OCTOBER 18 AND 19, 2018

NEWS AND VIEWS

A TRAGIC TRAIN ACCIDENT KILLS 50 PEOPLE AND INJURES IN THE RANGE OF 200. APPARENTLY, THE EFFIGY BURNING WAS HELD TOO CLOSE TO THE TRACKS, AND THEN THOSE AT THE FIRE ITSELF TOLD THE CROWD TO MOVE BACKWARD EVEN CLOSER. THIS IS VERY SAD TO ME. IT IS ALSO POSSIBLE THAT THE TRAIN WAS MOVING TOO FAST TO BE IN A POPULATED AREA, AS WELL.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-india-45913793
Amritsar: Scores dead as train mows down crowd
OCTOBER 19, 2018 3:01 PM 44 minutes ago

PHOTOGRAPH -- Crowds celebrate Hindu festival near Amritsar

More than 50 people have been killed and 200 hurt after a train ran into a crowd near Amritsar in India's northern Punjab state, police told the BBC.

The victims were standing on the railway tracks watching celebrations for the Hindu festival of Dusshera, eyewitnesses told BBC Punjabi.

They did not hear the train approach as they watched a firecracker-filled effigy of the demon king Ravana burn.

Officials said the priority now was to take the injured to local hospitals.

Footage posted to social media showed the fast-travelling train hitting the crowd.

The incident happened at about 18:30 local time (13:00 GMT), said local journalist Ravinder Singh Robin.

Just moments before, crowds watching the firecrackers show were asked by organisers to move back - towards the railway tracks, reports say.

The train that hit the crowds was travelling from Jalandhar to Amritsar.

Image copyrightEPA
Image caption
The incident happened as crowds were celebrating a Hindu festival

Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh described the incident as "absolutely tragic", and wrote in a tweet that local authorities were being "mobilised".

"We will do everything possible to assist the injured," he said, adding: "[I] have directed the district administration to leave no stone unturned to ensure the best possible treatment for them."

Image copyrightEPA
Image caption
More than 200 people have been injured
Prime Minister Narendra Modi described the incident as "heart-wrenching".

Skip Twitter post by @narendramodi

Narendra Modi
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@narendramodi
Extremely saddened by the train accident in Amritsar. The tragedy is heart-wrenching. My deepest condolences to the families of those who lost their loved ones and I pray that the injured recover quickly. Have asked officials to provide immediate assistance that is required.

11:10 AM - Oct 19, 2018
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There are fears that the death toll will rise further.

Questions being asked
Arvind Chhabra, BBC Punjabi, Chandigarh

Towering effigies of Ravana symbolising evil are burnt with fireworks to mark Dussehra, a major Hindu festival.

Now, questions are being raised how the celebration was allowed just a few metres from the railway tracks.

Effigy-burning is only allowed when different departments, including fire safety officials, grant permission.

The state chief minister has ordered an inquiry to ascertain whether permission was granted - and by whom.

Train accidents are fairly common in India, where much of the railway equipment is out of date, although numbers have declined in recent years.

RELATED:
What the Dusshera festival about?
Image copyrightEPA
Celebrates the triumph of the Hindu god Rama over the 10-headed demon king Ravana
Marks the victory of good over evil
In large parts of India it is celebrated with Ramlila - a dramatic folk re-enactment of the 10-day battle
Staged annually - often over 10 or more successive nights
Festival culminates with devotees burning effigies of Ravana which are lit with firecrackers in open grounds
In 2005, Unesco recognised the tradition of Ramlila as a "Masterpiece of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity"


I AM CAUGHT UP IN THIS SPY MYSTERY, AND I HOPE IT ISN’T BURIED RATHER THAN REVEALED. THAT ISN’T THE WAY OUR COUNTRY SHOULD BE RUN.

https://www.politico.com/story/2018/10/19/mueller-investigation-findings-914754
MUELLER INVESTIGATION
Mueller report PSA: Prepare for disappointment
And be forewarned that the special counsel’s findings may never be made public.
By DARREN SAMUELSOHN 10/19/2018 05:20 AM EDT

PHOTOGRAPH -- While Robert Mueller is under no deadline to complete his work, several sources tracking the investigation say the special counsel and his team appear eager to wrap up. | Win McNamee/Getty Images

President Donald Trump's critics have spent the past 17 months anticipating what some expect will be among the most thrilling events of their lives: special counsel Robert Mueller’s final report on Russian 2016 election interference.

They may be in for a disappointment.

That’s the word POLITICO got from defense lawyers working on the Russia probe and more than 15 former government officials with investigation experience spanning Watergate to the 2016 election case. The public, they say, shouldn’t expect a comprehensive and presidency-wrecking account of Kremlin meddling and alleged obstruction of justice by Trump — not to mention an explanation of the myriad subplots that have bedeviled lawmakers, journalists and amateur Mueller sleuths.

Perhaps most unsatisfying: Mueller’s findings may never even see the light of day.

“That’s just the way this works,” said John Q. Barrett, a former associate counsel who worked under independent counsel Lawrence Walsh during the Reagan-era investigation into secret U.S. arms sales to Iran. “Mueller is a criminal investigator. He’s not government oversight, and he’s not a historian.”

All of this may sound like a buzzkill after two years of intense news coverage depicting a potential conspiracy between the Kremlin and Trump’s campaign, plus the scores of tweets from the White House condemning the Mueller probe as a “witch hunt.”

But government investigation experts are waving a giant yellow caution flag now to warn that Mueller’s no-comment mantra is unlikely to give way to a tell-all final report and an accompanying blitz of media interviews and public testimony on Capitol Hill.

“He won’t be a good witness,” said Paul Rosenzweig, a former senior counsel to independent counsel Kenneth Starr now working as a senior fellow at the nonprofit R Street Institute. “His answers will be, ‘yes’, ‘no’ and ‘maybe.’”

