More Jobs? No, More Lies.

President-elect Donald Trump speaking to reporters at Mar-a-Lago on Wednesday. CREDIT: AP Photo/Evan Vucci.

President-elect Donald Trump speaking to reporters at Mar-a-Lago on Wednesday. CREDIT: AP Photo/Evan Vucci.

On Wednesday, President-elect Donald Trump made a huge announcement: because of his presidency, Sprint has decided to bring back or create 5,000 jobs in the United States, while satellite startup OneWeb will create another 3,000.

The claim, however, was false. Those jobs are part of a $50 billion investment from SoftBank, which owns 80 percent of Sprint and has made a large investment in OneWeb, that was previously announced as part of a deal with a Saudi investment fund before Trump won the presidency. Meanwhile, not all of the jobs promised by Sprint will be at the company itself, but instead at contractors.

But it’s in both the company’s interests and Trump’s to create glowing, if misleading, headlines about cooperation between the administration and the corporation.

For Sprint, cozying up to Trump is almost certainly related to the hope that it can get approval of its previously failed attempt to merge with T-Mobile. Sprint was in the process of making a bid to buy T-Mobile in 2014, and thus combining the third and fourth largest wireless carriers in the country, but ended up abandoning the plan in the face of regulatory opposition from the Department of Justice (DOJ) and the Federal Communications Commission (FCC). Both agencies have stated an intent to keep four major carriers in the country, rather than let them combine, under current leadership.

While Sprint has been able to remain solvent since then, it hasn’t turned an annual profit since 2006 and has more than $30 billion in total debt. SoftBank’s CEO Masayoshi Son, who personally met with Trump after the election and re-announced his company’s intents to invest in the United States from Trump Tower, has made it clear that he sees consolidation as a must for getting the company to profitability. “We need scale,” he told Bloomberg in 2014. And he still reportedly has his eyes on T-Mobile.

If the FCC and DOJ become more friendly to mega-mergers under Trump, that would be an enormous win for the company. And even before Sprint started currying favor with Trump, his administration has been shaping up to be just what the company is looking for. One of the president-elect’s top policy advisers on technology has suggested abolishing the FCC altogether and is a proponent of industry mergers, writing, “Telecommunications network providers and ISPs are rarely, if ever, monopolies.” Other advisers are staunchly against net neutrality regulations that aim to keep the internet a level playing field but have been opposed by giants like AT&T and Verizon.

Rarely monopolies. Right. In what fucking universe? Have people forgotten Ma Bell already? It wasn’t that bloody long ago.  Living rural, I already get screwed royally when it comes to net access, and I’m capped, too. No streaming for me, I can’t afford it. Whether or not I’ll be able to afford net access at all once the incoming administration guts everything, who knows? I really hate interesting times.

There’s much more at Think Progress.

The Inauguration Huckster.

Donald Trump with Pastor Paula White (Photo: Facebook).

Donald Trump with Pastor Paula White (Photo: Facebook).

Take a good look at the background in that photo.

In 2007, TV preacher Paula White got investigated by the U.S. Senate for her shady fundraising practices.

Ten years later, she will pray at Donald Trump’s inauguration.

Yes, really.

White is a televangelist with a huge audience and a knack for stirring controversy. She’s been a Trump booster for years, and she helped organize a summit for him in the early days of his presidential campaign with other televangelists. Her presence at the inauguration is a very strong indicator that Trump’s White House will be a safe space for the Christian right’s most controversial characters.

Think of Paula White’s ministry as the church version of Trump University. She preaches the prosperity gospel, an approach to Christianity that is, shall we say, unorthodox. Prosperity-gospel preachers teach that God wants people to be rich, and that he makes them wealthy as a sign of his blessing and favor; the richer you are, the more God loves you.

[…]

While Grassley was investigating White, Trump was praising her. CNN quoted him in a broadcast aired Nov. 26, 2007, describing her in glowing terms.

