peggysue2
peggysue2's JournalThe Russian Oligarch Blacklist Cometh
A January 29th deadline is looming for Putin’s richy-rich friends and has, according to Bloomberg, set a flurry of lobbyists and proxies into the offices of DC powerbrokers. The Report which will be issued through the US Treasury Department threatens to expose Russian elites for less than noble financial behavior and actions since each name listed will include a ‘corruption index.’
The Report/List stems from the Countering America’s Adversaries Through Sanctions Act, passed last summer with overwhelming Congressional support. It expanded previous sanctions leveled by the Obama Administration, including secondary companies and Kremlin-connected insiders and business leaders, Putin’s inner circle or best friends in crime.
According to one Erich Ferrari, founder of Ferrari and Associate in DC and who has helped individuals removed from the designation list, The Report will result in public shaming. Oh, Boo Frigging Hoo. Mr Ferrari went on to say:
“It’s a step below a sanction because it doesn’t actually block any assets, but has the same optics as sanctions -- you’re on a list of people who are engaged in doing bad things.”
One would think the remedy for all this angst of lost financial and personal cred would be:
Don’t do bad things.
Maybe we could ask The Trumpster for his opinion. Then again, maybe not.
Lawmakers from both sides of the aisle raised alarms after the Administration failed to meet the October 2017 deadline—designation of potential targets for additional sanctions—and came into compliance only after Senator Corker, Chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, urged the WH to follow through. I suspect that “urging’ was more like lighting a bonfire or threatening to bring back the adult daycare meme.
One could conclude that in all things Russian, The Donald tends to . . . drag his feet.
Nevertheless, the upcoming January report will be in addition to the 49 individuals designated December 20th by the Treasury’s Office for Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) under the Magnitsky Act. The initial list targeted “gross violators of human rights in Russia as well as those responsible for fraud, extrajudicial killings, torture and other despicable acts.”
What a splendid group of people!
Despite the cries of Nothingburgers or Witch Hunt shrieks or suggestions that Hillary Clinton is two steps from Federal prison, etc., the wheels of our institutions are slowly, inexorably grinding forward. No amount of projection or temper-tweeting or Alex Jones’ conspiracy theories will halt that. Politco’s recent release of 270 individuals tied to the Trump/Russia investigation is a sign that the MSM is finally getting a clue. This is no small thing.
Interesting to note is the increasing, even frenzied outcry within certain Republican circles about the Russia probe. If you didn’t know better, you’d think they were sitting on the hot seat along with Putin’s whiny oligarchs.
A true mystery of the Universe. Or maybe something called Karma.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-01-12/russia-s-oligarchs-brace-for-u-s-report-listing-putin-friends
See US Treasury Press release here:
https://home.treasury.gov/news/press-releases/sm0240
and Politico's graphic:
https://www.politico.com/interactives/2018/trump-russia-investigation-ties/
270 Individuals Connected to the Trump/Russia Probe
Found this last night after a 'The Eagles Won!!!!!' text storm from family and friends. It's a good, basic rundown of the people involved with the ongoing investigation and should shutdown the nothingburger response from any Trumpster. One might even say this is . . . YUGE.
https://www.politico.com/interactives/2018/trump-russia-investigation-ties/
Color Me Suspicious but This is Disturbing
Three Days after the Hawaii false alarm of an impending missile strike, Japan sends out a false alarm of their own.
WTF?
https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2018/01/16/578283950/japan-also-sends-out-then-retracts-a-false-missile-warning
Did You Know: Anyone Opposing Chelsea Manning's Senate Bid Has An Old Straight White Man Fetish?
According to Glenn Greenwald this is absolutely the case because:
“ . . . Democrats [have] so quickly decided to back a white, straight male politician steeped in privilege, while devoting themselves to opposing a candidate who would make history by becoming the first trans woman ever elected to the U.S. Senate, in the process inspiring trans youth around the world and helping to erode the stigma that has made them so vulnerable to discrimination and violence?”
They’ve decided to do this presumably because they find Cardin’s centrist ideology and politics more appealing than Manning’s more radical politics, and believe that this trumps what could be the historic value of Manning’s candidacy. They’ve apparently decided to prioritize their own centrist ideology over the important gender, sexual orientation and trans equality progress that Manning’s victory would ensure.”
Greenwald also states that Cardin’s career has been unremarkable with few accomplishments. But far worse: he’s a . . . vile centrist!
