#discrediting and disparaging those who can testify against you | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

thepatriotplace-blog · 4 years ago

Text

The Patriot Warrior Class

Its been awhile since I’ve posted on Tumblr. In fact I actually kind of forgot I had the account. I created this account a few years ago and I named it “the patriot place”. Pretty self explanatory.

Let me tell you about me. I am first and foremost a patriotic American. I have always called myself a patriot. I’ve been a libertarian party member for many years. I’ve voted in many POTUS general elections for the libertarian candidate (with the exception of 2x). I’ve always had a deep love for the US constitution have spoken out about the blatant corruption of the constitution that has been going on in America my whole life.

I also consider myself a warrior. Although I have never served in the military I was a police officer for 25 years and have since retired. My duties as a police officer included SWAT and emergency tactical medicine. I have been trained by the best warriors America has to offer.

Since the election of Donald Trump (who I didn’t vote for) I have seen the rapid decay of the Libertarian Party. It has become polluted with progressives, pedophiles and people suffering from Trump Derangement Syndrome. My interactions with the neo-libertarians has been sad. Justin Amash has completely flipped in my view and I align more with Rand Paul than I do with Ron Paul. Jo Jorgesen who is the Libertarian’s Party POTUS candidate is and her public support of a Marxist organization was the last straw for me. I am no longer a member of the libertarian party.

I now consider myself a member of the patriot warrior class. I am prepared to fight and die for the Republic and its constitution. I took an oath to uphold the constitution of the United States and that doesn’t end when there is (Ret.) at the end of my name. There are many like me. Men and women who served and are currently serving to protect our Republic who believe in what I believe in are what will save this country from the Marxist insurrection, which is back politically by the Democrat Party and financed by the CCP and George Soros that is taking place within the US’s borders.

The neo-libertarians wont fight for the Republic. They are feckless and nothing more than internet bottle throwers and trolls. Their mentality is the same as the progressives, ‘Burn it down at all costs to get Trump out.”

The single most important event that turned the page in this chapter in my life had to be Trump’s speech at the National Archives Museum on Constitution Day. I have never heard a politician since Reagan deliver a speech more patriotic than this speech. I’ve included the transcript of that speech. So I will end this post with this.... In 2020 I will vote Vote Trump.

THE PRESIDENT: Thank you very much. Thank you, Mike. A great Vice President. I am truly honored to be here at the very first White House Conference on American History. So important.

Our mission is to defend the legacy of America’s founding, the virtue of America’s heroes, and the nobility of the American character. We must clear away the twisted web of lies in our schools and classrooms, and teach our children the magnificent truth about our country. We want our sons and daughters to know that they are the citizens of the most exceptional nation in the history of the world. (Applause.)

To grow up in America is to live in a land where anything is possible, where anyone can rise, and where any dream can come true — all because of the immortal principles our nation’s founders inscribed nearly two and a half centuries ago.

That’s why we have come to the National Archives, the sacred home of our national memory. In this great chamber, we preserve our glorious inheritance: the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, the Bill of Rights.

On this very day in 1787, our Founding Fathers signed the Constitution at Independence Hall in Philadelphia. It was the fulfillment of a thousand years of Western civilization. Our Constitution was the product of centuries of tradition, wisdom, and experience. No political document has done more to advance the human condition or propel the engine of progress.

Yet, as we gather this afternoon, a radical movement is attempting to demolish this treasured and precious inheritance. We can’t let that happen. (Applause.) Left-wing mobs have torn down statues of our founders, desecrated our memorials, and carried out a campaign of violence and anarchy. Far-left demonstrators have chanted the words “America was never great.” The left has launched a vicious and violent assault on law enforcement — the universal symbol of the rule of law in America. These radicals have been aided and abetted by liberal politicians, establishment media, and even large corporations.

Whether it is the mob on the street, or the cancel culture in the boardroom, the goal is the same: to silence dissent, to scare you out of speaking the truth, and to bully Americans into abandoning their values, their heritage, and their very way of life.

We are here today to declare that we will never submit to tyranny. We will reclaim our history and our country for citizens of every race, color, religion, and creed.

The radicals burning American flags want to burn down the principles enshrined in our founding documents, including the bedrock principle of equal justice under law. In order to radically transform America, they must first cause Americans to lose confidence in who we are, where we came from, and what we believe. As I said at Mount Rushmore — which they would love to rip down and it rip it down fast, and that’s never going to happen — two months ago, the left-wing cultural revolution is designed to overthrow the American Revolution.

As many of you testified today, the left-wing rioting and mayhem are the direct result of decades of left-wing indoctrination in our schools. It’s gone on far too long. Our children are instructed from propaganda tracts, like those of Howard Zinn, that try to make students ashamed of their own history.

The left has warped, distorted, and defiled the American story with deceptions, falsehoods, and lies. There is no better example than the New York Times’ totally discredited 1619 Project. This project rewrites American history to teach our children that we were founded on the principle of oppression, not freedom.

Nothing could be further from the truth. America’s founding set in motion the unstoppable chain of events that abolished slavery, secured civil rights, defeated communism and fascism, and built the most fair, equal, and prosperous nation in human history. (Applause.)

The narratives about America being pushed by the far-left and being chanted in the streets bear a striking resemblance to the anti-American propaganda of our adversaries — because both groups want to see America weakened, derided, and totally diminished.

Students in our universities are inundated with critical race theory. This is a Marxist doctrine holding that America is a wicked and racist nation, that even young children are complicit in oppression, and that our entire society must be radically transformed. Critical race theory is being forced into our children’s schools, it’s being imposed into workplace trainings, and it’s being deployed to rip apart friends, neighbors, and families.

A perfect example of critical race theory was recently published by the Smithsonian Institution. This document alleged that concepts such as hard work, rational thinking, the nuclear family, and belief in God were not values that unite all Americans, but were instead aspects of “whiteness.” This is offensive and outrageous to Americans of every ethnicity, and it is especially harmful to children of minority backgrounds who should be uplifted, not disparaged.

Teaching this horrible doctrine to our children is a form of child abuse in the truest sense of those words. For many years now, the radicals have mistaken Americans’ silence for weakness. But they’re wrong.

There is no more powerful force than a parent’s love for their children. And patriotic moms and dads are going to demand that their children are no longer fed hateful lies about this country. American parents are not going to accept indoctrination in our schools, cancel culture at our work, or the repression of traditional faith, culture, and values in the public square. Not anymore. (Applause.) Thank you. Thank you. Thank you very much.

We embrace the vision of Martin Luther King, where children are not judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.

The left is attempting to destroy that beautiful vision and divide Americans by race in the service of political power. By viewing every issue through the lens of race, they want to impose a new segregation, and we must not allow that to happen.

Critical race theory, the 1619 Project, and the crusade against American history is toxic propaganda, ideological poison that, if not removed, will dissolve the civic bonds that tie us together. It will destroy our country.

That is why I recently banned trainings in this prejudiced ideology from the federal government and banned it in the strongest manner possible. (Applause.)

The only path to national unity is through our shared identity as Americans. That is why it is so urgent that we finally restore patriotic education to our schools.

Under our leadership, the National Endowment for the Humanities has awarded a grant to support the development of a pro-American curriculum that celebrates the truth about our nation’s great history. (Applause.)

We are joined by some of the respected scholars involved in this project, including Professor Wilfred McClay. Wilfred, please. Thank you very much. Welcome. (Applause.) Thank you. Dr. Peter Wood of the National Association of Scholars. Dr. Peter. (Applause.) Thank you. Thank you. And Ted Rebarber. Thank you, Ted. (Applause.) Thank you very much, Ted.

Today, I am also pleased to announce that I will soon sign an Executive Order establishing a national commission to promote patriotic education. It will be called the “1776 Commission.” (Applause.) Thank you. Thank you. It will encourage our educators to teach our children about the miracle of American history and make plans to honor the 250th anniversary of our founding. Think of that — 250 years.

Recently, I also signed an executive order to establish the National Garden of American Heroes, a vast outdoor park that will feature the statues of the greatest Americans who have ever lived.

Today, I am announcing a new name for inclusion. One of the 56 signers of the Declaration of Independence was a patriot from Delaware. In July of 1776, the Continental Congress was deadlocked during the debate over independence. The delegation from Delaware was divided. Caesar Rodney was called upon to break the tie.

Even though he was suffering from very advanced cancer — he was deathly ill — Rodney rode 80 miles through the night, through a severe thunderstorm, from Dover to Philadelphia to cast his vote for independence.

For nearly a century, a statue of one of Delaware’s most beloved citizens stood in Rodney Square, right in the heart of Wilmington.

But this past June, Caesar Rodney’s statue was ordered removed by the mayor and local politicians as part of a radical purge of America’s founding generation.

Today, because of an order I signed, if you demolish a statue without permission, you immediately get 10 years in prison. (Applause.) And there have been no statues demolished for the last four months, incredibly, since the time I signed that act.

Joe Biden said nothing as to his home state’s history and the fact that it was dismantled and dismembered. And a Founding Father’s statue was removed.

Today, America will give this Founding Father, this very brave man, who was so horribly treated, the place of honor he deserves. I am announcing that a statue of Caesar Rodney will be added to the National Garden of American Heroes. (Applause.)

From Washington to Lincoln, from Jefferson to King, America has been home to some of the most incredible people who have ever lived. With the help of everyone here today, the legacy of 1776 will never be erased. Our heroes will never be forgotten. Our youth will be taught to love America with all of their heart and all of their soul.

We will save this cherished inheritance for our children, for their children, and for every generation to come. This is a very important day.

Thank you all once again for being here. Now I will sign the Constitution Day Proclamation. God Bless You. And God Bless America. Thank you very much.

#trump #nationalarchives #libertarian #liberty #freedom #trump2020 #potus45 #potustrump

3 notes · View notes

bountyofbeads · 5 years ago

Text

In aftermath of Ukraine crisis, a climate of mistrust and threats

By Greg Miller and Greg Jaffe | Published December 25 at 11:27 AM EST | Washington Post | Posted December 25, 2019 |

The new Russia adviser at the White House — the third in just six months — has no meaningful background on the subject. The only expert on Ukraine has never spoken with President Trump, only been mocked by him publicly.

The U.S. Embassy in Kyiv will soon be without its highest-ranking diplomat for the second time in a year, as another ambassador departs after being undermined by the U.S. president and his personal attorney.

The CIA analyst who triggered the impeachment inquiry continues to work on issues relating to Russia and Ukraine, but when threats against him spike — often seemingly spurred by presidential tweets — he is driven to and from work by armed security officers.

Having been impeached by the House, Trump faces trial in the Senate on charges that he abused the power of his office and sought to obstruct Congress. But the jarring developments over the past three months have also exposed the extent to which the national security establishment, and the values that have traditionally guided American foreign policy, are facing an extraordinary trial of their own under Trump’s presidency.

An entire roster of public servants has been disparaged, bullied and in some cases banished for standing in Trump’s path as he sought to pressure Ukraine for political favors, or for testifying about his conduct afterward.

Many who came forward were convinced that Trump’s actions were a violation of American principles, if not the law, and they clung to a misplaced faith that matters of national security would transcend partisan politics. Instead, the impeachment saga has hardened political divisions and cast doubt on the United States’ commitment to ideals it has long professed.

This story is based on interviews with more than 20 current and former officials, most of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss their role in the administration or the impeachment inquiry.

Trump was the catalyst of his own impeachment, withholding military aid and a White House meeting from the leader of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelensky, whom he was pressuring to pursue investigations designed to politically wound former vice president Joe Biden.

But the fallout of the impeachment battle extends far beyond Trump’s political survival in a Senate trial. Tensions, exposed by impeachment, have fed Trump’s belief that he is surrounded by disloyal subordinates and have fueled animosity among congressional Republicans toward the supposed “deep state.” Today, the idea that a cadre of nonpartisan civil servants can loyally serve presidents of either party in pursuit of shared national interests — a bedrock principle of the country’s approach to foreign policy since World War II — is under attack.

Some of the responsibility for the mounting collateral damage falls on career officials and political appointees who took jobs in the administration despite deep objections to the president’s view. These officials hoped they could steer the unconventional president, who has an affinity for autocrats and an aversion to traditional allies, toward more-conventional views and policies.

Others came to see themselves as doing damage control, taking advantage of Trump’s short attention span to advance their preferred objectives and counter what they regarded as his destructive impulses.

Their actions have fed the view among some Republicans that impeachment is not just an isolated fight about Trump’s actions toward Ukraine, but also is an extension of a broader, unfinished conflict.

“We’re fighting for the country here,” said Stephen K. Bannon, who called for the “deconstruction of the administrative state” while advising Trump in the early months of his presidency. “This all started in the transition,” Bannon said in an interview, adding that the attacks on those who “actively worked against [Trump’s] policies on Ukraine” or defied his wishes on Ukraine should serve as “a warning that if you go against the president, there is going to be a price to be paid.”

ENEMIES LIST

The impeachment-related damage is extensive.

The acting U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, William B. Taylor Jr., returned to Kyiv after his Nov. 14 testimony only to watch Trump’s lawyer, Rudolph W. Giuliani, arrive weeks later to resume his quest for dirt on Joe Biden and his son Hunter. Giuliani’s sojourn while filming a documentary for a right-wing television network made clear to officials in Ukraine that Taylor and the U.S. Embassy had no standing with the U.S. president.

Taylor has since announced that he will step down by Jan. 2, clearing out of the Ukrainian capital on an accelerated schedule in part to spare Secretary of State Mike Pompeo — scheduled to visit Kyiv next month — from having to appear in pictures alongside a diplomat Trump branded as disloyal.

The ambassador had taken the job only after Pompeo promised him that U.S. policy would remain firmly grounded in fighting Russian aggression in eastern Ukraine, an assurance that now seems uncertain at best.

Veterans of the Foreign Service are bewildered. “These attacks — I’ve not seen anything like this since I joined the Foreign Service,” said John Heffern, a former senior State Department official who entered the department when Ronald Reagan was president. “Our work is promoting international universal values — freedom of the press and rule of law. Considering what’s happened in the United States, it undermines our ability to project that message to our foreign counterparts.”

Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman, the top adviser on Ukraine at the National Security Council, has continued to work at the White House since testifying that he was so disturbed by Trump’s July 25 call with Zelensky that he reported his concerns to White House lawyers.

But Vindman — who was born in Ukraine, moved to the United States with his family at age 3 and earned a Purple Heart in the war in Iraq — has been taunted by Trump, cast as disloyal by the president’s allies and falsely accused of plotting with the whistleblower to undermine the president.

“Vindictive Vindman is the ‘whistleblower’s’ handler,” Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) said in a Nov. 22 tweet. The baseless charge was a sign of how Trump has influenced his party’s tactics and illustrated the intense pressure on Republicans to back the president.

In 2017, Blackburn chastised Trump for his fixation on score-settling and petty insults, writing on Facebook that “civility in all our interactions — both personal and digital — is not only proper but fundamental to a respectful and prosperous society.”

Fiona Hill, the former top Russia adviser at the White House, has endured obscene phone calls to her home phone, according to people familiar with the matter, and vicious assaults from far-right media. Alex Jones, the conspiracy monger who operates the Infowars website, devoted much of his Nov. 22 broadcast to smears against Hill. “I want her ass indicted,” Jones said. “I want her indicted for perjury. Today. Indict that whore.”

For Hill, the attacks were a continuation of an astonishing level of hostility she witnessed during the two years she served in the White House. Trump loyalists drafted internal “enemies” lists, co-workers were purged, and NSC security teams logged hundreds of external threats against Hill and other officials, all fueled by a steady stream of far-right smears.

Hill, a former U.S. intelligence official and co-author of a biography of Russian President Vladimir Putin, was little known outside foreign policy circles when she joined the White House. Within weeks of joining the administration, she faced a wave of internal and external efforts to discredit or neutralize her.

A former Republican congressman, Connie Mack IV of Florida, approached aides of Vice President Pence’s, warning that Hill was tainted by her prior work for an organization funded by George Soros. A billionaire financier and Holocaust survivor, Soros has used his fortune to fight the spread of authoritarianism and bigotry. He has also become associated with a “globalist” agenda opposed by many on the right, and his name is frequently invoked in anti-Semitic slurs.

