- Speculation Soars As Mike Pence Says "There Will Be Very Important Announcements Tomorrow"
With the Trump cabinet filling up, but a number of key positions still to be announced, vice-president-elect Mike Pence told Fox News tonight that "there will be very important announcements tomorrow."
Vice President-elect @mike_pence: There will be very important announcements tomorrow. #NewsAlert pic.twitter.com/VOAXMsBhMa
— Fox News (@FoxNews) November 29, 2016
So who will it be?
POSTS ALREADY FILLED
WHITE HOUSE CHIEF OF STAFF
* Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus
CHIEF WHITE HOUSE STRATEGIST AND SENIOR COUNSELOR
* Steve Bannon, former head of the conservative website Breitbart News
ATTORNEY GENERAL
* Jeff Sessions, Republican U.S. senator from Alabama and senior member of the Senate Judiciary Committee (subject to Senate confirmation)
CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY DIRECTOR
* Republican U.S. Representative Mike Pompeo from Kansas (subject to Senate confirmation)
NATIONAL SECURITY ADVISER
* Michael Flynn, retired Army lieutenant general and former director of the Defense Intelligence Agency
UNITED NATIONS AMBASSADOR
* Nikki Haley, Republican South Carolina governor (subject to Senate confirmation)
EDUCATION SECRETARY
* Betsy DeVos, Republican donor and former chair of the Michigan Republican Party
HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES SECRETARY
* Tom Price, Republican U.S. representative from Georgia, orthopedic surgeon
* * *
CONTENDERS
Below are people mentioned as contenders for senior roles as the Republican president-elect works to form his administration before taking office on Jan. 20, according to Reuters sources and media reports.
TREASURY SECRETARY
* Steven Mnuchin, former Goldman Sachs Group Inc executive and Trump's campaign finance chairman
* Jeb Hensarling, Republican U.S. representative from Texas and chairman of the House Financial Services Committee
* Tom Barrack, founder and chairman of Colony Capital Inc
* John Allison, former chief executive officer of BB&T Corp
* David McCormick, president of hedge fund Bridgewater Associates LP
SECRETARY OF STATE
* Mitt Romney, 2012 Republican presidential nominee and former Massachusetts governor
* Rudy Giuliani, former Republican mayor of New York City
* John Bolton, former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations under Republican President George W. Bush
* Bob Corker, Republican U.S. senator from Tennessee and chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee
* Zalmay Khalilzad, former U.S. ambassador to Iraq
DEFENSE SECRETARY
* James Mattis, retired Marine general
* David Petraeus, former CIA director and retired Army general
* Tom Cotton, Republican U.S. senator from Arkansas
* Jon Kyl, former Republican U.S. senator from Arizona
* Duncan Hunter, Republican U.S. representative from California and early Trump supporter, member of the House Armed Services Committee
* Jim Talent, former Republican U.S. senator from Missouri who was on the Senate Armed Services Committee
* Rick Perry, former Republican Texas governor
* Stephen Hadley, former national security adviser under President George W. Bush
HOMELAND SECURITY SECRETARY
* Michael McCaul, Republican U.S. representative from Texas and chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee
* David Clarke, Milwaukee county sheriff and vocal Trump supporter
* Joe Arpaio, outgoing Maricopa County, Arizona, sheriff who campaigned for Trump
* Kris Kobach, Kansas secretary of state
* Frances Townsend, homeland security and counterterrorism adviser to former Republican President George W. Bush
ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY ADMINISTRATOR
* Jeff Holmstead, energy lawyer, former EPA official during George W. Bush administration
* Robert Grady, venture capitalist, partner in private equity firm Gryphon Investors
* Leslie Rutledge, Republican Arkansas attorney general
* Carol Comer, commissioner of the Indiana Department of Environmental Management
* Scott Pruitt, Oklahoma attorney general
ENERGY SECRETARY
* Harold Hamm, Oklahoma oil and gas mogul, chief executive of Continental Resources Inc
* Kevin Cramer, Republican U.S. Representative from North Dakota
* Robert Grady, venture capitalist, partner in private equity firm Gryphon Investors
* Larry Nichols, co-founder of Devon Energy Corp
* James Connaughton, chief executive of Nautilus Data Technologies and a former environmental adviser to President George W. Bush
* Rick Perry, former Republican Texas governor
INTERIOR SECRETARY
* Sarah Palin, former Alaska governor, 2008 Republican vice presidential nominee
* Jan Brewer, former Republican Arizona governor
* Forrest Lucas, founder of oil products company Lucas Oil
* Harold Hamm, Oklahoma oil and gas mogul, chief executive of Continental Resources Inc
* Robert Grady, venture capitalist, partner in private equity firm Gryphon Investors
* Mary Fallin, Republican Oklahoma governor
* Ray Washburne, chief executive of investment company Charter Holdings
* Cathy McMorris Rodgers, U.S. representative from Washington state and Republican Conference chair
COMMERCE SECRETARY
* Wilbur Ross, billionaire investor, chairman of Invesco Ltd subsidiary WL Ross & Co
* Linda McMahon, former World Wrestling Entertainment executive and two-time Republican Senate candidate
DIRECTOR OF NATIONAL INTELLIGENCE
* Admiral Mike Rogers, director of the National Security Agency
* Ronald Burgess, retired lieutenant general and former Defense Intelligence Agency chief
* Robert Cardillo, director of the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency
* Pete Hoekstra, former Republican U.S. representative from Michigan
* Rudy Giuliani, former Republican mayor of New York City
U.S. TRADE REPRESENTATIVE
* Dan DiMicco, former chief executive of steel producer Nucor Corp
LABOR SECRETARY
* Andrew Puzder, chief executive officer of CKE Restaurants
* Victoria Lipnic, U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission commissioner and former Labor Department official during the George W. Bush administration
TRANSPORTATION SECRETARY
* Elaine Chao, former labor secretary and deputy transportation secretary under Republican Presidents George W. Bush and George H.W. Bush, respectively. Chao is married to Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell
* Harold Ford, former Democratic U.S. Representative from Tennessee
HOUSING AND URBAN DEVELOPMENT SECRETARY
* Dr. Ben Carson, former 2016 Republican presidential candidate and retired neurosurgeon
SUPREME COURT VACANCY
The Trump transition team confirmed he would choose from a list of 21 names he drew up during his campaign, including Republican U.S. Senator Mike Lee of Utah, and William Pryor, a federal judge with the 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals.