Ben Cardin’s unremarkable career can be found in his official Senate bio here:
https://www.cardin.senate.gov/about
I find his advocacy for the Chesapeake Bay Project particularly irritating. I mean who needs clean water or National parks?
And here:
"He led the fight for the Patients' Bill of Rights and, because of his efforts, the law ensures that individuals in private health insurance plans have the right to choose their primary care provider, women have direct access to an ob/gyn, and patients with medical emergencies are guaranteed coverage for necessary ER visits."
Horrific!
But just take a gander where Cardin ranks according to Govtrack:
https://www.govtrack.us/congress/members/benjamin_cardin/400064
The tracking graph is based on voting history and where in the leadership pack an individual falls. Curiously, Cardin is at the top of the leadership graph. Really! The grotesque nerve of the man wheedling his way to Ranking Member of the Foreign Relations Committee, he Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works or the Committee on Finance, yada, yada.
Then, unlike some Senators I could mention, he was a primary sponsor of 18 bills that were actually enacted, as in:
S.1221 Countering Russian Influence in Europe and Eurasia Act of 2017
S.284 Global Magnitsky Human Rights Acountability Act
S.599 Improving Access to Emergency Psychiatric Care
A glance at the graph indicates that Cardin’s overall voting history puts him in the same category as Leahy, Wyden and Booker. Should we primary these senators as well? How about Kaine, Coons or Duckworth because these members are to the right of Cardin?
His voting record has afforded him a 100% by the Human Rights Campaign, 100% by the Planned Parenthood Action Fund and 92% by the League of Conservation Voters.
He must be stopped!!
This is why I rarely pull up Greenwald’s columns anymore.
Btw, when I mused about who exactly was backing/advocating Ms Manning’s primary bid?
I think I found my answer.
https://theintercept.com/2018/01/15/centrist-dems-launch-smear-campaign-against-young-trans-woman-all-to-keep-an-old-straight-white-man-in-power/
The Strange Battle of the Pussyhats
Anyone who attended last year’s Women’s March in DC or the satellite marches across the country and world, recall the endless ocean of pink hats. An awesome sight. I was at the March 2017 protest in DC and it was . . . emotional, thrilling.
However, the controversy over the Pussyhat Project designed and promoted by Krista Suh and Jayna Zweiman started well before the 2017 March. Some feminists believed the whole idea was vulgar, symbolizing women by a single body part, their genitalia. Others believed that women were taking back the word 'pussy' after the Trumpster had demeaned its meaning in the crassest sense. Grab ‘em by the pussy became a rallying cry. Millions of women donned the pink-eared caps as a symbol of unity on women’s issues and human rights.
That did not stop the controversy.
The current line of attack is based on accusations of TERF, Trans-Exclusionary Radical Feminism. Because, as I’ve read online recently, “not all women have a vagina and not everyone who has a vagina is a woman. Or so the argument goes.
I don’t buy into this line of thinking because this was a Women’s March, by and for women but a March that was open to anyone and everyone protesting the installation of the Trumpster in the WH. What I saw on the faces of marchers of all ages, colors, shapes and sizes was determination and joy.
The protestors have been proven right x1000 since the original March on DC. We all see and know what The Trump is: unfit for Office. If anything, we know more now than we did then. And it’s far worse than many imagined.
The second line of argument is presumably from women of color. It’s been claimed in several articles that the pink color of the hats exclude women of different races.
Really?
We all wear pink ribbons for Breast Cancer Awareness Month. I don’t recall anyone objecting to that, even though men can, in fact, be diagnosed with breast cancer and breasts come in many skin tones. For all the hoopla, the color pink is feminine in nature. The color of the hat IMHO doesn’t read: white women’s genitalia. Because trust me as a white woman: if I turned hot pink in the nether regions, I’d run to the doctor. Rather the color reads:
Sisters United. A Force to be Reckoned With. We Will Not Stand Down.
So, how do these stories of division and controversy start? The first article I read this year was written by an Emily Zanotti at the Daily Wire, a conservative outlet led by no other than Ben Shapiro, former editor of Breitbart. Then it was picked up by the Detroit Free Press. Now, the Daily Mail and Washington Times have run the same article with few changes. Out of the four publications only the Detroit Free Press is considered Left-of-Center.
So why would the conservative press want to fan the flames of division with the Second Women’s March approaching on 20 January?
Because the original Women’s March was enormously successful. The event inspired more people to show-up, march and protest than attended the Trumspter’s fraudulent inauguration. I was there; I saw The Donald's poor showing.
As for the pussyhats?
