Miscellaneous political debris

gotsnowgotslush said:

(from the desk of Dave Barry, humorist)

https://www.adn.com/arts/2017/12/31/dave-barrys-year-in-review-yeah-that-really-happened/

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Fuck Dave Barry. What is Carl Hiaasen's take on 2017?

Meanwhile, let's laugh. Ha. Ha. Yes, Tromp is so funny. So funny between the ears, between the lips, between the tweets. What a laff-fest! Very funny. Till he issues the launch codes, anyway. When Mueller gets close enough to jail Team Tromp for life, what does DJT have to lose?

INSIDE THE SECRET, STRANGE ORIGINS OF STEVE BANNON’S NATIONALIST FANTASIA

The chief strategist of Trump’s triumph reveals his strange brew of intellectual influences, including a French-Egyptian Muslim occultist guru, and his apocalyptic view of history

https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2017/07/the-strange-origins-of-steve-bannons-nationalist-fantasia


When he (Bannon) took over Trump’s campaign last August, Bannon ran a nationalist, divisive operation in which issues of race, immigration, culture, and identity were put front and center. This wasn’t by accident or lacking in purpose. By exhuming the nationalist thinkers of an earlier age, Bannon was trying to build an intellectual basis for Trumpism, or what might more accurately be described as an American nationalist-​*Traditionalism. Whatever the label, Trump proved to be an able messenger.

For all his paranoid alarm, Bannon believes that the rise of nationalist movements across the world, from Europe to Japan to the United States, heralds a return to tradition. “You have to control three things,” he explained, “borders, currency, and military and national identity. People are finally coming to realize that, and politicians will have to follow.” Trump, for one, certainly looks to be pursuing that agenda.

gotsnowgotslush said:

For all his paranoid alarm, Bannon believes that the rise of nationalist movements across the world, from Europe to Japan to the United States, heralds a return to tradition. “You have to control three things,” he explained, “borders, currency, and military and national identity...”

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National identity is a recent bloody 'tradition' infesting the past 150 years or so. Nationalism benefits tyrants, and coin and stamp collectors, but few others. Bannon seeks more genocide. Drop him into a volcano, please.

Cambridge Spies
2003
Season One
Episode One


Tell me, Arthur, is Hitler to be taken seriously? Or Mussolini? Or are you content to be wearily omniscient about them, too? Will they come and go without their stinking breath passing down our table, disturbing conversation? Where's the dinner? Where are the bloody waiters? - Watch this.
- Now.
- Fantastic! - Did you see their faces? We're the first waiters ever to strike at Cambridge.
To the revolution.
Waiters don't strike! Waiters don't bloody strike! - Thank you, Mr.
Givens.
- Give it five minutes.
Make sure it's discussed.
I can answer your question about Hitler and Mussolini.
We must turn a blind eye.
We must let them make their small imperial gain.
We must let them behave badly towards the Jews.
This country fought the war to end all wars only 20 years ago.
I was at the Somme, and I know it must never happen again.


You see what the Nazis do? - It happened.
- What happened? The Social Democrats called out the power workers in Linz today
300 strikers murdered.
It's over before it started.
They hanged the leaders.

*shiver*

*reads about what the critics have said about Cambridge Spies*

dammit!

Why did wgbh involve themselves with this series ? Why did the BBC tolerate...

Lindsey Graham has completed his shockingly rapid flip from being one of Trump’s few remaining Republican critics, to wearing out his tongue bringing those jackboots to high gloss. In making these charges, neither Senator felt it necessary to so much as let any Democratic member of their committee know what they were up to, much less call for a bipartisan vote on the matter.

Meanwhile in the House, Devin Nunes — whose Trumpist antics have until now been an embarrassment to Republicans — was brought back into the fold as Paul Ryan embraced Nunes’ astounding threat to file charges, not against James Comey, or HIllary Clinton, but against Christopher Wray, the man Trump selected to replace Comey at the FBI. With Ryan’s help, Nunes forced Wray and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein to bow to his demands. Nunes now appears free to resume full command of the Intelligence Committee after his period of pretend recussal and free to use the committee to assault anyone he chooses.

https://www.dailykos.com

My own personal ambivalence about ‘The View’ TV show, lowering themselves, and accepting orders to host Lindsey Graham.