“Paula White is not only a beautiful person, both inside and out, she has a significant message to offer anyone who will tune in and pay attention,” Trump said. “She has amazing insight, the ability to deliver that message clearly, as well as powerfully.”

White has expressed similar sentiments about Trump, once describing him as “a diamond that reveals a new facet each time it is turned in the light.”

And during Trump’s campaign, she vouched for his saintliness.

[…]

As The Daily Beast detailed last year, the overlap between Trump’s and White’s message is glaring. One of the sermons for sale on her website is called “Why God Wants You Wealthy.” Trump, meanwhile, wrote a book titled Why We Want You to Be Rich. Trump and God both. Why aren’t you rich already?

Via The Daily Beast.

The Persecution Files: Gohmert & Gaffney.

Catholics burning Protestants, a fine old Christian tradition.

Catholics burning Protestants, a fine old Christian tradition.

Christians just love the idea of persecution. Generally speaking, throughout all of Xian history, the persecution was applied by them, towards pretty much everyone, including those Xians who decided to do things a bit differently. The history of Xianity is a particularly nasty one, and it’s not at all like they like to paint, with them the humble, willing martyrs so terribly persecuted. The initial church, the Catholic one, had a death grip on many world leaders, as well as too much of the population. The had terrible wealth and power, and used it. Ages went by with the constant spilling of blood, all the wars, the crusades, condemning countless children and adults to death. All the declarations of heresy. The inquisition. Oh, all those witches to torture, burn, and hang. A Christian’s work is never done. Once divisions took place, those who rejected Catholicism got busy torturing and killing those who wouldn’t renounce Catholicism (as in Hawaii), and so on. A history replete with brutal oppression, burning with fanatical hatred and writ in blood. The majority of Xians, anywhere in the world, know very little about actual history. They know the insipid stories they are fed, and little more. Learning on your own when you’re any flavour of xian is frowned upon, and quickly discouraged. Learning has this nasty habit of shedding light, and making a person curious and questioning. Not a good thing when it comes to religion. You are, to steal from Futurama, to choose to believe what you have been programmed to believe.

Christians to this day insist they are persecuted, oh yes we are, they cry, while stamping their feet. This never ending cry is often deafening here in uStates. Recently, the ever delusional Louie Gohmert and Frank Gaffney went on and on about it.

[Read more…]

The Swamp? It’s the New Agenda.

Swamp Thing, DC Comics.

Swamp Thing, DC Comics.

Trump yakked a lot about lobbyists, and “draining the swamp”, all of it bullshit, of course. Trump’s a toxic Swamp Thing, and he’s going to have help in building and managing the swamp.

On Wednesday, however, two key Trump campaign advisers announced they would form a “full service government relations and political consulting firm” in Washington, “just a block from the White House” at 1717 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW.

Corey Lewandowski, who served as Trump’s first campaign manager and was also paid by CNN to advocate for Trump on the air, will join with senior campaign adviser Barry Bennett to launch the firm. Their mission, Lewandowski revealed, would be supporting Trump’s agenda.

“After considering multiple opportunities within the administration,” Lewandowski wrote, he determined he can best help Trump “outside the formal structure of government.” He added that for Trump to succeed, it is “necessary to have strong, organized outside groups who can help ensure the President-elect’s agenda is achieved.”

But rather than launch a political advocacy non-profit, the two have opted to launch a “government relations firm.” The firm’s website makes clear that it plans to provide “client-tailored strategy and guidance carefully designed to help our clients navigate our government.” In other words, using their access to the new administration to make sure the President-elect’s agenda includes the priorities of their clients.

As Mother Jones noted, back in February Lewandowski denounced lobbyists as willing to say or do anything to preserve “backroom deals,” and vowed that if Trump won, “people who’ve made a very, very good living by controlling politicians through their donations and making sure they get the legislation done — or not done — in Washington, DC to best benefit their clients” would find their days of influence “coming to an end.”

