US Politics Mega-thread - Page 9314

On November 24 2017 07:36 Grumbels wrote:

But as far as I know people don't want a revolution, they just want a third party movement to take over the Democratic party and enact far-reaching reforms to structurally address inequality and the power of capital. I think leftwing movements in the USA have a lot of respect for grass-roots organizing and having democratic accountability and so on. If Sanders had become president he wouldn't have instituted himself as dictator for life. Whenever Sanders voters talk about revolution they are clearly not talking about a violent uprising, just about organizing with the goal to radically shift policy.

WASHINGTON — Lawyers for Michael T. Flynn, President Trump’s former national security adviser, notified the president’s legal team in recent days that they could no longer discuss the special counsel’s investigation, according to four people involved in the case, an indication that Mr. Flynn is cooperating with prosecutors or negotiating a deal.

Mr. Flynn’s lawyers had been sharing information with Mr. Trump’s lawyers about the investigation by the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, who is examining whether anyone around Mr. Trump was involved in Russian efforts to undermine Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign.

That agreement has been terminated, the four people said. Defense lawyers frequently share information during investigations, but they must stop when doing so would pose a conflict of interest. It is unethical for lawyers to work together when one client is cooperating with prosecutors and another is still under investigation.

The notification alone does not prove that Mr. Flynn is cooperating with Mr. Mueller. Some lawyers withdraw from information-sharing arrangements as soon as they begin negotiating with prosecutors. And such negotiations sometimes fall apart.

Still, the notification led Mr. Trump’s lawyers to believe that Mr. Flynn — who, along with his son, is seen as having significant criminal exposure — has, at the least, begun discussions with Mr. Mueller about cooperating.

Lawyers for Mr. Flynn and Mr. Trump declined to comment. The four people briefed on the matter spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss it publicly.

A deal with Mr. Flynn would give Mr. Mueller a behind-the-scenes look at the Trump campaign and the early tumultuous weeks of the administration. Mr. Flynn was an early and important adviser to Mr. Trump, an architect of Mr. Trump’s populist “America first” platform and an advocate of closer ties with Russia.

His ties to Russia predated the campaign — he sat with President Vladimir V. Putin at a 2015 event in Moscow — and he was a point person on the transition team for dealing with Russia.

The White House had been bracing for charges against Mr. Flynn in recent weeks, particularly after charges were filed against three other former Trump associates: Paul Manafort, his campaign chairman; Rick Gates, a campaign aide; and George Papadopoulos, a foreign policy adviser.

But none of those men match Mr. Flynn in stature, or in his significance to Mr. Trump. A retired three-star general, Mr. Flynn was an early supporter of Mr. Trump’s and a valued surrogate for a candidate who had no foreign policy experience. Mr. Trump named him national security adviser, he said, to help “restore America’s leadership position in the world.”

Among the interactions that Mr. Mueller is investigating is a private meeting that Mr. Flynn had with the Russian ambassador and Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law, during the presidential transition. In the past year, it has been revealed that people with ties to Russia repeatedly sought to meet with Trump campaign officials, sometimes dangling the promise of compromising information on Mrs. Clinton.

Mr. Flynn is regarded as loyal to Mr. Trump, but he has in recent weeks expressed serious concerns to friends that prosecutors will bring charges against his son, Michael Flynn Jr., who served as his father’s chief of staff and was a part of several financial deals involving the elder Mr. Flynn that Mr. Mueller is scrutinizing.

The White House has said that neither Mr. Flynn nor other former aides have incriminating information to provide about Mr. Trump. “He likes General Flynn personally, but understands that they have their own path with the special counsel,” a White House lawyer, Ty Cobb, said in an interview last month with The New York Times. “I think he would be sad for them, as a friend and a former colleague, if the process results in punishment or indictments. But to the extent that that happens, that’s beyond his control.”

Mr. Flynn was supposed to have been the cornerstone of Mr. Trump’s national security team. Instead, he was forced out after a month in office over his conversations with the Russian ambassador, Sergey I. Kislyak. Mr. Flynn’s handling of those conversations fueled suspicion that people around Mr. Trump had concealed their dealings with Russians, worsening a controversy that has hung over the president’s first year in office.

Four days after Mr. Trump was sworn in, the F.B.I. interviewed Mr. Flynn at the White House about his calls with the ambassador. American intelligence and law enforcement agencies became so concerned about Mr. Flynn’s conversations and false statements about them to Vice President Mike Pence that the acting attorney general, Sally Q. Yates, warned the White House that Mr. Flynn might be compromised.

The conversations with the Russian ambassador that led to Mr. Flynn’s undoing took place during the presidential transition. When questions about them surfaced, Mr. Flynn told Mr. Pence that they had exchanged only holiday greetings — the conversations happened in late December, around the time that the Obama administration was announcing sanctions against Russia.