- Assad On Verge Of Biggest Victory Since Start Of Syrian War With Imminent Capture Of Aleppo
The battle for one of the most contested Syrian cities in the nation’s long-running civil war, Aleppo, is approaching its climax. According to Reuters, the Syrian army and its allies announced the capture of a large swath of eastern Aleppo from rebels on Monday – by some estimates as much as 40% of the militant held part – in an accelerating attack that threatens to crush the opposition in its most important urban stronghold.
In a major breakthrough in the government’s push to retake the whole city, regime forces captured six rebel-held districts of eastern Aleppo over the weekend, including Masaken Hanano, the biggest of those. On Sunday, the 13th day of the operation, they also took control of the adjacent neighborhoods of Jabal Badra and Baadeeen and captured three others.
As is customary, when it comes to describing events in Syria, one has two biased narratives to choose from: one from the perspective of the Western forces, for whom the protagonist are the Syrian rebels, and Assad is the enemy, and then there is the Syrian/Russian point of view, in which the rebels are aligned with the Islamic State (and are supported by the US) and the liberation of the country entails removing both at the same time.
Covering the former “angle” first, Reuters writes that two rebel officials said the insurgents, facing fierce bombardment and ground attacks, had withdrawn from the northern part of eastern Aleppo to a more defensible front line along a big highway after losses that threatened to split their enclave. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights – a UK funded “think tank” operated by just one man, who in 2013 was responsible for the Assad “chemical attack” fabricated YouTube clip – said the northern portion of eastern Aleppo lost by the rebels amounted to more than a third of the territory they had held, calling it the biggest defeat for the opposition in Aleppo since 2012.
Thousands of residents were reported to have fled. A rebel fighter reached by Reuters said there was “extreme, extreme, extreme pressure” on the insurgents. Part of the area lost by the rebels was taken over by a U.S.-backed Kurdish militia from another part of Aleppo in what rebels described as an agreed handover, a rare example of cooperation between groups that have fought each other.
What appears to be the imminent loss of Aleppo by rebel forces has sent shockwaves of demoralization across the war-torn country, and hundreds of miles to the south, people have started to leave the rebel-held Damascus suburb of Khan al-Shih for other parts of the country controlled by insurgents under a deal with the government, the Observatory said.
As Reuters adds, capturing eastern Aleppo would be the biggest victory for President Bashar al-Assad since the start of the uprising against him in 2011, restoring his control over the whole city apart from a Kurdish-held area that has not fought against him.
For Assad, taking back Aleppo would shore up his grip over the main population centers of western Syria where he and his allies have focused their firepower while much of the rest of the country remains outside their control. More importantly, it would be seen as a victory for his allies, Russia and Iran, which have outmanoeuvred the West and Assad’s regional enemies through direct military intervention. It would be a major slap in the face for the US and its allies.
“What happened in the last two days is a great strategic accomplishment by the Syrian army and allies,” a fighter with a militia on the government side in the Aleppo area said.
Meanwhile, animosity toward the US is building even among its erstwhile “friends” as rebels said their foreign patrons including the United States have abandoned them to their fate in Aleppo.
While some of the rebels in Aleppo have received support from states such as Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the United States during the war, they say their foreign backers have failed them as Assad and his allies unleash enormous firepower.
“The situation is very bad and the reason is the round the clock shelling with all types of weapons,” said Abdul Salam Abdul Razaq, military spokesman for the Nour al-Din al-Zinki group, one of the main Aleppo rebel factions.
“There is very fierce fighting going on now and the regime and its supporters are destroying whole areas to allow themselves to advance,” he told Reuters. Another fighter said there was heavy attrition in “people and ammunition”.
Assad has gradually closed in on eastern Aleppo this year, first cutting the most direct lifeline to Turkey before fully encircling the east, and launching a major assault in September. A military news service run by Hezbollah declared the northern portion of eastern Aleppo under full state control. The Russian Defence Ministry said about 40 percent of the eastern part of the city had been “freed” from militants by Syrian government forces.
Russian President Vladimir Putin discussed the Syrian army’s advances with members of his Security Council on Monday, Russian news agencies quoted Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov as saying.
To preserve some pride, officials with two Aleppo rebel groups said rebels had withdrawn to areas they could more easily defend, particularly after losing the Hanano housing complex area on Saturday.
“It is a withdrawal for the sake of being able to defend and reinforce the front lines,” an official in the Jabha Shamiya rebel group told Reuters. In other words, it’s not a defeat, just a strategic retreat.
