NeonLX » Wed Jan 25, 2017 3:07 pm wrote:At least we are getting a big wall out of the deal.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VTOv9BU-xRE
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NeonLX » Wed Jan 25, 2017 3:07 pm wrote:At least we are getting a big wall out of the deal.
Trump Reportedly Still Uses An Unsecured Android Phone - Here's Why That's A Problem
Even if Trump doesn't use the phone for "official" business, it's still an internet-connected device with consumer-grade security. If someone were to compromise the phone, we need only look at past mainstream Android malware attacks to see what they might be able to accomplish. Android malware could be used to track his location, monitor app usage, and take photos with the camera. If the privately held vulnerability is a root exploit, there's no limit to what could be done. The phone's OS could be modified to track every keystroke or run new services silently in the background that listen for audio using the microphone.
This is scary stuff, and probably not something the president should be carrying in his pocket.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/ryanwhitwam ... 8ecf802304
Trump And His Organization Lawyer Up For The Ethics War Ahead
http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/ ... -war-ahead
Trump, His Children, and 500+ Potential Conflicts of Interest
President-elect Donald Trump's complex holdings place him in an unprecedented position
http://www.wsj.com/graphics/donald-trum ... -interest/
Trump’s Companies Are Already Violating Their Own Ethics Pledge
Membership fees at Trump’s Mar-A-Lago Club doubled earlier this month.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/don ... 4605fdaef6
SonicG » Thu Jan 26, 2017 2:27 am wrote:At least there won't be a war with Russia...
seemslikeadream » Sat Jan 21, 2017 12:15 pm wrote:The inevitable Trumputin divorce
Why it is not meant to be for Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump.
A billboard by a pro-Serbian movement shows the image US President-elect Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin in the town of Danilovgrad, Montenegro [EPA]A billboard by a pro-Serbian movement shows the image US President-elect Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin in the town of Danilovgrad, Montenegro [EPA]
byRoman Dobrokhotov
Roman Dobrokhotov is a Moscow-based journalist and civil activist. He is the editor-in-chief of The Insider.
After the inauguration of Donald Trump, media attention will be fixed on his first steps towards Russia. A lot has been said already about the difficult choice Trump faces after the hacking scandal: on the one hand, he promised voters he will improve relations with Moscow; on the other, any overture towards the Kremlin will be interpreted as a confirmation of the rumours about the alleged influence Russian President Vladimir Putin has over him. But little has been said about the dilemma that Putin himself faces, and that one is even more difficult.
On the one side, Trump's victory was an unexpected gift for the Kremlin, and it seems no one is trying to hide the fact. Russian state media are going out of their way to compliment the newly elected US president and smear his opponents.
NATO troops in Poland raise US-Russia tensions
For example, Russia's Channel One news reports portray Trump as a defender of the working class, who is harassed by deceitful media and attacked by paid demonstrators, and who will finally rescind an "unpopular" healthcare reform and defend the country against migrants. In other words, the Kremlin's propaganda defends the US president with such dedication, as if he were the Russian president.
One can understand why this is so. After all, many painful political issues are at stake. The main one is, of course, the repeal of the sanctions, which are harming not so much the Russian economy, as individuals in Putin's closest circle.
Another important issues is Ukraine. The Kremlin hopes to have Crimea recognised as Russian territory and not to have any weapon systems installed on Ukrainian territory. Of course, there are also expectations about the resolution of the Syrian question: Moscow hopes that Trump's administration won't demand that Assad steps down.
The Kremlin is happy about Trump's statements on NATO and it hopes that its expansion will stop and military deployment close to Russian borders will be curbed.
But there is another side to this coin: Trump's presidential victory could be a headache for Vladimir Putin as well.
The past 10 years, and especially since 2014, all internal Russian propaganda has been built on the concept of the external enemy - the West led by the US. The whole world believes that Russia is fighting in the Donbass region against Ukraine, but Russian media says Russia is fighting in Ukraine against the US. The whole world thinks that in Syria,Russia is defending Bashar al-Assad. But Russian media reports that in Syria Russia is resisting Washington's attempt to spread chaos through the armed groups it controls.