At the time, Mack was working as a paid lobbyist for Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, an autocratic leader seeking to shut down a Soros-funded international university in Hungary. Orban was concerned that Hill might use her position at the White House to object.

In an interview, Mack insisted that he was merely trying to call officials’ attention to what he believed was a conflict of interest for Hill, not instigate her removal or incite right-wing attacks. But the attacks came anyway.

“My entire first year of my tenure at the National Security Council was filled with hateful calls, conspiracy theories, which has started again” amid impeachment, she testified in October. For months, Hill arrived at work nearly each day to find venomous messages left on her work phone by a caller from Florida. The same woman called Hill at home several times, frightening her young daughter, according to two people familiar with the matter.

For Hill, ever the Russia analyst, the ruthless nature of the harassment harked back to the Bolshevik purges of revolutionary Russia. Bannon has all but touted this connection, comparing his destructive agenda to that of Vladimir Lenin’s.

In 2017, Bannon and his allies compiled a list of about 50 people they wanted exiled from the National Security Council. Most of their targets drew suspicion because they had worked as civil servants in the Obama White House. Bannon’s team also scoured the targets’ social media profiles for signs of disloyalty to the Trump administration.

Officials involved in the effort said they were driven by a missionary zeal to rid the administration of any of the foreign policy elite they blamed for miring the country in costly wars and locking it into burdensome alliances that undermined Trump’s “America First” agenda.

NOTHING WRONG

Key players in those 2017 purges, and several of their targets, have resurfaced in the impeachment fight.

Among the first to confront Hill when she joined the White House that year was Derek Harvey, who went to the NSC after working for Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.) on the House Intelligence Committee. On one of Hill’s first days on the job, Harvey told her he could not understand why Trump had allowed her into the fold, according to officials who witnessed the exchange.

Harvey, who was active in generating the enemies list, returned to Nunes’s staff after being ousted by then-national security adviser H.R. McMaster in July 2017. When Hill testified behind closed doors before the committee, Harvey could be seen passing notes to members, officials said. He also approached Hill at one point, telling her that the “trolls are out again.” The gesture, intended to communicate sympathy, ignored the fact that Hill and others viewed him as contributing to the poisonous climate.

Harvey declined to comment for this story.

Bannon said the whistleblower was at the top of the list he and his allies created in 2017. Former White House officials said it also included a State Department official now serving as a top aide to Rep. Adam B. Schiff (D-Calif.), the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee.

Another early target of Trump loyalists was Stephanie Holmes, a career State Department employee assigned to the NSC who was falsely accused of leaking details of Trump’s Oval Office conversation with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov.

Holmes came under such intense internal pressure that she hired a lawyer, former colleagues said. She subsequently left her NSC job to take a post that seemingly should have shielded her from the bloodletting, moving with her husband, David, also a diplomat, to the U.S. Embassy in Ukraine.

It was only because the Holmes were in Kyiv that David Holmes was in position to witness Trump’s phone call with U.S. Ambassador to the European Union Gordon Sondland at an outdoor cafe. Holmes testified last month that he could overhear Trump asking about the investigations he wanted Ukraine to conduct into the Bidens, and that Sondland confided to Holmes afterward that the president did not “give a shit” about Ukraine.

Trump has intentionally fostered internal friction, sowing tension among subordinates as a management tactic, current and former White House officials said. But he also inadvertently hired advisers who are repelled by his crude behavior and isolationist instincts.

McMaster, former chief of staff John F. Kelly, former secretary of state Rex Tillerson and others all fought Trump on major aspects of his foreign policy — his disdain for the NATO alliance, his desire on a moment’s notice to pull U.S. troops out of war zones, and his aversion to imposing sanctions on Russia. They, in turn, often hired subordinates who were similarly scornful of Trump’s positions.

The impeachment hearings exposed how these officials coped with Trump, and at times sought to counter his agenda, if only in the context of Ukraine.

The most senior officials, such as Pompeo, and John Bolton when he was national security adviser, often relied on underlings to sound alarms or subvert Trump’s efforts to pressure Zelensky, without putting their own standing with the president at risk. Taylor, Hill and Vindman repeatedly raised objections to aspects of the shadow policy they perceived but had no meaningful power to stop it.

Former U.S. special envoy to Ukraine Kurt Volker walked a treacherous tightrope, working to secure a commitment from Ukraine to pursue the investigations to clear impediments to what he regarded as the real policy: bolstering Ukraine in its war with Russian-backed separatists.

He hid his alarm at Trump’s baseless conspiracy theories about the 2016 election and the president’s loathing for the Ukrainians. Volker saw himself as facing a choice: He could accept Trump’s view of Ukraine or try to fix it.

“I tried to fix it,” he testified. Volker’s career was derailed as a result. He resigned from his diplomatic post after his role in the Ukraine episode was exposed. He was also forced to step down as executive director of the McCain Institute, a think tank whose stated mission is to advance “character-driven leadership.”

Career diplomats and civil servants routinely suppress private views to execute policies set by presidents. The impeachment hearings forced a parade of witnesses to reveal their feelings about Trump on a stage with an international audience.

“People were forced to testify about things they believe . . . how they felt about what the president was doing,” one of the impeachment witnesses said in an interview. The stark airing of these differences “caused the president to think they are biased against him,” the official said.

Trump responded by railing against witnesses he dismissed as “Never Trumpers,” a reference to the hundreds of national security experts who came out publicaly against Trump in 2016.

In reality, none of those who testified had ever publicly opposed Trump, and many had made conscious decisions — despite misgivings — to return to government to work for him.

Some did so at considerable personal or professional cost. Hill was cautioned by friends and colleagues in the close-knit foreign policy community to reject the NSC job. One long-standing peer has refused to speak with her since learning she had gone to work for Trump, according to people familiar with the matter.

Three years into Trump’s presidency, the list of perceived enemies continues to expand, and now is composed of officials Trump or his own subordinates hired. The hostility they face comes not only from Trump loyalists — whether inside the administration or launching attacks from right-wing media sites — but a substantial swath of the Republican Party.

For decades, the GOP cast itself as the champion of the FBI, CIA, Pentagon and other national security institutions. But over the past three years, Republicans have repeatedly turned on those agencies when necessary to protect Trump’s presidency.

In their final report on the impeachment hearings, Republicans on the House Intelligence Committee focused on “unelected bureaucrats” as the true villains of the impeachment scandal. These officials made “accusations and assumptions” about the president, were “discomforted at Trump’s call,” and they “chafed at the president’s outside the beltway approach to diplomacy.”

Ultimately, they were to blame.

In the recent interview, Bannon marveled at how rapidly GOP lawmakers have lined up behind Trump against impeachment. Early in the scandal, Bannon said, it would have been difficult to find more than a few GOP members willing to back Trump’s assertion that his call with Zelensky was “perfect.” Though the core facts have never been in question, Bannon said that “because of the information put forth by the president and his advocates,” it was impossible to find a GOP member prepared to dispute Trump’s depiction.

“Today, look at House Judiciary, a hundred percent say it is a perfect call,” Bannon said. “A hundred percent say there’s nothing wrong.”

⛄🎄🎅🎄🎅🎄🎅🎄⛄

U.S. CyberCom contemplates information warfare to counter Russian interference in the 2020 election

By Ellen Nakashima | Published Dec. 25 at 3:54 PM EST | Washington Post | Posted December 25, 2019|

Military cyber officials are developing information warfare tactics that could be deployed against senior Russian officials and oligarchs if Moscow tries to interfere in the 2020 U.S. elections through hacking election systems or sowing widespread discord, according to current and former U.S. officials.

One option being explored by U.S. Cyber Command would target senior leadership and Russian elites, though likely not President Vladimir Putin, which would be considered too provocative, said the current and former officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the issue’s sensitivity. The idea would be to show that the target’s sensitive, personal data could be hit if the interference did not stop, though officials declined to be more specific.

“When the Russians put implants into an electric grid, it means they’re making a credible showing that they have the ability to hurt you if things escalate,” said Bobby Chesney, a law professor at the University of Texas at Austin. “What may be contemplated here is an individualized version of that, not unlike individually targeted economic sanctions. It’s sending credible signals to key decision-makers that they are vulnerable if they take certain adversarial actions.”

Cyber Command and officials at the Pentagon declined to comment.

The military has long used psychological operations — dropping hundreds of thousands of leaflets in Iraq, for instance, to persuade Iraqi soldiers to surrender to the U.S.-led coalition during the Gulf War. But the Internet, social media and smartphones have vastly extended the reach and precision of such tactics.

The development comes as numerous agencies within the Trump administration seek to ensure the United States is shielded against foreign efforts to disrupt the 2020 elections, even as President Trump himself has cast doubt on or belittled his own intelligence community’s finding of Russian interference in 2016.

The intelligence community last month issued a classified update — a “national intelligence estimate” — assessing that Russia’s main goal in the 2020 campaign continues to be to sow discord. “It’s always been about exacerbating fault lines in our society,” said one senior U.S. official.

In the past year, Congress and the Trump administration have eased restraints on the military’s use of cyber-operations to thwart foreign adversaries. The push is part of a move by military officials such as Gen. Paul Nakasone, who heads both CyberCom and the National Security Agency, the government’s powerful electronic surveillance arm, to weave cyber-offensive capabilities into military operations.

The 10-year-old command’s foray into influence operations reflects an evolution in thinking. “It’s a really big deal because we have not done a good job in the past of integrating traditional information warfare with cyber-operations,” Chesney said. “But as Russia has demonstrated, these two are increasingly inseparable in practice.”

While other military organizations, such as Joint Special Operations Command, also have cyber and information warfare capabilities, CyberCom is the first to turn such powers toward combating election interference.

“In 332 days, our nation is going to elect a president,” Nakasone told a defense forum earlier this month. “We can’t let up. This is something we cannot be episodic about. The defense of our nation, the defense of our elections, is something that will be every single day for as long as I can see into the future.”

The options being considered build on an operation CyberCom undertook last fall in the run-up to the midterm elections. Beginning in October 2018, CyberCom used emails, pop-ups and texts to target Russian Internet “trolls” who were seeding disinformation on U.S. social media platforms. The trolls worked for the Internet Research Agency, a private entity controlled by a Russian oligarch close to Putin. CyberCom also messaged hackers working for Russian military intelligence, indicating their identities were known and could be publicized. Although the command did not sign its messages, the Americans knew there would be no mistaking who had sent them, officials said at the time.

When the trolls persisted, CyberCom, beginning on Election Day and for at least two days afterward, knocked their servers offline, The Washington Post previously reported. The Americans also sent messages aimed at spreading confusion and discord among IRA operatives, including computer system administrators. Some personnel were so perturbed that they launched an internal investigation to root out what they thought were insiders leaking personnel information, according to U.S. officials.

The new options contemplate targeting key leaders in the security services and the military and potentially some oligarchs. The messaging would be accompanied by a limited cyber-operation that demonstrates the Americans’ access to a particular system or account and the capability to inflict a cost, said individuals familiar with the matter. The message would implicitly warn the target that if the election interference did not cease, there would be consequences.

The options do not envision any attempt to influence Russian society at large, which officials saw as having limited success given Putin’s control of the country, including much of the media.

Some see the new options as potentially effective at altering a key official’s decision-making calculus without being hugely escalatory because they do not seek to foment a popular uprising, which is Putin’s big fear, analysts note.

Another possibility involves disinformation aimed at exploiting rivalries within the Russian government and power elites. In 2016, National Security Council aides in the Obama administration developed cyber options against Russia similar to those being contemplated by CyberCom now, but “no one had an appetite for it,” a former senior official said.

“There is a night-and-day difference between 2016 and this,” said a second former U.S. official, who said that CyberCom’s thinking several years ago was much more limited and conventional.

Any operation would be reviewed by other agencies, including the State Department and CIA, and require the defense secretary’s approval. It would be aligned with other potential U.S. efforts, such as sanctions or indictments, officials said.

Cyber-operations alone are usually not sufficient to transform an adversary’s behavior. “It can serve a useful message of ‘We’re watching and be careful not to go further,’ ” said Michael Carpenter, a former senior defense policy official in the Obama administration. But generally, he said, it is likely to be more effective when used with other tools such as sanctions — especially those also backed by allies.

Cyber Command got a boost in August 2018 when Congress clarified that cyber actions that fall below the use of force — what practitioners call “the gray zone” — can be conducted as “traditional military activities” as distinct from covert action. That was a key change that meant that clandestine operations such as the IRA takedown last fall, for instance, would not get delayed by disputes about whether they were covert operations.

Also enhancing CyberCom’s flexibility was Trump’s signing the following month of a national security presidential memorandum that revised the process by which cyber-operations are vetted and approved, leaving the final decision with the defense secretary even if other agencies object.

No single office within the Defense Department oversees cyber, electronic warfare and psychological operations. So this month, Congress created a Senate-confirmed position of principal information operations adviser to coordinate strategy and policy in this area across the Pentagon and with other agencies.

Other former U.S. officials are wary of CyberCom’s move into information operations. “I’m not a big fan of the Department of Defense doing messaging operations,” said Richard Stengel, a former undersecretary of state for public diplomacy in the Obama administration. “I’m even skeptical of the State Department doing messaging operations. . . . I just don’t think that’s something we’re good at.”

Meanwhile the Marine Corps has created a position of deputy commandant for information to build information warfare capability. Army Cyber Command has integrated cyber, electronic warfare and information operations into its mission. The 16th Air Force cyber unit is doing the same.

Among the things that cyber officials are discussing are operations that expose adversaries’ malign behavior.

The United States already has experimented with such disclosures, in 2014 releasing satellite images and other sensitive intelligence that showed Moscow had trained and equipped pro-Russian rebels in Ukraine responsible for shooting down a Malaysian airliner, killing 298 civilians. Such efforts could be expanded, officials say, to educate a broader audience about the actions of adversaries.

“Basically, it’s a war of strategic narrative,” said Sean McFate, a foreign policy expert and author of “The New Rules of War.” “We need to get into that domain.”

⛄🎄🎅🎄🎅🎄🎅🎄⛄

Russian-backed Syrian offensive kills dozens, displaces tens of thousands

By Kareem Fahim and Sarah Dadouch | Published Dec. 25 at 4:36 PM EST | Washington Post | Posted Dec 25, 2019

ISTANBUL — A crushing military offensive by the Syrian government and its Russian allies in northern Syria has killed dozens of civilians and displaced more than 100,000 people in less than 10 days, humanitarian aid groups and medical officials there say.

The assault in Syria’s Idlib province is part of a push by President Bashar al-Assad to regain control of strategic highways, and ultimately the country’s last major rebel-held area. Clashes, government shelling and Russian airstrikes this month have sparked a panicked exodus that aid workers warn could lead to one of the worst humanitarian catastrophes of Syria’s eight-year civil war.

Homes in Maarat al-Numan, the largest city in Idlib’s southern countryside and the main target of the escalation, have steadily emptied as a parade of cars streams out, residents say. People are struggling to find medical care and shelter as the number fleeing airstrikes swells.

“People, I swear by God, are sleeping in open air under trees and the temperature at night is near freezing,” Shaker al-Humeido, a doctor who worked in Maarat al-Numan, said in a text message. The hospital where he worked had been emptied as fighting approached and he and his family fled north.

“I am shocked at the size of the tragedy,” he said.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan warned last week that “massacres” in the province had sent more than 80,000 people fleeing toward Syria’s border with Turkey, which already hosts about 4 million Syrian war refugees. But his government, which maintains military outposts in Idlib and enjoys warm relations with Russia, has failed so far to blunt the offensive.

The violence is the latest miserable trial for Idlib, a wellspring of opposition to Assad’s government that hosts hundreds of thousands of people displaced by war from other parts of Syria.

The province, with 3 million people, has borne the brunt of a Russian and Syrian air campaign that has struck hospitals and leveled homes and markets, human rights groups say. The province and surrounding areas are largely controlled by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, an extremist Islamist group that began as al-Qaeda’s affiliate in Syria and has tried to rebrand itself several times during the war.

Fighting over the past year has taken a disproportionate toll on children, according to UNICEF, which said in a statement Tuesday that more than 500 children were injured or killed in the first nine months of 2019. At least 65 children have been killed or injured in December alone, the group said.

