Trump Timeline ... Trumpocalypse

[Michael Scally MD]

WHY DO so many leading U.S. politicians make mass murder sound like an ad for L’Oréal?

Go back to May 1996, when Leslie Stahl of 60 Minutes sat down with Madeleine Albright, the then-U.S. ambassador to the United Nations. “We have heard that a half million children have died,” Stahl said, referring to the reported impact of United Nations sanctions on Iraq. “I mean, that’s more children than died in Hiroshima. And—and you know, is the price worth it?”

To which the dead-eyed Albright replied: “I think this is a very hard choice, but the price—we think the price is worth it.”

Half a million dead kids. Worth it. A now-infamous statement, which was much-quoted across the Middle East, yet provoked no public outcry in the United States at the time: no banner headlines, no scathing op-eds, no political fallout whatsoever. In fact, the very next year, the much-lauded Albright was promoted to secretary of state. It would take the former Clinton administration official seven long years to show even an ounce of regret or contrition for her outrageous remark, finally calling it “crazy” and a “terrible mistake” in her 2003 memoir, Madam Secretary.

Now, fast forward to March 2018.

“All the damage that would come from a war [with North Korea] would be worth it in terms of long-term stability and national security,” Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham said in an interview with CNN last week.

What would that “damage” look like? Whether nuclear or non-nuclear, multiple studies and surveys of experts suggest millions of innocent North Koreans, South Koreans and Japanese could be killed in such a conflict, making the wars in Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan look like minor skirmishes in comparison.

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[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Michael Scally MD]

It has been widely and repeatedly documented that Trump’s decisions are not rooted in any sense of the national interest on multiple other fronts, many of which are deeply consequential. Here’s a partial rundown:

· Trump’s failure to organize a strong response to the threat of Russian sabotage of future elections is reportedly rooted in a refusal to acknowledge that Russian interference happened at all in 2016, because that would diminish the greatness of his victory. This puts him at odds with U.S. intelligence officials who have warned sabotage is happening again, and even with some in his administration who regard the fact of Russian interference “as objective reality.”

· The laughably slapdash rollout of the thinly veiled Muslim ban strongly suggested that little serious thought or interagency input went into the design of a policy that would impact untold numbers of people and send a strong message to the world about American values. What’s more, Trump pressed ahead with the ban, despite the fact that two internal Department of Homeland Security analyses badly undercut the rationale that it was needed for national security.

· Trump continues to push for a costly and expensive wall on the southern border on the grounds that it will stop drugs from pouring into the country, but experts say this is just nonsense. Trump, obviously, may disagree, but has the White House offered any serious analysis showing the contrary or making an affirmative case for its benefits to the United States?

· When Trump was debating whether to cut the number of refugees admitted to the United States, the White House deep-sixed on deeply spurious grounds internal administration data that showed refugees are a net fiscal positive to the country.

· Trump’s pardon of former Arizona sheriff Joe Arpaio came after Trump “was sold on the pardon as a way of pleasing his political base,” as the New York Times reported. Trump had previously asked his attorney general whether the case against Arpaio could be dropped well in advance of his conviction, showing he never intended to seriously factor the legal details into his decision, which, when taken with the fact that Arpaio had been convicted for ignoring a judge’s order, compounds the lawlessness of this action.

· Trump’s refusal to unambiguously condemn white supremacy in Charlottesville was a remarkable abdication of his responsibility to speak to the nation as a unifying voice. Trump reportedly felt “vindicated” after digging in on this position, because he absurdly sensed that his base would agree with him, making this another reminder that he simply does not believe that his service as president confers on him any obligations to the broader public of any kind, even at a fraught, critical moment of national introspection.

· Trump’s refusal to release his tax returns, combined with his refusal to divest and his nonstop self-dealing and profiting off the presidency, constitutes an absolutely clear-cut case of Trump prioritizing the financial interests of himself and his family over the public interest. Indeed, it is the abandonment of any sense of responsibility to be transparent before the public that makes it possible for him to shield the true extent of his profiteering.

 

[Michael Scally MD]

Gary D. Cohn, President Trump’s top economic adviser, plans to resign, becoming the latest in a series of high-profile departures from the Trump administration, White House officials said on Tuesday.

