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5 Points On What Trump’s Bogus Elections Commission Is Really About

The people who professionally study election protocols are very worried about the commission President Trump has created to ostensibly study election protocols. The so-called “Presidential Commission on Election Integrity,” which was unveiled in an executive order last week, is being viewed with deep skepticism in the voting rights community.

That is in no small part due to Trump’s outlandish and unsubstantiated claims that millions of people voted illegally in the 2016 election; the commission appears to be the result of Trump’s promises of a “major investigation” into voter fraud.

But there are also other hints, tells and coded language signaling that the aims of the commission are less concerned with nonpartisan study of election protocols and more likely to be seeking to trumpet allegations of voter fraud, which has historically been used as an excuse to enact restrictive voting laws.

Here are five points on what Trump’s bogus ‘Elections Integrity’ commission is really about:

How Republicans Are Blocking Cities From Raising the Minimum Wage

...Nowhere has the “think local” strategy seemed more promising that in the fight to increase the minimum wage. Since 2004, 34 localities from Maryland to New Mexico have raised the minimum wage above their state levels. In November, four states—Arizona, Maine, Colorado, and Washington—passed ballot measures to raise the minimum wage above its current federal level of $7.25 an hour. In a deeply divided country, it’s a policy that commands strong bipartisan support: 74 percent of Americans say they want to raise the minimum wage, and the Maine measure passed with 420,000 votes—more than any ballot initiative in state history.

But Republicans and their business allies are fighting back with a two-pronged strategy. First, they’re working to derail the minimum-wage increases that have already passed. Business groups in Washington and Arizona have gone to court to block the November ballot initiatives, and lawmakers in Maine have introduced a number of bills that seek to roll back or weaken the wage increase. Second, in violation of their much-lauded belief in decentralized government, Republicans are moving aggressively to block more cities and states from boosting the minimum wage. In Arizona, GOP lawmakers have approved bills that make it harder to pass citizen ballot initiatives, a democratic process enshrined in the state constitution for more than a century. And legislatures in 24 states have passed so-called “preemption bills” to block cities and counties from passing their own minimum-wage hikes. Many of the bills are the product of model legislation written by the Koch-backed American Legislative Exchange Council, which has made the fight against minimum-wage increases a top priority.

Here's what McMaster said:

There's nothing that the president takes more seriously than the security of the American people. The story that came out tonight, as reported, is false. The president and the foreign minister [Sergey Lavrov] reviewed a range of common threats to our two counties, including threats to civil aviation. At no time -- at no time -- were intelligence sources or methods discussed. And the president did not disclose any military operations that were not already publicly known. Two other senior officials who were present, including the secretary of state, remember it being the same way and have said so. Their on-the-record accounts should outweigh those of anonymous sources. And I was in the room. It didn't happen.


McMaster says that "at no time were intelligence sources or methods discussed." But The Post's reporting doesn't say that they were.

Instead, the report states clearly only that Trump discussed an Islamic State plot and the city where the plot was detected by an intelligence-gathering partner. Officials worried that this information could lead to the discovery of the methods and sources involved, but it didn't say Trump discussed them.

McMaster's statement that "the president did not disclose any military operations that were not already publicly known" is in the same vein -- suggesting The Post has reported something that it hasn't in order to deny something. Military operations aren't even alluded to in the story.

WASHINGTON – One day after reports he leaked "highly classified information" to top Russian officials, President Trump defended his right to share "facts" about terrorism and airline safety as part of a joint counter-terrorism effort to fight the Islamic State.

"As President I wanted to share with Russia (at an openly scheduled W.H. meeting) which I have the absolute right to do, facts pertaining to terrorism and airline flight safety," Trump said in a pair of tweets. "Humanitarian reasons, plus I want Russia to greatly step up their fight against ISIS & terrorism."