He is a toxic, low weasel, and tells lies. OTOH he announces to the media, on their show, who the Republicans are attacking. We listen in, and witness how Rotten the Republican party has become.

I do not give a fuck about why they hosted the weasel on their show.

It is like listening to monster inhabiting an android copy of a real human, being. Then, treating the android as if it were a human being, and not making an acknowledgement that the monster is speaking from inside the android.

They did not get any straight answers out of Lindsey Graham. I have a feeling they had no hopes of that. He follows the Republican Rules of Engagement.


Use every opportunity to water down the truth.
Sell the Republican Party Line
Resist the truth
Deflect
Avoid
Lie

Raw Story covered a small part of the Republican propaganda Lindsay Graham was on a mission to sell.

FFS, The Republican Party declared war on the Democratic party.



https://www.rawstory.com/2018/01/li...ng-religious-bigot-because-hes-the-president/

The View accepted John McCain's daughter as the voice of the Right Wing. That ought to be enough.

Justice Department

“OBVIOUSLY PARTISAN”:

HAS TRUMP’S D.O.J. BECOME A POLITICAL WEAPON?


After months of public castigations, the embattled attorney general has reportedly revived a Justice Department probe into his boss’s former political rival


Now, after much presidential browbeating, the D.O.J. has reportedly revived its inquiry into the Clinton foundation, lending credence to growing fears that Trump is pushing to weaponize government institutions against his enemies.


According to multiple media reports published Friday, the F.B.I. is looking into allegations that Clinton fostered a “pay-to-play” culture during her State Department tenure, giving undue access and favorable treatment to major Clinton Foundation donors. The probe is being run out of the F.B.I. field office in Little Rock, Arkansas, where the Clinton family charity’s offices are located. The D.O.J.’s decision to reopen the probe—which was effectively closed in 2016—represents a major win for the president and Republicans who claim Clinton received favorable treatment from law-enforcement officials under Barack Obama.

Legal experts, meanwhile, see a potentially dangerous politicization of America’s top, and historically nonpartisan, law-enforcement agency. Former Chicago prosecutor Renato Mariotti told me it was “very bizarre” for the D.O.J. to reopen an investigation previously closed due to insufficient evidence. “My concern about it is that the decisions aren’t being made for nonpartisan prosecutorial reasons, and you could have a concern that there might be partisan influence into the charging decisions by the D.O.J. and the F.B.I.,” he added. William Jeffress, who represented “Scooter” Libby during an ethics probe, expressed similar concerns. “This is the same investigation we heard about in 2015, now reopened without any new facts being discovered? For lawyers in my line of work, it is disheartening to see law-enforcement investigations being used for obviously partisan political purposes,” he told me.

https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2018/01/donald-trump-jeff-sessions-clinton-foundation

It is convenient for Republicans to ignore history. It would be difficult for them to support racism, if they did not ignore history.


http://nymag.com/daily/intelligence...ies-and-right-wing-political-correctness.html


They must ignore the fact that Haiti’s poverty (or El Salvador’s, or much of Africa’s) has less to do with the moral failings of the ordinary Haitian (or Salvadoran or African),than those of the American elite. As the journalist Jonathan Katz, author of an acclaimed book on the aftermath of the earthquake that devastated Haiti eight years ago today, deftly explains:

In order to do a victory lap around the GDP difference between, say, Norway and Haiti, you have to know nothing about the history of the world.

That includes, especially, knowing nothing real about the history of the United States.

— Jonathan M. Katz (@KatzOnEarth) January 12, 2018
You’d have to not know that the French colony that became Haiti provided the wealth that fueled the French Empire — and 2/3 of the sugar and 3/4 of the coffee that Europe consumed.

