Shared posts

04 Jan 23:29

Sanders Throws Gauntlet At Trump: Keep Your Promise Or Admit You Lied!

by Karoli Kuns

Bernie Sanders took to the Senate floor today to challenge President-elect Trump to keep his campaign promises or admit he lied to those who voted for Trump.

After recounting all of the times Trump promised he wouldn't touch Medicare or Social Security, Sanders dropped the wedge.

I'll let the (rough) transcript speak for itself, or better yet, watch the video above.

Well, it seems to me that Mr. Trump right now has got to do one of two things.

Number one, if all that he was talking about was campaign rhetoric, then what he was obliged to do now is to tell the American people, "I was lying. Yeah, I said that I would not support cuts to Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, but I was lying. It was a campaign ruse. I just said what came to my mind to get votes. I have no intention of keeping my word."

And if that's what he believes, if that's what the case was, let him come forward and say that. But if that is not what the case is, if he was sincere, then I would hope that tomorrow or maybe today he could send out a tweet and tell his Republican colleagues to stop wasting their time and all of our time.

For Mr. Trump to tell the American people that he will veto any proposal that cuts Medicare, that cuts Medicaid and that cuts Social Security.

read more

03 Jan 06:43

Wall Street Journal's top editor says they won't call Trump a liar when Trump lies

by Cory Doctorow

On this weekend's Meet the Press, WSJ editor in chief Gerard Baker said that even when he was clear that Trump had uttered a falsehood, his paper would not call that falsehood a lie, because to do so would ascribe "moral intent" to Trump; instead, the WSJ will call Trump's lies "challengeable" and "questionable." (more…)

02 Jan 17:13

Blue feed, red feed: side-by-side comparisons of social media feeds by politics

by Andrea James

One of the most compelling data visualization projects from this year was Wall Street Journal's Blue Feed, Red Feed, which lets readers see exactly how divergent social media feeds have become, depending on someone's media diet. By coincidence, I capped an example that puts Boing Boing in their blue feed column. (more…)
01 Jan 17:47

Kurt Eichenwald: Fox News Is As Big A Liar As Trump

by Frances Langum
Kurt Eichenwald: Fox News Is As Big A Liar As Trump

It's about time someone told the rest of the media to stop cowering to Fox News. They. Don't. Matter. And by the way? You are never going to get a job there, Mr. Reporter, so stop hedging your coverage of them.

---Rough Transcript---

JONATHAN CAPEHART, MSNBC: Concerns for Donald Trump's conflicts of interest are grow growing by the day. According to the President-elect, it's not a big deal. The media and American public remain in the dark about Trump's financial entanglements all over the globe. We've never seen his tax returns and now he is saying a presser is scheduled for "sometime in January." Trump has not held a true press conference since July and tweets and brief impromptu question and answer sessions outside his Mar-a-Lago resort don't count. Amidst outright lies from the President-elect. that "millions of illegals voted for his opponent" means the media must be vigilant with accuracy, context and tireless questioning. How do we in the media arise to the occasion?

..Kurt [Eichenwald], I have to start with you. Rather than address the legal controversy, Trump defends it on Twitter and complains about his son being pressured out of doing a fund-raiser. Here's the tweet below,

30 Dec 17:04

George Eastman Museum releases a quarter million photographs online

by Andrea James

Thanks to an online platform overhauled and reopened last month, visitors can now view hundreds of thousands of images in the George Eastman Museum collection. Works include vintage materials like Eadweard J. Muybridge's famous photographic studies of animal movement and 450 works by Andy Warhol, including this self-portrait. (more…)
29 Dec 05:44

Paul Ryan Wants To Shut Down Live Video Streams In The House

by Karoli Kuns

When Democrats staged a sit-in on the House floor in June over gun safety laws to protect children and innocent bystanders, Paul Ryan shut down the CSPAN cameras to deny the public access to their protest.

Undeterred, Democratic congressmen began using live-streaming services like Facebook Live to keep their message from being squelched.

Paul Ryan wasn't happy about that, and plans to put an end to live streams, according to Bloomberg News.

Under the proposed new rules package, which was seen by Bloomberg, members could face a $500 fine through deductions to their paychecks for a first offense of using electronic photography or audio or visual recording, as well as for broadcasting from the chamber’s floor. A $2,500 fine would be leveled for the next such offense and each subsequent violation.

The new rules also clarify which conduct is to be deemed disorderly or disruptive during floor proceedings, including blocking access by other members to microphones or what is known as “the well” -- the front of the chamber.

How is this not a violation of the First Amendment? Elected officials in a building paid for and maintained by taxpayers to conduct the public's business clearly have a First Amendment right to be heard, right?

read more

22 Dec 00:43

Canada's telcoms regulator declares internet an "essential service"

by Cory Doctorow

animation

After decades of allowing anti-competitive mergers in the TV, radio, phone and internet sectors, Canada's telcoms regulator, the CRTC, has taken an important step to address the underperformance of Canada's monopolistic, bumbling phone companies and cable operators, declaring internet access to be an "essential service" and thus something that operators must offer in all territories in which they operate. (more…)

19 Dec 20:31

Photo





18 Dec 20:17

Trump team collusion with Russia an 'open question,' says Clinton aide - Reuters


Reuters

Trump team collusion with Russia an 'open question,' says Clinton aide
Reuters
U.S. President-elect Donald Trump speaks during a USA Thank You Tour event in Mobile, Alabama, U.S., December 17, 2016. REUTERS/Lucas Jackson. By David Morgan | WASHINGTON. WASHINGTON A top aide to Hillary Clinton's presidential campaign ...
Podesta suggests Trump campaign may have colluded with RussiaWashington Examiner (blog)

all 490 news articles »
18 Dec 20:16

SNL's Hillary Clinton Channels Love Actually To Woo Electoral College Voter

by Nicole Belle

I take a back seat to no one on my love for Love Actually (hear that, Tweety?), but this might be the most perfect use of the "To Me, You're Perfect" scene, where Hillary Clinton (as portrayed by Kate McKinnon) silently woos a Electoral College voter to please, PLEASE not vote for Donald Trump today.

Because Bish, he cray!

This is not the only appeal to the Electoral College voters to change the outcome. Earlier this week, celebrities like Martin Sheen, Debra Messing, James Cromwell and Bob Odenkirk put out a video asking the voters to vote for anyone but Trump.


18 Dec 20:08

NAACP Announces Lawsuit Against North Carolina Coup

by Frances Langum

It took all of zero seconds for the decision to be made, bet.

On this morning's AM Joy, Reverend William Barber, President of the North Carolina NAACP, announced that his group plans to sue (likely in Federal Court because that's how you deal with the well-known garage band Jim Crow and the Confederacy) over this week's Republican legislature coup.

Barber didn't mince words connecting this week's power grab with the segregationist impulse that has defined southern Republican politics since 1964.

