Source: Huffington Post

Bolton, who was touted as a secretary of state contender until Trump nominated Exxon Mobil CEO Rex Tillerson this month, believes Russia should pay an even larger price. He wants the U.S. to “make the Russians feel pain.”

“It is not enough to say ― and people should be very careful about this ― they say, ‘Well, it didn’t actually have an impact on the election,’” Bolton said. “The fact that Russian efforts were incompetent or insufficient shouldn’t make us feel better.”

He continued:

If Japan had attacked Pearl Harbor and all of its bombs and torpedoes had missed, no Americans killed, no ships sunk, would we have said no harm, no foul? No, it’s the effort that they made, if this is accurate, that should trouble us. Not the fact that it failed.

Bolton’s comments differ greatly from many of his party members. Trump has brushed off mounting evidence from the FBI and CIA indicating that Russia hacked U.S. government servers to swing the election in favor of Trump. Rep. Trent Franks (R-Ariz.) even implied Thursday that the Russians would had done Americans a favor if they had illegally hacked into the servers.


Read more: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/trump-advisor-says-us-should-make-the-russians-feel-pain-for-meddling-with-election_us_58666495e4b0de3a08f7fb2b

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You mean after Donald J. Trump invited them to hack Hillary's emails?

Wouldn't that mean Bolton is advocating making Donald feel the pain, too?

Do any of these political dirty tricks echo in your mind?

Tricky Dicky was going to drive the crooks out of Washington too! (about 34:00)

So many of the things we see today happened before in Nixon's time, does
Roger Stone know?

To save country, mass protests

Get ready for a rough ride

http://www.philly.com/philly/opinion/20161227_Letters__Mass_protests_needed_to_save_country_from_Trump.html

This is not the America that I studied in my youth. This is not the America I want for my children or grandchildren (or anyone's).
This not who we are.

https://act.notwhoweare.us/petitions/employees-of-oracle-corporation-say-donald-trump-is-not-who-we-are

Full article at link

http://thedailybanter.com/2016/10/trumps-voter-suppression-operation-project-alamo/

It appears that Donald Trump and his campaign are well aware they are losing. Joshua Green wrote a great article that explores the future of the "Trump machine" and it's eventual Trump TV network incarnation. He wrote it from inside the campaign, with unprecedented access -- but the headline missed the big story. Even though they know they are losing, the Trump campaign is not going gently into that good night. However, they are not trying to win new voters. Rather, they are targeting three specific groups for suppression: young women, idealistic white liberals, and African Americans.

by Robert Kuttner

The Democrats desperately need a new national party leader, technically the chair of the Democratic National Committee. The current national committee, elected at the last Democratic convention based on the relative strengths of the Clinton and Sanders forces, is narrowly divided, and close to deadlock.

Representative Keith Ellison of Minnesota, co-chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, an early favorite after Sanders endorsed him, now appears to be at risk. Though Senator Chuck Schumer, the Democrats’ Senate leader, quickly jumped in and backed Ellison as part of Schumer’s repositioning as a progressive, there is pressure on Schumer and other early supporters to back off. For now, Schumer says he still supports Ellison, though there is furious backroom jockeying afoot.

Ellison, for his part, stands for the progressive ascendance in the grassroots Democratic Party. His blueprint for party activism reads like a progressive organizer’s dream.

One problem however, is that Ellison is a sitting Member of Congress. National party chair ought to be a fulltime job, a reality proven by the previous and ineffectual DNC chair, Representative Debbie Wasserman-Schulz.

http://prospect.org/article/cecile-richards-or-tom-perez-dnc-chair

________________________________

Kuttner's been an under utilized asset for a long time despite his copper bottom
record on left of center economics. Robert Reich and Paul Krugman grab all the
headlines.

There are many countries in the world that are governed by men who use their office to enrich themselves and their families. Before now, or at least for the last 200 years (since Andrew Jackson secretly profited off his own land grabs) the United States of America has not been a country like this. The modern American tradition has required political leaders to renounce any financial interest that might bias their decision. Donald Trump has abruptly demolished this tradition. And the Republican Party is happy to oblige.

The U.S. government’s imperviousness to the kind of deep corruption that infects kleptocratic states had a key vulnerability: It rested on two completely voluntary norms. The first, a requirement that presidential candidates publish their tax returns so that their financial interests are public, was already discarded during the campaign. After some feeble, initial protest, reporters stopped bringing up the subject, and Republicans stopped suggesting that Trump comply. The second is a requirement that presidents divest their wealth and place it in a blind trust, so that they cannot knowingly make any decision that might redound to their personal benefit. Trump has discarded this norm as well. The only remaining obstacle to Trump leveraging his power for personal gain is a Congress controlled by his own party.

Republicans have mostly dealt with Trump’s conflicts by ignoring them altogether. Darren Samuelson moves the ball forward by asking many of them why they’re okay with a president leveraging his position for personal benefit. Some of them simply argue it is too soon to take any steps. “I take anything in the Constitution very seriously. I don’t want to leave any misinterpretation to you,” says House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy. “But I’m just saying, he hasn’t been sworn in yet.” Republican strategist Chris Wilson sneers, “If there was a situation that came up in which later there was a true conflict of interest, that created a dangerous national security situation, the problem is now nobody would believe them … They’re just jumping into it so quickly and on such a stupid issue that it’s almost embarrassing to watch.”

The notion that Trump’s conflicts of interest represent some hypothetical future case that may or may not arise is bizarre. For one thing, his unprecedented lack of transparency means the full extent of his financial interests will not be known to the public. If business leaders were giving Trump and his family stock or gifts in return for favorable policy, we would have no way to know. For another, a president-elect has power; since everybody knows Trump will become president soon, they have no reason to wait before ingratiating themselves with him. And even without public disclosure, reporters have already uncovered numerous conflicts of interest. Jeremy Venook has collected a dozen, a list that is already out of date.

http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2016/12/how-republicans-justify-unlimited-trump-corruption.html

Art of the Deal