Month: November 2016

Another valuable post from Counterpunch:

Regime Change Abroad, Fascism at Home: How US Interventions Paved the Way for Trump, by Rebecca Gould.

Some excerpts:

“People pay for what they do, and still more, for what they have allowed themselves to become. And they pay for it simply: by the lives they lead.” These words, from James Baldwin’s No Name in the Street (1972), his book-length essay about race in America, were quoted as the epigraph to Dorothy Allison’s Bastard Out of Carolina (1992), a now classic novel about the demographic often referred to colloquially as “white trash”: the poor, disenfranchised white working class. With his theory that justice is made manifest in and through the lives we lead, Baldwin was referencing the entanglement of race politics within the American dream, and facing forthrightly all the contradictions this legacy has generated. Allison was thinking about the poverty of the white working class, their systematic disempowerment, and the exclusions they face, that far outlast the moment of their occurrence. Although they tell their stories in different ways, Baldwin and Allison are making the same point: crimes have consequences. When we cause others to suffer, we end by suffering ourselves.

At no moment in history has the boomerang effect of everyday ethics been expressed more thoroughly or remorselessly than in the outcome of the elections for the forty-fifth President of the United States. America has made countless other peoples around the world suffer. It has turned democracies into dictatorships with a systematicity that far outpaces any other country. The only legitimation for its actions has been the agenda of “regime change” in the interests of “global democracy” that neither the Republican nor the Democratic party ever questioned publicly. On 8 November 2016, that agenda was suddenly exposed for what it was: rank hypocrisy that has contributed the impoverishment of the majority of Americans, while enriching the ruling class.

—snip—

In the aftermath of 8 November 2016, the façade of democracy promotion around the world no longer holds in the center that espouses this ideology. Citizens of the USA are getting a taste of their own medicine. The authoritarianism they have exported since the beginning of the Cold War has suddenly, and unprecedentedly, been transported home. It is now exploding in our face, through racist attacks on school children, the proliferation of swastikas around the country, name-calling, death threats, and a general atmosphere of hate. It can no longer be denied that what we do abroad shapes what we experience at home.

—snip—

When US history is taught in public schools, its contradictions are often packaged into a narrative that reflects the country’s variegated makeup and multicultural history. Because of my lopsided education, it took some time before I was able to recognise that the real horror of 8 November 2016 was not what it meant for America on the world stage, but what it meant at home. For the first time in modern US history, the greatest impact of American foreign policy would be experienced within the US, in the domestic sphere that for so many generations has been sheltered and isolated from the suffering it inflicts on the world. For once, the most direct and immediate victims of American stupidity and prejudice are the American people themselves. Minorities and people of colour have long been targets of discriminatory policies within the USA. Following the vote of 8 November, these forms of discrimination have been legitimated for use against everyone, from women to Latinos to the disabled and gay.

This state of affairs marks a turning point in world history. For many generations, US voters have elected politicians of a wide range of political persuasions while closing their eyes to the overturning of democracies, forcibly installed dictatorships, the punitive taxes, sanctions, and other penalties that have been extracted unilaterally as the world looked on in obedient silence, or turned the other way. Although these disasters nagged at the conscience of the more internationally minded among the US electorate, voters did not have to face the consequences of our actions abroad. Voters could afford to be blind to the suffering of Iranians, Iraqis, Afghans, Libyans, and the citizens of Honduras, because it does not occur on US territory.

The very same political system that brought the first African-American President to power elected a racist and misogynist bigot to the same office eight years later. In fact, in many of the swing states that determine the election’s outcome, the very same people who voted for Obama voted for Trump. It was as though there is no real difference, from the point of view of a disenfranchised American electorate, between a racist bigot and an African-American promising change, so long as they both promise to overhaul the status quo.

To say that these voters are right not to discern any difference would mean defending racism. But to fail to learn from their decision to put every ethical consideration aside when faced with economic suffocation would mean hiding from reality. “One good thing that may come from this election,” an Egyptian colleague, Mona Baker, said to me. A Professor at the University of Manchester, Baker has made her reputation as a scholar of Translation Studies, most recently by studying activists’ contribution to the Arab spring. Baker sees no difference between Clinton and Trump, and regards both as likely architects of global atrocity. “The system is broken,” she concluded our discussion, “It cannot be fixed by an election. The status quo needs to end.”

