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theliberaltony · 7 years

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In the nearly seven months since Robert Mueller was appointed to investigate possible collusion between the Donald Trump campaign and Russia, he has already obtained two indictments and two guilty pleas. Paul Manafort and Rick Gates, the indictees, are back in court Monday, when their trial date could be set, and more charges could well be coming for other people in Trump’s orbit. But even as the investigation gathers steam — or perhaps because of it — there are increasing concerns about just how long Mueller will be able to keep his job.

The prosecutor serves under the authority of the deputy attorney general and could be asked to leave at any time.1 And external opposition could help grease the wheels for his departure. A growing drumbeat to this effect seems to be building on the right. Earlier this month, The Wall Street Journal’s editorial board wrote for the second time that Mueller is too “conflicted” to run the investigation and called on him to step down in favor of someone more “credible.” Fox News host Sean Hannity recently condemned Mueller’s investigators as “an extremely biased team of liberal crusaders,” and Newt Gingrich, who called Mueller a “superb choice” to run the investigation when he was appointed in May, is now attacking him as “corrupt.”

Then there’s the possibility that the president could simply lose patience with Mueller and order Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein to fire him. Mueller reportedly subpoenaed information this fall on accounts held by the Trump family at Deutsche Bank — after Trump implied earlier this year that investigating his finances could spur him to consider dismissing Mueller.2

Democrats, for their part, have been arguing for months that Congress needs to act to pass additional protections for Mueller. But our review of the history of special prosecutor investigations suggests that Mueller’s investigation is more secure than it might seem — and that more protections don’t necessarily produce more effective prosecutions.

Robert Mueller in 2013 while serving as director of the FBI. Mueller was appointed special prosecutor in May.

Alex Wong / Getty Images

Since the late 19th century, when a special prosecutor was used for the first time, public pressure alone has been sufficient to keep an investigation going, even when the president tried to intervene. Our analysis of the 30 investigations since 1875 shows that at first, special prosecutors were relatively rare and appointed only in response to very serious scandals. They were called on to examine diverse allegations involving government officials, all spurred by the perception that a conflict of interest would have kept ordinary prosecutors from conducting a fair investigation or might have driven someone powerful to intervene. In cases where the White House interfered anyway, public outcry saved the investigation.

It was only in the late 20th century that Congress decided that special prosecutors needed more protections from the executive branch and created the position of an independent counsel, which reported to a three-judge panel rather than the president or the attorney general. But the results of these enhanced protections for independence were so mixed that these legal safeguards were allowed to lapse after only 20 years.

“The system we have actually seems to work pretty well,” Josh Chafetz, a professor of law at Cornell Law School, said of the return to special prosecutors appointed by the attorney general. “In the few cases where a prosecutor has been fired, the blowback was so intense that a new one was appointed very quickly.”

The first special prosecutor, John B. Henderson, was asked by Ulysses S. Grant to investigate the Whiskey Ring scandal.

In fact, the very first use of a special prosecutor demonstrates the limits of a president trying to stop an investigation. Ulysses S. Grant appointed John B. Henderson in 1875, just five years after the Department of Justice was founded, to look into what became known as the Whiskey Ring. This group of whiskey distillers, employees of the Treasury Department and Internal Revenue Service, and Grant’s friends and cronies were defrauding the government of millions of dollars in liquor tax revenues.

Embarrassed by negative press coverage of the scandal, Grant tapped Henderson to lead an investigation into the ring with the hope of deflecting criticism. But he ended up firing Henderson after Grant’s personal secretary was indicted and — even worse — Henderson raised questions about Grant’s own connection to the scandal. But the move was quickly condemned — one treasury official called it “a fatal blow” to the investigation — and the attorney general replaced Henderson with another prosecutor. Eventually, more than 100 people were convicted of tax fraud (although not Grant’s secretary, who was acquitted after Grant took the unusual step of serving as a defense witness on his behalf).

Over the next half-century, a handful of presidents appointed special prosecutors to deal with a select number of high-profile scandals. As with Grant, most were responding to public pressure. “It was a way to ease the heat coming usually from the media or from Congress,” said Katy Harriger, a professor of political science at Wake Forest University who authored a book on special prosecutors.

Francis J. Heney was appointed special prosecutor in 1903 by Theodore Roosevelt’s attorney general.

And those investigations were effective in taking down congressmen and Cabinet secretaries. For example, in 1903, Theodore Roosevelt’s attorney general named a special prosecutor who ended up convicting two members of Congress for helping timber investors illegally obtain government land in Oregon. (The Supreme Court eventually overturned one of the convictions.) In the 1920s Teapot Dome scandal, Warren Harding’s secretary of the interior became the first official convicted of a crime while serving in the Cabinet after special prosecutors discovered that he had been bribed to lease public land to oil companies.

With the exception of Henderson, none of the special prosecutors through the mid-20th century was dismissed by a president,3 but during that time, the special prosecutor was always theoretically vulnerable to the whims of the president.

This danger was cast into sharp relief in 1973, when Archibald Cox was appointed to be the special prosecutor in the Watergate investigation. Richard Nixon then ordered the attorney general to fire Cox after Cox tried to force Nixon to turn over secret recordings of Oval Office conversations. In that case, too, Nixon was forced to replace Cox with a new special prosecutor within a matter of weeks — and the firing did not slow the Watergate investigation’s progress.

Special Watergate prosecutor Archibald Cox on Oct. 19, 1973 — one day before he was dismissed.

AP PHOTO

But the upheaval was deeply disturbing to legislators. Four years after Nixon resigned, Congress passed a law that created the office of the independent counsel, which reported to a panel of judges and required the attorney general to recommend the appointment of an independent counsel whenever there were “reasonable grounds to believe that further investigation is warranted” on misconduct charges against government officials.

The result was that the number of special prosecutors ballooned in the 1980s and 1990s. From 1875 through 1978, there were seven special prosecutor investigations; under the independent counsel law, which lapsed in 1999, there were 20.

John Q. Barrett, a St. John’s University law professor who worked on the Iran-Contra investigation in the 1980s, said that many of these inquiries didn’t merit an independent prosecutor — for example, an investigation into allegations that two of Jimmy Carter’s White House aides had snorted cocaine at a New York club. In that case, in which no charges were brought, there was no reason to think the president would intervene. “They could have put four New York City cops on the case,” Barrett said.

“This big, noble statute turned into an overbuilt machine for investigating allegations that were pretty small fry,” he said.

During the next two decades, 12 of the 20 investigations under the independent counsel law did not result in any criminal charges — a sharp contrast with the earlier special prosecutor probes, which all resulted in indictments or large-scale resignations.

There were, of course, major political scandals investigated by independent counsels, but even these high-level inquiries were often criticized for their length and expense. Most special prosecutor investigations ended up costing taxpayers millions of dollars, often without appearing to justify their rapidly mounting price tag.4

Special prosecutor investigation costs and results

From January 1979 through Sept. 30, 2017

PRESIDENCY INVESTIGATION COST INDIVIDUALS CHARGED PLEAS AND CONVICTIONS PARDONS Trump Russia collusion (ongoing) $3.2m 4 2 0 W. Bush Valerie Plame leaks 2.6 1 1 0 Clinton Waco raid 15.5 0 0 0 Alexis Herman, influence-peddling 6.0 1 0 0 Bruce Babbitt, casino application 7.2 0 0 0 Eli Segal, conflict of interest 0.6 0 0 0 Ron Brown, selling plane seats 3.9 0 0 0 Henry Cisneros, perjury 24.4 6 4 2 Mike Espy, accepting gifts 25.2 13 8 7 Whitewater, Vince Foster, Monica Lewinsky 79.7 20 14 4 Search of Bill Clinton’s passport files 3.1 0 0 0 H.W. Bush Sealed < 0.1 0 0 0 Samuel Pierce, influence-peddling 29.4 18 16 1 Sealed 0.0 0 0 0 Reagan Lyn Nofziger, improper lobbying 2.8 2 1 0 Iran-Contra 47.9 14 11 6 Sealed 0.1 0 0 0 Michael Deaver, perjury 1.6 1 1 0 Ted Olson, obstruction of justice 2.1 0 0 0 Edwin Meese, financial improprieties 0.3 0 0 0 Raymond Donovan, mob ties 0.3 0 0 0 Carter Tim Kraft, cocaine use < 0.1 0 0 0 Hamilton Jordan, cocaine use 0.2 0 0 0

Showing presidencies during which the investigations began. Some defendants were indicted and later pleaded guilty, and some defendants were initially charged with one set of crimes and then indicted again on other charges. In both cases, only the first set of indictments and charges are included. Indictments of businesses are excluded.

