Special Counsel Bob Mueller's investigation has led him to the doorstep of longtime conservative ratfucker and proud bearer of a Nixon back tat Roger Stone. Stone was indicted yesterday "by a federal grand jury in the District of Columbia on seven counts, including one count of obstruction of an official proceeding, five counts of false statements, and one count of witness tampering." He was arrested at his home early this morning.
You can read the entire indictment here. The gist: "STONE was contacted by senior Trump Campaign officials to inquire about future releases by Organization 1. By in or around early August 2016, STONE was claiming both publicly and privately to have communicated with Organization 1."
In plain language: Senior Trump campaign officials (note the plural) contacted Roger Stone to ask him to work with Wikileaks to get damaging information on Hillary Clinton via hacked emails.
None of this is a surprise. We even have some idea of who the "senior Trump campaign officials" are who were in communication with Stone. In November, the New York Times reported on an email exchange between Steve Bannon, then running Trump's campaign, and Stone about Wikileaks.
But surely it was not only Bannon. The indictment makes clear it was multiple Trump campaign officials who communicated with Stone about stolen emails, and it's reasonable to believe that most or all of the senior players on Trump's team were engaged on this subject.
Remember: The now-infamous meeting Don Trump Jr. had at Trump Tower with Kremlin-connected lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya was taken after Don Jr. was promised damaging information about Hillary Clinton. That meeting was also attended by Jared Kushner and Paul Manafort, and, within a half hour of his son having a meeting with Russians who promised to deliver some dirt on Clinton, Donald Trump tweeted at Clinton: "Where are your 33,000 emails that you deleted?"
One month later that [video autoplays] Trump invited the Russians to hack us, saying: "Russia, if you're listening, I hope you're able to find the 30,000 e-mails that are missing. I think you will probably be rewarded mightily by our press."
I suspect at minimum that the senior campaign officials who were aware of and/or in communication with Roger Stone about his interactions with Wikileaks regarding Clinton emails include: Donald Trump, Paul Manafort, Steve Bannon, Corey Lewandowski, Mike Pence, Don Jr., Ivanka Trump, Jared Kushner, and Kellyanne Conway.
There is also a strong possibility that Reince Priebus, who was then chair of the RNC and had, after initial criticisms of Trump, forged close ties to the Trump campaign, and who went on to become Trump's chief of staff, knew about the communications.
So, obviously, I'm quite glad that Stone will, one hopes, eventually be held accountable for his sinister participation in Trump campaign collusion with a foreign adversary to undermine our election.
But I also find it very curious why it's only Stone being indicted, and not the entire lot of co-conspirators. Why only Stone and not the "senior Trump campaign officials" with whom he communicated, at least some of whom are almost certainly walking around the halls of the White House with immense power and influence, which they wield relentlessly with overt malice?
"This is just the beginning" doesn't feel compelling to me at the moment, because it's clearly not the beginning. We're two years in, and Mueller is confident enough to say in the indictment that Stone communicated with senior Trump campaign officials, plural, which means he's got evidence, but he's not acting on it. I want to know why.
And I need, as a citizen of this country at greater risk with each passing day, to know why the fuck it is that this investigation still hasn't touched any of the people currently working in the Trump administration.
Paul Manafort, Michael Cohen, and Roger Stone need to face consequences, but none of them are empowered by the executive branch and none of them have continued access to state secrets.
I am realistic about the fact that Mueller can't frog-march Donald Trump and Mike Pence out of the West Wing, but Jared Kushner, Ivanka Trump, Kellyanne Conway, and Don Trump Jr. need their access and influence severed immediately. That is far more urgent than Roger Stone.
Who strikes me, by the way, as the least likely among this list of traitors to roll.
Showing posts with label WikiLeaks. Show all posts
Showing posts with label WikiLeaks. Show all posts
Roger Stone Arrested; Indicted on Seven Counts
Mueller Reportedly Close to Wrapping It Up
Today, Special Counsel Bob Mueller is scheduled to file a detailed memo in support of the sentencing of Michael Flynn, which will "include information about any 'bad acts' Flynn committed for which he was not charged, and details about his cooperation with the special counsel." There is, to put it mildly, a good chance this memo will not reflect well on Donald Trump.
Mueller will also file detailed memos on Friday in support of the sentencing of Paul Manafort and Michael Cohen. Those are also unlikely to reflect well on Trump.
Mueller is thought to be nearing the end of his investigation:
Mueller's prosecutors have told defense lawyers in recent weeks that they are "tying up loose ends" in their investigation, providing the clearest clues yet that the long-running probe into Russia's interference in the 2016 election may be coming to its climax, potentially in the next few weeks, according to multiple sources close to the matter.Mueller's filings on Flynn, Manafort, and Cohen will be made public, though parts of them may be redacted. So we'll have something to scrutinize, even if his final report is tanked by acting AG Matthew Whitaker.
...The only other publicly known matter Mueller is believed to be focused on relates to former Trump adviser Roger Stone and conspiracy theorist Jerome Corsi — both of whom have been aggressively investigated to determine if they had advance communications with WikiLeaks or associates of the group about its plans for the release of stolen emails of Hillary Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta in the final weeks of the 2016 presidential election.
Whatever we get to see by the end of this thing, it's going to look bad for Trump. It already looks bad for Trump. What remains to be seen is whether it will be bad for Trump — whether it will result in any meaningful consequences for him, or whether it will just be another round of bad press for him to weather, from which he ultimately emerges unscathed, his enormous power remaining firmly intact and unchecked.
It's not reassuring that Trump is, virtually on the daily, tweeting execrable bombast about the investigation that is tantamount to obstruction, to no consequence.
Trump, however, doesn't have only Mueller to worry about anymore. House Democrats are preparing investigations of their own, and he's still facing challenges over his business: "The attorneys general of the District of Columbia and Maryland said Monday that they are moving forward with subpoenas for records in their case accusing [Donald] Trump of profiting off the presidency. U.S. District Court Judge Peter J. Messitte approved the legal discovery schedule in an order Monday. Such information would likely provide the first clear picture of the finances of Trump's Washington, D.C., hotel."
It seems inconceivable that all of the investigations into Trump's plethoric and obvious corruption would not result in multiple legal troubles from which it would be impossible to totally extricate himself, but I suspect we're about to find out how truly powerful the office of the presidency is when its occupant is willing to wield that power to shield himself from accountability.
We Resist: Day 503
One of the difficulties in resisting the Trump administration, the Republican Congressional majority, and Republican state legislatures (plus the occasional non-Republican who obliges us to resist their nonsense, too, like we don't have enough to worry about) is keeping on top of the sheer number of horrors, indignities, and normalization of the aggressively abnormal that they unleash every single day.
So here is a daily thread for all of us to share all the things that are going on, thus crowdsourcing a daily compendium of the onslaught of conservative erosion of our rights and our very democracy.
Stay engaged. Stay vigilant. Resist.
* * *
Earlier today by me: Election Thread and Just a Reminder That He Is Not Actually a Clown.
Here are some more things in the news today...
[Content Note: Video may autoplay at link] Jennifer Jacobs at Bloomberg: Trump Wants Kim to Commit to Disarmament Timetable in Singapore.
The White House wants North Korean leader Kim Jong Un to commit to a timetable to surrender his country's nuclear arsenal when he meets [Donald] Trump next week in Singapore, a high-stakes summit that could last as long as two days — or just minutes.And they will either "hit it off" or hate each other on sight, as two people who are very much alike tend to do.
Trump has been advised not to offer Kim any concessions, as the White House seeks to put the onus on the North Koreans to make the summit a success, one U.S. official said. The president is determined to walk out of the meeting if it doesn't go well, two officials said. Alternatively, Trump is toying with the idea of offering Kim a follow-up summit at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach, Florida — perhaps in the fall — if the two men hit it off.
And lest you imagine I'm being snarky or presumptuous by saying they're very much alike, take it from Dennis Rodman, who knows both of them: "Having been a contestant twice on Trump's reality-TV show, Celebrity Apprentice, and having been to North Korea five times since 2013, he's one of the few people on the planet to have met both leaders, let alone be on friendly terms with them. In April, Rodman claimed to have helped Kim have a 'change of heart' about the president by giving him a copy of Trump's book, The Art of the Deal."
