21 March 2018

Shooting White People While Being Mohamed Noor

Last July, a nice Australian woman called 9-11 to report a rape incident.

When the police car arrived at the scene, she was shot by one of the officers.

Now, as I noted at the time, this is something of a routine in the USA. You look directly into a police officer's eye you are shot. You look unhappy about being Tasered you are shot. You have the wrong skin color, you are definitely shot.

But in this instance, this is what I wrote:
Last year, 968 people were killed by police. This year, so far, 554
There were several issues with this one though. 
Otherwise it would not have made the headlines. 
First, she was a white woman. 
Second she was from Australia, an English speaking and relatively powerful country where the media can ask questions
Finally, the officer who shot her was called Mohamed Noor. 
Remember Philando Castile? Also in Minnesota. 
And countless others
But I predict that this time they will indict the officer. 
And throw the book at him. 
Because he shot a white woman from Australia while being Mohamed Noor.
Well, they just did. He is charged with third-degree and second-degree murder.

Don't get me wrong, I am not suggesting that this is an injustice for the officer.

Far from it. He should get punished for what he did and if you ask me, what they are proposing is rather lenient.

What I am suggesting that, under the same circumstances, Jeronimo Yanez who shot Philando Castile was charged with lesser crimes and, well, he was acquitted.

What I am also suggesting is that this case shows very clearly the racial bias in the US. When white police officers kill black people, it's all good. In fact, this is the majority of the shooting incidents I linked above.

And this what "All lives matter" idiots are trying to hide.

But when a Muslim officer kills a white woman, we know that "White Lives Matter."

Which was my point.

Nevertheless, I wish Justine Damond was alive and I didn't have to make this point.

But I also wish that Philando Castile was with us.

You know, all lives matter.

Really.

18 March 2018

Will Trump Fire Mueller? A Second Take

I pondered this question last December and my answer was that it was rather likely.

A month later, we found out that Trump had indeed tried to fire Mueller six months earlier but the White House Counsel Donald McGahn blocked his directive.

Now, I am more convinced that he will fire Mueller in the next few weeks.

How do you know that, you may ask.

First, Trump knows that Mueller has turned several witnesses and they are all going to implicate him, his family members and his inner circle.

He also knows that his dealings with Russian oligarchs and criminal groups were, well, charitably put, not above board. Refusing to release your tax returns might cheer up your base as sticking it to the Man, to use the 60s lingo, but it would not deter someone like Mueller.

But Trump would be worried mostly about his kids getting in the crosshairs of Robert Mueller.

And this is happening right now.

Mueller Investigation and Ivanka and Don Jr.

Robert Mueller has just subpoenaed Trump Organization's documents in their dealings with Russian business interests.

This week, congressional investigators claimed that the Trump Organization was negotiating a deal with a Russian bank during the 2016 election campaign.
Democratic congressional investigators this week claimed in a memo that they had learned that the Trump Organization was “actively negotiating” a deal in Moscow during the election campaign that involved a Russian bank that was under US sanctions. The deal never went through and it is not clear which bank the congressional investigators were referring to. 
When you say Trump Organization, you mean Ivanka, Don Jr and Eric. So the kids are being targeted now.

And this is not the first time.

There is also the Trump SoHo deal, which involved Tevfik Arif and Felix Sater and their real estate group Bayrock.

These two were born in the Soviet Union and have extensive commercial and shady connections in Russia including various criminal enterprises.

I mentioned them many times and you can read more about them and their involvement with the Trump Organization here and here.

Basically, as it was subsequently alleged, the Trump SoHo project was a Russian money laundering scheme whereby they sold overpriced real estate to unsuspecting investors who eventually lost their shirt.

