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Trump’s Choice Of Bolton Satisfies His Biggest Donor
MARCH 24, 2018
by Eli Clifton and Jim Lobe

Last August, shortly after John Kelly replaced Reince Priebus as White House chief of staff and Steve Bannon was fired as the president’s chief strategist, John Bolton complained that he could no longer get a meeting with Donald Trump.

Just three months later, however, on the eve of Trump’s belligerent address to the United Nations, Bolton was once again in direct contact with the president. How did this turnabout take place? The reconnection was reportedly arranged by none other than Sheldon Adelson, the Trump campaign’s biggest donor.

Politico reported that the most threatening line in Trump’s UN speech—that he would cancel Washington’s participation in the Iran nuclear deal if Congress and U.S. allies did not bend to his efforts to effectively renegotiate it—came directly from Bolton and wasn’t in the original marks prepared by Trump’s staff.

The line was added to Trump’s speech after Bolton, despite Kelly’s recent edict [restricting Bolton’s access to Trump], reached the president by phone on Thursday afternoon from Las Vegas, where Bolton was visiting with Republican megadonor Sheldon Adelson. Bolton urged Trump to include a line in his remarks noting that he reserved the right to scrap the agreement entirely, according to two sources familiar with the conversation.
Some analysts have suggested that Bolton, an anti-Iran uber-hawk, has the visit to Washington of Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman to thank for his imminent elevation. But Adelson, a huge supporter of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, likely played a critical role in Bolton’s ascendancy.

History of Support

Adelson’s promotion of Bolton dates back at least to the days immediately after Trump’s November 2016 election. According to The New York Times, Adelson strongly supported Bolton for the position of deputy secretary of state as Trump was putting together his cabinet:

Mr. [Rex] Tillerson has expressed misgivings about having Mr. Bolton as his deputy, according to a person who has spoken with Mr. Trump in recent days. But Mr. Bolton remains under consideration for the job. And he enjoys a powerful ally in Sheldon Adelson, the casino magnate and Republican megadonor who favors the kind of hard-nosed posture that Mr. Bolton would bring.

Mr. Adelson’s backing has gone an especially long way with Mr. Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, who is expected to take on an important but still undetermined role in the new administration.
Tillerson won that battle at the time in no small part because of the prospective difficulty of getting Bolton confirmed by the Senate (although it’s also likely that mainstream foreign-policy Republicans like Condoleezza Rice, Robert Gates, and James Baker—to whom Tillerson owed his surprise nomination as Secretary of State—believed Bolton would constitute a clear and present danger to national security). Despite a Republican majority in the Senate, Bolton failed to gain confirmation as George W. Bush’s UN ambassador in 2005 as a result of his extreme foreign-policy views.

Trump didn’t always like or identify with Adelson’s hawkish and pro-Likud views or even his money. Indeed, Trump told a December 2015 audience at the Likudist Republican Jewish Coalition, where Adelson serves on the board of directors and is, no doubt, its biggest funder:

You’re not gonna support me because I don’t want your money. You want to control your politicians; that’s fine. …I do want your support, but I don’t want your money.
Trump even mocked his primary opponent, Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL), for seeking Adelson’s financial support, tweeting:

Sheldon Adelson is looking to give big dollars to Rubio because he feels he can mold him into his perfect little puppet. I agree!
Trump has since not only accepted Adelson’s money—and given him a prize seat just behind Vice President Mike Pence at his inauguration—but aligned his positions on the Middle East with Adelson’s. His contempt for Rubio now seems highly ironic.

As we’ve documented on LobeLog, Trump dramatically changed his message on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, in particular. At the outset of his campaign, for example, he pledged to be “sort of a neutral guy” between the two sides and even suggested that Israeli policies were themselves a major obstacle to reaching a settlement. ‘

As he closed in on the Republican nomination, eventually securing Adelson’s support for his general election campaign in spring 2016, all that had changed. Among other things, Trump had promised to move the U.S. embassy in Israel to Jerusalem, to depart from decades of U.S. policy opposed to Jewish settlements in the Occupied Territories, and to “dismantle the disastrous (nuclear) deal with Iran” as his “number one priority.”

Trump met Adelson in Las Vegas in early October 2017. One week later, Trump announced that he would no longer certify that Iran was complying with the Iran nuclear deal, even though the U.S. intelligence community and all of Washington’s European allies, as well as the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), had found no evidence that Tehran was cheating.

One month later, Adelson used his own newspaper, The Las Vegas Review Journal, to express his frustration with Trump’s failure to quickly redeem his promise to move the embassy. Two months after that, Trump reversed a half century of U.S. policy by formally recognizing Jerusalem as Israel’s capital. According to Michael Wolff’s book Fire and Fury, .Steve Bannon credited Adelson for Trump’s decision.

Since the embassy announcement, the administration has aligned U.S. policy ever more closely with Israel’s right-wing government.

War with Iran?

The Iran nuclear deal is another issue near and dear to Trump’s biggest campaign backer and may have played a crucial role in Bolton’s appointment. Adelson’s ultra-hawkish views on Tehran are remarkably close to Bolton’s.

In 2013, Adelson called for Washington to detonate a nuclear bomb in an “Iranian desert.” If that did not persuade Iran to abandon its nuclear program, he said, the U.S. should drop an atomic bomb on Tehran, a city of more than 12 million people.

Two years later, Bolton, who has long favored a military solution to Iran’s purported nuclear aspirations, penned an oped titled “To Stop Iran, Bomb Iran,” in which he argued:

The inescapable conclusion is that Iran will not negotiate away its nuclear program. Nor will sanctions block its building a broad and deep weapons infrastructure. The inconvenient truth is that only military action like Israel’s 1981 attack on Saddam Hussein’s Osirak reactor in Iraq or its 2007 destruction of a Syrian reactor, designed and built by North Korea, can accomplish what is required. Time is terribly short, but a strike can still succeed.
Adelson got his wish to move the embassy to Jerusalem, but he still hasn’t succeeded in pushing the U.S. into a military confrontation with Iran. Trump and the GOP’s biggest donor may now have installed their man in what is perhaps the most powerful foreign-policy position in the U.S. government, besides the presidency itself. As a result, the likelihood of a new U.S. war of choice in the Middle East has risen dramatically.
http://lobelog.com/trumps-choice-of-bol ... est-donor/

Is Mike Pompeo As Islamophobic As His Spiritual Adviser?
MARCH 21, 2018

by Eli Clifton

An examination by LobeLog of statements and studies by Secretary of State-designate Mike Pompeo’s “spiritual adviser” reveals a deeply ingrained anti-Muslim theology coupled with a conviction that U.S. military engagement overseas is justified by nothing less than the Bible itself.