And said at the time: "Donald Trump and Kim Jong-un are pretty much the same." Cool.
In other summit news... [CN: Nazism]
Administration official says Gorka is not going to Asia in an official capacity.
— Julian Borger (@julianborger) June 6, 2018
You know how during every celebration of a Nazi leaving the White House, I'm a big old buzzkill who warns that they'll just be moving into an unofficial role with no oversight? That.
But also: In a private conversation, which I'm sharing with permission, Shaker SKM noted: "Hannity is going to Singapore as well. Looking more and more like a far-right out-of-country meeting for some purpose other than North Korea."
Absolutely. (Or in addition to.) I wonder which Russian diplomat(s) and/or oligarch(s) is going to show up to meet them outside the purview of U.S. feds.
This is shaping up to be Seychelles 2.0.
* * *
What the fuck?!
Uh. "It’s not yet clear what Edwards’ job was at the White House, but, unless Tuesday was his first day on the job, an attempted murder suspect has been coming and going from the White House grounds." https://t.co/SWdGzRyBtI
— Melissa McEwan (@Shakestweetz) June 6, 2018
"A federal law enforcement official says Edwards did work for the National Security Council in the Old Executive Office Building next to the White House and did not have access to the West Wing." I MEAN. https://t.co/s8vfOcogvt
— Melissa McEwan (@Shakestweetz) June 6, 2018
Aron Heller at the AP: Giuliani Says Mueller's Team Is Trying to Frame Trump. "Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani said Wednesday that special counsel Robert Mueller's team is trying to frame [Donald] Trump. ...'There are a group of 13 highly partisan Democrats who make up the Mueller team, excluding him, and are trying very, very hard to frame him to get him in trouble when he hasn't done anything wrong,' said Giuliani, who has been serving as Trump's lawyer amid the Russia scandal. 'They can't emotionally come to grips with the fact that this whole thing with Russian collusion didn't happen. They are trying to invent theories of obstruction of justice,' Giuliani told a business conference in the Israeli city of Tel Aviv." This is breathtakingly inappropriate. Seethe.
Judd Legum at ThinkProgress: Latest Trump Attack on Russian Investigation Comes Directly from Conspiracy Websites. "Trump's tweet refers to an article about Strzok and Page's texts that appeared on Gateway Pundit, a notorious right-wing conspiracy website, claiming that the texts prove the FBI was spying on the Trump campaign. The Gateway Pundit article, in turn, is based on an unsourced tweet from a pseudonymous twitter account. (It's notable that even this random Twitter user is more suspicious of his own analysis than Trump.) It was also a popular post on the forum for conspiracy theories on Reddit, called r/conspiracy. As you might imagine, the analysis is totally wrong." From rando Redditors to the Twitter account of the United States president. Highly disturbing.
Carole Cadwalladr and Stephanie Kirchgaessner at the Guardian: Cambridge Analytica Director 'Met Assange to Discuss U.S. Election'. "A Cambridge Analytica director apparently visited Julian Assange in February last year and told friends it was to discuss what happened during the U.S. election, the Guardian has learned. Brittany Kaiser, a director at the firm until earlier this year, also claimed to have channelled cryptocurrency payments and donations to WikiLeaks. This information has been passed to congressional and parliamentary inquiries in the U.K. and U.S. Cambridge Analytica and WikiLeaks are already subjects of special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation, but the revelations open up fresh questions about the precise nature of the organisations' relationship."
"Trump is preparing to sign a sweeping new law Wednesday aimed at expanding veterans’ access to private-sector health care. But behind the scenes his administration is fighting a bipartisan Senate effort to fund the legislation." https://t.co/UNVCsCiPTv
— Melissa McEwan (@Shakestweetz) June 6, 2018
Kate Riga at TPM: Andrew McCabe Is Asking for Immunity to Testify on Clinton Email Probe. "Former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe is requesting immunity in exchange for his testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee on the handling of the Hillary Clinton email probe, according to a Tuesday CNN report. In a letter obtained by CNN, McCabe's lawyer, Michael Bromwich, set out the terms to Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-IA), wanting to establish that no information McCabe provided would be used against him in a criminal prosecution. Per CNN, Grassley has called McCabe to testify next week, though the inspector general's report has not yet been released." That IG report is gonna be something, sounds like.
* * *
[CN: Police brutality; racism.]
"I don't feel that our officers were at their best" says a police chief whose officers were caught on video "brutally beating a man who appeared to be minding his own business while on his cellphone." https://t.co/bXAchY2wGs
— Melissa McEwan (@Shakestweetz) June 6, 2018
Richard Lawler at Engadget: Facebook's On-Device Data Sharing Program Included Huawei, Lenovo. "After a New York Times report highlighted how Facebook provided 60 or so device manufacturers access to user data, today the NYT and Washington Post report that four Chinese manufacturers are on the list. Huawei, Lenovo, Oppo, and TCL all had integrations that Facebook exec Francisco Varela told the NYT 'were controlled from the get-go — and Facebook approved everything that was built.' Huawei, in particular, has been raised for scrutiny by several lawmakers, who worry that the Chinese government could demand access to data on its servers. Earlier this year, the FBI, CIA, and NSA warned against use of the company's products or services, citing a potential capacity for 'undetected espionage.'"
[CN: War on agency] Teddy Wilson at Rewire.News: Report: Trump's Global Gag Rule 'Downright Catastrophic for Global Health'. "The Trump administration's reinstatement and expansion of the 'global gag rule' (GGR) has been the most 'extreme and sweeping' iteration of the policy yet and 'threatens to derail decades of progress' in improving health care, according to a report released Tuesday by the Center for Health and Gender Equity (CHANGE). 'When the GGR is in effect, it creates and exploits inefficiencies in health care delivery and causes harm to beneficiaries, who may not be aware that their fate is being determined by what is essentially a political football in Washington, D.C.,' the report's authors concluded."
[CN: Class warfare] Hari Kishan and Rahul Karunakar at Reuters: U.S. House Prices to Rise at Twice the Speed of Inflation and Pay. "The latest poll of nearly 45 analysts taken May 16-June 5 showed the S&P/Case Shiller composite index of home prices in 20 cities is expected to gain a further 5.7 percent this year. That compared to predictions for average earnings growth of 2.8 percent and inflation of 2.5 percent 2018, according to a separate Reuters poll of economists." Those numbers may sound innocuous, but that's not good. At best, many people will have to keep renting and not building any equity. And, at worst, we're diving headfirst into another housing bubble and subsequent collapse.
[CN: Misogyny; racism; harassment; threats; bullying] Amy Zimmerman at the Daily Beast: The Persecution of Kelly Marie Tran: How Star Wars Fandom Became Overrun by Alt-Right Trolls. "On Monday night, the Twitter account Star Wars Facts tweeted out that Star Wars: The Last Jedi's Kelly Marie Tran, the first woman of color to land a leading role in the mega-popular franchise, had 'deleted all the posts off her Instagram due to months of harassment she has received for her character Rose in #TheLastJedi.' ...Tran's Instagram does appear to be scrubbed, robbing online trolls of a forum they once used to personally attack the actress. Now, the only evidence of life on her social media account is her bio: 'Afraid, but doing it anyway.'" Blub.
What have you been reading that we need to resist today?
Roger Stone Sought Stolen Clinton and State Department Emails During Campaign
Shelby Holliday and Rob Barry at the Wall Street Journal: Roger Stone Sought Information on Clinton from Assange, Emails Show.
Former Trump campaign adviser Roger Stone privately sought information he considered damaging to Hillary Clinton from WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange during the 2016 presidential campaign, according to emails reviewed by The Wall Street Journal.So, we'll pause here briefly to note a couple of things:
The emails could raise new questions about Mr. Stone's testimony before the House Intelligence Committee in September, in which he said he "merely wanted confirmation" from an acquaintance that Mr. Assange had information about Mrs. Clinton, according to a portion of the transcript that was made public.
In a Sept. 18, 2016, message, Mr. Stone urged an acquaintance who knew Mr. Assange to ask the WikiLeaks founder for emails related to Mrs. Clinton's alleged role in disrupting a purported Libyan peace deal in 2011 when she was secretary of state, referring to her by her initials.