Or not.

Looks like lobbying is just going to be re-branded. Swamping? Perhaps Trumping, as that would most likely serve the extreme narcissist the best. This is open corruption, and they don’t care even a little. Think Progress has the full story.

Oh, The Constitution.

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The Constitution. My feelings about it? Fuck the constitution. That superannuated paen to the rich and the immoral should have been scrapped long ago, and been replaced with something progressive and relevant. The very worst of people worship that ragged document, twisting it to support evil ideologies and actions; much like people with their holy books of myths (for the hard of thinking, yes, that includes the bible). Gun fondlers adore it, as do all manner of right wingers. Republicans routinely mouth off about their constitution love, and how great and grand it is, etc. It isn’t grand. It isn’t great. It’s a document of its times, put together in the flush of a successful genocide, by wealthy, bloodthirsty men, who weren’t overly concerned with moral or ethical behaviour. You can, of course, see the appeal to republicans, but more than anything else right now, the constitution highlights the abject hypocrisy of all conservatives.

Republicans are always the first to scream “constitution!” whenever there’s something proposed which they don’t like, and they are always the first to search for the tiniest of constitutional violations in the case of someone they find appalling, like President Obama. The conservatives went lunatic fringe, searching for anything which could constitute a violation, so they could oust him from office. Now, the pres-elect will be violating the constitution in the same manner he violated a very long line of women, but who wants to bet the republicans will be zealously pursuing those violations with an aim to impeach? I don’t imagine I’ll have any takers on that bet. I’d be willing to say they are going to find every gorram excuse in the book to absolve Donny in all the violations, and with that, they will demonstrate how little they actually care about that supposedly hallowed document.

What kind of nation allows the loser of a national election to become president — and then does it again 16 years later?

What kind of nation retains an electoral process that was originally designed to inflate the influence of slaveholders?

What kind of nation permits its Congress to write a time bomb into law that periodically forces rival factions into a game of chicken that could wreck the world economy?

What kind of nation fights a civil war over the question of whether people of African descent are people or property, and then looks the other way when the loser ignores the resolution of that war? What kind of nation waits until 1965 to guarantee black people’s right to vote?

Americans speak of our Constitution as if it were a religious text. To label a law “unconstitutional” is not simply to say that it violates some procedural rule or legal technicality, it is to label it fundamentally unAmerican. To do so is to question the values of any lawmaker despicable enough to support such a law, and to suggest that those values are at odds with who we are as a nation.

But our Constitution has not served us nearly as well as we would have been served by other systems adopted by our peer nations. Nor has it lived up to the expectations of its drafters.

Now, our country is facing a man of superlative ignorance. A racist. An admitted sexual assaulter of women. A man poised to violate the Constitution the very instant he takes the oath of office. A man who openly encouraged Russia’s efforts to usher him into the White House. A man who owes his election to the underhanded efforts of deep state actors within our nation’s internal police agency. A man who lost the popular vote by nearly 3 million votes. And the Constitution has placed this man in the White House.

The Constitution gave Donald Trump command of the world’s most powerful military and an nuclear arsenal that can eradicate all life on Earth. It let him name a racist as our nation’s top enforcer of its laws. It let him use his office to sell hotel rooms to foreign diplomats. The Electoral College has voted. Trump will be our next president. This is what the Constitution hath wrought.

It did this because our Constitution remains the product of a compromise with moral monsters who believed that human beings could be owned as property. It did this because our Constitution offers no guarantee, or even much in the way of likelihood, that the men and women elected to lead the country will share the preferences of the nation as a whole. It did this because our Constitution fosters voter ignorance. It did this because our Constitution can be gamed — and was gamed quite successfully by the Republican Party.

Emphasis mine. And right there is exactly what the constitution means to conservatives: a means to get their way, to make sure fascism comes marching in, wrapped in a flag and carrying a bible. Nothing is sacred to conservatives, nothing at all. Well, no, a couple of things are sacred to conservatives: the state of their wallet, and the power to oppress and destroy other people.