Dareen Khalifa, a Syria analyst with the International Crisis Group, said Assad’s short-term goal has been to encircle and control Maarat al-Numan and the town of Saraqib, about 15 miles northeast. Then, she said, the Syrian army would push west to retake a highway linking Latakia and Aleppo as it attempted to capture Idlib in chunks.

“The problem is, the regime offensive that started in April hasn’t been very successful,” Khalifa said. “So now they are overcompensating by using devastating levels of air force. The casualties and displacement levels are catastrophic.

“If the regime continues and if the rebels don’t surrender, this will mean the worst humanitarian disaster we’ve seen in Syria.”

Naji Mustafa, a spokesman for the Turkish-backed rebel Syrian Liberation Front, said the government’s escalation “clearly aims at displacing people.

“They are targeting marketplaces, hospitals, schools; they want the entire population of Maarat al-Numan, 80,000 people, to become displaced at the borders with Turkey. This has already started to happen.

“The clashes are severe,” he said. “We have lost some areas in the past few days, but we are pushing back to recapture them. This is how it has been.”

The previous offensive, launched in April, displaced 500,000 people in Idlib, according to aid groups.

“An additional half a million people could be displaced over the coming weeks if the violence continues to escalate,” said Kelly Razzouk, the U.N. director of the International Rescue Committee. “This would be the largest displacement seen since the war started eight years ago.”

Razzouk called reports of children living under olive trees in 30-degree weather “extremely distressing.”

“We are very concerned about the rates of malnutrition,” she said. “Eleven percent of children attending health clinics that we support are suffering from acute malnutrition, and food is being rationed. Nursing mothers are having to feed their infants herbal tea because they are malnourished and can’t feed their infants.”

Syrians activists have protested the offensive outside of Russian missions around the world, including in Istanbul. There has also been growing criticism of Turkey’s government.

Mustafa Sejari, a senior official in the Turkey-backed Syrian National Army, published an open letter to Erdogan last week that highlighted the frustration.

“We understand the amount of internal and external pressure that you are under, but we, our people, our children, are getting killed,” Sejari wrote on Twitter. He asked Erdogan to take a “historic stand” by opening Turkey’s closed borders to women and children, and resuming military support to rebel forces.

Russian and Turkish officials discussed Idlib during a meeting Monday, Russia’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement. But Syrian activists say they’ve seen no visible improvements to the situation on the ground.

“A detailed exchange of views took place,” the Russians said.

Relief organizations warn they could soon be hampered in their ability to supply aid to Syrian civilians. China and Russia last week vetoed a U.N. Security Council resolution that would have renewed authorization for aid shipments across Turkey and Iraq’s borders for 12 months. The authorization expires Jan. 10.

“Given the scale of the needs in northern Syria, now is not the time to scale back,” said Razzouk, of the International Rescue Committee.

Families in the countryside around Maarat al-Numan have been fleeing their homes every night, said Tarek Mustafa, a physician at the city’s central hospital. The exodus from the city continues around the clock.

Medical staff have received injured front-line fighters and civilians, but also people who had been in car accidents because they drove at night with their lights off, to avoid detection by warplanes.

His hospital was the last one functioning in the area, he said. On Sunday, it was strafed by gunfire from a helicopter, and by Monday, it had closed.

⛄🎄🎅🎄🎅🎄🎅🎄⛄

0 notes

teeky185 · 5 years ago

Link

Nicholas Kamm / AFP/ Getty ImagesBefore she even spoke on Friday, President Donald Trump’s surrogates in Congress and conservative media expected Marie Yovanovitch to cry on command for the impeachment-hearing cameras. As she began testifying about the smear campaign that forced her from her ambassadorship in Ukraine, Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) tweeted that impeachment wasn’t about her feelings. But for over five hours, the 33-year veteran diplomat left no doubt why she was there and what she endured, even as the president himself weighed in on Twitter seeming to intimidate her as she sat in front of the congressional panel. The president’s attack wasn’t the only attack she brushed aside. Yovanovitch methodically outplayed a series of Republican efforts to cast her firing as normal, the president’s behavior as unremarkable, and the harm she suffered as negligible–rather than the prelude to a shadow diplomatic effort to coerce Ukraine into aiding Trump’s reelection. Instead, she made it clear that she would have been an obstacle to the president’s pressure on Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky had she remained in Kyiv. At one point, she told Rep. Jim Himes (D-CT) that she would have opposed the summer 2019 suspension of $400 million in U.S. military aid and would never have asked Zelensky to pursue the conspiracy theory that Ukraine interfered in the 2016 election. Asked to affirm that Trump was legitimately concerned about Ukraine corruption, she shot back, “That’s what he says.”Not much of Friday’s hearing, the second in the House impeachment inquiry, went the GOP’s way. The exception was Rep. Chris Stewart (R-UT), who, knowing that Yovanovitch was fired before the pressure campaign on Zelensky proceeded, got her to concede she had no knowledge of criminal wrongdoing by Trump.Most of their attempts to discredit or dismiss her either fell flat or ended in retreat. Rep. Brad Wenstrup, an Ohio Republican, asked Yovanovitch to affirm that presidents get to select their ambassadors. In perhaps the most powerful line of the hearing, Yovanovitch replied, “I obviously don’t dispute the president has the right to withdraw an ambassador at any time for any reason, but what I do wonder is why it was necessary to smear my reputation.”Wenstrup quickly replied that wasn’t his question, pressed the sound on his mic off and sat back in his chair. When the Republicans’ counsel for impeachment, Steve Castor, put forward a series of public statements from 2016 from Ukrainians upset with candidate Trump, Yovanovitch frustrated a line of questioning meant to establish what Rep. Devin Nunes (R-CA), the top Intelligence Committee Republican, called “Ukrainian election meddling.”“Those elements you’ve recited don’t seem to be a plan or plot of the Ukrainian government to work against President Trump. Those are isolated incidents,” she said. “I’ve come to learn public life can be quite critical. I’d remind, again, that our own U.S. intelligence community has conclusively determined” that Russia, not Ukraine, interfered in the 2016 U.S. election.Castor also walked into a trap by asking if Trump might have been justified in feeling Ukraine was against him based on internet-borne comments. Yovanovitch, whom Trump had just disparaged in a tweet, icily replied, “Well, sometimes that happens on social media.”Stewart, who called impeachment “nonsense,” implied it was appropriate for Trump to seek a Ukrainian investigation of Burisma, the national-gas firm that put Joe Biden’s son on its board. Yovanovitch responded that “we have a process for that” that Trump did not follow, one involving communication between the Justice Department and its Ukrainian counterpart under a mutual legal-assistance treaty. Stewart reiterated the question “regardless of the process,” although corruption definitionally routes around official channels in pursuit of private agendas. Similarly, when John Ratcliffe (R-TX) asked if it was a potential “conflict of interest” for Joe Biden to seek the firing of a corrupt Ukrainian prosecutor in 2016–a central Republican defense of Trump–Yovanovitch rejected his premise. “I actually don’t,” she said. “I think the view was that Mr. [Viktor] Shokin was not a good prosecutor-general fighting corruption. I don’t think it had to do with the Burisma case.”Republicans attempted to approach Yovanovitch respectfully. They praised her service–even as they defended Trump for ending it prematurely–and gave prominence to Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.) so as to avoid the optics of men attacking a woman. Yet they were at times dismissive of what Yovanovitch had described as a nightmare. Rep. Michael Conaway (R-TX), asked her basic questions about her post-ambassadorship gig at Georgetown University—how many classes does she teach? How many students does she have?—and the regard her diplomatic colleagues have for her, suggesting that she suffered no real harm after the president capped an assassination of her character by firing her.Later, Rep. Mike Quigley (D-IL) had the room laughing when he spelled out the upshot of that inquiry. “It’s like a Hallmark movie,” he said from the dais. “You ended up at Georgetown. This is all OK!”The ultimate sabotage to the GOP’s attempt to treat Yovanovitch as an impeachment sideshow was committed by Trump himself. With a series of tweets slamming Yovanovitch as she testified, the president did plenty of work to make her appearance even more relevant to the impeachment inquiry. The ambassador—and Democratic lawmakers—said Trump’s broadside was intended to intimidate not only her but future impeachment witnesses. It fueled talk of a whole new article of impeachment.Few Republicans felt compelled to justify the president’s tweets. Rep. Lee Zeldin (R-N.Y.), a reliable ally of the president, said Trump is allowed to defend himself and that Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA), the Democratic floor general on impeachment, had cherry-picked tweets about the ambassador to read from the dais. As the hearing wrapped, Republicans maintained that Stewart’s line of questioning was the punch that would linger from the hearing. “This witness can’t shed any light on what Dems claim are their impeachable offenses, and can’t advance their narrative,” said a senior House GOP aide.But Democrats left with the impression they got even more than they’d wanted—that a witness initially pitched as someone who could flesh out the human impact of Trump’s Ukraine designs served many more purposes.“You know, it’s funny,” said Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-IL), “the more the day went on, I personally thought she became more and more enlightening for purposes of our inquiry.” The ambassador’s appearance met a rare ending for the staid hearing rooms of Capitol Hill. Schiff closed with a thundering statement, and before Yovanovitch could even rise from her chair, the crowd in the gallery erupted in a standing ovation.Read more at The Daily Beast.Get our top stories in your inbox every day. Sign up now!Daily Beast Membership: Beast Inside goes deeper on the stories that matter to you. Learn more.

from Yahoo News - Latest News & Headlines https://ift.tt/34YBpSa

#latest news #Yahoo News - Latest News & Headlines

0 notes

worldnews-blog · 5 years ago

Link

from Yahoo News - Latest News & Headlines https://ift.tt/34YBpSa

#Blogger

0 notes

7newx1 · 5 years ago

Link

#Blogger

0 notes

beautytipsfor · 5 years ago

Text

Republicans Thought Yovanovitch Would Be a Pushover. She Beat Them Up Instead

from Yahoo News - Latest News & Headlines https://ift.tt/34YBpSa via Beauty Tips

from Blogger https://ift.tt/2NTm7YY

#Blogger

0 notes

attredd · 5 years ago

Link

from Yahoo News - Latest News & Headlines https://ift.tt/34YBpSa

#Republicans Thought Yovanovitch Would Be a Pushover. She Beat Them Up Instead

0 notes

batenchantingcollectorsong · 5 years ago

Link

from Yahoo News - Latest News & Headlines https://ift.tt/34YBpSa

#Blogger

0 notes

tendance-news · 5 years ago

Link

from Yahoo News - Latest News & Headlines https://ift.tt/34YBpSa

#IFTTT #Blogger

0 notes

bountyofbeads · 5 years ago

Text

The main thing I've learned from the Trump impeachment hearings and his pardoning of Eddie Gallagher and others is that Trump doesn't take advise from people who are experts in their fields of expertise, he only listens to Fox News and their talking heads on unsecured phones which is a national security risk in itself. Trump and his minions are also a national security threat to our nation. That alone should be enough to impeach him. As Trump once said: "I know more than the generals" is extremely dangerous for our country. No wonder Trump is a failed businessman! If he were a CEO of a large business, shareholders would have fired him a long time ago.

The other thing I learned is that Republicans are willing to go to any length to defend his criminal behavior. This republican party is definitely not the party my father belonged to.

Impeachment witness warns that conspiracy theories advance Russia’s agenda as they divide Americans

By Greg Miller | Published November 21 at 8:30 PM EST | Washington Post | Posted November 21, 2019 |

For two months, the impeachment inquiry has focused on President Trump and whether he abused the power of his office for his own political advantage.

On Thursday, the inquiry seemed to broaden into a bracing examination of the insidious forces — including the spread of conspiracy theories — infecting American politics.

The final day of scheduled public testimony in this phase of the impeachment investigation was dominated by the warnings of a former White House adviser that the country’s susceptibility to baseless allegations and partisan infighting are more than unfortunate byproducts of this political era.

Instead, Fiona Hill, who served as Trump’s top adviser on Russia for much of the past two years, testified that these tendencies pose a growing security threat that Russia, among other adversaries, is exploiting.

As a result, Hill emerged as one of the few witnesses over the past two weeks able to move from providing accounts of events inside the White House to placing the unfolding Ukraine scandal in a broader political context.

She depicted Trump’s alleged attempt to pressure Ukraine for political dirt as harmful to both countries’ security interests. She voiced dismay about the treatment of diplomats, including the former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, who were either sidelined or disparaged for their efforts to defend official U.S. policy or testify about the president.

But above all, she spoke with palpable concern about the extent to which partisanship in the United States’ political system has weakened the country’s ability to agree on objective reality. “Our nation is being torn apart,” she said. “Truth is questioned.”

A respected Russia scholar who previously served as a top U.S. intelligence official, Hill opened her testimony with a bristling rebuke of Republican lawmakers — and by extension Trump — who have sought to sow doubt about Russia’s interference in the 2016 U.S. election.

“Some of you on this committee appear to believe that Russia and its security services did not conduct a campaign against our country — and that perhaps, somehow, for some reason, Ukraine did,” Hill said. “This is a fictional narrative that has been perpetrated and propagated by the Russian security services themselves.”

Her comments turned the tables on lawmakers, including Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.), who have pressed previous witnesses on perceived holes in their testimony, but found themselves using portions of their allotted time Thursday to dispute Hill’s characterizations.

Nunes held up a copy of a House Intelligence Committee report on Russian interference, insisting that he and other members do not question the core case against the Kremlin.

In reality, Nunes has been among Trump’s staunchest allies on Capitol Hill in seeking to discredit or impede the FBI and special counsel investigations of Russian interference. He has repeatedly used the impeachment hearings over the past two weeks to argue that Trump’s suspicions about Ukraine working against him in 2016 were warranted.

And he spent much of his time Thursday questioning Hill not about what she witnessed about the campaign to pressure Ukraine but her contacts with individuals — including former British intelligence officer Christopher Steele — connected to those now-concluded investigations of Trump and Russia.

The exchange underscored the extent to which the impeachment probe has become an extension of the political battles that began in the aftermath of the 2016 election, as it became clear that Russia had waged an audacious “active measures” operation — involving the hacking of Democratic Party computers and the bombardment of U.S. voters with disinformation on social media platforms — to help elect Trump and defeat Hillary Clinton.

Trump has refused to accept that Russia’s interference was real, which officials close to him say he sees as a stain on the legitimacy of his presidency. Trump’s alleged attempt to pressure Ukraine appears to have been driven at least in part by his desire to solicit information he hoped would help to cast doubt on the case against the Kremlin.

In addition to asking Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to pursue investigations into the family of former vice president Joe Biden, Trump also sought to enlist the Ukrainian leader in advancing a conspiracy theory that one of the Democratic Party’s computer servers was smuggled to Ukraine to hide evidence that Ukraine, rather than Russia, had hacked its network.

Trump’s allies in Congress have largely dismissed this allegation as fiction. But they have nevertheless used the impeachment hearings to advance murkier claims that Ukraine sought to undermine Trump in the 2016 election.

Hill treated such claims with scorn. “I refuse to be part of an effort to legitimize an alternate narrative that the Ukrainian government is a U.S. adversary, and that Ukraine — not Russia — attacked us in 2016,” she said.

There are indications that at least one Ukrainian politician expressed support for Clinton in 2016 on social media. And Ukrainian officials were involved in exposing the corruption of then-Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort, who is now serving a prison term on fraud charges related to millions of dollars he received for consulting work in Ukraine financed by political operatives close to the Kremlin.

But Hill and others have said there is no evidence that the Ukrainian government interfered in the U.S. election of 2016, let alone did so on the scale of Russia.

Other witnesses have also railed against Trump and his allies’ use of conspiratorial claims and false allegations to undermine perceived adversaries or advance their political agendas.

George Kent, a senior State Department official responsible for Ukraine, testified that Trump’s personal lawyer Rudolph W. Giuliani had waged a campaign “full of lies and incorrect information” against Marie Yovanovitch, the former U.S. ambassador to Ukraine, who was removed from that post amid a smear campaign involving right-wing publications.

Hill’s testimony was remarkable in part because of her senior role inside the White House. She pushed to maintain a harder line against Russia even as Trump often prevented her from attending meetings, resisted measures that he worried might anger the Kremlin, and sided with Russian President Vladimir Putin over the conclusions U.S. spy agencies.

