Botany
Botany's Journal
Norah Jones, "Tell Me Why" Do not doubt that we still have goodness and light in the world
D Kos: Steele Dossier information didn't just go from Russia to Trump, it went from Trump to Russia
Steele Dossier said information didn't just go from Russia to Trump, it went from Trump to Russia
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2018/6/29/1776589/-Steele-Dossier-said-information-didn-t-just-go-from-Russia-to-Trump-it-went-from-Trump-to-Russia?detail=emaildkre
The Associated Press has compiled a list of the information provided in the list of memos authored by former British intelligence officer Christopher Steele, and compared it with what has been revealed through court filings and public statements. And while the AP finds what they believe to be “snippets of fiction” in the pages, they also find that a great deal of what Steele produced is proving to have a basis in fact.
What has turned out to be true is the primary narrative thread that runs through all the memos: The Russian government set up an “elaborate operation” to damage Hillary Clinton in the 2016 election through social media, propaganda, and by stealing Democratic information and providing it to Trump. And the Russian government sought to aid Donald Trump, whose campaign responded eagerly to Russian offers of help.
snip
One of the primary claims of the Steele memos is not just that Russia sought to help Trump, but that the flow of information went both ways. Part of the price for Putin’s help, according to Steele’s sources, was that Trump help Putin in ways that he could address even if he didn’t win—by providing the Kremlin with information on wealthy Russians in the United States. It’s not clear whether this information from Trump to Russia has been substantiated. Those portions of the investigations in the House and Senate that have been exposed to the public don’t even seem to have ventured into this territory,
The idea that Donald Trump was providing something to Vladimir Putin in exchange for his assistance months before the elections is certainly intriguing. Trump’s habit of selling property to Russians and other former Soviets would position him to provide this information if asked. So far there doesn’t seem to be anything to indicate that this part of the memos has been verified … but if it were, that would seem to put the final nail in any idea that Trump was not fully on board with efforts to cooperate with Russia.
Maryland shooting: Trump ducks questions over Capital Gazette killings, as president's ....
Source: The Independent
on journalists come into focus.
Donald Trump ignored questions about the killing of five people at a newspaper in Maryland, walking silently past reporters at the White House as they asked him for "any words about the dead".
The president did not respond when asked for "any words of condolence" for families of the victims of the shooting at the Capital Gazette's offices in Annapolis on Thursday.
Police said a man with a grudge against the local paper had opened fire using a shotgun in a "targeted attack" which killed four journalists and a sales assistant.
Five victims of Capital Gazette newspaper shooting namedJarrod Ramos, 38, lost a defamation lawsuit against the paper in 2012 after it reported his campaign of harassment against a woman he went to school with.
Read more: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/maryland-shooting-trump-reaction-video-questions-capital-gazette-fake-news-journalists-killed-a8422451.html
https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/832708293516632065
Feb. 2, 2017 Trump meets with Harley-Davidson CEO @ White House
https://www.cnbc.com/2017/02/02/president-trumps-meeting-with-harley-could-shine-light-on-this-corporate-immigration-issue.htmlA horrible thought has now lodged in my brain. Please tell me where I'm wrong.
Trump's press "event" yesterday where he blamed Hispanic immigrants/refugees
for murders and crimes ....
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-44580964
... is not different from Hitler blaming the Jews for Germany's loss in WW I.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/germany/6852245/Adolf-Hitlers-hatred-of-Jews-stemmed-from-First-World-War.html
"The core of his hatred lies at the defeat of Germany in WW1," said Mr Riecker, "where Hitler blamed the Jews for defeat of the country, the collapse of the monarchy and the ruination of millions"
Please tell me that I am wrong. Are we really shipping children to Michigan during the night ...
... to a "Christian Camp" that is run by Betsy Devos' family member?
Clapper: "This is a real test of our resilience as a country"
https://investigaterussia.org/media/2018-06-20/clapper-real-test-our-resilience-countryJames Clapper, "I've seen a lot of bad things, but never anything that disturbed me as much as this.
"It's [in] my very being to want to support the President of the United States, particularly in his role as Commander-in-Chief," said Clapper, who served as President Obama's intelligence chief from 2010 to 2017. "This president makes that very difficult because I feel that our institutions and values are under assault both from an external source – the Russians – and from an internal source – our own president."
snip
Clapper said he and President-elect Trump "got off to a bad start" after he and other senior officials briefed Trump on the findings of the Intelligence Community Assessment on Russian interference in the 2016 election. "He, five days later, referred to us in a press conference as 'Nazis,'" Clapper recounted, "and I felt I needed to speak up on behalf of the great men and women of the intelligence community."
snip
Director Clapper also repeated his belief that Russian interference definitely swayed the election in Trump's favor.
snip
"I will say that in my 50-plus years in intelligence, I've seen a lot of bad things, but never anything that disturbed me as much as this," he said, "because this is a fundamental attack on the fundamental pillars of our political system.
I have no doubt about it that Trump is working to destroy America.
Get rid of the EPA, get rid of the Dept. of Education, get rid of the
Labor Dept., scrap programs that help people in need, set up secret jails
for babies and children, stoke divisions along ethnic lines, weaken
NATO, praise dictators and insult our friends, start trade wars, lead
the mentally weak in cheers of "lock her up" about a political foe even
though she is not guilty of anything, and then meet w/his boss, Vlad Putin,
who wanted all this done in order to weaken the United States.
Stephen Miller believes in controversy as political strategy, even if it means jailing children
https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2018/6/19/17474720/trump-immigration-border-stephen-millerTo understand what the Trump administration is thinking about separating families and locking kids up at the border, you have to understand Stephen Miller’s foundational political belief: It’s better to stir controversy, at any price, than it is to engage constructively.
The architect of Donald Trump’s immigration policy and the White House’s resident troll, the 32-year-old White House senior policy adviser believes it’s good to “trigger the libs,” so to speak, with “the purpose of enlightenment.” To Miller, working constructively across the aisle isn’t as useful as “melting snowflakes.”
To Miller, there’s no reason to moderate a view or a policy, especially not when it comes to his deepest passion: immigration restrictionism. It’s a subject he was passionate about even in high school and one over which he bonded with his former boss, then-Sen. Jeff Sessions, a longtime immigration hardliner. It’s no wonder, then, that Miller designed the initial version of Trump’s travel ban, barring people from several majority-Muslim countries from entering the US for 90 days, and refugees for 120 days.
snip
Cruelty as a feature, not a bug
The Trump administration hasn’t really tried to win the public conversation on family separations. As conservative writer Ross Douthat pointed out on Twitter, the policy didn’t begin with a public discussion or explanation for separating young children from their parents, or by making the case to Congress for more family detention facilities. It started by taking kids from their parents first and attempting to assuage demands for legislation later.
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