The full story is at Think Progress, a highly recommended read.

ETA: It seems that even those republicans who might have spoken out are now too overcome by fear to do so. Ain’t fascism fun?

ETA: It’s begun, let’s write special laws, and Donny can just pardon people as he goes along!

Fuck every single person who has brought us to this, and fuck all those who will stand by silently, letting it happen.

Merry Christmas! You’re Fired.

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General Motors: GM announced Monday that it will lay off 1,300 workers at a Detroit plant. The workers make the Chevy Volt, in addition to the Chevy Impala and Buick LaCrosse.

Those job cuts are in addition to 2,000 other GM (GM) employees who will lose their jobs within a month.

Boeing: Layoffs are nothing new for Boeing in 2016 — the company has already fired thousands as demand for jumbo jets slumps. But Boeing (BA) told employees Monday it will continue to cut jobs at its commercial airplane unit in 2017, citing fierce competition with rival Airbus and a drop in new orders.

Airbus also told its labor unions in November that it was cutting around 1,200 jobs.

GoPro: The action camera company announced plans last month to lay off 200 workers. That comes after it laid off more than 100 employees in January.

Many of the latest job cuts come as GoPro (GPRO, Tech30) plans to shut down its entertainment unit. That group was responsible for featuring videos shot on GoPro’s action cameras.

Xerox: The company is splitting in two before the end of the year, and company President Jeff Jacobson says layoffs are coming — even though the point of the split was to stem the company’s sales slide.

He declined to say how many will be let go, but the 39,000 employees at Xerox’s (XRX) legacy copier business are most likely to be impacted.

Caterpillar: After laying off 10,000 employees last fall, Caterpillar (CAT) said last week that it will issue another round of pink slips.

The construction giant didn’t say how many jobs will be cut, but it said it will try to place as many as possible in new jobs at the company. A post-recession rebound has proved difficult for Caterpillar. Its forecast for the coming year is pretty dour.

The Limited: The clothing store told all 248 employees at its Ohio home office that their jobs are in jeopardy. Earlier this month, the company said on an earnings call that it is looking for cash to keep the company alive, and it might have to shutter stores.

Ho Ho Fucking Ho. And people think Trump is going to magically fix this? The man who handed Carrier millions upon millions so they can automate people out of their jobs? Dream on, as you fall into poverty.

More bad news here: Trump ignores Indiana factory relocating to Mexico.

Via CNN.

What Healthcare?

© nicolasjoseschirado, fotalia.

© nicolasjoseschirado, fotalia.

For all the years of screaming over the Affordable Care Act, dubbed Obamacare by the sea of conservative idiots, who insisted death panels would be a comin’ for everyone, what actually happened was that a multitude of people not only lived, but they got healthier, too. That’s generally what happens when people have heath care. In my view, ACA isn’t enough, uStates should grow the fuck up and join all the places in the world who have figured out that healthy citizens are a good thing, and that healthcare is a basic right.

Oh, but we can’t have that, not here in this pit formerly known as America, why that, that might smack of socialism, oh no! It’s juvenile, willfully ignorant conservatives who are going to bring death, which to them, is by far more preferable than having healthcare for all citizens. Now, those who are sitting on nice piles of cash and can afford good coverage, they aren’t worried. It’s just the rest of us who will suffer, and conservatives have never rated on the empathy scale, they just don’t give a fuck about anyone except themselves. Oh, yes, conservatives are, by and large, spiteful assholes, and they just can’t wait to kill off healthcare, out of spite. Yes, a lot of people are going to die because of spite. There’s no reason to dismantle the ACA, it works. It’s not the best plan, but given how many obstacles conservatives kept throwing, it was a near act of brilliance to get most people desperately needed healthcare. When people don’t have healthcare, they can’t face any debt care would bring, and medical debt piles up fast, ask anyone who has had a medical emergency. One emergency can land you in a pit of poverty for a lifetime. Just why in the fuckety fuck do moron-minded conservatives think that’s a dandy plan? So, when people have no insurance, no care, they just keep going until they drop, literally.