Ralph Drollinger, a 7’1” former professional basketball player who established Capitol Ministries in 1997, has drawn attention for his role as the organizer of a weekly prayer group in the White House. Attendees include Pompeo, Vice President Mike Pence, and cabinet secretaries Ben Carson, Betsy DeVos, Rick Perry, Sonny Perdue, and Jeff Sessions. But Pompeo’s association with the preacher goes back to at least October 2012, when his name was first listed as a sponsor of Drollinger’s weekly congressional Bible study group while the future CIA director was still a freshman congressman.

Drollinger’s White House followers are perhaps the most reactionary members of an increasingly rightwing administration. In an October 2017 interview with the German daily Welt am Sonntag, Drollinger, among other assertions, characterized the U.S. government as “an avenger of wrath,” hailed Trump as “an adjudicator of wrongdoing,” and claimed that women shouldn’t teach grown men.

Pompeo’s nomination to succeed the hapless Rex Tillerson is already under scrutiny for a variety of reasons, including his well-established hawkishness, his own history of anti-Muslim rhetoric, and his eagerness to take policy positions, even publicly, despite his position as head of the CIA. A number of Democratic senators and as well as Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) have said they will oppose his nomination, and the Trump administration may find itself in a major confirmation battle next month.

His apparent affinity for Drollinger and his worldview are unlikely to make matters easier.

A Shared Islamophobia

Many of Drollinger’s Bible studies are posted on Capitol Ministries’s website, and his anti-Muslim perspective is sprinkled regularly into fundamentalist interpretation of Christianity.

In a March 2014 bible study, listing Pompeo as a cosponsor on the sidebar, Drollinger offered his own summary of Islam. He wrote:

This religion is based in part on plagiarisms from the Old Testament – plagiarisms that amount for much of the content of the Koran. To quickly illustrate this, note that in the Koran’s paraphrase and plagiarism of Genesis 1:26, “Let Us make man in Our image” (a direct early OT reference to the Trinity) that Muslim scholars have no response to this and many other plagiary-related issues. In this instance, Muslims deny the Trinitarian nature of God, so they should have omitted borrowing this passage! This religion has historically spread through the sword and seeks nothing less than world conquest for Allah. Allah was the moon-god worshipped in the Middle Eastern part of the world long before Mohammed came on the scene to found his religion (hundreds of years after the life of Christ). Salvation per Islamic theology is not attained via a loving, self-sacrificing act of God (as per Christianity); it is attained by jihad, a sacrifice of self in combatting the infidels. Whereas in biblical Christianity, God gives His life for man, in Islam, man must give his life for his god.
According to a June 2014 bible study on “The Bible as an Aid to TST – Terrorist Sensitivity Training,”

NOT EVERY MUSLIM IS A TERRORIST BUT EVERY INTERNATIONAL TERRORIST IN RECENT HISTORY HAS BEEN A MUSLIM
[…]
IS IT NOT DETESTABLE THAT THE ISLAMIC CLERGY FAIL TO CONDEMN THE EVIL THEIR FELLOW MUSLIMS DO IN THE NAME OF ISLAM?

Together, these insights serve to inform the world about the Islamic religion itself! And any serious and objective student of the Koran understands this: The book instructs its adherents to advance Islam by the sword. This is not in question.
That perspective closely mirrors controversial statements made by Pompeo a year earlier in the aftermath of the Boston marathon bombing when he inaccurately accused Muslim religious leaders of being “silent” in the aftermath of the attack and “potentially complicit.”

A 2013 Capitol Ministries study attributed theological differences to the reason the U.S. economy outpaced Buddhist and Muslim-majority countries. “The reason for this momentous growth is Christianity,” according to Drollinger.

Unlike other religions, Christianity combines rational thinking and human dignity. Hinduism teaches its adherents to empty their minds of rational thought. Islam on the other hand, rejects God’s incarnation through Christ, depriving its adherents of a role model of God’s characteristic humaneness. [editor’s note: One wonders what he thinks about Judaism.]
He later observed:

Hindu countries have been stymied in historic poverty. And no one needs to read a book to understand the lack of human dignity rooted in the culture of Islam. As a result, Muslim economies are largely built on western developed oil exportation.
Drollinger also compared Islam to communism in the March 2014 bible study: “Today Communism, in its atheistic political ideology is another such illustration; it persecutes the Church wherever it goes, as do Islamic ideologues as they expand their religiously exclusive political ideology.”

And according to a 2011 bible study,

Christianity places a high value on women (cf. Gal. 3:28). The husband therefore is to honor his wife, not diminish her, if he is to be effective in prayer (contr: male-chauvinistic Islam, wherein males “pray” numerous times per day). One’s attitude toward their mate, the Bible says, directly relates to their power in prayer.
A Shared Iranophobia

The June 2014 study went on to link this view of Islam to Iranian uranium enrichment:

Workers of iniquity know nothing of the just war theory; their very form of combat, rooted in the cowardly exploitation of innocent blood via surprise attacks bespeaks of their evil nature. Given this history of Islamist terrorism, especially their use of explosives to kill and injure innocent civilians, it follows that there is no way America or Israel should tolerate uranium enrichment programs in any theocratic Muslim country Given. God’s counsel via the clear principled instruction of Proverbs, specifically that evil men do not understand justice.

IT IS SHEER LUNACY FOR AMERICA TO PERMIT IRAN TO GO AS FAR AS THEY HAVE IN THEIR NUCLEAR PROGRAM!
Pompeo apparently shared Drollinger’s hawkish view. At the same time, he suggested that taking military action against Iran was preferable to negotiations, noting that, “…t is under 2,000 sorties to destroy the Iranian nuclear capacity. This is not an insurmountable task for the coalition forces.” Just before his formal nomination as CIA director, he tweeted, “I look forward to rolling back this disastrous deal with the world’s largest state sponsor of terror.”

A Question of Alignment

Pompeo’s decision to align himself with Drollinger shortly after his election to the House of Representatives in 2010 indicates that the Trump administration’s choice for the nation’s top diplomat might embrace, if not actively practice, a radical view of Christianity that has little or no respect for other faiths, particularly Islam and its 1.8 billion adherents.