________________

[VIDEO] PROTESTOR: I can defend my country. But somebody that tell us we can't exercise our constitutional rights. So when I knock on this door today, I knock on this door for freedom! I knock on this door for democracy! I knock ON this door for North Carolina!

read more

16 Dec 17:37

McCrory Is Having Citizens Arrested For Protesting His Disgusting Coup In NC

by Sarah P
McCrory Is Having Citizens Arrested For Protesting His Disgusting Coup In NC

Pat McCrory and his GOP cronies in North Carolina pushed through an insane amount of bills in the last 24 hours with one goal in mind - to limit the power of the incoming Democratic Governor, Roy Cooper. The whole thing is one big power grab and a giant temper tantrum because McCrory lost. Waa waa.

Well, tonight things have taken a nasty turn. Following this coup, protestors have descended upon the North Carolina State House. The New Civil Rights Movement has an excellent post with details about exactly what is going on. Some of what they are posting:

Chapel Hill council person was arrested:

Media is being kicked out:

read more

16 Dec 00:37

Should Trump Be Investigated?

by Monika Bauerlein and Clara Jeffery
It's going to take everything we've got to cover the Trump administration. Please make a tax-deductible donation to Mother Jones to help us do it

We really should have seen this coming. On Monday, amid a whirlwind of shocking news about Russian interference with America's election, Donald Trump had some news of his own—or rather, non-news. He canceled a press conference at which he was supposed to explain how he would disentangle the conflicts of interest posed by his far-flung business interests.

It wasn't the first time Trump had bailed on answering questions: From the time he declared that "we're working on" releasing his tax returns, to when he vowed to produce evidence that he hadn't groped a woman on a plane, to the promised press conference to clear up his wife's immigration history, this is a pattern we're sure to see again.

But why is it only now, well past the election, that Trump is being pushed to address how he would deal with banks to which he is in debt, or foreign leaders who have a say over his company's projects? Those questions were there for anyone to see, and investigate, the minute he announced he was running. And yet, they weren't a focus for media, with a few notable exceptions, until far too late in the game.

Why? Simply put: Math. We've gone into the problems with the dominant media business model before—advertising pays fractions of a penny per click, which means that publishers have to pump out buckets of fast, cheap content to make ends meet, and that leaves little opportunity for serious investigation. Trump understands this well, and he plays that dynamic like a violin.

Grim, right? But there is an alternative to this model. Reader support has allowed MoJo reporters to go after essential stories, no matter what it takes.

In normal times, right now we'd be in the middle of the kind of routine end-of-year fundraising drive many nonprofits do in December ("We need to raise $250,000 by December 31!"). But these aren't normal times; in the weeks since the election, we've seen record interest in the journalism we do, because more and more people see this work—digging for the truth and reporting it without fear—as essential for our democracy.

So enough with the tired marketing pitches. We want to make the case for your support based on the journalism itself. We want to show why it's worth your investment. (And of course, if you already get it, you can make your tax-deductible one-time or monthly donation now!)

Take that Trump conflict-of-interest issue. Back in June, MoJo reporter Russ Choma and our Washington bureau chief, David Corn, broke the story of Trump's remarkable relationship with Deutsche Bank—a huge German financial institution that has lent Trump a lot of money. About $364 million, to be exact.

That's some serious leverage over a man who is worth, by one of the more generous estimates, about $3.7 billion. And it gets worse: Deutsche Bank manipulated interest rates before the financial crash, and the federal government wants them to pay a $14 billion settlement. Deutsche Bank doesn't like that. As president, Russ and David pointed out, Trump "would have a strong disincentive to apply pressure on Deutsche Bank."

Just consider that for a second: The president's personal business interests are in direct conflict with those of America's taxpayers.

When we first published that piece, Trump wasn't even the nominee yet. Hillary Clinton was still fighting off Bernie Sanders' challenge. It was, at that point, just a warning sign—a check-engine light, you might say, for democracy.

But that's not what the rest of the media universe was concerned with at the time. The headlines were dominated by horse race polls, and in the Hollywood Reporter, veteran media writer Michael Wolff recounted chatting with Trump over a pint of vanilla Häagen-Dazs as the candidate gushed about media moguls. On Rupert Murdoch: "Tremendous guy and I think we have a very good relationship." On former CBS and Viacom Chairman Sumner Redstone: "He'd give me anything. Loved me." On current CBS Chairman Les Moonves (who famously noted that Trump's bomb-throwing "may not be good for America, but it's damn good for CBS"): "Great guy. The greatest. We're on the same page. We think alike." And so on.

You've got to discount all that for the Trump factor—nothing he says can be assumed to be true. But what we do know is that, as Wolff notes, Trump "has a long, intimate relationship with nearly every significant player in the media…He may know few people in Washington, and care about them less, but he knows his moguls and where they rank on the modern suck-up-to list."

The Moonveses and Redstones of the world don't issue memos directing their newsrooms to ignore the GOP nominee's scandalous conflicts of interest. But they don't need to. The corporations they run are built to maximize advertising revenue, which comes from maximum eyeballs at minimum cost. There are people in all of their news divisions who push back against that gravitational force, but everyone knows what the bottom line is.

Russ, for his part, kept plugging away. On August 15, he published a story headlined, "Trump Has a Huge Conflict of Interest That No One's Talking About." The Trump International Hotel in Washington, Russ reported, is a $200 million venture, run by Ivanka Trump, for the hospitality branch of the president-elect's company. Its building is federal property, and to lease it Trump agreed to pay way more than any other bidder. If the hotel doesn't turn a profit, it will have to negotiate with the federal government—run by the hotel's owner—to pay less. If it does turn a profit, it will have to charge rates way above any other Washington hotel.

Right now, the cheapest room in January—inauguration weekend is sold out—goes for about $625 a night, though you can snag the Ivanka Suite for $1,050 and the Postmaster Suite for $4,450. And already, corporate honchos and foreign diplomats are lining up to pay. ("Spending money at Trump's hotel is an easy, friendly gesture to the new president" for foreign dignitaries, the Washington Post reported a week after Election Day. One diplomat told the paper, "Why wouldn't I stay at his hotel, so I can tell the new president, 'I love your new hotel!'") As banana-republic palm-greasing goes, it's an incredible bargain.

Some reporters would have called it a day after that initial story. But Russ, like all great journalists, is a bit of a pit bull. He worked for a newspaper in New Hampshire before joining the watchdog Center for Responsive Politics and then making the jump to MoJo. He's always been drawn to money and influence reporting, he says, because "if you ask enough questions, that's where you wind up. You talk about nearly any national policy issue, it almost always leads you to campaign donations and lobbyists. And with Trump, we have this new dimension—that his own personal wealth seems to be an even more consuming passion. There's so much we don't know, it's mind-boggling."

Russ kept documenting Trump's conflicts, reporting on his massive debt and (in a story together with our reporter Hannah Levintova) his business in Russia, including his relationship with an oligarch close to Putin—so close that Trump tweeted, "Do you think [Putin] will become my new best friend?"). He was the first, after the election, to really drill into a term that quickly became part of everyone's political vocabulary: the emoluments clause, in which the Constitution forbids the president from taking gifts from foreign governments. None other than George W. Bush's former White House ethics lawyer, Richard Painter, told Russ that an emoluments clause violation would make "Hillary's emails look like a walk in the park."