I remember standing inside the Maryland House off Rt 95, waiting to purchase water on my way back to Philly. A large group of women entered the rest stop, all donning their hats. A spontaneous round of applause started then grew into a thundering roar. People stamped their feet. Fists punched the air. Electric!
That’s the excitement we generated. That’s what the GOP's right-right wing is afraid of, again.
Fortunately, not everyone is taking the conservative cue on pussyhat donning. See here:
https://www.amny.com/news/pussyhat-knitty-city-1.16068536
And the Pussyhat Project? Glad to say, it’s alive and well.
https://www.pussyhatproject.com
Another blast on January 20th, people!
Anagrams and Revelation
Anagrams
plural noun: a word, phrase, or name formed by rearranging the letters of another, such as cinema, formed from iceman.
Anagrams have been around since the ancient Greeks who believed in the mystical and revelatory nature of letter rearrangement. Victorians saw anagramming as a form of literary entertainment.
So why shouldn’t we have fun, particularly on a day when there's little fun to be had?
And today’s word? Shithole, of course.
Anagram: his hotel.
How very ourious! 
The Trumpster's Very Bad Day
Trump’s comments yesterday about ‘shithole countries’ has ignited a firestorm, rightly so. Despite the man’s protests to the contrary—I’m the least racist person in the world—his words and past behavior on all things race-related is evidence of who the man is.
Obama’s birth certificate. Mexican immigrants are all rapists, criminals. Judge Curiel. Khizr and Ghazala Khan, Gold Star family. To mention a few.
We see you, Mr. Trump.
So, forgive us for scoffing at your lame excuse about your cancelled trip to the UK, blaming President Obama once again. Or rejecting your obvious lie about the vile words that actually spilled from your mouth. There were witnesses in the room, sir. No number of sycophants claiming the remarks were not racist or merely economics will ever wash this stain away.
Nor should the interview you gave to the Wall Street Journal be overlooked or minimized. In a jumbled ramble you beat your own drum—the best president ever; excoriated the FBI for doing the investigative work it is mandated to do; accused FBI agent Peter Strzok (relieved of his position on Mueller’s team) of treason; proved beyond a doubt that you have no understanding or respect for the Rule of Law, let alone capable of putting a cogent thought together:
"There was no obstruction. Of course there was no obstruction. But there was no crime. So now they're saying, could there be -- now, I haven't even heard that they're looking at obstruct -- I don't know that they're looking at obstruction. But how can you -- I'm sorry, this is the most open dialogue ever, I've given everything, number one. That's not obstruction.”
We see you, Mr. Trump.
The press/media sees you though for too long they were blinded by the glare, patiently waiting, predicting the ‘pivot’ that never came, never could come because Hillary Clinton was right: what you see is what you get. Nevertheless, the morning cable shows and newspaper headlines have taken up yesterday’s racist comments like a banner, some angry, some emotional. With the exception of Fox News, all disgusted. The countries you slandered are demanding official apologies/explanations and former Mexican President Vicente Fox tweeted out a suitable metaphor for the raucous occasion.
The Wall Street Journal has curiously defended you in the past. But this recent interview has been neither edited nor smoothed over. Your words in all their jumbled glory are on the page—the incoherent thoughts, half-baked ideas and incessant self-aggrandizement.
We see you, Mr. Trump. The whole damn world sees you.
Wall Street Journal summary below. Though I read the interview in its entirety last night, it’s now behind a paywall. Frankly, if I were Trump, I would want this Q&A hidden in an undersea vault. In any case, CNN has picked up the main topics/excerpts here:
http://www.cnn.com/2018/01/12/politics/trump-wsj-interview/index.html
The Great Republican Abdication
Greg Sargent has a piece up today in the Washington Post. The above headline is as it appears above the article.
In my mind, those four words encapsulate what we’ve been witnessing over the last year but made particularly striking in the last few weeks. Gone are the criticisms of Bob Corker, he of adult-daycare fame. Forgotten are Jeff Flake’s comments on the floor of the Senate where he insisted he ‘would not be complicit or silent.’
And yet, complicity and silence is the Republican response to the Trumpster’s antics: his performance art, masquerading as serious immigration negotiation; his twisting in the wind regarding FISA’s renewal vote or his contentious attacks against our traditional institutions—the FBI, DOJ, any and all intelligence agencies. Not to mention his calls for private citizens to be thrown in jail.
Banana Republic, anyone?