For his part, Drollinger has never shied away from advancing his own view of Washington’s role in the world. According to a 2015 “Members Bible Study” on “The ISIS Threat” that listed Pompeo as a sponsor,

There can be no doubt that America’s presence throughout the world—its just, historic presence outside its own boundaries—be it as a member of NATO, signing the Monroe Doctrine, defense treaties with Taiwan and Israel, or its willing and welcomed presence to support military bases in the Philippines, Germany, Korea and Japan, have all greatly aided in peacemaking and peacekeeping throughout the world. This is the fruit of biblically justified intervention! When America is strong, and the threat of her intervening is ever-present the world is a much safer place. And the opposite is now increasingly apparent: When American intervention is of a lesser possibility, unrest and evil aggression rise.
Drollinger’s Capitol Ministries is hardly an upstart or small operation. Its website says, “Capitol Ministries plants and develops biblical ministries of evangelism and discipleship to Public Servants,” and boasts of “200 ministries in 200 countries,” “10,000 ministries in 33,000 cities,” “50 ministries in 50 states,” and “3 ministries in 3 branches.” The group’s strategy: “to reach Public Servants for Christ at every stop along their career paths, beginning with their first local elected or appointed positions and following as they ascend to higher office.”

http://lobelog.com/is-mike-pompeo-as-is ... l-adviser/

Fearing teens, Trump takes long way home to Mar-a-Lago
By Caroline Orr - March 24

Weeks after saying he would run into the line of fire to save students, Trump refused to even ride past them.

seemslikeadream » Sun Mar 25, 2018 3:22 pm wrote:one hour before Stormy Daniels interview on 60Minutes, CNN reports that trump is firing VA Secretary Shulkin

Here’s John Bolton Promising Regime Change in Iran by the End of 2018

Robert Mackey
March 23 2018, 2:38 p.m.
Among those most alarmed by President Donald Trump’s selection of John Bolton as his new national security adviser on Thursday were supporters of the Iran nuclear deal, the 2015 international agreement that curbed Iran’s nuclear program in exchange for a partial lifting of economic sanctions.

Rob Malley, who coordinated Middle East policy in the Obama administration, observed that Bolton’s appointment, along with the nomination of Iran deal critic Mike Pompeo as secretary of state, seemed to signal that the agreement would most likely be “dead and buried” within months. Trita Parsi, leader of the National Iranian American Council wrote on Twitter: “People, let this be very clear: The appointment of Bolton is essentially a declaration of war with Iran. With Pompeo and Bolton, Trump is assembling a WAR CABINET.”

Their alarm was understandable. Bolton, who made his name as a belligerent member of George W. Bush’s State Department and a Fox News contributor, has not only demanded that the Trump administration withdraw from the nuclear deal, he also previously advocated bombing Iran instead. Bolton has spent the better part of a decade calling for the United States to help overthrow the theocratic government in Tehran and hand power to a cult-like group of Iranian exiles with no real support inside the country.



Just eight months ago, at a Paris gathering, Bolton told members of the Iranian exile group, known as the Mujahedeen Khalq, MEK, or People’s Mujahedeen, that the Trump administration should embrace their goal of immediate regime change in Iran and recognize their group as a “viable” alternative.

“The outcome of the president’s policy review should be to determine that the Ayatollah Khomeini’s 1979 revolution will not last until its 40th birthday,” Bolton said. (The 40th anniversary of the Iranian revolution will be on February 11, 2019.) “The declared policy of the United States should be the overthrow of the mullahs’ regime in Tehran,” Bolton added. “The behavior and the objectives of the regime are not going to change and, therefore, the only solution is to change the regime itself.”

As the Iranian expatriate journalist Bahman Kalbasi noted, Bolton concluded his address to the exiles with a rousing promise: “And that’s why, before 2019, we here will celebrate in Tehran!”



To understand how extraordinary it is that the man about to become the president’s most senior national security official made this promise to the MEK, it is important to know that, until recently, the Iranian dissidents had spent three decades trying to achieve their aims through violence, including terrorist attacks.

After members of the MEK helped foment the 1979 revolution, in part by killing American civilians working in Tehran, the group then lost a bitter struggle for power to the Islamists led by the revolution’s leader, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini. With its leadership forced to flee Iran in 1981, the MEK’s members set up a government-in-exile in France and established a military base in Iraq, where they were given arms and training by Saddam Hussein, as part of a strategy to destabilize the government in Tehran that he was at war with.

In recent years, as The Intercept has reported, the MEK has poured millions of dollars into reinventing itself as a moderate political group ready to take power in Iran if Western-backed regime change ever takes place. To that end, it lobbied successfully to be removed from the State Department’s list of foreign terrorist organizations in 2012. The Iranian exiles achieved this over the apparent opposition of then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, in part by paying a long list of former U.S. officials hefty speaking fees of between $10,000 to $50,000 for hymns of praise like the one Bolton delivered last July.

But, according to Ariane Tabatabai, a Georgetown University scholar, the “cult-like dissident group” — whose married members were reportedly forced to divorce and take a vow of lifelong celibacy — “has no viable chance of seizing power in Iran.”

If the current government is not Iranians’ first choice for a government, the MEK is not even their last — and for good reason. The MEK supported Saddam Hussein during the Iran-Iraq War. The people’s discontent with the Iranian government at that time did not translate into their supporting an external enemy that was firing Scuds into Tehran, using chemical weapons and killing hundreds of thousands of Iranians, including many civilians. Today, the MEK is viewed negatively by most Iranians, who would prefer to maintain the status quo than rush to the arms of what they consider a corrupt, criminal cult.

Despite such doubts that the MEK’s political wing, the National Council of Resistance of Iran, is any more reliable than Ahmad Chalabi’s Iraqi National Congress proved to be, spending lavishly on paid endorsements has earned the group a bipartisan roster of Washington politicians willing to sign up as supporters. At a previous gala, in 2016, Bolton was joined in singing the group’s praises by another former U.N. ambassador, Bill Richardson; a former attorney general, Michael Mukasey; the former State Department spokesperson P.J. Crowley; the former Homeland Security adviser Frances Townsend; the former Rep. Patrick Kennedy, D-R.I.; and the former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean. That Paris gala was hosted by Linda Chavez, a former Reagan administration official.

At a similar event this January, the backdrop behind former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich, as he praised MEK leader Maryam Rajavi, made the aim of the group’s investment in American politicians clear.

Newt Gingrich, Auvers sur Oise, France 19/01/2018 - Maryam Rajavi and Newt Gingrich in a conference on January 19, 2018 in the office of NCRI, Auvers sur Oise, north of Paris speaks to support the uprising of the Iranian people for regime change. Newt Gingrich, Former Speaker of the United States House of Representatives said this is the opportunity that Iranian diaspora and people inside Iran have to get rid of this dictatorship. Rom/TME/SIPA (Sipa via AP Images)
Newt Gingrich addressed a Paris conference of the Iranian exile group known as the MEK in January.

Photo: Sipa via AP Images

Unsurprisingly, leading figures from among the exile group’s Washington followers have expressed delight over Bolton’s impending elevation to the White House





At the group’s celebration of Nowruz, the Persian New Year, in Albania on Tuesday, Rajavi was joined on stage by Rudy Giuliani, the former mayor of New York City.



Although the official announcement from the White House was not made until Thursday, Giuliani told the group, to loud applause, that Bolton “is going to be President Trump’s national security adviser.”