Why does that define “exceptional America”? Because to me, that’s a good description of a 3rd world pit with despotic rule, where there’s at most a shrug over people dying. Condemning people to death should not be a source of pride. It should be a source of shame, but, conservatives seem to have no sense of shame, along with no empathy.

Not long ago, Americans learned that the average life expectancy for white people in this country – those most likely to have voted for Donald Trump – actually declined for the first time in many years. The pathologies and frustrations believed to have driven that decline may have motivated the tiny handful of votes that gave Trump his Electoral College victory.

But not long after their euphoria over his inauguration fades, they are going to learn why his administration is so likely to drive those statistics in the wrong direction. Despite his promise to protect Social Security and Medicare – and his vow to replace the Affordable Care Act with “something much better” – Trump’s cabinet appointees and his allies in Congress plan ruinous changes to those programs. And that will mean ruin, and in thousands of cases death, for the mostly white and working class people who depend so heavily on them.

Unless the Republicans come up with a plausible bill to replace Obamacare, which has eluded them since 2009, millions of their constituents will lose the health insurance they have only recently gained – and yes, thousands of those people will die next year.

[Read more…]

The Twelve Days of Trumpmas.

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The Religious Reich have a Xmas wish list, one they fully expect Santa Trump to fulfill. Just the wish list here, click over to Right Wing Watch for the grisly details.

After jettisoning all of their rhetoric about public morality and personal character in order to help Donald Trump get elected, Religious Right activists are now hoping the president-elect fulfills the promises he made to the social conservative movement during his campaign.

Trump, who received the support of around eight in ten white evangelical voters, spent months boasting that he is a “great Christian” who will restore the long-lost holiday of Christmas and create “the strongest Christian lobby.”

[…]

“Like President-elect Trump, we have much to celebrate this Christmas season,” the National Right to Life Committee declared in its December newsletter, rejoicing in Trump’s anti-choice policies and Cabinet picks.

As Christmas approaches, Religious Right activists are reminding Trump of the good deeds they did to help elect him and demanding that he, in turn, deliver on his promises. Here are just 12 of the gifts the Religious Right is expecting from Trump in the new year:

  1. Nominate conservatives to the Supreme Court.
  2. Repeal the Affordable Care Act.
  3. Sign the First Amendment Defense Act.
  4. Rescind Nondiscrimination Protections.
  5. Defund and Investigate Planned Parenthood.
  6. Reinstate the Mexico City Policy.
  7. Codify The Hyde Amendment.
  8. Sign a 20-week Abortion Ban.
  9. Sign The Conscience Protection Act.
  10. Repeal The Johnson Amendment.
  11. Federal Voucher Funding.
  12. Curb Immigration, Ban Muslims and Stop Refugee Resettlement.

The details aren’t pretty. If all this is managed, we’ll be well past the welcome to fascism stage. Via Right Wing Watch.

Oh, How Conservative Times Have Changed.

Herblock March 29, 1950 cartoon that originally defined McCarthyism.

Herblock March 29, 1950 cartoon that originally defined McCarthyism.

McCarthyism hadn’t been long over when I was born, and the effects of the hunt for communists and other undesirables had far reaching ripples. The John Birch Society was still going strong, and Russia was most definitely perceived as The Enemy. This sentiment echoed right on down the 1960s, and I remember being called a commie hippie more than once. Anything conservatives didn’t like was labeled “commie” – engaged in activism for peace? Commie. Against the Vietnam war? Commie. And fluoride in the drinking water was a commie plot, too. You couldn’t get away from the intense anti-Russia sentiment, it was everywhere, and there was a great and abiding fear of Russia, too. The Cold War was everywhere, and Nikita Khrushchev was in the news every 5 minutes for years.

