monitoring Trump and relevant contemporary events

He's going to protect the country from "that menace" (Trump) by "approaching" it as though "neutrality becomes dishonorable," eh?

Peter Strzok said, "I can protect our country at many levels." What can an FBI official and FBI agent do to stop a president from getting elected?

Well, I think you can do what this guy tried to do. He can fabricate things, he can make up stuff, he can lie. He can be a total moron, he can recruit others. He belongs in Leavenworth this guy, in my personal view. I don’t have all the facts, but from what I know he belongs behind bars, this guy. These things cannot happen in a democracy, particularly in the FBI.

Do you believe FBI agent Peter Strzok was taking active measures to stop Trump from winning and measures to help Hillary Clinton?

JIM KALLSTROM: Yes, I do. And I’ve come to that conclusion after reading these text messages. Now people send text messages, I realize that, but the depth and scope and just nasty hatred that was expressed in those messages — you know, this Lone Ranger riding to the rescue of America. I mean, nothing could be further from the truth.

I think this is a cabal. I think it's a conspiracy. That whole thing, the dossier, is B.S., and if they took that to the FISA court and knew it was B.S., then they’re in a lot of trouble. And if they didn’t know it was B.S., then they are totally incompetent.

But let me say something. It’s not the FBI agents. You know, 99.9% of the people in the FBI are honorable, patriots, helping the United States, helping the people of this great country. And how big this cabal is, I don't know if it’s 8 people or 20 people or — but it’s a small number, a number of people in the Justice Department.

Kansas Democrat Andrea Ramsey drops out of House race over 2005 harassment suit

A rising liberal star running for Congress in Kansas has dropped out of the race over a 2005 federal lawsuit in which she was accused of sexually harassing a male employee whom she supervised.

Andrea Ramsey, 56, of Leawood, was looking to challenge incumbent Republican Kevin Yoder in 2018 in the Kansas City-area 3rd District but announced in a Facebook post that she would be ending her campaign Friday.

Funkhouser worked under Ramsey at LabOne where she was an executive vice president of human resources. Funkhouser claimed Ramsey came on to him in 2005. “After I told her I was not interested in having a sexual relationship with her, she stopped talking to me,” he wrote in a complaint. “In the office she completely ignored me and avoided having any contact with me.”

Ramsey said the national Democratic Party declined to support her over the lawsuit.

“In its rush to claim the high ground in our roiling national conversation about harassment, the Democratic Party has implemented a zero-tolerance standard,” Ramsey said. “For me, that means a vindictive, terminated employee’s false allegations are enough for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) to decide not to support our promising campaign. We are in a national moment where rough justice stands in place of careful analysis, nuance and due process.”

Using taxpayer dollars, the Environmental Protection Agency has hired a cutting-edge Republican PR firm that specializes in digging up opposition research to help Administrator Scott Pruitt’s office track and shape press coverage of the agency.

According to federal contracting records, earlier this month Pruitt’s office inked a no-bid $120,000 contract with Definers Corp., a Virginia-based public relations firm founded by Matt Rhoades, who managed Mitt Romney’s 2012 presidential campaign. Following Romney’s defeat, Rhoades established America Rising, an ostensibly independent political action committee that works closely with the Republican National Committee and Republican candidates to mine damning information on opponents. Other higher-ups at Definers include former RNC research director Joe Pounder, who’s been described as “a master of opposition research,” and senior vice president Colin Reed, an oppo-research guru billed as “among the leaders of the war on [Sen. Elizabeth] Warren.”

Steven Greenhouse‏
@greenhousenyt
One way to look at the GOP tax bill: It gives corporations $1 trillion in tax cuts & it will raise our national debt by at least $1 trillion. This means in effect our kids & grandkids will have to pay for the $1 trillion tax cut to corporations—which already have record profits

Question put to former FBI Assistant Director Jim Kallstrom:

Quote:

Peter Strzok said, "I can protect our country at many levels." What can an FBI official and FBI agent do to stop a president from getting elected?

Kallstrom's answer:

Quote:

Well, I think you can do what this guy tried to do. He can fabricate things, he can make up stuff, he can lie. He can be a total moron, he can recruit others. He belongs in Leavenworth this guy, in my personal view. I don’t have all the facts, but from what I know he belongs behind bars, this guy. These things cannot happen in a democracy, particularly in the FBI.

More:

Quote:

Do you believe FBI agent Peter Strzok was taking active measures to stop Trump from winning and measures to help Hillary Clinton?

JIM KALLSTROM: Yes, I do. And I’ve come to that conclusion after reading these text messages. Now people send text messages, I realize that, but the depth and scope and just nasty hatred that was expressed in those messages — you know, this Lone Ranger riding to the rescue of America. I mean, nothing could be further from the truth.

I think this is a cabal. I think it's a conspiracy. That whole thing, the dossier, is B.S., and if they took that to the FISA court and knew it was B.S., then they’re in a lot of trouble. And if they didn’t know it was B.S., then they are totally incompetent.

But let me say something. It’s not the FBI agents. You know, 99.9% of the people in the FBI are honorable, patriots, helping the United States, helping the people of this great country. And how big this cabal is, I don't know if it’s 8 people or 20 people or — but it’s a small number, a number of people in the Justice Department.

The rank and file FBI agents do NOT approve of these shennigans, and that's a fact, Jack.

Quote:

Other nations call it vulture capitalism, but the US likes to put their own spin on narcissism.