"Please ask Assange for any State or HRC e-mail from August 10 to August 30--particularly on August 20, 2011," Mr. Stone wrote to Randy Credico, a New York radio personality who had interviewed Mr. Assange several weeks earlier. Mr. Stone, a longtime confidant of Mr. Trump, had no formal role in his campaign at the time.
One, that per Rep. Adam Schiff, ranking Democrat on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, the email exchange between Stone and Credico was not provided to congressional investigators.
[Schiff] said the emails hadn't been provided to congressional investigators.Two, that as noted by former federal prosecutor Renato Mariotti, "It is a federal crime to knowingly receive stolen material that has crossed a national or international boundary."
"If there is such a document, then it would mean that his testimony was either deliberately incomplete or deliberately false," said Mr. Schiff, who has continued to request documents and conduct interviews with witnesses despite the committee's probe concluding earlier this year.
And three, that Stone "had no formal role" in Trump's campaign at the time is totally irrelevant to everyone aside from treason apologists.
Which Stone knows as well as anyone and better than most. Hence this:
Mr. Stone, in a text message to the Journal, said that Mr. Credico had "provided nothing" to him and that WikiLeaks never handed anything over.Maybe. Or maybe not. Roger Stone isn't known for his rigorous honesty. Either way, the very fact that he was soliciting State Department emails, which would have had to be stolen for him to access them, is a problem. And the likelihood that he omitted information during his congressional testimony could be a crime.
Unfortunately, the usual issue is that there still doesn't appear to be anyone in the Republican majority who has even the slightest inclination to hold anyone accountable for any of this.
We Resist: Day 406
One of the difficulties in resisting the Trump administration, the Republican Congressional majority, and Republican state legislatures (plus the occasional non-Republican who obliges us to resist their nonsense, too, like we don't have enough to worry about) is keeping on top of the sheer number of horrors, indignities, and normalization of the aggressively abnormal that they unleash every single day.
So here is a daily thread for all of us to share all the things that are going on, thus crowdsourcing a daily compendium of the onslaught of conservative erosion of our rights and our very democracy.
Stay engaged. Stay vigilant. Resist.
* * *
Here are some things in the news today:
Earlier today by me: Hope Hicks to Resign; Trump's List of Allies Grows Thin and "The attempt at curbing Russia has failed."
[Content Note: Guns] Michael Daly at the Daily Beast: Armed 'Teacher of the Year' Opens Fire in School. "[A] star social studies teacher at Dalton High School, 90 miles from Atlanta...was arrested for barricading himself in his classroom and firing a shot with a handgun for reasons yet to be determined. ...A considerable number of the Dalton students who were thrown into an understandable panic by the gunshot on Wednesday were quick to offer their opinion of the notion that Trump shares with the NRA. One who goes by the Twitter handle Chondi tweeted: '@NRA my favorite teacher at Dalton high school just blockaded his door and proceeded to shoot. We had to run out the back of the school in the rain. Students were being trampled and screaming. I dare you to tell me arming teachers will make us safe.' Again, high school teens were making considerably more sense than our president in the wake of a shooting."
Katy Tur and Carol E. Lee at NBC News: Mueller Asking If Trump Knew About Hacked Democratic Emails Before Release.
Special counsel Robert Mueller's team is asking witnesses pointed questions about whether Donald Trump was aware that Democratic emails had been stolen before that was publicly known, and whether he was involved in their strategic release, according to multiple people familiar with the probe.Exhibit A in: The collusion was right out in the open!
Mueller's investigators have asked witnesses whether Trump was aware of plans for WikiLeaks to publish the emails. They have also asked about the relationship between GOP operative Roger Stone and WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, and why Trump took policy positions favorable to Russia.
The line of questioning suggests the special counsel, who is tasked with examining whether there was collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia during the 2016 election, is looking into possible coordination between WikiLeaks and Trump associates in disseminating the emails, which U.S. intelligence officials say were stolen by Russia.
...In one line of questioning, investigators have focused on Trump's public comments in July 2016 asking Russia to find emails that were deleted by his then-opponent Hillary Clinton from a private server she maintained while secretary of state. The comments came at a news conference on July 27, 2016, just days after WikiLeaks began publishing the Democratic National Committee emails. "Russia, if you're listening, I hope you're able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing," Trump said.
In presumably unrelated news...
APPARENTLY THE RUSSIANS WERENT THE ONLY ONES SCREWING AROUND WITH OUR ELECTIONS Sanders fined for accepting foreign donations in 2016 election https://t.co/gA70CmRjy5 via@vtdigger
— Howard Dean (@GovHowardDean) March 1, 2018
[CN: Disablist language] Jonathan Swan and Mike Allen at Axios: The Wild Wars Within the Trump White House. "After a [wild] 24 hours, sources close to [Donald] Trump say he is in a bad place — mad as hell about the internal chaos and the sense that things are unraveling. The big picture: Hope Hicks leaving is obviously a huge blow to him. Every time he reads about Attorney General Jeff Sessions, his head explodes. The staff is just trying to ride out the storm. Everywhere you look inside this White House, top officials are fighting, fomenting, feuding, or fleeing, insiders say in conversations with us. ...We have never seen top officials this concerned, defeated." This is very concerning, because an isolated Trump is a(n even more) dangerous Trump.
Margaret Hartmann at NY Mag: Amid White House Unrest, Trump Mulls Launching a Trade War. (Not the first we've heard of this.)
It doesn't seem things are ever calm in Donald Trump's White House, but the last few days have been particularly turbulent; adviser-in-law Jared Kushner had his security clearance downgraded, communications director Hope Hicks announced her impending resignation, and various leaks revealed that Special Counsel Robert Mueller is getting deeper into Trump family business. Now, amid all this chaos, Trump may announce he's starting a trade war.So Trump's plan to launch a trade war to distract from internal chaos is causing even more internal chaos. JFC this administration.
Late on Wednesday night, The Wall Street Journal reported that the Trump administration summoned steel and aluminum executives on short notice to a midday meeting on Thursday. Sources say Trump may use the meeting to announce new tariffs on steel and aluminum imports that could roil global markets — or he may not.
Trump has yet to impose most of the protectionist policies he called for during the campaign, but Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross recently laid the groundwork with a report recommending that Trump impose very large tariffs and possibly other trade-restriction sanctions in the name of protecting national security. While it seemed possible that Trump might announce the tariffs before March 13 to help the Republican congressional candidate in a Pennsylvania special election, the decision had reportedly been held up by infighting between Ross and officials concerned about the global consequences, including Gary Cohn, director of the White House National Economic Council, Defense Secretary James Mattis, and former White House staff secretary Rob Porter.
Aaaaaaand as I was writing, he launched it:
NEWS from pool spray: TRUMP SAYS U.S. WILL SET TARIFFS OF 25 PCT FOR STEEL AND 10 PERCENT FOR ALUMINUM
— Kayla Tausche (@kaylatausche) March 1, 2018
American consumers are going to end up paying a hefty price for Trump's trade war. This isn't going to work out the way he thinks it is.
Trade experts are concerned not only by what Trump is doing with the steel tariff but how he's doing it: invoking a little-used "national security" provision that could also be used by other countries to get around the usual free trade rules. https://t.co/EFel665kip
— Daniel Dale (@ddale8) March 1, 2018
Caitlin MacNeal at TPM: Family Company Got Loans After Kushner Met with Businesses at White House. "Two major loans to the Kushner Companies for real estate projects came after Jared Kushner, a senior adviser in the Trump administration, met with officials from those financial institutions at the White House... [Kushner] met with Joshua Harris, one of the founders of Apollo Global Management, several times at the White House early last year... In November, Apollo lent the Kushner Companies $184 million to refinance a mortgage on a building in Chicago, per the New York Times. ...Kushner met with Michael Corbat, chief executive at Citigroup, in the spring of 2017 at the White House... After that meeting, Citigroup lent Kushner Companies $325 million to finance buildings in Brooklyn, the Times reported."
