Category Archives: Global Politics

“Traitor!” Trump Campaign Aides Had Repeated Contacts With Russian Intelligence – The New York Times

Phone records and intercepted calls show that members of Donald J. Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign and other Trump associates had repeated contacts with senior Russian intelligence officials in the year before the election, according to four current and former American officials.American law enforcement and intelligence agencies intercepted the communications around the same time that they were discovering evidence that Russia was trying to disrupt the presidential election by hacking into the Democratic National Committee, three of the officials said. The intelligence agencies then sought to learn whether the Trump campaign was colluding with the Russians on the hacking or other efforts to influence the election.The officials interviewed in recent weeks said that, so far, they had seen no evidence of such cooperation.But the intercepts alarmed American intelligence and law enforcement agencies, in part because of the amount of contact that was occurring while Mr. Trump was speaking glowingly about the Russian president, Vladimir V. Putin. At one point last summer, Mr. Trump said at a campaign event that he hoped Russian intelligence services had stolen Hillary Clinton’s emails and would make them public.The officials said the intercepted communications were not limited to Trump campaign officials, and included other associates of Mr. Trump. On the Russian side, the contacts also included members of the Russian government outside of the intelligence services, the officials said. All of the current and former officials spoke on the condition of anonymity because the continuing investigation is classified.

Can Russia really derail Emmanuel Macron? – The Local

The motivation for Moscow to derail Macron’s campaign is simple.They would far rather see the anti-EU Marine Le Pen or François Fillon, both of whom are open admirers of Vladimir Putin, unlike Macron, who is openly pro-Europe, elected the next President of France.”They do not want a strong Europe, they want a weak Europe,” Macron’s spokesman Benjamin Griveaux said on Tuesday.The problem for Moscow is that ever since Fillon was struck down by fake job claims surrounding his wife, Macron has emerged as the favourite to win the election, beating Le Pen in  the second round runoff vote.’This is Putin’s plan to break up the EU’Macron’s team believe the increase in hostile reports and cyber attacks and the rise of the candidate in the polls is no coincidence. Moscow is getting jittery it seems.But so is Emmanuel Macron.His campaign chief Ferrand issued an appeal in French newspaper Le Monde on Tuesday.“We cannot let Russia de-stabilise the French presidential election,” read the title.“If these attacks succeed then the organisation of the EN Marche campaign would become very difficult, if not impossible,” said Ferrand.

Source: Can Russia really derail Emmanuel Macron? – The Local

Times May Change But Fascism Remains the Same | Dame Magazine – Trumpism, the latest run for Fascism!

If these arguments seem familiar, it’s because if you substitute Muslim for Jew and American identity for Christian identity, the cultural chaos and the backlash against women and those who are seen as not being part of the community are eerily similar. Donald Trump emphasizes exclusion and the marking of Muslims as a way of convincing Americans that there are distinctions between “real” Americans and “terrorists.” (The ideas are similar in his rhetoric about “Mexicans” and undocumented immigrants.) Trump’s executive order that banned Muslims from seven different countries was not about keeping Americans safe. His purpose was to convince his supporters that they have a claim to some sort of specialness that is due to having been born on American soil.While Trump uses different rhetorical structures to separate Americans by gender, sexuality, race, and ethnicity, the purpose of his executive order was to create a sense of American identity that was based on one idea. According to Trump, Muslims cannot be true Americans. And, he believes, they cannot be admitted because, “In order to protect Americans, the United States must ensure that those admitted to this country do not bear hostile attitudes toward it and its founding principles. The United States cannot, and should not, admit those who do not support the Constitution, or those who would place violent ideologies over American law. In addition, the United States should not admit those who engage in acts of bigotry or hatred (including “honor” killings, other forms of violence against women, or the persecution of those who practice religions different from their own) or those who would oppress Americans of any race, gender, or sexual orientation.”The irony, of course, is that if “acts of bigotry … violence against women … or the oppression based on race, gender, or sexual orientation” are the criteria by which being admitted to the United States will be determined, millions of native-born Americans, including Donald Trump himself, should not be allowed to stay.It is a primary tool of the demagogue to convince their audience that a secret group lives among them. This secret group plots the larger community’s downfall; therefore, all the members of the community must not only swear allegiance to its chosen leader, they must all be willing to spy on other members of the group and turn them in should anyone suspect that a mole be working to bring them down.