That deal was investigated in 2012 by the Manhattan District Attorney's office and according to ProPublica and the New York Times, having found a smoking gun in Ivanka and Donald Jr's emails about their intent to defraud investors, the prosecutors were ready to indict the siblings.
In one email, according to four people who have seen it, the Trumps discussed how to coordinate false information they had given to prospective buyers. In another, according to a person who read the emails, they worried that a reporter might be onto them. In yet another, Donald Jr. spoke reassuringly to a broker who was concerned about the false statements, saying that nobody would ever find out, because only people on the email chain or in the Trump Organization knew about the deception, according to a person who saw the email.
Then, Trump lawyer Marc Kasowitz made a surprise visit to Manhattan DA Cyrus Vance Jr after which he instructed his prosecutors to shut down the investigation.

In case you are wondering, Kasowitz donated $25,000 to Vance's re-election campaign becoming one of his biggest donors. Vance returned the money when this strange coincidence was revealed. Undeterred, Kasowitz subsequently organized a fundraiser that netted Vance $50,000.

But, of course, there was no quid pro quo, as we all know that happens only in sub-Saharan Africa and some other, hmmm, what is the term, oh yes, shithole countries.

But not in the good old USA.

Where lawyers pay $130,000 to porn stars from their own pocket, just because...

Where prosecutors always go after the rich and powerful people like Cy Vance going after Harvey Weinstein.

In any event, not only is Mueller looking into this again but he is doing it in collaboration with New York's Attorney General Eric Schneiderman who hates Trump with a passion.

This is relevant since it puts Ivanka and Don Jr beyond their father's ability to pardon, which is limited to federal cases and Schneiderman's involvement makes it state level.

So stopping Mueller is now very important for Trump.

He thinks, firing Mueller might just stop the whole thing.

Does he have cover to do it?

Wel, the GOP has just arranged for it.

The End of House Probe on Russia Collusion

The House Intelligence Committee just ended its investigation on whether or not Trump Campaign colluded with Russia to influence electoral results.

Their report said there was nothing serious there. Nothing at all. A few mistakes here and there, but no Benghazi.
The House Republicans also said that a 150-page report they prepared — without consulting their Democratic colleagues — contradicts the U.S. intelligence community's firm conclusion that the goal of the Russian government effort was to boost Trump's campaign. 
See, it was all a witch hunt and Trump has always maintained that.

True, there is also an ongoing Senate probe but since that chamber is also controlled by the GOP don't expect a much different result. The GOP has a tight control over all their congresspeople. The carrot is money and stick is a Tea Party primary challenger.

If John McCain didn't have a brain tumor and sudden concerns about his legacy, he might have voted for Trump despite the Orange Man's previous comments about him not being a hero.

Why is that relevant?

When Trump fires Mueller, his GOP defenders will go on Sunday talk shows and say that the Mueller investigation was a waste of taxpayers' money since Congress already exonerated the President.

Those will be the same people who provided tens of millions dollars to Kenneth Starr's Whitewater inquiry and investigated Benghazi countless times.

But no corporate media personality will ever point that out.

So what is next for Trump?

Getting Ready to Fire Sessions

There are several reports that Trump is getting ready to fire his Attorney General, Jeff Sessions.
[S]ources said Trump has discussed a plan to fire Attorney General Jeff Sessions. According to two Republicans in regular contact with the White House, there have been talks that Trump could replace Sessions with E.P.A. Administrator Scott Pruitt, who would not be recused from overseeing the Russia probe. Also, as an agency head and former state attorney general, Pruitt would presumably have a good shot at passing a Senate confirmation hearing.
Now, I have to admit that this one would be a clever move because Pruitt might limit the Mueller investigation so much that there might not be any need to fire him.

Under that scenario, Trump gets exonerated without firing Mueller because Mueller couldn't talk about stuff he uncovered.

Not bad at all.

Hence, I believe firing the garden gnome might be the most likely next move.

Trump has been testing the waters with the firing of Rex Tillerson and Andrew McCabe (two days before his full pension retirement) to see what kind of push back he would get.

We now know the answer is, not much. And this, despite trolling him for moths about preventing him from getting his full pension.