Looking for a new villain
The US is the answer to all painful questions. If the opposition in Russia organises marches, of course, it is the US which wants to destabilise Russia by paying activists to protests.
An economic crisis in the country? No, the problem is not corruption and ineffective governance, it is Western sanctions! And if a law banning "homosexuality propaganda" is being voted on, then that is justified with protecting society from the "corrupting influence of the West".
In fact, there is not one problem which the sharp-tongued Russian TV hosts cannot link to the US. For example, if you get detained without any reason, even beaten up in the police station, you wouldn't blame it on Washington. But it can always be pointed out that after all, in America the police would shoot you on the spot for even the slightest resistance.
OPINION: America was a 'stan' long before Trump
It may be possible to avoid this difficult situation by switching attention to other Western countries. To a certain extent, this has already happened: if 10 years ago, the attitude of Russians towards Europe was positive overall, today it is much more negative - even if Europe still fairs better than the US. State TV channels portray Europe as sinking in an economic crisis, suffering under the oppression of migrants, who invade the rights of citizens and promote debauchery - the Kremlin's media love to use the word "Gayropa" on these occasions.
In any case, Europe will not fit into the role of the new enemy. That is because this same propaganda regime was portraying Europe as a helpless and weak-willed marionette of the US. Then, of course, there needs to be another political figure embodying this enemy. Russians used to decorate their car bumpers with stickers insulting Obama. Who is going take his place? Angela Merkel? Theresa May? No, it won't work.
There is also another reason for Europe not fitting into the role of enemy No 1. The European Union is not really a state, but a group of counties which have different relations with the Kremlin. In the Czech Republic, Serbia, Hungary, Moldova and Bulgaria, Moscow has found some understanding. Relations with Italy are not that bad either. In Austria "our" candidate lost, but in France there will be two loyal candidates for the presidential elections - Marine Le Pen and Francois Fillon. And in Germany, there is space to challenge Merkel. In other words, the way Moscow sees it - not all is lost in Europe, and it is too early to demonise it.
'Nigeria with snow'
The US is Russia's perfect enemy because the Cold War "feud" made Russia in the eyes of its citizens as equally powerful as the US. After all, anti-American propaganda is not a Putin invention; it was a cornerstone of Soviet ideology. The rhetoric of anti-American slogans today is cut-and-pasted from Soviet propaganda. Having Russians remember an era when their country was a superpower competing with the US is very convenient for Putin as the Russian economy has shrunk to only 1.7 percent of the world's, and loyal allies willing to recognise Crimea as Russian territory are difficult to come by.
Without a conflict with the US, Russia would lose its power status and recede to the poor outskirts of Europe, a "Nigeria with snow", as Sergey Brin, the Moscow-born founder of Google, once described it.
The Reckoning: From Obama to Trump - Empire
In other words, while the Putin-Trump honeymoon may have been enjoyable, present circumstances are pressing for the break-up of this union. Just as Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie's perfect Brangelina union hit the rocks, so Trumputin is destined to end. But this will be to the benefit and relief of both sides. Sooner or later, Trump will start talking about corruption and dictatorship in Russia, while Putin's media will soon discover that Trump is a Wall Street "insider", a swindler and overall an illegitimate president who won fewer votes than Hillary Clinton.
It's possible this will not happen immediately. Trump will justify the revoking of the sanctions with the opportunity to get Russia to downsize its nuclear arsenal - a quite convenient for Russia, which can't afford to maintain a huge arsenal in times of economic crisis. Moscow, itself, hinted at this to Trump so lifting sanctions doesn't look like a one-sided concession.
It is clear that both sides will continue to make overtures for a while. After all this is reminiscent of George Bush, who looked into Putin's eyes and "got a sense of his soul", and Obama, who was trying to "restart" relations. In both cases love only lasted a short while.
Sooner or later, the lovers will be forced to realise that they are more Montague and Capulet than Romeo and Juliet .