Walter Schaub at the LA Times: In Any Other Presidency, Our 'Insufficiently Accurate' Secretary of Veterans Affairs Would Be Gone. "This fact pattern comes from a report issued Feb. 14 by an inspector general of the Department of Veterans Affairs. Let's consider the evidence and see if we think VA Secretary David Shulkin was being straight about the friendship between his wife and the woman who gave the gifts. (Spoiler Alert: He wasn't.) ...The inspector general's report delicately concludes that the information Shulkin provided to the VA's ethics office was 'insufficient to accurately describe his or his wife's relationship' with the supplier of the Wimbledon tickets as a 'personal friendship.' The evidence is more than enough to warrant Shulkin's termination. Or it would be, if the Trump administration cared about government ethics."
* * *
Brian Fung at the Washington Post: Equifax's Massive 2017 Data Breach Keeps Getting Worse. "Equifax said Thursday that 2.4 million more consumers than previously reported were affected by the massive data breach the company suffered last year, adding to an already stunning toll. This means that as many as 147.9 million consumers have been affected in some way by the breach, which amounts to about half the country. ...Last month, a probe by Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) said the company failed to keep its computer systems adequately up to date and was not forthcoming enough about its description of the damage. 'I spent five months investigating the Equifax breach and found the company failed to disclose the full extent of the hack,' Warren said in a statement Thursday. 'Enough is enough. We have to start holding the credit reporting industry accountable.'"
[CN: Guns; domestic violence] Auditi Guha at Rewire: A Dangerous Loophole in Maryland Law Leaves Domestic Abusers with Guns. "Maryland Democratic legislators and gun safety advocates are pushing Gov. Larry Hogan (R) to support legislation that would prevent domestic abusers from owning firearms, an effort that has fallen short in recent years. Domestic abusers with guns make a deadly combination that disproportionately endanger women and children. Two bills up for hearings in the Maryland State Legislature aim to close a loophole in state law that stops people convicted of domestic violence from owning guns, but has no mechanism to make sure they give up their firearms."
[CN: Nativism] Ayana Byrd at Colorlines: Judge Clears Legal Roadblock for Administration to Build Border Wall. "The Trump administration was handed a judicial victory when a federal judge ruled in its favor in a lawsuit, allowing plans to move forward to build a wall on the United States-Mexico border. In a 101-page opinion issued Tuesday (February 27), U.S. District Judge Gonzalo P. Curiel wrote that the government had the authority to waive environmental laws and build the border wall, according to an article in The Washington Post. The decision was in response to a lawsuit brought by environmental advocacy groups and the state of California who argued that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) was using an old immigration law to justify bypassing proper procedures to ensure that the wall met environmental standards."
(Yes, this is the same Judge Curiel who oversaw the class-action civil fraud lawsuit brought against Trump University and whom Donald Trump accused of not being able to do his job properly because of his Mexican heritage, even though Curiel was born in Indiana. At the time, Trump also said: "Because of the wall and because of everything that's going on with Mexico...this is a judge who I believe has treated me very, very unfairly." Now Curiel has issued a ruling that allows Trump to build that wall, and it's not a good ruling, in my estimation. If Curiel succumbed to pressure levied by Trump previously, that really does make him unfit to do his job, unfortunately.)
Mary Jordan at the Washington Post: Questions Linger About How Melania Trump, a Slovenian Model, Scored 'the Einstein Visa'. "In 2000, Melania Knauss, a Slovenian model dating Donald Trump, began petitioning the government for the right to permanently reside in the United States under a program reserved for people with 'extraordinary ability.' Knauss's credentials included runway shows in Europe, a Camel cigarette billboard ad in Times Square, and — in her biggest job at the time — a spot in the swimsuit edition of Sports Illustrated, which featured her on the beach in a string bikini, hugging a six-foot inflatable whale. In March 2001, she was granted a green card in the elite EB-1 program, which was designed for renowned academic researchers, multinational business executives, or those in other fields, such as Olympic athletes and Oscar-winning actors, who demonstrated 'sustained national and international acclaim.'"
[CN: Child death; police harassment; misogynoir] Lea Skene at the Baton Rouge Advocate: Mother of Baby Killed in Baton Rouge Crash Involving Off-Duty Cop Arrested for Failing to Secure Child Seat. "Just weeks after a Baton Rouge police officer was arrested on negligent homicide and accused of causing a crash that injured several people and killed a baby, the child's mother was also arrested on the same charge because police said she failed to properly secure the baby's car seat." Off-duty police officer Christopher Manuel was driving 94mph when he crashed his Corvette into the car in which 20-year-old Brittany Stephens and her baby were riding. Her baby was killed in the crash. And now, because "the straps [on the carseat] were not adjusted correctly for the child's height," Stephens is being held equally as responsible as the cop who plowed into them. Stephens, as I bet I don't even have to tell you, is Black.
[CN: Sexual harassment] Jessica M. Goldstein at ThinkProgress: Pulling the Red Carpet out from under Ryan Seacrest. "While Ryan Seacrest was under investigation for sexual misconduct — years of harassment and abuse, according to his accuser, though the public didn't know the details yet — he hosted E!'s Golden Globes red carpet pre-show. Three weeks later, while the investigation was still underway, he hosted the network's red carpet pre-show at the Grammy Awards. And three days from now, Seacrest will slip back into his suit and tie for E! as he hosts the pre-show at the biggest red carpet of the year: the Academy Awards. Months before the Grammys and the Golden Globes, a former stylist had filed an HR complaint. ...Seacrest was not suspended at any point: Not by E! or its parent company, NBCUniversal; not by ABC, where he co-hosts Live with Kelly and Ryan with Kelly Ripa and will be on hand for the American Idol reboot, premiering March 11; not by KIIS-FM or its owner iHeartRadio, which airs his syndicated morning show On Air with Ryan Seacrest and which selected Seacrest's charity, the Ryan Seacrest Foundation, as the beneficiary for the 2017 Jingle Ball."
[CN: Sexual assault; harassment; threats] Olivia Messer at the Daily Beast: Professor Repeatedly Raped Medical Resident, Threatened to 'Destroy' Her, Lawsuit Claims. "A prominent University of Rochester professor drugged and raped one of his medical residents, threatened to 'destroy her life,' and asked her boyfriend to murder his ex-wife, claims a harrowing complaint filed in New York state Supreme Court. Johan Blickman, a professor in pediatrics and the vice chair of the school's Department of Imaging Sciences, stands accused of forcing the woman into repeated sexual encounters and of taking photos of her while she was naked. ...The woman is asking for $30 million in damages from the university, its hospital, and Blickman — all named as defendants in the suit."
[CN: Sexual harassment and assault] Angela Couloumbis, Brad Bumsted, and Paula Knudsen at the Philly Inquirer: Rep. Nick Miccarelli Accused of Abusive Behavior and Sexual Misconduct. "Two women have accused State Rep. Nick Miccarelli of sexually or physically assaulting them in separate incidents over the last six years, the Inquirer and Daily News and the Caucus have learned. ...The women allege that the Delaware County Republican threatened, stalked, intimidated, or sexually assaulted them. One is a state official and the other is a political consultant. The accusers, who dated Miccarelli at different times between 2012 and 2014, are requesting that he resign, according to sources familiar with the investigation."
What have you been reading that we need to resist today?
We Resist: Day 405
One of the difficulties in resisting the Trump administration, the Republican Congressional majority, and Republican state legislatures (plus the occasional non-Republican who obliges us to resist their nonsense, too, like we don't have enough to worry about) is keeping on top of the sheer number of horrors, indignities, and normalization of the aggressively abnormal that they unleash every single day.
So here is a daily thread for all of us to share all the things that are going on, thus crowdsourcing a daily compendium of the onslaught of conservative erosion of our rights and our very democracy.
Stay engaged. Stay vigilant. Resist.
* * *
Here are some things in the news today:
Earlier today by me: Hope Hicks Testifies Her Job Requires Her to Lie.
I'm short on time today, so please forgive this truncated version of the daily resistance thread...
Cynthia McFadden, William M. Arkin, Kevin Manahan, and Ken Dilanian at NBC News: U.S. Intel: Russia Compromised Seven States Prior to 2016 Election. "The U.S. intelligence community developed substantial evidence that state websites or voter registration systems in seven states were compromised by Russian-backed covert operatives prior to the 2016 election — but never told the states involved, according to multiple U.S. officials. Top-secret intelligence requested by President Barack Obama in his last weeks in office identified seven states where analysts — synthesizing months of work — had reason to believe Russian operatives had compromised state websites or databases. Three senior intelligence officials told NBC News that the intelligence community believed the states as of January 2017 were Alaska, Arizona, California, Florida, Illinois, Texas, and Wisconsin."