For starters, Mueller isn’t operating under the same ground rules as past high-profile government probes, including the Reagan-era investigation into Iranian arms sale and whether President Bill Clinton lied during a deposition about his extramarital affair with a White House intern. Those examinations worked under the guidelines of a post-Watergate law that expired in 1999 that required investigators to submit findings to Congress if they found impeachable offenses, a mandate that led to Starr’s salacious report that upended Clinton’s second term.

Mueller’s reporting mandate is much different. He must notify his Justice Department supervisor — currently Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein — on his budgeting needs and all “significant events” made by his office, including indictments, guilty pleas and subpoenas.

When Mueller is finished, he must turn in a “confidential report explaining the prosecution or declination decisions” — essentially why he chose to bring charges against some people but not others. His reasoning, according to veterans of such investigations, could be as simple as “there wasn’t enough evidence” to support a winning court case.

Then, it will be up to DOJ leaders to make the politically turbo-charged decision of whether to make Mueller’s report public.

Government officials will first get a chance to scrub the special counsel’s findings for classified details, though, involving everything from foreign intelligence sources to information gleaned during grand jury testimony that the law forbids the government from disclosing.

They’ll also have to weigh the input from a number of powerful outside forces.

The White House, for one, has indicated it might try to butt into the proceedings. Trump personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani said earlier this summer that the White House had reserved the right to block the release of information in Mueller’s final report that might be covered through executive privilege. It’s unclear how salient that legal argument may be, but the president’s attorneys have been saying for months that a White House signoff will be needed because the Justice Department also falls inside the executive branch.

Congress is also primed to have a say. While Democratic leaders are hoping a return to power in the upcoming November midterms could grant them subpoena power to pry as much information as possible from the special counsel’s office, Republicans might try to restrict the release of certain details that might embarrass the president.

Rod Rosenstein
CONGRESS

House sets Rosenstein interview next week
By JOSH GERSTEIN

As for the crafting of the report itself, Mueller has significant leeway. He can theoretically be as expansive as he wants. But sources who have worked closely with Mueller during his lengthy career at the Justice Department say his by-the-books, conservative style is likely to win out, suggesting he might lean more toward saying less than more.

“It’s such a unique situation. He knows there are a lot of questions he needs to address for the sake of trying to satisfy a wide variety of interests and expectations,” said Paul McNulty, a former deputy attorney general from the George W. Bush administration who worked closely with Mueller at the Justice Department.

Mueller’s report will be landing in the shadow of former FBI Director James Comey’s controversial decision to publicly explain his reasons for not prosecuting then-presidential candidate Hillary Clinton for her use of a private email server during her time as secretary of state. The move was widely panned as a breach of DOJ protocol.

“That’s not Bob Mueller’s approach,” McNulty explained. “I’d be surprised if he did that in written form. I think he’s about, ‘Where are the facts before us?’”

The timing on the Mueller investigation final report — the special counsel's office declined comment for this report — remains unclear. While he’s under no deadline to complete his work, several sources tracking the investigation say the special counsel and his team appear eager to wrap up. “I’m sure he’s determined to get back to the rest of his life,” said Barrett, the Iran-Contra investigator who is now a law professor at St. John's University.

But several factors may still slow things down, including a potential protracted legal showdown over whether to force the president into a sit-down interview and what to do with leads that stem from the ongoing cooperation of former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort and former Trump personal lawyer Michael Cohen. Both men pleaded guilty this summer.

Longtime Trump confidante Roger Stone has also said he’s prepared for an indictment in the Mueller probe, which would kick-start an entirely new trial process.

“When your investigation is ongoing, it’s hard to write a final report,” said Michael Zeldin, a former Mueller aide who served as a deputy independent counsel in the investigation into George H.W. Bush administration officials fingered for accessing Clinton’s passport files during the 1992 presidential campaign.

Indeed, history offers a mixed bag on what to expect from Mueller’s end game. Several independent counsel investigations have concluded their work without any report at all, including the George W. Bush-era probe into who leaked the identity of CIA operative Valerie Plame Wilson.

And the two biggest cases since Watergate have been broken up into bite-sized pieces, with interim reports dribbled out while the wider probes continued. The Iran-Contra investigation published intermittent findings on procedural issues, such as how Congress granting immunity for testimony would impair criminal prosecution. The entire probe, however, lasted more than seven years, with a final report issued in August 1993, long after Reagan was out of the White House.

Clinton’s White House dealt with a series of independent counsel investigations, but none as troublesome as the one that started in January 1994 into the first family’s decades-old Whitewater land deals in Arkansas. The probe took multiple twists and expanded to cover several other topics. In 1997, Starr issued a report, affirming Clinton White House deputy counsel Vincent Foster had committed suicide. A year later, he published a report detailing allegations of illegal behavior tied to Clinton’s affair with Lewinsky, which prompted the House to open impeachment proceedings.

A final report on Whitewater didn’t arrive until March 2002, more than eight years after the probe started and more than a year after the Democrat’s second term ended.

All of that history isn’t lost on Mueller.

Pete Stauber
ELECTIONS

RELATED: How Republicans could (barely) hang on to the House
By RACHAEL BADE

“He knows how these Office of Special Counsel investigations can drag on,” said McNulty, now president of Grove City College in western Pennsylvania. “He’s seen all that over the course of his career. I just know he’s the kind of person who’s decisive and if he thought that there was a way to not drag something out because it could be addressed appropriately, he’d have the determination to do that. He’s also not going to cut some corner just to be done.”

Past investigators have also struggled with how to handle the public release of their independent counsel reports.