Roman Dobrokhotov is a Moscow-based journalist and civil activist. He is the editor-in-chief of The Insider.
http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinio ... 12295.html
Big U.S. city mayors vow to defy Trump on sanctuary cities order
Aamer Madhani , USA TODAY Published 6:47 p.m. MT Jan. 25, 2017 | Updated 30 minutes ago
Several big city mayors across the U.S. vowed on Wednesday to defy President Trump’s executive order that threatens to cut off federal funding to cities that offer some sort of protection to undocumented immigrants in their communities.
The pushback from the mayors came as Trump signed a long-anticipated executive order that directs the government to identify federal money it can withhold to punish so-called "sanctuary cities," a term for hundreds of communities that in some way limit cooperation with federal immigration enforcement agents. Trump had pledged to take action against sanctuary cities on the campaign trail.
But as Trump announced the order — as well as action to build a wall along the U.S-Mexico border and hire thousands of new border patrol agents and immigration officers — leaders of some of the nation's biggest cities flatly stated they would not be cooperating with the president.
In New York, Mayor Bill de Blasio vowed that the action “won’t change how we enforce the law in New York City.”
De Blasio said that the city has been able to dramatically reduce the crime rate in the nation’s largest city, in part, because relationships the police department has managed to build in immigrant communities. He added that if Trump went through with his plan to slash funds it would lead to the president, a native New Yorker, cutting funding from the New York Police Department. An early analysis by NYC officials suggested that about $156 million in federal funding for the NYPD could be impacted.
“Here in New York City and in cities across the nation, this executive order could in fact undermine public safety and make our neighborhoods less safe,” De Blasio said.
After President Donald Trump signed an executive order exploring cutting off funding to so-called sanctuary cities, mayors on both coasts of the U.S. say their cities will not be bullied. (Jan. 25) AP
In Boston, Mayor Marty Walsh called the executive order an attack on "Boston’s people, Boston’s strength and Boston’s values.”
“If people want to live here, they’ll live here,” Walsh told reporters at a news conference. “They can use my office. They can use any office in this building.”
In Seattle, Mayor Ed Murray said that he had directed city departments to review their budgets to prepare for a potential loss of federal funding, the Associated Press reports.
"This city will not be bullied by this administration," Murray said. "We believe we have the rule of law and the courts on our side."
Trump orders clamp down on immigrant 'sanctuary cities,' pushes border wall
In Chicago, where Trump has pilloried the mayor over the surge in violence in the city, Mayor Rahm Emanuel vowed that the nation’s third largest city would remain a sanctuary city. Emanuel sidestepped questions at an afternoon news conference about how the city would weather a potential cut in federal funding.
“I want to be clear. We're gonna stay a sanctuary city," Emanuel said. "There is no stranger among us. We welcome people, whether you're from Poland or Pakistan, whether you're from Ireland or India or Israel and whether you're from Mexico or Moldova, where my grandfather came from, you are welcome in Chicago as you pursue the American Dream."
In San Francisco, Mayor Ed Lee told reporters after Trump signed the executive order that nothing has changed for his city.
“I am here today to say we are still a sanctuary city,” Lee said. “We stand by our sanctuary city because we want everybody to feel safe and utilize the services they deserve, including education and health care.”
Both Lee and De Blasio said that early readings of the executive order by their cities' attorneys suggest that the document is vaguely written and predicted that the Trump administration would face a tough legal battle if it tries to use it as a basis to slash funding.
“There is less here than meets the eye,” De Blasio said of the order.
In Detroit, a top aide to Mayor Mike Duggan, questioned whether the city even qualified as a sanctuary city.
The Detroit City Council in 2007 passed legislation prohibiting city employees, including police, form asking about person’s immigration status unless it was directly related to an alleged crime. City officials say that Detroit police, however, regularly cooperated with requests from federal immigration officials.
“We do not believe this applies to the city of Detroit," said Alexis Wiley, Mayor Mike Duggan's chief of staff. "We do cooperate fully with all federal agencies during the course of criminal investigations, regardless of a person’s immigration status.”
The U.S. Conference of Mayors and the Major Cities Chief Association expressed concern that the executive order is overly vague.