You’d have to not know how rich slave traders got off their system of kidnapping, rape, and murder

— Jonathan M. Katz (@KatzOnEarth) January 12, 2018
You’d have to not know that Haiti got recognition by agreeing to pay 150 million gold francs to French landowners in compensation for their own freedom.

You’d have to not know that Haiti paid it, and that it took them almost all of the 19th century to do so.

— Jonathan M. Katz (@KatzOnEarth) January 12, 2018


.@RichLowry would have to not know about the chaos that ensued, and the 19-year US military occupation of Haiti that followed (at a time when the US was invading and occupying much of Central America and the Caribbean).

— Jonathan M. Katz (@KatzOnEarth) January 12, 2018
... the use of the IMF and World Bank to impose new loans and destructive trade policies, including the now-famous rice tariff gutting that Bill Clinton apologized for but had been a policy since Reagan, and on and on ...

— Jonathan M. Katz (@KatzOnEarth) January 12, 2018
In short, you’d have to know nothing about WHY Haiti is poor (or El Salvador in kind), and WHY the United States (and Norway) are wealthy.

But far worse than that, you’d have to not even be interested in asking the question.

And that’s where they really tell on themselves ...

— Jonathan M. Katz (@KatzOnEarth) January 12, 2018




At the heart of Trumpian nativism is the conviction that the West’s great prosperity reflects the virtues of its people; the poverty of the nonwhite world reflects the moral vices of its people; and, thus, the former owes no debts to the latter. Allowing the residents of nations whose wealth our elites expropriated through imperial conquest — and/or predatory economic policies — is an act of selfless generosity, not of modest recompense.

The broader conservative movement uses analogous fictions to rationalize inequalities within America’s borders.

November 1964, just after the Civil Rights Act he helped champion passed Congress, and he became the youngest man ever awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, 35-year old Martin Luther King received a yellowed, typed letter accusing him of a variety of “evil” and adulterous sexual acts, telling him, “You Are Done” and encouraging him to kill himself. Already receiving death threats on a daily basis and the target of numerous assassination attempts, King immediately told close friends his belief that FBI director J. Edgar Hoover was behind the letter.

A decade later, King’s suspicions were confirmed posthumously by the U.S. Senate Church Committee on intelligence.


Consistently, when it comes to our modern federal police state, King was, by no means, the first Black mass movement leader to be regarded a dangerous and subversive national threat. In fact, the very apparatus itself — the government surveillance, badgering, intimidation and set-ups that would eventually emerge as COINTELPRO — was forged from the American quest to prevent the ‘rise of a Black Messiah’ through the orchestrated downfall of early 20th century mass-movement leader Marcus Garvey. And it would continue upon King’s untimely demise to further wreak havoc within the ranks of the Black Panther Party, those iconic freedom fighters seldom referred to by their full name, “The Black Panther Party for Self-Defense.” Indeed, their very purpose was contained in the final hyphenated term of their original handle.

Obviously, in America, such subversion could not be tolerated. Accordingly, they, like King and Garvey, needed to be stopped at all costs through the endless authority, resources and apparatus of the FBI, its collusion with local law enforcement and select national media. It was a media far too willing to join the cause for the sake of order and supremacy and to protect the necessary story white America told itself about itself, and about its dark inhabitants, their moral ineptitude, their apparent inferiority, their inherent slothfulness. This racialized perpetuation of fake news, long before fake news became fake news, was an essential component of the terror myth, a necessary license for responding with unmitigated violence and barbarism, blood and fury. After all, these radicals had to be stopped. For they were the terror.

Indeed, for a country unwilling to recognize their full humanity, they were just that, from those early sea-bound African resisters through a lengthy list of persona non gratas with names like Gabriel Prosser, Denmark Vesey, David Walker, Nat Turner, John Horse, Joseph Cinqué, Harriet Tubman, Sojourner Truth, Ida B. Wells, Robert Williams, Rosa Parks, Malcolm X, Angela Davis, Geronimo Ji-Jaga Pratt, Assata Shakur and, yes, Martin Luther King Jr.



http://atlantablackstar.com/2018/01...-african-americans-inescapable-terror-within/

In honor of Martin Luther King Jr. Day, President Trump shot an 86.

phrodeau said:

In honor of Martin Luther King Jr. Day, President Trump shot an 86.

