Trump Timeline ... Trumpocalypse

[Michael Scally MD]

The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists advanced the symbolic Doomsday Clock a notch closer to the end of humanity Thursday, moving it ahead by 30 seconds. It is now set at two minutes to “midnight.”

In moving the clock 30 seconds closer to the hour of the apocalypse, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists cited “the failure of President Trump and other world leaders to deal with looming threats of nuclear war and climate change.”

The organization now believes “the world is not only more dangerous now than it was a year ago; it is as threatening as it has been since World War II,” Bulletin officials Lawrence M. Krauss and Robert Rosner wrote in an op-ed published Thursday by The Washington Post. “In fact, the Doomsday Clock is as close to midnight today as it was in 1953, when Cold War fears perhaps reached their highest levels.”

Krauss, a theoretical physicist, and Rosner, an astrophysicist, added: “To call the world nuclear situation dire is to understate the danger — and its immediacy. North Korea’s nuclear weapons program appeared to make remarkable progress in 2017, increasing risks for itself, other countries in the region and the United States.”

 

[Michael Scally MD]

There are two messages from the big annual capitalist bacchanalia in Davos that President Trump managed to belly his way into this year. The two messages are in fact the same message: You can pay us now, or you can pay us later.

The first message is to all hapless and disempowered workers toiling on the bottom rungs of the economic ladder. The message is that you can work all you want, but the people on the top rungs will get most of the money, this year and/or next year. A report on global wealth distribution shows that 82 percent of all the wealth created last year went to the top 1 percent.

Does this seem fair to you? It apparently seems fair to them, as there are no plans in place to rearrange the mechanisms that produce that outcome. In fact, in the United States, your Republican-led government has just succeeded in ramrodding through a tax law that will direct even MORE of the wealth to the rich. The rich didn’t feel that their gains in 2017 were quite large ENOUGH. So next year they stand to get the amount they need: more.

But the second message is to the wealthy themselves. You can pay workers now, or you will eventually pay for it in other ways. They seem to be catching on to this. According to a story I linked to this week, some of the fabulous folks gathered at Davos are starting to worry that they are becoming perched unsustainably high above the potentially mutinous masses below. “High returns and high anxiety” is how one of them put it. And according to the report, “One of the most popular events so far is a talk on ‘rentier capitalism,’ a term used to describe how the rich make most of their money not from working but from owning property, patents and investments they pass down to their heirs, further exacerbating inequality.”

Oh, I don’t know about that “not from working” part. Just take the fight over the U.S. tax bill mentioned above. The rich worked frenzied overtime to get that passed. And as the icing on the cake, the “passing down to their heirs” part, they managed to get taxes cut on that as well! And how long can they get away with this? History supplies the answer: until they don’t. The wealthy, I’m guessing, simply abhor the idea of revolutions, but they apparently don’t abhor them enough to stop putting in place all the elements of one, or many. They don’t seem to be able to help themselves, except to yet another piece of the economic pie. Mmmmmm, simply irresistible.

And as for Trump attending? He was never invited when he was merely a businessman, apparently because his particular gauche persona never quite fit with the higher-toned wealthy who assembled there. Now, as president of the United States, in he will stride, welcome or not, with this week’s version of his incoherent economic nostrums. They could invite him then, or they could invite him later.

They may have been kidding themselves that they were much different from him.

 

[Michael Scally MD]

As the Trump administration tees up a slew of highly aggressive new trade policies that could upend economic relations on several continents, experts outside the government and on the Hill are concerned over the team leading the charge.

More than a year into this presidency, the office at the USTR remains severely understaffed. The agency, technically a division of the White House, remains without a permanent deputy trade representative in key regions such as China and the Western Hemisphere. The Senate has yet to confirm ambassador to the World Trade Organization.

But beyond who is not there, it’s who is that has raised alarm.

Robert Lighthizer, the U.S. Trade Representative, is relying on a small group of relatively unseasoned officials to advance a complex agenda, including renegotiating landmark free trade deals and cracking down on allegedly unfair practices by China, Mexico, and other major global economic partners. None have drawn more scrutiny and attention within the trade policy community than G. Payne Griffin, Lighthizer’s deputy chief of staff.

