monitoring Trump and relevant contemporary events

Analysis: North Korea takes aim at Bolton in summit threat

TOKYO — North Korea has a message for U.S. President Donald Trump ahead of next month's summit: Don't listen to your new hard-line national security adviser, John Bolton.

After announcing early Wednesday that it was pulling out of high-level talks with Seoul because of a new round of U.S.-South Korean military exercises, the North took aim at Bolton and said it might have to reconsider whether to proceed with the summit between Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un because it doubts how seriously Washington actually wants peaceful dialogue.

I Helped Start the Gaza Protests. I Don’t Regret It.

RAFAH, Gaza — The seed that grew into Gaza’s Great Return March was planted Dec. 9, just a few days after President Trump announced he would recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.

Palestinians long have held onto the dream of Jerusalem as our own capital, or at least as a shared capital in a country that offers equal rights to everyone. The feeling of betrayal and distress in Gaza was palpable. To clear my head, my friend Hasan and I took a walk along the border, which we do every now and again.

“There lies our land,” I said to Hasan, as I looked at the trees on the other side of the barbed-wire fence that confines us. “It’s just a few kilometers away from here.” And yet, because of that fence and the soldiers who guard it, it is so far away. Most people my age have never been permitted to leave Gaza, since Egypt controls the southern land exit and Israel restricts access to the north — as well as forbids use of our sea and airport (or at least what’s left of it after three wars).

That thought led to a wish expressed on Facebook. And it struck such a chord with people in Gaza that it set off a movement that culminated in the historic protests that have taken place over the last month. Tragically, Israel reacted even more brutally than I expected — and I’ve lived through three of its wars. The latest estimate of the number of protesters killed is 104; more than 50 died just on Monday. Thousands more have been injured. But our voices needed to be heard, and they have been.

My hatred of borders is both universal — in the sense that all Palestinians suffer from them — and very personal. My grandparents and their grandparents were born and raised in the town of Ramla, in the center of what is now Israel. On my walks, I imagined my family’s ancestral land.

But I also have experienced the destructive impact of borders more personally. I was born in 1984, two years after Israel withdrew from the Sinai Peninsula, dividing my city, Rafah, between Gaza and Egypt. The core of the city was razed by Israel and Egypt to create a buffer zone, separating families, including mine, with barbed wire. My mother’s family lived on the Egyptian side and Rafah’s division ended in the separation of my parents. Although my mother lived a stone’s throw away, it was 19 years before I saw her again.

On that day in December, as I watched the birds fly over the border I could not cross, I found myself thinking how much smarter birds and animals are than people; they harmonize with nature instead of erecting walls. Later that day, I wondered on Facebook what would happen if a man acted like a bird and crossed that fence. “Why would Israeli soldiers shoot at him as if he is committing a crime?” I wrote. My only thought was to reach the trees, sit there and then come back.

I couldn’t let go of that thought. A month later, I wrote another post. “Thank you, Israel, for opening our eyes. If the occupation opened the crossing points and allowed people to live a normal life and created jobs for young people, we could wait for a few generations,” I wrote. “We are forced to choose between confrontations or between life.” I ended the post with the hashtag GreatReturnMarch.

Young people in Gaza reacted to my post immediately, sharing it and adding their own ideas. Just a week later, it seemed as if hundreds of people were talking about it. We established a youth committee and met with local agencies and institutions. We also met with the national political parties: We wanted to offer all sectors of society in Gaza the opportunity to be involved.

What has happened since we started the Great Return March is both what I hoped and expected — and not. It was not a surprise that Israel responded to our march with deadly violence. But I had not expected this level of cruelty. On the other hand, I was heartened by the commitment to nonviolence among most of my own people.

A couple of years ago, people here would have dismissed the idea that peaceful demonstrations could achieve anything significant. After all, every other form of resistance has produced nothing concrete. What amazes me is the transformation we are seeing in the way we resist. Our struggle previously was between armed Palestinian fighters and Israeli snipers, tanks and F-16s. Now, it is a struggle between the occupation and peaceful protesters — men and women, young and old.

The Great Return March reminds the world about the origin of the conflict — our uprooting from our lands and our lives, beginning in 1948 and sustained since then. We have chosen May 15 as the culmination of our protests because that is the day that Palestinians mark the “nakba,” the Arabic word for catastrophe, which is what we call the expulsions from our homes 70 years ago. Whatever solution we negotiate in the future to allow our two peoples to live together peacefully and equally must start with a recognition of this wrong.

Still, despite the response from Israeli snipers, I continue to be committed to nonviolence, as are all of the other people “coordinating” this march. I use quotation marks because when a movement becomes this large — attracting what we estimate to be as many as 200,000 people on Fridays — it cannot be completely controlled. We discouraged the burning of Israeli flags and the attachment of Molotov cocktails to kites. We want peaceful, equal coexistence to be our message.

We have also tried to discourage protesters from attempting to cross into Israel. However, we can’t stop them. It is the action of an imprisoned people yearning for freedom, one of the strongest motivations in human nature. Likewise, the people won’t go away on May 15. We are intent on continuing our struggle until Israel recognizes our right to return to our homes and land from which we were expelled.

Desperation fuels this new generation. We are not going back to our subhuman existence. We will keep knocking at the doors of international organizations and our Israeli jailers until we see concrete steps to end the blockade of Gaza.

The Israeli foreign ministry has said it was "protecting its citizens from thousands of violent rioters from Gaza, who have been trying to break the fence and cross into Israel, with the goal of killing or kidnapping Israelis."

That rationalization was repeated and amplified on Tuesday by UN ambassador Nikki Haley and by the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, the Anti-Defamation League and other influential US-based institutions.