Two figures in the Iran-Contra scandal — Oliver North and John Poindexter — saw their convictions overturned on appeal. Lyn Nofziger’s conviction was also reversed on appeal, as was the conviction of Lance Wilson, who was part of the influence-peddling scandal under Samuel Pierce.

I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby’s prison sentence was commuted by George W. Bush, although he still had to pay a $250,000 fine.

Sources: Congressional Research Service, various news sources

Special counsel Kenneth Starr’s investigation of Bill and Hillary Clinton’s investment in a real estate entity called the Whitewater Development Company fell squarely into this category. The investigation officially launched in August 1994 to look at Bill Clinton’s dealings while he was a state official, and it resulted in charges for a wide range of Clinton associates, including the sitting governor of Arkansas. But Starr then expanded his inquiry to include a probe of White House aide Vince Foster’s death (after three years, Starr reaffirmed the conclusion that Foster had committed suicide), claims that the Clintons had fired aides in the presidential travel office to give jobs to their friends (no intentional wrongdoing was found), and an investigation of allegations that Clinton had encouraged Monica Lewinsky to lie about their affair under oath, which ultimately led to Clinton’s impeachment.

“It was becoming clear that when you freed the independent counsel from all checks — political and budgetary — they could keep expanding their purview kind of indefinitely,” Chafetz said. “There was a real sense that he (Starr) had lost perspective of what this investigation was supposed to be for and was pursuing Clinton personally.”

With the office of the independent counsel under fire — even Starr eventually turned on it, calling it “constitutionally dubious” — Congress chose not to renew it in 1999. The Department of Justice issued regulations instead providing for the appointment of a special prosecutor by the attorney general — a functional return to the pre-1978 status quo.

Independent counsel Kenneth Starr is sworn in on Nov. 19, 1998, prior to testifying before the House Judiciary Committee during a hearing on the impeachment of President Clinton.

Doug Mills / AP PHOTO

Since then, the regulations have been invoked only three times: in 1999, to investigate the FBI’s actions in the 1993 raid on the Branch Davidians in Waco, Texas (the special prosecutor criticized the way the raid was handled, but no charges were brought); in 2003, to investigate the leak of undercover CIA agent Valerie Plame’s name by the George W. Bush administration (Bush aide I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby, was convicted); and the Russia investigation this year.5

Despite Democrats’ anxiety, Barrett said he’s confident that even if Trump did direct the deputy attorney general to fire Mueller — an order that Justice Department officials might be unwilling to carry out — the special prosecutor position wouldn’t stay vacant for long.

“Robert Mueller is widely perceived as a competent and credible law enforcement official,” Barrett said. “As long as he doesn’t do something to jeopardize that, Trump would have no justification for dismissing him. And if he did, he’d have to appoint an equally credible replacement, or there would be really catastrophic political consequences.”

#IFTTT #Politics – FiveThirtyEight #politics #538 #Amelia Thomson-DeVeaux

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cotmonty0120-blog · 6 years

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Enhance Interpersonal Communication Skills In 3 Simple Steps.

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tokupedia · 8 years

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SPECIAL SAIKOU!: Japanese Superhero Showcase- Casshern

youtube

“By abandoning his mortal life, he gained an immortal body. To fight the evil iron demons and crush them into the earth. If Casshern won’t do it....who will?”

The year is 1973:

The global oil crisis begins, Watergate has rocked and shattered the USA’s faith in democracy, Cutie Honey hits television, Mazinger Z battled Devilman, Godzilla fought Megalon, Bruce Lee dies after filming of Enter the Dragon, The Exorcist scared the daylights out people and a little director named George Lucas made the big time with the box office hit American Graffiti.

But at Tatsunoko studios, the production team was hot off the success of Gatchaman and needed another show to keep things fresh. The team chose a serialized manga done by Kodansha and Boken-oh and got to work on a televised version of it. The concept was a boy fighting a robot apocalypse by being converted into a super android and battling alongside his companions.

Incarnations

The Original

In the 1973 series, Casshern was once a young boy named Tetsuya Azuma. He had a happy life with his parents, his dog Lucky and his girlfriend Luna. His father was a scientist who was working on a new kind of android that would help mankind. However, in a Skynet/Frankenstein turn of events, a bolt of lightning gives one of the androids designated BK-1 sentience. The android then proceeded to break out of the castle the Azumas lived in and plot to end humanity. Some time later, BK-1 has literally assembled a robot army and christened himself as Buraiking Boss, a Hitler-esque tyrant android who believes that to save Earth’s environment, he must kill all the inferior humans.

The Robots invade and some already built rebel against their masters and decimate Earth’s defenses. Tetsuya’s dog Lucky is killed trying to protect his friends and Dr. Kotaro Azuma rushes to create an invention that will stop the Android forces.

His solution is an indestructible android body that allows a human consciousness to inhabit it. Tetsuya volunteers, becoming the feared hunter of machines Casshern! His dog Lucky gets his mind transferred to a shape changing robot dog named Friender, who joins his fight to take down Buraiking Boss and save humanity from extinction!

1990s

Same story, with a few tweaks like having an array of commanders who served the now dubbed “Black King” (translation error of early anime releases at work) and a bit more of a darker adult tone. The anime also tweaked the looks of characters a bit and polished the animation to appeal to a more modern audience. The most notable change is that Casshern (or Casshan as this iteration is called) now has a retractable visor in addition to his faceplate and armor plating on his chest.

2004 tokusatsu film

A radical departure from the original concept, the 2004 film is essentially Casshern in name only in certain areas. Set in a dystopic future, a war between two nations has resulted in an environmental disaster. Dr. Azuma comes up with an invention called “Neo-Cells” which accidentally results in a group of superhumaniods called “Neo-Sapiens” to be born. Tetsuya, a deceased war hero and Dr. Azuma’s son becomes a Neo Sapien after an experiment resurrects him. After witnessing a rebellion by the other Neo Sapiens led by a man named Burai with an army of robots, Tetsuya becomes the heroic Casshern, a warrior named after a prophesied deity.

Sins

He who killed the Sun named Moon and brought forth the Ruin...

Tatsunoko dusted off Casshern for a reboot in 2008, as a sort-of continuation of the company’s 45th anniversary in 2007.

Like the 2004 film version, this iteration deviates from the primary story. In this one, Casshern is an enforcer of Buraiking Boss. Something goes horribly wrong after he is ordered to kill a savior who represents humanity’s last hope, as her life essence is connected to the Earth and her death slowly kills the planet in a phenomenon known simply as The Ruin. Hundreds of years later, this creates a world where robots corrode rapidly and die and all remaining organic life is dying slowly due to the change in environment. Humanity is going extinct as the toxins in the air and land have robbed them of the ability to reproduce.

The Earth reeks of Death.

Yet, somehow, Casshern is still around and has no memory of what he has done or why things are in such a state.

This iteration is written by tokusatsu writer Yasuko Kobayashi and is the darkest incarnation of the Cassherns. (Not to mention soul crushingly depressing as one of its main story themes is the inevitability of death, how we deal with it and must accept our mortality.)

Infini-T Force

Civilian mode

Behold, the newest incarnation of the Neo-Human!

He appears to be relatively younger than previous iterations, but has a more armored look and his Pulsar Propellers are more modern looking. Like his 90′s incarnation, it is romanized as Casshan again.

Like all the other heroes in this story, Casshan was brought to the “real world” by a frightened girl named Kyoko, who made a wish on her mysterious “Probability Pen” during a convenience store robbery for a hero to save her. (So, Last Action Hero meets Big Bad Beetleborgs in a sense)

He will be one of the members of this four hero super team in 2017!

Powers:

Super Strength, Super Speed, Invulnerability (regeneration and immortality instead in Sins), powerful Energy Blast called the Destruction Beam which is fired from his helmet. Waist-mounted pulsar propellers can enhance jumps or be used as an offensive weapon.

His robot dog Friender can breathe fire, has super speed and strength and like Polymar can change into vehicles such as a motorcycle, a jet, a tank and a submarine that Casshern can use for transport.

Weaknesses:

In the first two iterations, Casshern is a Solar Powered hero and his energy can deplete during long battles. This is made worse when the Sun isn’t out, as a symptom of his failing power is that his eyesight blurs and his body weakens to the point he can collapse and go unconscious. Only the Sun can replenish his energy.

In Sins, Casshern has a self-preservation quirk that can overcome him to the point he attacks friend or foe in a berserk state, usually when provoked, in a state of rage or during long battles. He has a healing factor, but every stab, impaling or blow that causes serious damage causes him an agonizing amount of pain during the healing. He also cannot die, which can create psychological trauma for him or hostile situations among other survivors in certain cases.