Natasha Bertrand at the Atlantic: Roger Stone's Secret Messages with WikiLeaks. "On March 17, 2017, WikiLeaks tweeted that it had never communicated with Roger Stone, a longtime confidante and informal adviser to [Donald] Trump. In his interview with the House Intelligence Committee last September, Stone, who testified under oath, told lawmakers that he had communicated with WikiLeaks via an "intermediary," whom he identified only as a "journalist." He declined to reveal that person's identity to the committee, he told reporters later. Private Twitter messages obtained by The Atlantic show that Stone and WikiLeaks, a radical-transparency group, communicated directly on October 13, 2016 — and that WikiLeaks sought to keep its channel to Stone open after Trump won the election. The existence of the secret correspondence marks yet another strange twist in the White House's rapidly swelling Russia scandal."
[Content Note: Video may autoplay at link] Kara Scannell, Pamela Brown, Gloria Borger, and Jim Sciutto at CNN: Mueller Team Asks About Trump's Russian Business Dealings as He Weighed a Run for President. "Investigators for special counsel Robert Mueller have recently been asking witnesses about Donald Trump's business activities in Russia prior to the 2016 presidential campaign as he considered a run for president, according to three people familiar with the matter. Questions to some witnesses during wide-ranging interviews included the timing of Trump's decision to seek the presidency, potentially compromising information the Russians may have had about him, and why efforts to brand a Trump Tower in Moscow fell through, two sources said. The lines of inquiry indicate Mueller's team is reaching beyond the campaign to explore how the Russians might have sought to influence Trump at a time when he was discussing deals in Moscow and contemplating a presidential run."
Shane Harris, Carol D. Leonnig, Greg Jaffe, and Josh Dawsey at the Washington Post: Kushner's Overseas Contacts Raise Concerns as Foreign Officials Seek Leverage. "Officials in at least four countries have privately discussed ways they can manipulate Jared Kushner, the president's son-in-law and senior adviser, by taking advantage of his complex business arrangements, financial difficulties, and lack of foreign policy experience, according to current and former U.S. officials familiar with intelligence reports on the matter. Among those nations discussing ways to influence Kushner to their advantage were the United Arab Emirates, China, Israel, and Mexico, the current and former officials said."
Buckle up. Paul Manafort’s trial date has been set: Monday, September 17. https://t.co/QVsHkilTuU
— Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) February 28, 2018
Nicole Lafond at TPM: Four Commerce Department Political Appointees Ousted over Background Checks. "Four political appointees in the Department of Commerce lost their jobs Tuesday over issues with their background checks, as Chief of Staff John Kelly cracks down on staffers operating under an interim security clearance. According to The Washington Post, the Commerce Department determined that the four appointees — Fred Volcansek, who was a senior adviser to Secretary Wilbur Ross, and aides Chris Garcia, Edgar Mkrtchian, and Justin Arlett — should not have access to classified information."
"The breadth of Hammer’s power in Florida can be seen in the ways that state employees, legislators, and the governor defer to her—she gives orders, and they follow them."https://t.co/WkGYXbPZOL
— Melissa McEwan (@Shakestweetz) February 28, 2018
What have you been reading that we need to resist today?
Trump Campaign Was Offered Wikileaks Docs
[Content Note: Video may autoplay at link.]
Manu Raju and Jeremy Herb at CNN: Email Shows Effort to Give Trump Campaign WikiLeaks Documents.
Candidate Donald Trump, his son Donald Trump Jr. and others in the Trump Organization received an email in September 2016 offering a decryption key and website address for hacked WikiLeaks documents, according to an email provided to congressional investigators.So, just to be abundantly clear: Investigators aren't certain whether the email, from someone calling himself Mike Erickson, was a legitimate outreach from Wikileaks, or someone just purporting to be from Wikileaks.
The September 4 email was sent during the final stretch of the 2016 presidential race — two months after the hacked emails of the Democratic National Committee were made public and one month before WikiLeaks began leaking the contents of Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta's hacked emails.
The email came less than three weeks before WikiLeaks itself messaged Trump Jr. and began an exchange of direct messages on Twitter. Trump Jr. told investigators he had no recollection of the September email.
Congressional investigators are trying to ascertain whether the individual who sent the September email is legitimate and whether it shows additional efforts by WikiLeaks to connect with Trump's son and others on the Trump campaign. The email also indicated that the Trump campaign could access records from former Secretary of State Colin Powell, whose hacked emails were made public by a Russian front group 10 days later.
The email, which was described to CNN by multiple sources and verified by Trump Jr.'s attorney, came from someone who listed his name as "Mike Erickson." It was addressed to Trump, Trump Jr., Trump Jr.'s personal assistant and others, and turned over to Congress as part of the documents provided by the Trump Organization.
Congressional investigators are uncertain who the sender is, and CNN was unable to make contact with the individual. It's not clear whether the email was a legitimate effort to provide the hacked documents to the Trump campaign.
But the email was sent only three weeks before Don Jr. began his 10-month correspondence with Wikileaks.
And this is a key detail: "Trump Jr.'s attorney, Alan Futerfas, told CNN that his client said he had no recollection of the email and took no action on it."
In other words, they did not report it to authorities. Which is a big problem, even if they didn't act on it.
Don Jr.'s Supercool Correspondence with Wikileaks
Julia Ioffe at the Atlantic: The Secret Correspondence Between Donald Trump Jr. and Wikileaks.
The messages, obtained by The Atlantic, were also turned over by Trump Jr.'s lawyers to congressional investigators. They are part of a long—and largely one-sided—correspondence between Wikileaks and the president's son that continued until at least July 2017.Everything documented here is incredible, but I think my favorite part is Wikileaks trying to convince Don Jr. to allow Wikileaks to publish Donald Trump's tax returns, because "it will dramatically improve the perception of our impartiality. That means that the vast amount of stuff that we are publishing on Clinton will have much higher impact, because it won't be perceived as coming from a 'pro-Trump' 'pro-Russia' source."
The messages show Wikileaks, a radical transparency organization that the American intelligence community believes was chosen by the Russian government to disseminate the information it had hacked, actively soliciting Trump Jr.'s cooperation.
Wikileaks made a series of increasingly bold requests, including asking for Trump's tax returns, urging the Trump campaign on Election Day to reject the results of the election as rigged, and requesting that the president-elect tell Australia to appoint Julian Assange ambassador to the United States.
...Though Trump Jr. mostly ignored the frequent messages from Wikileaks, he at times appears to have acted on its requests. ...At no point during the 10-month correspondence does Trump, Jr. rebuff Wikileaks, which had published stolen documents and was already observed to be releasing information that benefited Russian interests.
It's so brazen. Just breathtakingly brazen.
We've now updated the story with @ByronTau's great catch: @realDonaldTrump tweeted about the release of Podesta's emails *15 minutes* after @Wikileaks wrote to @DonaldJTrumpJr about it. https://t.co/pVGEBqmB9O pic.twitter.com/pOszShJ7JY
— Julia Ioffe (@juliaioffe) November 13, 2017
I'm certainly not surprised by any of the disclosures here; that the Trump campaign was coordinating with Wikileaks was pretty evident, even with just a cursory comparison of their respective Twitter accounts at the time. But it's solid corroboration.
This presidency is illegitimate. Here is yet more proof.
The Abuse of Private Manning
[Trigger warning for detainee abuse.]
The New York Times editors address the ongoing abuse of Pfc. Bradley Manning, "who has been imprisoned for nine months on charges of handing government files to WikiLeaks."
[Manning] has not even been tried let alone convicted. Yet the military has been treating him abusively, in a way that conjures creepy memories of how the Bush administration used to treat terror suspects. Inexplicably, it appears to have President Obama's support to do so.The editorial notes that State Department spokesperson P.J. Crowley "resigned" last weekend after saying that the military's treatment of Manning is "ridiculous and counterproductive and stupid." I have seen no comment from Secretary Clinton on Crowley's original statement nor his "resignation," and I am both curious and concerned about what her position is regarding Manning.