While Mr. Pence and White House press officers repeated the holiday-greetings claim publicly, Mr. Flynn and the ambassador had in fact discussed the sanctions. That invited the idea that the incoming administration was trying to undermine the departing president and curry favor with Moscow.

Mr. Trump sought Mr. Flynn’s resignation only after news broke that Mr. Flynn had been interviewed by F.B.I. agents and that Ms. Yates had warned the White House that his false statements could make him vulnerable to Russian blackmail.

Since then, Mr. Flynn’s legal problems have grown. It was revealed that he failed to list payments from Russia-linked entities on financial disclosure forms. He did not mention a paid speech he gave in Moscow, as well as other payments from companies linked to Russia.

The former F.B.I. director, James B. Comey, has testified before Congress that Mr. Trump asked him to end the government’s investigation into Mr. Flynn in a one-on-one meeting in the Oval Office the day after Mr. Flynn was fired. Mr. Trump’s request caused great concern for Mr. Comey, who immediately wrote a memo about his meeting with the president.

And investigators working for Mr. Mueller have questioned witnesses about whether Mr. Flynn was secretly paid by the Turkish government during the presidential campaign. Mr. Flynn belatedly disclosed, after leaving the White House, that the Turkish government had paid him more than $500,000.

Mr. Flynn’s firing was, in some ways, the first domino that set off a cascade of problems for Mr. Trump. After the president ousted Mr. Comey, news surfaced that the president had requested an end to the Flynn inquiry, a revelation that led to Mr. Mueller’s appointment. That, in turn, raised the profile of an investigation that the president had tried mightily to contain.

On November 24 2017 08:35 Jockmcplop wrote:


Destroying power centers seems to be the relevant point here.
This seems like an argument made more in hope than expectation. You want to destroy existing power centers and replace them with new power centers (presumably) and hope that everything lands in a better place. Shuffling the deck if you will.
Either that, or simply remove the power centers, which would be worse imo. Anarchic systems like this have to absolutely precisely balanced to stop them quickly moving to extremes (ie regulating the shit out of everything to keep it stable or allowing the government and the economy to run themselves with no accountability). That precise balancing act would in fact be the power structure you are trying to destroy.
Would you really want a country that moves between Sanders and Trump every few years? That would surely quickly become an exercise in constant damage limitation.

“I’ve met tens of thousands of people and taken thousands of photographs, often in crowded and chaotic situations. I’m a warm person; I hug people. I’ve learned from recent stories that in some of those encounters, I crossed a line for some women — and I know that any number is too many.

Some women have found my greetings or embraces for a hug or photo inappropriate, and I respect their feelings about that. I’ve thought a lot in recent days about how that could happen, and recognize that I need to be much more careful and sensitive in these situations.

I feel terribly that I’ve made some women feel badly and for that I am so sorry, and I want to make sure that never happens again.

And let me say again to Minnesotans that I’m sorry for putting them through this and I’m committed to regaining their trust.”

A lawyer for former national security adviser Michael Flynn has told President Donald Trump’s legal team that they are no longer communicating with them about special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian election interference.

The decision could be a sign that Flynn is moving to cooperate with Mueller’s investigation or to negotiate a deal for himself.

The decision was communicated this week, said a person familiar with the decision who spoke to the Associated Press on condition of anonymity. The New York Times first reported the decision.

In large criminal investigations, defence lawyers routinely share information with each other. But it can become unethical to continue such communication if one of the potential targets is looking to negotiate a deal with prosecutors.

Lawyers for Flynn and his son, Michael Flynn Jr, declined to comment on Thursday. Flynn’s son has also come under investigation from Mueller’s team of prosecutors.

Flynn was forced to resign as national security adviser in February after White House officials concluded he had misled them about the nature of his contacts during the transition period with the Russian ambassador to the United States.

He was interviewed by the FBI in January about his communications with the ambassador, Sergey Kislyak. The deputy attorney general at the time, Sally Yates, soon advised White House officials that their public assertions that Flynn had not discussed sanctions with Kislyak were incorrect and that Flynn was therefore in a compromised position.

Flynn was facing a justice department investigation over his foreign business dealings even before Mueller was appointed as special counsel in May to investigate potential coordination between the Trump campaign and Russia to influence the 2016 presidential election. Mueller has since taken over that investigation.

Flynn, a prominent Trump backer on the campaign trail, has been a key figure in Mueller’s probe and of particular interest to Trump. Former FBI director James Comey, for instance, said that Trump encouraged him to end an FBI investigation into Flynn during a private Oval Office meeting in February.

Mueller announced his first charges in the investigation last month, including the guilty plea of a foreign policy adviser to the campaign, George Papadopoulos, and the indictments of former campaign chairman Paul Manafort and business associate Rick Gates.

On November 24 2017 14:36 ShambhalaWar wrote:


Never mind any point he is trying to make... This reads like a Zen koan

Maybe he is an enlighten and returned being, a bodhisattva returning to help us all?