* * *
Meanwhile, the same narrative from a biased Russian angle, as reported earlier by RT, sounds as follows:
More than 3,000 civilians have left the eastern part of the besieged Syrian city of Aleppo in the last 24 hours, the Russian Center for Reconciliation said. It later reported that about 40 percent of the militant-held part of the city has been liberated. Some 3,179 people, including 1,519 children – among them 138 newborn babies – have left Eastern Aleppo through the ‘humanitarian corridors’ set up by Syrian government forces, Russian Reconciliation Center said on Monday. The center reported that 12 neighborhoods, comprising roughly 40 percent of the territory previously controlled by the militants, have been cleared.
According to the Russian Center for Reconciliation, more than 80,000 people live in the newly liberated areas of the eastern part of the city. It added that more than 5,000 people fled from the southern districts of eastern Aleppo, which are still controlled by the militants, to the areas held by government forces. More than 100 militants laid down their arms and left eastern Aleppo through the special corridors, the statement said.
Despite joint humanitarian efforts undertaken by the Syrian government and Russia, thousands of civilians are still kept in the eastern part of the city by militants. To minimize damage to the civilian population, the Russian and Syrian militaries suspended airstrikes and set up ‘humanitarian corridors’ for both non-combatants and militants willing to leave the area.
However, the corridors are vulnerable to militant small arms fire and shelling, which complicates the evacuation of civilians. RT’s Lizzie Phelan, reporting from Syria, said the government army’s advance in the eastern part of Aleppo “has enabled civilians to leave the area,” and that there are thousands of people desperate to flee. Those who managed to escape told RT crew the militants deprived them of all means to survive, including food and water.
“The militants are lying, they are holding us there, even now they are holding families [in the area]. They don’t let people go,” one man said.
“Every time we tried to flee they caught us and turned us back,” a young woman added.
As RT concludes, “currently, the Syrian Army is continuing their large-scale offensive in eastern Aleppo, targeting Al-Nusra Front and other radical militants still controlling the area. The troops have already established control over important blocks and districts in the eastern part of the city.”
* * *
Readers can decide which narrative they like better, but no matter how one spins it, whether Assad’s ongoing acts are of barbaric brutality or altruistically humanistic, should Aleppo fall to the Assad regime, the Syrian civil war will enter into a new phase, one where the regime will now have the clear upper hand, and will set back the US allied effort years, giving Trump few options if he wants to reengage in Syria: expand the US presence by orders of magnitude, including overt ground forces, or simply withdraw.
- Trump Ups the Ante Over Alleged Voter Fraud: Attacks CNN and Introduces New Hashtag #CorruptHillary
From the layman, those still inside of the matrix — bluepilled — fat and stupid off government sponsored roasted beef, the recent comments by Trump might appear to be coarse, almost petty. But if you take these comments under the context that Trump is in fact a 4 dimensional chess player and is laying a trap for bird brained Hillary supporters — which will soon be executed — laying waste to a cadre of people too stupid to see it coming, they are in fact brilliant. This evening Trump went on a twitter rampage, fucking with Jeff Zeleny, shill reporter from CNN, about his special AC360 report depicting Trump as a sore winner — merely shitposting on Twitter to distract people from the true source of angst: TRUMP LOST THE MEANINGLESS POPULAR VOTE (gasp!).
What’s noteworthy here is the rhetoric by Trump towards the former #CrookedHillary, seemingly graduating her crime status to #CorruptHillary by retweeting someone’s comments — making her title more conducive to a legal framework — perhaps laying the groundwork for a jail granting prosecution. His comments regarding democrat voter fraud are purposeful and I wouldn’t be surprised if Trump appointed someone to audit the election results once he took office. I seriously doubt this is an unpaved road the haggard democrats want to travel now — especially when all they have to ride on are Tim Kaine tricycles.Content originally generated at iBankCoin.com
- Worried You Are Putin's Pawn? Mainstream Media's Checklist For Avoiding Fake News
Submitted by Justin Raimondo via AntiWar.com,
No one outside of a few obsessed cranks would’ve noticed it if the Washington Post hadn’t given it front page prominence last week: a formerly obscure web site, propornot.com, which purports to identify a “Russian active measures” campaign with some very specific goals in mind As Post “reporter” Craig Timberg put it:
“The flood of ‘fake news’ this election season got support from a sophisticated Russian propaganda campaign that created and spread misleading articles online with the goal of punishing Democrat Hillary Clinton, helping Republican Donald Trump and undermining faith in American democracy, say independent researchers who tracked the operation.”
While the Post piece doesn’t link directly to the propornot site – because doing so would’ve exposed its laughably amateurish “methodology” for all to see – Timberg does mention their list of online Boris Badenovs, including not only Antiwar.com but also the Drudge Report, WikiLeaks, David Stockman’s Contra Corner, the Ron Paul Institute, LewRockwell.com, Counterpunch, Zero Hedge, Naked Capitalism, Truthdig, Truth-out, and a host of others. These sites, according to the Post, not only promoted a barrage of “fake news” with the aim of defeating Mrs. Clinton, but they did so at the behest of a “centrally-directed” (per propornot) intelligence operation undertaken by the Russians. So what did this “fake news” consist of? Timberg “reports”:
“Russia’s increasingly sophisticated propaganda machinery – including thousands of botnets, teams of paid human ‘trolls,’ and networks of websites and social-media accounts – echoed and amplified right-wing sites across the Internet as they portrayed Clinton as a criminal hiding potentially fatal health problems and preparing to hand control of the nation to a shadowy cabal of global financiers. The effort also sought to heighten the appearance of international tensions and promote fear of looming hostilities with nuclear-armed Russia.”
