Reprinted with permission from AlterNet. While atrocities played out in Syria, Trump visited homegrown tragedies and travesties upon America. The week began with his appointment of Exxon chief Rex Tillerson as Secretary of State, continued with wild dissembling about Russia's hacks on his behalf and ended with him calling his own supporters "vicious and nasty." It…
Director Rob Reiner said on Sunday that the election of Donald Trump by dint of Russian aid represents an "invasion" of the U.S. by a "hostile foreign power."
Reiner expressed bafflement to MSNBC's Joy Reid that so many in the media and political establishment seem to be complacent in the face of what would appear to be evidence that the Russian government tampered with our election by personal order of Pres. Vladimir Putin.
"What's important right now -- and we cannot lose sight of this," Reiner said, "is that this is the most important thing that's happened in this country -- way beyond Watergate, way beyond Iran-Contra."
"We have a hostile foreign power that has invaded our country," he said. Just because there aren't enemy bombs exploding or mayhem in the streets, "Make no mistake about it. We were invaded."
The intelligence agencies and director of national security, he said, have all agreed that it was the Russians who "did the invading" and that that their goal was to tip the election to an unqualified political neophyte who Putin could use as a "puppet."
"How far does that invasion go?" Reiner asked. "Was Donald Trump colluding with the Russian agencies? We don't know this."
Watch the video, embedded below:
A white nationalist website aligned with the neo-Nazi "alt-right" National Policy Institute (NPI) has urged its followers to "troll" and harass the Jewish population of Whitefish, Montana.
According to Missoulian.com, The Daily Stormer website put out a call on Friday for its readers to engage in a "Troll Storm" against Jews in Whitefish out of a mistaken belief that Jews have been harassing the mother of NPI president and director Richard Spencer.
Spencer has gone from the far-flung fringe right to the national spotlight as the new, "dapper" face of racist white nationalism. His mother Sherry Spencer has publicly disavowed her son's views, but he remains her business partner and co-owner of multiple properties.
On Friday, The Daily Stormer's Andrew Anglin published a call to action, alleging that Sherry Spencer is being targeted by a cabal of "vicious, evil, hate-filled" Jews.
Anglin wrote:
“Are y’all ready for an old fashioned Troll Storm?
Because AYO – it’s that time, fam.
And as always: NO VIOLENCE OR THREATS OF VIOLENCE OR ANYTHING EVEN CLOSE TO THAT.
Just make your opinions known. Tell them you are sickened by their Jew agenda to attack and harm the mother of someone whom they disagree with.
Think Progress said, "The post included photos, phone numbers, email address, and social media accounts of members of Love Lives Now, a peace organization 'committed to co-creating a caring, open, accepting and diverse community, free from discrimination and dedicated to equal treatment,' which is smeared by Anglin as a 'terrorist group.' The action also incorporated photos of a local real estate owner, her husband, and young sons, as well as addresses where people can find them."
The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) calls Anglin "a prolific Internet troll and serial harasser."
The Missoulian noted that The Daily Stormer is very explicit about its antipathy toward nonwhites and Jewish people.
"The Daily Stormer website has a tab called 'Jewish Problem,'" wrote Keila Szpaller and Gwen Florio. "It asks for donations from readers with a plea: 'These bastards are always at our throats.'"
In a conversation with CNN's Jake Tapper on Sunday, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) said that Russian attempts to sway the outcome of the 2016 election are "serious business" that calls for a thorough and impartial investigation.
The subversion of western democracy, he said, could have far-reaching implications, which is why he has requested a select committee investigation of the hacks.
"This is the sign of a possible unraveling of the world order that was established after World War II, which has made one of the most peaceful periods in the history of the world," McCain said.
"This is serious business. If they're able to harm the electoral process, they may destroy democracy, which is based on free and fair elections," said the senator.
McCain's calls for a select committee investigation have so far fallen on deaf ears among his fellow Republicans. Both Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) and Speaker of the House Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) have declined to take up McCain's call for an investigation.
On Sunday, McCain sent a letter to McConnell urging him to attend to his duty as a patriot and investigate what happened.
"Cyber is the rare kind of all-encompassing challenge for which the Congress's jurisdictional boundaries are an impediment to sufficient oversight and legislative action," McCain wrote.
"Only a select committee that is time-limited, cross-jurisdictional, and purpose-driven can address the challenge of cyber," the letter said. "We believe it is justified by the extraordinary scope and scale of the cyber problem."
The letter was co-signed by Sen. Lindsay Graham (R-SC), Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and Sen. Jack Reed (D-RI).