If there was one thing you could count on from conservatives, it was their united hatred and fear of Russia. Although this quieted down in subsequent decades, it never really went away, in spite of Gorbachev and Glasnost. There were always cons somewhere, pointing a trembling finger at Russia. Given all that, it’s remarkable just how much things have changed, in a very short time.

A new YouGov/Economist poll found that among registered Republicans and Trump voters, more than a third now hold a “favorable” view of Russian President Vladimir Putin. Though a majority still view Putin negatively, right-wing media — which spent years holding Putin up as a “better leader” than President Barack Obama — set the stage for Republican opinions to shift in the autocrat’s favor, leading to a nearly 50-point swing in support from conservatives in just over two years. And after the United States intelligence community publicly disclosed that its members believe Russia interfered in the 2016 election, many right-wing media figures doubled down on their support for Putin and are downplaying Russia’s involvement in the election.

Putin is an authoritarian “strongman” who has cracked down in Russia on freedom of speech and freedom of the press, signed into law draconian anti-gay legislation, and invaded and annexed the Crimean Peninsula, part of Ukraine. Nevertheless, for years, right-wing media have praised Vladimir Putin as a great leader, comparing him favorably against Obama. Fox figures have consistently lauded the Russian autocrat as “a real he-man” and have claimed that Putin has “come to the diplomatic rescue” of President Obama. One Fox host even went so far as to proclaim that she would like Putin to be president of the United States “for 48 hours,” so he could fight ISIS. In 2014, conservative commentator Pat Buchanan suggested that Putin is “one of us” and applauded him for “planting Russia’s flag firmly on the side of traditional Christianity” with his policies against reproductive rights and LGBTQ rights — evidence, Buchanan suggested, that God is on Putin’s side in his clash with the West. Even conservative talk radio host Rush Limbaugh once admitted that Putin was “saying things I agree with” when the Russian president announced that he “opposed the adoption of Russian orphans by lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender foreign couples.”

Primed by right-wing media, Trump voters now hold a more positive view of Putin and Russia. Since July 2014, Republican voters’ opinions overall of Putin have improved by 56 points, and in 2016 they voted for a candidate in Trump who is openly sympathetic to the autocrat and even invited his government to hack personal emails from Trump’s Democratic rival, Hillary Clinton. According to the poll, 35 percent of Trump voters and 37 percent of registered Republicans now hold a “favorable” view of Putin.

netgraph

Now, even though the U.S. intelligence community has stated that its members are “confident that the Russian Government directed the recent compromises of e-mails from US persons and institutions, including from US political organizations,” some right-wing media are siding with Putin and downplaying the severity of the hacks.

My, my. A complete shift from Enemy to Saviour. Via Media Matters.

The Twists and Turns of Extortion.

Foreign governments and lobbyists have rushed to book rooms at the new Trump International Hotel in D.C., expecting to curry favor with the president-elect. Chip Somodevilla/Getty

Foreign governments and lobbyists have rushed to book rooms at the new Trump International Hotel in D.C., expecting to curry favor with the president-elect. Chip Somodevilla/Getty.

Newsweek has broken a story about the twisty financial ties of Trump, and how very easy it would be for foreign governments to do some serious arm twisting, to get Trump to do their bidding. As I hope has been made clear through dozens upon dozens of posts, Trump is primarily concerned with his name and his wallet. This whole government thing, not so much. Anyone who thinks Trump will actually divest prior to inauguration, oh please, make it back to reality land. That simply won’t happen. Trump has already stated he doesn’t care if it’s a violation of the constitution. Unfortunately, that particular mess does not rest there. If you need one more reason to actively fight against Trump, here it is – this is person who thinks of the presidency as nothing more than a good business opportunity. He not only does not understand the implications, he does not care. This is just the tip of the iceberg, one which spells out, very clearly, that Trump is placing the U.S. government in a prime position to be blackmailed by an assortment of other governments.