Putin made clear this week that he is relishing the political skirmishing in Washington over Ukraine, which has for five years relied on U.S. aid to help fend off Russian aggression.

As the impeachment hearings played out, Putin joked: “Thank God no one is accusing us of interfering in the U.S. elections anymore.”

Although pointed in some of her exchanges with GOP lawmakers, Hill was at other moments disarming.

At one point, she listened as Rep. Brad Wenstrup (R-Ohio) delivered remarks in which he mixed references to his patriotism and service as a U.S. Army surgeon in Iraq with claims that Ukraine “did work against candidate Trump”; that the FBI had sought to “entrap members of the Trump campaign”; and that the impeachment inquiry was driven by government officials disappointed that Trump won.

Rather than challenge those dubious assertions, Hill described his statements about patriotism and service as “eloquent,” and noted that she saw herself as a nonpartisan person who had agreed to serve in the Trump administration — despite efforts by many of her peers to dissuade her — out of a similar desire to serve her adopted country. Hill, a naturalized U.S. citizen, is originally from England.

“We need to be together again in 2020,” Hill said. “So that the American people can make a choice about the future and vote in a presidential election without any fear that it is being interfered with in any quarter whatsoever.”

It was a rare moment of decorum in an exchange between Republicans and witnesses before the impeachment inquiry. “We’re just fact witnesses,” Hill said. “We’re just here to provide what we know and what we’ve heard.”

After she was finished speaking, Wenstrup appeared to nod toward Hill appreciatively.

🍁☕🍂🍞🍁☕🍂🍞🍁☕🍂🍞🍁☕

With a warning on Russia, blitz of public testimony in impeachment inquiry comes to an end

By Karoun Demirjian, Elise Viebeck, Rosalind S. Helderman and Matt Zapotosky | Published November 21 at 6:17 PM EST | Washington Post | Posted November 21, 2019 |

House Democrats on Thursday concluded a 72-hour blitz of impeachment inquiry hearings with testimony from two witnesses who reinforced that President Trump likely withheld military aid and a coveted White House meeting from Ukraine to sway that country to investigate his political rival.

The testimony from Fiona Hill, a former White House adviser on Russia, and David Holmes, a counselor in the U.S. Embassy in Ukraine, closed a dramatic week in which lawmakers summoned nine witnesses to describe what Democrats believe was a self-serving effort by Trump and his allies to coerce Ukraine into announcing an investigation into former vice president Joe Biden — to the detriment of U.S. national security interests.

Their testimony might be the last the House Intelligence Committee takes publicly as part of its impeachment inquiry. The committee has begun writing a report summarizing its findings, according to people familiar with the matter who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the Democrats’ next moves. Once that has been completed, proceedings will move to the House Judiciary Committee, which will draft specific articles of impeachment. The Judiciary Committee could begin its work when lawmakers return from the Thanksgiving recess, the people said.

Hill and Holmes detailed tense behind-the-scenes deliberations among Trump administration officials, presenting fresh perspective on how the collective effect of efforts by the president and his allies ultimately benefited Russia, which backs Ukrainian separatists fighting the government in Kyiv.

In addition to pressing for investigations, the pair testified, those aligned with the president — particularly Trump’s personal lawyer Rudolph W. Giuliani — undercut Marie Yovanovitch, a respected U.S. diplomat who served as the ambassador to Ukraine, and spread unfounded allegations that Ukraine, rather than Russia, interfered in the 2016 U.S. presidential election.

“This is a fictional narrative that has been perpetrated and propagated by the Russian security services,” Hill said.

The two witnesses were the last who had been formally scheduled for public hearings — though others could be added, and the House Intelligence Committee is still expected to release the remaining transcripts of its private depositions.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) declined to say Thursday whether she has heard enough to move the impeachment process forward, though she asserted that Democrats would not wait on the courts to compel the appearance of several other potential witnesses, including acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and former national security adviser John Bolton. Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam B. Schiff (D-Calif.) seemed to make Democrats’ next step clear, saying Trump’s actions were “beyond” even what President Richard M. Nixon did in the Watergate scandal that forced him to resign.

Meanwhile, roughly a half-dozen Republican senators and senior White House officials met in private Thursday to map out strategy on a potential impeachment trial of President Trump, including trying to limit proceedings to two weeks, according to officials familiar with the discussion who spoke on the condition of anonymity to disclose GOP planning.

Despite some damaging testimony suggesting the president wanted a foreign power to investigate a U.S. citizen as part of a quid pro quo, Republicans, so far, have been unmoved.

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.) sent a letter to Pompeo on Thursday requesting documents on Biden, his son Hunter and other Obama administration officials — touching off what appears to be a conservative counter-investigation.

Rep. Devin Nunes (Calif.), the highest ranking Republican on the House Intelligence Committee, asserted that Democrats were making an “attempt to overthrow the president.”

“The damage they have done to this country will be long-lasting,” he said.

Trump retweeted some allies’ assessments of the inquiry, including that of Rep. Mark Meadows (R-N.C.), who wrote, “A notable theme in these hearings: some career officials seem to act as though their job is to decide America’s foreign policy. It’s the President who sets policy — not unelected bureaucrats.”

White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham said Thursday’s witnesses, “just like the rest, have no personal or direct knowledge regarding why U.S. aid was temporarily withheld.”

“The Democrats’ are clearly being motivated by a sick hatred for President Trump and their rabid desire to overturn the 2016 election,” she said. “The American people deserve better.”

Like other witnesses before them, Hill and Holmes said they grew increasingly dismayed, starting in the spring and summer, as their efforts to arrange a meeting between Trump and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky were stymied by Giuliani and others.

The officials said they would come to learn the White House was also withholding roughly $400 million of security assistance from Ukraine, and Holmes said it was his “clear impression” that was because Zelensky would not announce investigations as Trump and Giuliani wanted.

“While we had advised our Ukrainian counterparts to voice a commitment to following the rule of law and generally investigating credible corruption allegations, this was a demand that President Zelensky personally commit, on a cable news channel, to a specific investigation of President Trump’s political rival,” Holmes testified.

Hill and Holmes described how different officials in the U.S. government seemed to be working at different purposes — and with different instructions — in their dealings with Ukraine.

In one of the most notable exchanges of the day, Hill — under questioning from committee Republicans’ lawyer — described growing angry with Gordon Sondland, the U.S. ambassador to the European Union, who had told her that Trump tapped him personally to work on Ukraine issues.

In his testimony Wednesday, Sondland explicitly linked Trump, Vice President Pence and other senior officials to what he said he came to believe was a campaign to pressure a foreign government to investigate Biden in exchange for a White House meeting and military aid. Sondland also acknowledged his own role in the matter, though he said he did not realize in real time that what he was doing was improper.

Hill said that she confronted Sondland for not coordinating with her and that he responded he already was briefing Trump, Mulvaney, Pompeo and Bolton.

“Who else,” Hill said Sondland asked her, “do I have to deal with?”

Hill said that watching Sondland’s testimony, she came to understand he was “absolutely right.”

“He wasn’t coordinating with us because we weren’t doing the same thing that he was doing,” Hill said. “He was being involved in a domestic political errand. And we were being involved in national security foreign policy.”

Hill said she told Sondland: “Gordon, I think this is all going to blow up.”

“And here we are,” Hill said.

Hill said that she had observed Sondland press Ukrainians to announce investigations and suggest they would not get a White House meeting unless they did so.

That occurred at a July 10 meeting involving Ukrainians and Bolton, Sondland, Energy Secretary Rick Perry and then-special envoy to Ukraine Kurt Volker, Hill said. As the meeting was wrapping up, she said, a Ukrainian official inquired about a White House meeting, and Bolton tried to change the subject.

Sondland, Hill said, interjected to say “there will be a meeting, if specific investigations are put underway.”

“That’s when I saw Ambassador Bolton stiffen,” Hill testified, adding that the national security adviser soon declared he had to leave.

Hill testified that Bolton told her later to report the matter to the National Security Council’s top lawyer, John Eisenberg, and relay the message, “I am not part of this, whatever drug deal that Mulvaney and Sondland are cooking up.” Sondland, she said, had claimed Mulvaney had agreed to schedule a meeting if Ukraine would agree to announce the investigations.

Robert Driscoll, an attorney for Mulvaney, said in a statement that Hill’s testimony was “riddled with speculation and guesses about any role that Mr. Mulvaney played with anything related to Ukraine.”

Bolton’s lawyer has said he is willing to testify only if a federal judge rules that he can do so over a White House objection. His testimony could be particularly important because he had direct contact with Trump, and, according to other witnesses, was uncomfortable with some of what was happening in the White House.

Hill testified, for example, that Bolton referred to Giuliani as a “hand grenade” that was going to “blow everyone up.”

“He was frequently on television, making quite incendiary remarks about everyone involved in this,” Hill said of Giuliani. “He was clearly pushing forward issues and ideas that would probably come back to haunt us. And, in fact, I think that that’s where we are today.”

Holmes, too, described noteworthy administration dealings on Ukraine, in particular a conversation between Trump and Sondland on July 26 — a day after Trump had pressed Zelensky to investigate the Bidens in a phone call that was a trigger for the impeachment inquiry.

Lunching at an open-air cafe in Kyiv, Holmes testified, Sondland called the White House on his personal cellphone. Trump, he said, spoke so loudly that his voice was clear even though it wasn’t on speakerphone.

Holmes said he heard Trump ask, “So, he’s gonna do the investigation?” and Sondland reply, “He’s gonna do it” — alluding to Zelensky.

“I’ve never seen anything like this in my Foreign Service career,” Holmes testified.

After the call ended, Holmes testified, he asked Sondland what Trump thought of Ukraine. He said the ambassador, who had taken an informal role leading Ukraine policy, responded that Trump did not care at all about Ukraine and cared only about the “big stuff” that affected him personally — namely “the Biden investigation.”

Holmes’s public testimony on Thursday matched information he provided to the committee behind closed doors. Sondland on Wednesday testified that he did not think he had specifically referred to Biden while speaking to Holmes after the phone call.

For his part, Trump tweeted, “I have been watching people making phone calls my entire life. My hearing is, and has been, great. Never have I been watching a person making a call, which was not on speakerphone, and been able to hear or understand a conversation. I’ve even tried, but to no avail. Try it live!”

Hill and Holmes both described how the efforts of Giuliani and others upended U.S. foreign policy — leaving Ukraine vulnerable.

Though the U.S. ultimately turned over the money to Ukraine in September after lawmakers began raising questions, Holmes noted that Trump still had not agreed to a coveted White House meeting for Zelensky.

“They still need us now, going forward,” Holmes said. “This doesn’t end with the lifting of the security assistance hold.”

Focusing on the notion that Russia interfered in the 2016 election, Hill offered a blunt warning about the 2020 campaign, saying the Kremlin has “geared up to repeat their” attacks and “we are running out of time to stop them.”

She said she raised such issues because Russia’s goal was to put the U.S. president — no matter who it might be — “under a cloud.”

“This,” she said, “is exactly what the Russian government was hoping for.”

______

Rachael Bade, Aaron Davis, Josh Dawsey, John Hudson, Colby Itkowitz, Paul Kane, Seung Min Kim, Greg Miller, John Wagner and Felicia Sonmez contributed to this report.

🍁 ☕🍂🍞🍁☕🍂🍞🍁☕🍂🍞🍁☕

White House and Republicans discuss limiting impeachment trial to two weeks

By Seung Min Kim and Josh Dawsey | Published Nov. 21 at 6:04 PM EST | Washington Post | Posted Nov. 21, 2019

A group of Republican senators and senior White House officials met privately Thursday to map out a strategy for a potential impeachment trial of President Trump, including rapid proceedings in the Senate that could be limited to about two weeks, according to multiple officials familiar with the talks.

The prospect of an abbreviated trial is viewed by several Senate Republicans as a favorable middle ground — substantial enough to give the proceedings credence without risking greater damage to Trump by dragging on too long.

Under this scenario, described by officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity to recount a private meeting, the Senate trial could begin as early as January if the Democratic-controlled House votes to impeach Trump next month as appears increasingly likely. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said earlier this month that Trump would be acquitted in the Senate, where Republicans hold a 53-seat majority.

Even a two-week trial could run counter to what Trump has expressed privately. The president is “miserable” about the impeachment inquiry and has pushed to dismiss the proceedings right away, according to people familiar with his sentiments, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss Trump’s views.

Still, administration officials are readying all options to present them to Trump, and White House counsel Pat Cipollone is preparing to mount a full defense of the president for an impeachment trial, according to one of the officials familiar with Thursday’s meeting.

“I don’t want them to believe there’s an ability to dismiss the case before it’s heard,” said Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (S.C.), who was among the group of half a dozen GOP senators who met Thursday with White House officials to begin mapping out a trial strategy. “I think most everybody agreed, there’s not 51 votes to dismiss it before the managers get to call the case.”

The preparations come after weeks of damaging testimony in the House providing evidence that Trump sought to pressure Ukraine to announce investigations targeting a potential 2020 rival, Joe Biden, in exchange for a White House meeting and the release of $400 million in military aid.

Republicans have remained overwhelmingly aligned behind the president, insisting he has done nothing worthy of impeachment or removal from office. Some, however, have acknowledged the potential toll that a continuing inquiry and trial could take during an election year, particularly when the GOP is aiming to protect its Senate majority.

In addition to Graham, the meeting Thursday included Republican Sens. Mike Lee (Utah), Ron Johnson (Wis.), John Neely Kennedy (La.), Ted Cruz (Tex.) and Tom Cotton (Ark.), along with Cipollone; acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney; senior adviser and Trump son-in-law Jared Kushner; and counselor Kellyanne Conway, according to the officials familiar with the discussions.

The meeting was organized by White House legislative affairs director Eric Ueland, who was also in attendance along with advisers Pam Bondi and Tony Sayegh, who were recently hired to guide the White House’s impeachment messaging and strategy, the officials said.

Other options, including a longer trial, were also discussed and still could happen, officials said. Ultimately, Trump will make the final call on trial strategy, a senior administration official said.

The impeachment trial of President Bill Clinton, which ended in an acquittal, lasted five weeks. Trump would be the third U.S. president — after Clinton and Andrew Johnson — to be impeached by the House, although in neither case did the required two-thirds majority of senators vote to remove them from office.

“This is much closer to a game-time decision that will be built on the impressions and reactions of the 53 Senate Republicans who have to handle actually voting on … what the House sent them,” the senior administration official said.

During the meeting, there was also a discussion of whether to seek additional evidence or call witnesses such as Hunter Biden, the son of the former vice president and potential Democratic presidential nominee. The House impeachment inquiry is centered on Trump’s alleged attempts to get Ukraine to announce investigations of the Bidens to help his reelection bid.

The group also discussed the possibility of having limited or no defense on the president’s behalf — under the theory that if Republicans believe the House’s case for Trump’s impeachment is fundamentally flawed, there is no need to legitimize it with a full argument on behalf of the president. Several congressional allies, however, have repeatedly stressed that they want ample time for Trump and his attorneys to make their case in public.

It is unclear what views will ultimately prevail with the president, and Senate Republicans are continuing to internally debate and craft their impeachment strategy through private conversations and party lunches at the Capitol.

Thursday’s meeting — the first in what is likely to be a series of sessions between key GOP senators and the administration — underscored the increased coordination between the White House and its allies in the Senate as the House proceedings appear to point to likely impeachment as early as next month. The discussion came during a week of testimony from several key players in the House’s unfolding impeachment inquiry, including remarks from Gordon Sondland, the ambassador to the European Union who detailed under oath an explicit “quid pro quo” with Ukraine at Trump’s ultimate directive.

Cruz said after the meeting that he believed it was imperative that both the House impeachment managers and the president’s attorneys get time to make their arguments.

“If and when the matter comes to the Senate, I think it’s incumbent on the Senate to do much better,” Cruz said in an interview. “I expect the Senate to conduct proceedings that are fair, that respect due process and that allow both sides to present their case, to present their witnesses, to present their evidence and for the Senate then to render a judgment consistent with the law and Constitution.”

Cruz declined to delve into details but said the group discussed “where we are, what’s coming up next, what hurdles are likely to be.”