Yesterday, I posted an OP on the release of The Foreign Relations Committee’s Report, specifically citing Putin’s asymmetric assault on democracies around the world and recommendations to defend ourselves and our allies from on-going and future threats.
Republicans remained silent, refusing to sign onto the report. Because . . . Trump. Because . . . Russia. And as Sargent contends, they’re hoping the report itself will be seen as a partisan document, evidence lending credence to the Trumpster’s whine: WITCH HUNT, WITCH HUNT.
Our national security as a country, as a people is being risked for the sake of political gamesmanship. This is a glaring, chilling example of Republican complicity, enabling the disgraceful and treacherous behavior/actions of Donald Trump. Even in light of Michael Woffe’s scathing expose’, Republicans have remained largely silent about the book’s details. Rather, they’ve spent the debate time trashing Wolff as a betrayer, a con-man. Irony is having a rebirth!
There’s more, of course.
Diane Feinstein’s release of the Fusion GPS testimony proves the GOP’s dueling narrative regarding Simpson and Steele was always false, that Republicans knew it, that Grassley and Graham certainly knew they were grandstanding and lying when they referred a criminal investigation request to the DOJ on Steele.
And yet, they did it anyway.
Which begs the question: Who are they protecting? The Donald, for whom few have respect? Vladimir Putin, who has made no secret of his antipathy toward the United States and our Allies?
Or themselves, the silent partners in How to Sell Your Soul and Pretend It Doesn’t Matter.
Sargent suggests the Foreign Relations Committee’s Report and Diane Feinstein going rogue is a new phase in the Democratic Party’s resistance and push-back to all things Trump/Russia.
For the sake of us all, I hope he’s right.
WAPO link here:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2018/01/10/the-great-republican-abdication/?utm_term=.8d0671a436b1
Just One More Thing to Put a Twist in the Trumpster's Panties
Democratic Senator Ben Cardin released a report from the Foreign Relations Committee detailing Two Decades of Putin’s Attacks on Democracy.
The Report includes more than 30 recommendations for the US and its Allies. Key points:
1. Mr. Trump must demonstrate presidential leadership in declaring US policy to deter Russian threats and attacks mobilizing our government in defense.
2. The US should provide assistance in concert with Allies in Europe, to build democratic institutions within those European and Eurasian states most vulnerable to Russian interference.
3. The United States and our Allies should freeze and expose Kremlin-linked dirty money.
4. The US Government should designate countries that employ malign influence to assault democracies . . . and subject them to a preemptive, escalative sanctions regime . . .
5. The US government and NATO should lead a coalition of countries committed to mutual defense against cyberattacks, to include the establishment of rapid action teams to defend allies under attack.
6. US and European governments should mandate that social media companies make public sources of funding for political advertisements along the same lines as TV channels and print media.
I took particular notice of “Mr. Trump” in the first recommendation. The Foreign Relations Committee is saying: ENOUGH ALREADY! Add this to the naming of a Boris Nemtsov Square adjacent to DC’s Russian Embassy and I can easily imagine this:
At 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.
Happy days, Mr. Trump.
For more on the report:
https://www.foreign.senate.gov/press/ranking/release/cardin-releases-report-detailing-two-decades-of-putins-attacks-on-democracy
The Flunky Nominees Just Keep A-Coming
There’s something to be said about an Administration in meltdown, a group so toxic that no one with a real reputation or genuine set of professional credentials is willing to hop aboard the Runaway Train. This has been demonstrated repeatedly with a number of nominees, even the Trumpster’s legal team, 3rd tier at best.
And now we have yet another embarrassment: the candidate for leading the Indian Health Services Agency. Robert Weaver, a 39-year old member of Quapaw Tribe claims he is qualified to head the agency serving 2 million Native Americans in 26 hospitals and clinics with a budget of roughly $6 billion. His resume’ indicated a history of supervisory and management positions from 1997-2006 at St John’s Medical Center, Joplin, MO.
Only problem?
No one recalls the dude working at the hospital in anything beyond an entrance-level capacity. As for his employment records? Well, coincidentally both his personal records and those of the hospital were destroyed by the tornado that ripped through Joplin in 2011.
There’s also some question about his educational qualifications. As in, did he ever graduate from Southern Missouri State University with a major in International Business. Or why a business degree would substitute for a medical degree, a requirement for former Agency heads.
Oh, happy days!
These people really have no shame.
Full article from WJS can be found here:
https://www.wsj.com/articles/trump-nominee-to-lead-indian-health-services-faces-claims-of-misrepresentation-1515170335
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