Will a Trump presidency help to bring an end to the status quo? Whatever happens, it is a certainty that Americans will soon have a great deal more in common with Iranians, Russians, and other peoples living live in authoritarian regimes than they used to. For once, the common ground between the US and the rest of the world will not be founded solely on what we have done to others, or on our on-going complicity in sustaining their oppressive governments; it will be based on what we have done to ourselves. We can now start learning lessons in democracy from the many countries where the US government has orchestrated coups, rather than exporting US ideologies abroad in the form of guns and arms. This is not the lesson I would have liked to take home from Election Day, but it is a lesson nonetheless. Precisely because it is humiliating and humbling, 8 November 2016 will prove to be a salutary education in the limits of American democracy.

Read on.

Please.
Meanwhile, back at the (D.C.) ranch:

House Dems brace for Wednesday’s secret ballot

House Democrats return to Washington on Tuesday grappling over the best course for the party’s future.

Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), facing a challenge from Rep. Tim Ryan (D-Ohio), is seen as the heavy favorite in elections on Wednesday to keep her top leadership spot, where she’s been perched for the past 14 years.

Democrats will decide on their new leader in a secret ballot vote that highlights the caucus’s restlessness and resurrects internal tensions that have simmered since Democrats lost control of the lower chamber in 2010.

While House Democrats gained at least six seats this cycle — several contests remain too close to call — that figure was a far cry from the 25 pickups Pelosi had predicted. Seeking more accountability for the dismal results, dozens of restive lawmakers successfully delayed the party’s leadership elections to this week to allow more time for reckoning. But in the eyes of Ryan and his supporters, nothing short of a change at the top will get the party back on a winning track.

“The level of frustration in our caucus is as great as I have seen it,” Ryan said Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”

—snip—

Ryan’s challenge hinges largely on the argument that Pelosi, a San Francisco liberal widely despised in conservative circles, simply projects the wrong image for a party hoping to broaden its appeal to the Rust Belt voters who flocked to Trump.

“We have got to have the right messenger,” he said. “We have got to have someone who cannot just go on MSNBC, but go on Fox and Fox Business and CNBC and go into union halls and fish fries and churches all over the country and start a brush fire about what a new Democratic Party looks like.”

The elections have also heightened long-standing aggravations among newer members that the long reign of Pelosi and her top deputies — all of whom are in their mid-70s — has prevented other members from rising through the leadership ranks.

“Leader Pelosi is an incredibly strong fundraiser, she’s an incredibly dynamic leader, she gets out there and gets the caucus to do things together that most other leaders would have a very hard time doing. But that’s come at an expense,” a former Democratic leadership aide said Monday.

“There’s a generation of Democratic leaders who have been stymied or held down or even cut off at the knees to keep her and [Maryland Rep. Steny] Hoyer and others in power,” the former aide added.

—snip—

“We’re going to surprise a lot of people,” Ryan told “Meet the Press” host Chuck Todd.

Playing to Ryan’s favor, Wednesday’s leadership races will be decided by secret ballot, empowering members to buck Pelosi — even just to send a protest message — without fear of reprisal.

For that reason, the former lawmaker warned that whip-count claims from both candidates are dubious.

“It’s a secret ballot. Those commitments are pretty meaningless,” the Democrat said. “I’ve seen it so many times, where people tell both sides what they want to hear.”

The smart money is backing Pelosi. It was backing Hillary Clinton, too. Maybe the smart money is not so smart.

We shall see, soon enough.

If the Democratioc Party is going to change, this would be a good first start.

Like I said…we shall see.

Wikipedia

Pelosi is a second generation Dem. [Her father was] Thomas D’Alesandro, Jr., a Democrat U.S. Congressman from Maryland and a Mayor of Baltimore.[4][5] Pelosi’s brother, Thomas D’Alesandro III, also a Democrat, was mayor of Baltimore from 1967 to 1971, when he declined to run for a second term.

Her father’s career smells of rot. His Baltimore was one of the most racist cities of America…as it still is today, of course.

D’Alesandro was then elected to the 76th Congress and to the four succeeding Congresses, serving from January 3, 1939, until he resigned on May 16, 1947. While in Congress, D’Alesandro strongly supported the Bergson Group, a “political action committee set up to that challenged the Roosevelt Administration’s policies on the Jewish refugee issue during the Holocaust, and later lobbied against British control of Palestine” despite his equally strong support for Roosevelt’s other policies.[4] Following his service in Congress he was Mayor of Baltimore for 12 years from May 1947 to May 1959. He was defeated for renomination by the Democrats in the March 1959 primary election. He was also an unsuccessful candidate for the United States Senate in 1958.

D’Alesandro ran for Governor of Maryland in 1954, but was forced to drop out due to being implicated in receiving undeclared money from Dominic Piracci, a parking garage owner convicted of fraud, conspiracy, and conspiracy to obstruct justice.[5]

So does her brother’s.