Reportedly, the next person he is planning to fire is his National Security Advisor H.R. McMaster.

That should provide the litmus test.

It will be interesting to see how getting rid of his Secretary of State and National Security Advisor weeks before his planned meeting with Kim Jong-un would be handled by the Washington Establishment, the corporate media and the GOP.

If nothing happens, as I expect, Trump might decided to fire Mueller too.

What About Intelligence Agencies?

Previously, I suggested that even if Trump fires Mueller, he alienated intelligence agencies so much that they will continue to leak damaging information collected by his probe and more.

They have done that in previous months as every scoop by the Washington Post or the New York Times could be traced back to one of those alphabet agencies.

But Trump made another clever move. He nominated the torturer's torturer "Bloody" Gina Haspel to the head of the CIA.

That pleased everyone because she is one of them and they know her and are confident that she will not damage their interests or betray their secrets.

Would that be enough?

This is what the former CIA Chief John Brennan said today:
Brennan addressed the president earlier on Saturday, writing: “When the full extent of your venality, moral turpitude, and political corruption becomes known, you will take your rightful place as a disgraced demagogue in the dustbin of history.

“You may scapegoat Andy McCabe, but you will not destroy America … America will triumph over you.”
So what do you predict, you ask.

My guess is that being impulsive (plus his kids being in the crosshairs) Trump will fire Mueller.

This will cause a constitutional crisis and put  GOP in a bind. But they will stand by him and defend him until the 2018 elections.

If they lose badly, the Orange Man is toast.

And, despite Gina Haspel nomination, the intelligence community will leak damaging stuff like never before.

2018 will be a fun year.
______________

UPDATE:

It turns out that the garden gnome Beauregard lied under oath and Mueller knows it.

I am wondering why this is coming to the surface right now.
U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions’ testimony that he opposed a proposal for President Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign team to meet with Russians has been contradicted by three people who told Reuters they have spoken about the matter to investigators with Special Counsel Robert Mueller or congressional committees.
Someone should congratulate Scott Pruitt right now as he is preparing his presidential bid. I am not kidding.

15 March 2018

Tillerson Firing and the Irrelevance of the State Department Under Trump

Most pundits believe that it was Rex Tillerson calling the Orange Man "a fucking moron" that did him in.

Credit Reuters
Trump hold grudges for a long time, they say and his revenge was to fire him via Twitter when he was out of the country.

Others point to a fundamental incompatibility between the two men and Trump himself alluded to that as a chemistry issue or lack thereof.

I am sure these and other problems played a part in the latest The Apprentice moment.

But to my contrarian eyes, there is a more fundamental reason why Tillerson had to go.

Most people assume that the main job of of the State Department (or any diplomatic service for that matter) is to represent the US abroad, negotiate with partners and adversaries and propagate and emphasize the messages of its government.

In fact, this last function makes the previous two possible and it is what should properly called foreign policy.

In clearer terms, it consists of vigorously pushing meticulously crafted narratives around America's imperial, or to put it more bluntly, imperialist actions.

These narratives are designed to obfuscate the real motives of such acts and offer more palatable justifications. And they are based on soothing and innocuous notions like democracy, freedom, free market economy, America's national security and, of course, its benevolent approach to being a superpower.

In short, the mission is to convincingly defend the indefensible.

Defending The Indefensible

This is how it works:

Say the president decides to invade a country, overthrow a government, implement new tariffs, meddle in elections, engineer a coup against elected officials, commit war crimes and torture suspected terrorists.

Fine.

Now, no Administration has ever acknowledged its actions in these terms. They have always been explained or presented in euphemisms referring to American ideals like freedom and democracy.

Funding fascist squads in Nicaragua was supporting freedom fighters. Engineering a coup against the duly elected Salvador Allende in Chile and cheering the murder and incarceration of thousands of people was called restoring democracy and preventing communist authoritarianism. Waging war against Ho Chi Minh, originally a nationalist who admired the US, was to stop the domino theory of communism.