The day Trump announced that he was canceling the press conference focused on his business, Russ tallied up all the debt Trump owes. Take a moment to absorb the enormity of what this chart represents:

Russ (along with a handful of others) had labored away at this issue for six months when it finally became headline material for the rest of the press. Today, outlets from the New York Times to National Public Radio are digging in, and 17 members of Congress are demanding an investigation.

And here's the key: Russ was able to keep going because of you. No advertiser or other source of revenue would have made that work possible. With news, you get what you pay for.

Investigative reporting doesn't always have an immediate, visible impact. Sometimes you see a dramatic event—like when the US Department of Justice announced last summer that it was no longer going to do business with private prison companies shortly after we published a big investigation. Sometimes it's more opaque and slow-building, as with the conflict-of-interest reporting that has finally broken through. But the results always come—and that, not a stock certificate or a tote bag, is the reward for our readers. (Though if you're in the market for a tote bag, or a Hellraiser baby onesie, we have those too!)

In the next four years, we're going to focus on one thing above all others: fighting creeping authoritarianism and the lies that advance it. We'll fight them with truth, by digging deep and calling a spade a spade, whether anyone else is willing to or not. (Just a couple of weeks ago, CBS—"great guy" Les Moonves' network—amplified Team Trump's slur against democracy, that "millions" of people might have voted illegally, without so much as a qualifier.)

And we're going to need you to join us in that fight. You can make a tax-deductible one-time or monthly donation to support our work.

Make no mistake: Democracy's fabric is under threat. Not by a coup d'état or an invasion from outside, but because we have allowed its critical institutions—from access to the ballot to the vigor of the press—to fray.

At a time like this, it's important to remember that trends don't just go one way.

Here at Mother Jones, we've seen that there is an enormous appetite for vigorous, fearless reporting—now more than ever. In October and November, visits to our website were 50 percent higher than usual, approaching 15 million each month. And while we don't force you to pay to read our stories—because it's important for this journalism to be accessible as widely as possible—a growing number of you are choosing to subscribe or donate. That is incredibly heartening, because it means you feel the same urgency we do: Right now, none of us needs to be motivated by some arbitrary fundraising goal. Covering Trump, and what he represents, will take everything we've got.

We know there's a lot of competition for your tax-deductible year-end support. We hope that supporting independent journalism makes the cut. Readers, as you know, account for 70 percent of our budget. Without you, our pages would be empty save for advertising and cats.

That might be something Trump would like to see. But you—and we—are not going to let it happen.

16 Dec 00:35

Who voted and who didn't?

by noreply@blogger.com (digby)
Who voted and who didn't?

by digby


This post election polling offers some interesting details:




Here are just a few of the results:







There's more here. 


15 Dec 17:52

hominishostilis: destinyrush: Denzel Washington blasts...













hominishostilis:

destinyrush:

Denzel Washington blasts journalists everywhere for promoting fake news.

Last week on the red carpet for his new movie “Fences”, Denzel Washington was asked about the hot issue of these days - fake news, in particular a fake story that he appeared to be involved in. Not only did he nail the answer, he gave journalists everywhere a very important lesson. 

“Anything you practice you’ll get good at. Including BS.”

Watch video

#FakeNews

Guys got a point

15 Dec 14:38

We Need More Electors Like This Texan In The Electoral College

by LeftOfCenter
We Need More Electors Like This Texan In The Electoral College

On Monday, December 19th the Electoral College convenes and chooses the U.S. President, formally. Donald Trump's frightening conduct, thus far is unnerving a 'tremendous' number of Americans. This bizarre scenario is why the Electoral College system was created by Alexander Hamilton.

The Founding Fathers adopted the Electoral College to ensure that the presidency would not go to an unqualified candidate who won over the masses with his “talents for low intrigue, and the little arts of popularity,” as Alexander Hamilton put it.

Many say the election of a reality-TV star with extensive foreign ties is exactly the kind of scenario the Electoral College was created for — especially because Hillary Clinton won the popular vote by more than 2.8 million votes.

Christopher Suprun, the elector speaking in the video, is not going to allocate his Republican vote to Donald Trump, in good conscience, how could he? He agrees with Keith Olbermann's assertion that Trump is the 'President-non-elect.'

Suprun says in this MoveOn.org video:

Fifty of my Republican colleagues who are experts in foreign policy and national security and said he would be a danger if he were president. The CIA report is frightening it should concern every American

read more

14 Dec 16:24

Lalah the cat is a master of the climbing wall

by Caroline Siede
Screen Shot 2016-12-12 at 7.58.21 PM

Lalah lives at the Boulbaka Bouldering Gym in Naha, Okinawa, Japan.

(more…)

13 Dec 22:10

How Russia pulled off a cyberwar invasion of America, according to the New York Times

by Xeni Jardin

Illustration: Rob Beschizza

Huge New York Times investigation on Russia's role in the elections, and Trump's upset victory: "The Perfect Weapon: How Russian Cyberpower Invaded the US.” It's a riveting tic-tock narrative, and no doubt those in the intel/security biz will debate the contents.

An examination by The Times of the Russian operation — based on interviews with dozens of players targeted in the attack, intelligence officials who investigated it and Obama administration officials who deliberated over the best response — reveals a series of missed signals, slow responses and a continuing underestimation of the seriousness of the cyberattack.

The D.N.C.’s fumbling encounter with the F.B.I. meant the best chance to halt the Russian intrusion was lost. The failure to grasp the scope of the attacks undercut efforts to minimize their impact. And the White House’s reluctance to respond forcefully meant the Russians have not paid a heavy price for their actions, a decision that could prove critical in deterring future cyberattacks.

The low-key approach of the F.B.I. meant that Russian hackers could roam freely through the committee’s network for nearly seven months before top D.N.C. officials were alerted to the attack and hired cyberexperts to protect their systems. In the meantime, the hackers moved on to targets outside the D.N.C., including Mrs. Clinton’s campaign chairman, John D. Podesta, whose private email account was hacked months later.

Even Mr. Podesta, a savvy Washington insider who had written a 2014 report on cyberprivacy for President Obama, did not truly understand the gravity of the hacking.

The Perfect Weapon: How Russian Cyberpower Invaded the U.S. [nytimes.com]

14hack1-master675

Above: Charles Delavan, a Clinton campaign aide, incorrectly legitimized a phishing email sent to Mr. Podesta’s personal account. One of the many images accompanying this exhaustive NYT investigative feature.

We agree with Chris Hayes.

13 Dec 14:50

Time to Fight Like Hell

by Clara Jeffery

Decades from now, when the election of 2016 is distilled to its essence, what will that be? Many hoped the central lesson would be a shattered glass ceiling and a cementing of the Obama legacy. An expansion of rights and tolerance.