In case there was any doubt among the exiles that Bolton might not advise Trump to overthrow Iran’s government, Giuliani assured them that “if anything, John Bolton has become more determined that there needs to be regime change in Iran, that the nuclear agreement needs to be burned, and that you need to be in charge of that country.”

Moments later, Giuliani led the crowd in chanting “regime change.”

Despite the fact that Trump ran for office as a critic of the decision to invade Iraq, Bolton still refuses to call the preemptive attack a mistake. That position stunned even Fox News’s Tucker Carlson, during an interview two weeks ago. After Carlson pointed out that Bolton had called for regime change in Iraq, Libya, Iran, and Syria, and the first of those had been “a disaster,” Bolton disagreed, saying, “I think your analysis is simple-minded, frankly.”


“I think the overthrow of Saddam Hussein, that military action, was a resounding success,” Bolton told Carlson. The chaos that followed in Iraq, he said, was caused by a poorly executed occupation that ended too soon. On the bright side, Bolton said, the mistakes the U.S. made in Iraq offered “lessons about what to do after a regime is overthrown” in the future.

Top Photo: At a 2017 celebration of Nowruz, the Persian New Year, in Albania, Maryam Rajavi, the MEK leader and self-styled president-elect of the National Council of Resistance of Iran, met international supporters including John Bolton, second from left, a former United States Ambassador to the United Nations. Bolton was flanked by Pandeli Majko, a former prime minister of Albania, far left, and David Muniz, the deputy chief of the U.S. Embassy in Albania.
https://theintercept.com/2018/03/23/her ... -end-2018/

Former official accuses Donald Trump Jr. of pushing 'blatantly illegal' project in India

Mar. 21, 2018, 2:16 PM 7,262


A former Indian official accused Donald Trump Jr. of pushing an illegal project in Mumbai.

The accusation comes as Trump Jr. has received scrutiny for a recent India trip.
A former Indian official accused Donald Trump Jr. of pushing a "blatantly illegal" project in Mumbai.

The official, Chief Minister Prithviraj Chavan, whose position is the equivalent of a US governor, said on the latest edition of ProPublica's "Trump Inc." podcast that Trump Jr. had asked him to overturn a decision to revoke permits for the Trump Organization's initial India project.

That project was halted after investigators found "irregularities," The New Republic wrote, adding that those probing the project were tipped off by a state lawmaker who suspect a $100 million fraud and "gross violations."

Trump Jr. then traveled to India in April 2012 along with partners and met with Chavan in hopes of getting the project up and running again.

Chavan was told that Trump Jr. and the partners wanted to discuss investing in his state. Instead, they asked him to overturn that earlier decision.

"I would get into trouble to sanction something that was blatantly illegal," he said, adding the plans were "not within the existing rules."

The Trump Organization did break into the Indian market in 2014 under a new government with the construction of Trump Tower Mumbai. That project is set to be finished in 2019 and is one of five Trump-affiliated projects being developed in the country.

Just last month, Trump Jr. visited India to promote the properties. His visit came under fire by critics, particularly after national newspaper ads promised a dinner with President Donald Trump's eldest son in exchange for an early sign-up to one of the Trump apartments under construction.

ProPublica reported that a Trump partner said they booked $15 million in sales within one day during Trump Jr.'s India visit.

Each of the Trump Organization's India projects are licensing deals in which the company provides the Trump name and manages the property.

The Trump Organization didn't respond to requests for comment.
http://www.businessinsider.com/donald-t ... org-2018-3

Citing President Trump’s “racially charged language,” a federal judge in Brooklyn ruled on Thursday that a lawsuit seeking to preserve a program that protects hundreds of thousands of young undocumented immigrants from deportation could continue.

The order, by Judge Nicholas G. Garaufis of Federal District Court in Brooklyn, was the strongest sign so far of judicial support for the program known as DACA, or Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, which has for months been the subject of a heated debate in Congress.

In October, lawyers for the Justice Department filed a motion to dismiss the Brooklyn lawsuit, claiming that the plaintiffs in the case — a coalition of immigration lawyers and a group of Democratic state attorneys general — had failed to make a persuasive case that DACA was rolled back in September because of a racial animus toward Latinos.

But in his order rejecting the motion to dismiss, Judge Garaufis pointed directly at Mr. Trump, noting that his numerous “racial slurs” and “epithets” — both as a candidate and from the White House — had created a “plausible inference” that the decision to end DACA violated the equal protection clause of the Constitution.

“One might reasonably infer,” Judge Garaufis wrote, “that a candidate who makes overtly bigoted statements on the campaign trail might be more likely to engage in similarly bigoted action in office.”

In February, Judge Garaufis issued an injunction ordering the Trump administration to keep DACA in place as he considered the legal merits of the suit. That injunction echoed a similar one issued in January by Judge William Alsup of Federal District Court in San Francisco, who is hearing a separate but related suit.

The ruling on Thursday took the legal process in New York one step further, strongly hinting at what Judge Garaufis thought about the suit’s central claims. It did not offer a conclusive win for the plaintiffs, only allowing the case to move forward toward a summary judgment decision or a trial. But it was notable for its strong language suggesting that there may have been an improper racial motivation for rescinding the DACA program.

Of the nearly 800,000 immigrants who are protected by DACA, referred to as Dreamers, more than 90 percent hail from Latin America, and almost 80 percent are originally from Mexico. In his order, Judge Garaufis specifically mentioned Mr. Trump’s statements about Mexico sending “criminals” and “rapists” to the United States and his verbal attacks on an American-born jurist of Mexican descent, Judge Gonzalo P. Curiel of Federal District Court in San Diego. Judge Garaufis also cited Mr. Trump’s assertions — both before and after his inauguration — that Latino immigrants were “animals” and “bad hombres.”

While the judge noted that looking for racial bias, especially in “campaign-trail statements,” was a potentially fraught process that could result in an “evidentiary snark hunt,” he concluded that his court could not “bury its head in the sand when faced with overt expressions of prejudice.”

In a separate prong of the ruling, Judge Garaufis said that the decision to rescind DACA violated the Administrative Procedure Act, or APA, a federal law that bars the government from repealing policies arbitrarily, capriciously or without a rational basis.

The plaintiffs immediately welcomed the ruling as yet another victory in the case.

“We’re pleased the court ruled that our substantive equal protection and APA claims can proceed,” said Amy Spitalnik, a spokeswoman for Eric T. Schneiderman, the New York State attorney general. “We look forward to continuing our litigation to protect Dreamers and New York’s businesses, economy, and institutions.”

Jessica Hanson, a lawyer for the National Immigration Law Center, said that the ruling “again acknowledged that our brave plaintiffs present important claims, including that the decision to terminate DACA was rooted in Trump’s bias against Latinos.”