Senate Republicans have been divided on how long a Senate trial should be. Some align with Trump’s view, seeking to dismiss it as soon as possible, while others have sought a middle-of-the-road option like two weeks.

Still others have toyed with a more drawn-out trial that has the potential to scramble the schedules of a half-dozen Democratic senators who are running for president but would be jurors in an impeachment trial.

🍁☕🍂🍞🍁☕🍂🍞🍁☕🍂🍞🍁☕

Graham launches probe of Bidens, Burisma and Ukraine

By Colby Itkowitz | Published November 21 at 6:47 PM EST | Washington Post | Posted November 21, 2019 |

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Lindsey O. Graham sent a letter to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Thursday requesting documents related to former vice president Joe Biden and his communications with Ukrainian officials, a step seen as a GOP effort to counter the House impeachment investigation of President Trump.

The inquiry by Graham (R-S.C.) is focused on any calls Biden may have had with Petro Poroshenko, then the Ukrainian president, regarding the firing of the country’s top prosecutor, as well as any that referenced an investigation of Burisma, the Ukrainian natural-gas company that employed Biden’s son Hunter Biden.

Graham’s document request suggests he is seeking to legitimize Trump’s accusations that Biden, then vice president, put pressure on Ukraine to fire its lead prosecutor to protect his son, a claim without evidence that has been disputed by officials familiar with the investigation.

Graham, one of Trump’s fiercest defenders on Capitol Hill, told The Washington Post in late October that he was under intense pressure to launch an investigation into Biden by Trump and his allies.

But he said he would not “turn the Senate into a circus” and would instead focus his committee’s work on the investigation into the Justice Department’s launch of the Russia investigation.

Taylor Reidy, a spokeswoman for Graham, said the senator is now seeking the documents because “Adam Schiff and the House Intel Committee have made it clear they will not look into the issues about Hunter Biden and Burisma.” Rep. Schiff (D-Calif.) is chairman of the House Intelligence Committee.

“Graham is requesting documents which could shed additional light on that issue and hopes they will be able to answer some of the outstanding questions,” she said.

In Graham’s letter to Pompeo — seemingly timed to coincide with the conclusion of the public impeachment inquiry hearings in the House — he asks for communications between Joe Biden and Poroshenko as well as any between Devon Archer, a business partner of Hunter Biden’s, and then-Secretary of State John F. Kerry on March 2, 2016, based on reporting that the two were scheduled to meet that day.

A former Kerry aide, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to speak about a private meeting, said that the meeting was “100 percent unrelated to Burisma” and included “no mention of business.” The aide characterized the meeting as a “courtesy hello to a 2004 alumni” of Kerry’s presidential campaign and said their exchange lasted no more than five minutes.

Graham does not provide a deadline for the State Department to produce these documents.

The unsubstantiated allegation that Joe Biden acted nefariously in pushing for the removal of Ukraine’s prosecutor is at the center of the impeachment inquiry into Trump. Trump asked Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in a July 25 phone call to look into the Bidens — an attempt, Democrats charge, to use his power to strong-arm a foreign leader into investigating a potential political opponent.

When Biden pressured Ukraine to fire its prosecutor by threatening to withhold $1 billion in U.S. loan guarantees, he was leading a charge supported by the Obama administration, many Western leaders and several Republican senators.

Throughout the House hearings, Republicans have sought to shift the narrative to focus on the Bidens. They asked for Hunter Biden to testify, a request the Democrats rejected as irrelevant to the question of whether Trump abused his power.

Kurt Volker, a former envoy to Ukraine who Republicans asked to testify publicly, said during his hearing Tuesday that “allegations against Vice President Biden are self-serving and not credible.

🍁☕🍂🍞🍁☕🍂🍞🍁☕🍂🍞🍁☕

0 notes

justsimplylovely · 5 years ago

Link

from Yahoo News - Latest News & Headlines https://ift.tt/34YBpSa

#Blogger

0 notes

paullassiterca · 6 years ago

Text

Why Snopes Gets an 'F'

In the barrage of information you come across daily online, how do you know what’s true and what’s nothing more than hearsay, gossip or all-out lies? Some people use Snopes as their go-to source for online fact-checking, believing it to give the unbiased and credible final word on all those widely-circulated stories.

If you’re relying on Snopes as your arbiter of truth, however, you’re in for a surprise: Snopes engages in massive censorship of natural health and general promotion of industry talking points. What started as a tool to investigate urban legends, hoaxes and folklore has manifested into a self-proclaimed “definitive fact-checking resource” that’s taking on topics like whether or not vaccines can cause autism.

Yet, in their purported fact-checking of a Full Measure report1 by award-winning investigative reporter and former CBS correspondent Sharyl Attkisson,2 Snopes simply spewed propaganda, not real facts, in an attempt to discredit the report and the potential vaccines-autism link. In the end, though, they actually ended up confirming the main point of Attkisson’s report. For this, Attkisson wrote, “Snopes gets an ‘F’ for predictable propaganda in [the] vaccine-autism debate.”

Snopes Attempts to Discredit Investigative Report on Vaccines-Autism Link

youtube

Dr. Andrew Zimmerman, a pediatric neurologist, is a pro-vaccine expert witness the U.S. government used to debunk and turn down autism claims in vaccine court. “Zimmerman was the government’s top expert witness and had testified that vaccines didn’t cause autism.

The debate was declared over,” Attkisson reported. “But now Dr. Zimmerman has provided remarkable new information,” she said in the Full Measure report, adding:3

“He claims that during the vaccine hearings all those years ago, he privately told government lawyers that vaccines can, and did cause autism in some children. That turnabout from the government’s own chief medical expert stood to change everything about the vaccine-autism debate. If the public were to find out …

And he has come forward and explained how he told the United States government vaccines can cause autism in a certain subset of children and [the] United States government, the Department of Justice [DOJ], suppressed his true opinions.”

Zimmerman declined to be interviewed for the report, but referred Attkisson to his sworn affidavit, dated September 7, 2018, in which he stated that, in 2007, he told DOJ lawyers he had “discovered exceptions in which vaccinations could cause autism.

"I explained that in a subset of children … vaccine-induced fever and immune stimulation … did cause regressive [brain disease] with features of autism spectrum disorder,” Zimmerman wrote.

This reportedly “panicked” the DOJ, which subsequently fired him, saying his services would no longer be needed, but essentially attempting to silence him. According to Zimmerman, the DOJ then went on to misrepresent his opinion in future cases, making no mention of the exceptions he’d informed them of.

“Meantime, CDC [U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention] — which promotes vaccines and monitors vaccine safety — never disclosed that the government’s own one-time medical expert concluded vaccines can cause autism — and to this day public health officials deny that’s the case,” according to the Full Measure report.4

Attkisson’s report also reveals how Congressmen who wanted to investigate the autism-vaccine link were bullied, harassed and threatened. Dan Burton (R-IN), Dr. Dave Weldon (R-FL) and Bill Posey (R-FL) are among 11 current and former members of Congress and staff who told Attkisson they were warned by PhRMA lobbyists to drop the vaccine safety issue.

Snopes Gets an 'F’ for Fact-Checking

In an article that attempts to fact-check Attkisson’s investigation, Snopes calls out many of the claims as false while clearly attempting to “debunk” vaccine-autism claims. However, in a rebuttal, Attkisson explains that Snopes earned a failing grade for its reporting.

“[T]he Snopes article debunks claims that were never made and uses one-sided references as its sources — other propagandists — without disclosing their vaccine industry ties.”5

For starters, Snopes labeled Zimmerman as a supporter of vaccination, as though this was something that Attkisson hid. In contrast, this point was central to Attkisson’s story and a large part of what makes his statements regarding vaccines and autism so noteworthy. Some of the additional egregious tactics Snopes used to try to discredit Attkisson’s report included the following:6

Snopes claimed Attkisson’s reading of Zimmerman’s sworn affidavit was flawed when she “simply quoted from the affidavit”

Snopes states that Zimmerman’s view is “not held by many scientists,” but did not survey several reputable scientists who hold the view

Snopes fails to address what its headline promises: the question of whether the government censored its own expert witness’ opinion

It’s important to note that Snopes also wrote their article without contacting Attkisson, who went on to state that they also listed claims she never made, then declared them to be false, and even were incorrect in one of their own claims, specifically that the existence of a potential link between vaccines, mitochondrial disorder and autism was not news at the time of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services omnibus autism proceedings in 2007.

“In fact, this suspected link was not previously known before the so-called 'omnibus’ groups of vaccine-autism cases litigated a decade ago, and it is not widely known among doctors or the general public today; at least as of recently. That’s why it has proven to be so newsworthy,” Attkisson wrote, adding:7

“Snopes demonstrates reckless disregard for the truth when disparaging my reporting by falsely stating that it contains 'misleading claims’ …

Refuting claims never made in my report and putting out one-sided vaccine propaganda makes one wonder whether Snopes author Alex Kasprak even read or watched the report he attempts to criticize, or just blindly printed the propaganda provided to him by vaccine industry interests.”

Snopes Author Uses Industry Sources for 'Facts’

November 16, 2016, Snopes looked into claims made by Food Babe that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) might have shut down its residue testing of glyphosate due to complaints from Monsanto. “False,” Snopes declared.8 Ironically, the page declared that no corporate influence played a role and “the broad scientific consensus is that [glyphosate] is not a risk.”

Yet, a Twitter exchange clearly showed that the fact-checker for Snopes, Kasprak — the same author who wrote the critical review of Attkisson’s investigation — got his information about glyphosate’s safety from Kevin Folta, Ph.D.9

Folta, a University of Florida professor and a vocal advocate of genetically modified organisms (GMOs), who vehemently denied ever receiving any money from Monsanto, was caught lying about his financial ties to the company in 2015. The most flagrant piece of evidence against Folta shows that not only did he solicit funds from Monsanto, but he did so with intent to hide the financial connection between them.

Ironically, getting back to Attkisson’s case, the Snopes report ended up confirming exactly the point she was trying to make, stating, “Zimmerman, a scientist with serious credentials who was once a government expert on vaccines, believes that narrow circumstances might exist in which the combination of preexisting mitochondrial dysfunction and vaccination could trigger ASD [autism spectrum disorders].”10

“Snopes fabricates claims that were never made, debunks the fabricated claims,” Attkisson wrote, “and then ultimately agrees that the report I produced was accurate.”11

Snopes Founders Embroiled in Controversy

It’s dangerous to rely on any one source or group of individuals as authorities on truth, as it sets up the path for inevitable censorship. Even under the best circumstances, everyone is subject to their own biases, but in the case of Snopes, it was founded on fabrications from the start.

Snopes was created in 1995 by Barbara and David Mikkelson, who posed as “The San Fernardo Valley Folklore Society” in the beginning in order to gain credibility. Such a society does not exist as a legal entity, according to an investigation by the Daily Mail.12

The company soon expanded, but ultimately its founders divorced — amid claims that David Mikkelson embezzled company money for prostitutes and Barbara Mikkelson took millions from their joint bank account to buy property in Las Vegas.

According to Daily Mail, Mikkelson’s new wife, Elyssa Young — a former escort, self-proclaimed “courtesan” and porn actress who ran for Congress in Hawaii as a Libertarian in 2004 — was then employed as a Snopes administrator, even though the company claims to have no political leanings.

In response to the allegations, Forbes published an article weighing whether it was just another case of fake news, but ultimately was astonished by the lack of transparency given by the company’s founder when asked for comment, who stated that he was unable to respond due to a confidentiality clause in his divorce settlement. According to Forbes:13

“This creates a deeply unsettling environment in which when one tries to fact-check the fact-checker, the answer is the equivalent of 'its secret’ …

At the end of the day, it is clear that before we rush to place fact-checking organizations like Snopes in charge of arbitrating what is "truth” … we need to have a lot more understanding of how they function internally and much greater transparency into their work.“

Hardcore Censorship of Alternative Health and Media in Progress

Whether it be the recent flu shot stunt at the Golden Globes or the industry-driven "facts” published by Snopes, it’s clear that industry propaganda and censorship of health and media information that strays from the mainstream is a growing problem.

In a 2017 Gallup/Knight Foundation Survey on Trust, Media and Democracy, 73 percent said they believe the proliferation of “fake news” on the internet is a major problem, and only half feel confident that readers can get to the facts by sorting through bias.14 And the fact is, fake news is a real problem. But it’s important to do your own research before believing even “fact-checked” sources like Snopes.

NewsGuard is another outlet to be wary of. The entity is setting itself up as the self-appointed global arbiter of what information is “trustworthy” — based on nine “credibility and transparency” factors — not only for information viewed on private electronic devices, but also for information accessible in public libraries and schools.

Once you’ve installed the NewsGuard browser plugin on your computer or cellphone, the NewsGuard icon rating will appear on all Google and Bing searches and on articles featured in your social media news feeds.

These icons are meant to influence readers, instructing them to disregard content with cautionary colors and cautions, but I believe the true intent will be to bury this content entirely from search results and social media feeds.

It is very likely Google, Facebook, Twitter and other platforms will use these ratings to lower the visibility of content — making nonconformist views disappear entirely. It’s a concerning prospect, especially since NewsGuard received much of its startup funds from Publicis Groupe, a global communications group whose history of clients includes the drug and tobacco industries.

Now more than ever, it’s important to be aware of what companies may be filtering your news media and how their own agenda may color what you see. In your search for the truth, always follow your own guiding light — not one maintained by Snopes or any other internet watchdog or censorship authority that tries to lead you down their own biased path.

from Articles http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2019/02/05/snopes-fact-check-gets-failing-grade.aspx source https://niapurenaturecom.tumblr.com/post/182572710601

0 notes

jerrytackettca · 6 years ago

Text

Why Snopes Gets an 'F'

In the barrage of information you come across daily online, how do you know what's true and what's nothing more than hearsay, gossip or all-out lies? Some people use Snopes as their go-to source for online fact-checking, believing it to give the unbiased and credible final word on all those widely-circulated stories.

If you're relying on Snopes as your arbiter of truth, however, you're in for a surprise: Snopes engages in massive censorship of natural health and general promotion of industry talking points. What started as a tool to investigate urban legends, hoaxes and folklore has manifested into a self-proclaimed "definitive fact-checking resource" that's taking on topics like whether or not vaccines can cause autism.

Yet, in their purported fact-checking of a Full Measure report1 by award-winning investigative reporter and former CBS correspondent Sharyl Attkisson,2 Snopes simply spewed propaganda, not real facts, in an attempt to discredit the report and the potential vaccines-autism link. In the end, though, they actually ended up confirming the main point of Attkisson's report. For this, Attkisson wrote, "Snopes gets an 'F' for predictable propaganda in [the] vaccine-autism debate."

Snopes Attempts to Discredit Investigative Report on Vaccines-Autism Link

Dr. Andrew Zimmerman, a pediatric neurologist, is a pro-vaccine expert witness the U.S. government used to debunk and turn down autism claims in vaccine court. "Zimmerman was the government's top expert witness and had testified that vaccines didn't cause autism.

The debate was declared over," Attkisson reported. "But now Dr. Zimmerman has provided remarkable new information," she said in the Full Measure report, adding:3

"He claims that during the vaccine hearings all those years ago, he privately told government lawyers that vaccines can, and did cause autism in some children. That turnabout from the government's own chief medical expert stood to change everything about the vaccine-autism debate. If the public were to find out …

Zimmerman declined to be interviewed for the report, but referred Attkisson to his sworn affidavit, dated September 7, 2018, in which he stated that, in 2007, he told DOJ lawyers he had "discovered exceptions in which vaccinations could cause autism.

"I explained that in a subset of children … vaccine-induced fever and immune stimulation … did cause regressive [brain disease] with features of autism spectrum disorder," Zimmerman wrote.

This reportedly "panicked" the DOJ, which subsequently fired him, saying his services would no longer be needed, but essentially attempting to silence him. According to Zimmerman, the DOJ then went on to misrepresent his opinion in future cases, making no mention of the exceptions he'd informed them of.