In 2000, a nearly two-year investigation into Clinton Labor Secretary Alexis Herman ended with a one-sentence statement clearing her of influence peddling charges. Independent counsel Ralph Lancaster’s final report was placed under a federal court seal and he opted not to ask for permission to publicize it.

“I had decided not to exercise my prosecutorial discretion to indict her and I didn’t see any sense in making it worse,” Lancaster said in a 2005 interview with lawinterview.com. “The press has never picked up on it. Nobody has asked to see it … which is fine by me.”

Patrick Fitzgerald, the independent counsel in the Plame investigation, was under no obligation to write a report because of the specific guidelines behind his appointment. Testifying before Congress as his probe was ending, Fitzgerald defended the approach by noting that grand jury witnesses expect secrecy when they testify. He also noted that a 2007 public trial involving I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby, a former top aide to Vice President Dick Cheney convicted for perjury, had revealed much of the investigation’s details.

“I think people learned a fair amount about what we did,” Fitzgerald said. “They didn’t learn everything. But if you’re talking about a public report, that was not provided for, and I actually believe and I’ve said it before, I think that’s appropriate.”

Mary McCord, a Georgetown University law professor and former DOJ official who helped oversee the FBI’s Russian meddling investigation before Mueller’s appointment, cautioned against heightened expectations around the special counsel’s final report.

“Don’t overread any of these facts that are in the world to suggest a quick wrap-up and everyone is going to get a chance to read it the next day,” she said. “It will probably be detailed because this material is detailed, but I don’t know that it will all be made public.”

Some of the central players in the Russia saga say they, too, have become resigned to not getting a complete set of answers out of Mueller’s work. “I assume there are going to be lots of details we’ll never learn, and lots of things that will never come to light,” said Robbie Mook, Clinton’s 2016 campaign manager.

But Mook added that Mueller’s efforts can be deemed a “success” if he answers just a few questions. For example, Mook wants to know whether and how the Russian government infiltrated the Trump campaign to influence the election outcome. He wants to know whether there was an effort in the White House or in the president’s orbit to cover up what happened.

“This is about big problems, not about small details,” he said. “I think we all need to step back and look at this less as a dramatic bit of intrigue and more as a real fundamental question of our national security.”


ROD ROSENSTEIN, THOUGH A REPUBLICAN, HAS CONSISTENTLY RESISTED PRESIDENTIAL ATTEMPTS TO DOMINATE HIM, SOMETIMES QUIETLY AND SOMETIMES NOT. HE, SENATOR JEFF SESSIONS, ROBERT MUELLER AND ALL THE DEMOCRATS HAVE MAINLY REFUSED TO BUDGE UNDER THE DISGUSTING PERSONAL LEVEL ATTACKS WHICH ARE TRUMP’S SPECIALTY. MIMICRY IS THE FAVORITE TACTIC. THAT WORKS WITH HIS LOWBROW ELEMENT OF THE PUBLIC, BUT NOT WITH EVERYONE ELSE. TRUMP’S ADVANTAGE IS THE FACT THAT IT TAKES A CROWBAR TO JIMMY HIM OUT OF OFFICE.

WE DEMOCRATS ARE MOBILIZING AT THE POLLS IN RECORD NUMBERS, I NOTICE. THAT MAKES ME PROUD. WHILE IT ISN’T A GUARANTEE OF SUCCESS, HIGH TURNOUT IS USUALLY A SIGN OF A DEMOCRATIC VICTORY. DEMOCRATS ACTUALLY OUTNUMBER REPUBLICANS, BUT DON’T MAKE GOOD AUTOMATONS TO GRAB AND HOLD POWER. IF ONLY WE HAD MORE LEADERS LIKE SANDERS, WHO CAN MOVE THE PUBLIC MIND TO A POINT OF ACTION, WE WOULD DOMINATE AGAIN. MAYBE THAT IS HAPPENING NOW.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/oct/18/rod-rosenstein-wall-street-journal-interview-republicans
Rod Rosenstein's Wall Street Journal interview prompts Republican outrage
Republicans attack Rosenstein for ‘making time for interviews’ as they seek to question him over Trump wiretap claims

PHOTOGRAPH -- Rod Rosenstein with his boss Jeff Sessions. Rosenstein oversees the work of the special counsel, Robert Mueller, who is investigating Russian election interference. Photograph: Jim Lo Scalzo/EPA

Some congressional Republicans are furious with the deputy attorney general, Rod Rosenstein, for giving a wide-ranging interview to the Wall Street Journal , while he reportedly ducks on-the-record questioning from legislators.

Rosenstein oversees the work of the special counsel, Robert Mueller, who is investigating Russian election interference, links between Trump aides and Russia, and potential obstruction of justice by Donald Trump.

Michael Moore: 'We have the power to crush Trump'

Lawmakers have wanted to hear from Rosenstein ever since the New York Times reported that he had openly discussed the idea of wearing a wire to obtain incriminating evidence on Trump, and the idea of impeaching the president via the 25th amendment. Rosenstein has called those claims “inaccurate”.

Rosenstein did not address those reported remarks in his interview with the Journal, and has said he won’t comment at all on the New York Times report, blaming the alleged statements on “anonymous sources … advancing their own personal agenda”. But that didn’t stop GOP legislators from questioning his priorities.

“Rod Rosenstein gave an interview to the Wall Street Journal today, after failing to show up in Congress last week to answer questions,” tweeted the Republican congressman Mark Meadows Wednesday. “By hiding from Congress and making time for media interviews, Mr Rosenstein has made his priorities clear. It seems transparency isn’t one of them.”

The Ohio congressman Jim Jordan added in remarks to the Washington Examiner: “When the chairman of the committee that has jurisdiction over your department asks you to come and answer questions, you are obligated to do so.”