Private Manning is in solitary confinement at the Marine Corps brig in Quantico, Va. For one hour a day, he is allowed to walk around a room in shackles. He is forced to remove all his clothes every night. And every morning he is required to stand outside his cell, naked, until he passes inspection and is given his clothes back.
Military officials say, without explanation, that these precautions are necessary to prevent Private Manning from injuring himself. They have put him on "prevention of injury" watch, yet his lawyers say there is no indication that he is suicidal and the military has not placed him on a suicide watch.
...Many military and government officials remain furious at the huge dump of classified materials to WikiLeaks. But if this treatment is someone's way of expressing that emotion, it would be useful to revisit the presumption of innocence and the Constitutional protection against cruel and unusual punishment.
...Far more troubling is why President Obama, who has forcefully denounced prisoner abuse, is condoning this treatment. Last week, at a news conference, he said the Pentagon had assured him that the terms of the private's confinement "are appropriate and are meeting our basic standards." He said he could not go into details, but details are precisely what is needed to explain and correct an abuse that should never have begun.
As for Obama, at whose desk this and all other bucks stop, this is yet another grave betrayal of the promises he made during his campaign to get elected, as Glenn Greenwald notes here.
It's long been obvious that the Obama administration's unprecedented war on whistleblowers "comes from the President himself," notwithstanding his campaign decree -- under the inspiring title "Protect Whistleblowers" -- that "such acts of courage and patriotism should be encouraged rather than stifled." The inhumane treatment of Manning plainly has two principal effects: it intimidates future would-be whistleblowers into knowing that they, too, will be abused without recourse, and it will break him psychologically (as prolonged solitary confinement and degrading treatment inevitably do) to render him incapable of a defense and to ensure he provides whatever statements they want about WikiLeaks. Other than Obama's tolerance for the same detainee abuse against which he campaigned and his ongoing subservience to the military that he supposedly "commands," it is the way in which this Manning/Crowley behavior bolsters the regime of secrecy and the President's obsessive attempts to destroy whistleblowing that makes this episode so important and so telling.There are always people who get agitated when I use the "The Third Term of George Bush Is Going Splendidly" tag, and I'll be happy to stop using it as soon as Obama stops fucking acting like George Bush.
...When Obama was asked on Friday about Manning's treatment, he said in part: "I've actually asked the Pentagon whether or not the procedures ... are appropriate. They assured me they are." When George W. Bush, in his book, attempted to justify his torture regime, he wrote, as summarized by Newsweek's Jacob Weisberg: "When [Bush] asked 'the most senior legal officers in the U.S. government' to review interrogation methods, 'they assured me they did not constitute torture.' Case closed. You can't argue with the choices Bush defends in this book, because he doesn't argue them himself. He describes, asserts, and cites any authority handy, usually the authority he hired to defend his decisions" (h/t WLLegal).
You can find out how to help/support Pfc. Bradley Manning here.
Statistics for rape apologists
[Trigger Warning: Rape and rape apologia]
Lesson 1: Harnessing the power of statistics to predict the past
Nate Silver is an influential progressive columnist. He writes about the confluence of statistics and politics. He became a rising star during the last election, and now he writes for the New York Times. Influential guy, totally worth paying attention to.
Anyhow, yesterday he wrote this [TW] column about how Julian Assange was probably set up by the man. Not in the sense that the man made him rape those two women, but in the sense that Silver thinks the man is paying two women to pretend to be raped, what with [TW] all the fun that entails. Silver thinks this is likely the case because he knows some statistics. I also know some statistics.
I'm not an expert on statistics. I've taken three graduate level courses in frequentist statistics (more on that later). I've got a Ph.D. in Ecology (technically Zoology). I've taught ecology (hint: it's mostly statistics +/- lichens and shit). I've also taught college statistics (it also is mostly statistics). Silver studied economics and the statistics of baseball. And that's not me taking a swipe at him-- the statistics of baseball are complicated and meaningful.
Anyhow, one of the nice things about my training is that even though I don't work for the New York Times*, I've got a good sense of what I don't know much about. Things like Bayesian statistics.
So there's basically two statistical posses. There are the frequentists, who are essentially your grandmother's statisticians. As the cool kids say, these are the “unmarked” statisticians. You know, they do "normal" statistics, basically assuming that if you a run an experiment enough times, you'll get the right answer, plus or minus some level of variation.
Then there are the Bayesians. This one guy I knew was a Bayesian. I shared an office with him once. Anyhow, based on that, I'm going to tell you that Silver does an okay job of describing what Bayesian statistics are. As I understand it, Bayesians basically pay a lot of attention to how gaining new information changes your understanding of the statistical validity of a hypothesis.
Anyhow, if you really care about statistics, you're reading the wrong post(s). You should just check out the appropriate Wikipedia entries.
Interestingly enough, Wikipedia points out that fiducial inference also exists, but it's largely the sort of thing assholes use in a desperate attempt to make their Ph.D. theses* relevant, so I'll ignore it completely.
Besides, this post isn't actually about statistics at all.
Anyhow, Silver brings the power of statistics to bear on two important issues:
1) What are you, train-riding lady?
and
2) Did the nice (but potentially “creepy”) man rape those lying women?
I'm going to have to say the answer to question one is a hearty WTF? “Japanese, Caucasian or Mixed Ethnicity?” Aren't there Japanese of mixed ethnicity? And besides, I know “what the fuck am I” is one of my all-time favorite questions to field from strangers. Occupational hazard, I suppose.
In any case, I need Silver to be more specific, and also to stop staring at that poor lady.
Silver was reading about Assange recently. I was just reading an essay by Richard Lewontin and Richard Levins about the search for life on Mars. It's a small world. That's about as much of a non-sequitur as the one Silver's got going on with his train lady. Anyhow, Lewontin and Levins have this great line in there: “Science is necessary because things are different, but that science is only possible because things are the same.”
Aside from those authors' more immediate point about NASA not knowing what it's doing (back in the day, at least :eyeroll:), I think the quote is a pretty nice summation of why scientific inference can be of limited utility, or more to the point, why it's difficult. It's certainly possible (and even worthwhile) to do science, but you need to think long and hard about the assumptions you're making if you're going to have any hope of making any headway.
So, the reason Silver wants to know whether Julian Assange raped those women stems from the dilemma that not all rape allegations are the same.
Okay, let's back up. The reason Silver wants to know whether Julian Assange raped those women probably stems from concern about the importance of WikiLeaks. Or maybe the many issues surrounding the widespread prevalence of rape. Or even interest in the well-being of the women in question. It's probably one, hopefully two of those.
In any case, every rape accusation is unique. We couldn't possibly treat all rape accusations as equivalent, otherwise [TW] nobody would ever get convicted of rape. Not even the vanishingly small number that do now. So we have to investigate each accusation on its own. And sure, there totally are statistics we could use to see the degree to which the Assange cases fit various statistical patterns from all rape cases. Indeed, in order to do statistics we need to assume that the Assange cases are like every other rape case.
There are a couple of problems here:
1. As Silver admits, the Assange cases aren't necessarily typically. Michael Moore doesn't typically [TW] bail alleged rapists out of jail. This could be taken as evidence of Assange's innocence, but it could be taken as evidence that one can't compare the way the Swedish government has handled Assange to the way it has handled other rape suspects.
2. In order to do Silver's faux statistical analysis, you have to assume that courts always convict rapists (and likewise, always acquit innocent defendants). What Silver is really doing is evaluating (er... speculating, well, concern-trolling about) the likelihood that Assange will be convicted, which is most certainly not the same as analyzing the likelihood that he raped one or both of the women in question. Not the same thing at all.
3. In reality, these are two events that have already happened. Either Julian Assange raped one or both of these women, or he didn't. No amount of statistics is going to help us figure out what happened. One thing that might help would be testimony. For example, the testimony of the women. The women who have given the police detailed descriptions of being raped by Assange.
So none of this has anything to do with statistics, let alone Bayesian statistics. Still, both Silver and I got to waste people's time being pretentious. I think he might have even gotten paid* to do so.