His one term as mayor was dominated by civil unrest and budgetary troubles.[4] In 1968 D’Alesandro ordered the relocation of the East-West Expressway unstarted since 1941 to be rerouted through the Western Cemetery, followed by cancelling the project, followed by implementing a HUD program to finance 475 of the vacant homes abandoned after they were previously condemned to create “homes for the poor”. The homes were demolished in 1974, with the Rouse Company creditors abandoning the project.[5][6]

He was unable to respond effectively to the Baltimore riot of 1968 that followed the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr., and National Guard troops were called in to control the situation. He would never run for another political office…

I got yer “Dems,” right there!!!

Frank Rizzo South

Isn’t it about time we moved on?

I think so.

You?

AG

A couple links that show how Trumps foreign policy is likely to go.

Here is a good article in the NYTimes on the conflict of interest issues we will face with a Trump presidency.

Also, over the weekend he threatened to undo improved relations with
Cuba , which exposes what our problems are with Trump….is this a legitimate policy issue, or just an amateurish attempt to develop in Havana?

And over at Hullabaloo, Tom Sullivan explains how Trump will be violating the Constitution the second he takes the Oath. He will be receiving direct payments.

I think what this shows is how Trump’s foreign policy is more likely to be twisted by personal greed rather than ideology. Look for a hack like Giuliani as SOS, rather than an ideology pick like Bolton. Giuliani has made   millions in the Middle East , and Trump has buildings in Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the U.A E.

The corruption, both foreign and domestic, is likely to be unprecedented. Don’t look for either the media or congress to address it.

.

This is breaking news, more info to follow …

Twitter Fares Shehabi, Aleppo

In 3 days, the Syrian army liberated 20 sq km of
E Aleppo (purple)! Al-Qaeda controlled areas in
(blue). These areas will be liberated next.

It’s not the Syrian Army but Hezbollah and Iraqi Shia militia under leadership of Iran’s Al Quds military. The Syrian Army units follow with the “embedded” press corps.

○ How much longer can east Aleppo hold out? | Al Jazeera – Qatar |

Aleppo business leaders targeted in Syria violence | Reuters – Oct. 2013 |

Top Syrian businessman Fares Shehabi says he lives in constant fear of being kidnapped by rebels fighting loyalist forces for control of his home city Aleppo. But he clings on in the city, saying it is his duty to try to keep its economy running.

“I was attacked three or four times and they tried to kidnap me many times,” said Shehabi, 40, scion of a wealthy merchant family with interests ranging from pharmaceuticals and food to real estate and banking.

In one attack, assailants riddled one of his factories with gunfire and tried to plant explosives in it, he said. He now moves around with bodyguards, sometimes in disguise.

Nineteen months into the uprising against President Bashar al-Assad, Syria’s biggest city and main industrial centre has been crippled by the fighting. Located among the olive groves and pistachio trees of northwest Syria, it has a population of about 3 million in peacetime.

In addition to widespread damage to factories and shops and an exodus of refugees from neighbourhoods caught in the fighting, Aleppo’s community of businessmen and industrialists has been hit hard. Some of the wealthiest are linked to Assad’s government through partnerships with officials.

Many have fled with their families to places such as Lebanon, Dubai and Egypt. Others have stayed, but say they are targets of violence, extortion and kidnapping attempts by rebel groups and government-linked gangs known as shabiha.

The businessmen developed Aleppo into Syria’s economic engine, the focus of its export trade and the seat of its pharmaceutical, textile and plastics industries. So the damage to the merchant class bodes ill for a recovery of the Syrian economy when the fighting eventually ends.

EU extends sanctions on Syria, warns of more | JPost – Aug. 2011 |

Commentary from new UK prime minister May …

○ Theresa May calls for international pressure on Putin over Syria | The Guardian |

Further updates below the fold …

In major blow, Syria rebels lose all northeast Aleppo | Gulf News |

The loss of the city’s east would be a potentially devastating blow for Syria’s rebels, who have seen their territory fall steadily under government control since Russia began an intervention to bolster President Bashar Al Assad in September 2015.

On Monday, government forces seized the Sakhour, Haydariya and Shaikh Khodr districts, while Kurdish fighters took the Shaikh Fares neighbourhood from rebels, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights monitor said.

…
On Sunday night, nearly 10,000 civilians had fled the east, with around 6,000 moving to the Kurdish-held Sheikh Maqsoud neighbourhood and 4,000 to government-held west Aleppo.

State television showed footage of families disembarking from the green coaches regularly used to transport civilians and surrendering rebels from territory retaken by the government.

Kurdish officials published a video they said showed civilians crossing a field and arriving in Shaikh Maqsud, where local forces helped people lift baggage over a makeshift berm as they arrived.

…
People in southern neighbourhoods were donating blankets and other items to the new arrivals, who travelled on foot, exhausted, cold and hungry.