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Dick Cheney shot a lawyer. Tromp is a piker.

Hypoxia said:

Dick Cheney shot a lawyer. Tromp is a piker.

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No argument from me there.

Aeschylus, Eumenides 532 ff :
"I have a timely word of advice : arrogance (hybris) is truly the child of impiety (dyssebia), but from health of soul comes happiness, dear to all, much prayed for."

Aesop, Fables 533 (from Babrius 70) (trans. Gibbs) (Greek fable C6th B.C.) :
"The gods were getting married. One after another, they all got hitched, until finally it was time for Polemos (War) to draw his lot, the last of the bachelors. Hybris (Reckless Pride) became his wife, since she was the only one left without a husband. They say Polemos loved Hybris with such abandon that he still follows her everywhere she goes. So do not ever allow Hybris to come upon the nations or cities of mankind, smiling fondly at the crowds, because Polemos (War) will be coming right behind her."


http://www.theoi.com/Daimon/Hybris.html

gotsnowgotslush said:

Aeschylus, Eumenides 532 ff :
"I have a timely word of advice : arrogance (hybris) is truly the child of impiety (dyssebia), but from health of soul comes happiness, dear to all, much prayed for."

Click to expand...

During the Nixon years, we had jokes circulating to help us survive his administration. I remember one joke that also would fit with the current administration.

A Catholic priest, who was a military chaplain, convinced Nixon and Kissinger to take a ride in a military transport plane to experience the plight of the everyday soldier. After the plane reached cruising altitude, the pilot announced over the intercomm that all controls on the plane had failed, and it was just a matter of time until a crash occurred. He indicated he would stay with the plane until the end, but there were three parachutes in the rear cargo hold.

As soon as the priest, Kissinger, and Nixon reached the cargo hold, they smelled marijuana. Emerging from an empty crate was a hippie stow-away, who had started smoking a joint after hearing the pilot's announcement.

Realizing there were only three parachute packs for the four passengers, Nixon immediately grabbed one of them, strapped it on, and shouted, "I'm the most powerful man in the world, so I must be saved", and he jumped out of the plane.

Kissinger immediately strapped on a pack and shouted, "I'm the smartest man in the world, so I must be saved", just before he jumped out.

The priest got very serious and emotional, and looked directly into the eyes of the hippie, saying, "My son, I am old and have lived a very good life. You are young and have your whole life ahead of you. You take the last parachute."

The hippie exhaled from his last toke and said, "Relax, Father, the smartest man in the world just jumped out of the plane wearing my backpack."

Show us your girth certificate!

#girthergate
#239myass

Secretary of the Interior Ryan Zinke, strikes again ?

January 15, 2018

https://www.reviewjournal.com/news/...s-begin-on-expansion-of-nellis-bombing-range/

Starting Wednesday in Caliente, the Air Force will hold a series of public hearings on its plans to expand the Nevada Test and Training Range.

Air Force officials are now accepting public comment on a more than 1,100-page environmental impact statement for the proposed expansion, which seeks to add 301,507 acres to the secure bombing range about 40 miles northwest of Las Vegas.
The range already covers more than 2.9 million acres in Clark, Lincoln and Nye counties. Roughly 278,000 acres of the proposed expansion would be carved from Desert National Wildlife Refuge, about half of which is already under military control.


If approved by Congress, the expansion would cut off most of the rough, unpaved Alamo Road, the main route through the northern part of the refuge.


The Air Force is not seeking any additional land to use as bomb impact areas, but officials want primary jurisdiction over the 846,000-acre southern portion of the range they share with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

*tip of the hat, to the now deceased Dallas Butter Queen, and Dallas Alice, which led me to this article.