Rosenstein has not publicly said if or why he is avoiding meeting with lawmakers, and his office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Congressional Republicans have even threatened to subpoena Rosenstein to appear if need be. “It is essential that we talk to him – he knows that,” congressman Bob Goodlatte told Fox News on Saturday. “He has not agreed to come for a transcribed interview on the record. He needs to do that, and if he does not agree to do that very soon, I will issue a subpoena for him to appear.”

RELATED: The latest major Trump resignations and firings

That would be an extraordinary step – to compel a high-ranking member of a Republican administration to appear before a congressional committee in the same party. But it also wouldn’t be the first dissonant chord struck between Rosenstein and at least one faction of the House Republicans. Meadows, who is chairman of the House Freedom Caucus, led 11 House Republicans in introducing articles of impeachment against Rosenstein in July for unrelated reasons.

Rosenstein used the Journal interview to defend the investigation into the 2016 election led by the former FBI director Mueller, as “appropriate and independent”. Rosenstein is technically in charge of that investigation, as his boss, Jeff Sessions, recused himself from the inquiry.

“At the end of the day, the public will have confidence that the cases we brought were warranted by the evidence, and that it was an appropriate use of resources,” Rosenstein said. He added that the investigation had thus far uncovered a “widespread effort” by Russia to influence the 2016 presidential election.

Rosenstein also thanked Trump in the interview for his attitude towards the investigation, saying he was “pleased the president has been supportive”. The president has, in fact, repeatedly decried the investigation as a “witch-hunt”, and tried to downplay the extent of Russian interference in the 2016 election.

Rosenstein did not address timetables for Mueller’s investigation. However, Bloomberg reported on Wednesday that core findings are expected “soon” after the November midterm elections.


JAMAL KHASHOGGI WASN’T JUST A POLARIZING FIGURE IN SAUDI ARABIA, BUT A BELOVED MAN. HERE ARE SOME OF THE TRIBUTES BY THOSE WHO KNEW HIM.

https://www.usnews.com/news/world/articles/2018-10-19/the-jamal-khashoggi-i-knew-mentor-bridge-between-cultures
The Jamal Khashoggi I Knew: Mentor, Bridge Between Cultures
The Jamal Khashoggi I knew: mentor, guide, bridge between political Islam and the West.
Oct. 19, 2018, at 2:42 p.m.
BY KATHERINE ROTH, Associated Press

NEW YORK (AP) — Sitting in my suburban American kitchen, it is easy to feel that Saudi Arabia is a world away, that events at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul — as gruesome as they now seem to have been — have little to do with me.

Except for one thing.

Almost 25 years ago, Jamal Khashoggi was my friend and mentor when I was a young reporter in Yemen on a fellowship studying Islamic movements. I got to see him in action and experience his remarkable kindness and wisdom. He changed my life and may even have saved it.

In an age when cultural stereotyping is too frequent and when the #MeToo movement highlights how commonplace bad behavior truly is, Jamal was a gentleman and an unfailingly perceptive guide in a pivotal time and place.

Those were the years before 9/11 changed the world. In the heady and dangerous latter half of 1994, Islamists — many of them fresh from Osama bin Laden's training camps in Afghanistan — won the upper hand in Yemen's civil war. I was possibly the only Western woman covering the northern front of the war, where they led the fight.

I had the amazing good fortune to meet Jamal, who made sure I had access to everyone across the Islamic spectrum, from hardcore jihadis (some of whom agreed to speak with me only after Jamal bravely said he wouldn't talk with them unless they did) to mystical-leaning Sufis.

I have a photograph from those days, taken by Jamal, of me standing beside Tareq al-Fadhli, a Yemeni jihadi who had fought under Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan before becoming a commander on the front lines in Yemen. Jamal encouraged me to see this intimidating man as an aspiring and able local leader who was using the only means he knew to retake lands once ruled by his family. And Jamal was right: The man left the jihadi movement soon after the war ended, joining the government there.

Late in 1994, Jamal made sure I was included in the Yemeni delegation to a religious conference in Sudan, where we celebrated my 30th birthday together (our birthdays were a day apart) at the Khartoum Hilton. He courageously attempted to convince bin Laden, who was living there at the time, to let me interview him. (An infidel American woman? Even Jamal and his unmatched way with words couldn't convince bin Laden to budge.)

I never had the impression that Jamal sympathized with his views, and he certainly did not condone terrorism in any form. He was a well-connected reporter trying to get the whole story and to encourage others, like me, to dig beneath the surface, too.

He seemed to have earned the respect of all sides, whether Islamist or leftist and secular.

Jamal also had a playful streak, and a soft spot for electronic gadgets. He had the tiniest Japanese tape recorder I'd ever seen — about half the size of a deck of cards, with a microphone the size of a blueberry. And he had a passion for the Nintendo Game Boy. It seemed like he had every model and game, and between our long discussions about Islam, he would expound on the evolution of the games. He played them as he waited for interviews to begin, or in the long car rides across Yemen.

A non-believing American blonde and a tall devout Saudi — we must have been a sight as we traversed Yemen, visiting mosques and meeting Islamic leaders of various persuasions. Jamal was protective of me in danger zones while respectful of my personal space.

He shared with me time and again the many ways that Yemen reminded him of the beloved Saudi Arabia of his childhood. I never met anyone who loved his homeland more.

His adherence to the values of Islam, and the depth of his desire to help outsiders like me understand the wide spectrum of Islamic ideologies, was real. Before 9/11 and after, Jamal was a much-needed bridge between ever-evolving political Islam in all its iterations and the West.

He was also ready to listen to criticism of Islam. On one holiday in Yemen, Jamal went into a mosque while I — along with dozens of Yemeni women — was left to listen to the sermon while seated in the dusty streets outside. It was a long sermon, and as it went on I became angrier and angrier. "Why should 50 percent of the population cover themselves and be forced to sit outside because the other 50 percent of the population can't behave themselves?!" I shouted at him later.