“The situation in eastern Aleppo is very fluid and things are evolving quickly,” said Scott Craig, spokesman of the United Nations refugee agency, UNHCR.

“We are deeply concerned about the impact of the fighting on the civilian population in Aleppo,” he told AFP.

Yasser Yousuf, an official from the Noor Al Deen Al Zinki rebel group [beheaded a 12 year-old], said the government’s advance was the result of support from Russia and Iran, both staunch allies of Damascus.

“For all the past years, we have resisted with the primitive means we have had, but today we’re resisting Iran and Russia,” he said.

U.S.-Backed Syrian Rebel Commander Boasts of Fighting With AQ Affiliate | IPT blog |

The United States continues to arm Nuruddin az-Zinki as it fights dictator Bashar al-Assad’s forces. But in an interview posted online last week, az-Zinki founder Tawfiq Shihab Al Deen acknowledged teaming up “with Al Nusra (an al-Qaida affiliate in Syria), which is a group that proved themselves to be forceful fighters.”

“Our groups, Nuruddin az-Zinki, along with Al Nusra, are the only groups continuously fighting against the regime in the al-Malah area in Aleppo,” Shihab al-Deen told Abdallah al-Muhasayni, a radical Saudi preacher [arrived in Syria in 2013 bestowing religious blessing upon suicide bombers] said in an interview posted on YouTube June 21.

Al-Muhasayni interviewed jihadi commanders in Syria during the month of Ramadan. He is known to be the conduit between the Jihadi rebel groups in Syria and their benefactors in the Gulf.

The United States has armed Nuruddin az-Zinki, which has posted many videos showing their fighters using U.S. TOW missiles.
It is not clear why the United States continues to support Nuruddin az-Zinki despite its alliance with an al-Qaida affiliate.

Muhasayni’s interview with Shihab al-Deen could indicate that this alliance between Nuruddin az-Zinki and Al Nusra extends beyond the battlefield. Muhasayni is considered the spiritual father of al-Qaida in Syria.

The U.S. suspended non-lethal aid to Syrian rebels late in 2014, after jihadists seized warehouses storing supplies. But support for Nuruddin az-Zinki continued, the McClatchy news service reported.

○ Wahhabism: A deadly scripture | The Independent – Nov. 2007 |

Three of my many, many diaries over the sectarian/civil war in Syria over past five years …

○ Perhaps You Have Noticed … A turning Point In Syria (May 2013)
○ Jihad In Syria: Complexity of the Shiite Divide in Iraq and Iran (July 2013)
○ Obama’s Militaristic Policy of Regime Change and Propaganda (Sept. 2015)

I probably shouldn’t make any more election predictions this year, but it doesn’t seem likely that Tim Ryan will succeed in dethroning Nancy Pelosi as the leader of the House Democrats when they hold their leadership elections on Wednesday. Nonetheless, he’s forced Pelosi to negotiate with her restive caucus and offer some reforms.

A lot of the reforms have to do with providing more leadership opportunities for new members who feel shut out by the hard seniority system the Democrats use both formally (on committee assignments) and informally.

The most controversial proposal involves making “the third-ranking leadership post, currently held by Rep. Jim Clyburn (D-S.C.), a 12-term [Congressional Black Caucus] CBC member, …an elected seat reserved for lawmakers who have served three terms or less.” Rep. Clyburn has nothing to worry about because he’d be grandfathered into his post. Other proposals include:

• The creation of vice-ranking member positions on each committee, to be held by panel members who have served four terms or less.

• Making the now-appointed head of the Democratic Policy and Communications Committee (DPCC), a spot currently held by outgoing-Rep. Steve Israel (D-N.Y.), an elected position reserved for lawmakers serving fewer than three terms.

This gets entwined in internal racial politics in an interesting way. For a long time, black members who were first elected to Congress in the late 1960s and the 1970s were shut out of leadership positions due to lack of seniority, but their seats became safe in many instances and by the 1990’s they were benefitting from the seniority system. Understandably, they didn’t like the idea of changing the rules they had suffered under at the exact point in time that they stood to gain from it.

As things stand, many CBC members are serving (or set to serve) as the ranking (senior) members on committees. There’s Maxine Waters on Financial Services and John Conyers at Judiciary and Bennie Thompson on Homeland Security, for example. This history interjects itself into what might otherwise be a discussion purely on the merits of reforms in the present.

Seniority is obviously an imperfect barometer of expertise and competence, and sometimes capable leaders grow old and can no longer serve competently in positions of responsibility. But, on balance, a member who has served for fifteen years on a committee is better prepared to lead that committee than a freshman or sophomore member. The seniority system is a blunt instrument, but easily understandable, enforceable, and basically fair.