In closing, let's look at the ultimate line of Silver's column: “In a world of limited information, the political motivation behind the charges might be the most important clue we have in evaluating their merit.”
WTFOMGJUSTNO. Silver's got his variables all asunder here. When political motivation exists, people pay attention to rape charges. When it's just some dude, nobody really cares. Well, victims, survivors and women might care about the charges, but people who matter typically don't.
Besides, there's a difference between limited information and limited willingness to listen to women. I suspect the relationship between those two isn't what Silver thinks it is.
--
*If anyone's actually at the Times, I can get you my CV. You guys hire whoever, right? Sorry, it's whomever, right? :cough: You guys hire whomever, right? :curtsy:
via: Commenter Allison at Sady's. It's also not a coincidence that a lot of my links come from the Tiger Beatdown post in question.
Michael Moore Doubles Down on Rape Apologia
[Trigger warning for sexual assault; rape apologia.]
So Michael Moore, about whose rape apologia re: the allegations against Assange I first wrote yesterday, was on Keith Olbermann's show last night, and he doubled down on dismissing the sexual assault charges against Assange, calling them "hooey" and willfully misrepresenting that of which he's been accused.
[Transcript below.]
Moore asserts that the basis of the charge is that "his condom broke during consensual sex." That is patently false. Michael Moore is a literate and intelligent man who can surely discern the difference between "his condom broke during consensual sex" and "Assange was alleged to have 'forcefully' held her arms and used his bodyweight to hold her down [to "have sex" with her] without using a condom, when it was her 'express wish' that one should be used." In the second case, Assange is alleged to have "had sex" with a woman without a condom while she was sleeping, which cannot possibly be considered consensual sex.
I don't guess I need to point out the bitter irony of a man championing Julian Assange for exposing hidden truths about powerful governments, and masking the truth of the allegations against Assange in the process.
I know—Maude help me, I know—that governments and corporations use terrible and unethical tactics to discredit whistleblowers and critics. But I wasn't born yesterday, either. And when around 12% of men (pdf) have, by their own admission, committed sexual assault or rape, it's not remotely difficult to imagine that rape charges are not routinely invented to use against powerful men, but simply paid attention to when politically expedient.
Assange is entitled to bail, and he is entitled to a fair hearing on the allegations. That is an argument that can be made (like I just did) without any hint of victim-blaming.
Or any mendacious attempts to conceal the truth.
Stop by Sady's place for info on a Twitter action. Also: You can contact Moore directly via his website here.Olbermann: One complicating issue here—address the charges against Assange in Sweden. Are they—are they a ruse? Are they—are they a front for something else? And even if they are, indeed, something nefarious against him, you are still, in essence, participating in bailing out a man who has been charged with criminal sexual charges, or will be charged under these circumstances. Address that.
Moore: That's the thing. He hasn't been charged. They've brought no criminal charges against him. They want to talk to him about, about— This whole thing stinks to the high heavens. I gotta tell ya. I mean, I—I wasn't born yesterday, but I [laughs]— I've seen this enough times where governments and corporations go after individuals— Geez, wasn't I— I think I was just on your show a couple of weeks ago talking about this—
Olbermann: Uh-huh!
Moore: —with my film and the health care industry. They go after people with this kind of lie and smear. Daniel Ellsberg told you about it last week on how they went after him. This is— We've seen this before. Now, his guilt or innocence of this— I mean, what he said they did— [grinning] and the lawyer said this today in court in London—that what they say he did and the charge is his [rolls eyes] condom broke during consensual sex.
Olbermann: Mm-hmm.
Moore: That is not a crime in Britain, and so they're making the point how can we—how can we extradite him over this? This is all a bunch of hooey as far as I'm concerned! And, and the man at least has a right to be out of prison while awaiting the hearing, and I believe that, that, uh—and this is why I participate in it; this is why I put up a chunk of the bail money, and, um, you know, I'm proud, proud to do it because I think this man and what he's doing, and what his group is doing, is going to save lives.
Olbermann: Filmmaker Michael Moore, who will join Rachel Maddow next week for her leadership series at the 92nd Street Y. Great thanks, and I'm sorry we didn't get to discuss the trade of your Detroit Tigers of Alfredo Figaro to Orix Buffaloes in Japan. Thank you, Michael.
Moore: [laughs] I know. That's okay. Next time!
Olbermann: Next time. It's in WikiLeaks, too. Thank you, Michael.
Yikes
[Trigger warning for sexual assault.]
So Michael Moore bailed out WikiLeaks' founder Julian Assange, and in his explanation about why he posted bail, with most of which I am in total agreement, he inserted this note:
For those of you who think it's wrong to support Julian Assange because of the sexual assault allegations he's being held for, all I ask is that you not be naive about how the government works when it decides to go after its prey. Please -- never, ever believe the "official story." And regardless of Assange's guilt or innocence (see the strange nature of the allegations here), this man has the right to have bail posted and to defend himself. I have joined with filmmakers Ken Loach and John Pilger and writer Jemima Khan in putting up the bail money -- and we hope the judge will accept this and grant his release today.Oof. Would that he had left it at the right to bail and defense and skipped the rape apologia.
It's eminently possible to not "be naive about how the government works," to acknowledge that the US and other governments use shady methods in pursuit of whistle-blowers, and even to observe that these allegations would almost certainly have been ignored had they been made against someone whom it was not politically expedient to give them attention, and not engage in apologia like "never believe the official story," which second-guesses victims' statements, and dismissing the allegations as strange, as if there is some "right" way for assault allegations to look.
An ally to survivors recognizes that the problem is not investigating Assange in this case; it's the failure to investigate people alleged to have done the same in virtually every other case.
I already recommended this in Friday's blogaround, but I'm going to recommend again reading Jaclyn's piece on this subject here.
Dear Washington
[Trigger warning for state-sponsored sexual violence.]
While the geniuses in D.C. argue over the best way to dig ourselves out of the current economic climate via some combination of salary freezes, gutting social services, and trickle-down fuckonomics, I've got a suggestion I think is worth some consideration: Let's stop paying subcontractors to arrange for child rape orgies.
I really wish that were an exaggeration.
But it isn't. Per a document made available by WikiLeaks, our tax dollars paid for DynCorp, a private security contractor hired to train Afghan police, to arrange a bacha bazi ("boy-play") party, a pre-Islamic Afghan tradition described by the US State Department as a "widespread, culturally accepted form of male rape," in which young boys are dressed up, forced to dance for men, and then sold to the highest bidder.
I recommend this article for more information with the following caution: The author uses some language (e.g. "sex scandal") and some inappropriate sarcasm that isn't reflective of the sensitivity with which the subject ought really be treated. But it's informative, particularly as regards DynCorp's history with this sort of thing.
And we nonetheless continue to subcontract these mercenary rape facilitators to the tune of nearly $2 billion annually.
And More WikiLeaks
[Trigger warning for discussion of sexual assault charges.]
United States Attorney General Eric Holder said earlier today that the US Justice Dept. will pursue "significant" legal action against Julian Assange, WikiLeaks' editor-in-chief.
"National security of the United States has been put at risk," Holder said. "The lives of people who work for the American people have been put at risk. The American people themselves have been put at risk by these actions that I believe are arrogant, misguided and ultimately not helpful in any way. We are doing everything that we can."Meanwhile, as regards the sexual assault charge Assange faces in Sweden, I'll direct you over to Jill, who's got a good post on the matter.
Also: CNN is reporting as breaking news that Assange's attorney says his client is "making arrangements to meet with British police regarding" the Swedish warrant.
Pulling these two stories together reminds me of something I've been meaning to note re: Assange. Although I've been broadly "on his side" in terms of the document leaking thus far, he strikes me as the kind of guy whose idea of boundaries is very different than mine, in many things. I frankly expect that it is only a matter of time before he goes too far, that it has been mostly coincidence I have not yet grimaced with dismay at his choices re: document leaking; thus, rightly or wrongly, am I reluctant to mount much of a vociferous defense on his behalf, as I fully expect I would come to regret it.
More WikiLeaks
The latest leaked document to garner outrage at WikiLeaks is a "long list of key facilities around the world that the US describes as vital to its national security."