Fun fact:

Casshern has a bit of a fan following, seemingly among its fans is Keiji Inafune, video game creator of a certain SUPER FIGHTING ROBOT~. This can be seen with his creation Rush the Dog and there is even a character named Friender in Mega Man II!

Up Next...It’s time to play with Toys and do a victory pose!

#tokusatsu #anime #tatsunoko #55th anniversary #casshern #casshern sins #casshan #superheroes

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bountyofbeads · 5 years

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Growing number of Republicans struggle to defend Trump on G-7 choice, Ukraine and Syria

By Rachael Bade, Mike DeBonis and Seung Min Kim | Published October 18 at 8:04 PM ET | Washington Post | Posted October 18, 2019 |

A growing number of congressional Republicans expressed exasperation Friday over what they view as President Trump’s indefensible behavior, a sign that the president’s stranglehold on his party is starting to weaken as Congress hurtles toward a historic impeachment vote.

In interviews with more than 20 GOP lawmakers and congressional aides in the past 48 hours, many said they were repulsed by Trump’s decision to host an international summit at his own resort and incensed by acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney’s admission — later withdrawn — that U.S. aid to Ukraine was withheld for political reasons. Others expressed anger over the president’s abandonment of Kurdish allies in Syria.

One Republican, Rep. Francis Rooney (Fla.) — whose district Trump carried by 22 percentage points — did not rule out voting to impeach the president and compared the situation to the Watergate scandal that ended Richard Nixon’s presidency.

“I’m still thinking about it, you know?” Rooney said of backing impeachment. “I’ve been real mindful of the fact that during Watergate, all the people I knew said, ‘Oh, they’re just abusing Nixon, and it’s a witch hunt.’ Turns out it wasn’t a witch hunt. It was really bad.”

The GOP’s rising frustration is a break from the past three years, when congressional Republicans almost uniformly defended Trump through a series of scandals that engulfed the White House. There’s now a growing sense among a quiet group of Republicans that the president is playing with fire, taking their loyalty for granted as they’re forced to “defend the indefensible,” as a senior House Republican said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to talk frankly.

A few Republicans are starting to say they flat-out won’t do it anymore — particularly the president’s choice of his Trump National Doral Miami golf resort for next year’s Group of Seven summit of world leaders, a selection that will benefit him financially.

“You have to go out and try to defend him. Well, I don’t know if I can do that!” steamed a frustrated Rep. Mike Simpson (R-Idaho). “I have no doubt that Doral is a really good place — I’ve been there, I know. But it is politically insensitive. They should have known what the kickback is going to be on this, that politically he’s doing it for his own benefit.”

To be sure, Republican leadership in the House and Senate — and many rank-and-file GOP lawmakers — are still firmly behind Trump, who remains immensely popular with the party base. While several have criticized the president over policy, such as the withdrawal of U.S. forces from northern Syria, they have argued against impeachment.

On Friday, Trump’s top allies continued to defend him, playing down the Doral announcement and doing damage control for Mulvaney’s blunder, in which their former House colleague contradicted Trump’s “no quid pro quo” talking point and admitted that the president had withheld nearly $400 million in military aid to force Ukraine to pursue an investigation that would benefit him politically.

Hours after the comments, Mulvaney sought to walk back his remarks.

“I don’t see what the big deal is, frankly,” Rep. Rodney Davis (R-Ill.) said of Trump’s decision to host the G-7 at Doral.

On Ukraine, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) said, “I think Mick was very clear in cleaning up the statement, that there was no quid pro quo.”

Other Republicans shrugged off the latest controversies, including Trump’s choice of his Florida resort for the international meeting.

“I think the optics aren’t good . . . but we have a lot more problems to worry about,” said Rep. Jeff Duncan (R-S.C.).

Rep. Tom Cole (R-Okla.) said the Doral announcement “doesn’t bother me a great deal” even as he admitted, “I think there is certainly an appearance of conflict of interest.”

Still, there was a notable shift in tone, even among some of Trump’s most adamant defenders. On Friday, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) criticized Trump’s Syria decision in an op-ed in The Washington Post, just days after 129 House Republicans backed a resolution condemning the president’s move.

“Withdrawing U.S. forces from Syria is a grave strategic mistake,” wrote McConnell, who rarely criticizes Trump and never mentioned the president’s name in the op-ed. “It will leave the American people and homeland less safe, embolden our enemies, and weaken important alliances.”

Meanwhile, several GOP lawmakers have reached out to White House officials to urge Trump to reconsider his Doral decision, which they worry smacks of corruption, according to GOP officials familiar with the conversations who spoke on the condition of anonymity to talk candidly. At the very least, they’re pressing Trump to publicly commit to hosting the international leaders free, to avoid any appearance that he’s using his office to enrich himself.

“This is a legitimate criticism. The profit issue? That clearly has to be transparent,” said one longtime Trump ally, Rep. Tom Reed (R-N.Y.), who has raised his own concerns and is under the impression that Trump will host the event without charge.

Reed often criticizes Joe Biden for allowing his son Hunter to be paid $50,000 a month for sitting on a Ukrainian board while he was vice president. Reed said that standard “applies to anyone else, including everybody in the White House.”

“I would encourage those at the White House to look at the optics and appearance of this,” he continued. “Even the appearance of impropriety is something we need to take into consideration. I have concerns about this.”

Reed isn’t alone.

“I’m not sure the wisdom of that” Doral decision, said Rep. Paul Mitchell (R-Mich.), who announced his retirement this year in part out of frustration with Trump. “It just further fans the flames that the Democrats have been ranting about.”

Some Republicans are skeptical that Trump will hear them out, however, noting that in the past he’s scolded his own children for allowing charity events on his property without charging. “Zero chance they do it for free,” one GOP official predicted. “Remember all the Eric Trump cancer fundraiser stuff? Trump went ballistic when he found out the club wasn’t charging the charity.”

Republicans are also privately griping about Mulvaney’s admission on Ukraine. “Get over it,” Mulvaney told reporters at the White House on Thursday before he walked it back.

“It’s not an Etch A Sketch,” said Rooney, who asked: “What is a walkback? I mean, I tell you what, I’ve drilled some oil wells I’d like to walk back — dry holes.”

He added: “I couldn’t believe it. . . . When the president has said many times there wasn’t a quid pro quo . . . and now Mick Mulvaney goes up and says, ‘Yeah, it was all part of the whole plan!’ ”

As a member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Rooney has participated in the closed-door interviews of current and former Trump administration officials in the impeachment probe.

He said he has been increasingly concerned by revelations regarding the Trump administration’s dealings with Ukraine, but at this point he did not see the allegations against Trump rising to the level of Nixon’s wrongdoing. “But I think we need to get all the facts on the table. And every time one of these ambassadors comes and talks, we learn a lot more.”

The new GOP grievances with Trump couldn’t come at a worse time for the president.

House Democratic leaders are moving rapidly in their impeachment probe and could hold a vote by the holiday season. They have been turning up an increasingly robust body of evidence showing that the president pressured Ukraine to investigate Joe Biden, a 2020 presidential contender, and his son Hunter.

Additionally, a majority of voters now back the idea of ousting Trump from office — even more Republicans are supporting impeachment.

Yet Republicans believe that Trump has made it harder for them to help him politically survive impeachment and win reelection. For one, his Doral announcement undercuts his own argument that Biden did something wrong when he allowed his son to make a profit from a Ukraine company board. Trump is now boosting his own bottom line from the Oval Office, they noted.

Even House Majority Whip Steve Scalise (R-La.), who frequently appears on Fox News to praise Trump, seemed uncomfortable about the Doral decision. Asked if he had a problem with it, he responded: “I don’t know how decisions are made on something like the G-7. Secret Service and a lot of other agents are involved with that and concerned about security . . . so I don’t’ know what factors they used in deciding the locations.”

The only Republicans who applauded Trump’s move were a handful from Florida. Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart, who represents the district that includes Doral, said that he was “thrilled” and that the move was “great for the economy of Doral.” Sen. Rick Scott agreed, arguing, “There’s no conflict of interest in holding anything in the great state of Florida.”

“I understand the arguments others are going to make about whether it’s lining his pocket at this event and so forth, but as a Floridian, you know, I think it’s good for Florida to have that event,” said Sen. Marco Rubio.

*********

Trump says he’ll host G7 summit at cost at his resort — but provides few details

(WHO THE HELL WANTS TO SPEND AUGUST IN FLORIDA?)