It does, however, disadvantage younger members and they are acting restless in the face of the election results.

I’m not sure that proposals like the one to create vice-ranking member positions on each committee for relative newcomers are going to do much either in a substantive way or as a balm for cranky feelings. The minority party in the House has almost no power in any case, and a vice ranking member isn’t going to have much to do. If and when the Democrats regain a majority, this would become a more interesting scenario, but one that might suffer from the “too-many-cooks-in-the-kitchen” problem. This is particularly true because committee chairmen are already historically weak. The Speaker and the leadership team ride herd on the chairmen and give them little independence.

So, I am not convinced these are worthwhile reforms although it’s interesting that Pelosi feels compelled to offer them.

Richard Baehr at American Thinker had a nice conspiracy theory going until someone pointed out that its key premise is flawed. Baehr tried to advance the idea that the Democrats and Jill Stein are participating in recounts of the vote in Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin in the hope that the process will not be completed in time for slates to be chosen in those states for the Electoral College. This would, the theory originally went, deny Donald Trump and Mike Pence 270 electoral votes and throw the presidential election to the House and the the vice-presidential election to the Senate.

And, what would be the point of doing this?

If this goes to the US House and Senate, and the result is the same as result from the Electoral College without the recounts, why do it? The answer is to make Trump seem even more illegitimate, that he did not win the popular vote (he lost by over 2.1 million), he did not win the Electoral College (did not reach 270), and was elected by being inserted into the presidency by members of his own party in Congress.

He had to update his post to acknowledge that the 270 vote requirement rests on there being 538 votes. If there are fewer votes, then the number required for a majority goes down. In other words, even if Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin don’t convene to vote because they can’t agree on who is authorized to vote, Trump will still win a majority of all the votes actually cast, assuming there aren’t a lot of faithless electors. The House and Senate would not need to get involved.

Still, is it possible that the primary motivation behind paying for these recounts is to delegitimize and thereby weaken Trump?

I see no evidence for that. To begin with, the states weren’t selected arbitrarily. They were selected at the suggestion of a small group of computer scientists and election lawyers who noticed anomalies in the votes in those three states and contacted the Clinton campaign to register their concerns and encourage them to call for an audit. If you want to understand the broader concerns better, Prof. J. Alex Halderman of the University of Michigan wrote about them recently. You can read more about how an election could be hacked from MIT Professor Ron Rivest and Philip Stark, the associate dean of mathematical and physical sciences at the University of California, Berkeley. In the case of the three states, there was a discrepancy between how well Trump did in precincts without paper ballots and how he did in precincts that have them. That discrepancy could easily be explained by other factors than hacking, and it was probably a mistake to take that ball and run with it. In fact, part of their message is that a professional hacking job would not be detectable in precincts that lack paper ballots. So, recounting those precincts is basically a misunderstanding of the threat.

Still, Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin are three states where Trump won by relatively narrow margins despite polling that consistently predicted he would lose. In fact, Michigan isn’t scheduled to certify Trump’s victory until this afternoon, and his margin currently sits at 10,704 out of 4,799,284 ballots cast.

The Clinton campaign initially showed little inclination to force a recount, but they will participate now that Green Party candidate Jill Stein has raised the money and signed the required papers to make them happen. If there is some secret collusion between the two campaigns, it is well-disguised. In fact, Jill Stein continues to trash Clinton on a semi-regular basis, including for not seeking the recounts herself.

Stein may be motivated by a desire for attention or to raise money for the Green Party, but those interests don’t intersect with Clinton’s interests.

Now, a hand recount could detect systematic hacking of machines that tabulate paper ballots, even if the hacking code self-destructed after use. If there’s a pattern of Clinton losing (and Trump gaining), say, ten out of a hundred votes in precinct after precinct, that will be trace evidence of what occurred.

The possibility of this happening is the reason election experts think there should always be paper ballots that can be recounted and that audits should be a standard part of all elections, without any party having to request or pay for them.

If nothing like this is found, that will add legitimacy to the election rather than subtracting from it. If evidence is found then the effort would be self-evidently justified.

Of course, I have no idea what would happen then, but it would at least motivate people to demand paper ballots and routine audits in the future. This is clearly what motivated the computer scientists and election lawyers who raised their concerns with the Clinton campaign. It’s less clear that it’s the primary motivator for Stein. The only motivation I see for Clinton is that they feel quite correctly that they ought to have people present during recounts even if they didn’t call for them and don’t expect to benefit from them.