Devin O’Malley, a spokesman for the Justice Department, did not address Judge Garaufis’s criticisms of Mr. Trump. In a statement, he said that DACA was “an unlawful circumvention of Congress” and that the Trump administration was “within its lawful authority” in winding it down.

“The Justice Department will continue to vigorously defend this position,” Mr. O’Malley added, “and looks forward to vindicating its position in further litigation.”

Judge Garaufis’s ruling was not the first to cite Mr. Trump’s public statements. Judges around the country have also mentioned the president’s tweets and remarks while issuing orders about his travel ban and decision to bar transgender people from serving in the military.

Elvis » Mon Mar 26, 2018 6:02 am wrote:

seemslikeadream » Sun Mar 25, 2018 3:22 pm wrote:one hour before Stormy Daniels interview on 60Minutes, CNN reports that trump is firing VA Secretary Shulkin

Interesting... I don't know anything about Shulkin, but the other day I talked to a Trump-supporting Iraq vet who lost a leg in an IED explosion, and she said Trump is doing great things for veterans. I hope she's right, for the vets' sake, but I expect she'll ultimately be disappointed.

Shulkin: White House blocked me from publicly responding to accusations
Ousted Veterans Affairs Secretary David Shulkin said Thursday that an inspector general report laying out his misuse of taxpayer dollars was “mischaracterized” and that he was not given a chance to defend himself.

“There was nothing improper about this trip, and I was not allowed to put up an official statement or to even respond to this by the White House,” Shulkin told NPR.

“I think this was really just being used in a political context to try to make sure that I wasn’t as effective as a leader moving forward,” he added.
The Hill has reached out to the White House for comment.

Shulkin also speculated to NPR that he was removed from his post because he was against privatizing the VA.

http://thehill.com/homenews/administrat ... ponding-to

The Conservative Plot to Oust an Able Secretary of Veterans Affairs

The more you look at David Shulkin’s departure, the more it seems like another example of virulently anti-government Republicans exploiting Trump’s Presidency to advance their own goals.Photograph by Victor J. Blue / Bloomberg / Getty
Did you hear the one about the fast-food-loving, exercise-averse President who got a rave health review from his doctor and then nominated him to run a vast government agency with three hundred and seventy thousand employees and an annual budget of close to two hundred billion dollars?

On Wednesday, Donald Trump picked his White House physician, Rear Admiral Ronny Jackson, a U.S. Navy medic, to run the sprawling Department of Veterans Affairs. The jokes are still coming. “Ronny Jackson says Trump weighs 239 pounds and gets to be VA Secretary,” Dean Baker, a senior economist at the liberal Center for Economic and Policy Research, tweeted on Thursday morning. “If I say he weighs 229 pounds can I be Fed chair?”

It’s worth looking more closely, however, at the circumstances that led to Jackson’s nomination: the firing from the V.A. of David Shulkin, an acknowledged expert in the management of large health-care organizations, which is what the V.A. really is. Before Shulkin joined the V.A., in 2015, initially as the Under-Secretary of Veterans Affairs for Health, he was the chief executive of Beth Israel Medical Center, in New York, and he had also worked for the Atlantic Health System, which runs a number of hospitals and clinics in New Jersey. An M.D. as well as a manager, he was known as a champion of more patient-centered care.

Early last year, after Trump nominated Shulkin to be the V.A. Secretary, the Senate confirmed him unanimously. Since then, some big veterans’ groups have praised his efforts, which have included building up the mental-health services that V.A. facilities offer; forcing hospitals and clinics to publish data about their treatments and waiting times; and reforming the appeals process for veterans seeking disability benefits. Trump himself also praised Shulkin. At a signing ceremony, last June, Trump joked that he would never fire him.

That statement turned out to be another Trump falsehood. According to the White House, the President lost confidence in Shulkin after he became embroiled in an embarrassing scandal about using public money to pay for his wife to accompany him on a trip to Europe last summer. The sums involved were relatively small—the airfare was about four thousand dollars. But a report by the V.A.’s inspector general alleged that Shulkin’s chief of staff had doctored an e-mail in an effort to cover up the expenses.

...
Recent reports have suggested an alternative theory for Shulkin’s ouster: that he was the target of a concerted effort by other Trump appointees to use the expenses scandal to get rid of him because he wasn’t conservative enough. Indeed, the more you look at Shulkin’s departure, the more it seems like another example of virulently anti-government Republicans exploiting Trump’s Presidency to advance their own goals. In this case, the goals involve privatizing much of what the V.A. does, and maybe even dismantling the public health-care system.

During his twelve-and-a-half-month tenure as V.A. Secretary, Shulkin approved the contracting out of some services to private providers, but he resisted a broader privatization initiative that various right-wing think tanks and political groups have been pushing for years, and which has also earned the vocal support of a veteran group backed by the Koch brothers: Concerned Veterans for America. (The White House reportedly seriously considered the former head of Concerned Veterans for America, Pete Hegseth, who is now a co-host of the Fox News morning show “Fox & Friends Weekend,” as a replacement for Shulkin.)

https://www.newyorker.com/news/our-colu ... ns-affairs

Trump taps his doctor to replace Shulkin at VA, choosing personal chemistry over traditional qualifications

President Trump fired his embattled Veterans Affairs secretary Wednesday and tapped as his replacement atop the chronically mismanaged agency the president’s personal physician, who gained prominence with his effusive praise of the 71-year-old’s physical and mental health.

The ouster of Veterans Affairs Secretary David Shulkin, who has been mired in scandal over his charging taxpayers for luxury travel expenses and the infighting among his senior aides, had been widely expected and was made official at 5:31 p.m. by presidential tweet.

Trump said he would nominate Ronny L. Jackson, 50, an active-duty rear admiral in the Navy who has served for the past three administrations as a White House physician.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/na ... a6aa43239c

As World War II raged, two Veterans Administration doctors reported witnessing something extraordinary: An eminent neurologist, Walter J. Freeman, and his partner treating a mentally ill patient by cutting open the skull and slicing through neural fibers in the brain.

It was an operation Dr. Freeman called a lobotomy.

Their report landed on the desk of VA chief Frank Hines on July 26, 1943, in the form of a memo recommending lobotomies for veterans with intractable mental illnesses. The operation “may be done, in suitable cases, under local anesthesia,” the memo said. It “does not demand a high degree of surgical skill.”

The next day Mr. Hines stamped the memo in purple ink: APPROVED.

Over the next dozen or so years, the U.S. government would lobotomize roughly 2,000 American veterans, according to a cache of forgotten VA documents unearthed by The Wall Street Journal, including the memo approved by Mr. Hines. It was a decision made “in accord with our desire to keep abreast of all advances in treatment,” the memo said.