Source: Times May Change But Fascism Remains the Same | Dame Magazine

What Happened to Elizabeth Warren Has Roots in Racism – The New York Times

 

In a historical coincidence, like Adams, Ms. Warren represents the state of Massachusetts. She occupies the same seat as Charles Sumner, who was nearly clubbed to death on the Senate floor in 1856 by Representative Preston Brooks of South Carolina, who was offended to the point of murderous violence by one of Sumner’s antislavery speeches. And Rule XIX itself was created in its current form in 1902 after the virulently racist Senator Benjamin Tillman assaulted his fellow South Carolinian Senator John McLaurin for saying that Tillman had uttered “a willful, malicious and deliberate lie.”This is the legacy that the 49 Republicans who voted to silence Senator Warren embraced. It is a legacy that regarded the sensitive feelings of thin-skinned congressmen as more important than good government or the voices of the people — especially the voices of women and minorities. Adams was gagged for presenting antislavery petitions from women and blacks, Senator Warren for reading the words of a female civil rights icon. This is a legacy no one should want to preserve.

Trump and Netanyahu are allies in a losing battle | +972 Magazine

The most important clue to solve this puzzle is Trump and Netanyahu’s obsession with attacking, controlling and manipulating the news media (indeed, this is one of the major sources of Netanyahu’s recent legal troubles). Admittedly, even within their own camps, they are extreme outliers in terms of crudity and relentlessness on this issue — something that surely has to do with their individual psychological makeup. But they are also emblematic of a broader approach on the right, which has fueled the rise of rigorously partisan and uncurious media organs such as Israel Hayom in Israel and Fox News in the U.S.Journalists are a major problem for the Israeli and American extreme right because, despite all their flaws, they occasionally do provide information and cover actual events. In other words, they reflect reality — however partially and inadequately.Reality is the greatest foe of the extreme right wingers currently in power. In the real world, Palestinians, Mexicans, Muslims, and many other groups that they do not like continue to exist, despite travel bans and land grabs. In the real world, international relations are crucial for the prosperity of both countries and cannot be flippantly dismissed. “Alternative facts” are easily malleable. Actual facts cannot be so flexibly managed. The extreme right is not creating “facts on the ground,” it is being undone by them, bit by bit.Netanyahu, Trump, and their allies are fighting a losing battle. Deep inside, they know this. If they truly believed otherwise, their disposition would be sunny and confident, not dark and fretful.This is not cause for complacency. Part of the reason these agendas will be defeated is precisely because people are not complacent — they are mobilized and agitated (at least in the U.S.; this kind of mass opposition seems to be further down the road in Israel and Palestine). Until they are stopped, Trump and Netanyahu can do great harm, some of which will be irreparable. Nonetheless, the struggle against them must begin with the insight that we are not fighting an ascendant and secure power, we are opposing a desperate and fearful faction.

Source: Trump and Netanyahu are allies in a losing battle | +972 Magazine

Donald Trump: The Role of the Media in Addressing the Threat – SPIEGEL ONLINE

So there we have it: Donald Trump, a misogynist and a racist businessman who verifiably made 87 false statements in the course of only five days of the election campaign, is no longer a candidate. He’s sitting in the White House. Here are three insights about this American president who has been in office since Jan. 20.First, in the two-and-a-half weeks since his awful inauguration speech, he has demonstrated that he will do what he said he would: He is ordering the construction of a wall on the border to Mexico, he is issuing xenophobic decrees and he is rattling America’s allies and international institutions and, by doing so, every aspect of global politics. He has already threatened Iran and North Korea. None of this comes as a surprise either, because even Trump’s voters knew that adviser Stephen Bannon is a man who considers wars to be useful.Second, Trump is also showing that he will do much that he did not announce in the campaign. He has ordered scientists not to conduct or publish research on topics of which he does not approve. He says climate change doesn’t exist and means it seriously. He stood by as one of his closest confidants invented the term “alternative facts” to create a parallel reality. Trump brings his children with him to high-level meetings, he hired his son-in-law as a White House adviser, he has spared countries in which he does business from his travel ban on citizens of predominately Muslim states, he has not divested himself of his company holdings, he has not released his tax filings (despite pledging to do so) and even had his adviser Kellyanne Conway claim that voters didn’t care. He now wants to undo banking regulations so that “friends of mine” can get easier access to money. Is he paving the way to cash in and further enrich himself while in office?Third, Trump has already proven some of the things we already knew about him. The perception people have of him is more important to Trump than anything else. Nothing was more important to him in his first two and a half weeks in office than the size of the crowd at his inauguration. Trump is a chronic liar and he proves this in one tweet after the other. Trump despises the media (he calls it the “opposition party” and says “As you know, I have a running war with the media”) as well as the judicial branch in the form of “this so-called judge” who didn’t rule the way that his ruler desired. Meanwhile, Trump claims the people protesting against him are “paid.”