Now, it would be understandable for Trump and his team to worry that this is an all effort to call their victory into question and delegitimize him. But he’s the one who took to Twitter this weekend to argue that the only reason he is behind in the popular vote is because millions of people voted illegally. That’s not only delusional, but it does more to undermine faith in the fairness of our elections than asking for a recount. Since Trump presumably wants to seek reelection without facing millions of illegal votes cast mostly against him, he should be calling for an audit himself if he really believes his own nonsense.

I don’t know what he believes, but he’s pretty aggressively delegitimizing both his election and himself without any help from Jill Stein and Hillary Clinton. Their efforts are more likely to legitimize Trump than not, and are certainly better for that purpose than doing nothing.

Unless, of course, there’s something the recounts are going to find that will truly call the election into question.

As I’ve already said, precincts without paper trails cannot be properly audited and the integrity of their counts can never be verified. So, I wouldn’t expect to find anything conclusive in a recount of those precincts. All that will accomplish is to make sure that election workers can use a calculator correctly. Of course, sometimes they can’t, and sometimes their stubby fingers seem to always err on the side of helping Trump.

Personally, I welcome the recounts, as flawed as they are, because they should be routine and because they’ll either find nothing which will bolster confidence in the result or they’ll find something that should lead to reforms and more secure elections in the future. It’s win-win, to me.

What I don’t believe is that it’s all part of some strategy to throw the election to Congress and make Trump look like a chump.

So…the latest PermaGov anti-Trump meme is “false news.” “False news” got him elected. False news and vote fraud. Not a terribly flawed Democratic candidate. Not a completely mucked up Democratic National Committee. Not a media system that has lost the belief of many, many U.S. citizens. Not a “Peace President” who waged war not only on Blood For Oil terms but… at the very least in a surveillance sense…even on his own people. Not a stalled economy, a criminal banking/financial system and the continual drip drip drip of U.S. jobs headed for foreign countries.

It wuz them damned Russkies!!!

Well I’ve got some news for y’all.

“False news” is the business in which the U.S. mass media traffics. This “false news” meme is itself false news. And Donald Trump, despite his many faults, is perfectly correct in stating that the U.S. mass media was (and remains) slanted against him on every level, and further is/was slanted for Hillary Clinton. What’s that you say? That was because he was such a bad candidate? Well…DUH!!! So was HRC. But she was the PermaGov’s bad candidate, so she was good. Right?

 Riiiiiight…

Here is a screen shot of the top of the Google News headline today (Mon. 11/28) at 9:36AM EST.

This is false news at its best.

It screams:

Everybody knows what an ugly piece of shit Donald Trump is!!!

Just look at the headlines!!!

Just look at the accompanying picture!!!

That nice lady Hillary Clinton got jobbed!!!

Recount!!! Recount!!! Recount!!!

The question remains…who is going to be doing the recount?

It’s like that old game show “Who Do You Trust?” The proper answer now is “Nobody!!!”

We are the ones being jobbed.

Yes, Trump is a drag. A personal drag if in no other ways.

Yes, he is appointing people to office that frighten many of us.

But that doesn’t mean that he should suffer a peremptory media strike and essentially be impeached before he is sworn in!!!

As Obama once said early in his run, “I won. Deal with it.”

Please!!!

A peremptory strike. That is what is now being run up the flagpole by the Permanent Government. It is saying “You aren’t playing ball by our rules, so we are either going to take you out of power before you get in or at the very least make your election so suspect that we will be able to use that suspicion to counter your every move.”

False news.

It’s what’s for dinner.

Along with the false food most people buy at the supermarket, the false “reality” TV…including the news…that they watch for hours every day and the false medical system that sells them poisonous drugs and unbearably priced bad medical care.

And people get mad at me for suggesting that they wake the fuck up.

WTFU!!!

You are still being had.

AG

See my recent remarks about the two former PMs of the UK, a joint effort from Consrvatives and the Blairites to save Britain from losing Atlantic influence in Europe. The military vanguard for the US and NATO across Europe and the globe after the intervention in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Whitehall and white washing seem to be natural allies …

[Most links added are mine – Oui]

Blair and Major don’t deserve this venom for joining Brexit debate | The Guardian – Opinion |

When Stanley Baldwin retired from the premiership in 1937, his approach was to put himself on mute. He made a promise: “I am not going to speak to the man on the bridge and I am not going to spit on the deck.”

Ex-prime ministers can be valuable repositories of experience and advice. If a former leader of the country thinks Britain is in danger of taking a hazardous road, I’d say they not only have a right to speak out, they have a responsibility.

So I am pleased that Tony Blair and Sir John Major have just broken Baldwin’s rule. Both men have decided that they do need to speak to the woman on the bridge. Both have issued warnings to Mrs May about the perils of hard Brexit. Both have suggested that a second referendum should not be ruled out. Both have been accused of spitting on the deck.