Just like that, our short national nightmare is over.

The Senate overwhelmingly voted yes on Monday afternoon to reopen the government until February 8 after a three-day shutdown that consisted mostly of Democrats and Republicans pointing fingers at each other.

Democrats had ostensibly declined to approve a short-term spending bill on Friday in order to force a vote on DACA before the government reopened. They caved on that demand, but they did get a six-year extension of the Children’s Health Insurance Program and Mitch McConnell’s vow to very possibly allow a vote on DACA — for whatever that’s worth. If McConnell reneges on his word, we could be back in shutdown-land again very soon.

http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2018/01/government-shutdown-liveblog-day-three.html

Democrats, in exchange for their votes, they've reportedly been told that there will be an immigration vote on the floor starting on February 9, provided that the government is not shut down again on February 8. McConnell has apparently promised an open amendment process but with a 60 vote threshold on amendments. He has made it very clear that he will not be bringing the Dream Act to the floor, but rather a "Fair amendment process—not a vote on one specific bill."

In a floor speech, Democratic leader Chuck Schumer made clear that this was the Trump Shutdown, but that he and Mitch McConnell came to an agreement "with the commitment that if an agreement hasn't been reached by February 8 that the Senate will move directly to consideration of DACA," and that "a bipartisan bill on DACA will receive fair consideration and an up-or-down vote on the floor."

"I expect the majority leader to fulfill his commitment to the Senate, he said. If not, he adds, “he will have breached the trust” of his colleagues. Which clearly is not much of a threat. McConnell regularly breaches the trust of colleagues on both sides of the aisle.

https://www.dailykos.com/stories/20...McConnell-ready-to-vote-to-end-Trump-Shutdown

It does seem, at first glance, that Democrats got rolled. After vowing not to accept any funding bill that didn’t protect Dreamers (and insisting on funding for the Children’s Health Insurance Program, to boot), Senate Democrats ultimately agreed on a deal that included CHIP but didn’t address the immigration issue at all, except for the promise from McConnell, which activists view as useless. “They got less than nothing; it’s baffling,” Ezra Levin, who co-founded progressive group Indivisible, told Vice News on Monday. “It’s morally reprehensible and it’s political malpractice. Instead of leaning in to their leverage, [Chuck] Schumer led the caucus off the cliff.”


At the same time, it’s not clear what Democrats have really lost in the long term. While the party has to swallow the indignity of Republican celebrations for the next 24 hours, they still hold a critical point of leverage. The government will run out of funding again in just over two weeks, and this time, Democrats won’t have CHIP hanging over their heads. Instead of battling an uncertain messaging war with Republicans, who initially clobbered Democrats for not accepting CHIP as the cost of doing business, Schumer and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi will have the upper hand: McConnell promised them a vote on DACA. If he fails to deliver, it will be Republicans, not Democrats, who look unreasonable.

Will Democrats shut down the government again, and refuse to open it, unless Republicans vote their way? It’s hard to imagine either party winning that war, either. There are almost certainly enough moderate Republicans who would join Democrats in voting for a bipartisan bill that combined protections for Dreamers with sensible increases in immigration enforcement. But if there’s one thing that Donald Trump does consistently, it is doubling down when cornered. And taking the government hostage is unlikely to break Democrats’ way. Many won’t have the stomach for it.



https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2018/01/did-weak-kneed-democrats-really-cave-on-daca

"Republicans say government doesn't work. They they get elected, and prove it."
--PJ O'Rourke, conservative humorist

gsgs rant-

After the grand experiment, and luxuriant expending of tax payer's money,(The universe is witness, to how Emperor Carrot Head spends tax payer's money on himself) there will be a bill to be paid for all of the fun, amusement and profits made by all of the corporations allied with the current regime.

If we are lucky this time, there will be some remnants, surviving. If we are lucky, a man like President Obama will step forward, and try to cope with the damage.

I am so weary of seeing this cycle repeat itself. This time around is sickening. It has added threats. I feel sad for the children, if we cannot recover what we had.