Instead, a small electoral majority chose a candidate who openly embraced bigotry, who slurred war heroes and mocked the disabled, who bragged of sexual assault, who said he'd roll back the protections of a free press, who was cheered on by white supremacists, who said he'd upend our alliances and the world's long-overdue climate deal, and who is ignorant and cavalier about the basics of safeguarding a nuclear arsenal.

There is no way to sugarcoat it. The election of Donald Trump is a brutal affront to women, people of color, Jews and Muslims, and all who value kindness and tolerance. Paranoia and divisiveness won the day. If we feared that the Trump campaign would give white nationalists and other political predators a road map for a lasting presence as a disruptive opposition, we have instead handed them the keys to the Oval Office, and the nuclear codes.

In the horrible months leading up to the election, there were moments we all crossed our fingers and hoped the Trump campaign's predilection for inflaming bigotry might, ultimately, improve the health of the body politic. Maybe he represented a high fever that, once broken, would leave us more immune to old hatreds. Maybe, just as videos of police shootings shoved the most heinous forms of structural racism into the social-media feeds of white America, so would the actions of Trump and his most virulent supporters cast a light on an ugliness that needed to be confronted to be at last overcome.

Except, it seems this ugliness was far, far more pervasive than we had let ourselves imagine. With every chant of "build the wall," with every racist tweet, with every "Trump that bitch" T-shirt, his supporters hardened—to the horror of more than half of those who voted (and many who didn't), and despite the entreaties of political, diplomatic, scientific, and economic experts.

It would be counterproductive to say, as some have, that all those who voted for Trump are stone-cold racists. People voted for him for various and complicated reasons. But it must be said that all who voted for Trump did not find naked bigotry and misogyny to be disqualifying. Some discounted it, and some thrilled to it. That is gutting.

The next weeks and months and years will be spent analyzing how we got here. It will be a grim accounting for every institution, and a painful airing of recriminations among families and friends.

As the author and comedian Baratunde Thurston put it, Trump's campaign is best understood as a denial-of-service attack on our political system. Despite or perhaps because he is a thin-skinned, shallow narcissist, he instinctively found weaknesses in our national firewall. He knew that with 16 primary opponents, each would happily support his attacks on the manhood, looks, and dignity of the others, until it was too late and the momentum was on his side.

He realized that his bombastic, bigoted statements would be heralded by some corners of the media, mocked by others, and given wall-to-wall coverage by all. Newsroom traditions of putting separate teams of reporters on each candidate also helped ensure that Hillary Clinton's email scandals were given the same weight as the mountain of evidence of Trump's wrongdoing. The nation's great newspapers and networks did vital work, but when it came to proportionality, they utterly failed. And the obsession with polling aggregators and fancy widgets, coupled with the failings of the polls themselves, lulled people into slacktivism, inaction, or even showy obstructionism.

And social media failed us most of all. Even as armies of Trump's toxic trolls—some real, some bots—started harassing reporters, activists, and ordinary people with racist and anti-Semitic images and general filth, Twitter twiddled its thumbs. Even as Macedonian teens eager for ad revenue exploited Facebook's algorithm by flooding the zone with fake news designed to appeal to Trump supporters, Facebook did nothing. Actually, it did do something: It repeatedly changed its algorithm and protocols in ways that may have enabled fake news. And oh yeah, the founder of virtual-reality pioneer Oculus went so far as to gleefully fund a "shitpost" factory to promote Trump. Deliberately or not, tech tools were used to pervert our political dialogue, and a good chunk of the tech elite either didn't care or relished it in the name of "disruption." Consider, too, that venture capitalist (and Facebook board member) Peter Thiel's yearslong secret campaign to eviscerate Gawker Media took out the news organization best positioned to challenge the tech titans and root out organized trolling, just months before the election.

Some—maybe a lot—of the social-media cesspool can be laid at the feet of Vladimir Putin, known for using similar tactics to destabilize Ukraine and other European countries. The Department of Homeland Security says Russia was behind the hack that allowed WikiLeaks to air the emails of Democratic National Committee officials, which enraged Bernie Sanders supporters. Days after the election, a former State Duma member linked to cyberattacks on Estonia said the Kremlin "maybe helped a bit with WikiLeaks." A few days ago the CIA presented lawmakers with a new analysis: Putin had intervened in our election with the express intent of helping Trump and harming Clinton. The revelation prompted Trump to attack the CIA, which in turn helped prompt senior Senators of both parties to a call for a bipartisan investigation. How far back into the election cycle do fake news and organized disinformation go? And who is responsible for what? We don't yet know, but in retrospect, those who shouted down concerns over Russian involvement as "neo-McCarthyism" might have better directed their fact-finding at these questions.

In any case, WikiLeaks and the trolls found fertile ground after 30-plus years of GOP Hillary hate, and in a country in as much denial about sexism as it is about racism. Trump was also aided by FBI Director James Comey and his bizarre letter to Congress that seemed to reopen the Clinton email investigation. Comey, for his part, may have been dealing with a clique of agents determined to keep digging into the allegations laid out in Clinton Cash, a book written by an editor at Breitbart News, the site that hails itself as "the platform for the alt-right," whose former executive chairman, Stephen Bannon, is now one of Trump's senior White House advisers.

And then there was Trump himself. He deftly wove fears of the left together with fears of the right. He stoked fear of loss in status, fear of economic marginalization, fear of the other. He never ever, not once, offered us anything but fear. He made all of us—even those who fought valiantly—smaller by dragging us into his swamp of hate and depravity.

And if we let him, he will continue to do so. The circular firing squads on the left have lined up. The reasonable right—and yes, many did distinguish themselves by repudiating Trump—is abandoned to an uncertain fate. Those who didn't vote or protest-voted have all come under fire, as have those who helped champion Clinton.

Constructive postmortems are great. There's a lot to chew on. But in the weeks following the election, the analysis has been dominated by hot takes based on incomplete exit poll data or ax-grinding to fit various agendas. That really needs to stop. There is no time, no room, no space to do anything but make common cause—on the left and beyond it—and push back against what, in part, this seems to be: not just a protest vote by rural whites who feel left behind, but the coming out of an authoritarian nationalist movement eager to stir racial discord. And the dawn of an era of nepotism and graft on a scale that could leave future historians gobsmacked.

Authoritarian movements rise by dividing us and can only last so long as they do. My heart broke on election night to see my Twitter feed full of quotes like "I knew my country hated me, but I didn't know how much," or "I don't recognize my country." In the days after the election, there was a surge of hate crimes. Parents had to answer questions like: What will happen to my friends? What will happen to us? Why does he hate us?

This is a dark hour, and to say otherwise would be a lie. It is—by orders of magnitude—the worst electoral outcome our country has faced in many generations. But let us not forget those who have pushed back already. The women born before the passage of the 19th Amendment, who struggled against infirmity and efforts to suppress their vote to get to the polls. The myriad Latinos and Asian Americans who registered for the first time to repel the hate that too many whites voted for. The African Americans who stood up for equality at a far greater rate than any other group, as they always have.