"Meantime, CDC [U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention] — which promotes vaccines and monitors vaccine safety — never disclosed that the government's own one-time medical expert concluded vaccines can cause autism — and to this day public health officials deny that's the case," according to the Full Measure report.4

Attkisson's report also reveals how Congressmen who wanted to investigate the autism-vaccine link were bullied, harassed and threatened. Dan Burton (R-IN), Dr. Dave Weldon (R-FL) and Bill Posey (R-FL) are among 11 current and former members of Congress and staff who told Attkisson they were warned by PhRMA lobbyists to drop the vaccine safety issue.

Snopes Gets an 'F' for Fact-Checking

In an article that attempts to fact-check Attkisson's investigation, Snopes calls out many of the claims as false while clearly attempting to "debunk" vaccine-autism claims. However, in a rebuttal, Attkisson explains that Snopes earned a failing grade for its reporting.

"[T]he Snopes article debunks claims that were never made and uses one-sided references as its sources — other propagandists — without disclosing their vaccine industry ties."5

For starters, Snopes labeled Zimmerman as a supporter of vaccination, as though this was something that Attkisson hid. In contrast, this point was central to Attkisson's story and a large part of what makes his statements regarding vaccines and autism so noteworthy. Some of the additional egregious tactics Snopes used to try to discredit Attkisson's report included the following:6

Snopes claimed Attkisson's reading of Zimmerman's sworn affidavit was flawed when she "simply quoted from the affidavit"

Snopes states that Zimmerman's view is "not held by many scientists," but did not survey several reputable scientists who hold the view

Snopes fails to address what its headline promises: the question of whether the government censored its own expert witness' opinion

It's important to note that Snopes also wrote their article without contacting Attkisson, who went on to state that they also listed claims she never made, then declared them to be false, and even were incorrect in one of their own claims, specifically that the existence of a potential link between vaccines, mitochondrial disorder and autism was not news at the time of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services omnibus autism proceedings in 2007.

"In fact, this suspected link was not previously known before the so-called 'omnibus' groups of vaccine-autism cases litigated a decade ago, and it is not widely known among doctors or the general public today; at least as of recently. That's why it has proven to be so newsworthy," Attkisson wrote, adding:7

"Snopes demonstrates reckless disregard for the truth when disparaging my reporting by falsely stating that it contains 'misleading claims' …

Snopes Author Uses Industry Sources for 'Facts'

November 16, 2016, Snopes looked into claims made by Food Babe that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) might have shut down its residue testing of glyphosate due to complaints from Monsanto. "False," Snopes declared.8 Ironically, the page declared that no corporate influence played a role and "the broad scientific consensus is that [glyphosate] is not a risk."

Yet, a Twitter exchange clearly showed that the fact-checker for Snopes, Kasprak — the same author who wrote the critical review of Attkisson's investigation — got his information about glyphosate's safety from Kevin Folta, Ph.D.9

Ironically, getting back to Attkisson's case, the Snopes report ended up confirming exactly the point she was trying to make, stating, "Zimmerman, a scientist with serious credentials who was once a government expert on vaccines, believes that narrow circumstances might exist in which the combination of preexisting mitochondrial dysfunction and vaccination could trigger ASD [autism spectrum disorders]."10

"Snopes fabricates claims that were never made, debunks the fabricated claims," Attkisson wrote, "and then ultimately agrees that the report I produced was accurate."11

Snopes Founders Embroiled in Controversy

It's dangerous to rely on any one source or group of individuals as authorities on truth, as it sets up the path for inevitable censorship. Even under the best circumstances, everyone is subject to their own biases, but in the case of Snopes, it was founded on fabrications from the start.

Snopes was created in 1995 by Barbara and David Mikkelson, who posed as "The San Fernardo Valley Folklore Society" in the beginning in order to gain credibility. Such a society does not exist as a legal entity, according to an investigation by the Daily Mail.12

According to Daily Mail, Mikkelson's new wife, Elyssa Young — a former escort, self-proclaimed "courtesan" and porn actress who ran for Congress in Hawaii as a Libertarian in 2004 — was then employed as a Snopes administrator, even though the company claims to have no political leanings.

In response to the allegations, Forbes published an article weighing whether it was just another case of fake news, but ultimately was astonished by the lack of transparency given by the company's founder when asked for comment, who stated that he was unable to respond due to a confidentiality clause in his divorce settlement. According to Forbes:13

"This creates a deeply unsettling environment in which when one tries to fact-check the fact-checker, the answer is the equivalent of 'its secret' …

At the end of the day, it is clear that before we rush to place fact-checking organizations like Snopes in charge of arbitrating what is "truth" … we need to have a lot more understanding of how they function internally and much greater transparency into their work."

Hardcore Censorship of Alternative Health and Media in Progress

Whether it be the recent flu shot stunt at the Golden Globes or the industry-driven "facts" published by Snopes, it's clear that industry propaganda and censorship of health and media information that strays from the mainstream is a growing problem.

In a 2017 Gallup/Knight Foundation Survey on Trust, Media and Democracy, 73 percent said they believe the proliferation of "fake news" on the internet is a major problem, and only half feel confident that readers can get to the facts by sorting through bias.14 And the fact is, fake news is a real problem. But it's important to do your own research before believing even "fact-checked" sources like Snopes.

NewsGuard is another outlet to be wary of. The entity is setting itself up as the self-appointed global arbiter of what information is "trustworthy" — based on nine "credibility and transparency" factors — not only for information viewed on private electronic devices, but also for information accessible in public libraries and schools.

Once you've installed the NewsGuard browser plugin on your computer or cellphone, the NewsGuard icon rating will appear on all Google and Bing searches and on articles featured in your social media news feeds.

It is very likely Google, Facebook, Twitter and other platforms will use these ratings to lower the visibility of content — making nonconformist views disappear entirely. It's a concerning prospect, especially since NewsGuard received much of its startup funds from Publicis Groupe, a global communications group whose history of clients includes the drug and tobacco industries.

Now more than ever, it's important to be aware of what companies may be filtering your news media and how their own agenda may color what you see. In your search for the truth, always follow your own guiding light — not one maintained by Snopes or any other internet watchdog or censorship authority that tries to lead you down their own biased path.

from http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2019/02/05/snopes-fact-check-gets-failing-grade.aspx

source http://niapurenaturecom.weebly.com/blog/why-snopes-gets-an-f

0 notes

jakehglover · 6 years ago

Text

Why Snopes Gets an 'F'

Yet, in their purported fact-checking of a Full Measure report1 by award-winning investigative reporter and former CBS correspondent Sharyl Attkisson,2 Snopes simply spewed propaganda, not real facts, in an attempt to discredit the report and the potential vaccines-autism link. In the end, though, they actually ended up confirming the main point of Attkisson's report. For this, Attkisson wrote, "Snopes gets an 'F' for predictable propaganda in [the] vaccine-autism debate."

Snopes Attempts to Discredit Investigative Report on Vaccines-Autism Link

youtube

The debate was declared over," Attkisson reported. "But now Dr. Zimmerman has provided remarkable new information," she said in the Full Measure report, adding:3

Zimmerman declined to be interviewed for the report, but referred Attkisson to his sworn affidavit, dated September 7, 2018, in which he stated that, in 2007, he told DOJ lawyers he had "discovered exceptions in which vaccinations could cause autism.

"I explained that in a subset of children … vaccine-induced fever and immune stimulation … did cause regressive [brain disease] with features of autism spectrum disorder," Zimmerman wrote.

Snopes Gets an 'F' for Fact-Checking

"[T]he Snopes article debunks claims that were never made and uses one-sided references as its sources — other propagandists — without disclosing their vaccine industry ties."5

Snopes claimed Attkisson's reading of Zimmerman's sworn affidavit was flawed when she "simply quoted from the affidavit"

Snopes states that Zimmerman's view is "not held by many scientists," but did not survey several reputable scientists who hold the view

Snopes fails to address what its headline promises: the question of whether the government censored its own expert witness' opinion

"Snopes demonstrates reckless disregard for the truth when disparaging my reporting by falsely stating that it contains 'misleading claims' …

Snopes Author Uses Industry Sources for 'Facts'

November 16, 2016, Snopes looked into claims made by Food Babe that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) might have shut down its residue testing of glyphosate due to complaints from Monsanto. "False," Snopes declared.8 Ironically, the page declared that no corporate influence played a role and "the broad scientific consensus is that [glyphosate] is not a risk."

"Snopes fabricates claims that were never made, debunks the fabricated claims," Attkisson wrote, "and then ultimately agrees that the report I produced was accurate."11

Snopes Founders Embroiled in Controversy

In response to the allegations, Forbes published an article weighing whether it was just another case of fake news, but ultimately was astonished by the lack of transparency given by the company's founder when asked for comment, who stated that he was unable to respond due to a confidentiality clause in his divorce settlement. According to Forbes:13

"This creates a deeply unsettling environment in which when one tries to fact-check the fact-checker, the answer is the equivalent of 'its secret' …

Hardcore Censorship of Alternative Health and Media in Progress

from HealthyLife via Jake Glover on Inoreader http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2019/02/05/snopes-fact-check-gets-failing-grade.aspx

0 notes

everettwilkinson · 7 years ago

Text

MCCONNELL: Gov’t won’t shut down — TRUMP unleashes on Twitter: POTUS says people who lost money in stock market should SUE ABC — INSIDE the GRIDIRON DINNER — PETER BAKER A1: TRUMP’s whiplash presidency

KEEP YOUR HOLIDAY PLANS … MAYBE!: MCCONNELL PREDICTS NO SHUTDOWN: GEORGE STEPHANOPOULOS speaks to SENATE MAJORITY LEADER MITCH MCCONNELL on ABC’S “THIS WEEK”: STEPHANOPOULOS: “Republicans have a majority in the House and the Senate. Can … you keep the government open on your own?” MCCONNELL: “Look there’s not going to be a government shutdown. It’s just not going to happen.”

THE BIG PICTURE: REMOVE THE BLUE BAG — PETER BAKER on A1 of the SUNDAY TIMES — “Wrenched From Scandal to Success, Trump Looks Ahead, and Over His Shoulder”: “The highs and lows of a presidency rarely come in such quick succession. But within hours, President Trump watched as one of his closest former aides pleaded guilty and promised to help prosecutors seek out more targets, then stayed up late to cheer on the Senate as it broke through months of gridlock to pass the largest tax cuts in years.

Story Continued Below

“Scandal and success in short order left the White House whipsawed and searching for a path forward that would generate more of the latter while knowing that the former is not going away anytime soon. Michael T. Flynn, the former national security adviser who pleaded guilty to a felony on Friday, was the fourth person near Mr. Trump to be charged and few in Washington expect him to be the last.

“No president in modern times has faced such a major investigation so early in his term even as he was still seeking to establish his political footing, much less one with as little popular support in polls as Mr. Trump has. The challenge for Mr. Trump in the weeks to come will be how to press forward on his agenda without letting the ominous drumbeat of indictments and court hearings consume his presidency.” http://nyti.ms/2nq5Pvy

Good Sunday morning. WHAT’S ON THE PRESIDENT’S MIND — @realDonaldTrump at 8:36 a.m.: “Report: ‘ANTI-TRUMP FBI AGENT LED CLINTON EMAIL PROBE’ Now it all starts to make sense!” … at 8:15 a.m.: “People who lost money when the Stock Market went down 350 points based on the False and Dishonest reporting of Brian Ross of @ABC News (he has been suspended), should consider hiring a lawyer and suing ABC for the damages this bad reporting has caused – many millions of dollars!”

… at 8 a.m.: “After years of Comey, with the phony and dishonest Clinton investigation (and more), running the FBI, its reputation is in Tatters – worst in History! But fear not, we will bring it back to greatness.” … at 7:42 a.m.: “Tainted (no, very dishonest?) FBI ‘agent’s role in Clinton probe under review.’ Led Clinton Email probe. @foxandfriends Clinton money going to wife of another FBI agent in charge.”

THE TRUMP TWEET EVERYONE IS TALKING ABOUT: @realDonaldTrump at 6:15 a.m.: “I never asked Comey to stop investigating Flynn. Just more Fake News covering another Comey lie!”

— AP’S CALVIN WOODWARD and KEN THOMAS: “Trump shifted his story Saturday on why he fired Flynn, lumping in the retired Army lieutenant general’s lies to the FBI along with his untruthfulness with Vice President Mike Pence. The president’s initial explanation was that Flynn had to go because he hadn’t been straight with Pence about contacts with Russian officials. Lying to the FBI is a crime, and one that Flynn acknowledged Friday in pleading guilty and agreeing to cooperate with the special counsel’s Russia investigation.

“Trump tweeted Saturday: ‘I had to fire General Flynn because he lied to the Vice President and the FBI. He has pled guilty to those lies. It is a shame because his actions during the transition were lawful. There was nothing to hide!’ Amid questions raised by the tweet, Trump associates tried to put distance Saturday evening between the president himself and the tweet. One person familiar with the situation said the tweet was actually crafted by John Dowd, one of the president’s personal attorneys. Dowd declined to comment when reached by The Associated Press on Saturday night.” http://bit.ly/2zJrtN2

— JAKE TAPPER talks with SEN. MARK WARNER (D-VA.) on CNN’S “STATE OF THE UNION”: TAPPER: “President Trump says he never asked Comey to stop investigating Flynn. As you know better than I, Comey testified under oath before your committee in June that President Trump did ask him to drop the investigation. Whom do you believe?” WARNER: “I believe FBI Director Comey. I think he was very credible in his testimony and his private meetings with us. And it’s not just Comey. You had — clearly, you had an attorney general who has had to recuse himself because of untold contacts with Russians. You had the president of the United States trying to intervene, as has been reported, with other national intelligence leaders, who he appointed, saying, could you back off?”

— TAPPER with SEN. TIM SCOTT (R-S.C.): TAPPER: “Your fellow senator from South Carolina, Lindsey Graham, told CNN that he would urge President Trump to pledge to not pardon Michael Flynn. Do you agree with that?” SCOTT: “I do. At the end of the day, here’s what we know. We have to have a way to restore confidence of the American people in their elected officials and the leaders of this country. One way that you do that is by holding those folks who are, A, lying to the FBI, you hold those folks accountable, and, B, you have a process that is clear and transparent. When the Intel … Committee is finished, we will have the facts.”

NYT’S MIKE SCHMIDT, SHARON LAFRANIERE and SCOTT SHANE: “Emails Dispute White House Claims That Flynn Acted Independently on Russia”: “When President Trump fired his national security adviser, Michael T. Flynn, in February, White House officials portrayed him as a renegade who had acted independently in his discussions with a Russian official during the presidential transition and then lied to his colleagues about the interactions. But emails among top transition officials, provided or described to The New York Times, suggest that Mr. Flynn was far from a rogue actor.

“In fact, the emails, coupled with interviews and court documents filed on Friday, showed that Mr. Flynn was in close touch with other senior members of the Trump transition team both before and after he spoke with the Russian ambassador, Sergey I. Kislyak, about American sanctions against Russia. While Mr. Trump has disparaged as a Democratic ‘hoax’ any claims that he or his aides had unusual interactions with Russian officials, the records suggest that the Trump transition team was intensely focused on improving relations with Moscow and was willing to intervene to pursue that goal despite a request from the Obama administration that it not sow confusion about official American policy before Mr. Trump took office.

“On Dec. 29, a transition adviser to Mr. Trump, K. T. McFarland, wrote in an email to a colleague that sanctions announced hours before by the Obama administration in retaliation for Russian election meddling were aimed at discrediting Mr. Trump’s victory. The sanctions could also make it much harder for Mr. Trump to ease tensions with Russia, ‘which has just thrown the U.S.A. election to him,’ she wrote in the emails obtained by The Times. It is not clear whether Ms. McFarland was saying she believed that the election had in fact been thrown. A White House lawyer said on Friday that she meant only that the Democrats were portraying it that way.” http://nyti.ms/2zIdyad

MORE RUSSIA TIES — “Operative Offered Trump Campaign ‘Kremlin Connection’ Using N.R.A. Ties,” by NYT’s Nick Fandos: “A conservative operative trumpeting his close ties to the National Rifle Association and Russia told a Trump campaign adviser last year that he could arrange a back-channel meeting between Donald J. Trump and Vladimir V. Putin, the Russian president, according to an email sent to the Trump campaign.