Source: Donald Trump: The Role of the Media in Addressing the Threat – SPIEGEL ONLINE

Why is CNN spreading fake news about BDS? |  – Short answer: Pimping for ad sales and access to White House without seeming too right-wing.

Since the beginning of January, there has been a spike in anti-Semitic incidents in the US: bomb threats have been called in against dozens of synagogues and Jewish community centers while swastika vandalism has been reported in several major cities.Meanwhile, the Trump administration has moved to take white supremacist organizations off the FBI watchlist to focus instead only on “radical Islamic extremism.”This prompted a neo-Nazi leader to celebrate that Trump was “setting us free.”This comes after the Obama administration had already severely curtailed monitoring of potentially violent right-wing extremist groups.But instead of taking the US government to task for indulging and even affiliating with Nazi sympathizers, prominent cheerleaders for Israel are escalating their attempts to repress the Palestinian-led boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement through smears and legislation.

Source: Why is CNN spreading fake news about BDS? | The Electronic Intifada

Israel passes law to legalize theft of private Palestinian land | The Electronic Intifada

Late Monday night, Israel’s parliament, the Knesset, approved a bill to retroactively legalize the expropriation by settlers of private Palestinian land that has taken place over the last two decades.Passed by 60-52, the so-called Regularization Bill will legalize around 4,000 settlement homes in so-called unauthorized outposts and settlements.Human Rights Watch swiftly condemned the vote, noting that the Regularization Bill “undoes years of established Israeli law and, coming just weeks after the [UN] Security Council’s unanimous passage of Resolution 2334 on the illegality of settlements, reflects Israel’s manifest disregard of international law.”The group added that the law “entrenches the current reality in the West Bank of de facto permanent occupation where Israeli settlers and Palestinians living in the same territory are subject to ‘separate and unequal’ systems of laws, rules and services.”The law will grant recognition to 53 of the approximately 100 outposts, expropriating 2,000 acres of private Palestinian land, according to anti-settlement group Peace Now.It will also deny Palestinian owners the right to claim the land until there is a “diplomatic resolution to the status of the territories.”The law allows justice minister Ayelet Shaked to expand the list of outposts that will gain legal status.

Source: Israel passes law to legalize theft of private Palestinian land | The Electronic Intifada

Rome’s police are on the hunt for unknown anti-pope plotters – The Local

Germs of selfishness’

The reference to the pope ignoring cardinals is believed to relate to four cardinals, including Burke, who sent a letter to Francis at the end of last year in which they challenged the head of the Roman Catholic Church over his teachings on the family.Burke publicly warned Francis in November it may be necessary to make a highly rare “formal act of correction” if the Argentine did not answer the letter – a bold and almost unheard of challenge to his authority.The mention of the removal of priests likely refers to allegations that the pope ordered the sacking of prelates from a Vatican department. In terms of the Franciscans, the pope intervened in the religious order early on to restrict the use of Latin mass, Cruxnow.com said.The 80-year old pontiff, who was elected in 2013, has proved a divisive figure, hailed by some for his “progressive” attitude – refusing to judge those guilty of church sins, such as single mothers and gay people – but criticized by others for being too “liberal”.The climate in the tiny Vatican city state has become increasingly acrimonious and watchers warn of a possible show-down with the conservatives. Francis said at the end of last year that he was “not losing any sleep” over the in-fighting.On Sunday he made no reference to the posters but called on the faithful to stay away from “polluting germs of selfishness, envy, slander”.

Source: Rome’s police are on the hunt for unknown anti-pope plotters – The Local

Trump Says Journalists ‘Have Their Reasons’ to Play Down Terror Threat – The New York Times – Trying to justify a coup of American Democracy

The theory that the news media is trying to whitewash terrorist attacks to protect Islam or Muslim migrants has been pushed by several right-wing news organizations, including the conspiracy-filled site Infowars, whose founder, Alex Jones, is an ally of Mr. Trump’s.The president’s comments on Monday were reminiscent of his claim during a visit last month to the headquarters of the Central Intelligence Agency in Langley, Va., that the news media had fabricated his feud with the intelligence community. Those remarks came only days after he likened American intelligence officials to Nazis, after several weeks in which he had denigrated their work.