Never mind that it was Hillary Clinton herself who heightened international tensions by threatening military retaliation against the Russians for supposedly unleashing via WikiLeaks a flood of embarrassing emails. In a speech touted as outlining her foreign policy platform, she railed:
“You’ve seen reports. Russia’s hacked into a lot of things. China’s hacked into a lot of things. Russia even hacked into the Democratic National Committee, maybe even some state election systems. So, we’ve got to step up our game. Make sure we are well defended and able to take the fight to those who go after us.
“As President, I will make it clear, that the United States will treat cyber attacks just like any other attack. We will be ready with serious political, economic and military responses.”
According to the “experts” at propornot – granted anonymity by Timberg due to alleged fear of “Russian hackers” – to so much as note this clear threat is to brand oneself as a “Russian agent of influence.”
And what about Mrs. Clinton’s health problems – was reporting on this driven by Russian spies embedded in the alternative media? Or was it occasioned by this video, which saw her falling to the ground after leaving the 9/11 ceremony early? Are the folks at propornot and their fans at the Washington Post saying the amateur videographer who took that footage is a Russian secret agent? Were the television networks and other outlets that showed the footage “useful idiots,” to employ a favorite cold war smear revived by propornot? Given their criteria for labeling people agents of the Kremlin, the answer to these questions has to be yes – and now we are falling down the rabbit hole, in a free-fall descent into lunacy.
Propornot’s “criteria” for inclusion on their blacklist is actually an ideological litmus test: if you hold certain views, you’re in the pay of the Kremlin, or else an “unwitting agent” – as former CIA head Mike Morell said of Trump. If you say anything at all positive about Russia or Putin – or a long list of entities, like China or “radical political parties in the US or Europe” (does this include the GOP?) – it’s a dead giveaway. We’re told to “investigate this by searching for mentions of, for example, ‘russia’, on their site by Googling for ‘site:whateversite.com Russia’, and seeing what comes up.”
If only Sherlock Holmes had had Google at his disposal, those detective stories would’ve been a lot shorter!
The propornot site is filled with complex graphs, and the text is riddled with “scientific”-sounding phrases, but when you get right down to it their “methodology” boils down to this: if you don’t fit within a very narrow range of allowable opinion, either falling off the left edge or the right edge, you’re either a paid Russian troll or else you’re being “manipulated” by forces you don’t understand and don’t want to understand.
Did you cheer on Brexit? You’re Putin’s pawn!
Are you worried about “World War III, nuclear devastation, etc.” instead of being content in the knowledge that their preferred policy – unmitigated hostility toward Russia — would “just result in a Cold War 2 and Russia’s eventual peaceful defeat, like the last time”? Well, then, clearly you’re either on Putin’s payroll, or else you’d like to be.
Other proscribed opinions include: “gold standard nuttery and attacks on the US dollar,” believing “the mainstream media can’t be trusted,” and “anti-‘globalism.’” And to underscore their complete lack of self-awareness, we’re told that additional warning signs of Putinism are “hyperbolic alarmism” and “generally ridiculous over-the-top assertions.”
In their world, it isn’t hyperbolic alarmism to point to ramshackle Russia, with a GDP equal to Spain’s and a declining military budget that pales before our own, as an existential threat to the West. And if you’re a reporter for the Washington Post, which has destroyed what reputation it had by effectively becoming the house organ of the Democratic National Committee, generally ridiculous overt-the-top assertions, such as those proffered by propornot, are “news.”
The Post piece also cites an article published on the “War On The Rocks” web site (which is exactly what it sounds like). The authors, a triumvirate of neocons, avers that they’ve been “tracking” “Russian propaganda” efforts since 2014, and they’ve concluded that the Grand Goal of the Russkies is to “Erode trust between citizens and elected officials and democratic institutions” – as if this process isn’t occurring naturally due to the depredations of a corrupt and arrogant political class.
Another insidious theme of Russian “active measures” as identified by these geniuses is “Stoking fears over the national debt, attacking institutions such as the Federal Reserve, and attempts to discredit Western financial experts and business leaders.” So we mustn’t talk about the national debt – because to do so brands one as a cog in Putin’s propaganda machine. Gee, based on these criteria, we can only conclude that every vaguely conservative politician running for office in the last decade or so is part of the Vast Russian Conspiracy, not to mention numerous economists.
And that’s not all – not by a long shot. Here’s a list of more Forbidden Topics we’re not supposed to discuss, except maybe in whispers in the privacy of our own homes: “Police brutality, racial tensions, protests, anti-government standoffs, online privacy concerns, and alleged government misconduct are all emphasized [by the Vast Russian Conspiracists – ed.] to magnify their scale and leveraged to undermine the fabric of society.” After all, Russia Today is “emphasizing” these issues – so mum’s the word!
Yes, these people are serious – but why should anyone take them seriously? Why is the Washington Post “reporting” this nonsense – and putting it on the front page, no less? In short, what’s the purpose of this virulent propaganda campaign? After all, Hillary Clinton has been defeated, along with her campaign theme of “A vote for Trump is a vote for Putin.” What does a continuation of this losing mantra hope to accomplish?
The folks at propornot are explicit about their goal: they want the government to step in. They want to close down these “agents of influence.” In their own words, they want the FBI and the Department of Justice to launch “formal investigations” of the sites on their blacklist on the grounds that “the kind of folks who make propaganda for brutal oligarchies are often involved in a wide range of bad business.” They accuse the proprietors of the listed web sites – including us, by the way – of having “violated the Espionage Act, the Foreign Agents Registration Act, and other related laws.”
Oh, but they say they want to “avoid McCarthyism”! They just want to shut us down and shut us up.