Despite universal condemnation of the ongoing slaughter of Filipinos, Trump signaled his approval of Duterte’s policies during a phone call on December 2. According to Duterte—an account that has gone uncontested by Trump—the president-elect endorsed his tactics as “the right way.” Duterte added: “[Trump] was wishing me success in my campaign against the drug problem.” (He also said Trump invited him to the White House, a courtesy not yet extended to Theresa May, the prime minister of Britain, America’s most important strategic ally.)

[…]

One thing, however, is clear: The Trump family has an enormous financial interest in keeping Duterte happy. Trump Tower at Century City in Makati, Philippines, is on the verge of completion, with potential buyers having placed deposits on at least 94 percent of the condominiums, according to Century Properties, the Trump Organization’s business partner there. During the U.S. presidential campaign, Trump’s sons Donald Jr. and Eric traveled to Makati to shovel some dirt in a ceremony to celebrate the structural completion of the building; a photograph of the two men shoveling alongside top Century Properties executives was posted on the building’s website. (On that same website, a line of jewelry by Trump’s daughter Ivanka is offered for sale, and it is expected to be available for purchase at the $150 million property.) As with almost every property with Trump’s name on it built over the past decade, his company is not the developer; it merely sold its name to Century Properties to use on the building. Although details of the transaction are not public, contracts for other Trump branding deals reviewed by Newsweek show that they require a multimillion-dollar up-front payment as well as up to 25 percent of the developer’s revenue, year after year. So, under the deal, Trump’s children will be paid millions of dollars throughout their father’s presidency by Jose E.B. Antonio, the head of Century Properties.

Duterte recently named Antonio the special government envoy to the United States. The conflicts here could not be more troubling or more blatant: President Trump will be discussing U.S. policy in Southeast Asia with one of his (or his children’s) business partners, a man who is the official representative of a foreign leader who likens himself to Hitler. Also note that the Trump family has an enormous financial interest in Duterte’s deadly campaign: Rooting out crime in the Philippines is good for the real estate values.

The full, in-depth article is here.

Rachel Maddow also addressed highly troubling concerns when it comes to a Trump financial tangle and Turkey.

According to Maddow, Trump has a business relationship with the Doğan family, owners of Doğan Holding, which is building twin towers in Turkey bearing the Trump name for which the Trump family stands to make millions of dollars.

[…]

Maddow then got to the heart of the matter.

“Turkey desperately wants the U.S. government to extradite an imam [Turkish cleric Fethullah Gulen],” Maddow explained. “They [the U.S.] have said that they are not extraditing him. But if that’s what you wanted, what if you could squeeze the personal financial interests of the American president as a way to get what you want from the American government?”

“I mean, the Trump family and the president-elect themselves, they stand to make millions of dollars from their relationship with the Doğan group in Turkey. That will stop if they get locked up,” she continued. “So they started locking them up. Nice leverage, right? It would be one thing if it was business leverage — but it’s leverage against all of us as Americans.”

As Eichenwald notes in his article: “If Erdoğan’s government puts more pressure on the company that’s paying millions of dollars to Trump and his children, revenue flowing from that tower complex in Istanbul could be cut off. That means Erdoğan has leverage with Trump, who will soon have the power to get Gulen extradited.”

Full story and video here.

High Disapproval.

1_1The Pew Research Center has a new report out, an 8 page report. Personally, I find it disturbing, because while disapproval of Trump is very high at the moment, the survey reflects a forlorn hope that somehow or another, actually being president will somehow make Trump okay at the job. That, or some people may be pinning their hope on Pence actually doing all the work, but that’s hardly good news. It would certainly be worse news for the queer community.

