the swamp was so complicated
ReplyReplies (9)2461

David
Davidyesterday
Sounds like an open admission of bribery; money in exchange for access.
ReplyReplies (23)4145



MSNBC MADDOW

Giuliani looks to restart Trump Mueller talks, Cohen takes 5th
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Details of Ronny Jackson colleagues' accusations deepen scandal
Rachel Maddow reports on a two page summary of allegations against Donald Trump V.A. secretary nominee Ronny Jackson by 23 of his current and former colleagues who paint a harsh picture of his behavior and allege some shocking behavior. Duration: 5:07


THE RACHEL MADDOW SHOW 4/25/18
Trump failure to consult Senate intensifies Ronny Jackson drama
Leo Shane, deputy editor of Military Times, talks with Rachel Maddow about the botched nomination of Ronny Jackson as V.A. secretary, and how Trump's failure to work with relevant members of Congress before presenting a nominee has made matters worse. Duration: 4:26


THE RACHEL MADDOW SHOW 4/25/18
Tillerson parroted China talking points written by Kushner: book
Rachel Maddoow looks at past reporting on Jared Kushner's sketchy meetings with Chinese officials, and notes the tie-in to a scoop in Ronan Farrow's new book "War on Peace" that found Kushner to be the source of Rex Tillerson remarks parroting China's preferred perspective on U.S. China relations.


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Farrow: US State Department in crisis, but not without hope
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Rachel Maddow reports on the growing scandals surrounding Donald Trump's V.A. secretary nominee Ronny Jackson, only the latest in a long string Trump embarrassments resulting from failing to do any background checking before submitting a nominee for confirmation. Duration: 20:35


THE RACHEL MADDOW SHOW 4/24/18
Allegations against Ronny Jackson grow more serious and specific
Ari Shapiro, host of NPR's All Things Considered, talks with Rachel Maddow about his interview with Senator Jon Tester of the Senate Veterans' Affairs Committee about specific allegations from whistle-blowers against Trump VA secretary nominee Ronny Jackson. Duration: 11:12


THE RACHEL MADDOW SHOW 4/24/18
Court filing busts myth of Manafort 'pre-dawn,' 'no-knock' 'raid'
Rachel Maddow points out a footnote in a legal filing in the Paul Manafort case in which Robert Mueller's prosecutors explain that the search warrant executed on Paul Manafort's house was not "no-knock" and not "pre-dawn," two details included almost universally ... more Duration: 4:05


HELP THE RACHEL MADDOW SHOW 4/24/18
Firing Mueller won't end Trump investigation, Mueller made sure
Rachel Maddow shows how Robert Mueller has worked with other departments and agencies in the course of the Trump Russia investigation, ensuring that even if the special counsel is fired, the elements of the investigation live on. Duration: 3:13


http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show
THE RACHEL MADDOW SHOW 4/23/18
Report supports dossier, contradicts Trump on night in Moscow
Donald Trump responded to accusations in the Steele dossier by telling James Comey he never spent the night in Moscow. A new Bloomberg report, along with past reporting, show Trump claim is not true. Julia Ainsley, NBC News national security reporter, joins Rachel Maddow to discuss. Duration: 6:41