Few, if anyone, in trade circles knew of Griffin prior to his appointment by Lighthizer. That’s because, prior to his appointment by Lighthizer, Griffin was not in trade circles. Griffin attended American University where, by all accounts, he was an exemplary student. He graduated with a bachelors in economics and political science in 2014 and made the Dean’s List. His first job out of college was as a staff assistant for Rep. Spencer Bachus (R-AL). By January 2015, he was a legislative correspondent for Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-AL), a job that typically involves corresponding with constituents and helping senior staff craft policy.

Typically, a stint as an LC lends itself to higher-ranking jobs within a congressional office. But in Griffin’s case, those next steps were skipped. Sessions was the first and most prominent Senate endorser of then presidential candidate Donald Trump, which meant that once Trump won the election, he had heavy influence over staffing the administration.

 

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Michael Scally MD]

The emailed response from the Guggenheim’s chief curator to the White House was polite but firm: the museum could not accommodate a request to “borrow” a painting by Vincent Van Gogh for President and Melania Trump’s private living quarters.

Instead, wrote the curator, Nancy Spector, another piece was available, one that was nothing like “Landscape With Snow,” the lovely 1888 Van Gogh rendering of a man in a black hat walking along a path in Arles with his dog.

The curator’s alternative: an 18-karat, fully functioning, solid gold toilet - an interactive work entitled “America” that critics have described as pointed satire aimed at the excess of wealth in this country.

For a year, the Guggenheim had exhibited “America” — the creation of contemporary artist Maurizio Cattelan — in a public restroom on the museum’s fifth floor for visitors to use.

But the exhibit was over and the toilet was available “should the President and First Lady have any interest in installing it in the White House,” Spector wrote in an email obtained by The Washington Post.

The artist “would like to offer it to the White House for a long-term loan,” wrote Spector, who has been critical of Trump. “It is, of course, extremely valuable and somewhat fragile, but we would provide all the instructions for its installation and care.”

 

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Michael Scally MD]

In the summer of 2014, AIVD's digital agents infiltrated the notorious Russian hack group Cozy Bear. They are the first to see how Russian hackers are targeting targets in the US in election time: the Democratic Party, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and even the White House. It is crucial evidence and reason for the FBI to start an investigation.

 

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Michael Scally MD]

Over five days have passed since a report revealed that the FBI is investigating whether a Russian banker funneled money to the NRA to boost Donald Trump’s campaign. And the gun group still isn’t talking.

The NRA did not respond to McClatchy’s requests for comments for its story on the FBI probe, published Thursday morning. And although McClatchy’s report https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/the-trump-russia-nra-connection-heres-what-you-need-to-know-w515615 widely in the media, the group still has offered no response, including to multiple inquiries from TPM.

The FBI is said to be looking into whether Alexander Torshin, a Russian central bank official, Putin ally, and longtime NRA member, directed money to the gun group. The NRA’s Institute for Legislative Action (ILA), a 501(c)(4) group that doesn’t have to disclose its donors, spent an https://www.opensecrets.org/outsidespending/summ.php?cycle=2016&chrt=V&disp=O&type=U in 2016—more than any other dark money group.

A communications staffer for the NRA-ILA told TPM Monday that NRA Managing Director of Public Affairs Andrew Arulanandam was handling questions on the issue.

Arulanandam hasn’t responded to multiple phone and email messages asking whether the NRA has been contacted by the FBI, and whether the group accepted any donations from Torshin during the 2016 campaign. Asked Tuesday if anyone else at the NRA could field questions on the topic, Jennifer Baker, the NRA-ILA’s director of public affairs, again directed TPM to Arulanandam.

The NRA’s social media feeds have also made no specific reference to the reported investigation. A post published Friday on the NRA-ILA’s Facebook page about President Trump’s judicial nominations began: “While the media focuses on fake news President Donald J. Trump is advancing his agenda.”

The NRA hasn’t been shy in the past about challenging reporting it doesn’t like. In July 2017, a video on NRATV dismissed the Washington Post as “a fake news outlet” for publishing a story laying out ties between Torshin, the NRA and other conservative groups. NRATV host Grant Stinchfield accused the newspaper of making “the blatantly false claim that the NRA had illegal ties to Russia.” (In fact, the story didn’t make any claims about illegal activity.)

 

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Michael Scally MD]