monitoring Trump and relevant contemporary events

Boy Scouts 'unaware' of call Trump said he received praising speech

“Honesty is the best policy -- when there is money in it”

Pentagon investigators find ‘security risks’ in government's immigrant recruitment program, ‘infiltration’ feared

Defense Department investigators have discovered “potential security risks” in a Pentagon program that has enrolled more than 10,000 foreign-born individuals into the U.S. armed forces since 2009.

Sources on Capitol Hill and at the Pentagon are expressing alarm over “foreign infiltration” and enrollees now unaccounted for.

After more than a year of investigation, the Pentagon’s inspector general recently issued a report – its contents still classified but its existence disclosed here for the first time – identifying serious problems with Military Accessions Vital to the National Interest (MAVNI), a DOD program that provides immigrants and non-immigrant aliens with an expedited path to citizenship in exchange for military service.

Launched under then-President Barack Obama, MAVNI was designed to recruit individuals with foreign-language and other skills the Pentagon deems useful and in short supply.

“The lack of discipline in implementation of this program has created problems elsewhere,” said Rep. Steve Russell, R-Okla., a retired Army officer who sits on the House Armed Services subcommittee on military personnel. It was Russell who first publicly sounded alarms.

“The program has been replete with problems, to include foreign infiltration – so much so that the Department of Defense is seeking to suspend the program due to those concerns.”

Another lawmakerss said that the program had been “compromised” and that DOD officials have not presented answers to his questions about missing enrollees: “Where are they? What do they know? Where are they serving? What are their numbers?”

“ISIS has always had desire to use migration as way to penetrate into countries,” said retired U.S. Army General Jack Keane. “They have done that successfully in Europe because of open borders, mass immigration with no vetting. In the U.S., we haven't had any record of their penetration.

In the year since Donald Trump won the Republican presidential nomination, party leaders have been reluctant to challenge a man who has formed a tight bond with conservative voters, even when he upset party orthodoxies and norms of presidential behavior.

But that reticence is breaking down. A convergence of contentious issues, as well as embarrassing infighting and shake-ups at the White House, have a number of Republicans suddenly in open resistance to President Trump on a number of fronts.

The most dramatic moment came in the early-morning hours Friday, when Sen. John McCain, an ailing war hero and onetime Republican presidential standard-bearer, joined two other GOP dissidents, Sens. Lisa Murkowski of Alaska and Susan Collins of Maine, to cast the deciding vote to kill a scaled-back plan to dismantle tenets of the Affordable Care Act — and with it, perhaps, Trump’s promise to repeal Obamacare.

But the signs of resistance went further.

Nearly every Republican in Congress voted with Democrats this week to approve legislation tying the president’s hands on a major foreign policy issue, making it harder for him to ease sanctions against Russia amid lawmakers’ concerns about Trump’s friendly posture toward Russian President Vladimir Putin. Late Friday, the White House put out a statement saying Trump would sign the legislation; his veto would have been easily overridden.

Since Wednesday, some of the most conservative Republicans in Congress, as well as the Joint Chiefs of Staff, have pushed back at Trump’s surprise announcement on Twitter of a ban on transgender people in the military. The critics, including McCain, who is chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, and an array of conservative senators, objected both to the substance of the ban — which threatened the status of thousands of active-duty service members — and to the way in which it was unveiled.

Perhaps the most broad opposition came in response to Trump’s continued public humiliation of his attorney general, Jeff Sessions. Conservatives from Congress who’d served with Sessions when he was in the Senate, delivered clear messages to Trump in Sessions’ defense in the media and throughout the country.

Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina said Trump would have “holy hell to pay” if he fired Sessions, and Sen. Charles E. Grassley of Iowa, chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, warned that he would refuse to hold hearings this year to confirm a new attorney general.

Graham went further, saying that should Trump try to dismiss Robert S. Mueller III, the special counsel investigating potential Trump campaign collusion with Russia and obstruction of justice, it could spell “the beginning of the end of the Trump presidency.”

“What he’s interjecting is turning democracy upside down,” Graham told reporters, adding that he was considering legislation to prevent Trump from dismissing Mueller and shutting down the Russia investigation.

The US government is not seeking a regime change in North Korea, the secretary of state says, amid tensions over Pyongyang's weapons programme.
"We're not your enemy," Rex Tillerson said, adding that the US wanted a dialogue at some point.
But a Republican senator said President Donald Trump had told him there would be a war with North Korea if its missile programme continued.
Pyongyang claimed its latest missile could hit the US west coast.
The second test of an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) on Friday, celebrated by North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, was the latest to be conducted in defiance of a United Nations ban.
"We do not seek a regime change, we do not seek the collapse of the regime, we do not seek an accelerated reunification of the peninsula, we do not seek an excuse to send our military north of the 38th parallel," said Mr Tillerson, referring to the border between the Koreas.
"We're not your enemy, we're not your threat but you're presenting an unacceptable threat to us and we have to respond."

The White House has confirmed reports that President Donald Trump helped draft a statement on his son's meeting last year with a Russian lawyer.
Mr Trump "weighed in" on his son's response to media last month but did not dictate it, the White House said.
Donald Trump Jr initially said the meeting was about Russian adoption before acknowledging he was offered damaging material on Hillary Clinton.
The president's lawyer had denied Mr Trump made any input to the statement.
The 39-year-old US first son came under scrutiny after the New York Times began reporting last month on his June 2016 meeting at Trump Tower.
White House spokeswoman Sarah Huckabee Sanders told a news briefing on Tuesday: "The president weighed in as any father would based on the limited information that he had."