My point of view is that this just another example of American apathy swinging into place. “Well, he was elected, he’ll get better once he’s actually in office. That will tame him.” To that, I say the fuck it will. He’s already setting the stage for mass destruction, and he’s not in office yet. Why in the hell anyone would think it might be better once he gets in the white house is beyond me. For the zillionth time, he’s a conman, a known fraud. This is not news, and there are piles of evidence of his fraudulent practices littered all over the place. He is a compulsive liar and a sexual predator. Trump is an extreme narcissist, and he will not change once he has his feet under the presidential table.

I understand people wanting to pull some sort of protective shell around themselves, hell, if I had a bunker, I’d probably be in it by now, pretending none of this happened. It has happened though, and telling yourself little fairy stories about how it will somehow magically be alright – that won’t help. It won’t help you, it won’t help anyone else. We must all be brave, and stare reality in the face, eyes wide open, and fight back.

Pew Research Center Report in Full.

 

Russia Hacks; Trump Lies.

trump-modok-spider-gwen-188535More information continues to come out in regard to Russia’s interference in the election. They have proved to be adept masters at manipulation, not that it was particularly difficult to manipulate a good portion of the American people. Really, all it took was playing to the implicit and explicit bigotry of many white Americans, and playing on the fears of the rest. There was a time, decades ago, when America in general didn’t have a problem with intelligence. Intellect was considered to be a good thing, along with the tools to use it. There was a push to get everyone into college, and I think that was a mistake because it was done for the wrong reason, it was promoted as college = good job, rather than stressing the opportunity to learn, to expand your personal horizons, and simply to instill a lifetime love of learning.

There’s always been a serious strain of resentment bubbling along in America, the resentment of colonial minded people who are always prepared to think they’ve been denied their big ol’ piece of the pie, here in the land of the self-made man. That goes hand in hand with the idea that “lesser” people (non-white) have no business “taking jobs” away from them. This was at the bottom of the massive shift to anti-intellectualism, the eschewing of intelligence as a good or desirable trait. I’d place the serious start of this around the time of Reagan. It was slow to start, but rapidly gained ground.

Throughout the years, people got sleepy and apathetic, on all sides. We suffered through a number of years of remarkably bad leadership, this just being one of them:

Ignoring intelligence briefings can have real, disastrous consequences. In August 2001, President George W. Bush was handed a memo entitled, “Bin Laden Determined to Strike in U.S.” But after receiving that briefing, Bush downplayed the intelligence, reportedly telling the briefer, “All right. You’ve covered your ass, now.” Just over one month later, Bin Laden struck with the September 11 attacks.

Pretty sure most people know the consequences of that instance of lousy leadership. That consequence so scared many Americans, who were living in their insular bubble, that they voluntarily started giving up their rights, one after the other. We’re still dealing with the fucking snarled mess created in the aftermath, and none of it is right. We took rights away from citizens, but gave every right to militarized cops. Citizens are expected to be under constant surveillance, but cops are not expected to have visual records of their behaviour, and no one seems to care if they tamper with what records do exist. So, Putin takes a good look at his buddy, Trump. Then he takes a good look at all the money which could be made if Trump were to be elected. Then he takes a look at the mob. A mob fueled by bigotry based hate, with a hard on against intelligence and critical thought, but enamored with conspiracy theories. People soaking up fake news with nary a thought to flex their index finger a couple of times to verify. Not difficult to manipulate at all. The timing was exquisite, and the hack worked exactly as planned. Time for homework:

Trump claims no one discussed Russian hacking before the election. His own tweets prove he’s lying.

Trump says it’s OK if he skips intelligence briefings because he’s ‘a smart person’.

McConnell Covered Up CIA Reports That Russian Hacks Were Aimed At Electing Trump.

Russian media expert tells CNN: ‘They’ve succeeded in hacking our elections’ and now ‘the damage is done’.

Trump’s response on Russia draws pushback from Republican senators.

All of the Republicans supporting a congressional investigation into Russian election interference.