By David A. Fahrenthold, Michael Birnbaum and Joshua Partlow | Published October 18, 2019 2:54 PM ET | Washington Post | Posted October 18, 2019 |

A day after President Trump awarded the huge Group of Seven summit to his own struggling Doral resort in Florida, the White House said Trump’s company would charge taxpayers only enough to cover the resort’s costs.

But neither the White House nor the Trump Organization answered more detailed questions about what that means. They did not provide specific dollar amounts or say whether dollar amounts have been agreed to.

“Everything will be done at cost due to the emoluments clause,” White House spokeswoman Stephanie Grisham wrote in an email message, “which means the summit would be significantly cheaper for taxpayers and our foreign guests.”

She was referring to the Constitution’s emoluments clauses, which say presidents cannot accept payments from foreign governments or payments from the U.S. government in excess of his presidential salary.

For Trump, the potential benefits of awarding himself the summit go beyond the actual payments made by U.S. and foreign governments. International media exposure also comes with the summit — putting Trump National Doral Miami on televisions and websites around the world.

Resorts that have hosted the summit of world leaders, including the Lough Erne resort in Northern Ireland in 2013, have seen increased exposure and improvements in their business for years after the summit. “Lough Erne wouldn’t be the place it is today without the PR and the legacy of that event,” William Kirby, the resort’s general manager, told The Washington Post recently. “It’s the pinnacle of the resort history.”

That summit boosted the local economy and highlighted the resort on the world stage, he said. “You can’t buy that, can you?” Kirby said.

The White House appeared to be saying Trump was going to take payments from both foreign governments and the U.S. government — but he believed that was fine, as long as he did not set out to make a profit. Typically, the U.S. government pays the bulk of costs for hosting a summit, but foreign countries pay for their own rooms.

Grisham also said the government might set up a host committee for the event, which could raise private donations. In that case, it would give private donors a chance to pay the president’s company — saving taxpayers money, perhaps, but creating new questions about conflicts of interest.

Grisham referred questions about summit pricing and costs to the State Department, which did not provide any immediate explanation. The Trump Organization did not respond to questions about the event Friday.

On Thursday, the White House announced it would hold the 2020 summit at Doral, a resort near Miami International Airport that Trump bought in 2012. The resort is a keystone of Trump’s finances, but it has been in sharp decline recently: From 2015 to 2017, the resort’s net operating income fell 69 percent.

The summit is scheduled for June, which is typically one of the resort’s slowest months with less than 40 percent of rooms occupied, and will likely fill the hotel with hundreds of diplomats, journalists and security personnel.

Trump’s decision brought a flood of criticism Friday from Democrats, including Sen. Richard Blumenthal (Conn.), one of more than 200 Democrats who are suing Trump for past alleged violations of the foreign emoluments clause.

Blumenthal said they would add the Doral decision to their next legal filing, since it shows Trump is accelerating his efforts to gain foreign government business.

“Here he is, in plain sight, saying in effect, ‘I’m just going to make your case for you,’ ” Blumenthal said.

House Democrats also planned to introduce a resolution next week opposing Trump’s decision to hold the summit at Doral and “rejecting his practice of accepting foreign government Emoluments without obtaining Congress’ affirmative consent.”

The House Rules Committee was expected to vote Tuesday whether to send the resolution to the floor.

“The Oval Office is not a subsidiary of the Trump organization,” Rep. Jim McGovern (D-Mass.), chairman of the House Rules Committee, said in a statement. “The president takes an oath to uphold the Constitution and serve the American people, not enrich himself. But time and time again, the president has demonstrated that the Constitution means nothing to him. This House is standing up to say enough is enough.”

Democrats in the House and Senate on Friday also introduced versions of a bill to prohibit funding the G-7 summit at Trump’s Doral resort, while requiring the White House to turn over documents related to the decision to choose Doral as the summit venue. The House version was called the Trump’s Heist Undermines the G-7 (THUG) Act.

There was a trickle of criticism from Republicans on Capitol Hill.

“I don’t understand why at this moment they had to do that,” Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.) said on CNN, calling the move “unnecessary” and adding, “I wouldn’t do it.” Kinzinger said he had defended Trump on the controversy of allowing Department of Defense crews to stay at a Trump property in Scotland but said, “This is something that feels a little different.”

Rep. Francis Rooney (R-Fla.), said: “In the law, there’s a canon that says, ‘Avoid the appearance of impropriety.’ I think that that would be better if he would not use his hotel for this kind of stuff.”

In Brussels, where European leaders were gathered for meetings, European Council President Donald Tusk, an invitee to past G-7 summits, said it was not appropriate to spend public funds at Trump’s resort. “Not at all,” he said.

Tusk is expected to step down from his role next month, but for the past five years he has been a participant in the Group of Seven summit. His successor, current Belgian Prime Minister Charles Michel, will make the final decision about whether and how to participate in the summit.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel, also asked by The Post at a news conference whether she was ready to spend German tax money on Trump’s private business, said, “This is a decision taken by the American president. I haven’t had time to deal with this yet. We will take a close look at his invitation, and my intention is to attend the summit.”

Already, Trump’s decision is the subject of questions in Germany, where the leader of a far-left opposition party asked Friday whether the money should be channeled to Trump’s business.

“Heads of state and government aren’t in favor of financing his business,” Left Party head Bernd Riexinger told Agence France-Presse.

“President Donald Trump is mixing private and state interests with his decision to place heads of state and government in one of his hotels,” he said. “This behavior is harmful for democracy.”

The budget for the 2013 summit in Northern Ireland — most of it paid for by Prime Minister David Cameron’s British government — was reportedly more than $100 million.

The 2018 summit, held at the Fairmont Le Manoir Richelieu north of Quebec City in Canada, provided a tourist boost for the region, according to an official in the regional tourist authority.

Hotel occupancy for June 2018, the month of the summit, got a nearly 20 percent bump over the prior June, pushing the region to its first year of more than 50 percent hotel occupancy.

“I cannot guarantee it’s completely because of the summit, but it really helped because April to June are not the high season. Those months were definitely good,” said the official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because the person was not authorized to speak publicly.

“What we can say is that it’s been good for visibility for the region for sure,” the official said. “It’s been good for the tourism performance.”

The White House has said the Doral was clearly the best of the 12 possible sites it vetted for the event, but it has declined to name the other 11 sites. The one detail given about other sites was that one was so high-altitude that the planners thought they might have to provide oxygen tanks for participants.

“Out of an abundance of caution, that site was eliminated,” Grisham said.

The White House has not explained how Trump would estimate the cost of hosting visitors at a resort whose expenses include staff, administration, maintenance and debt payments. It also has not said whether any outsider could challenge Trump’s estimate: In this unprecedented transaction, Trump is effectively negotiating with himself, as both buyer and seller, with taxpayers picking up the bill.

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In admitting then denying quid pro quo, Mulvaney turns harsh impeachment spotlight on himself

By Toluse Olorunnipa and Josh Dawsey |

Published October 18 at 7:31 PM ET | Washington Post | Posted October 18, 2019 |

The hastily announced White House news conference was supposed to be a full-throated defense of President Trump’s controversial decision to host next year’s Group of Seven summit at his private golf club in Florida.

By the time it was over, acting chief of staff Mick Mulvaney had made much more explosive news — adding to Trump’s impeachment troubles and calling into question his ability to lead the White House staff in a time of crisis.

Mulvaney’s performance the day before continued to reverberate Friday as Republican lawmakers, the Justice Department, Trump’s personal attorney, conservative media figures and several White House officials panned the news conference or distanced themselves from its contents.

With his admission that Trump withheld aid meant for Ukraine to push the government there to investigate Democrats, Mulvaney did more to harm Trump’s impeachment defense than administration officials testifying before Democratic-led committees in Congress, according to many Republican lawmakers and officials who requested anonymity to speak candidly.

And Mulvaney’s situation was made worse, some Republicans said, by his decision to attempt to retract his remarks hours later in a bellicose written statement blaming the media reporting his remarks.

One person who spoke with Trump said the president was not troubled by Mulvaney’s performance, however, and was happy to have someone defending him on television.

“These things go two ways — either he turns on you or he thinks you’re being treated unfairly,” this person said. “For right now, it’s the latter with Mick.”

But Trump has also been quizzing people about his acting chief of staff’s performance, according to an outside adviser familiar with the discussions. In recent weeks, the president had grown angry with Mulvaney over media coverage of the House Democrats’ impeachment inquiry, which has overcome White House defiance to obtain damaging testimony from several officials.

Publicly, the White House continued to stand by Mulvaney, a sign that he is likely to survive, at least for the moment.