The former Tory prime minister, who can also turn a telling phrase when he puts his mind to it, argues that “the tyranny of the majority” cannot simply dictate the terms of exit, especially not on an issue of such gravity and when a very large minority voted the other way.

The venomous response they have received from the Brextremists is revealing. That tells us something about the insecurity that lurks beneath their braggadocio. If the terms of the divorce are going to be as sweet as the Brexiters keep promising, why does it strike such fear into their hearts whenever anyone floats the notion that it might be put before the British people for approval?

Blair is planning to launch an organisation at the beginning of next year and a large part of the impulse for doing so comes from the belief that a Corbyn Labour party and a Brexiteering Conservative party means “you’ve got millions of effectively politically homeless people”, as he recently told Jason Cowley of the New Statesman.

The Chilcot report reveals everything we’ve forgotten since 1945

MPs launch new attempt to interrogate Tony Blair over Iraq

A cross-party group of MPs will make a fresh effort to hold Tony Blair to account for allegedly misleading parliament and the public over the Iraq war.

The move, which could see Blair stripped of membership of the privy council, comes as the former prime minister tries to re-enter the political fray, promising to champion the “politically homeless” who are alienated from Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour and the Brexit-promoting government of Theresa May.

The group, which includes MPs from six parties, will put down a Commons motion calling for a parliamentary committee to investigate the difference between what Blair said publicly to the Chilcot inquiry into the war and privately, including assurances to then US president George W Bush.

Backing the motion are Alex Salmond, the SNP MP and former first minister of Scotland; Hywel Williams, Westminster leader of Plaid Cymru; and Green party co-leader Caroline Lucas.

Senior Tory and Labour MPs are also backing the move, which reflects widespread frustration that the publication of the Chilcot report in July, after a seven-year inquiry, did not result in any government action or accountability for Blair.  

○ Secret Whitehall telegram reveals truth behind controversial Saudi arms deal | The BAE Files – 2006 |

More below the fold …

Theresa May reassures 800,000 Poles living in UK over Brexit and condemns ‘shameful’ post-referendum attacks

Theresa May has told nearly 800,000 Poles living in the UK that she “wants and expects” them to remain in the country after Brexit and condemned “shameful” post-referendum attacks during a visit to Poland.

< photo >

Poland 'shocked' by xenophobic abuse of Poles in UK – use of word 'vermin' meaning genocide

Speaking in Warsaw, the Prime Minister spoke out against the “despicable” hate crimes Poles have suffered in the wake of the Brexit vote last month.

She also promised to “always” fulfil Britain’s obligations to Nato despite leaving the EU after UK troops were deployed to counter the threat of Russia in Eastern Europe.

○ Diplomacy post-Brexit: the UK sidelined and Nato damaged | LSE |
○ Liam Fox Says EU Nationals Are Key Negotiation ‘Card’ In Brexit Talks With Europe
○ Polish PM calls for ‘good compromise’ on Brexit

See my recent diary – EU/NATO Propaganda It’s About Daesh and Russia [Update5].

There may be some detail I am missing, but I have been looking at the 2018 races.  

The judicial filibuster will almost certainly be broken in the new Senate.  But much of what the GOP want’s to do can be done via reconciliation.

If the pattern from 2016 holds, the GOP may get to 60 votes in 2018.

This is the cheat seat for the Senate.  

A couple of things to say here:
1.  The 2018 electorate will not be as friendly as the one in 2016. This is particularly true in the Midwest, where we saw enormous swings from 2012 to 2016. Consider 2014:
Iowa – lost by 8
But the opposite was true in:
Michigan – Peters won by 13, but the Dems lost the governor’s race.
Minnesota – Won by 9.5

Democratic Seats are up in Ohio (Trump won by 8), Pennsylvania (Trump won by 1.1), Wisconsin (Basically a tie, but the GOP won the Gov’s race in 2014 and the Senate race in 2010), Michigan and Minnesota.

This tells me the Democrats need to figure out what happened in the Midwest quickly.  

2.  I think we can start by assuming the following seats are gone:
North Dakota
Montana
Indiana

Cook says that Montana and Indiana are Likely Democratic, and Indiana leans that way.  I don’t agree.  The evidence since 2010 is overwhelming: Red State Democrats lose.

Manchin holding on in West Virginia isn’t a foregone conclusion, but I do not include him in this list.

To get to 60 the GOP needs to win, in order of this sheet:
Ohio
Florida
Wisconsin
Michigan
Minnesota.

They also need to hold Nevada and Arizona, which may be fights.

To summarize: There is a long way to go until 2018.  But the potential for a GOP stranglehold on the Senate, and on Government, is much bigger than anticipated.