I don't remember his reply. But he listened. And he understood my frustration.

A devoted family man, he spoke often in those days of his beloved wife and family. My heart goes out to them and to his fiancee, whom he planned to marry soon after obtaining from the Saudi consulate in Istanbul the paperwork certifying his divorce. He vanished after entering the consulate on Oct. 2.

It's unbelievable that a man so deft at navigating danger for so many decades, so courageous in his reporting, so optimistic about humanity in general and so utterly patriotic about Saudi Arabia and its potential, should be so suddenly and cruelly silenced.

I wish more Americans had had the chance to know Jamal Khashoggi as I did that year.

As I sit in my kitchen now, wishing that I could offer him some coffee or a cup of tea, I see all too clearly and painfully that he was not just another Saudi, not just another brave journalist. He was a caring human being who could, truly, have been anyone's friend.

___

Roth researched Islamic movements in the Arab world on a fellowship from the Institute of Current World Affairs from 1993 to 1995. In 1995, she joined The Associated Press in New York, where she continues to contribute stories on a freelance basis.

Copyright 2018 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.


I USED TO GET GENUINELY DISTURBED EVERY TIME THIS PRESIDENT DID SOMETHING OUTRAGEOUS. HE HAS A HUGE REPERTOIRE OF ACTS, HOWEVER, AND I HAVE NOTICED THAT EVERY TIME HE IS FIRMLY CHALLENGED, HE WILL STEP BACK BEHIND THE LINE AGAIN. ALL OF YOU ANIMAL LOVERS KNOW THAT THERE ARE TWO KINDS OF DOGS, THE BARKERS AND THE BITERS. I BELIEVE I CAN SAFELY SAY NOW THAT TRUMP IS A BARKER.

SECOND, MY FAVORITE SOOTHSAYER RACHEL MADDOW POINTED OUT THAT IT IS BETTER TO LOOK AT WHAT TRUMP DOES THAN LISTEN TO WHAT HE SAYS. HIS WILDER RANTS HAVE BEEN ACCOMPANIED WITH A SIGNIFICANT MOVE ON HIS PART TO DO SOMETHING EVEN WORSE WHICH HE HOPES WILL REMAIN UNNOTICED. ITS’ THE EONS OLD BROKEN WING STRATEGY. IN THIS CASE IT WAS SUPPORTIVE OF A PERSONAL FAVORITE OF HIS WHO IS BELIEVED BY EVERYONE ELSE TO BE DIRECTLY RESPONSIBLE FOR THE “KILL TEAM” WHO WERE DISPATCHED TO TURKEY TO PUNISH A JOURNALIST.

IN THIS CASE WITH MEXICO, I DON’T BELIEVE THAT HE IS SERIOUS ABOUT SENDING OUR MILITARY DOWN TO THE BORDER EXCEPT PERHAPS AS A SHOW; AND I DON’T THINK THEY WOULD FOLLOW UP ON ANY WARLIKE ACTIONS ON OUR LONG TIME PEACEFUL NEIGHBOR MEXICO OR KILL ANY MIGRANTS, UNLESS HE THOUGHT IT WOULD GO UNDETECTED. PENTAGON OFFICIALS HAVE SEVERAL TIMES, ACCORDING TO THE PRESS, STEPPED ASIDE QUIETLY BUT DEFTLY, FROM ENFORCING HIS THREATS.

WHEN HE DOES SOMETHING SHOCKING OR OTHERWISE EYE CATCHING, LOOK AROUND CLOSELY TO SEE WHAT ELSE IS GOING ON. I BELIEVE THAT WHAT IS HAPPENING NOW WHICH GENUINELY DISTURBS HIM IS THE CURRENT PRESS FOCUS ON THE RATHER TOO COZY NEARNESS BETWEEN HIMSELF AND THE CROWN PRINCE OF SAUDI ARABIA. THERE HE IS AGAIN IN THE UNWANTED LIMELIGHT WITH AN ACCUSED CRIMINAL OF A POTENTIALLY DANGEROUS KIND. IT STRIKES ME THAT HE IS NOT AVERSE TO ESTABLISHING A CLOSE RELATIONSHIP WITH SOMEONE WHO IS ABLE TO BENEFIT HIM PERSONALLY IN SOME WAY, EVEN IF THEY ARE NOT ABOVE BOARD IN THEIR DEALINGS, SUCH AS BECOMING DISTINCTLY TYRANNICAL.

INTIMIDATING OR EVEN KILLING INTELLECTUALS AND NEWS COMMENTATORS IS A LONG PATTERN WITH THOSE HEADS OF STATE WHO WANT TO ELIMINATE ALL POTENTIAL OR ACTUAL THREATS. THE KEY ELEMENT HERE IS THAT KHASHOGGI HAD DARED TO CRITICIZE THE PRINCE, AND ONE ARTICLE IN THESE LAST FEW WEEKS STATED THAT THE JOURNALIST WAS PROBABLY SELF-EXILED TO THE USA FOR SAFETY REASONS. TRUMP ALSO DOESN’T CARE IF A CONVENIENT FRIEND HAS A HUMAN RIGHTS ABUSE HISTORY. I BELIEVE HE WANTS TO SEE IF THEY ARE USEFUL TO HIM PERSONALLY, AND IF SO, HE WILL BE THEIR “FRIEND” UNTIL IT’S TIME TO DISCARD THEM.