“That order does not provide a clear definition of what constitutes a sanctuary jurisdiction,” the organizations said in a joint statement. “Instead, it gives undefined discretion to the Secretary of Homeland Security to designate sanctuary jurisdictions and the Attorney General to take action against them. We call upon the Secretary of Homeland Security to document and promulgate a lawful definition before further actions are taken, so the cities across the Nation may determine how to proceed."
http://www.elpasotimes.com/story/news/2 ... /97066272/
Walsh: Trump’s Plan A ‘Direct Attack On Boston’s People’
January 25, 2017 5:12 PM
BOSTON (CBS) – President Donald Trump signed executive orders Wednesday that jump-start construction of a US-Mexico border wall and strip funding for sanctuary cities.
Mayor Marty Walsh denounced the president’s plan and is promising immigrants they will have a safe space in Boston.
“The latest executive orders and statements by the president about immigrants are a direct attack on Boston’s people, Boston’s strength and Boston’s values,” Walsh said.
The mayor said 28 percent of Boston residents are immigrants and 48 percent have at least one foreign born parent.
“I want to say directly to anyone who feels threatened today or vulnerable you are safe in Boston,” Walsh said. “We will do everything in our power to protect you – if necessary we will use City Hall itself to shelter and protect anyone who is targeted unjustly.”
The mayor said that people could also sleep in his office if they need to
http://boston.cbslocal.com/2017/01/25/w ... y-funding/
Trump’s flashy executive actions could run aground
The White House failed to consult with many of the agencies and lawmakers who will be critical for their success.
By ISAAC ARNSDORF, JOSH DAWSEY and SEUNG MIN KIM 01/25/17 07:47 PM EST
President Donald Trump’s team made little effort to consult with federal agency lawyers or lawmakers as they churned out executive actions this week, stoking fears the White House is creating the appearance of real momentum with flawed orders that might be unworkable, unenforceable or even illegal.
The White House didn’t ask State Department experts to review Trump’s memorandum on the Keystone XL pipeline, even though the company that wants to build the pipeline is suing the U.S. for $15 billion, according to two people familiar with the matter.
Defense Secretary James Mattis and CIA Director Mike Pompeo were “blindsided” by a draft order that would require agencies to reconsider using interrogation techniques that are currently banned as torture, according to sources with knowledge of their thinking.
Just a small circle of officials at the Department of Health and Human Services knew about the executive action starting to unwind Obamacare, and they got a heads-up only the night before it was released. Key members of Congress weren’t consulted either, according to several members. And at a conference in Philadelphia, GOP legislators say they had no idea whether some of the executive orders would contrast with existing laws — because they hadn't reviewed them.
The breakneck pace of Trump’s executive actions might please his supporters, but critics are questioning whether the documents are being rushed through without the necessary review from agency experts and lawmakers who will bear the burden of actually carrying them out. For example, there are legal questions on how the country can force companies building pipelines to use materials manufactured domestically, which might not be available or which could violate trade treaty obligations. There’s also the question of whether the federal government can take billions from cities who don’t comply with immigration enforcement actions: Legal experts said it was unclear.
“You want to make sure when you’re dealing with high stakes, important issues you’re getting the best information from the breadth of expertise that exists in government,” said Max Stier, president of the Partnership for Public Service, a nonpartisan nonprofit that supports the civil service. “You don’t know what you don’t know.”
The White House did not respond to a request for comment.
Trump, less than a week into his presidency, is continuing the improvisational style he used to run his company, his campaign and his transition. He’s relying on a small circle of trusted advisers to act decisively. And he’s emphasizing the theatrics of autographing official-looking leather-bound documents in the Oval Office.
People familiar with Trump’s planning say he wanted daily events to show supporters he would follow through on the items of his campaign agenda. “He was determined to show people that he’s getting to work from Day One,” one person familiar with his planning said. This person said he wanted to take charge and show his supporters that former President Barack Obama’s tenure was decisively over.
But the process is playing out chaotically both inside the White House and throughout the federal government.