He almost convinced the VA to adapt his program.


http://projects.wsj.com/lobotomyfiles/?ch=two

Artists transformed a Trump hotel suite into an an art exhibit with rats

In a Salon exclusive interview, the artists behind the art protest explain how they schemed their devious plan

A collective of anti-Trump artists pulled off a powerful and clever art exhibit, called "The People's Prison," which featured live rats crawling on a President Donald Trump impersonator imprisoned in golden handcuffs--in a Trump hotel suite in New York City. The activist art collective, INDECLINE, which is comprised of anonymous graffiti, photographers, and activists, transformed the hotel room at the Trump International Hotel and Tower on March 29, and fortunately, were able to escape the suite unscathed. Known for their provocative art protests (remember the Naked Trump statues?), Salon spoke to one of the artists--under anonymity--to learn more about the inner-workings of the latest heist.

What inspired the exhibit? Can you tell us more about what was inside, and what was symbolic about it?

After the election, INDECLINE vowed to shadow President Trump’s every move and provide our own set of checks and balances. Over the course of the last two years, we’ve taken our anti-Trump messages to the streets, his golf courses and recently felt the need to conceptualize something of a Trojan Horse and crash the gates of his New York City hotel. We’ve always been inspired by America’s long, vibrant history of radical activism and protest, especially in times of social unrest and given Trump’s aptitude for manufacturing a climate of racism, arrogance and global chaos, we felt that creating something within the rotten core of the Big Apple, in his own hotel, would be fitting.

The room we booked was a one bedroom suite. After everything was carefully dismantled and stored in the closets, bathroom and bedroom, a team of seven activists refurbished the walls with new “concrete” wallpaper, hung 13 American flags displaying the images of different radicals, revolutionaries and activists and built a floor to ceiling jail cell. Inside of the cell, was a Donald Trump impersonator wearing a pair of golden handcuffs and surrounded by a half dozen live rats and McDonalds wrappers. There was also an 8 by 11 black and white photo of a shirtless Vladimir Putin with a handwritten message that read: “Don’t worry baby, I got you in and I can get you out”
https://www.salon.com/2018/03/31/anonym ... p-exhibit/

Matt Pearce
A former Sinclair journalist sent me a screenshot of their contract. “I couldn't leave because of this part of my contract.”

How America's Largest Local TV Owner Turned Its News Anchors Into Soldiers In Trump's War On The Media

Timothy Burke
Yesterday 3:45pmFiled to: MEDIA



Earlier this month, CNN’s Brian Stelter broke the news that Sinclair Broadcast Group, owner or operator of nearly 200 television stations in the U.S., would be forcing its news anchors to record a promo about “the troubling trend of irresponsible, one sided news stories plaguing our country.” The script, which parrots Donald Trump’s oft-declarations of developments negative to his presidency as “fake news,” brought upheaval to newsrooms already dismayed with Sinclair’s consistent interference to bring right-wing propaganda to local television broadcasts.

You might remember Sinclair from its having been featured on John Oliver’s Last Week Tonight last year, or from its requiring in 2004 of affiliates to air anti-John Kerry propaganda, or perhaps because it’s your own local affiliate running inflammatory “Terrorism Alerts” or required editorials from former Trump adviser Boris Epshteyn, he of the famed Holocaust Remembrance Day statement that failed to mention Jewish people. (Sinclair also owns Ring of Honor wrestling, Tennis magazine, and the Tennis Channel.)


The net result of the company’s current mandate is dozens upon dozens of local news anchors looking like hostages in proof-of-life videos, trying their hardest to spit out words attacking the industry they’d chosen as a life vocation.

Not that any of it matters to Sinclair, which, with the help of a friendly federal government, is about to swallow up another 40 television stations—increasing its reach and its lead over competitors like Hearst and Scripps. The script, as transcribed by ThinkProgress based on the KOMO (Seattle) version, reads:

Hi, I’m(A) ____________, and I’m (B) _________________…

(B) Our greatest responsibility is to serve our Northwest communities. We are extremely proud of the quality, balanced journalism that KOMO News produces.

(A) But we’re concerned about the troubling trend of irresponsible, one sided news stories plaguing our country. The sharing of biased and false news has become all too common on social media.

(B) More alarming, some media outlets publish these same fake stories… stories that just aren’t true, without checking facts first.

(A) Unfortunately, some members of the media use their platforms to push their own personal bias and agenda to control ‘exactly what people think’…This is extremely dangerous to a democracy.

(B) At KOMO it’s our responsibility to pursue and report the truth. We understand Truth is neither politically ‘left nor right.’ Our commitment to factual reporting is the foundation of our credibility, now more than ever.

(A) But we are human and sometimes our reporting might fall short. If you believe our coverage is unfair please reach out to us by going to KOMOnews.com and clicking on CONTENT CONCERNS. We value your comments. We will respond back to you.

(B) We work very hard to seek the truth and strive to be fair, balanced and factual… We consider it our honor, our privilege to responsibly deliver the news every day.

(A) Thank you for watching and we appreciate your feedback.
For a list of stations owned or operated by Sinclair Broadcast Group, check here. If you’re a Sinclair employee who has something to say—anonymity guaranteed on request—let me know or use our anonymous SecureDrop.
https://theconcourse.deadspin.com/how-a ... 1824233490

Kushner: We struck deal with Sinclair for straighter coverage
By JOSH DAWSEY and HADAS GOLD 12/16/2016 05:35 PM EST

Donald Trump's campaign struck a deal with Sinclair Broadcast Group during the campaign to try and secure better media coverage, his son-in-law Jared Kushner told business executives Friday in Manhattan.

Kushner said the agreement with Sinclair, which owns television stations across the country in many swing states and often packages news for their affiliates to run, gave them more access to Trump and the campaign, according to six people who heard his remarks.


In exchange, Sinclair would broadcast their Trump interviews across the country without commentary, Kushner said. Kushner highlighted that Sinclair, in states like Ohio, reaches a much wider audience — around 250,000 listeners — than networks like CNN, which reach somewhere around 30,000.

“It’s math,” Kushner said according to multiple attendees.

But Sinclair and other networks said such a deal is nothing nefarious or new - just an arrangement for extended sit-down interviews with both candidates, one many campaigns have done in previous years to get around the national media and directly to viewers in key states.

Scott Livingston, vice president of news at Sinclair, said the offer for extended interviews with local anchors was made to both candidates. Trump did a handful of interviews, while Sen. Tim Kaine did a few as well, though Hillary Clinton did not.

“Our promise was to give all candidates an opportunity to voice their position share their position with our viewers. Certainly we presented an opportunity so that Mr. Trump could clearly state his position on the key issues,” Livingston said. “Our commitment to our viewers is to go beyond podium, beyond the rhetoric. We’re all about tracking the truth and telling the truth and that’s typically missing in most political coverage.”