Let us pretend that the Wall St. crash of 2007-2008 did not happen. Let us pretend that George W. Bush and his pals did not fuck up America beyond all recognition. Let us forget that President Obama prevented America from going over a cliff.

Half of America breathed a sigh of relief, because, once, again, a sane person was in the driver's seat. Half the people of our nation cheered at the thought of America resuming the path of inclusiveness, hope, and a brighter future for everyone.

What the fuck is the point of putting tax payer's cash into the hands of multinational corporate conglomerates ? They have so much money, they all effectively have their own internal banking systems.

Let us ignore the fact, that it is Wall St. that is strangulating independent, small businesses. Why shouldn't Wall St. protect their own interests, and kill off competition ?

I would like to see the day, when the heads of international corporate conglomerates are forced to keep their filthy hands off of the people's government, their tax money, and their rights.

The truth has been told, and it has been researched, vetted, and agreed upon. The blame is squarely on the Republican's side, because they can never win, using the truth. They always revert to filth.

/end gsgs rant

Last Winter PBS explored the level of suppresion and repression under Putin's Russia. Even if people were fed up to the point of destroying their lives, or taking a chance with being assassinated- They were blocked from media exposure. The Party line was that Putin was beloved by everyone, and everything was just fine. (Just as some Americans insist that the bonfire that Tonald Drump has made out of America, is just fine.)

/end gsgs comment

The film is certainly, on some base level, entertaining: It’s hard not to laugh — albeit bitterly — at the spectacle of deluded Russians on YouTube offering up their acoustic ballads to Trump, or drinking themselves silly in his honor, or droning on about Clinton conspiracy theories.

JANUARY 20, 2018

Pozdorovkin’s work is most revealing when he presents footage of actual Russian newscasters — people who should know better — indulging in this grotesque nonsense. But again, go to any country and you’ll find loads of fake news, both political and apolitical. Is the world’s current love affair with bullshit really guided by the sinister goals of megalomaniacal despots, or by the traditional laws of spectacle and demand? People love a good story, and to hell with the truth.

I suppose all this might have been chilling if Russia itself ever had a reputation for journalistic integrity or rigor. What Our New President does demonstrate is the failure of the country to develop a culture of public discourse or honesty, but that’s an analog of its failure to establish democratic institutions. The real tragedy is that this is also happening in the U.S., which supposedly does — or did once — value the idea of honest journalism.) The rot, in other words, lies deeper.

gsgs comment- 2018, we have American trolls, that find LAWLS in spewing lies, misinformation, and tall tales into the information feed.




A hazardous incinerator at one end of town, and a maganese spewing company, on the other end of town. Complete inaction, on the part of the new, Trump regime's E.P.A. This Ohio town voted solidly for Trump.

/end gsgs comment

They sent a protest letter to the Environmental Protection Agency about a hazardous-waste incinerator near downtown. Since Trump took office, the EPA has not moved to punish the plant’s owner, even after extensive evidence was assembled during the Obama administration that the plant had repeatedly, and illegally, released harmful pollutants into the air.


The enforcement slowdown has been compounded by the departure of more than 700 employees at the EPA since Trump’s election, many of them via buyouts intended to reduce the agency’s size.

One of them also is in East Liverpool, just down the street from the Heritage Thermal incinerator. S.H. Bell, a company that dries, crushes, screens and packages materials for industrial customers, was cited for allowing toxic levels of dust with heavy metal chemical additives such as manganese to drift beyond its property line.

Research led by the University of Cincinnati found in September that levels of manganese in the blood and hair of children in East Liverpool appeared to be related to lower IQ scores, a conclusion executives from S.H. Bell have disputed.


http://www.dispatch.com/news/20171211/ohio-town-solid-for-trump-now-frets-over-epa-slowdown

They are spewing manganese dust at a children's school.