“Mick Mulvaney’s standing in the White House has not changed,” White House press secretary Stephanie Grisham said Friday.

White House spokesman Judd Deere added, “He is still the acting chief of staff and has the president’s confidence.”

Privately, the opinion inside the White House toward Mulvaney’s news conference was almost universally negative, according to current and former administration officials, who, like others, spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal matters.

For hours after the news conference, in which Mulvaney appeared to contradict Trump’s denials of a quid pro quo linking political investigations to Ukrainian aid, White House officials worked to clean up his comments. Trump, who watched Mulvaney’s event on Air Force One while flying to Dallas, spoke to Mulvaney by phone about his follow-up statement, officials said.

White House officials said they were taken aback by Mulvaney’s comments in the briefing room. Speaking off the cuff, Mulvaney told reporters that Trump had intervened to block nearly $400 million in aid in part because he wanted Ukrainian officials to investigate a conspiracy theory that Ukraine was involved in election interference in 2016, something U.S. intelligence officials have repeatedly attributed to Russia.

“Did [Trump] also mention to me in the past the corruption related to the DNC server?” he said. “Absolutely, no question about that. But that’s it, and that’s why we held up the money.”

He punctuated his remarks with bravado, saying detractors should “get over it” because political influence in foreign policy was appropriate.

Mulvaney reversed course in his written statement, saying that “there was absolutely no quid pro quo between Ukrainian military aid and any investigation into the 2016 election.”

But the walk-back did little to contain the damage caused by the televised comments, which sparked a wave of condemnation from Democrats and many of Trump’s Republican allies. Sean Hannity, a Fox News host who speaks regularly with the president, called Mulvaney “dumb” and his comments “idiotic” during his radio show Thursday.

Rep. Francis Rooney (R-Fla.) said Friday he was “shocked” by Mulvaney’s televised admission, which contradicted Trump’s previous denials.

“I couldn’t believe it,” he told reporters Friday. “When the president has said many times there wasn’t a quid pro quo . . . and now Mick Mulvaney goes up and says: Yeah, it was all part of the whole plan!”

Rooney said he was “still thinking about” backing Trump’s impeachment, adding that he was unconvinced by some of the arguments coming out of the White House.

Trump has no immediate choices to replace Mulvaney and was said to not be as frustrated as others in the White House, many of whom have expressed dismay about the lack of an organized impeachment response effort.

Leon E. Panetta, who served as chief of staff under President Bill Clinton, said Mulvaney’s news conference was “bizarre” and called into question his stewardship of the White House during the impeachment probe.

“The appearance is that they are totally disorganized,” he said. “There’s no message, there’s no clear defense to these allegations, and you can sense that when Mulvaney basically says ‘That’s the way it is’ without really presenting any rational position that could defend what the president is accused of.”

But Trump has reveled in the lack of structure and appreciates a chief of staff who allows him to “do whatever he wants,” one former administration official said. It is one of the reasons Trump is not looking to fire Mulvaney, even though the men do not have the close personal rapport that Trump has with some other aides, the official said.

For example, when Trump decided recently to pull U.S. troops from Syria, Mulvaney did not attempt to block the move, as previous chief of staff John F. Kelly had done.

And with Trump complaining that so many people are turning on him, he is reluctant to dump anyone else from his team, aides said.

Mulvaney’s standing as chief of staff has always been precarious, underscored by the fact that the word “acting” remains in his title 10 months after he took the position.

Trump did not initially want to name Mulvaney as chief of staff, an administration official said. The former budget director was “left holding the bag” when Trump’s first choice — Vice President Pence’s chief of staff, Nick Ayers — decided not to take the job, the official said.

Mulvaney’s tenure has been somewhat rocky of late. Administration officials have lamented about a White House communications shop that had essentially become the president’s defiant tweets, and a legislative affairs shop that was rowing uphill to push legislation amid impeachment.

Thursday’s briefing quickly went off track after Mulvaney took questions unrelated to Trump’s decision to host the 2020 G-7 at his Trump National Doral Miami golf resort.

A prep session held in Mulvaney’s office ahead of the news conference with White House lawyers and press staff, as well as State Department officials, focused mostly on G-7 questions, according to two officials familiar with the meeting.

On the other topics that came up, Mulvaney had prepared none of his answers in advance and was just “winging it,” according to a senior administration official.

Trump has complained in recent weeks that not enough advisers are on TV, with Grisham largely staying away from the cameras and White House aide Kellyanne Conway appearing sporadically. White House officials recently ordered Mark T. Esper, the defense secretary, to go on Sunday morning shows, according to a White House official, after Trump was so frustrated with the Syria coverage.

Mulvaney is expected to appear on Fox News this Sunday, an official said.

Matt Zapotosky contributed to this report.

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How a secretary of state with backbone handles an out-of-line White House

By Colbert I. King | Published October 18 at 5:21 PM ET | Washington Post | Posted October 18, 2019 |

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo did to the United States’ former ambassador to Ukraine, Marie Yovanovitch, what President Trump did to the Kurds. Both men turned their backs on frontline defenders of U.S. interests just when strong moral rectitude was needed the most.

Trump’s sellout of Syrian Kurdish forces that have been fighting our battles with Islamic State terrorists is disgraceful. But, with Trump, anything is possible, since he is only faithful to himself.

But I never thought Pompeo would be the kind of leader who would abandon his team when the going gets tough — as he did when he allowed the shabby ending of Yovanovitch’s ambassadorship. Pompeo, through his passivity, sacrificed a seasoned — and falsely maligned — diplomat who has honorably represented six presidents in some of the most challenging foreign assignments that the world has to offer.

Pompeo pales in stature to his predecessor William P. Rogers, who went to the mat for his State Department employees.

Almost 50 years ago — in 1970 — some 250 State Department employees signed an internal petition to senior department officials criticizing President Richard Nixon’s invasion of Cambodia and his administration’s demonizing of antiwar protesters.

Stories about the petition hit the papers. Somebody at the White House must have hit the ceiling.

Nixon’s special counsel, Clark Mollenhoff, sent the FBI to State to get the names of the petition signers so that files could be opened for investigation.

I know because I was a special agent in the office now named the Bureau of Diplomatic Security when the FBI came looking for the names.

The FBI request was brought to the attention of senior security officials who notified William B. Macomber, deputy undersecretary for administration. Macomber refused to turn over the names and sent word to Rogers. The secretary stepped in and let the White House know in no uncertain terms that he, not some White House gumshoe, ran the State Department. No one else, Rogers said, would deal with his officers.

Less than a month later, the White House announced that Mollenhoff had resigned, adding that he had been acting “on his own volition” in trying to get his hands on the petition.

In Yovanovitch’s case, Pompeo didn’t lift a finger.

There are reasons to have expected more of him.

Pompeo graduated West Point, first in his class, where he was steeped in the principles of leadership.

Pompeo was taught, just as I learned as a commissioned officer, that you stand up for your subordinates, especially when you know they are right but are under attack because they might have rubbed some high-ranking horse’s ass the wrong way.

A strong leader, Pompeo must have learned, doesn’t cave under pressure, look the other way or throw subordinates under the bus.

To do anything less shows a lack of moral fortitude. Anything less, and as a leader you are marginalized.

Pompeo let Trump’s personal lawyer, Rudolph W. Giuliani, run roughshod over his department. He stood by while Giuliani, slinging around unfounded and false claims, campaigned against Yovanovitch.

He capitulated to the unreasonable demand that she be removed from her post.

Mike Pompeo might earn plenty of “attaboys” from Trump. But Pompeo, as secretary of state, let down his department and disgraced himself in the process.

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ecodigenousworld · 7 years

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The first white man to challenge the jungles of Columbia : 12 years ...connecting with nature. By Cynthia Logan

DaVeed Forrest's resume must cover more than one lifetime. The bio goes like this: "Public speaker, international seminar leader, documentary writer and producer, musician, songwriter and music producer, body worker therapist, iridologist, book author, reflexologist, electronic acupuncturist, aromatherapist, Tantric yoga teacher, designer of herbal elixirs, nutritional and medicinal formulas and creator of exquisite perfumes." Author of Miracles From the Rain Forest, he would describe himself more simply as a "Pioneer explorer of the intimate connection between spirit, mind and body." A more mainstream description may read "a real-life 'survivor' of the rainforest"-and he may be the only white person on the planet who is. Searching for the secrets of immortality, Forrest spent ten years in the deep forests of southern Columbia, facing starvation, malaria, elephantiasis, poisonous snakes, killer cats and every type of tropical pestilence imaginable. Like Sean Connery in "Medicine Man," Forrest had shamanic mentors; when he "emerged from the jungle" in 1988 he was a different person-secret teachings and experience had made him a real life Medicine Man.