On Sunday, McCain said, "There's no doubt they were interfering and no doubt it was a cyber-attack. The question now is how much and what damage and what should the United States of America do? And so far, we've been totally paralyzed. I'm sure that when Vladimir Putin was told quote 'cut it out' unquote, I'm sure that Vladimir Putin immediately stopped all cyber-activities. The truth is, they are hacking every single day."
Watch the video, embedded below:
Many Democrats upset over the possibility of a Donald Trump presidency are hanging their hopes on a possible revolt in the Electoral College.
Here are five things TheHill.com says to watch for, as well as a brief explanation as to why an upset of Trump's victory by electors is unlikely.
On Monday, the 538 electors will meet in their state capitals to cast their votes for president of the United States. Donald Trump won 306 electoral votes to Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton's 232.
In spite of a "frantic push" by Democrats and activists to urge electors not to vote Trump into office, The Hill's Ben Kamisar said, it's unlikely that the necessary 37 Republican electors will change their votes and make Clinton the next president.
Here are some things to watch for:
1. How many Trump electors change their votes.
There is no evidence, Kamisar said, of a significant number of Trump electors planning to change their votes. Only one Republican elector has publicly said that he plans to vote for Clinton.
The so-called "Hamilton electors" would need 36 more votes to throw the election outcome into doubt, but the decision would be handed over to the Republican-led Congress, who would probably elect Trump anyway.
2. How many Democrats opt for a "compromise pick."
Some Democratic electors -- it's unclear how many -- have said they will rally around an alternate Republican pick in order to block Trump from the presidency.
"In theory, a unified front of the 232 Democrats could join with 38 Republicans to elect an alternative president. But in practice, the anti-Trump electors will be lucky if more than a dozen Democrats break," Kamisar said.
3. Who becomes a "faithless elector."
The way electors are chosen varies from state to state, so they come from a variety of different backgrounds. Some come to the process devoted to their candidate. Others are party loyalists.
Some electors would face immediate consequences from their home states for breaking with the current expected results.
Kamisar said, "29 states and the District of Columbia bind their electors by law, mostly with small fines as retribution for going rogue. No faithless electors have ever been punished, so political junkies will be watching to see if that changes."
4. What Trump says on Twitter.
Twitter has been Trump's main line of communication to the world at large since the election. He's used the microblogging platform to bash critics, question the legitimacy of U.S. intelligence agencies and lob verbal grenades at China.
"No matter what happens on Monday, Trump’s reaction on Twitter will be telling. If a significant number of electors end up fleeing, will he take them on or let it go? And will he claim victory if the vote goes as planned?" wrote Kamisar.
5. Will Monday's vote change the views of most Americans about the Electoral College?
The contentious 2016 party primaries and now the fact that the Electoral College will once again elect a Republican president who lost the popular vote have combined to make some voters painfully aware of how little say they actually have in the election process.
Many Democrats are calling for the elimination of the Electoral College, saying that it prioritizes the votes of white, rural Americans over those of city dwellers and voters of color.
On Sunday, Andrew Prokop of Vox.com offered an explainer post about why -- although it is technically possible for the electors to choose Clinton over Trump -- it's unlikely that the Electoral College will honor the popular vote over their assigned political roles.
Prokop highlighted five important reasons Clinton is unlikely to emerge the winner on Monday.
1. Republican electors are largely party stalwarts who will stay with their party affiliation.
2. This is not an election where only a few electors could turn the tide, and 37 is a lot.
3. Even if the matter is left unsettled on Monday, it then goes before the Republican-controlled House of Representatives.
4. None of the Republican alternatives to Trump would want to be elected in such a backhanded way.
5. The political repercussions from the other branches of government would be enormous. Being political animals, most electors are not going to be willing to brave that kind of blowback from their party.
Pennsylvania electors assigned to vote for Donald Trump have been given police protection ahead of Monday's Electoral College vote.
The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reported on Sunday that plainclothes police officers had been assigned to all of state's 20 electors after a torrent of "nasty" emails and phone calls.
"I'm a big boy," elector Ash Khare told the paper. "But this is stupid. Nobody is standing up and telling these people, 'Enough, knock it off.'"
Elector Mary Barket said that her office had received a flood of emails, phone calls and letters expressing fear of a Trump presidency. She said that many people asked her to read Alexander Hamilton's The Federalist Papers No. 68, which asserts that electors have a duty to verify the qualifications of a president.
"I take my job as an elector very seriously, and in Pennsylvania, Donald Trump won," Barket insisted. "So any argument thereafter, especially about the nature of him being a president, is not going to have an effect on me."
CNN commentator Van Jones said on Sunday that President-elect Donald Trump had a patriotic duty to respond to Russia's cyber attacks on the United States, which intelligence agencies say was an effort to sway the election in favor of the Republican candidate.