But those organizations are increasingly being taken to task by groups with younger members and different views on what it means to support the Jewish state.

"The violence that is being committed in our name, the massacre of 50-plus Palestinian protesters Monday in Gaza -- we're not going to sit idly by as that's committed," said Ethan Miller, a spokesman for IfNotNow.

"We're actually going to be taking action and building a movement within our communities to make sure that we're no longer part of supporting the occupation, and our community is actively working against it."

“Our staff concluded that the [intelligence community’s] conclusions were accurate and on point,” the panel’s vice chairman, Sen. Mark R. Warner (D-Va.), said Wednesday in a joint statement with Sen. Richard Burr (R-N.C.), its chairman. “The Russian effort was extensive, sophisticated, and ordered by President Putin himself for the purpose of helping Donald Trump and hurting Hillary Clinton,” Warner continued.

Sen. Mark R. Warner (D-Va.),

Democratic Sen. Mark Warner texted with Russian oligarch lobbyist in effort to contact dossier author Christopher Steele

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump repaid his attorney Michael Cohen for an expense greater than $100,001 and less than $250,000 that was incurred in 2016, according to ethics disclosures signed by the president that were released by the Office of Government Ethics on Wednesday.

Cohen made a $130,000 payment to porn star Stormy Daniels shortly before the Nov. 8, 2016, presidential election in exchange for her remaining silent about an alleged affair she had with Trump.

U.S. President Donald Trump repaid his attorney Michael Cohen for an expense greater than $100,001 and less than $250,000 that was incurred in 2016,

Still, despite the response from Israeli snipers, I continue to be committed to nonviolence, as are all of the other people “coordinating” this march. I use quotation marks because when a movement becomes this large — attracting what we estimate to be as many as 200,000 people on Fridays — it cannot be completely controlled. We discouraged the burning of Israeli flags and the attachment of Molotov cocktails to kites. We want peaceful, equal coexistence to be our message.

We have also tried to discourage protesters from attempting to cross into Israel. However, we can’t stop them. It is the action of an imprisoned people yearning for freedom, one of the strongest motivations in human nature. Likewise, the people won’t go away on May 15. We are intent on continuing our struggle until Israel recognizes our right to return to our homes and land from which we were expelled.

So you conservatives think that getting a Non Disclosure Agreement signed empowers the president to lie to the American people without consequences? "My fellow Americans, I would have loved to tell you the truth about what happened with Stormy and I, but if I did that then I would have wasted all that money on a Non Disclosure Agreement that I had Cohen set up in secret. I'm sure you didn't send me to the White House to act like a spendthrift. That's why I got the Russian oligarch to pay Cohen back for the money he fronted me to pay her, saved me $130,000. And I pledge to the American people right now, this is only one of the cost efficiencies we plan to bring to the workings of the US government. Trust me, there will be plenty more."

If there is a problem with Europeans paying up, any real leader would take that up behind closed doors, not in front of a hostile world.

NATO was formed right after WWII to prevent Russia from taking over Western Europe like it had just taken over Eastern Europe. By presenting a united front, NATO prevented that from happening for forty years. Then Russia collapsed economically in 1991 and couldn't afford to pay its own army, so the captive Iron Curtain countries could get away from Russian dominance and begin moving ahead. But they knew they were still in danger from Russia coming to take them back, so they applied to NATO. Russia dared not attack an Eastern European country that was a NATO member.

But then Trump started talking about how our allies needed to pay more. And maybe we should leave NATO, (music to Putin's ears). And how from now on we should forget about commitments to defend freedom and instead deal with Russia on the basis of mutual self-interest. Presumably, that means if Russia wants to take over Eastern Europe again, they can have it as long as we get our cut. Trump has done a great job trying to rend apart the unity that NATO has had for seventy years and which has defended freedom so well, in order to curry favor with Putin. This is a dangerous situation.

No, we did not agree with Reagan's trickle down domestic policies, but I know of no liberal who spoke out in defense of the Communist regime that was falling down. We were there cheering the Soviet Union's demise.

This is as opposed to Trump, who constantly seeks to reward Russia for it's takeover of Ukrainian Crimea and it's invasion of Eastern Ukraine proper by getting rid of the sanctions that got put in under Obama.

And Trump's hiring of a campaign manager, Manafort, who he didn't even pay to run his campaign-Trump let the Russians pay Manafort. And Trump hired a national security advisor, Flynn, who was heard reassuring the Russian ambassador that Trump will have Obama's sanctions against Russia removed. And Trump hired another national security advisor, Carter Page, who was unknowingly hanging around with a Russian spy ring until its members got busted. This is the guy Trump had advising him on how to keep the country secure. And of course, Trump installed Jeff Sessions as Attorney General, who promptly lied to the Senate confirmation committee about meeting the Russian ambassador secretly. And then later had it discovered he met the ambassador again. Clearly, Trump was the Manchurian Candidate and has stocked his Administration with people who will do Putin's bidding. What a disgrace.

This is a new movement and in it's intent it a peaceful one and should be encouraged.

An official disclosure has confirmed US President Donald Trump reimbursed his lawyer for a payment to a porn star to hush her claims of an affair.

The Office of Government Ethics said on Wednesday that Mr Trump ought to have revealed the payment in his previous financial disclosure.

The filing shows he paid back Michael Cohen for a 2016 expense of between $100,001 (£75,000) and $250,000.

Mr Trump previously denied knowing of the $130,000 payment to Ms Daniels.

Trump campaign and transitions were knee deep in Russians one way or another.

Perhaps Blickers brings up the Russians and Trump because the Trump campaign (and family member) and transition team were knee deep in Russians one way or another.