Though his re-entry into modern civilization was "a major culture shock," Forrest is now enthusiastic about sharing the wealth of knowledge he's gleaned and is using his many talents to let people know how to be "eternally young at any age." Forrest grew up the middle of seven children near an oil ranch in southern Texas. He drove cattle, pitched hay and pursued his father's dream for him, attending the University of Texas at Austin and Texas Tech to get a law degree. But apprenticing with an oil-lobbyist in Washington during the Watergate trials so "disillusioned and devastated" the conservative cowboy ("friends would tease me because I wouldn't take pot") that he re-evaluated his career path, "broke off school" and sought to discover how he could become what his mother and grandmother had always wanted him to be-a gentle-man.

He grew his hair and beard long, traded his ten gallon for a turban and became a fruitarian, studying archeology and anthropology at West Texas in Alpine, where books there stimulated a passion to connect with Mayan and Incan cultures. He planned to take a few weeks between semesters and make a pilgrimage to sacred sites, but the night he left the country he was in a near-death auto accident. "I remember sitting in council with angelic beings," says Forrest. "They told me I'd really messed up and was dead." Forrest says he "begged for the opportunity to come back" and, suffering from a broken leg, cracked coccyx and jammed vertebrae, "crawled" onto a train headed for southern Mexico, in search of native healers he thought could help him.

The beaches there offered manna in the form of mangoes; declaring himself on "mango safari," he headed for the mountains of Oaxaca. There, Mazatec healers got him on his feet and sent him to Lake Attitlan near Guatemala, where, he says, "humble peasant people working with ancient Mayan teachings introduced me to the connection between nature and herbs." He also made a connection with Shandara, a Transpersonal Psychologist on sabbatical from California. "It was an instantaneous 'Soul Mate' kind of recognition," he says. They soon married and began the adventure that would shape his future and claim her life. Heading towards the Andes, they hitchhiked across the continent with the dream of establishing a fruitarian community in Ecuador. Climbing steep mountains to the Sierra Nevada, they reached one of the few ancient civilizations untouched by white culture, the Cogi Indians. "We were some of the very few white people they allowed near them," says Forrest. "It was a rare honor to share their shamanic medicine practices and herbal healing techniques," he adds. As they continued their journey, peasants "came out in droves," eager to hear about traditional ways that had been taken from them (by deals made between multi-national corporations, missionaries and the military-deals that pushed agricultural chemicals and pharmaceutical drugs). Police ("seventeen year old boys running around with guns and badges") would show up and intimidate the couple for infringing on their territory; after being pistol whipped and threatened with machine guns, they headed towards a valley where only ruffians and outlaws went, a valley where the police were afraid to go. "That valley," says Forrest, "was an incredible paradise."

The awesome beauty was soon eclipsed by rain that fell for the next eleven months, bringing them to the point of starvation. Less than a year later, Shandara died of elephantiasis. "I was on my deathbed for a year with it," says Forrest, "but local peasants sent in a shaman with herbs to keep me from being consumed by the parasites." Before he could get his strength back the cocaine wars began and, barely able to stand, he was forced into cooking and cleaning for the FARC (Fuerzas Armadas Revolutionarios de Columbia) revolutionaries. Simultaneously as the United States government started spraying a type of "agent orange" on the coca plantations cultivated by the peasants, he was abused and tortured. Left for dead, at times he needed to hunt and fish to stay alive, always with the reverence for life his father had instilled in him.

Without a gun, he used flutes and harmonicas to ward off wild cats and large snakes. "I learned to hear and sense their 'voices', and communicate with them in unprecedented ways," Forrest says. "I would serenade them with music and pile up stacks of ripe plantain bananas; even the carnivores would come within three or four feet of me, preferring the fruit to flesh." He also tuned into the spirit voices of rainforest herbs, fruits and flower essences, and studied with indigenous shamanic healers. "The rainforest and Native American peoples taught me that plants are representations of an invisible frequency with spiritual significance," Forrest says, adding that, "traditional peoples I lived with always acknowledged the spirit force and could do miraculous things just by boiling the herbs in water and applying them to the skin."

According to Dr. Marcus Laux, a rainforest expert, modern pharmaceutical companies owe much of their success to native healers who share the names and medical applications of various plants with scientists and researchers. Forrest says that, "Indigenous peoples have a deep understanding of mixing herbs synergistically; it's the whole basis of Amazonian/Andean shamanism-potentiating the herbs using vines, roots, leaves, barks, flowers, fruits." Interestingly, many South American myths and shamanic practices coincide with those of ancient India. Forrest is an initiate of the Viracochans, an Andean forest people whose sacred teachings mirror almost identically those of ancient Indian Vedics. He is currently working to introduce Ayurvedic products for agriculture and medicine. Among the products soon to be available are insect and pest controls with bases of essential oils (such as neem) that are not only non-toxic, but biodegrade into excellent fertilizer. Ayurvedic scientists have tested some micro-organisms in India that appear to neutralize all but radioactive environmental toxins and, says Forrest, "They are on the verge of discovering micro-organisms that have the potential to quickly eat up the life cycle of radioactive pollution. At least our children will have the hope that the poisons we're spewing out now will be able to be turned back into biodegradable substances that won't keep compromising our immune systems." In the meantime, we can enhance our well-being with herbs such as Una de Gato, or Cat's Claw, which has been used traditionally as a tonic and blood cleanser. Formal research is now proving it efficacious in building immune response. A more controversial herb, Guarana, is an effective vermifuge, eliminating worms. And, although it contains caffeine, the amount compared to coffee is low and it makes a non-acidic substitute for people trying to break the coffee habit. Perhaps the most well known rainforest herb is Pao d'Arco/Lapacho.

Forrest notes that the purple flower variety has anti-viral, anti-fungal, anti-cancer qualities that the white flower Pao d'Arco doesn't have. "It's a very different frequency," he explains; then cautions that, "It's important for people to know whatever they're buying is certified. There's a lot of bogus Pao d'Arco out there on the market and, in the case of Cat's Claw, there are more than 60 varieties, most of which do not contain immune enhancing agents. According to Forrest, millions of peasants have become dependent on "raping and plundering" their native environment, due to policies that were (ironically) implemented during the "Green Revolution" of the '60s. "Transnational corporations have been reaching into rainforest countries for at least the last forty years," he says. As detailed in the eye-opening book Thy Will Be Done (recently published by Harper Collins), they clearcut to exploit the mineral resources, establish lumber sources, graze cattle and plant crops, which struggle to grow in an environment ill-suited for such purposes.

Without the trees spiraling up to pull in moisture, rainfall is less each year and much of the land once fertile has become desert; rain that does fall erodes the bare soil, leading to a vicious cycle that has world-wide ramifications. Global weather patterns are radically altered due to changes in wind and ocean currents and the planet may even spin faster. Even worse, there has been no regard for the bio-systems of plants, animals and micro-organisms. "Insects and micro-organisms are mutating and proliferating so fast," states Forrest, "that antibiotics are proving less and less able to fight them." The effect on the human population has been just as devastating. "Indigenous peoples have been bought off, rounded up off their lands and put in environments with forced education, a new religion and a new way of being," says Forrest.

The result is that very few of the forest people have any traditional knowledge left; most of the younger generation can produce only a mono-crop (rice or sugar cane, for example) using pesticides and chemicals. At 47, Forrest claims to have "more energy and enthusiasm than I did at sixteen," energy which he dedicates towards "waking people up to the plight of our rainforests, the wealth within them and what can be done to save the few that remain." Over half of the world's rainforests, which circle our planet for twenty degrees of latitude on either side of the equator (like a green belt worn by Mother Earth) have already been destroyed by chainsaws, torch fires and bulldozers for cheap burgers and lumber. According to Forrest, by the time it takes to read this sentence, another two football fields of rainforest will have disappeared.

The organization he co-founded, Millenium Alchemist and Friends, is attempting to "educate the right people"; they hope to persuade monied interests to cultivate the rainforest as a garden. Through the International Rainforest Preservation Society, investors can "adopt" an acre of rainforest on a private reserve for just $35.00 per year. Forrest is also in the process of setting up a non-profit foundation to establish "One World International Healing Centers," which will train practitioners from all over the world in holistic healing therapies. He already offers herbal detoxification programs and "Trance Dancing," an ecstasy rite which he says allows participants to experience blissful states of consciousness without drugs; dancers are inspired by the "neo-shamanic fusion" music he provides, sometimes in concert with native healers.