Tonald Drump appointed Scott Pruitt, a Republican, has been picked at a time when he is part of legal action waged by 28 states against the EPA to halt the Clean Power Plan, an effort by Barack Obama’s administration to curb greenhouse gas emissions from coal-fired power plants.


"Having Scott Pruitt in charge of the US Environmental Protection Agency is like putting an arsonist in charge of fighting fires,” said Michael Brune, executive director of the Sierra Club.


Critics describe Pruitt’s tenure as an assault on the EPA’s mission, its science and its employees.

Pruitt’s calendars show limited contact with the EPA’s own staff. He has visited 30 states, by his count, but has yet to visit any of the EPA’s 10 regional offices.

Pruitt has moved aggressively to shrink the agency. More than 700 people have left, several hundred through buyouts this past summer. With them have gone decades of scientific expertise. The EPA now has about 14,400 staff, fewer than at any time since the final year of the Reagan administration.


Pruitt also has overhauled the EPA’s scientific-advisory boards, getting rid of numerous academic researchers in favor of experts from regulated industries and conservative states. The EPA’s leader argues that he is trying to make the agency more efficient. But what Pruitt describes as efficiency, his critics see as undermining the EPA’s ability to fulfill its mission.

http://www.dispatch.com/news/201712...ear-shrinking-epas-reach-reducing-regulations

Sorry but that 'talking stick' used in the Senate isn't Native American

January 24, 2018

"talking stick" that became the talk of the media and certain corners of the internet isn't Native,

The New York Times said in a correction to a widely-read story.
The paper relied on the words of Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) when it first described the talking stick as Native in origin. But the stick was actually made by someone from the Masai people in Africa, according to the correction.

The stick was a gift from Sen. Heidi Heitkamp (D-North Dakota), who is well known for her championing the causes of Native people. Its use is being credited for helping the Senate end the short-lived shutdown of the federal government.


https://www.indianz.com/News/2018/01/24/sorry-but-that-talking-stick-used-in-the.asp

Moderate senators broke the shutdown

January 22, 2018
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/22/...senators-shutdown-common-sense-coalition.html

The State Department's interest in children, parents, citizenship, and immigration

Bigoted, racist, Extremist Religious Right policies intertwined with federal law

Anti-LBGT Anti immigrant, anti-woman

ORR partners with several federal agencies, including the Department of Health and Human Services, the Department of Homeland Security, the Department of Justice, and the Department of State.

Department of State it partners with the Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration

https://www.acf.hhs.gov/orr/resource/federal-agencies



Fetus is a product of rape, the federal government forced the teen to go through bullshit anti-abortion lies, propaganda, and misinformation, in order to convince her not to abort.


After Jane Doe, a 17-year-old immigrant from Central America, found out she was pregnant last month, she decided to have an abortion. But the Office of Refugee Resettlement — the federal government agency charged with caring for unaccompanied immigrant minors once they enter the country — is prohibiting her from getting one.

The federal government has a new policy that allows it to veto an unaccompanied minors’ abortion decision, and government officials are doing everything imaginable to prevent Ms. Doe from accessing abortion. They have instructed the shelter where Jane Doe is staying not to transport Ms. Doe or allow Ms. Doe’s court-appointed guardian to transport her to the health care center to have an abortion — essentially holding her hostage.

Anti-abortion fanatic appointed to head federal agency


The new policy is the creation of E. Scott Lloyd, the man President Trump appointed in March 2017 to head Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR)

The government argued that they weren’t holding Ms. Doe hostage because she could just agree to be deported to her home country.

(Office of Refugee Resettlement would not allow her to get an abortion, no matter what the circumstances were. They stalled, hoping they would force delay, and make her miss the deadline.)

Setting precedence in court, is a key point.

https://www.aclu.org/blog/immigrant.../jane-doe-wants-abortion-government-hell-bent

The abortion on Wednesday followed a roller-coaster legal battle that moved swiftly through the courts, with judges issuing contradictory rulings.