Trump appealed to America's worst impulses. Now it's on all of us to show, to prove, that this is not all that America is. This is a time when we're called on to do things we may not have done before. To face down bigotry and hate, and to reach beyond our Facebook feeds in trying to do so. To fight disinformation instead of meeting it with the same. To listen to the anxieties of Trump supporters and the critiques of allies and to learn.

As for those of us at Mother Jones, we will continue to do what we always strive to do: shine light into dark corners, expose abuses of power, call out cronyism and corruption, and, in the words of our namesake, fight like hell for the living.

We've got our work cut out for us. All of us.

This essay expands and updates an original version that was written on election night and can be found here.

12 Dec 17:59

Harry Reid Outright Accuses FBI Director Of Tilting Election To Trump

by John Amato

Sen. Harry Reid told CNN's Manu Raju that he didn't think FBI Director James Comey "may have" swayed the election presidential election for Trump, but said, "I didn't say 'may have,' I think he did."

Sen. Reid was being interviewed by Raju and was asked a whole host of questions including how he felt about James Comey's disastrous letter to Congress ten days before the general election.

Raju asked, "You said that Comey may have swayed this election to --"

Sen. Reid replied, "I didn't say 'may have,' I think he did."

Raju, "You think he did."

538's Nate Silver tweeted this out about the impact of the Comey letter on Sunday.

The CNN host backed up and asked Senator Reid how much blame should go to the Democrats for the loss and Reid replied, The message must not have been too bad. She's [Hillary] going to wind up getting 3 million more votes than Trump, so it couldn't have been too bad."

Raju again asked what his responsibility for the loss was.

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09 Dec 18:00

Leaked Document: Trump Wants to Identify Officials Who Worked on Obama Climate Policies

by James West

Donald Trump aides are attempting to identify Department of Energy staffers who played a role in promoting President Barack Obama's climate policies, according to details of a leaked transition team questionnaire published by Bloomberg Thursday night.

According to Bloomberg:

The transition team has asked the agency to list employees and contractors who attended United Nations climate meetings, along with those who helped develop the Obama administration's social cost of carbon metrics, used to estimate and justify the climate benefits of new rules. The advisers are also seeking information on agency loan programs, research activities and the basis for its statistics, according to a five-page internal document circulated by the Energy Department on Wednesday. The document lays out 65 questions from the Trump transition team, sources within the agency said.

Bloomberg goes on to say the document was confirmed by two Energy Department employees, who said agency staff were "unsettled" by the request. Someone in Trump's transition team also confirmed the authenticity of the document to Bloomberg.

Leading Trump's energy transition team is Tom Pyle, who is currently the president of the American Energy Alliance. Pyle was previously a policy analyst for former Rep. Tom DeLay (R-Texas) before becoming director of federal affairs for Koch Industries.

The president-elect isn't a fan of climate action: He has promised to end America's involvement in the Paris climate agreement and cancel financial contributions to UN climate programs, and he has claimed that global warming is a scam invented by the Chinese. (He later suggested he was joking about China's role, but regardless, he has repeatedly called climate change a "hoax.") You can read an entire timeline of Trump's various—and at times contradictory—statements on climate change here.

Trump has also assembled a team of climate change deniers, including Scott Pruitt, the Oklahoma attorney general, who Trump nominated to run the Environmental Protection Agency. Read a full list of the global warming deniers and opponents of climate action who are vying for positions in the Trump administration here.

08 Dec 23:41

The Side of Dr. Seuss You Don't Know

by Derek Beres

Artists who become famous for their children's work get relegated to the 'sunshine and candy' category of our minds. But it turns out Dr. Seuss had serious political bite. 



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08 Dec 20:31

Make Twitter Great Again — ban Donald Trump

by John Aravosis

Donald Trump is a menace to social media.

Please sign the petition below (or here) and tell Twitter
to permanently ban Donald Trump from its service.

http://MakeTwitterGreatAgain.org (this link takes you to this page).

Trump puts the “bully” in bully pulpit. Trump regularly uses his nearly 17 million Twitter followers to attack and insult people, places and things (289 by the New York Times’ count, and that’s only since Trump declared his candidacy in mid-2015).

What’s worse, Trump has a tendency to  “punch down”: Trump likes to attack a little guy, knowing full well the little guy will quickly get overwhelmed by the imminent onslaught of Trumps millions of minions.

United Steelworkers 1999 president Chuck Jones learned the hard about Trump’s cyberbullying yesterday when he criticized Trump’s Carrier deal on CNN.

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Within 20 minutes, Trump was on Twitter attacking Jones.

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Half an hour later, the phone calls started rolling in. “You better keep your eye on your kids,” they warned Jones. And “we know what car you drive.”

This is hardly the Trump campaign’s first run-in with Tweeting gone bad. Trump’s pick for National Security Advisers, Michael Flynn, and his eponymous son, recently tweeted fake conspiracy theories about Hillary Clinton, involving child sex slaves. Just such a theory sent an armed North Carolina man into a pizza parlor in Washington, DC this week.

Trump’s latest Twitter bullying led Robert Reich told CNN: “Let me just say with all due respect, Mr. Trump, you are president-elect of the United States, you are looking and acting as if you are mean and petty, thin-skinned and vindictive. Stop this.”

But Trump won’t stop this. He’s given no indication of any self-control. And in fact, he seems to relish in his Twitter tirades.

The only thing that can stop Donald Trump is Twitter itself.

While the notion of banning Trump from Twitter may at first sound extreme, Twitter’s own rules put Trump on thin ice:

Any accounts and related accounts engaging in the activities specified below may be temporarily locked and/or subject to permanent suspension.

Violent threats (direct or indirect): You may not make threats of violence or promote violence, including threatening or promoting terrorism.
Harassment: You may not incite or engage in the targeted abuse or harassment of others. Some of the factors that we may consider when evaluating abusive behavior include:
– if a primary purpose of the reported account is to harass or send abusive messages to others;
– if the reported behavior is one-sided or includes threats;
– if the reported account is inciting others to harass another account; and
if the reported account is sending harassing messages to an account from multiple accounts.
Hateful conduct: You may not promote violence against or directly attack or threaten other people on the basis of race, ethnicity, national origin, sexual orientation, gender, gender identity, religious affiliation, age, disability, or disease. We also do not allow accounts whose primary purpose is inciting harm towards others on the basis of these categories.

Let’s walk through Twitter’s rules and Trump’s actions:

1. Violent threats and harassment.

And while Trump himself has not directly threatened violence on Twitter, he has threatened it offline at his rallies. So his followers know what Trump lies. And, I’d argue that Trump knows, or should know, the possible consequences of tweeting attacks on private citizens — especially after what happened with the Comet pizza parlor fiasco, where there could have been a bloodbath. Trump’s behavior is at the very least reckless.

2. Hateful conduct.

Attacking women:

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Racism:

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Promoting fake news:

Trump is also prolific at creating and sharing “fake news.” As you know, fake-news has become a huge problem this year. So much so, the Pope this week called fake news a sin. From the fake news that led to a near mass murder at the Comet restaurant, to the fake news created and shared by the Russian government to help get Trump elected, fake news is a real problem that social media must address.