A Trump spokesman said the deal included the interviews running across every affiliate but that no money was exchanged between the network and the campaign. The spokesman said the campaign also worked with other media outlets that had affiliates, like Hearst, to try and spread their message.

Barbara Maushard, senior vice president for news at Hearst Television said in a statement "Any suggestion that Hearst Television cut any deal with political candidates is categorically false and absurd.”

“It was a standard package, but an extended package, extended story where you’d hear more directly from candidate on the issue instead of hearing all the spin and all the rhetoric,” Livingston said.

Clinton campaign spokesman Brian Fallon said they had nothing to add to Sinclair’s explanation.

Sinclair, a Maryland-based company, has been labeled in some reports as a conservative-leaning local news network. Local stations in the past have been directed to air “must run” stories produced by Sinclair’s Washington bureau that were generally critical of Obama administration and offered perspectives primarily from conservative think tanks, The Washington Post reported in 2014.

A Kushner spokeswoman declined to comment on his remarks, made at an off-the-record meeting in the Morgan Stanley Cafeteria for the Partnership for New York City, a business group, and referred questions to the campaign.

Kushner, dressed in a suit and sneakers, told the business executives that the campaign was upset with CNN because they considered its on-air panels stacked against Trump. He added that he personally talked with Jeff Zucker about changing the composition of the panels but Zucker refused. He repeatedly said in the panel that CNN wasn't "moving the needle" and wasn't important as it once was, according to three of the people present.

The campaign then decided not to work as closely with CNN, and Trump ramped up his bashing of the cable network.

Two people present said that they were surprised how much Kushner talked about CNN. "He kept going on and on about it," one business executive said.

He also told the crowd that Google and Facebook are now more powerful, and that The New York Times and CNN aren't as powerful.

A CNN spokesperson declined to comment.

Kushner also said that he had learned far more about the country by traveling with Trump and was now a different person, calling the thousands of people who would show up to Trump rallies “amazing Americans.”

“Here he is with 400 elites, CEOs of the banks, those are his people. He’s among his people, but he’s speaking this Trump-like language,” one attendee said.
https://www.politico.com/story/2016/12/ ... ner-232764

John Oliver Tears Into Sinclair Broadcasting, the Trump-Loving Local News Giant

Mother JonesApr. 2, 2018 8:42 AM

Over the weekend, a video featuring dozens of local news reporters reciting the same, “fake news”-bashing script went viral, with many comparing the chilling supercut to something of a hostage video. The clip demonstrated the rise of Sinclair Broadcasting—the media giant few may know by name but have likely encountered—and the company’s conservative takeover of local news outlets.


On Sunday, John Oliver went further to unpack some of the alarming ways the Trump-friendly media group twists viewers’ trust in their local news reporters to parrot highly misleading, right-wing messaging. That content can range from mandatory “Terrorism Alert Desks” to deceptive features on the “deep state.”

The HBO host also slammed the “fake news” script: “When you see just how many local stations were forced to read it and you watch them together, as many have been doing online in the last couple of days, you begin to realize the true effect of Sinclair’s reach and power.”

For more, don’t miss Mother Jones‘ deep-dive investigation into Sinclair and its ties to the Trump administration, including the president’s son-in-law Jared Kushner.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kCkuuzDOKwE

https://www.motherjones.com/media/2018/ ... ews-giant/

Corruption, Not Russia, Is Trump’s Greatest Political Liability

Jonathan Chait@jonathanchaitApril 1, 2018 9:00 pm

“My whole life I’ve been greedy, greedy, greedy,” declared Donald Trump during the 2016 campaign. “I’ve grabbed all the money I could get. I’m so greedy. But now I want to be greedy for the United States.” To the extent that Trump’s candidacy offered any positive appeal, as opposed to simple loathing for his opponent, this was it. He was a brilliant businessman, or at least starred in a television show as one, and he would set aside his lifelong pursuit of wealth to selflessly serve the greater good. This was the promise that pried just enough Obama voters away from Hillary Clinton in just enough upper-Midwest states to clinch the Electoral College.

Since Trump took office, his pledge to ignore his own interests has been almost forgotten, lost in a disorienting hurricane of endless news. It is not just a morbid joke but a legitimate problem for the opposition that all the bad news about Trump keeps getting obscured by other bad news about Trump. Perhaps the extraordinary civic unrest his presidency has provoked will be enough to give Democrats a historic win in the midterms this fall, but it is easy to be worried.
Trump’s approval rating hovers in the low 40s: lower than the average of any other president, yes, but seemingly impervious to an onslaught of scandals that would have sunk any other president, and within spitting range of reelectability.

As the races pick up in earnest, some kind of narrative focus is going to be necessary to frame the case against Trump. Here, what appears to be an embarrassment of riches for Democrats may in fact be a collection of distractions. It is depressingly likely that several of Trump’s most outrageous characteristics will fail to move the needle in the states and districts where the needle needs moving. His racism and misogyny motivate the Democratic base, but both were perfectly apparent in 2016 and did not dissuade enough voters to abandon him.
The Russia scandal is substantively important, but it is also convoluted and abstract and removed from any immediate impact on voters’ lived experience. The reports of Trump’s affair with Stormy Daniels, even the possibility of hired goons to keep her quiet, is not exactly a disillusioning experience for voters who harbored few illusions to begin with.

But they did harbor one. Trump’s core proposition to the public was a business deal: If he became president, he would work to make them rich. Of course, the fact that Trump was able to reduce the presidency to such a crass exchange, forsaking such niceties as simple decency and respect for the rule of law, exposed terrifying weaknesses in the fabric of American democracy. But the shortest path to resolving this crisis is first to remove Trump’s party — and it is Trump’s party — from full control of the government in 2018, and then to remove Trump from the White House in 2020. The clearest way to do that is to demonstrate that Trump is failing to uphold his end of the deal. After all, the students at Trump University once constituted some of the biggest Trump fans in America. Until they realized Trump had conned them. Then they sued to get their money back.

Historically, corruption — specifically, the use of power for personal gain — has played a central and even dominant role in American political discourse. In the 1870s, revelations that public officials were caught lining their pockets with millions of dollars from alcohol taxes (the Whiskey Ring) and inflated railroad costs (Crédit Mobilier) exploded into spectacular scandals. One of the triumphs of the Progressive Era was establishing rules and norms of professionalism in government so that public officials would not be tempted to sell their favors. The far more petty corruption cases of the 20th century still roused public rage. Harry Truman was famously scorned in his time, owing to penny-ante scandals, one of which involved an aide’s acceptance of some freezers. Dwight Eisenhower’s chief of staff had to resign after he accepted a vicuña coat; George H.W. Bush’s chief of staff, John Sununu, resigned in disgrace after using military aircraft for personal and political trips. There is a reason Trump labeled his opponent “Crooked Hillary,” and it stems from a law of American politics Democrats would be wise to remember: To be out for yourself is probably the single most disqualifying flaw a politician can have.

