‘There’s a lot more there’: Mueller ups the stakes in Trump-Russia inquiry

maldita infante

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Paul Manafort and Rick Gates were indicted on financial charges, but George Papadopoulos was the surprise as the Russia inquiry enveloped the capital

For a moment in court, the mask slipped. Paul Manafort glanced at his lawyer and smirked, like a TV mafia boss with reasons to be confident. It was the look of a man who, after decades of work as a lobbyist for murderous dictators in Africa and Asia, was not about to be rattled by the prospect of house arrest.

But less than a mile away, another man displayed rather less equanimity. Donald Trump woke before dawn on Monday and, instead of heading to the Oval Office, lingered in the White House residence. “Trump clicked on the television and spent the morning playing fuming media critic, legal analyst and crisis communications strategist, according to several people close to him,” the Washington Post reported.

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It’s no accident that sexual harassers rise up the ranks | Jessicca Valenti

For too long, we’ve lauded men’s domination and aggressiveness as a sign of leadership rather than possible red flags

Source: It’s no accident that sexual harassers rise up the ranks | Jessicca Valenti

Harvey Weinstein, for example, was well-known for being a bully. He yelled and demeaning the people around him, including men. Leon Wieseltier, formerly of The New Republic, was called “thuggish” and “gleefully mean.”

Roy Price, ousted at Amazon for harassment, wasn’t just accused of sexism in his interactions with women but in the way he chose programming. And Mark Halperin, accused by multiple women of harassment, once argued that there was “nothing illegal” about Donald Trump’s alleged groping.

This isn’t to say that we should only be wary of men who yell or hold explicitly sexist views. NPR is arguably one of the most progressive bastions of media around, yet when senior vice president Michael Oreskes was known to harass women, he was simply given a “father-son talking to” by another editor.

What would happen if we stopped viewing these kinds of behaviors as the remnants of men from “another era,” stopped excusing them as less-than-charming side effects of idiosyncratic brilliance?

It’s true, there’s nothing illegal about being a boor or a sexist jerk. You can’t fire someone for being an asshole. But you can notice particular kinds of bad behavior and flag them as a problem, rather than a boon, for a man’s career

Saturday Open Thread | Bob Corker Rips Trump for pressuring DOJ

Washington (CNN) Republican Sen. Bob Corker continued his criticism of President Donald Trump on Friday, saying Trump is pressuring the Justice Department to “pursue cases against his adversaries and calling for punishment before trials take place.”

“Like me, most Americans hope that our justice system is independent and free of political interference,” Corker said in a statement Friday afternoon. “President Trump’s pressuring of the Justice Department and FBI to pursue cases against his adversaries and calling for punishment before trials take place are totally inappropriate and not only undermine our justice system but erode the American people’s confidence in our institutions.”

It is the third time in recent weeks Corker has been highly critical of the President. The Tennessee Republican announced in September that he’s not running for re-election.

Republican Sen. Bob Corker blasts Trump for pressuring DOJ: “Totally inappropriate” https://t.co/oDSV3DcZmE https://t.co/bjU6xJC29B

— CNN (@CNN) November 3, 2017

Trump has repeatedly in the past 24 hours criticized the Justice Department, including in a radio interview where the President described himself as “unhappy” with the department. On Friday morning, Trump told reporters that Justice should be investigating Democrats.

Hariri Resigns As Lebanese Prime Minister All The Way From Saudi Arabia, Because Patriotism

I wonder though, did Saad Hariri know he wanted to resign last week – or even two days ago – when he was all over the place announcing plans and grand schemes to increase Beirut’s airport capacity, boost Lebanon’s tourism, work on further bringing Gulf investors back, and the like? Or when he filmed his Hala Bel Khamis video with a bunch of youth? Or did he simply wake up on November 4th, hop on his private jet to Saudi Arabia, probably without paying that extra tax his government imposed on us, and decided that he did not want to be prime minister anymore?

Whether we are going to actually have elections in 2018 becomes up in the air as well. What Hariri resigning also does is entice Lebanon’s Sunnism, further fueling their sense of being at the short end of the Lebanese stick, threatened merely for existing. Sectarianism is in full blown play, months before we head to the polls – if we do in the first place.

With threats of war, conflict, instability, the Lebanese population deserve

Nothing says patriotism and Lebanese sovereignty as much as your own prime minister announcing his resignation, and subsequently a nail in the coffin of Lebanese governance, all the way from a foreign country, on one of their megaphone TVs nonetheless.

Saad Hariri, who has been back as prime minister for nearly 11 months now, in a government that was billed as one of “national unity” suddenly remembered that – gasp – he is sharing his rule with Hezbollah, a party whom Hariri’s funders in Saudi Arabia do not approve of and whose entire existence is, as we’ve come to know, is mutually exclusive with Hariri’s raison d’etre.

Entre nous, I had totally forgotten up until this very moment that Hariri was prime minister and that Lebanon actually had a government. It’s not that difficult to forget such details when things have been pretty much the same, whether Hariri is there or not, and whether we have a government or not. Corruption is still omnipresent. Dysfunction still reigns supreme. And countries that are not Lebanese still dictate what goes on in our own home country. Their accomplishment? Burdening us with extra taxes and then leaving.

Case in point? Hariri resigned from Saudi Arabia, not even from our Serail, in protest of Iranian influence into Lebanon’s governance.

Hariri’s reasoning for his resignation – clearly dictated on him by his bosses abroad – are that the current situation in Lebanon is similar to the ambiance before the assassination of his father around 12 years ago, along with the threat that Hezbollah’s arms pose on an internal level after their escapades with the dictator in Damascus over the past few years.

Reasonable, perhaps, but it’s mostly a little too late, and exceedingly cowardly for a politician to leave the entire country in the dust as he rushes away to save his own ass, all other Lebanese be damned. Yet again, what can we expect from a ruling class whose priority was and will always be its own skin, and whose MO for ruling is to benefit as much as possible from being in power, with servicing us as Lebanese citizens being the last thing on their minds?

I wonder though, did Saad Hariri know he wanted to resign last week – or even two days ago – when he was all over the place announcing plans and grand schemes to increase Beirut’s airport capacity, boost Lebanon’s tourism, work on further bringing Gulf investors back, and the like? Or when he filmed his Hala Bel Khamis video with a bunch of youth? Or did he simply wake up on November 4th, hop on his private jet to Saudi Arabia, probably without paying that extra tax his government imposed on us, and decided that he did not want to be prime minister anymore?

Whether we are going to actually have elections in 2018 becomes up in the air as well. What Hariri resigning also does is entice Lebanon’s Sunnism, further fueling their sense of being at the short end of the Lebanese stick, threatened merely for existing. Sectarianism is in full blown play, months before we head to the polls – if we do in the first place.

With threats of war, conflict, instability, the Lebanese population deserves more than politicians who are willing to throw it under the bus on whimsical dictated moves. We deserve more than to wake up one day and realize we don’t have a government anymore, and that our security and well-being is even more up in the air just because a politician’s foreign bosses told him so.

Filed under: Lebanon Tagged: Government, Lebanon, Prime Minister, Resignation, Saad Hariri

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