Donald Trump is one of the world’s biggest purveyors of fake news. In addition to Trump’s racist fake news tweets above about Muslims on 9/11 and President Obama’s birth certificate, there are also tweets spreading fake news about autism and global warming and the election itself:

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By banning Donald Trump, Twitter can strike a major blow against fake news and bullying.

It’s time to put a stop to Donald Trump’s cyber-bully pulpit. Tell Twitter to ban Trump, and make Twitter great again.

Sign the petition below:

To: Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey
From: [Your Name]

Donald Trump is a menace to social media. It’s time for Twitter to permanently ban Trump from the service.

Donald Trump has repeatedly violated Twitter’s own rules prohibiting harassment and hateful conduct. By banning Donald Trump, Twitter can not only strike a major blow against bullying, but also against the increasing threat posed by “fake news,” of which Trump is a huge purveyor.

Please put an end to Donald Trump’s cyber-bully pulpit. Ban Donald Trump, and make Twitter great again.

08 Dec 16:33

We Talked to Experts About What Terms to Use for Which Group of Racists

by Josh Harkinson

There has been fierce debate in recent weeks over how the media should refer to a loose-knit movement of far-right extremist groups that gained prominence with the election of Donald Trump. Is the so-called alt-right made up of white nationalists? White supremacists? Neo-Nazis? Bigoted nativists? (The answer is, all of the above and more.) And is "alt-right" an acceptable term, or is it just vaguely cool-sounding code for age-old forms of virulent racism and anti-Semitism?

In November, ThinkProgress announced that it would no longer use the term alt-right, calling it a public-relations tool for racists. The Associated Press and the New York Times recently issued guidelines for use of the label, suggesting that it appear as "so-called alt-right" and be accompanied by a description of its meaning. (Mother Jones has used that approach for several months.) There can be zero doubt that the broader movement, such as it is, draws on hateful far-right ideologies, as I've documented through months of in-depth reporting. And particularly in the wake of an alt-right celebration of Trump's victory that waxed full Nazi, use of the term has remained a flash point.

To shed further light on the politics of hate in the Trump era, I interviewed two researchers from top organizations in the United States that study and track hate groups: Heidi Beirich, the director of the Southern Poverty Law Center's Intelligence Project, and Marilyn Mayo, a research fellow with the Anti-Defamation League's Center on Extremism. Here is how each defined racism, white supremacy, the alt-right, and other terms, followed below by some further analysis from two academic experts:

Racist

  • Someone who believes that a particular race is superior to another. Usually racists are racist against black people or people of color (in the United States). (Southern Poverty Law Center)
  • Someone who makes negative judgments or assumptions or embraces negative stereotypes about others based on their perceived racial or ethnic background. (Anti-Defamation League)

Bigot

  • Someone who doesn't tolerate people of different races or religions. Bigots are what we usually refer to as "garden variety" racists. (SPLC)
  • Similar to a racist; someone who targets not only people of different races or ethnicities, but also people of other national backgrounds, sexual orientations, genders, or religions. (ADL)

White supremacist

  • Someone who believes that the white race is inherently superior to other races, and that white people should have control over people of other races. This usually means the idea that whites should control government power. In certain cases, white supremacists also advocate ethnic cleansing and an all-white state. (SPLC)
  • A term used to characterize various belief systems central to which are one or more of these tenets: (1) whites should have dominance over people of other backgrounds, especially where they may co-exist; (2) whites should live by themselves in a whites-only society; (3) white people have their own "culture" that is superior to other cultures; (4) white people are genetically superior to other people. As a full-fledged ideology, white supremacy is far more encompassing than simple racism or bigotry. (ADL)

White nationalist

  • A person of white European decent who believes in a white nation for and run by whites. White nationalists believe race and IQ are related and that black people are inherently inferior in IQ. There is a dispute among white nationalists about whether Jews are an enemy to white people or are actually as white as any European. (SPLC)
  • A term used by white supremacists as a euphemism for white supremacy. Some white supremacists try to distinguish it further by using it to refer to a form of white supremacy that emphasizes defining a country or region by white racial identity and which seeks to promote the interests of whites exclusively, typically at the expense of people of other backgrounds. (ADL)

Alt-right

  • A recent rebranding of white nationalism. (SPLC)
  • The alt-right—short for "alternative right"—is a loose network of people who promote white identity and reject mainstream conservatism in favor of politics that embrace implicit or explicit racism, anti-Semitism and white supremacy. Many in the alt-right seek to inject racism and anti-Semitism into the conservative movement in the United States. (ADL)

Neo-Nazi

  • Pertains to a person or group holding political views associated with or derived from those of Adolf Hitler and Nazism. Anti-Semitism is at the core of this belief system, as it was for Hitler. (SPLC)
  • Neo-Nazi is a term used to refer to members of various groups and movements around the world in the post-World War II era that have attempted to revive key principles of National Socialism and/or that have significantly appropriated the trappings, symbology, and mythology of the Third Reich. (ADL)

It bears noting that the SPLC and the ADL are not merely organizations that observe hate groups; their choices of words reflect both a deep knowledge of their subjects and a desire to counteract them. Is white nationalism a legitimately distinct category, as the SPLC suggests, or is it just a softer sell of white supremacy, as the ADL argues? I put that and other questions about these definitions to two academics: Lawrence Rosenthal, the chair of the University of California-Berkeley Center for Right Wing Studies, and Michael Waltman, a University of North Carolina communication professor and expert on white supremacist groups.

Rosenthal says the term "white nationalist" indeed carries a distinct meaning: White nationalists want to be apart from other races but do not necessarily claim to be superior. White supremacy, on the other hand, claims that whites are better than other races and "need to dominate."

But UNC's Waltman agrees with the ADL that "white nationalist" is essentially a propaganda tool. The first time he saw it used was in 1994, he says, by former Ku Klux Klan Grand Wizard Tom Metzger. The Klan had begun to recognize that the word 'white supremacist' was associated in people's minds with "a certain kind of uncultured bigot," Waltman says. "They tried to run away from that term in many ways by using the term 'white nationalist.'"

"It is really hard to be a white nationalist and not sort of think of white people as better than other folks," Waltman adds. "That is why [they] want America to be a white country. But to simply equate the two and never talk about white nationalism is to ignore the strategic purposes for which that term was introduced."

As an apparent confluence of extremist groups galvanized by Trump over the past year, the alt-right may be even trickier to define. UC Berkeley's Rosenthal explains the alt-right as "an internet-based, social media-based affinity group that covers a fairly wide spectrum," ranging from populist nationalism to the realm of the KKK and neo-Nazis.

"The ADL has it right to emphasize that the alt-right really represents a broad network of people," agrees Waltman, including so-called men's rights activists, for example. But when it comes to the movement's virulently racist and anti-Semitic core, he adds, "'alt-right' represents another rebranding—one with even more explicit political purposes to become part of the mainstream."