Torturing is using Enhanced Interrogation Techniques to protect Americans, overthrowing a government is liberating its people and invading a country is bringing democracy to it.

It is the State Department's job to push these justificatory narratives and to have its diplomats  around the world to charm, cajole, pressure and bribe local politicians, media personalities and any other relevant figure to ensure that the real motives behind the actions are substituted with a new and nicer narrative.

Concrete example. Remember the Iraq War?

The real motive was to use the Saudi funded 9/11 as a pretext to implant the US into the Middle East in order to control the flow of oil and gas as a way to keep in check the energy needs of emerging powers like China and India.

At the time, 72 and 73 percent of oil and gas flows, respectively, were going through the region. Iraq was, in the immortal words of a Wall Street oil analysts “a military base with a very large oil reserve underneath."

The initial justification, the presence of WMDs, came from the Pentagon and the State Department forcefully pushed it everywhere, including Secretary of State Colin Powell going to the UN with a bogus Powerpoint presentation.

When it became obvious that there were no WMDs in Iraq and that the US invaded a sovereign country for no good reason and without a UN Security Council authorization, the new narrative focused on the evil dictatorship of Saddam Hussein and how the US acted selflessly to liberate the Iraqi people.

I could give you hundreds of other examples from the Middle East, Southeast Asia, Latin America and of course the "Banana Republics" in Central America and the accompanying idealistic justifications but you get the idea.

Not to give you the wrong impression let me add that the State Department's narratives are not limited to these acts of belligerence. It also covers other indefensible positions like supporting Saudi Arabia.

We know that the title of the world's most oppressive regime should go to either North Korea or Saudi Arabia.

It's probably a tie, unless you are a feminist like me, in that case, Saudi Arabia wins the trophy.

Pinterest
Yet the US has always been ready to nuke the former to smithereens but have always sided with the latter. And no matter what.

These are the folks who behead as many people as ISIS on any given year, who keep half of their population under house arrest, who surveil everyone and who incarcerate, torture and lately extort money from their subject with absolutely no due process.

They raised over $200 billion (by 2008, it is probably $300 billion by now) for Jihad, for radicalizing young Muslims and for funding Wahhabi institutions around the world.

Yet, the State Department has always defended America's fondness for this pernicious regime. The narratives, depending of the decade, were (a) oil dependency, it is our fault, (b) stability of the region and security of Israel, (c) a bulwark against Iranian ascendency.

Anyone who knows a little bit about foreign policy can tell you that this is all rubbish.

Oil dependency was never an issue, as, at the time, between Canada and Venezuela and its own reserve, the US had all the oil it needed. As for the second claim, if the security of Israel depended on the House of Saud, the biggest raiser of terrorist funds of all time, I would pity the Jewish State. And Saudi Arabia couldn't last two days against Iran, let alone being a bulwark.

The real reason has always been the protection money they pay to America's military industrial complex, as Saudis are by far the best clients of the US defense industry. I guarantee you that the day they stop buying those shiny deadly toys is the day the House of Saud and the House of Wahhab will collapse.

In fact, this is why Mohammed Bin Salman was desperate to find the funds to pay for the protection racket after he promised to buy $110 billion worth of arms during Trump's visit.

And this is why the Saudis remained an important US ally after the rise of fracking industry and American oil independence.

But we cannot say any of that, can we? The only narrative in mainstream media will be the one pushed by the State Department.

However, all of this changed with the Orange Man.

America First: the President as the "Ugly American"

As I outlines, through this duality between deeds and discourse, the US has always been able to present itself as a beacon of freedom, a tireless supporter of democracy and the defender of the underdog, while doing the opposite.

With Donald Trump this duality is no longer necessary. Because, just like he made openly racist statements to his domestic audience instead of relying on GOP dog whistles, he now tells the world exactly what his goals are and what he thinks of them.

In one of his first speeches (to the CIA) he argued that after liberating Iraq, the US should have kept the oil for itself. International law? What international law? We have the military might and next time we'll take it.