HE CONSIDERS “THE DEAL” TO BE MORE IMPORTANT THAN A WISELY WEIGHED POLITICAL BALANCE, AND HE SPEAKS OF “CHEMISTRY” WITH FOREIGN LEADERS, OR THE LACK OF IT. HE CALLED SOME THIRD WORLD COUNTRIES “S-H COUNTRIES” RECENTLY, BY WHICH I’M SURE HE MEANS THAT THEY NEED HELP RATHER THAN GIVING HIM HELP. WHETHER OR NOT I CONSIDER THAT TO BE GOOD HUMAN RELATIONS ISN’T A QUESTION. I ABSOLUTELY DO NOT; BUT IT’S THE LACK OF INTERNATIONAL FAIRNESS AND A WISE BALANCE THAT WORRIES ME MOST. THE WORST WAY OF VIEWING THAT, THOUGH, IS THAT HE MAY BE PURPOSELY FORMING ALLIANCES WITH THE MOST AGGRESSIVE NATIONS AND SHUNNING THOSE SUCH AS BRITAIN WHO HAVE BEEN LOYAL AND DEPENDABLE INTERNATIONAL FRIENDS. HE WANTS TO BE RECOGNIZED FOR BEING FORMIDABLE, RATHER THAN HONEST AND SUPPORTIVE OF WHAT IS GOOD.

FINALLY, HE HAS NO BELIEF IN THE PROCESS OF DIPLOMACY, EXCEPT HIS KIND – THREAT VERSUS COUNTER THREAT; WHAT WE NEED IS RESPECT COUPLED WITH COOPERATION. HIS FAVORITE JOUSTING PARTNER SEEMS TO ME TO BE KIM JONG UN, ANOTHER INTERNATIONAL PARIAH. ALSO, I JUST CAUGHT A GLIMPSE OF ANOTHER RELATED ARTICLE TODAY. KIM HAS RECENTLY INVITED THE POPE TO COME TO NORTH KOREA FOR A VISIT, AND THE POPE HAS SAID THAT HE IS OPEN TO THE POSSIBILITY OF IT. THAT SEEMS LIKE VERY CAREFUL WORDING TO ME.

Trump rally SHOCK: President vows to send MILITARY to border to STOP illegal immigration
By MATTHEW ROBINSON
PUBLISHED: 02:38, Fri, Oct 19, 2018 | UPDATED: 02:43, Fri, Oct 19, 2018

DONALD TRUMP launched a blistering tirade against Democrats at a campaign rally in Montana on Thursday night, accusing his political opponents of failing to stand firm on illegal immigration on the US’s southern border with Mexico.

The US leader, who was speaking at a rally in Missoula, Montana ahead of the critical midterm elections in November, pledged to send the US military to the border in order to curb illegal migration if required and accused the Democrats of using migrants as a means of boosting their vote share.

He said: “As you know, I am willing to send the military to defend our southern border if necessary.

“It is all caused because of the illegal immigration onslaught brought by the Democrats because they refuse to acknowledge or to change the laws.”

He lambasted the Democrats for failing to support any form of new border security legislation, and for refusing to fix the US’s “horrible old-fashioned, loophole-ridden” immigration system.

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I am willing to send the military to defend our southern border if necessary

Donald Trump

Criticising the US’s immigration laws, he said: “We have the worst laws anywhere in the world, we have the dumbest laws anywhere in the world.”

The US leader also warned that Democrats were blocking Republican immigration reform as they are relying on “everyone coming in voting Democrat”.

In a pointed attack on his opponents, he said: “They are not so stupid when you think about it, but they are crazy.”

Trump in particular took aim at the US’s ‘catch and release’ immigration policy, which allows caught immigrants to return to the community while they await hearings in immigration courts.

Donald Trump
Donald Trump vowed to send the military to the Mexico border to halt illegal immigration (Image: GETTY)

Donald Trump

Donald Trump criticised the Democrats for failing to support new border security legislation (Image: GETTY)

He also raised concern over the shortage in the number of judges to adequately deal with the US’s immigration crisis, and process the extradition of illegal immigrants.

Commenting on the policy, he said: “You catch them, you find out about them, and even if you find out bad things, you release them, and you say come back for a court case.

“There are not even enough judges to take care of it.

“Someone comes in and a foot hits the ground and we are not allowed to say, ‘go back’.

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Donald Trump arrived at Missoula International Airport on Air Force One (Image: REUTERS)

“Every other country says, ‘go back, can’t come in, sorry.”

The US leader also launched a scathing attack on the individuals entering the US, branding them “hardened” and “bad people”.

He said: “We have hardened criminal coming in; you think those people are perfect, they are not perfect.

“We have some hardened, bad people coming in.”

Donald Trump

Donald Trump criticised the US's 'catch and release' immigration policy (Image: GETTY)
Donald Trump

Donald Trump stated that 'hardened' and 'bad people' were entering the US (Image: GETTY)

Trump nevertheless made light of the situation, blaming himself for the US’s migration crisis.

He quipped: “I have caused the problem, everyone is in shock, but it is my problem, I caused it.

“I have created such an incredible economy, I have created so many jobs, I have made this country so great that everyone wants to come in.

“We have made our country strong, we have made our country respected, and people want to come in.”