“A May 2016 email to the campaign adviser, Rick Dearborn, bore the subject line ‘Kremlin Connection.’ In it, the N.R.A. member said he wanted the advice of Mr. Dearborn and Senator Jeff Sessions of Alabama, then a foreign policy adviser to Mr. Trump and Mr. Dearborn’s longtime boss, about how to proceed in connecting the two leaders. Russia, he wrote, was ‘quietly but actively seeking a dialogue with the U.S.’ and would attempt to use the N.R.A.’s annual convention in Louisville, Ky., to make “first contact.” …

“‘Putin is deadly serious about building a good relationship with Mr. Trump,’ the N.R.A. member and conservative activist, Paul Erickson, wrote. ‘He wants to extend an invitation to Mr. Trump to visit him in the Kremlin before the election. Let’s talk through what has transpired and Senator Sessions’s advice on how to proceed.’” http://nyti.ms/2jaUxHa

WHAT AMERICA IS WAKING UP TO — BIRMINGHAM NEWS — “Will black voters turn out Dec. 12?” http://bit.ly/2iI8NtI … DES MOINES REGISTER: “Despite warnings, few Iowa farmers face tax” http://bit.ly/2BCYFr3

****** A message from PhRMA: How much are hospitals marking up medicine prices? According to new Moran Company analysis, hospitals mark up medicine prices nearly 500 percent. The analysis of 20 medicines also found a hospital is paid 2.5 times what the biopharmaceutical company, who brought the medicine to market, receives. Read more: http://onphr.ma/2hSaqox ******

KELLY FILES — “Trump Finds Loopholes in Chief of Staff’s New Regime,” by WSJ’s Mike Bender: “Chief of Staff John Kelly over the past five months has imposed discipline and rigorous protocols on a freewheeling White House. But President Donald Trump has found the loopholes. The president on occasion has called White House aides to the private residence in the evening, where he makes assignments and asks them not tell Mr. Kelly about the plans, according to several people familiar with the matter. At least once, aides have declined to carry out the requested task so as not to run afoul of Mr. Kelly, one of these people said.

“The president, who values counsel from an informal group of confidants outside the White House, also sometimes bypasses the normal scheduling for phone calls that give other White House staff, including Mr. Kelly, some control and influence over who the president talks to and when. Instead, some of his friends have taken to calling Melania Trump and asking her to pass messages to her husband, according to two people familiar with the matter. They say that since she arrived in the White House from New York in the summer, the first lady has taken on a more central role as a political adviser to the president. ‘If I don’t want to wait 24 hours for a call from the president, getting to Melania is much easier,’ one person said.” http://on.wsj.com/2Aocdsk

JOKES! — HOUSE REPUBLICAN CONFERENCE CHAIRMAN CATHY MCMORRIS RODGERS spoke at the Gridiron Dinner last night. What she said: “I know, it’s been a long evening already, but don’t try to leave early. Matt Lauer helped us with all the locks. … My dear friend Vice President Pence had a lot of fun at the spring dinner. I asked him once ‘Mike, if you could pick any color to be — what would you choose?’ And he said: ‘Definitely never nude!’ … Seriously, I am so proud of our work this Congress. Without the brave and steady hand of Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell, those 3 pieces of legislation would never have become law.”

— SEN. TAMMY DUCKWORTH (D-ILL.) also at the Gridiron: “Look at us all here. My goodness. We’re all dressed like we’re getting a huge tax cut. … I actually just heard there’s another event like this at the White House tonight, but it’s not black tie. It’s orange jumpsuit. … Is Donald Trump’s next book going to be ‘The Art of the Plea Deal?’ … It used to be getting invited to speak at the Gridiron was the ultimate sign that you have made it in D.C. No offense, but now that ultimate sign is being mentioned in a Donald Trump tweet. As journalists, you have not arrived until you win Donald Trump’s ‘fake news’ trophy.

“Senators, for us, we have to wait until Donald Trump gives us an insulting nickname — Crooked Hillary, Little Marco, Lyin Ted. Seriously, Pocahontas? But what about me? What’s a girl gotta do to get some of Donald Trump’s attention? On second thought — don’t answer that. I’m Asian. I was born in a foreign country. I’m disabled. I’m a woman. And we know he doesn’t like people who were shot down. So I deserve an insensitive nickname, too. I may have some suggestions for our president.

“How about Not So Fly Girl? Peking Duckworth. Lame Duckworth. Tammy Duckworthless. Or maybe because of my bionic powers, Tammy Duckworth the $6 million woman — which might not sound like an insult, but remember, $6 million ain’t gonna get you in the Trump Cabinet. It’s barely enough to get you one of Paul Manafort’s suits. You can’t even take Mrs. Mnuchin on a date night with that.”

PAGE TURNER — COREY AND BOSSIE’S NEW BOOK — “Trump’s campaign: Big Macs, screaming fits and constant rivalries,” by WaPo’s Michael Kranish: “Elton John blares so loudly on Donald Trump’s campaign plane that staffers can’t hear themselves think. Press secretary Hope Hicks uses a steamer to press Trump’s pants — while he is still wearing them. Trump screams at his top aides, who are subjected to expletive-filled tirades in which they get their ‘face ripped off.’ And Trump’s appetite seems to know no bounds when it comes to McDonald’s, with a dinner order consisting of ‘two Big Macs, two Fillet-O-Fish, and a chocolate malted.’

“The scenes are among the most surreal passages in a forthcoming book chronicling Trump’s path to the presidency co-written by Corey Lewandowski, who was fired as Trump’s campaign manager, and David Bossie, another top aide. The book [is] ‘Let Trump Be Trump’ … ‘Sooner or later, everybody who works for Donald Trump will see a side of him that makes you wonder why you took a job with him in the first place,’ the authors wrote. ‘His wrath is never intended as any personal offense, but sometimes it can be hard not to take it that way. The mode that he switches into when things aren’t going his way can feel like an all-out assault; it’d break most hardened men and women into little pieces.’” http://wapo.st/2BtHBmw … $17.70 on Amazon http://amzn.to/2jFW1Zq

IF YOU READ ONE THING – “Inside the secretive nerve center of the Mueller investigation,” by WaPo’s Bob Costa, Carol Leonnig and Josh Dawsey: “In the past two months, Mueller and his deputies have received private debriefs from two dozen current and former Trump advisers, each of whom has made the trek to the special counsel’s secure office suite. Once inside, most witnesses are seated in a windowless conference room where two- and three-person teams of FBI agents and prosecutors rotate in and out, pressing them for answers.

“Among the topics that have been of keen interest to investigators: how foreign government officials and their emissaries contacted Trump officials, as well as the actions and interplay of Flynn and Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law. Often listening in is the special counsel himself, a sphinx-like presence who sits quietly along the wall for portions of key interviews. … Meanwhile, some witnesses who have been interviewed came away with the impression that the probe is unfolding and far from over. …

“The volume of questions about Kushner in their interviews surprised some witnesses. ‘I remember specifically being asked about Jared a number of times,’ said one witness. … Some witnesses were introduced to so many federal agents and lawyers that they later lamented that they had largely forgotten many of their names by the time one team left the room and a new team entered. … People familiar with the Mueller team said they convey a sense of calm that is unsettling. ‘These guys are confident, impressive, pretty friendly — joking a little, even,’ one lawyer said. When prosecutors strike that kind of tone, he said, defense lawyers tend to think: ‘Uh oh, my guy is in a heap of trouble.’” http://wapo.st/2At793U

SEN. DIANNE FEINSTEIN (D-CALIF.) talking with CHUCK TODD on NBC’S “MEET THE PRESS” about the Mueller investigation: “And, I think, what we’re beginning to see is the putting together of a case of obstruction of justice. I think we see this in the indictments, the four indictments and pleas that have just taken place, and some of the comments that are being made. I see it in the hyper-frenetic attitude of the White House: the comments every day, the continual tweets. And I see it, most importantly, in what happened with the firing of Director Comey and it is my belief that that is directly because he did not agree to lift the cloud of the Russia investigation. That’s obstruction of justice.”

ON THE WORLD STAGE — “Trump Boycotts U.N. Migration Talks: The White House’s ‘America First’ policy makers see little gain in setting the global rules for migration,” by Foreign Policy’s Colum Lynch: “President Donald Trump has decided to boycott a global conference on migration scheduled to begin Monday in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, sending a blunt signal that the United States is no longer interested in forging a concerted response to the world’s burgeoning migration crises. …

“The U.S. president’s decision to pull out of the negotiations highlighted the enduring influence of Stephen Miller, the 32-year-old senior White House policy advisor who has championed the Trump administration’s effort to sharply restrict immigration to the United States. In recent weeks, Miller led efforts to pull out of the migration talks. …

“White House chief of staff John Kelly, who previously led the Department of Homeland Security’s crackdown on illegal immigrants, and Attorney General Jeff Sessions strongly backed a pullout, according to diplomatic sources familiar with the deliberations. The State Department initially opposed the withdrawal, but its policy planning chief, Brian Hook, who represented Secretary of State Rex Tillerson at the principals’ meeting, reversed course and recommended ditching the negotiations. The meeting ended in deadlock, with Nikki Haley, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, expressing the lone dissent. Haley had argued that the United States would have a better shot at influencing the outcome of the negotiations if it participated in the process.” http://atfp.co/2nkQFrs

THE LATEST IN ALABAMA — “Is Roy Moore winning? Don’t ask the pollsters,” by Steven Shepard: “Roy Moore appears to have inched back in front of Democrat Doug Jones in the latest Alabama Senate election polls, according to the oft-cited RealClearPolitics average — a change in fortune from mid-November, when sexual misconduct allegations against Moore first surfaced. The reality? No one really has a clue about where things stand with Alabama voters in the December 12 special election.

“For all the national attention and the millions of dollars spent to win the seat, there’s relatively little public polling in the contest. Only three public surveys in the average have been conducted since the Thanksgiving holiday, and odds are you’ve never heard of two of the three pollsters. And that’s precisely the problem. The most important and closely watched election in the nation is taking place in the equivalent of a polling black box.” http://politi.co/2ArzO9q

— “Jones rallies black voters to turn out against Moore: The Alabama Democrat visits Selma as he tries to charge up the African-American vote for the Senate race,” by Daniel Strauss in Selma: “Doug Jones’ hunt for votes took him over the Edmund Pettus Bridge and into Selma’s annual Christmas parade Saturday, seeking to energize his most important bloc of supporters in Alabama’s special Senate election: African-Americans. Jones’ visit to a civil rights movement landmark epitomized his strategy in the final days of the Alabama race. Jones simply cannot win without African-American voters flooding to the polls on December 12, when he faces scandal-plagued Republican Roy Moore and hopes to become the first Democrat in years to win a statewide race in Alabama. …

“[Y]ears of Democratic losses have weakened voter interest and atrophied the state party, which is also riven by conflict between the different factions that remain. That has forced Jones to build a coalition almost from scratch in the last few months, leading some to criticize Jones for starting black outreach too late.” http://politi.co/2zK7jCM

THE BATTLEFIELD — “Battle for the House: GOP targets Democrats in Trump districts,” by Elena Schneider: “When Democratic Rep. Matt Cartwright woke up on Election Day 2016, he represented a safe blue Pennsylvania district. But by the time he went to sleep that night, Donald Trump had painted Cartwright’s turf red beneath his feet. Cartwright still won a third term, but Republicans hope to follow up on Trump’s top-of-the-ticket success by targeting Cartwright and 11 other House Democrats in Trump districts in 2018.

“A well-funded Republican jumped in to oppose Cartwright for the first time, while Cheri Bustos — the only Midwesterner in House Democratic leadership — has also drawn a stronger challenger than last year. Other Trump-district Democrats in Iowa, Minnesota and Wisconsin are also top Republican targets, as are open seats in the Las Vegas suburbs and southern New Hampshire.

“Republicans are mostly on defense in the House of Representatives ahead of the 2018 midterm elections, with Democrats looking to erase the GOP’s 24-seat advantage and take back the majority. But Republicans are also confident they can pad their margin by picking off some Democrats in heavily white, blue-collar districts next fall, despite the political winds blowing against them elsewhere in the U.S. — and Democrats are relying on those members to learn the lessons of Hillary Clinton’s 2016 loss to avoid 2018 surprises.” http://politi.co/2zY33DQ

FASCINATING MCCONNELL QUOTE — “‘This is class warfare’: Tax vote sparks political brawl over populism that will carry into 2018 elections,” by WaPo’s Dave Weigel, Bob Costa and Paul Kane: “‘They tend not to be popular,’ Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), referring to bills passed with only one party’s support, told The Washington Post in an interview Saturday. ‘Generally speaking, in the beginning, people decide they don’t like it.’ The test for Republicans is whether they can convince voters that this legislation will put more money in their wallets — and the GOP leader is not sure whether they can do that in time for the 2018 elections. ‘We don’t know,’ McConnell said. But he said he thinks that in the long run, the economic boost will come and voters will eventually reward Republicans. ‘Whether it’s immediately popular or not becomes irrelevant if it does what you hope,’ he added.” http://wapo.st/2zKsi8w

SUNDAY BEST — CHRIS WALLACE talks to H.R. MCMASTER on “FOX NEWS SUNDAY”: WALLACE: “Let me ask you about another personnel issue which bubbled up this week. White House officials are talking openly about a plan to replace Secretary of State Tillerson by January of the first anniversary of President Trump being sworn into office. The president and Secretary Tillerson pushed back on that hard. But, can you flatly deny that there is any plan in place to replace Secretary Tillerson over the next couple of months?” MCMASTER: “Yeah, I’m not aware of any plan at all. What I’m aware of is that the secretary of state is traveling today to advance and protect our interests, as is our secretary of defense.”

— JOHN DICKERSON talks with OMB DIRECTOR MICK MULVANEY on CBS’S “FACE THE NATION”: DICKERSON: “[L]et me ask you about the shutdown which might be coming. Government’s [going to] run out of money. Democrats wouldn’t meet with the president. What’s the status of things?” MULVANEY: “You know, it’s funny to see now that the Republicans are in charge I think there’s a group of right-wingers in the House who say they want to shut the government down. There’s a group of Democrats who want to shut the government down over DACA. And there’s a group of lawmakers from some of the hurricane states who want to shut the government down until they get what they want. This just sheds light on the fact that the spending system is broken when any little group can sort of hold the government hostage. We need to get beyond that. I think that we will. I don’t think you’ll see a government shutdown.”

DICKERSON: “People used to say that about you. You were in one of those little groups when you wanted to shut the government down for reasons. You’ve changed your stripes.” MULVANEY: “Well, all the more reason the system should be fixed. We don’t spend money properly in Washington, D.C. We jump these massive bills to massive bills. The government shut down I think, John, 17 times in 20 years between ’80 and ’94 or something like that.”

TV TONIGHT — On MSNBC’s “Kasie DC”: former Sen. Kelly Ayotte (R-N.H.), Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-Calif.), Rep. Cheri Bustos (D-Ill.), Jake Sherman, Shawna Thomas, Nick Confessore, Natasha Bertrand, Jeremy Bash, Ken Dilanian, Marin Cogan, Ben Schreckinger

YOU’RE INVITED — Our first live podcast taping next Thursday night (Dec. 7) at 7 p.m. at Sixth and I. Our inaugural guests: MICHAEL BARBARO, host of the New York Times’ hit podcast “The Daily,” DCCC EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR DAN SENA and NRCC EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR JOHN ROGERS. And a panel of POLITICO stars: RACHAEL BADE, SEUNG MIN KIM and ANNIE KARNI. Get your tickets now! http://bit.ly/2hWK7tF

PHOTO DU JOUR: President Donald Trump approaches the South Lawn of the White House aboard Marine One on Dec. 2. Trump was returning from a fundraising trip to New York. | Shawn Thew-Pool/Getty Images

SNL COLD OPEN – “White House Christmas Cold Open: President Donald Trump (Alec Baldwin) is visited by the spirits of Michael Flynn (Mikey Day), Billy Bush (Alex Moffatt), Vladimir Putin (Beck Bennett) and Hillary Clinton (Kate McKinnon)” – FLYNN (in chains): “Donald J. Trump. Donald J. Trump.” … TRUMP: “You’ve come to get me, I knew it. It’s the Muslim stuff, right?” FLYNN: “No.” TRUMP: “It’s for calling Mexicans rapists?” FLYNN: “No.” TRUMP: “The Roy Moore stuff?” FLYNN: “No.” TRUMP: “Draft-dodging?” FLYNN: “No.” TRUMP: “The birther stuff?” FLYNN: “No.” TRUMP: “Pocahontas?” FLYNN: “No.” TRUMP: “The Central Park Five? No wait. Making fun of the handicapped reporter like this?” FLYNN: “No, sir. Sir. I’m not here for any of that.”