Most, including myself, underestimated Trump.

I would not do that again.

One reason I grow weary of the focus people place on the personalities and even (to a degree) the character of our presidential nominees is that winning control of the executive branch is always about a lot more than that. Either you’re on the left or you’re not. And if you want to understand what was lost in this election, just look at the rules that will go away. For example, let’s just look at energy-related issues.

Immediately after the election, EPA took preliminary steps toward regulating methane releases from oil and natural gas production — even though Trump’s win means that the overall effort to rein in the potent greenhouse gas is most likely doomed. In addition, the Fish and Wildlife Service released the final version of updated rules governing almost 1,700 oil and gas wells inside national wildlife refuges, and the Interior Department’s Bureau of Land Management released a major rule on leases for wind and solar projects on federal land.

Interior also released a final rule to limit fracking-related methane pollution on public lands a week after the election, prompting oil industry groups to file a lawsuit within minutes. And by Dec. 1, EPA faces a court-ordered deadline to propose a rule requiring companies that mine for minerals like gold and silver to demonstrate they can afford to clean up any pollution they cause. EPA is also awaiting White House approval for a rule governing emergency preparedness at chemical plants, in response to incidents such as a deadly 2013 fertilizer plant explosion in West, Texas.

It’s not just that Trump and the Republican Congress will gut all these rules in favor of polluters and climate warmers, the judges they appoint and confirm will move in the same direction.

But Hillary gave a speech to Goldman Sachs and isn’t likable enough, so fuck everything!

It doesn’t work like that.

I probably weigh character higher than policy, assuming there’s a serious character defect. Character is extraordinarily important in a president. But the defect has to be highly significant to overcome the massive difference between what a Republican in the White House gives us compared to a Democrat. Clinton never met that standard, or even came close to meeting it.

Obviously, Trump’s defects were so great and so glaringly obvious that he lost the support of everyone from right-wing newspaper editorial boards to the foreign policy establishment to Glenn Beck.

In his case, it was justifiable to conclude that policy be damned, this man should not be president. In Clinton’s case, anyone who came to that conclusion was simply wrong, and we will all pay the consequences.

On November 8, my spouse invited some female friends and relatives to witness what they were sure would be the election of the first female president of the United States. Now, my spouse had been a Sanders supporter, and recognized that Hillary Clinton had a lot of shortcomings, but still, the draw of “the first woman president” was very strong. I feel reasonably confident that there were millions of American women who shared that sentiment. I also feel reasonably confident that there were millions of Americans both male and female who sincerely felt that Hillary Clinton was a well-qualified candidate who would make a good president. I was one of those people.

I’ve read post-mortems here and elsewhere variously attacking the Clinton campaign as terrible; the institutional Democratic Party as corrupt and unwilling to admit mistakes; the Party, President Obama, and many Democratic voters as elitist. A few reactions to those post-mortems:

1. For the most part, the writers have oozed contempt for folks like my spouse and her women friends excited about a woman president, or folks like me and others who felt OK about voting for Hillary Clinton. For those expressing such sentiments, let me ask whether you’d like to find common cause in fighting against the Trumpian nightmare and rebuilding the Democratic Party. If you don’t, then I truly don’t understand why you’d want to post commentary here. And please note that we don’t get to rerun the campaign with Bernie Sanders as the Democratic candidate, so while what-if speculation may get your juices flowing, it’s only useful if it points a way forward.
2. The Clinton campaign screwed the pooch in many respects. Note, however, that Booman has written to point out how the campaign did meet its goals in urban areas but was swamped by an overwhelming Trump vote in exurban areas. You can decide to read this result as an unmitigated failure. You can also decide to read this result as a partial success combined with a catastrophic failure (say). Neither is acceptable but as the response depends upon the diagnosis, it’s important that the diagnosis not be skewed by either institutional inertia or an unrelenting hostility to and rejection of said institutional party.
3. Supposedly the institutional Democratic Party is all into finger pointing, as opposed to the mature Republican Party of 2012 with its post-mortem calling for a more inclusive politics. Is it really necessary to point out that the GOP post-mortem was published months after the election? Or that the prescriptions of that post-mortem were discarded in the most spectacular fashion imaginable? I expect the Democratic Party is going to do its own introspection down the line.
4. There are writers here who were rigorously and harshly critical of Clinton but were also writing–before the election–about what a bumbler Trump was, and about their vision for the Republican Party after Trump’s catastrophic defeat. Nobody who wrote in that vein now gets to act like a prophet whose admonitions were ignored.

As the first Republican president said, we must all hang together, or surely we will hang separately.

I’ll be interested to hear reactions of all sorts.