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I HAVE PUT THIS SHARE INFORMATION UP BECAUSE FOR ONE DAY’S SHOWING, IT HAS ATTRACTED A LOT OF ATTENTION. THIS IS A SIGN TO ME THAT THE DEMOCRATS HAVE AN ACTIVE FOLLOWING IN GENERAL, INCLUDING THOSE WHO AREN’T RUNNING FOR OFFICE. I REALLY LOVE MICHAEL MOORE. HE IS A FIGHTER, HE’S A VERY BRIGHT GUY, AND HE’S 100% ON OUR SIDE. HE’S ALSO EXTREMELY HUMANE. I HAVEN’T SEEN THIS NEWEST MOVIE, AND I HOPE I’LL GET TO. SOMETIMES I REALLY DO MISS MY OLD BLACK HONDA. Shares 3,567 Comments 589.

https://www.theguardian.com/film/2018/oct/18/michael-moore-we-have-the-power-to-crush-trump-fahrenheit-11-9
Interview
Michael Moore: 'We have the power to crush Trump'
Owen Jones
Thu 18 Oct 2018 09.54 EDT Last modified on Thu 18 Oct 2018 12.52 EDT

PHOTOGRAPH -- Michael Moore: ‘As I get older, I become more angry.’ Photograph: Chris Pizzello/Invision/AP

The director’s latest film, Fahrenheit 11/9, is a broadside against both the president and the Democratic establishment that failed to defeat him. He explains why a leftwing comeback is on the cards

It falls to Michael Moore’s empty stomach to help explain to me the difference between hope and optimism. “Right now, I’m hoping that somebody will feed me today,” he says. But that hope is passive. It may whet his appetite, but the disappointment will be all the more crushing if it isn’t satisfied. On the other hand, he explains, optimism is constructive, strategic. “I’m in a first world country, and somewhere I have a wallet with a credit card and some money in it. So the optimist in me has credibility, because it’s safe to say I will eat. Does that make any sense?” I mull it over, and I think so. While hope is passive, optimism determines the actions we will take.

Throughout our conversation – mostly in a London hotel as he munches on vegetarian dumplings – he scrambles around for these illustrations: some work, some don’t, sometimes he gets lost down a rabbit hole. But it is an insight into the mind of one of the western left’s great communicators: an almost obsessive desire to popularise political issues and causes, to trigger an emotional reaction among audiences that spurs them into action.

For young leftists, myself included, Moore’s work was something of a political life-raft back in an era when the traditional left was all but sunk. Fahrenheit 9/11 – his indictment of George W Bush’s so-called war on terror – courageously advanced otherwise marginalised ideas: it suggested that a proposed gas pipeline through Afghanistan may have played a role in the war, and noted links between the Bush administration and the Saudi regime. Moore has called for Bush administration officials to be put on trial. All this strays from the respectable centrist critique of the invasion, that it was simply the wrong war at the wrong time, or a “dumb war”, as Obama put it, rather than a crime.

His documentaries are designed not simply to inform, but to mobilise people. “Yeah, I was hoping to stop the Iraq war, hoping to end gun violence, to ensure every American has health insurance,” he explains. But he is keen to emphasise that his new film, Fahrenheit 11/9 (9 November 2016 being the day Donald Trump was declared US president-elect), is different. “It’s not some single issue, it’s not just about Donald Trump,” he says. “There’s nothing I can tell you about him that you don’t already know. You’d be wasting time and money to watch that.”

1:45
Watch the trailer for Michael Moore's new film Fahrenheit 11/9 – video

Moore is right: that would be a tediously by-numbers film. Trump’s average disapproval rating among Americans has not been below 50% since March 2017; in the UK, more than three-quarters have a negative view of the self-described “very stable genius”. They don’t need a film to tell them all the bad things about Trump. When I last met Moore, on the eve of the EU referendum, he predicted that Trump had every chance of winning the presidency. For much of the pundit class and Democratic politicians, such an event was less likely than an asteroid slamming into the Earth: their cocky predictions that, no, don’t be silly, Trump is going to lose, are mercilessly paraded on the screen in the film. Why did he see it coming and they didn’t?

For me, one of the strongest elements in the film was his J’accuse against the Democratic party establishment. He seethes with profane rage when he talks about their failures. He makes a parallel with his documentary – he’s down a rabbit hole again: if it’s a great film, if the critics like it, then he’s done his bit as a director, he hands his raw materials to Vertigo, the UK company in charge of distributing the film, it’s on them to make it a success.

It’s an allegory for the Democrats, he suggests. The polling shows that on the key issues, such as progressive taxation, or abortion rights, or healthcare, or gun control, most Americans side with the progressive side of the argument. In the past six out of seven presidential elections, he notes, the Democrats won the popular vote. “So the Democratic party are handed a population which agrees with their entire platform,” he says; they even have more voters. “Yet they’re still unable to put themselves and us in power.” If his film distributor kept doing that, it would go out of business. But here is what happens, his film posits, if the Democrats become too much like the Republicans, too in hock to a corporate agenda.

Here’s what I wanted to find out about the absurd, frightening antagonist in Fahrenheit 11/9: what Trump could be capable of in certain circumstances, how he could take advantage of a crisis to concentrate power in his hands. What would happen if there was a major terrorist attack? That should worry everyone, Moore says. “He’ll immediately propose militarising the local police. He’ll give police and prosecutors wide latitude to make sweeping arrests. He’ll, say, temporarily suspend habeas corpus, things like that.” All will be justified on the basis of the need to protect the US, but things would not go back where they were, these would not be temporary measures, and he would keep piling on authoritarian measures.

I mention countries such as Turkey, Poland and Hungary, where authoritarian leaders keep the formal trappings of democracy – there are still elections and opposition parties – but its substance is hollowed out. “Yes, I think that’s a better model for democracy: they’ll keep up the appearance of democracy, but their leader becomes more and more autocratic.” And here’s a chilling, under-discussed scenario. What if Trump is just the starter, the foreshadow? What if his role is to shift the terms of what is deemed an acceptable Republican candidate in favour of a more sophisticated authoritarian leader? “I think they now know the formula of what they need to win an election,” is how Moore puts it. “You need someone who people are familiar with, someone comfortable being on television.”

But there is a source of hope – or indeed optimism – in the film. To paraphrase George Orwell: “If there is hope, it lies in the young.” The survivors of the Parkland massacre confront not just the US gun lobby, but an older generation they believe has failed them. “We appreciate that you are willing to let us rebuild the world that you fucked up,” one survivor told US host Bill Maher.