These people are authoritarians, plain and simple: under the guise of fighting authoritarianism, they seek to ban dissenting views, jail the dissenters, and impose a narrow range of permissible debate on the public discourse. They are dangerous, and they need to be outed and publicly shamed.
To be included on their list of “subversives” is really a badge of honor.
- Former CNN Anchor Lays Out Rules For Covering Trump – "Be Relentless"
Former CNN White House correspondent, Frank Sesno, has taken it upon himself to define the guidelines by which the news media should cover Donald Trump. The rules were published by The Hill, where Sesno is a contributor, and urge reporters to be “relentless” yet “fair” and describes Trump is the “adversary.”
1. Be fair. Give Trump his due: He won. As his appointments and policies emerge, they should be examined in turn and in detail, looking at their component parts. Separate news from opinion. Be sure people know the difference between analysis and commentary. Get rid of pundits who are nothing more than partisan propagandists.
2. Be relentless. Relentless reporting means that journalists should demonstrate an attention span that goes beyond the last deadline or latest insult. Stay on the story. Focus on choices and tradeoffs that affect people’s lives. Tax cuts. Health care. Infrastructure. Immigration.
Zero in on the particulars. Cite examples. Use data, real numbers and real people. Seek out other views, different angles. Draw upon not only “experts” but also people across the country, including the voters who upended this election.
3. Focus on substance. The president-elect never laid out the deep detail behind his tweets and sound bites that got so much traction: repeal ObamaCare, rip up trade agreements, walk away from climate commitments, back off regulation, dump Dodd-Frank, rethink NATO.
The media can do less horse race and more human race. Go beyond personalities and politics. Do series reporting. Cable news — with 24 hours to fill can produce longer segments with graphics and serious conversation to dive deep. Talk radio should do less arguing and more asking.
4. Respect the adversary. The adversarial nature of the press — which Trump doesn’t like and takes personally — is the cornerstone of a free press. It is the a bedrock principle by which we hold the powerful to account and ferret out incompetence, hypocrisy and corruption. Thomas Jefferson was treated that way. So was Abraham Lincoln. And Ronald Reagan. They didn’t like it, but it was power’s price of admission.
Among the most dangerous sounds to come out of Trump’s mouth has been his disrespect, not just for individual journalists, but for journalism itself. Turning reporters from adversaries into enemies, inciting the crowd to the point that some reporters needed personal security protection during the campaign is the kind of horrific thing we expect to see in Venezuela or Russia or Cuba.
After months of not holding a press conference amid multiple FBI investigations and Clinton Foundation scandals, this is how the “news media” handled Hillary’s first press conference. We would very much appreciate Sesno’s opinion on whether or not the “How was your labor day weekend?” question fit within his guidelines…doesn’t seem all that relentless and maybe a little light on the substance as well…but we’re just a bunch of “Putin’s useful idiots” peddling “fake news”…what do we know?
Of course, language like Sesno’s opening paragraphs below simply prove that the crusade against Trump is nothing more than a personal vendetta against a candidate that repeatedly exposed, embarrassed and humiliated the mainstream media for their biased coverage.
He summons network anchors and top execs to complain about unfair coverage and unflattering photos. He upbraids cable networks for their unrelenting coverage. He cancels a session with The New York Times, suggesting his media war is just beginning, and then reschedules the meeting. He’s on the record, then off the record. He posts a two-and-a-half-minute YouTube video that lays out the first executive actions he plans to take, shunning the journalists he distrusts so much.
Last week’s acrimonious dance between President-elect Donald Trump and the media is just the warmup.
And while Sesno claims the high ground by asserting that journalists play a key “mediating role in our democracy,” the electorate just proved that they know better. While journalists should play a “key mediating role in our democracy”, the news media has proven time and again that they simply use their “access to decision-makers” to push carefully crafted narratives supporting their chosen political candidates and therefore can’t be trusted.
Say what you will about the news media, but journalists run interference between the public and the public officials who govern us.
Reporters have experience and, often, expertise. They can compare one comment, one promise to another. They have access to decision-makers and the loyal opposition. They play a mediating role in our democracy, where we hold government leaders accountable.
The best journalists are stand-ins for citizens, paid to go up close and ask tough questions.
Alas, as we’ve said before, the Trump administration welcomes this kind of frustrated backlash from disaffected reporters as it simply serves to maintain the focus of America’s anger on the corrupt media and almost ensures a Trump re-election in 4 years.
- The FT Asks "Is This The Elites' "Marie Antoinette" Moment?"
Authored by Wolfgang Munchau, originally posted at FT.com,
Some revolutions could have been avoided if the old guard had only refrained from provocation. There is no proof of a “let them eat cake” incident. But this is the kind of thing Marie Antoinette could have said. It rings true. The Bourbons were hard to beat as the quintessential out-of-touch establishment.
They have competition now.
Our global liberal democratic establishment is behaving in much the same way. At a time when Britain has voted to leave the EU, when Donald Trump has been elected US president, and Marine Le Pen is marching towards the Elysée Palace, we — the gatekeepers of the global liberal order — keep on doubling down.
The campaign by Tony Blair, former UK prime minister, to undo Brexit is probably the quaintest example of all. A more serious incident was the forecast by the Office for Budget Responsibility in the UK, which said last week that Brexit would have severe economic consequences. Coming only a few months after the economics profession discredited itself with a doomy forecast about the consequences of Brexit, this is an astonishing reminder of the inadequacy of economic forecasting models.