But a Republican senator said President Donald Trump had told him there would be a war with North Korea if its missile programme continued.
Pyongyang claimed its latest missile could hit the US west coast.

It didn't take long for the Fart administration to cave in.... He'll give Kim Jong Un everything he wants. No surprise there.

."We're not your enemy, we're not your threat but you're presenting an unacceptable threat to us and we have to respond."

Ive taken on several such weird determinations of the 404. Being able to show the gradual rise from an area below target area for such inclusion is a way we were successful. We showed that the increase in area and volume was counter to the "waters of the state" concept.

It hard to argue evidence clearly developed. You have hydrologists no?

Did you go running in all lawyered up? Sometime that's not a great strategy, often lawyers don't raise fear, instead they just deepen resolve.

President Donald Trump has signed into a law a bill which imposes new sanctions on Russia for their alleged meddling in the 2016 election.
The bill, which was signed in private at the White House, also imposes sanctions on Iran and North Korea.
The legislation "handcuffs" the president from easing penalties on Russia without congressional approval.
Russia denies interfering in the US election, and Mr Trump has denied colluding with Russia.
The White House had previously indicated that Mr Trump would sign the bill after it had passed through both houses of Congress.
But on Tuesday, US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson said he and the president are not "very happy" about the bill.

How common George?

Millions of cases? Thousands? Dozens?

State Department considers scrubbing democracy promotion from its mission

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson has ordered his department to redefine its mission and issue a new statement of purpose to the world. The draft statements under review right now are similar to the old mission statement, except for one thing — any mention of promoting democracy is being eliminated.

According to an internal email that went out Friday, which I obtained, the State Department’s Executive Steering Committee convened a meeting of leaders to draft new statements on the department’s purpose, mission and ambition, as part of the overall reorganization of the State Department and USAID. (The draft statements were being circulated for comment Friday and could change before being finalized.)

•The State Department’s draft statement on its purpose is: “We promote the security, prosperity and interests of the American people globally.”

•The State Department’s draft statement on its mission is: “Lead America’s foreign policy through global advocacy, action and assistance to shape a safer, more prosperous world.”

•The State Department’s draft statement on its ambition is: “The American people thrive in a peaceful and interconnected world that is free, resilient and prosperous.”

Compare that to the State Department Mission Statement that is currently on the books, as laid out in the department’s fiscal year 2016 financial report:

“The Department’s mission is to shape and sustain a peaceful, prosperous, just, and democratic world and foster conditions for stability and progress for the benefit of the American people and people everywhere. This mission is shared with the USAID, ensuring we have a common path forward in partnership as we invest in the shared security and prosperity that will ultimately better prepare us for the challenges of tomorrow.”

Former senior State Department officials from both parties told me that eliminating “just” and “democratic” from the State Department’s list of desired outcomes is neither accidental nor inconsequential.

“The only significant difference is the deletion of justice and democracy,” said Elliott Abrams, who served as deputy national security adviser for global democracy strategy during the George W. Bush administration. “We used to want a just and democratic world, and now apparently we don’t.”

The mission statement is important because it sends a signal about American priorities and intentions to foreign governments and people around the world, said Abrams, who was considered by Tillerson for the job of deputy secretary of state but rejected by President Trump.

“That change is a serious mistake that ought to be corrected,” he said. “If not, the message being sent will be a great comfort to every dictator in the world.”

Tom Malinowski, who served as assistant secretary of state for democracy, human rights and labor for the Obama administration, said the new proposed mission statement brings U.S. foreign policy into closer alignment with that of some of America’s chief adversaries, including Russia.

“It’s a worldview similar to that of Putin, who also thinks that great powers should focus exclusively on self protection and enrichment, rather than promoting democracy,” he said. “By removing all reference to universal values and the common good it removes any reason for people outside the United States to support our foreign-policy.”

Malinowski also predicted that the change, if it becomes permanent, would sow confusion throughout the ranks of the State Department’s civil and foreign service because hundreds of State Department officials work on congressionally funded programs every day that are meant to promote democracy and justice abroad.

Adding to the confusion, Trump occasionally trumpets democracy promotion, for example when it comes to Cuba or Venezuela. But in his inauguration speech, Trump made clear that democracy promotion would not be a feature of his foreign policy.

“We do not seek to impose our way of life on anyone, but rather to let it shine as an example for everyone to follow,” Trump said.

The changes in the State Department mission statement may not seem very significant viewed in isolation. But Tillerson has made several statements and decisions that indicate he plans to lower the priority of democracy and human rights in U.S. foreign policy.

In his first speech to his State Department employees, he said promoting American values “creates obstacles” to pursuing America’s national security interests. In March, he broke tradition by declining to appear personally to unveil the State Department’s annual human rights report.

In another example, the State Department will soon eliminate the www.humanrights.gov website and move its content to an alternative web address, www.state.gov/j/drl, a State Department official told me.

“It’s just so gratuitous. What efficiency is achieved or money is saved by taking something that is prominent on the Internet and hiding it?” said Malinowski. “The consequence is that it’s the 9,456th signal sent by the administration that they don’t care about promoting American values.”