The officials insisted there was no single factor behind the departure of Mr. Cohn, who heads the National Economic Council. But his decision to leave came after he seemed poised to lose an internal struggle amid a Wild West-style process over Mr. Trump’s plan to impose large tariffs on steel and aluminum imports.

 

[Michael Scally MD]

If Bolton replaces McMaster (and I’ve heard Kelly likes Bolton), we are all going to die.

 

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Michael Scally MD]

WASHINGTON — An adviser to the United Arab Emirates with ties to current and former aides to President Trump is cooperating with the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, and gave testimony last week to a grand jury, according to two people familiar with the matter.

Mr. Mueller appears to be examining the influence of foreign money on Mr. Trump’s political activities and has asked witnesses about the possibility that the adviser, George Nader, funneled money from the Emirates to the president’s political efforts. It is illegal for foreign entities to contribute to campaigns or for Americans to knowingly accept foreign money for political races.

Mr. Nader, a Lebanese-American businessman who advises Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed Al-Nahyan, the effective ruler of the Emirates, also attended a January 2017 meeting in the Seychelles that Mr. Mueller’s investigators have examined. The meeting, convened by the crown prince, brought together a Russian investor close to President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia with Erik Prince, the founder of Blackwater and an informal adviser to Mr. Trump’s team during the presidential transition, according to three people familiar with the meeting.

Mr. Nader’s cooperation in the special counsel’s investigation could prompt new legal risks for the Trump administration, and Mr. Nader’s presence at the Seychelles meeting appears to connect him to the primary focus of Mr. Mueller’s investigation: examining Russian interference during the 2016 presidential campaign.

 

[Michael Scally MD]

THE CONSTITUTION IS the sacred text of the civic religion that is U.S. nationalism, and that nationalism is inexorably tied to white supremacy. This week on Intercepted, historian Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz argues that the Second Amendment, which is rooted in genocide and slave patrols, should be abolished. She describes the relationship between U.S. wars abroad and guns at home and tells the story of how the NRA was transformed from a sportsman’s club to a “white nationalist” organization.

Artist Tanna Tucker and historian Nestor Castillo take us on an audio tour of their new graphic history for The Nib, “Black and Red: The History of Black Socialism in America.” And acclaimed novelist Mat Johnson talks about guns, the NFL, the film “Black Panther,” and growing up biracial in Philadelphia. Johnson is featured in the new Topic series, “The Loving Generation,” about children born to one black parent and one white parent in the aftermath of a Supreme Court decision striking down a ban on interracial marriage.

 

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Michael Scally MD]

All the Facebook account Black4Black asked for was some personal information about Ajah Hales and other Cleveland-area small-business owners. In exchange, she was told her cosmetics company, and her fellow African-American entrepreneurs, would receive free promotion on social media and in a new and influential directory of black-owned businesses.

Ms. Hales soon turned over basic information about her company, as well as names, phone numbers, email addresses and websites of dozens of black business owners in and around Cleveland.

“I was actually really excited about the opportunity,” she said.

That was in early 2017. It wasn’t until recently, after being contacted by The Wall Street Journal, that Ms. Hales would learn that Black4Black and “partner” groups, including BlackMattersUS, were among hundreds of Facebook and Instagram accounts set up by a pro-Kremlin propaganda agency to meddle in American politics, Facebook records show.

The fake directory is one example of the elaborate schemes that Russian “trolls” have pursued to try to collect personal and business information from Americans, the Journal has found. Leveraging social media, Russians have collected data by peddling niche business directories, convincing activists to sign petitions and bankrolling self-defense training classes in return for student information.

It isn’t clear for what purpose the data were collected, but intelligence and cybersecurity experts say it could be used for identity theft or leveraged as part of a wider political-influence effort that didn’t end with the 2016 election. That operation is a focus of special counsel Robert Mueller’s wide-ranging probe, which has returned more than a dozen indictments of Russians as well as several American associates of now-President Donald Trump.

 

[Michael Scally MD]

President Donald Trump is filling the upper ranks of his administration with appointees who share his disbelief in the scientific evidence for climate change — giving them an opportunity to impose their views on policies ranging from disaster planning to national security to housing standards.

 

[Michael Scally MD]