On November 24 2017 23:25 Dangermousecatdog wrote:
It sounds like he has dementia, but it's hard to tell since that's how he normally speaks.

Hurricane Harvey left 77 dead, caused $200bn in damage and left thousands homeless, and the rebuilding will be the largest effort since New Orleans following Hurricane Katrina. And the clear-up is proving equally dangerous.

A new report produced by the University of Illinois Chicago in conjunction with workers’ rights groups paints a startling picture of the inequity experienced by many of the immigrants doing the hard, often dangerous work of rebuilding. Many have experienced wage theft, the majority have had no safety training and workers are rebuilding without access to basic safety equipment.

Already, battle lines are being drawn between a vision of equitable reconstruction being driven by worker’s rights groups and their allies in the Houston government and a free market vision championed by the Trump administration and their Republican allies in the Texas state government.

More than a decade after Katrina, immigrant and workers groups say that they have learned the lessons of storm recovery and are applying them to a massive political movement being launched under the banner of Houston Rising Coalition.

“Black workers were primarily excluded from rebuilding efforts and had to fight their way in while immigrants workers, while included, suffered extraordinary exploitation” said Saket Soni, executive director of the National Guestworkers Alliance, who headed the New Orleans Workers’ Center after Katrina.

“I think the lesson here is that the rules of the recovery need to be set up early to be allowed for a just reconstruction,” said Soni. “To achieve a successful rebuilding and reconstruction and to particularly to achieve a just reconstruction, we really have to be in for the long haul.”

Last weekend, immigrant groups, labor unions, civil rights and environmental groups assembled for the first meeting of the Houston Rising Coalition with their allies in the local Houston government. The group aims not to just to prevent residents from being displaced, but also to address long-simmering issues of affordable housing, environmental justice, and wage inequity.

“In every respect, this is an opportunity to do things better than they were before. Period,” Houston recovery czar Marvin Odum, the former CEO of Shell Oil, who has been appointed by the Houston mayor Sylvester Turner, told the crowd.

However, the efforts to rebuild Houston could be hampered by the actions of the Trump administration, which has faced criticism from Republicans and Democrats alike in the state.

In early November, the administration requested that Congress grant $44bn in federal aid to the state, less than half of what was spent rebuilding New Orleans a decade earlier, and a level of funding condemned by all sides.

Outside of their agreement on the inadequacy of federal dollars being earmarked for reconstruction, conservatives and workers’ rights champion agree on very little else.

Worker groups in Houston want the federal aid to be distributed through the Houston’s mayor office, where they feel like they have a solid progressive ally in Democratic mayor Turner.

However, Abbott wants the federal money to be distributed through the Texas general land office run by George P Bush, former presidential candidate Jeb Bush’s son. Advocates fear that if the Republican controlled state government distributes the money, little will flow to immigrant and workers groups in the area.

Immigrant groups say that given the culture of fear that exists among immigrants in seeking government help that it’s essential that these groups are given funding to make sure that these communities aren’t exploited in the recovery.

The recent survey of 361 Latino day laborers conducted by University of Illinois at Chicago, done in conjunction with the National Day Laborer Organizing Network (NDLON) and Fe y Justicia Worker Center and funded by the Ford Foundation, paints a startling picture of the inequities plaguing Houston’s clean up.

According to the report, entitled “After the Storm: Houston’s Day Labor Markets in the Aftermath of Hurricane Harvey”, 26% of those surveyed said that they have experienced wage theft in doing hurricane recovery work. Some 64% of day laborers say that they have not sought government assistance in storm recovery out of fear of being deported. More shockingly, 85% of day laborers say that they have not received any health and safety training prior to entering a job site. And 61% of day laborer say they have no respiratory equipment to prevent themselves from breathing in dangerous molds and chemicals.

Last month, the Guardian reported that workplace safety groups have criticized the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (Osha) for failing to coordinate their health and safety training as the Obama administration did.

Unsafe conditions have already taken the life of one worker, 31-year-old Josue Zurita, an immigrant from Mexico. Zurita, a carpenter, had worked on several flood-damaged homes that had become infected with the flesh-eating bacteria necrotizing fasciitis.

While members of the Houston Rising Coalition remain skeptical about how recovery aid will be distributed, they say that they are preparing to take action into their own hands. Groups have organized the Hurricane Harvey Relief Fund Community Relief Fund so that private money can follow directions to the group.

On November 24 2017 23:34 a_flayer wrote:

He definitely seemed far more capable of uttering coherent sentences in some videos from the 90s. Not sure if that was simply because it was scripted/rehearsed, though.

It's fucked up how you just kind of end up widening your eyes and shaking your head when you read these texts.

On November 25 2017 00:37 Plansix wrote:
https://twitter.com/harikunzru/status/933440248910053381

We are a garbage nation and the Republicans wants to be more hands off with this garbage industry.