BBC diplomatic correspondent Jonathan Marcus says this is probably the most controversial document yet from the Wikileaks organisation."An unhelpful development" is a really good way of describing it, IMO. The release of this list doesn't strike me as quite warranting profound alarm, if only because most of the sites on the list would be evident targets for disruption even if they hadn't been officially sanctioned by this document as important to US interests. And terrorists aren't stupid. "World Trade Center" didn't need to be on a list to be a target.
...The geographical range of the document on installations is extraordinary, our correspondent says.
If the US sees itself as waging a "global war on terror" then this represents a global directory of the key installations and facilities - many of them medical or industrial - that are seen as being of vital importance to Washington.
...The critical question is whether this really is a listing of potential targets that might be of use to a terrorist, our correspondent says.
The cable contains a simple listing. In many cases towns are noted as the location but not actual street addresses, although this is unlikely to stop anyone with access to the internet from locating them.
There are also no details of security measures at any of the listed sites.
What the list might do is to prompt potential attackers to look at a broader range of targets, especially given that the US authorities classify them as being so important.
It is not perhaps a major security breach, but many governments may see it as an unhelpful development, our correspondent says.
On the other hand, it doesn't seem particularly necessary to hand this list to people who might be interested in causing maximum chaos and/or destruction, nor particularly scandalous if the document had been kept concealed.
So. Unhelpful development. Yeah.
Meanwhile, the New York Times has the latest on the campaign to keep WikiLeaks leakin'.
Today's WikiLeaks Round-Up
New York Times—Cables Depict U.S. Haggling to Find Takers for Detainees: "American diplomats went looking for countries that were not only willing to take in former prisoners but also could be trusted to keep them under close watch. In a global bazaar of sorts, the American officials sweet-talked and haggled with their foreign counterparts in an effort to resettle the detainees who had been cleared for release but could not be repatriated for fear of mistreatment, the cables show."
Washington Post—WikiLeaks founder could be charged under Espionage Act: "Federal authorities are investigating whether WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange violated criminal laws in the group's release of government documents, including possible charges under the Espionage Act, sources familiar with the inquiry said Monday. ... Former prosecutors cautioned that prosecutions involving leaked classified information are difficult because the Espionage Act is a 1917 statute that preceded Supreme Court cases that expanded First Amendment protections. The government also would have to persuade another country to turn over Assange, who is outside the United States."
CNN—Calling leaks 'damaging,' Bush says Wikileaks will hurt U.S. relations:
Former President George W. Bush joined a chorus of U.S. officials calling any leaks of sensitive government information "very damaging," telling a forum at Facebook headquarters that Wikileaks' recent release of 250,000 documents may significantly hurt Washington's image abroad.Reminder: He does, however, like outing our own spies to get political retribution against their husbands who question the veracity of his case for wars of choice.
"It's going to be very hard to keep the trust of foreign leaders," the nation's 43rd president said of the documents on issues ranging from Iran to Honduras to Turkey. "If you have a conversation with a foreign leader and it ends up in a newspaper, you don't like it. I didn't like it."
And speaking of the Bush administration's unethical/criminal activities, it's interesting how liberals who wanted BushCo. held accountable were dismissed as ideologues and hysterics by the same media who are now calling for Hillary Clinton's scalp and demanding accountability of the Obama administration, even though, as the editors of the New York Times quite rightly note: "What struck us, and reassured us, about the latest trove of classified documents released by WikiLeaks was the absence of any real skullduggery. After years of revelations about the Bush administration's abuses — including the use of torture and kidnappings — much of the Obama administration's diplomatic wheeling and dealing is appropriate and, at times, downright skillful."
Which is not to say there's nothing objectionable or embarrassing among the documents. But still. The double-standard is breathtaking.
Photo of the Day
White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs speaks about the release of thousands of classified U.S. diplomatic cables by whistle-blowing website WikiLeaks during his briefing at the White House in Washington November 29, 2010. The United States deeply regrets any disclosure of classified information, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said on Monday in her first comment on the release of State Department cables by whistle-blower website WikiLeaks. [Reuters Pictures]That's a pretty good Brickin' It face, Gibbs, but you're still no Scott McClellan.
WikiLeaks Open Thread
I'm not even finished reading everything I want to read about the latest WikiLeaks controversy, in which 250,000 confidential US diplomatic cables, mostly from the last three years, were leaked and published. But here are a few relevant links to open up discussion...
New York Times—Cables Obtained by WikiLeaks Shine Light Into Secret Diplomatic Channels:
A cache of a quarter-million confidential American diplomatic cables, most of them from the past three years, provides an unprecedented look at back-room bargaining by embassies around the world, brutally candid views of foreign leaders and frank assessments of nuclear and terrorist threats.There's much more at the link.
...The disclosure of the cables is sending shudders through the diplomatic establishment, and could strain relations with some countries, influencing international affairs in ways that are impossible to predict.
Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and American ambassadors around the world have been contacting foreign officials in recent days to alert them to the expected disclosures. A statement from the White House on Sunday said: "We condemn in the strongest terms the unauthorized disclosure of classified documents and sensitive national security information."
Among their revelations, to be detailed in The Times in coming days:
¶ A dangerous standoff with Pakistan over nuclear fuel: Since 2007, the United States has mounted a highly secret effort, so far unsuccessful, to remove from a Pakistani research reactor highly enriched uranium that American officials fear could be diverted for use in an illicit nuclear device. In May 2009, Ambassador Anne W. Patterson reported that Pakistan was refusing to schedule a visit by American technical experts because, as a Pakistani official said, "if the local media got word of the fuel removal, 'they certainly would portray it as the United States taking Pakistan's nuclear weapons,' he argued."
...¶ Bargaining to empty the Guantánamo Bay prison: When American diplomats pressed other countries to resettle detainees, they became reluctant players in a State Department version of "Let's Make a Deal." Slovenia was told to take a prisoner if it wanted to meet with President Obama, while the island nation of Kiribati was offered incentives worth millions of dollars to take in Chinese Muslim detainees, cables from diplomats recounted. The Americans, meanwhile, suggested that accepting more prisoners would be "a low-cost way for Belgium to attain prominence in Europe."
¶ Suspicions of corruption in the Afghan government: When Afghanistan's vice president visited the United Arab Emirates last year, local authorities working with the Drug Enforcement Administration discovered that he was carrying $52 million in cash. With wry understatement, a cable from the American Embassy in Kabul called the money "a significant amount" that the official, Ahmed Zia Massoud, "was ultimately allowed to keep without revealing the money's origin or destination." (Mr. Massoud denies taking any money out of Afghanistan.)
...¶ Clashes with Europe over human rights: American officials sharply warned Germany in 2007 not to enforce arrest warrants for Central Intelligence Agency officers involved in a bungled operation in which an innocent German citizen with the same name as a suspected militant was mistakenly kidnapped and held for months in Afghanistan. A senior American diplomat told a German official "that our intention was not to threaten Germany, but rather to urge that the German government weigh carefully at every step of the way the implications for relations with the U.S."
New York Times—A Note to Readers: The Decision to Publish Diplomatic Documents: "As a general rule we withhold secret information that would expose confidential sources to reprisals or that would reveal operational intelligence that might be useful to adversaries in war. We excise material that might lead terrorists to unsecured weapons material, compromise intelligence-gathering programs aimed at hostile countries, or disclose information about the capabilities of American weapons that could be helpful to an enemy. On the other hand, we are less likely to censor candid remarks simply because they might cause a diplomatic controversy or embarrass officials."
I might be more admiring of those principles were we not still embroiled in a war for which the NYT helped the Bush administration cook the case.
Other links of interest:
Rep. Peter King (R-Hyperbole) calls the release of the documents "worse even than a physical attack on Americans, it's worse than a military attack," and suggests that "Secretary of State Hillary Clinton [should] declare Wikileaks a foreign terrorist organization."
McClatchy: Officials may be overstating the danger from WikiLeaks.
CNN: WikiLeaks: 'Surprised' by scale of U.S. espionage.
The Guardian (who provided the cables to the NYT): How 250,000 US embassy cables were leaked and US embassy cables leak sparks global diplomatic crisis and US embassy cables: The job of the media is not to protect the powerful from embarrassment.
And Greg Mitchell is live-blogging the media coverage.