The truth about the impact of Brexit is that it is uncertain, beyond the ability of any human being to forecast and almost entirely dependent on how the process will be managed. “Don’t know” is the technically correct answer. Before the referendum, Project Fear was merely a monumental tactical miscalculation. Today it is stupidity. One of the debates was whether people should be listening to experts. We have moved beyond that. Because of a tendency to exaggerate, macroeconomists are no longer considered experts on the macroeconomy.
Out-of-touch former leaders and the economic establishment are not unique. In Italy, the political establishment is considering amending recently modified electoral law solely to keep Beppe Grillo’s rebellious Five Star Movement from power. This is intertwined in a complex way with next Sunday’s referendum on constitutional reform.
The electoral law that came into force in July gives the strongest party quasi-dictatorial powers. It was a stitch-up agreed in 2014 between Prime Minister Matteo Renzi’s Democratic party and former prime minister Silvio Berlusconi’s Forza Italia. Neither man then believed the Five Star Movement would ever be in a position to shake the cosy duopoly. No matter how the referendum on constitutional reforms ends, expect to see one of the most glaring efforts of gerrymandering in modern politics. But Mr Renzi’s problem is not the Five Star Movement. It is the voters.
The EU itself, too, is doubling down whenever it can. The trade agreement with Canada, and the yet to be concluded Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership, are about as popular today as the stationing of medium-range nuclear missiles in the 1980s. A popular insurrection is under way against them because people fear a reduction in consumer protection and a power grab by multinationals.
Why is this happening? Macroeconomists thought no one would dare challenge their authority. Italian politicians have been playing power games forever. And the job of EU civil servants is to find ingenious ways of spiriting politically tricky legislation and treaties past national legislatures. Even as the likes of Ms Le Pen, Mr Grillo and Geert Wilders of the far-right Dutch Freedom party head towards power, the establishment keeps acting this way. A Bourbon regent, in an uncharacteristic moment of reflection, would have backed off. Our liberal capitalist order, with its competing institutions, is constitutionally incapable of doing that. Doubling down is what it is programmed to do.
The correct course of action would be to stop insulting voters and, more importantly, to solve the problems of an out-of-control financial sector, uncontrolled flows of people and capital, and unequal income distribution. In the eurozone, political leaders found it expedient to muddle through the banking crisis and then a sovereign debt crisis — only to find Greek debt is unsustainable and the Italian banking system is in serious trouble. Eight years on, there are still investors out there betting on a collapse of the eurozone as we know it.
Mr Renzi could have used his ample political capital to reform the Italian economy instead of trying to cement his power. And imagine what would have been possible if Chancellor Angela Merkel had spent her even larger political capital on finding a solution to the eurozone’s multiple crises, or on reducing Germany’s excessive current account surpluses. If you want to fight extremism, solve the problem.
But it is not happening for the same reason it did not happen in revolutionary France. The gatekeepers of western capitalism, like the Bourbons before them, have learnt nothing and forgotten nothing.
- Defense Department Launches Probe Of Petraeus Sex Scandal Leaks
As reported earlier today, in what may be a tiebreaker option for Secretary of State in Trump’s administration with both Romney and Giuliani seemingly unable to get enough internal support to make it over the hurdle, the president elect met with David Petraeus, a former U.S. military commander in Iraq whose sharing of classified information with his biographer mistress, led to his resignation as CIA chief in 2012, to evaluate him for the top diplomatic position in the US government.
Petraeus said after meeting Trump that the New York businessman “basically walked us around the world” in their discussion. “He showed a great grasp of the variety of challenges that are out there and some of the opportunities as well,” Petraeus told reporters.
Trump’s initial response appeared favorable: “Just met with General Petraeus–was very impressed!” Trump tweeted shortly after the meeting which lasted one hour at Trump Tower in Manhattan.
Just met with General Petraeus–was very impressed!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) November 28, 2016
After he resigned from the CIA in November 2012, he avoided a criminal trial by agreeing to a plea deal in April 2015. It required him to serve two years on probation and pay a $100,000 fine on a misdemeanor charge of unauthorized possession of classified information. While that may create the unusual prospect of a cabinet secretary who could still be on criminal probation for his first months in office, Trump said during the presidential campaign that Petraeus’s violations paled compared to those of Trump’s opponent, former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who shared classified information on a private e-mail server.
So will Petraeus’ past come back to haunt him?
According to a reports by Reuters, the answer may, surprisingly, be no: “Petraeus’ past mishandling of classified documents is unlikely to be an obstacle to Trump offering him a top government post, said a source who has advised the transition team on national security. That is despite Trump harshly criticizing Democratic rival Hillary Clinton during the election campaign for using a private email server while she was secretary of state.”
“Other lives, including General Petraeus and many others, have been destroyed for doing far, far less,” Trump said at a rally in October. “This is a conspiracy against you, the American people, and we cannot let this happen or continue.”
However, as Bloomberg notes, FBI’s notorious director James Comey, who oversaw both the Petraeus and Clinton investigations, disagreed. In a July 7 hearing, he told the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee that Petraeus’s behavior was worse than Clinton’s, saying that he deliberately “lied” when first questioned by investigators. Regarding Hillary, Comey has said there was no evidence that Clinton or her aides had intended to break the law through careless handling of sensitive information. Federal prosecutors said Petraeus knew black binders he shared with Broadwell contained classified information, but he nonetheless provided them.
“So you have obstruction of justice, you have intentional misconduct and a vast quantity of information” that was highly classified, Comey said. “He admitted he knew that was the wrong thing to do. That is a perfect illustration of the kind of cases that get prosecuted.”