That's not the way the term "vulture capitalism" is normally used.

Quote:

Vulture capitalists are investors that acquire distressed firms in the hopes of making them more profitable so as to ultimately sell them for a profit.

Wiki
Mitt Romney was accused of being a vulture capitalist but I don't see either the narcissist Trump or boss Murdoch fitting that role.

As the largest tax rewrite in decades powered through Congress, lobbyists found themselves sprinting to keep up and find ways to persuade, influence or cajole the small group of lawmakers empowered to tweak language in the final version of the joint Senate and House bill.

The lobbyists and their allies opened their wallets wide to fund advertisements, phone banks and field campaigns. They leaned on longstanding relationships with lawmakers and staff, dashed off letters to congressional leaders and wrote checks to secure a few minutes of precious face time at fund-raisers.

So, that's cool. Use taxpayers dollars to pay for corporate propaganda. It's a swamp draining thing.

One of the top executives of a consulting firm that the Environmental Protection Agency has recently hired to help it with media affairs has spent the past year investigating agency employees who have been critical of the Trump administration, federal records show.

The firm, Definers Public Affairs, based in Virginia, specializes in conducting opposition research to aid Republican Party causes, meaning that it seeks to find damaging information on Democratic political candidates in an effort to undermine their election bids.

A vice president for the firm, Allan Blutstein, federal records show, has submitted at least 40 Freedom of Information Act requests to the E.P.A. since President Trump was sworn in. Many of those requests target employees known to be questioning management at the E.P.A. since Scott Pruitt, the agency’s administrator, was confirmed.

Mr. Blutstein, in an interview, said he was taking aim at “resistance” figures in the federal government, adding that he hoped to discover whether they had done anything that might embarrass them or hurt their cause.

TRUMP WHITE HOUSE WEIGHING PLANS FOR PRIVATE SPIES TO COUNTER “DEEP STATE” ENEMIES
Matthew Cole, Jeremy Scahill
December 4 2017,

THE TRUMP ADMINISTRATION is considering a set of proposals developed by Blackwater founder Erik Prince and a retired CIA officer — with assistance from Oliver North, a key figure in the Iran-Contra scandal — to provide CIA Director Mike Pompeo and the White House with a global, private spy network that would circumvent official U.S. intelligence agencies, according to several current and former U.S. intelligence officials and others familiar with the proposals. The sources say the plans have been pitched to the White House as a means of countering “deep state” enemies in the intelligence community seeking to undermine Donald Trump’s presidency.


“Pompeo can’t trust the CIA bureaucracy, so we need to create this thing that reports just directly to him,” said a former senior U.S. intelligence official with firsthand knowledge of the proposals, in describing White House discussions. “It is a direct-action arm, totally off the books,” this person said, meaning the intelligence collected would not be shared with the rest of the CIA or the larger intelligence community. “The whole point is this is supposed to report to the president and Pompeo directly.”



The proposals would utilize an army of spies with no official cover in several countries deemed “denied areas” for current American intelligence personnel, including North Korea and Iran. The White House has also considered creating a new global rendition unit meant to capture terrorist suspects around the world, as well as a propaganda campaign in the Middle East and Europe to combat Islamic extremism and Iran.

“I can find no evidence that this ever came to the attention of anyone at the NSC or [White House] at all,” wrote Michael N. Anton, a spokesperson for the National Security Council, in an email. “The White House does not and would not support such a proposal.” But a current U.S. intelligence official appeared to contradict that assertion, stating that the various proposals were first pitched at the White House before being delivered to the CIA. The Intercept reached out to several senior officials that sources said had been briefed on the plans by Prince, including Vice President Mike Pence. His spokesperson wrote there was “no record of [Prince] ever having met with or briefed the VP.” North did not respond to a request for comment.

According to two former senior intelligence officials, Pompeo has embraced the plan and lobbied the White House to approve the contract. Asked for comment, a CIA spokesperson said, “You have been provided wildly inaccurate information by people peddling an agenda.”


https://theintercept.com/2017/12/04/trump-white-house-weighing-plans-for-private-spies-to-counter-deep-state-enemies/

There has never been a serial exaggerator in recent American politics like the president. He not only consistently makes false claims but also repeats them, even though they have been proved wrong. He always insists he is right, no matter how little evidence he has for his claim or how easily his statement is debunked. Indeed, he doubles down when challenged.

At the same time, the president flip-flops repeatedly, with little consistency in his previously held and supposedly firm positions. … When we last updated our database of false or misleading claims made by the president, the number stood at 1,628 after 298 days. That’s an average of 5.5 per day.

When we last updated our database of false or misleading claims made by the president, the number stood at 1,628 after 298 days. That’s an average of 5.5 per dayWP

There has never been a serial exaggerator in recent American politics like the president

"A leaker, by definition, has an agenda. Originally we were told that 17 intelligence agencies believed we were hacked by Russians. It turned out to be a very few people in a few agencies. The media keeps going back to this claim that it's the consensus of intelligence agencies. It's simply not true.

I have never seen media malpractice like this before in my life. What that constitutes is making allegations for which there is no verified facts, information, or evidence and then basing your commentary on it."

I'm not defending Trump, but Trump raises questions. But instead of giving an answer to the question--the substance of the question--we denounce him as some kind of Kremlin agent. That's bad for our politics, but, still worse, given the danger, the world's politics.