His approach was the same for Article 5 of Nato. He openly said that no Nato country who didn't use 2 percent of its GNP for defense expenditures should expect America's help when they trigger Article 5. Since most Nato defense procurement goes to American military industrial complex, it was his way of asking for protection money.

And who cares about treaty obligations.

When he launched his trade war, his goal was to have a trade surplus with every country. And for no other reason than the US is more powerful than other countries. And he clearly stated it.

Same with Iran, he is itching to abandon the nuclear deal so that he can bomb the country. And it looks like he is about to hire John Bolton, the perfect guy to do this as his National Security Advisor:
In 2015, he wrote a New York Times op-ed headlined, “To Stop Iran’s Bomb, Bomb Iran,” and last month, he wrote a Wall Street Journal op-ed outlining the legal case for a pre-emptive strike against North Korea.
Trump does not call torture Enhanced Interrogation Techniques. He calls it torture and states that "torture absolutely works" and he might just use it. In fact, his new pick for CIA Chief, Gina Haspel ran the first CIA black site in Thailand in 2002 and implemented waterboarding and other "enhanced techniques."

African nations and Haiti are shithole countries.

With Trump, there is no need to defend the indefensible. He says it in so many words and he doesn't want it defended. In fact, if you try to soften his remarks he will attack you on Twitter and double down on his rhetoric, as Tillerson discovered many times.

He does not care about soft power. He only cares about military power.

Tellingly, he increased the Pentagon's budget by the same percentage he decreased Foggy Bottom's.

And let's not forget the fact that the reason Tillerson called Trump a "fucking moron" was because the Orange Man was asking a ten-fold increase in America's nuclear arsenal.

In short, by removing its main function, Donald J. Trump made the State Department irrelevant.

He thinks he will just tell Kim Jong-un and Hassan Rouhani to disarm and it they don't, he will nuke them. That's as simple as that.

Tillerson might have objected, his replacement Mike Pompeo will ask to be in the room when Trump pushes the button.

As one recent op-ed noted, Trump is the Ugly American as the President.

_____________________

UPDATE

From the desk of Nikki Haley, the next Secretary of State after Mike Pompeo:
U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Nikki Haley is proposing a sweeping reassessment of U.S. foreign assistance with a view to punishing dozens of poor countries that vote against U.S. policies at the U.N., according to a confidential internal memo drafted by her staff. 
The move to make foreign aid conditional on political support follows a U.S. decision to cut tens of millions of dollars in assistance to Palestinian refugees, a cut made in retaliation for Palestine’s sponsorship of U.N. resolutions denouncing U.S. President Donald Trump’s controversial recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s capital. Haley now wants to apply a similar principle to decisions about aid to other needy countries.
That's America First with a chin flick.

Who needs a State Department when this is your attitude.

10 March 2018

Why The Rocket Man Offered to Meet The Orange Man

Even to a cynical observer like the resident contrarian of this humble soapbox, the breathless coverage of Kim Jong-un's reported offer to talk to Trump was astonishing.

Pundits stepped over each other to declare it a historic moment similar to Nixon going to China.
"The [significance of this] could almost be compared to President Nixon meeting China's Chairman Mao, to a lesser degree," analyst Michael Madden of the US-Korea Institute at Johns Hopkins SAIS told the BBC.
The White House seized upon this unexpected development as proof that Trump's unhinged madman approach brought Kim Jong-un to the table.
[Trump] believes his "maximum pressure" strategy and his work to get China on side and help squeeze Pyongyang economically is working. Reporters say he casually mentioned in the White House briefing room that he hoped they would give him credit for Kim Jong-un's offer. His voters certainly will.
What is puzzling to me is the bogus premise of this hullabaloo: I cannot envisage a scenario under which Kim Jong-un would agree to a denuclearization. Something most pundits seem to take at face value.