What all of this means in terms of how we talk and write about these groups is a matter of perspective. As Vox's Jenée Desmond-Harris points out, the nuances between racist ideologies may matter much more to the people who ascribe to them than to those who would be the victims of the policies that they promote. It can seem like pointless quibbling to distinguish between white nationalists, white supremacists, and the alt-right when they all push bigotry and support policies such as racial profiling and race-based deportations that would be deeply hurtful to religious groups and people of color.

Yet journalists, academics, and watchdog organizations will likely continue using all these terms and more to describe the far-right extremists who've ridden Trump's coattails. One imperative is to understand these groups as they understand themselves, whether to help inform the public or to counteract them. For journalists in particular there is also a strong tradition of using the names that people and organizations say they want to be known by—among other reasons, to protect themselves from accusations of bias (and from libel suits).

But in the media, we also have a duty to call out hype and deceit. With the so-called alt-right, that means being clear about its radical and profoundly disturbing core.

08 Dec 16:32

A Quarter of Trump's Campaign Cash Came From Millionaires. Here's What They Want in Return.

by Dave Gilson

As he's packed his proposed Cabinet with wealthy white men, President-elect Donald Trump has been criticized for assembling an administration that doesn't look like America, much less the "forgotten men and women" on whose behalf he claimed to have campaigned. But perhaps it's not too surprising that a Trump White House will represent the people who really bankroll American politics.

"Whose Voice, Whose Choice?", a new report published today by the progressive think tank Demos, provides a remarkably detailed examination of who funds our elections and how this small, elite "donor class" exerts outsize influence on presidential and congressional politics. "Though history will consider 2016 one of America's most extraordinary elections, one thing remained unchanged: Presidential donors were white, male and wealthy," the report's authors write.

The report's revealing findings is based on a unique methodology. It's virtually impossible to identify the demographic details, much less the ideological preferences, of large groups of donors using the campaign finance data collected by the Federal Elections Commission. To complete their analysis, the report's authors—Sean McElwee, a policy analyst at Demos, and Brian Schaffner and Jesse Rhodes, both political scientists from the University of Massachusetts-Amherst—cross-referenced FEC data with surveys conducted by the Cooperative Congressional Election Studies and personal records compiled by Catalist, a data vendor.

Even if you already thought our campaign finance system is broken, their results are striking. In the 2016 federal election cycle, the researchers found that 91 percent of donors were white and less than half were women. White men, who make up 35 percent of the adult population, comprised 48 percent of donors. And despite making up just 3 percent of the adult population, millionaires comprised 17 percent of donors.

Both Hillary Clinton and Trump's campaigns relied on these relatively small, unrepresentative groups of donors. While nearly two-thirds of Trump's donors were white men, Clinton's were slightly more diverse. Twelve percent of her donors were people of color, compared with 5 percent for Trump. More than half of Clinton's donors were white women, yet they raised less than half of her total donations.

Clinton's and Trump's donors were also far wealthier, on average, than most Americans. According to Demos, one-third of the money raised by the 2016 presidential campaigns came from donors with a net worth between $300,000 and $1 million. One-quarter of of Clinton's donors were millionaires; all together, they made 42 percent of her total donations. Trump enjoyed less support from his superwealthy peers: Millionaires made up 17 percent of his donors and gave 27 percent of his total donations. However, Trump received more big gifts: 42 percent of his total donations came from donors giving $5,000 or more, versus 29 percent for Clinton.

Clinton and Trump's donors are indicative of a larger trend. The people who give the most to campaigns—and who have the most influence on candidates—are not representative of America at large. For example, Demos found that while people with a net worth of $1 million make up a small chunk of the population, they make up nearly one-quarter of all Democratic and Republican donors. Millionaires made up 41 percent of the donors giving $5,000 or more to Republican presidential campaigns in 2012.

The skewed demographics of campaign donors also extends to race and gender. While they comprise less than one-third of the adult population, white men made up 45 percent of federal campaign donors between 2008 and 2014. All together, they gave 57 percent of all campaign donations. In contrast, women and people of color are noticeably underrepresented in the donor pool.

The effect of these trends, the Demos report argues, has profound effects on our national political priorities. Because women, people of color, and the working class are underrepresented as donors, politicians are more likely to ignore their preferences. Meanwhile, the most influential donors are more supportive of conservative policies that are not embraced by the population as a whole (and vice versa).

This "opinion gap" between donors and nondonors has distorted economic, social, and environmental policy. It's also compounded by Republican donors' tendency to be more conservative than Republican voters in general. For example, as McElwee has written in Mother Jones, Republican voters are far less skeptical about taking action to fight climate change than the big donors who have the ear of GOP lawmakers.

The Demos report examines the ideological gulf between donors and nondonors on several issues where Trump and Republican lawmakers have promised swift action, including cutting taxes and federal spending, implementing Rep. Paul Ryan's budget plan, and deregulating Wall Street. The discrepancy can also be seen in survey data about support for Obamacare when it was introduced in 2010: Across every demographic group, nondonors were more likely to support health care reform than donors. Here, too, you can see how the opinions of white, male, and wealthy donors were out of step with those of a broader slice of Americans.

Presumably, as Trump and congressional Republicans push the total repeal of Obamacare in spite of many of its provisions' popularity, this gap between donors' preferences and the public's will persist.

The authors of the Demos report conclude that their analyses "sharply underscore how the big-money system is skewing our democracy in favor of a small, homogeneous minority, whose interests diverge substantially from the preferences and needs of ordinary Americans." Their report presents plenty of new evidence that the current system of campaign finance caters to the few under the guise of "free speech" while effectively silencing the many. There's much more data and analysis in the full report: Read it here.

07 Dec 22:59

Portland proposes a special tax on companies where CEOs make 100X more than median employee

by Cory Doctorow
Electrikmonkrjs

Yes, please

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Environmental lawyer-turned-Portland City Commissioner Steve Novick has a cool use for the new SEC rules requiring companies to disclose executive pay starting in 2017: he's going to impose special taxes on businesses where the ratio of CEO pay to median worker pay exceeds 100:1 -- an increase of 10% for 100:1 companies, and 25% for 250:1 companies. (more…)

07 Dec 22:58

Wells Fargo is successfully convincing judges that forged arbitration agreements are legally binding

by Cory Doctorow

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When you sign up for a Wells Fargo account, you're required to sign an arbitration "agreement" giving up your right to sue the company, and requiring you to have your case heard by an arbitrator paid for by -- and dependent on -- Wells Fargo instead. (more…)

07 Dec 19:08

Democrats Intensify Push for Probe of Russian Meddling in 2016 Campaign

by David Corn

Congressional Democrats are increasing the pressure for an official and public inquiry into Russian meddling in the 2016 campaign. On Wednesday afternoon, Rep. Eric Swalwell, (D-Calif.), a Democrat on the House intelligence committee, and Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md.), the senior Democrat on the House government oversight committee, announced they were introducing legislation to create a bipartisan commission to investigate any attempt by the Russian government or persons in Russia to interfere with the recent US election. The commission they propose is modeled on the widely praised 9/11 Commission. It would consist of 12 members, equally divided between Democrats and Republicans. The members would be appointed by the House speaker, the Senate majority leader, and the two Democratic leaders of the House and Senate. This commission would be granted subpoena power, the ability to hold public hearings, and the task of producing a public report.