Forrest leads "Jungle Excursion" retreats to sacred sites, and brings representatives from such sites to the United States, assisting them in presentations which educate the public about their traditions and about the role they say ancient teachings play in coming world changes. "From a Shamanistic perspective," says Forrest, moving into the Millenium is a really major event-this is going to be one of the most powerful moments that's ever been on this planet. It's not only the end of a decade, a century, a millenium-the cycle keeps going, bigger and bigger. It's the end of a cycle for our solar system, for the star system that our solar system rotates around, on ad infinitum." As vortices of ancient energy, old growth forests play an integral role in this unfolding drama, focusing healing and protection for the planet. "Think," says Forrest in awe, "of the lifeforce a 3,000 year old redwood tree is drawing in. Trees are beings of cosmic consciousness and are growing and expanding into deeper levels of their divinity-they are antennas reaching out from the planet, striving to collect the solar energies of the heart of our sun. Their vitality is almost explosive as they stretch their plant-forms out towards heaven. Coming within 100 feet of them you can feel the majesty and power of their collected cosmic force-it's as close to a pure healing force as there could be." And, says the son of a cattle rancher, "I can't think of a greater crime against future generations and nature than to cut down these few remaining forests for lumber and cattle grazing!"

The last thirty years of my life I have spent searching for the secrets of immortality among the remote temples and non-christianized cultures hidden deep in the South American jungles. No other place on earth is as shrouded in mysterious controversy and as rich in unrevealed natural enchantment as these remote forests. In truth, when one looks into the facts that do exist, the stranger and more mysteriously bizarre they become. I am currently promoting my book entitled “A Song for Shandara”, an accounting of the saga of my twelve years spent in the remote rainforests of Mexico and Columbia. I left my job in Washington D.C. to live and study among the contemporary cultures in the out-back of the tropical Americas to see for myself first-hand what was left of their archaic healing wisdom. I’d been working as an aid to a powerful oil lobbyist in Washington, a job that plunged me into the “back room” politics of the major oil companies. That experience caused me to quickly loose all interest in pursuing a political career and I made the decision at that point, to roam the deep forests of the tropical Americas. I was to embark on a journey that would take my new wife and me far away, from the culture that we felt had not been able to bring us an experience of a way of life that was more consistent with our heart’s desire. A sense of well being was missing in the culture that we were born into: military/industrialized social conditioning left exposure to sensitive aspects that give life true depth far from our view. Over the course of the next twelve years, we wanted to explore possibilities that might be hidden in the tropical Americas.

After two years in the jungle, my wife and I soon contracted malaria, and other deadly tropical disease. During this same time, we were contacted by mysterious indigenous shamanic healers who promised us we were protected by angelic nature beings. My beloved though soon died from these diseases and starvation as a result of our being harassed by the Colombian F.A.R.C. revolutionaries. For the next seven years, I was mostly alone, resolving the mystery of our contacts with the deep forest dwellers and what my relationship to them was. While some have spent time in these forbidden regions, I suspect that I am the only modern-day white man who has lived among these inaccessible “Green Hells” for such an extended period of time and survived to tell about it. During my early solitary years in this far-away land, I was ostracized to live alone many miles from civilization in this remote malaria-ridden tropical valley, where I was told by my captors that if I survived, one day I might be allowed to return to civilization. Forced into slave labor, I got a rare glimpse of the destruction of the forest’s fragile ecosystem at the hands of the revolutionary-backed cocaine peasants, who dump vast amounts of deadly chemicals into the pristine rivers, as they process the coca leaves into cocaine. My life was in constant jeopardy by gringo-hating humans as well as being assaulted by jungle diseases such as malaria, yellow fever, elephantiasis and starvation. Surrounded by predator cats, masses of marching army ants, poisonous snakes and wild mountain killer boars, these obstacles became opportunities to experiment with the medicinal forest plants in order to heal myself and create harmony with the natural world. The drive to live became a master motivator. Since I didn’t have a gun, I used my flutes and harmonicas to ward off the dangers of attack by wild animals and large snakes. I learned to hear and sense their “voices’ and communicate with them in unprecedented ways.

Eventually, I began to roam these deep forests alone, subsequently encountering forest dwellers who taught me their ancient teachings, that still survive in the ceremonies and rituals of the indigenous shamanic healers. They also indoctrinated me into the preparations of their mysterious synergistic blends of plant medicines, and with this knowledge, I was able to heal myself from these normally fatal diseases. Ten years into my banishment from civilized people, I was approached by a regional leader of the F.A.R.C. He wanted me to marry his daughter so that he and his family could immigrate to the U.S. in order to escape the escalating violence in Columbia. In return, he promised to smuggle me back to Bogata and help me to arrange contact with both the Colombian immigration officials as well as the American Embassy, to straighten out my papers, which had expired over ten years before. In addition, he told me that the D.E.A. (Drug Enforcement Agency) and the C.I.A. had recently joined with the Colombian government and the military to begin spraying these remote valleys with poisonous herbicides, supposedly to kill coca bushes. Instead, they were killing the indigenous peoples and the most rare and valuable medicinal plants on the planet.

I knew then that I must return to civilization and do something to stop this madness. My subsequent escape from these forests back into the heart of the Colombian drug wars, was with the help of this war-weary revolutionary family. My health had deteriorated from so many years of near starvation and malaria, that I was unable to move at the pace necessary to get back to more civilized areas. Consequently, this journey began with me being carried for 20 hours through the rain-drenched mountains, wrapped in a hammock. By the time my band of saviors reached the nearest horse trail, I had almost died from exposure to the wet and cold, and the near disastrous falls down deep ravines. Still many miles from the nearest village, I was miraculously nourished back to health by the local medicine people. When I could move again, I was smuggled to the nearest mountain village where I contacted the American Embassy. Arrangements were made to smuggle me into the nearest city, Popayan, knowing full well that if my friend was found out, both his family and I would be killed by the hostel revolutionaries or members of the cocaine cartel who would see him as a traitor. For months, I could barely sleep as we plotted my secret departure, keenly aware of the ever-vigilant presence of the conniving death squad killers and gringo kidnappers nearby.

With much trepidation, I eventually made it to Bogota, where the exposure to so many people at once after so many years in jungle isolation assaulted my immune system, once again, nearly killing me with severe whooping cough. Weakened, but determined to make it back to the U.S., I persisted in resolving my illegal alien status. At the last moment, my intended bride, the 18-year old daughter of the revolutionary – turned coward on our last day in Colombia and refused to accompany me to the U.S. Fearing reprisal, I immediately left the country and flew back to the U.S.A. Because of my extensive knowledge of the rare deep jungle tribes in these remote regions, as well as my concern about the destruction of the rainforests which continues unabated, my commitment to these peoples who helped keep me alive there is paramont. It is time to expose my extraordinary discoveries found in these remote lands, which so few industrialized people have any knowledge of, with the masses of eager minds that, at last, seem to be receptive to the integration of the mystical and the practical realities that are represented by these remaining forest.

I learned to hear and sense their “voices’ and communicate with them in unprecedented ways. Eventually, I began to roam these deep forests alone, subsequently encountering forest dwellers who taught me their ancient teachings, that still survive in the ceremonies and rituals of the indigenous shamanic healers. They also indoctrinated me into the preparations of their mysterious synergistic blends of plant medicines, and with this knowledge, I was able to heal myself from these normally fatal diseases. Ten years into my banishment from civilized people, I was approached by a regional leader of the F.A.R.C. He wanted me to marry his daughter so that he and his family could immigrate to the U.S. in order to escape the escalating violence in Columbia. In return, he promised to smuggle me back to Bogata and help me to arrange contact with both the Colombian immigration officials as well as the American Embassy, to straighten out my papers, which had expired over ten years before. In addition, he told me that the D.E.A. (Drug Enforcement Agency) and the C.I.A. had recently joined with the Colombian government and the military to begin spraying these remote valleys with poisonous herbicides, supposedly to kill coca bushes. Instead, they were killing the indigenous peoples and the most rare and valuable medicinal plants on the planet.

For months, I could barely sleep as we plotted my secret departure, keenly aware of the ever-vigilant presence of the conniving death squad killers and gringo kidnappers nearby. With much trepidation, I eventually made it to Bogota, where the exposure to so many people at once after so many years in jungle isolation assaulted my immune system, once again, nearly killing me with severe whooping cough. Weakened, but determined to make it back to the U.S., I persisted in resolving my illegal alien status. At the last moment, my intended bride, the 18-year old daughter of the revolutionary – turned coward on our last day in Colombia and refused to accompany me to the U.S. Fearing reprisal, I immediately left the country and flew back to the U.S.A. Because of my extensive knowledge of the rare deep jungle tribes in these remote regions, as well as my concern about the destruction of the rainforests which continues unabated, my commitment to these peoples who helped keep me alive there is paramont. It is time to expose my extraordinary discoveries found in these remote lands, which so few industrialized people have any knowledge of, with the masses of eager minds that, at last, seem to be receptive to the integration of the mystical and the practical realities that are represented by these remaining forest.