5 of the Most Blatantly Unethical Moves by the Trump Administration


“Why shouldn’t the president surround himself with successful people?” argued Larry Kudlow, now Trump’s primary economic adviser, in 2016. “Wealthy folks have no need to steal or engage in corruption.” The administration seems to have set out to refute this generous assumption. The sheer breadth of direct self-enrichment Trump has unleashed in office defies the most cynical predictions. It may not be a surprise that he continues to hold on to his business empire and uses his power in office to direct profits its way, from overseas building deals down to printing the presidential seal on golf markers at the course near Mar-a-Lago. It is certainly not a surprise that Trump has refused to disclose his tax returns. What’s truly shocking is how much petty graft has sprung up across his administration. Trump’s Cabinet members and other senior officials have been living in style at taxpayer expense, indulging in lavish travel for personal reasons (including a trip to Fort Knox to witness the solar eclipse) and designing their offices with $31,000 dining sets and $139,000 doors. Not since the Harding administration, and probably the Gilded Age, has the presidency conducted itself in so venal a fashion.

It is hardly a coincidence that so many greedy people have filled the administration’s ranks. Trump’s ostentatious crudeness and misogyny are a kind of human-resources strategy. Radiating personal and professional sleaze lets him quickly and easily identify individuals who have any kind of public ethics and to sort them out. (James Comey’s accounts of his interactions with the president depict Trump probing for some vein of corruptibility in the FBI director; when he came up empty, he fired him.) Trump is legitimately excellent at cultivating an inner circle unburdened by legal or moral scruples. These are the only kind of people who want to work for Trump, and the only kind Trump wants to work for him.

Not since the Harding administration has the presidency conducted itself in so venal a fashion.
It should take very little work — and be a very big priority — for Democratic candidates to stitch all the administration’s misdeeds together into a tale of unchecked greed. For all the mystery still surrounding the Russia investigation, for instance, it is already clear that the narrative revolves around a lust (and desperation) for money. Having burned enough American banks throughout his career that he could not obtain capital through conventional, legitimate channels, Trump turned to Russian sources, who typically have an ulterior political motive. Just what these various sources got in return for their investment in Trump is a matter for Robert Mueller’s investigators to determine. But Trump’s interest in them is perfectly obvious.

Trump’s campaign followed his patented human-resources strategy, filling its ranks with other rapacious and financially precarious men. Paul Manafort was deeply in debt to a Russian oligarch when he popped up on Trump’s doorstep. Michael Flynn was selling his credentials to Russian and Turkish dictators while advising Trump. Jared Kushner was flailing about in an effort to make good on a massive loan he took out on a white-elephant Manhattan building and seems to have used his access to Trump to leverage potential investors who might bail him out. Even as he has wielded enormous influence, Kushner has been unable to obtain a top-secret security clearance, because he may be vulnerable to foreign influence.

The virtue of bribery is a subject of genuine conviction for Trump, whose entrée to politics came via transactional relationships with New York politicians as well as Mafia figures. Trump once called the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, which bars American corporations from engaging in bribery, a “ridiculous” and “horrible” law. Enforcement of this law has plummeted under his administration.

Trump’s vision of an economy run by tight circles of politically connected oligarchs has reshaped America’s standing in the world. The same effect that applies at the personal level with Trump has appeared at the level of the nation-state. Small-d democratic leaders have recoiled from the Trump administration, while autocrats have embraced him. Similarly, the president and his inner circle feel most comfortable in the company of the wealthy and corrupt. They have built closer ties to Russia, the Gulf States, and China, all of which are ruled by oligarchs who recognize in Trump a like-minded soul. They share the belief that — to revise a favorite Trump saying — if you don’t steal, you don’t have a country.

7 of President Trump's Dictatorial Tendencies

An easy fatalism about all this corruption has gained wide circulation. It was known about Trump all along and his voters signed up for it anyway, so nothing matters, right? In fact, Trump’s behavior runs directly contrary to his most important promises. “Draining the swamp” was not supposed to mean simply kicking out Democrats and competent public officials. He made speeches promising good-government reforms: a ban on lobbying by former members of Congress and stricter rules on what lobbying meant; campaign-finance reform to prevent foreign companies from raising money for American candidates; a ban on lobbying by former senior government officials on behalf of foreign governments.

Not only has Trump made no effort to raise ethical standards but he and his administration have flamboyantly violated the existing guidelines. Lobbyists are seeded in every agency, “regulating” their former employers and designing rules that favor bosses over employees and business owners over consumers. The problem of former government officials’ being paid by foreign governments has been superseded by the far larger problem of current government officials’ being paid by foreign governments.

Small episodes of corruption can play an outsize role in American politics, since the human scale of petty self-dealing is often easy to understand. And in Trump’s case, the smaller and larger scandals reinforce each other. Why is Trump giving rich people and corporations a huge tax cut? Why has he been threatening to take away your health insurance? Why is he letting Wall Street and Big Oil write their own rules? Above all, if Trump supposedly believed that “if I become president, I couldn’t care less about my company — it’s peanuts,” why are his children still running it? For the same reason he has let his Cabinet secretaries run up large travel expenses, and why his son-in-law met with oligarchs in China and the Gulf States whose money he was trying to get his hands on.

Even the strong economy does not mean Democrats have no way to attack Trump’s economic management. After all, the reason public opinion about the economy improved almost immediately after his election is that the Republican message machine stopped bad-mouthing the recovery and instead rebranded the same conditions as a fabulous new era of prosperity. Rather than sit back and allow Trump to take credit for a recovery he inherited, Democrats can press the point that he and his allies are doing little more than skimming off the top of it.

Somebody persuaded corporations, fattened by a trillion-dollar tax windfall, to publicize the same raises and bonuses they had been handing out for years as a special dividend of the Trump tax cuts. If Democrats win control of a chamber of Congress and thus the ability to hold hearings, they should investigate whatever coordination yielded this nexus of self-interest. A Democratic House or Senate could also compel disclosure of Trump’s tax returns, and both the documents themselves and any drama surrounding them would attract more attention to the administration’s commitment to self-enrichment.

But that can happen only if the Democrats win the midterms, and the best way to do that is to tell a very simple story. Trump represented himself as a rich man feared by the business elite. He had spent much of his life buying off politicians and exploiting the system, so he knew how the system worked and could exploit that knowledge on behalf of the people. In fact, his experiences with bribery opened his eyes to what further extortion might be possible. Trump was never looking to blow up the system. He was simply casing the joint.
http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/20 ... _medium=s1