The old trope is that the young begin as naive leftists then drift rightwards with age. This is something Moore refutes – “As I get older, I become more angry, not pacified, in my political thinking” – and it is not backed up by the data. In the 1984 presidential election, under-25s were more pro-Reagan than Americans in their 30s and 40s, and only marginally less so than pensioners.

And Trump is not popular among today’s young. In the 2016 election, among Americans under 30, he lagged about 20 points behind. Why? “When we were that age, my generation, if we went to college, we’d graduate debt-free. That world was our oyster: we could do whatever job we wanted to do, or not want to do any job – a lot of people took off, put on their backpack, went to Europe, got a Eurorail pass. The so-called ‘American dream’ seemed like a reality.” But what has happened in the US mirrors Britain: a neoliberal system promised freedom but instead delivered insecurity and stagnating living standards.

“The reason they’re more active and more aware is because they saw the writing on the wall, probably from middle school, definitely from high school. That there were not going to be good jobs for them, that they were going to be in a debtors’ prison for the first 20 or 30 years of their life. They’re angry – but not angry enough, in my opinion.”

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A still from Fahrenheit 11/9. Photograph: Dog Eat Dog Films

In Moore’s film, the Democratic former speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi slaps down a young, leftwing voter with: “I have to say, we’re capitalists, that’s just the way it is.” But it is striking that in 2018 – nearly three decades after the end of the cold war, in the nation of red scares and McCarthyism, in the very citadel of free-market capitalism – polls show most younger Americans prefer socialism to capitalism, “whether Pelosi likes it or not”, says Moore. He thinks back to how the socialist senator Bernie Sanders – whom he backed – casually launched his presidential bid in 2015. “He didn’t even realise how vast what was about to take off was. If he’d started a couple of months earlier, infrastructure in place, who knows what would have happened.” Will he run run again? “I believe he will,” Moore says, optimistic that Sanders can win both the nomination and defeat Trump. He tells me of an unreleased poll in West Virginia – which Trump won by a 42-point margin in 2016 – that has Sanders beating Trump in a head to head. “Even if people don’t agree with Bernie, they know he’s honest – what you see is what you get.”

But the Democratic establishment is on the run, he believes: he points to the rise of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, a 29-year-old New Yorker who defeated one of the Democrats’ big wigs in a primary election in June. “We covered her when nobody even knew she was running.” At the root of the Democratic civil war are fundamentally different interpretations of what happened in the 2016 election. The Democratic left believes it represented the nemesis of centrist orthodoxy, failing to capitalise on the anti-establishment mood against a system that is fundamentally broken, while the Democratic right believes Trump supporters need to be won over, and blame so-called “identity politics” for the loss.

Moore gives winning over Trumpists short shrift, spluttering: “A waste of time! Oh my God! If you’re still for Trump [after] two years, [with] everything you’ve seen, you’re gone, no one can convince you of anything!” What is pejoratively labelled identity politics – civil rights for black people, LGBTQ rights, women’s rights – has “reinvigorated politics”, Moore suggests. “It’s getting more people out to vote. You’re never going to convince people who hate gay people – that’s a waste of time. Our energy has to be getting our own people to polls.”

He keeps drifting back to the November midterm elections, and it’s clear that his film is, in part, a get-out-the-vote operation. It’s desperately needed: young voters who favour the Democrats are least likely to vote. Why? “They don’t feel that the political system is going to help them – that’s the biggest problem.” He keeps meeting US voters on his travels, “filled with a lot of despair. I could see some had given up.” They would vote, he suggests, but they wouldn’t end up bringing 10 other voters with them. He will be campaigning in swing districts, and has been using the money he has saved as a beneficiary of the Trump tax cuts to back Democratic candidates.

It’s here that Moore comes into his own, full of righteous fury. “I’ve seen films where you’re so reinvigorated that at the end of the film, you can’t wait to get to get out of the theatre and go out and do something. I love those kinds of films … A film like the one we’ve made asking people, not to give up or give in, but to realise how much fucking power and strength we have! We have a power on 6 November to fucking crush Trump, the uber rich who are thrilled with his performance, the old white male establishment that thinks they’re going to keep running the show, when their show was long, long over.”

Firing up what he sees as America’s progressive majority is why Moore is so dismissive of accusations he preaches to the choir. “The choir need a song to sing – that’s why they’re the choir! They need a song to pull them out of despair, and need to light a fire underneath themselves.”

Fahrenheit 11/9 review: Michael Moore v Donald Trump = stalemate
3 out of 5 stars.

He sees the Republicans’ nemesis as what he calls “the avengers” – women, young people, “who’ve had the future ripped from them”, people of colour – who history would record “got together and crushed the forces of evil”. But he is very clear: there cannot be a return to the corporate Democratic agenda of the past, and it is clear he sees himself having a big role to play. “People like Sanders and myself and Alexandria [Ocasio-Cortez] and Rashida [Tlaib, a socialist Democrat set to be the first Muslim congresswoman], we will be the ones steering the ship, and we’ll do thing differently than the Democrats in the past. We’ll essentially give the people what they want: equal pay for women; ending mass incarceration of black people; protecting women’s reproductive rights; creating a living wage for everyone.”

But Moore’s optimism is not delusion. Earlier, he soberly told a London cinema audience that he cannot promise them a happy ending. He’s right not to. Whether Trumpism can be defeated will surely, in part, depend on who wins the battle for the soul of the Democratic party: its rootless, corporate-backed wing or a new insurgent left offering an alternative to a broken system. If the latter triumphs, history will surely record that Moore, now in what he wistfully calls “the final third of my life”, played a significant role.

MOORE’S LATEST FILM, Fahrenheit 11/9 is released on 19 October in the UK.


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