Cummings previously called on Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah), the chair of the House government oversight committee, to launch such an investigation via his committee. But Chaffetz, who before the election vowed to probe Hillary Clinton fiercely, has not replied to Cummings' request, according to a Cummings spokesperson. Nor has Chaffetz responded to another Cummings request for a committee examination of Donald Trump's potential conflicts of interest. House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi (Calif.) and incoming Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer (N.Y.) have both endorsed Cummings' proposal for a congressional investigation of Russian attempts to influence the 2016 campaign. Republican Sens. Lindsey Graham (S.C.) and Marco Rubio (Fla.) also have suggested that Congress examine Russian interference in the election.

The Democrats have not yet catapulted the issue of foreign interference fully into the media spotlight. But Swalwell and Cummings' bill comes as more Democrats are demanding action. Last week, seven Democrats on the Senate intelligence committee publicly pressed the Obama administration to declassify more information about Russia's intervention in the election. Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), who led that effort, wrote in a brief letter to the White House, "We believe there is additional information concerning the Russian Government and the US election that should be declassified and released to the public. We are conveying specifics through classified channels."

On Tuesday, seven high-ranking House Democrats sent a letter to President Barack Obama requesting a classified briefing on Russian involvement in the election, including "Russian entities' hacking of American political organizations; hacking and strategic release of emails from campaign officials; the WikiLeaks disclosures; fake news stories produced and distributed with the intent to mislead American voters; and any other Russian or Russian-related interference or involvement in our recent election." The signatories were Cummings, Rep. Steny Hoyer, the Democratic whip, Rep. John Conyers, the top Democrat on the judiciary committee, Rep. Eliot Engel, the top Democrat on the foreign affairs committee, Rep. Bennie Thompson, the top Democrat on the homeland security committee, Rep. Adam Smith, the top Democrat on the armed services committee, and Rep. Adam Schiff, the top Democrat on the intelligence committee. They wrote:

We are deeply concerned by Russian efforts to undermine, interfere with, and even influence the outcome of our recent election. This Russian malfeasance is not confined to us, but extends to our allies, our alliances and to democratic institutions around the world.  

The integrity of democracy must never be in question, and we are gravely concerned that Russia may have succeeded in weakening Americans' trust in our electoral institutions through their cyber activity, which may also include sponsoring disclosures through WikiLeaks and other venues, and the production and distribution of fake news stories. 

In September, Schiff joined Sen. Dianne Feinstein (Calif.), the top Democrat on the Senate intelligence committee, to release a statement blaming Russia for the hacks of Democratic targets during the campaign:

Based on briefings we have received, we have concluded that the Russian intelligence agencies are making a serious and concerted effort to influence the US election. At the least, this effort is intended to sow doubt about the security of our election and may well be intended to influence the outcomes of the election—we can see no other rationale for the behavior of the Russians. We believe that orders for the Russian intelligence agencies to conduct such actions could come only from very senior levels of the Russian government.

The Obama administration has reached the same conclusion. In October, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and the Department of Homeland Security released a joint statement declaring, "The US Intelligence Community (USIC) is confident that the Russian Government directed the recent compromises of e-mails from US persons and institutions, including from US political organizations." A week after the election, the director of the National Security Agency, Admiral Michael Rogers, was asked about the WikiLeaks release of hacked information during the campaign, and he said, "This was a conscious effort by a nation-state to attempt to achieve a specific effect." He added, "This was not something that was done casually. This was not something that was done by chance. This was not a target that was selected purely arbitrarily."

For some reason, Moscow's effort to influence the presidential election has not been as big a story as, say, Trump's tweets about the musical Hamilton or Alec Baldwin. That may be because Democrats, busy licking their wounds, have not aggressively sought to keep the issue front and center. (Obama and Vice President Joe Biden have not said much on this subject.) And most Republicans have shown little interest in investigating an assault on American democracy that helped their party win the White House and retain majorities in both houses of Congress. But Cummings has been trying mightily to kick-start a public investigation. (Presumably, the FBI, CIA, and NSA have been looking into Russian hacking related to the election, but their investigations are not designed to yield public information—unless they result in a criminal prosecution.)

With the legislation to establish an independent commission, Cummings and Swalwell are opening another front. In the coming days, they will be signing up co-sponsors and looking for Republican support. Their bill provides a proposal that concerned voters—including upset Democrats and activists—can rally behind. (Were this measure to pass next year, Trump, who has steadfastly refused to blame Moscow for the hacks of the Democratic Party and the Clinton campaign, would have to decide whether to sign it.)

In his recent letter to Chaffetz, Cummings noted, "Elections are the bedrock of our nation's democracy. Any attempt by a foreign power to undermine them is a direct attack on our core democratic values, and it should chill every Member of Congress and American—red or blue—to the core." So far, few Republicans, including Trump, have acknowledged feeling that chill, and there's certainly more opportunity for the Democrats to turn up the heat.

07 Dec 16:37

Former CIA Officer Blasts Off: 'I'm Watching A Clown Show!'

by Karoli Kuns

It isn't often former CIA agents offer their candid opinions, but Phil Mudd certainly went there on Wolf Blitzer's show Tuesday.

Wolf Blitzer asked Mudd to comment on whether Lt. General Michael Flynn was the appropriate choice for National Security Advisor, and he went off.

He touched on the inappropriateness of Flynn leading the "Lock Her Up!" chants at Trump rallies, and then went on to the question of Flynn, Jr.'s involvement in the mess called Pizzagate, before letting fly.

"Then we go on to argue that individual's son, who retweets fake news, should be given access to top secrets," Mudd ranted.

“I’m watching a clown show! I’ve had it with this, Wolf! I want to see a transition from a campaign to reality, and I don’t see it yet.”

Nor will he, it appears. Trump did not run a reality-based campaign and he's not going to run a reality-based administration. This is the Republicans' wet dream. Full control of government and billionaires waiting for the payoff. It will be a clown show from Day one to the end. Period.


07 Dec 01:48

Weather.Com Meteorologist To Breitbart: Quit Using Our Videos To Lie About Climate Change

by Karoli Kuns

Weather.com meteorologist Kait Parker took a few minutes out of her usual duties to give Breitbart a message: Global warming is real and you shouldn't use Weather.com reports to lie to people.

Global warming is not expected to end anytime soon, despite what Breitbart.com wrote in an article published last week.

Though we would prefer to focus on our usual coverage of weather and climate science, in this case we felt it important to add our two cents — especially because a video clip from weather.com (La Niña in Pacific Affects Weather in New England) was prominently featured at the top of the Breitbart article. Breitbart had the legal right to use this clip as part of a content-sharing agreement with another company, but there should be no assumption that The Weather Company endorses the article associated with it.

The Breitbart article – a prime example of cherry picking, or pulling a single item out of context to build a misleading case – includes this statement: "The last three years may eventually come to be seen as the final death rattle of the global warming scare."

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