Inside the West Wing, it is almost impossible for some aides to know what is in the executive orders, staffers say. They have been written by Stephen Miller, Trump’s senior White House adviser for policy, and Steve Bannon, Trump’s chief strategist, according to people familiar with the matter. Ideas for some of the Trump executive orders came from transition officials and so-called “landing teams,” sources say, who weren’t working in the White House.
Aides have also said that it was sometimes a game-time decision if Trump was going to sign a certain executive order that day.
The only other administration that began with such swift executive actions was Ronald Reagan’s, said David Vladeck, a law professor at Georgetown University and a former official at the Federal Trade Commission. Those directives were more heavily vetted.
“If you don’t run these kinds of initiatives through the affected agencies, you’re going to get something wrong,” Vladeck said. “A government by edict is not a sustainable idea.”
By contrast, the Obama White House ran executive orders through a painstaking weeks-long process of soliciting feedback from agencies and briefing lawmakers, according to a former official. Sometimes it even asked expert lawyers in the private sector to check its work.
House aides said they were largely unaware of Trump’s executive orders as they were being drafted, but that “it isn’t that surprising” coming from Trump, according to a senior Republican aide. Congressional leadership has tried to keep up with shifting policies from the Trump administration, according to several aides, who say Trump’s top officials often seem uninterested in details.
“Well, I think that you’ll see this is obviously a transition that’s underway here,” South Dakota Sen. John Thune, the third-ranking Senate Republican, said in Philadelphia as he opened the Republican retreat there. “I expect you’ll see, probably, better coordination with time.”
There’s also an irony in Trump flexing his executive power so fully because the approach goes against what Trump and Republican members of Congress have said about executive actions in the past.
For example, in 2012, Barack Obama’s increased interest in using executive orders developed a critic: a certain Manhattan billionaire. “Why is Barack Obama constantly issuing orders that are major grabs of authority?” Trump asked on Twitter.
Former Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott, now a lobbyist, said he continues to have deep reservations about any aggressive use of executive action, whether it comes from a Republican or Democrat.
“You don't want to have an imperial president," Lott said. “It’s just not the best way to govern. These things need to be figured out by Congress. We have allowed the presidency to become too powerful.”
Lott said he understood that Trump wanted to come out of the gate quickly, and he applauded some of the actions, including the pipeline change. “But I’ve been where Mitch is going to be, who is going to have to say, Mr. President, we cannot do that or we will not do that. Sometimes, the president needs that,” Lott said, referring to about Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell.
Experts warned that the quick moves could hurt Trump down the line and cause him to eventually slow down.
The State Department exhaustively reviewed the Keystone XL pipeline over many years before Obama rejected it, but Trump didn’t call upon agency officials’ expertise, even though reviving the project could prove complicated. It isn’t clear how Trump’s memo, which invites TransCanada to reapply for a permit, might bear on the company’s $15 billion claim against the U.S. under the North American Free Trade Agreement.
“The notion you would do something like this on an issue impacting a claim against the U.S. government for $15 billion without getting a full briefing from people involved — that’s more than unusual, that’s reckless,” said Keith Benes, a former State Department lawyer who handled Keystone.
There’s also the issue of Trump’s sweeping orders on immigration Wednesday that came with big promises but little clarity on who will ultimately foot the bill. For example, building a wall along the Mexico border is likely to cost at least $20 billion, and tripling border enforcement agents will likely cost billions more.
Trump has promised that Mexico will reimburse the United States for the cost of constructing the wall, and the executive order included vague language about the financing of the additional agents.
“He needs money to do it,” said Theresa Cardinal Brown, director of immigration policy for the Bipartisan Policy Center. “You can’t shuffle money around even within a department. You have to go back to Congress.”
http://www.politico.com/story/2017/01/t ... und-234200
liminalOyster » Thu Jan 26, 2017 9:48 am wrote:Alex Jones claims that InfoWars has been offered White House press credentials. Warning: link is to a YT video via Reddit's Trump sub.
The State Department’s entire senior management team just resigned
By Josh Rogin January 26 at 11:02 AM
Secretary of State Rex Tillerson’s job running the State Department just got considerably more difficult. The entire senior level of management officials resigned Wednesday, part of an ongoing mass exodus of senior foreign service officers who don’t want to stick around for the Trump era.