By the time the Supreme Court opened for business Wednesday, it appears there was no issue left for the justices to decide.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/poli...6288544af98_story.html?utm_term=.fb79c9a85ac5



A federal judge blasted the U.S. government for trying to prevent an undocumented 17-year-old from obtaining an abortion.

Lawyers for Attorney General Jeff Sessions had argued in court that the teen, identified as "Jane Doe," didn't have a constitutional right to an elective abortion while she remained in federal custody, unless the procedure was necessary due to a medical emergency. Judge Chutkan said that the administration was in essence giving the teen two options: Voluntarily go back to the country she fled and have an abortion there, or be forced to carry an unwanted pregnancy to term.

http://www.refinery29.com/2017/10/176085/teen-detained-border-abortion-texas-aclu


http://www.refinery29.com/2017/10/178072/undocumented-teen-jane-doe-abortion-appeals-court-decision

“Every step of the way, the Trump administration has shown their true colors in this case. It’s clear that their anti-woman, anti-abortion, anti-immigration agenda is unchecked by basic decency or even the bounds of the law,” said Brigitte Amiri, senior staff attorney with the ACLU Reproductive Freedom Project, in a statement provided to Refinery29. “No one should have to go to court to get a safe, legal abortion.”


Jeff Sessions had his tiny paws all over this case-

Planned Parenthood also joined over 300 civil rights groups in a letter to Senate leaders outlining Sessions’ “30-year record of racial insensitivity, bias against immigrants, disregard for the rule of law, and hostility to the protection of civil rights,” including protecting the right to vote.


https://www.plannedparenthood.org/a...lanned-parenthood-opposes-sessions-nomination


Next persecution, American man, marries a man, two surrogate women give birth to two boys.

They were told that they needed to undergo DNA tests to—and this is where it gets weird — prove whose sperm conceived their sons. Under US law, and as the State Department website states, “The U.S. citizen parent must be the genetic or the gestational parent” of the child in order to obtain citizenship. As only one of their children came from sperm with the imprimatur of the US government, bingo, only one of their kids became a citizen. The other is essentially now an undocumented immigrant, here on a six-month tourist visa.


https://jezebel.com/the-state-department-is-really-fucking-over-internation-1822520788


United States Department of State (DOS)
Department of State

State Department


Department of State is the lead U.S. foreign affairs agency, and its head, the Secretary of State, is the President's principal foreign policy advisor.


current United States Secretary of State, is Rex Tillerson, who has been overshadowed by John Kelly. Rival, Mike Pompeo

United States Deputy Secretary of State, John Sullivan
CIA Director Mike Pompeo

Russia is set to continue its campaign of meddling in foreign elections by targeting the congressional midterm races in America, the head of the CIA has warned.


Mike Pompeo, director of the agency, told the BBC he had not seen a “significant decrease” in Russian activity and his concerns extend to the House and Senate polls in November.

“I have every expectation that they will continue to try and do that but I’m confident that America will be able to have a free and fair election [and] that we will push back in a way that is sufficiently robust that the impact they have on our election won’t be great,” Pompeo said.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news...rfere-in-us-midterm-elections-warns-cia-chief



The general concern is that Chinese manufacturers like Huawei will become so dominant in the equipment market that there will be essentially no way to avoid using their equipment in future deployment of 5G networks," says Harold Feld, senior vice president of the open internet advocacy group Public Knowledge. "It's a matter of some considerable concern from the perspective of the security apparatus.”


The presentation suggests that a government-backed network would ensure that 5G networks are instead built by US companies like Cisco and Juniper Networks.


The documents shouldn't be taken as evidence that the White House ever seriously considered building a national 5G network, a former intelligence officer familiar with the National Security Council tells WIRED. Instead, it's an indication that the NSC is considering a wide range of possibilities to address a perceived threat from China.

The presentation argues that China is a skilled actor in cyber espionage and conflict, and argues that unless the US takes extensive, deliberate precautions to control and secure its 5G network, "China will win politically, economically, and militarily.

https://www.wired.com/story/proposal-for-federal-wireless-network-shows-fear-of-china/