On Monday, The Washington Post reported that Trump discussed classified information with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Ambassador Sergey Kislyak provided to the U.S. by another country in a way they could have used to identify secret sources and methods. The information dealt with plans by the Islamic State to use laptop computers as weapons, and was so sensitive it had been withheld from allies – and under close hold within the U.S. government as well.

Notably, neither Trump nor his advisers have explicitly denied the president shared classified intelligence.

American presidents have the power to unilaterally disclose any material – even the most secret intelligence – without going through any kind of formal process or fear of being prosecuted. While Trump is correct to say he has an "absolute right" to share any information he wants, experts say that strategy can be risky – especially because allies could lose their trust in the U.S. ability to keep secrets and might stop sharing valuable intelligence with their American counterparts.

Trump's explanation appeared to differed in tone from ones offered by aides late Monday. "The president and the foreign minister reviewed a range of common threats to our two countries, including threats to civil aviation," said national security adviser H.R. McMaster. "At no time, at no time, were intelligence sources or methods discussed and the president did not disclose any military operations that were not already publicly known."

Conservative Media Rails Against Leaks to the Press, Doesn’t Care What Trump Tells Russia

On Monday night, the Washington Post reported that President Trump revealed highly classified information to the Russian foreign minister and ambassador during a meeting in the Oval Office last week. The intelligence, which concerned a specific ISIS plot, was said to be beyond top secret. Trump reportedly revealed where the information was collected, which could allow Russia to identify and “disrupt” the source. The U.S. ally that collected the intel did not say it could be shared with the Russians, and now they may be less willing to cooperate with the U.S. in the fight against the terrorist group.

The right-wing press was very upset about this … because they don’t think the American public ever should have found out.

McMaster says that "at no time were intelligence sources or methods discussed." But The Post's reporting doesn't say that they were.

Instead, the report states clearly only that Trump discussed an Islamic State plot and the city where the plot was detected by an intelligence-gathering partner. Officials worried that this information could lead to the discovery of the methods and sources involved, but it didn't say Trump discussed them.

McMaster's statement that "the president did not disclose any military operations that were not already publicly known" is in the same vein -- suggesting The Post has reported something that it hasn't in order to deny something. Military operations aren't even alluded to in the story.

Quote:

The U.S. in general has escaped quite a number of major hurricanes – 27 in a row have formed and either missed the U.S. entirely or made landfall below major-hurricane strength.

Just because major storms have missed Florida doesn't prove that predictions of increasingly powerful hurricanes is necessarily false. You've picked one limited geographical location to base your claim on. As you can see from the story, 27 major hurricanes have formed. The fact that they've weakened by the time they hit Florida really doesn't prove anything. Your concept of what constitutes a major hurricane (one that hits Florida) is as parochial as your concept of global temperature (how hot it gets in your own backyard).

The way the facts are going for him, it's gonna actualy be Trump's head on the wall. The fact is, in his hubris, he made a greater security breach with the distince possibility that his info outed a very highly placed intelligence asset of the US, which is something Hilary never did, in spite of Trump's lies. Lock him up.

Is there some rational reason you guys have in mind which suggests that arguing with trolls produces benefits for anyone?

Top secret codeword information is no joke

There are multiple flavors of intelligence classification, from “Confidential” (which is often in the public record already, just not acknowledged), to “Secret” (usually, though not always available if you know where to look—or are willing to wait a few days), to “Top Secret” which is beginning to be serious. The codewords, which security officials began using in World War II to protect signal intercepts (e.g. ULTRA), tell you whence the information was derived—so Top Secret/codeword material really has to be protected. Any of us who have had those kinds of clearances have gone through repeated trainings about how to safeguard such material (cover sheets, multiple envelopes, proper paragraph marking, etc.). And if you hope to keep your job and stay out of jail, you take it seriously. You do not have access to any and all compartments if you have a top-secret clearance. This, apparently, is some of the information that Trump blew.