The issue could be an impediment for Petraeus in a confirmation hearing before the Foreign Relations Committee, according to Republican Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky, a libertarian who is opposed to most U.S. intervention abroad. “The problem they are going to have if they put him forward is there are a lot of similarities to Hillary Clinton,” Paul said Monday on CNN.
Now add one more: according to a report by AP this afternoon, the Defense Department has launched a leaks investigation related to the sex scandal that led to the resignation of former CIA Director David Petraeus. A U.S. official told the AP that investigators are trying to determine who leaked personal information about Paula Broadwell, the woman whose affair with Petraeus led to criminal charges against him and his resignation. AP adds that the information concerned the status of Broadwell’s security clearance.
Disclosure of the Broadwell information without official permission would have been a violation of federal criminal law.
The latest twist in this case – oddly similar to the reopening of the FBI probe into Hillary Clinton’s email server – will likely complicate Petraeus’ prospects of obtaining a Cabinet position in the Trump administration, resurfacing details of the extramarital affair and FBI investigation that ended his career at the CIA and tarnished the reputation of the retired four-star general.
Of course, in Hillary’s case, the FBI quickly closed its reopened probe into her email just over a week after it was reopened after her emails mysteriously emerged on the notebook computer of Anthony Weiner’s computer. For the Petraeus case to be a carbon copy, any renewed probe into his conduct would similarly have to be closed in a matter of days. We doubt that will happen, which is why as of this moment, absent a material change, it is likely safe to say that the former general can be counted out from the running for the Secretary of State position under the Trump administration.
- Furious Democrats Blast Stein's Recount Effort As Nothing But A "Scam"
With the passing of each new day, it’s growing more and more difficult to find anyone that is actually supportive of Jill Stein’s recount efforts (aka fundraising scam). The Obama administration has already weighed in saying that the election results “accurately reflected the will of the American people” while Clinton’s campaign attorney even confirmed they had not “uncovered any actionable evidence of hacking or outside attempts to alter the voting technology.”
Now, even prominent democratic strategists are turning on Stein as Joe Trippi described her efforts as a “waste of time and money.” Worse, in an accusation that may have more substantial consequences, some Democrats have gone so far as to echo Trump’s charge that re-tallying votes from the presidential race is just a “scam” being advanced by Stein, who has raised more than $6 million to fund potential recounts in Wisconsin, Michigan and Pennsylvania, three states critical to the Republican nominee’s win.
“It’s a waste of time and money. It is not going to change anything,” said Democratic strategist Joe Trippi, who served as campaign manager for former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean’s 2004 presidential campaign.
“I think it probably was the Stein people looking for a way to stay relevant, raise some money and take the stink off of them. Instead of everybody screaming, ‘You made Trump happen,’ she is counting the votes to change that whole narrative.”
Moreover, democrat strategist Robert Shrum confirmed that the “Clinton people would have preferred this not to happen” while adding that there is “no chance” that the recounts will change the election’s outcome.
Aides to former Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton have sought a middle ground on Stein’s push. The remaining Clinton campaign team will “participate” in the effort but is not actively supporting it.
In a Medium post on Saturday, Clinton lawyer Marc Elias wrote, “Because we had not uncovered any actionable evidence of hacking or outside attempts to alter the voting technology, we had not planned to exercise this option ourselves.”
The Clinton team’s involvement will likely be limited to having lawyers or other experts at recount sites to watch over the proceedings.
“My sense is that the Clinton people would have preferred this not to happen and are going to be involved only in a monitoring capacity,” said Robert Shrum, a Democratic strategist and a veteran of several presidential campaigns, including that of 2004 nominee John Kerry.
Shrum added that he believed “people are way over-excited about the thing.” There is, he added, “no chance” that it will change the election’s outcome.
Meanwhile, the practical and logistical hurdles to success are starting to mount for Stein. In order to get a state-wide recount in Pennsylvania, Stein needed affidavits from three residents in each of Pennsylvania’s 9,000 precincts to be filed by 5pm EST…something she apparently just thought about earlier today.
#Recount2016 in Pennsylvania can only be initiated by voters in each precinct submitting affidavits. Get started: https://t.co/NAN4Ryf6Pw
— Dr. Jill Stein (@DrJillStein) November 28, 2016
Moreover, this afternoon the state of Wisconsin released their official “Presidential Election Recount Cost Estimate” which came in at $3.5mm, or a mere 3x more that the $1.1mm that Stein had originally estimated and more than half of the $6.4mm she’s raised so far.
So, while you may be “With Her”, dear Jill, pretty much no one is with you. Though we’re sure you enjoyed extending your 15 minutes of fame and profiting from your fundraising scam, it’s now long past time for you to fade back into irrelevance and exit the national spotlight for good.
Finally, perhaps PJW summarizes the Jill Stein recount farce the best:
- 'Real' Money & Why You Need It Now, Part 2
In these volatile times, gold is more important than ever. Bonner & Partners' Bill Bonner explains in this two-part series (Part 1 here), the importance of 'real money' and why you need it now…
Why You Will Need Gold
What troubles my sleep is what is not in the textbooks.
Central banks are in the process of making trillions in government debt disappear. Governments borrow money that doesn’t exist. The debt is bought up by the central bank, which creates money for that purpose. The interest paid to the central bank on the debt is paid back to the U.S. Treasury (that’s the deal between the Fed and the U.S. government).
Then, when the bond matures, the “normal” thing would be for the borrower – the U.S. government – to repay the loan. This repayment money would have to come out of the economy and into the Fed’s vaults, thus reducing the amount of money in circulation and triggering an economic slump.