#ecodigenousworld #cynthia logan #jungle

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myupdatestudio-blog · 8 years

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Ny Times, Gizmodo Editors Talk News Hints Beneath Trump

Those are welcome words these days to Information companies across the brand new media landscape. The political weather, fueled by means of the unorthodox tenor of the Trump administration, has thrust open the door for a brand new era of News tipsters.

Beneath Trump

Cnet Blogs

President Trump’s condemnation of the mainstream media and smudging the road between what’s real and what’s no longer has despatched the journalistic popularity quo into a tumult. In reaction, residents no longer historically part of the editorial method have felt encouraged to get worried and keep the authorities accountable.

In advance this month, the founding father of Craigslist, Craig Newmark, donated $1 million to ProPublica — which notoriously performs deep investigative accountability journalism — at the same time as The New york Instances has seen a extensive bump in subscribers, because the thirst for truth (and at Times, gossip) surrounding Washington proves endless.

News businesses have pounced on this newfound interest in inclusion with the process, and as an end result, have extended their calls for Hints and leaks with heightened urgency. The homepages of courses which include The Washington Submit and diverse Gizmodo Media properties had been splashed with sprawling banners or even whole pages containing commands on the way to securely and anonymously drop Suggestions to reporters. It’s an exercise that, traditionally, has been essential to News collecting — from Watergate to the Countrywide Protection Corporation scandal.

For John Cook, government editor of Gizmodo Media’s unique projects table, which runs the newly launched “Tell on Trump” Recommendations program, the upward push in a call for facts is palpable.

“There’s a little bit more urgency to ensure that the people in the agencies and the bureaucracies who have some thing to mention have a manner to discover you and feature an area in which they can send newsworthy records,” Prepare dinner stated, noting that his outfit, formerly known as Gawker Media, has always depended on Suggestions and its target market particularly to funnel through information.

Prepare dinner released the unique projects table in January, concurrent with the swearing-in of the president. At the start, Cook and his group used targeted commercials on Fb to get the eye of employees of federal corporations especially, so that individuals who labored in or across the White House could communicate intel about the conduct of the incoming administration. Gizmodo Media also put up physical classified ads in Washington, D.C., bus shelters, in search of Information Suggestions.

Prepare dinner stated he believes the Net has fostered a culture of sharing and created a place wherein human beings feel they could effortlessly and thoroughly talk. The web rewards users for dispensing information — potentially getting rid of any friction that could have existed in the exchange in years beyond.

“We’re in surroundings where people see, for better or for worse, the effect that records could have on Information cycles and political occasions,” Prepare dinner said. “There are naturally going to be more opportunities for people who see newsworthy changes occurring to speak the ones to newshounds who are interested in informing the general public approximately what their authorities are doing.”

In line with the Times’ deputy investigations editor Gabriel Dance, who changed into at the crew that broke the NSA story related to notorious tipster Edward Snowden, the reason behind expanded requests for News Tips from normal citizens isn’t so reduce-and-dry.

“I suppose the public’s in reality in all likelihood a touch bit harassed on what to think about all of it,” he stated. “You have got a President who’s actively railing in opposition to leaks, pronouncing they result in fake Information. At the same time, You have numerous News agency breaking huge testimonies based totally in entire or, at least in part, on Guidelines coming thru.”

Essay Editor

Dance released the Instances’ Hints line with the director of newsroom Protection Runa Sandvik on Dec. 15. The timing was merely a coincidence, stated Dance, who noted that the Times previously didn’t have an active name out for Suggestions that made it easy for people to leave statistics. Previous to this system that exists At the Instances nowadays, Dance stated the way to leave hints was complex, each at the tipsters ceases in addition to for the receiver.

“I wanted approaches for human beings to attain us that had a lower barrier to access,” he stated. “One of the novel things that the Instances did become used Sign and WhatsApp, encrypted, mobile applications which might be very just like text messages.”

It seems the Trump management isn’t the handiest motivation nudging human beings to surrender data. Dance said he thinks that in a way, parents sense advocated via having a direct line of verbal exchange to a place like the Times. The increased channels via which human beings can get in touch with a Countrywide newspaper gives them a push to go away Tips and gives a degree of comfort. That is a sign of the general public’s dating with the clicking today, encouraged by way of a polarizing presidency and the myriad structures where Those issues can be brazen — and but securely — mentioned.

Trump’s Biz Suggestions

Donald Trump spoke in Toronto more than one years ago and provided us a side no longer usually visible on “The Apprentice”. I have constantly well-known his accomplishments and tenacity – and revered his enterprise acumen. After hearing Trump communicate, but, I realized that I additionally certainly like him. He becomes humorous, irreverent (possibly a quality high-quality preferred through entrepreneurs) and down-to-earth. He wasn’t afraid to inform it like it’s far – and did not fear approximately the “political correctness” that hamstrings too much of our communique and writings nowadays. The audience, in reality, loved this fresh approach. So, even though his talk turned into a little even as back, it nevertheless makes the experience to read this text, because his factors nonetheless make the experience.

When “The Donald” changed into here, he did ways extra than entertain (and entertain he did!), but; he had a few wonderful commercial enterprise advice to impart. He said that the instructions for achievement haven’t changed a great deal over the centuries, and will probably be the equal centuries down the road (so long as we don’t blow up our international, that is – his phrase). His Recommendations:

1) You have to LOVE what you are doing, or you’ll never achieve success. When you love what you are doing, you will paintings more difficult and attempt tougher and be higher at it. When you love what you’re doing, you’ll find it smooth to get up in the morning and begin paintings – in reality, you won’t even don’t forget it paintings, and that is honestly critical.

2) You need to recognize your commercial enterprise internal and out. Trump become once requested, “What is the difference between a ‘braggart’ or ‘blowhard’ and someone who gets it accomplished? His solution: “They, winners that are, convey the goods.” He has observed that everyone too often, a person who looks as if they’ve got the whole package deal, ends up no longer to have too much going on upstairs. You need to get into the enterprise with folks that are not handiest smart, but also are nicely-knowledgeable about their industry, will listen to the right recommendation – and realize While to invite for help. Beneath this heading comes a further piece of recommendation: don’t take long holidays out of your enterprise without checking in. How can you assume to be a terrific leader if you don’t know what’s taking place?!

3) by no means ever end or surrender! Julius Cesar, Winston Churchill and Donald Trump – all very extraordinary styles of leaders, all with the equal message.

4) You want luck. You will no longer usually assume an enterprise leader to speak abut something that many people experience is not within their manager. Trump, but, reminds us of the phrase that has been ascribed to many, together with golfer Gary Player, who reportedly said, “The harder I paintings, the luckier I am getting.”

One Friday, On the point Whilst Donald Trump, owed vast sums ($nine.2 billion in general) to just about each bank around, he had to attend a bankers’ dinner. now not trying to stand such a lot of those who had him of their attractions, he sought safe haven within the sanctuary of his living room. but Donald is not a quitter, so he were given himself up off the couch, donned a tuxedo and courageous face and attended the dinner. that in itself took guts.

To make it worse, Donald ended up sitting subsequent to one among his toughest lenders. naturally enough, the meal did not start on a pleasant notice. by way of staying robust (rather than groveling as he turned into possibly expected to do) and final affable, Donald grew to become the scenario around and became capable of getting the person to agree to discuss phrases on the following Monday.

Monday dawned and a deal was struck. The success component? This specific creditor had already long past after numerous other humans in default and become embroiled in prison battles that have been eating up fees quicker than Rosie eats fries (that one’s for you, Donald). If Trump had been One of the first human beings the creditor pursued, he may not have been so fortunate.

Trump Colbert

The “make your personal success” component: If Trump had now not gotten off his backside and gone to the dinner, he would by no means were “fortunate” sufficient to get seated next to a creditor who has been inside the technique of drawing up “cross for his jugular” papers.

5) Rent the nice human beings – then watch them. All too regularly, commercial enterprise owners Hire tremendous human beings after which do not pay close sufficient attention to what’s taking place. This may result in human beings running your enterprise via embezzling funds and worse. What wishes to move hand in hand with this? Recognize. human beings need to Appreciate you. It is ok if they even have a little fear too because then they aren’t going to try to take gain of you. Which bring us to factor #6.

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