Tillerson was actually inside the State Department’s headquarters in Foggy Bottom on Wednesday, taking meetings and getting the lay of the land. I reported Wednesday morning that the Trump team was narrowing its search for his No. 2, and that it was looking to replace the State Department’s long-serving undersecretary for management, Patrick Kennedy. Kennedy, who has been in that job for nine years, was actively involved in the transition and was angling to keep that job under Tillerson, three State Department officials told me.
Then suddenly on Wednesday afternoon, Kennedy and three of his top officials resigned unexpectedly, four State Department officials confirmed. Assistant Secretary of State for Administration Joyce Anne Barr, Assistant Secretary of State for Consular Affairs Michele Bond and Ambassador Gentry O. Smith, director of the Office of Foreign Missions, followed him out the door. All are career foreign service officers who have served under both Republican and Democratic administrations.
Kennedy will retire from the foreign service at the end of the month, officials said. The other officials could be given assignments elsewhere in the foreign service.
In addition, Assistant Secretary of State for Diplomatic Security Gregory Starr retired Jan. 20, and the director of the Bureau of Overseas Building Operations, Lydia Muniz, departed the same day. That amounts to a near-complete housecleaning of all the senior officials that deal with managing the State Department, its overseas posts and its people.
“It’s the single biggest simultaneous departure of institutional memory that anyone can remember, and that’s incredibly difficult to replicate,” said David Wade, who served as State Department chief of staff under Secretary of State John Kerry. “Department expertise in security, management, administrative and consular positions in particular are very difficult to replicate and particularly difficult to find in the private sector.”
Several senior foreign service officers in the State Department’s regional bureaus have also left their posts or resigned since the election. But the emptying of leadership in the management bureaus is more disruptive because those offices need to be led by people who know the department and have experience running its complicated bureaucracies. There’s no easy way to replace that via the private sector, said Wade.
“Diplomatic security, consular affairs, there’s just not a corollary that exists outside the department, and you at least can afford a learning curve in these areas where issues can quickly become matters of life and death,” he said. “The muscle memory is critical. These retirements are a big loss. They leave a void. These are very difficult people to replace.”
Whether Kennedy left on his own volition or was pushed out by the incoming Trump team is a matter of dispute inside the department. Just days before he resigned, Kennedy was taking on more responsibility inside the department and working closely with the transition. His departure was a surprise to other State Department officials who were working with him.
[Why Europe was alarmed by Trump’s inaugural address]
One senior State Department official who responded to my requests for comment said that all the officials had previously submitted their letters of resignation, as was required for all positions that are appointed by the president and that require confirmation by the Senate, known as PAS positions.
“No officer accepts a PAS position with the expectation that it is unlimited. And all officers understand that the President may choose to replace them at any time,” this official said. “These officers have served admirably and well. Their departure offers a moment to consider their accomplishments and thank them for their service. These are the patterns and rhythms of the career service.”
Ambassador Richard Boucher, who served as State Department spokesman for Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice, said that while there’s always a lot of turnover around the time a new administration takes office, traditionally senior officials work with the new team to see who should stay on in their roles and what other jobs might be available. But that’s not what happened this time.
The officials who manage the building and thousands of overseas diplomatic posts are charged with taking care of Americans overseas and protecting U.S. diplomats risking their lives abroad. The career foreign service officers are crucial to those functions as well as to implementing the new president’s agenda, whatever it may be, Boucher said.
[What’s the method in Trump’s madness?]
“You don’t run foreign policy by making statements, you run it with thousands of people working to implement programs every day,” Boucher said. “To undercut that is to undercut the institution.”
By itself, the sudden departure of the State Department’s entire senior management team is disruptive enough. But in the context of a president who railed against the U.S. foreign policy establishment during his campaign and secretary of state with no government experience, the vacancies are much more concerning.
Tillerson’s job No. 1 must be to find qualified and experienced career officials to manage the State Department’s vital offices. His second job should be to reach out to and reassure a State Department workforce that is panicked about what the Trump administration means for them.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/jos ... f6bba6aa42
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