Think about it, without those nukes North Korea is a joke of a country. It cannot even feed its own people.
Only about 20% of North Korea's mountainous terrain is arable land. Much of the land is only frost-free for six months, allowing only one crop per year. The country has never been self-sufficient in food, and many experts considered it unrealistic to try to be.
It has nothing of value beyond coal and its economy would be unable to compete even with the poorest of nations if it wasn't cut off from the world.

The Rocket Man knows that people take him seriously and are willing to talk to him only because of his nukes. And he knows what happens when autocratic rulers give up their weapons of mass destruction.

Bashar Al-Assad gave up his chemical and biological weapons and next thing you know, he is the president of a failed state held together by Russian intervention. We all know how it ended for Saddam Hussein and Colonel Gaddafi.

The minute Kim Jong-un agrees to a comprehensive demilitarization, his fate will be sealed and he knows it.

Some observers believe that his primary goal is the loosening of sanctions.
"By dangling before the US once again 'denuclearization of the Korean peninsula' and 'moratorium on nuclear and missile tests', Kim seeks to weaken sanctions, pre-empt US military pre-emption, and condition the world into accepting North Korea as a legitimate nuclear state," says Prof Lee Sung-yoon from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University.
I don't see it.

Unless he capitulates, which he cannot do, there is no clear path to the loosening of sanctions. Dangling promises will not do it. Especially not when the White House claimed he came to the table because of their tough stance. If anything they will tighten the screws.

So why did he do it?

I think it was an unintended consequence of something Trump did for completely unrelated reasons.

In the last couple of months, Trump has been feeling the Mueller noose tightening around his neck and everytime a new revelation hit the Post of the Times or the Wall Street Journal, he announced something outrageous. Predictable the media focused on the outrage du jour and Russia inquiry was pushed to the back burner.

The latest was the tariffs to be imposed on steel and aluminum, followed by a general threat of a global trade war. One that led to the resignation of Gary Cohn.

My guess is that Kim Jong-un grew very concerned that, in a looming trade war, China might throw him under the bus and use him as a bargaining chip to get some concessions from the US.

Without China buying his coal and selling him the basic necessities to keep his impoverished population alive Kim Jong-un would not last long. Or, to put it more morbidly, he might not have enough people to rule upon.

Remember the Great Famine where up to 3,500,000 people died of starvation and famine related illnesses?

So he now hopes to appear reasonable to China. He desperately wants Xi Jinping to think that he is doing all he can to work out a deal. And he counts on Trump to screw the process up.

Trump is not just a "dotard" he is a spoiled idiot with the attention span of a Golden Retriever puppy. He is not a great deal maker as he went bankrupt six times. Which, as you know, is very hard to do in casino business where people come literally to hand over their money to you.

The spoiled obese youngun who live in seclusion is not alone in assuming that Trump would fail badly trying to outmaneuver him.
Prof Robert E Kelly at Busan University in South Korea tweeted: "Trump doesn't study or even read. He tends to fly wildly off script. And May means there's almost no time for all the staff prep necessary."
To me, the likely next step is Trump (or people around him) finding an excuse to cancel the meeting. But in the unlikely event that they meet, The Rocket Man expects The Orange Man to say and do something so blatantly stupid that even people who hate Kim Jong-un will be unable to fault him.

But you would not know any of this from the glowing media coverage. Once again the corporate media acts as Trump's enabler.

In a post entitled "Everything Trump Does Is A Victory", Atrios (Duncan Black) makes this point.
If Obummer had walked into the press room one day and said a big announcement was coming and then the big announcement was that he was going to meet with the North Korean leader with no "preconditions" or no pre-negotiated concessions, NK nukes would have been unnecessary because DC's "foreign policy community" would have imploded the city themselves in a black hole of rage and the Washington Post would not have had this headline ['Trump secures a diplomatic coup with Korea"].
It would have been more like, "Experts say naive Obama is Rocket Man's little bitch."
Indeed, this is how it would have been covered. 

There are different rules for Republicans in our liberal media.