The federal government would have to run a surplus in order to actually be a net payer of debt rather than a net borrower. That’s not going to happen. Instead, it borrows more – to repay the old loan – and adds further fuel to hot asset markets. The debt is never settled… it goes on forever… eternally unpaid, forgotten in the bank’s vaults. It is as if it had disappeared completely.
The debt may disappear. But the credit – the money put into the economy to create the debt – lives on. It spends its days chasing asset prices. Stocks, bonds, real estate, art – all go up. Bread and automobiles remain more or less where they were. Who complains?
Keynesian economists Larry Summers of Harvard and Paul Krugman of Princeton practically drool when they think of it… a paradise where governments can redistribute wealth and undertake huge capital investment projects – roads, hospitals, bridges, harbors – at no cost. The feds get to borrow money, hire people, and spend on pet projects. Then, as if by magic, the debt vanishes. What could be better?
The only thing that might be better would be negative interest rates, in which the government is actually paid to borrow. That is already happening. In Europe, rates have fallen so low that currently, Switzerland can borrow for 10 years at a MINUS 0.2% rate.
This allows the government – and only the government, because it is the only institution that can positively, absolutely guarantee that you will get your money when you are supposed to – to go to heaven without dying.
Further disturbing my sleep has been a report from Japan that the central bank has intervened directly in the stock market. The significance of this is staggering. Because now, the feds have in place the means – apparently – to take control of nearly all our wealth.
The government borrows. The central bank buys its debt. Then it never asks to be repaid.
As Japan shows, it can also buy stocks with the same free money. Bidding against a buyer who gets his money for nothing will be impossible. Gradually, the feds could acquire a controlling interest in almost all the world’s publicly listed companies. And who would object? Stock prices would go through the roof.
As for the nation’s debt – public and private – who minds if the feds buy it… and disappear it? Nobody.
As the price of debt goes up, the financial industry becomes richer. And government – and recipients of government money – are happy, too; the money just keeps flowing in their direction.
Leading economists – notably Ken Rogoff of Harvard and Willem Buiter of Citigroup – also encourage the feds to outlaw cash… giving them a trifecta of financial control. They would have a grip on America’s equity, debt, and bank accounts.
Already, government-sponsored agencies Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are backing approximately 60% of new U.S. mortgages since 2008. Meaning the feds effectively own $4.8 trillion worth of U.S. housing. The Federal Reserve owns a further $4.5 trillion in debt. And through the student loan program, 40 million young people count on the feds to not foreclose on their lives.
The only significant asset that remains out of their grasp is gold. And they may grab that soon.
It wouldn’t be the first time. In 1933, Franklin Roosevelt’s Executive Order 6102 decreed that all gold should be turned in to the U.S. Treasury at $20 an ounce. Then, after the gold was in his hands, he was able to devalue the U.S. dollar by 75%, pricing gold at $35 an ounce.
Gold was cash back then. And Roosevelt was trying to avoid the very thing we’ve seen happen in Argentina, Cyprus, and, most recently, Greece – a dash for cash.
With free money available to them, the feds today could easily close that door, too – declaring private gold reserves illegal. They might offer to buy it for, say, $1,500 an ounce. Who would object to a 25% premium?
The feds are the lenders and buyers of last resort. As the quality of assets declines, more and more assets – debt and equity – end up in their hands. Gradually, they control more and more of the capital structure – bought with free money under cover of financial necessity. Gradually, there is less and less “free” in free enterprise. And gradually, there is less and less real wealth created.
Gradually, too, the noose tightens around your financial neck, as there are fewer and fewer doors open and fewer places that are safe to keep your wealth.
No one likes to have his wealth “nationalized” at the point of a gun. But everyone likes having it bought from him for more than it is worth.
This is what has happened already in the QE programs in Europe and America… and even more so in Japan’s QE program (with an extra helping of equity buying). How much more of it the world can take is anybody’s guess. No one knows how far this can go. But as far as I know, no economy has ever been successfully Sovietized by printing money and using it to buy assets.
Don’t Sweat the Ice Age
Many economists are foretelling a long period of sluggish growth and low price inflation. The economy may want to go into a deflationary hibernation, they say. But since the feds can print and spend with impunity, it may be a long time coming. Plus, if the government is able to force people into bank accounts – and out of cash – it will be able to tax savings and further stimulate spending.
With these new tools, the feds should be able to prevent a real correction for many years. They suggest that we prepare for an economic “Ice Age,” with little change year to year.
Asset prices won’t fall because the central bank is actively buying bonds, and maybe even stocks, adding new money to the financial economy. Consumer prices won’t rise because there is no real growth in demand. Debt will increase – but it is hidden and forgotten in central-bank vaults.
Maybe so. But I don’t think you should expect it. It could lead to a dangerous complacency. The feds might be able to hold this together and they might not. This Ice Age formula – dousing a debt-soaked economy with more debt – is not a way to build a healthy economy. It is just a way to shift real resources to the government and its cronies without causing either a frightening spell of inflation or deflation.
It might work for a while. But the falcon of asset prices becomes deaf to the falconer of the real economy. Then, in a kind of financial never-never land, he gets lost completely and flies into a tree. Asset prices fall to the ground. Investors panic. Lenders call their loans. Art investors rush to auction off their tableaux. Lines form at ATMs.
I am not going to speculate on how or when this occurs.
“If you’re in a theater and one person walks calmly to an exit, it doesn’t attract much notice,” said Vern Gowdie, an Australian colleague. “Two… three… probably not much reaction either. But if you have three people suddenly run for an exit, you’ll have a panic.”
What then?
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