The repeated spectacular breaks into the American security system by the Russians, among others, coupled with the ubiquity of personal information in the smartphone age, has caused some Americans to assume that secrets do not exist. They most certainly do. If someone finds out how you have gathered information, that artfully planted bug may go dead. Or a human agent may go dead. In the normal course of events, Donald Trump would never have been given a high-level security clearance because of his psychological profile and personal record, including his susceptibility to blackmail. But it will be even worse if his behavior convinces others, including those who work for him, that classification is meaningless.

Top-secret codeword information derived from an ally is even more sensitive.

To a remarkable degree, the United States relies on liaison relationships with other powers with whom it shares information. If Trump has indeed compromised a source of information, it is not merely a betrayal of an ally’s trust: It is an act that will jeopardize a whole range of relationships. After all, the Director of Central Intelligence cannot very well say, “Don’t worry, we won’t share that with the president.” So now everybody—even our closest allies like the United Kingdom—would be well-advised to be careful with what they share with us. That is a potential intelligence debacle for us, but the danger goes beyond that. If any foreign government harbored lingering illusions about the administration’s ability to protect any information, including sensitive but non-intelligence matters like future foreign-policy initiatives or military deployments, they no longer do. They will be even more apprehensive about sharing sensitive information of any kind because…

He gave it to the Russians. In the Oval Office. In a fit of braggadocio.

Russia is antagonistic to the United States, although Trump has repeatedly indicated his desire to be chummy with the Russians—after all, as he notoriously said during the presidential campaign, we are both killers, and so on the same moral plane. He apparently divulged the information to show off, which not only shows a lack of self-discipline: It shows, yet again, how easy this man is to play, particularly by veteran manipulators like his two experienced, talented, and thuggish guests. The crisis is made worse by virtue of Trump having just fired the FBI director, apparently for having pushed that Russia investigation too far.

Quite apart from making himself and the country a laughingstock around the world, the president has now practically begged Vladimir Putin to toy with him, tantalize him, tease him, flatter him, manipulate him. He has shown the Russians (and others, who are watching just as closely) just how easy that is to do, and he has shown the rest of us that his vanity and impulsiveness have not been tempered by the highest responsibilities.

The corruption has begun.

In the wake of the Post story, the White House—hoping, presumably, to avoid another Comey-firing publicity debacle—trotted out three reasonably sane, responsible, experienced adults to vouch for the President’s story. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, Deputy National Security Adviser Dina Powell, and National Security Adviser Lieutenant General H. R. McMaster made public statements calling the story false, giving different variants of this argument: The President did not disclose sources and methods for intelligence gathering, or future military operations.

Well, of course not. That is not what the Post said in its story: It said that he divulged intelligence. And since it seems likely that the Russians captured all of the conversation—they were allowed to bring their electronics into the room, including the only video cameras, the American press having been excluded—they undoubtedly got all of it. And you bet that their analysts are even now chuckling as they figure out what the sources were.

You know where the door is don't you?

I'm supposed to believe the reporter from the Atlantic who wasn't in the oval office ...

“For the purpose of transparency, the White House should share a transcript of the meeting with the House and Senate intelligence committees,” former intelligence officer and freshman Rep. Mike Gallagher (R-Wis.) tweeted Tuesday morning.

“Our allies and partners must have the utmost confidence that sensitive information they share with us will not be disclosed,” Gallagher wrote.

Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) made the call on Tuesday morning.

“The White House should make the transcript of @POTUS’ mtg w/ the Russian Foreign Minister & Ambassador available to Intel Cmtes ASAP,” Schumer wrote on Twitter.

“Until the Admin provides the unedited transcript, American ppl will rightly doubt if POTUS can handle our nation’s most closely kept secrets,” he wrote.
[...]
As of Tuesday morning, just two Republicans had signed onto a Democratic effort to create a special prosecutor for a Russia inquiry. Both of them, Reps. Justin Amash (R-Mich.) and Walter B. Jones (R-N.C.), are libertarian-leaning iconoclasts who frequently break with their party.

More Republicans had called for the White House to be forthcoming, without calling for an investigation.