TRUMP: “Who are you? Jacob Marley? You’ve got a lot of chains on.” FLYNN: “No, I am Michael Flynn, the ghost of witness flipped. Mr. President, I came to warn you. It’s time to come clean for the good of the country.” TRUMP: “What the good of the?” FLYNN: “The good of the country.” TRUMP: “The goobadacomcom?” 6-min. video http://bit.ly/2AQvwLO

FOR YOUR RADAR — “Pentagon evaluating U.S. West Coast missile defense sites – officials,” by Reuters’ Mike Stone in Simi Valley, California: “The U.S. agency tasked with protecting the country from missile attacks is scouting the West Coast for places to deploy new anti-missile defenses, two Congressmen said on Saturday, as North Korea’s missile tests raise concerns about how the United States would defend itself from an attack. West Coast defenses would likely include Terminal High Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) anti-ballistic missiles, similar to those deployed in South Korea to protect against a potential North Korean attack.” http://reut.rs/2AQRJti

MICHAEL GRUNWALD — “Trump Wants to Dismantle Elizabeth Warren’s Agency. Good Luck With That”: “The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is now the star of a bizarre legal and bureaucratic drama, a Rome-versus-Avignon power struggle unfolding a block from the White House. The resignation of the bureau’s director, Richard Cordray, has created a soap-opera succession battle tailor-made for the frenzied Washington news cycle, with two dueling officials claiming his job and furious partisans arguing both sides.” http://politi.co/2ArktFR

HEALTH CARE FALLOUT — “GOP Medicaid work rules imperil care for opioid abusers,” by Rachana Pradhan and Brianna Ehley: “Red states ravaged by the opioid crisis are pushing for Medicaid work requirements that could push people out of treatment as they try to get off drugs. Kentucky, New Hampshire, Maine and Indiana are among at least eight GOP-led states seeking federal approval to require Medicaid enrollees to work as a precondition of their health coverage. All four states have been hard hit by drug addiction, which claims 140 lives a day nationally.

“Governors say they would exempt people with chronic drug problems or severe mental illness from the Medicaid work requirements, but who would qualify and under what circumstances hasn’t been spelled out. Critics fear that many addicts could lose benefits, particularly if they go in and out of treatment, or have relapsed — a not uncommon occurrence. Employers’ resistance to hiring people who have failed drug tests or have criminal records could also put health benefits at risk.” http://politi.co/2npdwCk

MEDIAWATCH — “ABC News suspends Brian Ross for 4 weeks over erroneous Flynn story,” by CNN’s Oliver Darcy: “ABC News announced Saturday that it has suspended investigative reporter Brian Ross for four weeks without pay after Ross was forced to correct a bombshell on-air report about Michael Flynn. ‘We deeply regret and apologize for the serious error we made [Friday]. The reporting conveyed by Brian Ross during the special report had not been fully vetted through our editorial standards process,’ ABC said in a statement. ‘As a result of our continued reporting over the next several hours ultimately we determined the information was wrong and we corrected the mistake on air and online.’ ‘It is vital we get the story right and retain the trust we have built with our audience — these are our core principles,’ the statement added. ‘We fell far short of that [Friday].’” http://cnnmon.ie/2ADn4iu

–@BrianRoss: “My job is to hold people accountable and that’s why I agree with being held accountable myself.”

****** A message from PhRMA: According to new analysis from the Moran Company, hospitals mark up medicine prices, on average, nearly 500 percent. The analysis of 20 medicines also found a hospital is paid 2.5 times what the biopharmaceutical company, who brought the medicine to market, receives. While hospital markups lead to higher costs for patients, employers and payers, these markups are often overlooked in conversations about medicine costs. As the provider market continues to become more concentrated and the number of medicines being administered in hospital-owned facilities is growing, the amount hospitals mark up medicine prices needs greater scrutiny. http://onphr.ma/2Ba0TOa ******

BONUS GREAT WEEKEND READS, curated by Daniel Lippman:

— “The Lost Genocide,” by Doug Bock Clark in Longreads: “One [Rohingya] survivor described watching an attack on the town’s elderly religious leader as he was being carried from the flaming village on his son’s back. Soldiers knocked the son down, and then four of them grabbed the imam by his limb. They rocked back and forth to start the old man swinging and then hurled him into the inferno.” http://bit.ly/2jE2Ri5

— “The Recruiters: Searching For The Next Generation Of Warfighters In A Divided America,” by Adam Linehan in Task and Purpose – per TheBrowser.com’s description: “To join the US Army you need good physical and mental health, no tattoos on face or hands, a high-school diploma and a clean police record. Only 29% of Americans in the 17-24 age group meet those criteria. It’s easiest to recruit in the south and west around military bases where the army is familiar, hardest in the north and east. Since the draft ended in 1973, recruiting has become ‘one of the most important jobs in the military’. Here’s how the Army goes about it.” http://bit.ly/2AzKGo8

— “A Mother’s Ninth-Century Manual on How to Be a Man,” by Edward White in the Paris Review: “Dhuoda’s book outlines the subjects that should most concern a man of high birth, such as how to pray and read the Bible; how to distinguish vice from virtue; how best to honor his parents; how to serve God and the Crown; how to handle illness, affliction, and hardship. The Liber Manualis beguiles with its intimacy and exquisite intricacy, a glittering portal to a culture that can seem entirely alien from our own.” http://bit.ly/2zHCdLT

— “The Refugee Scandal on the Island of Lesbos,” by Giorgos Christides and Katrin Kuntz in Der Spiegel: “Those wishing to visit ground zero of European ignominy must simply drive up an olive tree-covered hill on the island of Lesbos until the high cement walls of Camp Moria come into view. The dreadful stench of urine and garbage greets visitors and the ground is covered with hundreds of plastic bags. Inside, you see containers meant for six people packed with 14, overflowing toilets and garbage bins that nobody empties with mothers changing their babies’ diapers right next to them.” http://bit.ly/2A7o51O

— “The Conflict in Yemen: A Primer,” by Clare Duncan in Lawfare: “The war is at a stalemate. There are functionally two governments: the Houthis in Sanaa, and Hadi in Aden. Yemenis are facing famine, primarily the consequence of a blockade by the Saudi-led coalition. For decades, Yemen has relied on imports for around 90 percent of its food needs, and the Saudi blockade—meant to prevent arms shipments to the Houthis—has cut off Yemenis’ access to food, along with medicine, fuel, and other humanitarian aid.” http://bit.ly/2AOvLH1

— “Understand and Survive in a Chinese Office,” by Qianwei Zhang on Medium: “Despite the fact that Chinese people are more and more open to outside influence, and economic opportunities have encouraged them to pursue individuality and freedom, deep down, they are still the sons and daughters of Confucius who were taught to respect collective interest and bow to the man above your rank.” http://bit.ly/2iDzekz

— “The Christian Legal Army Behind ‘Masterpiece Cakeshop’: A special investigation into the rise of Alliance Defending Freedom,” by Sarah Posner in the Nation: “The organization, which once aspired to be merely a Christian antidote to the secular ACLU, has fast become a training ground for future legislators, judges, prosecutors, attorneys general, and other government lawyers—including, notably, in the Trump administration.” http://bit.ly/2hXmwZO

— “What Do We Do with the Art of Monstrous Men?” by Claire Dederer in the Paris Review: “The real question is this: can I love the art but hate the artist? Can you? When I say we, I mean I. I mean you.” http://bit.ly/2zY33Aq

— “‘A tale of decay’: the Houses of Parliament are falling down,” by Charlotte Higgins in the Guardian: “As politicians dither over repairs, the risk of fire, flood or a deluge of sewage only increases. But fixing the Palace of Westminster might change British politics for good – which is the last thing many of its residents want.” http://bit.ly/2j71vg5

— “Terry McAuliffe’s Dead-Serious Advice For Democrats: Have Fun!” by BuzzFeed’s Ruby Cramer: “Terry McAuliffe spent 35 years chasing checks from donors, raising millions for Democrats, amassing success and scandal, befriending the Clintons, and earning legendary political status as the high-energy, fun-loving fundraiser known as ‘the Macker.’ Now he’s a governor with a serious record, in a state where Democrats just won big. So what’s changed about him? As it turns out, not much.” http://bzfd.it/2AlUz8w

— “Trump Tower’s Murky History and Murkier Future: Slumping Sales, Pentagon Leases, and Shadowy L.L.C.S,” by Suzanna Andrews in Vanity Fair: “Once home to celebrities like Bruce Willis and Michael Jackson, apartments in Trump Tower are now frequently owned by shadowy L.L.C.s—and even a few criminals. With security up and sales slumping, what does the future hold for the Trump Organization’s flagship property?” http://bit.ly/2zKEdTu

— “Walter Isaacson: Why I Left DC” – Washingtonian: “After years among the capital’s elite, an establishment fixture decides to return home.” http://bit.ly/2izrNuB

— “The case for normalizing impeachment,” by Vox’s Ezra Klein: “Impeaching an unfit president has consequences. But leaving one in office could be worse.” http://bit.ly/2i2W2Gd

— “Have You Ever Tried to Sell a Diamond?” by Edward Jay Epstein in the Feb. 1982 issue of the Atlantic: “An unruly market may undo the work of a giant cartel and of an inspired, decades-long ad campaign.” http://theatln.tc/2pkf2ml (h/t Longform.org)

— “22 Crushes,” by Davy Rothbart in California Sunday magazine: “Seeing the names [in a journal] again after so long transfixed me. There was Heidi, who rode the same bus as I did every day in junior high. Tara, whom I met at the neighborhood pool. Abby, a cellist. Colleen from gym class. And Allison, who shared my love for the Detroit Tigers.” http://bit.ly/2BkB0uy

SPOTTED: Reps. Mark Meadows (R-N.C.) and Barbara Comstock (R-Va.) in downtown Middleburg yesterday on Main Street before the “Christmas in Middleburg” parade … Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell on a 9 a.m. DCA flight on Saturday to Louisville, sitting in first class.

REMEMBERING LES WHITTEN – WaPo’s Harrison Smith: “Les Whitten, an investigative reporter whose skill at cultivating government sources and securing secret documents — sometimes through threats or the use of a paid private investigator — made him a top legman of muckraker Jack Anderson and an enemy of President Richard M. Nixon, died Dec. 2 at an assisted-living community in Adelphi, Md. He was 89. … A self-described ‘swashbuckler,’ Mr. Whitten was an aspiring novelist who covered wars in the Dominican Republic and Vietnam before joining the staff of the country’s most popular daily news column, the Washington Merry-Go-Round, in 1969.” http://wapo.st/2Alr1ro

WEEKEND WEDDINGS — Romney Ramblers wedding – Pool report: “CNN’s Rachel Streitfeld and DHS’s Tim Runfola exchanged hand-written vows Saturday night at the Texas Discovery Gardens in Dallas, beneath the 212-foot Texas Star Ferris wheel. The couple danced the night away to a 10-piece band while guests enjoyed a roving poet, artisanal cotton candy and other Texas treats. Rachel’s mom, former Dallas KXAS-TV anchor Carolyn Raiser, distributed cowboy hats to guests on the dance floor.” Instapics http://bit.ly/2BBfv9z … http://bit.ly/2BvgNSO

SPOTTED: former Fed Chairman Paul Volcker — great uncle of the bride, Kasie Hunt (bridesmaid in pomegranate) and Matt Rivera, Reid Epstein, Ashley Parker and Mike Bender, Sara Murray and Garrett Haake, Phil Rucker, Chris Laible (in from Beijing), Holly Bailey, Eric Thayer, Jo Ling Kent and Scott Conroy, Nicole Busch, Michael Falcone, Zain Asher and Steve Peoples, Shawna Shepherd and Craig Minassian, and Rachel’s CNN crew: Matt Hoye and Melissa Junior, Rob Yoon, Bonney Kapp, Abigail Crutchfield, Kevin Bohn, Laura Bernardini and Marlena (Baldacci) Militana.

— ADAM WOLF, deputy chief of staff to Rep. Carlos Curbelo (R-Fla.), married ANNIE MINKLER of the Rules Committee.

SPOTTED at Christopher Bedford’s annual Christmas party last night: Amanda Lee House, Heather Swift, Nika Nour, Vince Coglianese, Melissa Brown, Ryan Coyne, Saagar Enjeti and Katie Watson, Sarah Westwood, Gabby Morrongiello, Francesca Chambers and Michael Moroney, Ben Jenkins, Peter Doocy, Alex Pfeiffer, Al Weaver, Asawin Suebsaeng, Lachlan Markay and Anna Massoglia, Steve Guest, Matt Gorman, Tommy Schultz and Ashley Harvey, Matt Wolking, Nihal Krishan, Tina Nguyen, Robbie Myers, Alex Pappas.

BIRTHWEEK (was yesterday): Deb Haaland, running for Congress in New Mexico

BIRTHDAYS: Robby Mook … Jesse Lee … Politico Florida’s Bruce Ritchie … Eleanor Schiff … Mike Inacay, Sen. Brian Schatz’s comms director … Katelyn Rieley Johnson … Ali Zelenko, SVP of NBC News PR (hat tip: Erika Masonhall) … WaPo’s Scott Higham … Jacqueline Quasney … Elizabeth Edelman, VP of strategy and biz development at Global Citizen and a Romney alum … Bill Sternberg, editorial page editor of USA Today, is 61 … Jamie Carroll … Jamie Sherman … Margaret Mulkerrin, a press assistant for Whip Hoyer … NYT biz reporter Diane Cardwell … Angelica Brantley … Kevin Baron, executive editor of Defense One … Aron Goldman is 47 … Robert Pondiscio … Cody Sanders, former Luther Strange staffer who joined the White House in November as a presidential writer. “What he knows for sure is that Alabama fans care about Alabama football, Auburn fans care about Auburn. War Eagle!” (h/t Nicole Schiegg) … Lance Trover, a Bruce Rauner and NRSC alum …

… Bill Tighe, VP of federal government affairs at the National Association of Chain Drug Stores, is 4-0 … Laura Howard of Sentinel Strategic Advisors (h/ts Matt Gorman and Remy) … Katherine Klein, vice dean of the Wharton Social Impact Initiative and professor of management (h/t Jon Haber) … Rep. Jim Renacci (R-Ohio) is 59 … Rep. Eddie Bernice Johnson (D-Tex.) is 82 … Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson is 67 … former Rep. Stephanie Herseth Sandler (D-SD) is 47 … Danielle Filson of Uber … Matthew Flaherty … Mandi Critchfield, comms. director for Senate Banking Committee … Neal Ungerleider … CQ-Roll Call VP David Meyers … Lance Trover … Let Freedom Ring USA president Colin Hanna … Chris Kelaher … Rich McFadden … Miles Doran, producer for “CBS This Morning” … Tom Oppel … John Toohey … Greg Everts … Francie Phelps (h/ts Teresa Vilmain)

SUBSCRIBE to the Playbook family: POLITICO Playbook http://politi.co/2lQswbh … Playbook Power Briefing http://politi.co/2xuOiqh … New York Playbook http://politi.co/1ON8bqW … Florida Playbook http://politi.co/1OypFe9 … New Jersey Playbook http://politi.co/1HLKltF … Massachusetts Playbook http://politi.co/1Nhtq5v … Illinois Playbook http://politi.co/1N7u5sb … California Playbook http://politi.co/2bLvcPl … London Playbook http://politi.co/2xfDPuK … Brussels Playbook http://politi.co/1FZeLcw … All our political and policy tipsheets http://politi.co/1M75UbX

This article tagged under:

Source link

from CapitalistHQ.com https://capitalisthq.com/mcconnell-govt-wont-shut-down-trump-unleashes-on-twitter-potus-says-people-who-lost-money-in-stock-market-should-sue-abc-inside-the-gridiron-dinner-peter-baker-a1-trump/

#TrumpNews #CapitalistHQ.com

0 notes