"This is baffling to anybody with a functioning brain stem," Jones explained to a CNN panel. "We have to be honest about this."
According to Jones, Trump's fondness for President Vladimir Putin is unlike the "warm things" that other presidents have said about Russia to foster diplomacy.
"Not in the face of an active attack on the country!" he exclaimed. "Cyber war is real war. So you have an active attack on our country and you have the president-elect [who] cannot find in himself to say this is wrong and it needs to stop."
Jones noted that Trump has been quick to respond to personal and partisan attacks "but he cannot respond as a patriot to an attack" on American democracy by Russia.
"This is an attack on our country!" Jones declared to the CNN panel. "And I just think that everybody sitting here trying to pretend this is normal, this is not normal and it's dangerous."
Watch the video below from CNN's State of the Union, broadcast Dec. 18, 2016.
Incoming White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus asserted over the weekend that "every single thing" President-elect Donald Trump has done "has been factual" and is supported by 80 percent of Americans.
In a tweet on Saturday, Trump responded to China's seizure of a U.S. naval drone by tweeting, "[W]e don’t want the drone they stole back.- let them keep it!"
On Sunday, Priebus told Fox News host Chris Wallace that Trump's tweet -- and everything else he has done -- is supported by 80 percent of the American people.
"I don't think it's all that provocative," Priebus opined.
"You mean the One China policy is up for grabs?" Wallace wondered.
"We're not suggesting we're revisiting One China policy right now," Priebus insisted. "And he's not president right now and he's respectful to the current president."
"The Chinese ripped a drone out of the water," the Trump aide continued. "President-elect said this is an unprecedented act, totally inappropriate. He didn't quite use those words, but that's essentially what he said in a tweet."
According to Priebus, the U.S. military should not "want that drone back" after it had been handled by the Chinese government.
"I think every single thing he's done has been factual and has been in line with where 80 percent of the American people are," Priebus declared.
Watch the video below from Fox News, broadcast Dec. 18, 2016.
Alec Baldwin returned to Saturday Night Live to reprise his role as President-elect Donald Trump this week and was joined by special guests "Vladimir Putin" and actor John Goodman as Exxon-Mobil CEO and potential Secretary of State Rex Tillerson.
The show's opening segment found Baldwin as Trump high up in Trump Tower with Kate McKinnon as Kellyanne Conway, going over possible nominees to Trump's cabinet.
"Are there any more cabinet picks left?" Trump asked.
Conway replied that former Texas Gov. Rick Perry (R) has agreed to take the job of Secretary of Energy.
"Wasn't that a great choice? I saw him on Dancing With the Stars," Trump said. "This guy has so much energy. Un-president-ed."
"And now all I have to do is pick who's going to be president," he said.
"That's you, sir," Conway said.
"Can I just do it three days a week like Howard Stern does?" Trump asked.
"I don't think so," Conway replied.
They were jointed by Melania Trump. Conway excused herself, but reminded Trump, "I'll be handcuffed to you for all of history."
Moments later, the Trumps were joined by a shirtless Vladimir Putin who said, "I was just in town, you know, hiding in the walls."
"Mr. Trump, I'm here because your CIA, they are saying we Russians tried to make you win election," Putin said.
Trump replied that those are all lies made up by "some very bitter people who need to move on."
"So you trust me more than the American CIA?" Putin asked.
"All I know is I won," Trump said.
Trump protested that he didn't know that Putin was coming, so he doesn't have a gift for the Russian president.
"Please, Mr. Trump, you are the gift," Putin said.
Goodman appeared as Rex Tillerson. He and Putin spoke Russian and began to divide up oil-rich territories on a map while Trump struggled to be included.
"And we destroy Vanity Fair, right?" he asked eagerly. "They are a terrible publication, just terrible."
Watch the video, embedded below:
Former Assistant Secretary of State and international human rights expert John Shattuck said this week that President-elect Donald Trump must welcome a thorough investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 election because the questions it raises leave him vulnerable to charges of treason.
"A specter of treason hovers over Donald Trump," Shattuck wrote in the Boston Globe. "He has brought it on himself by dismissing a bipartisan call for an investigation of Russia’s hacking of the Democratic National Committee as a 'ridiculous' political attack on the legitimacy of his election as president."
With evidence piling up that forces within Russia worked to tip the election in Trump's favor, Shattuck said that it's unwise for Trump to bat aside the accusations as if they're unimportant.
Shattuck -- who was appointed by Pres. Bill Clinton and currently serves as a professor of diplomacy at the Fletcher Center of Law and Diplomacy and as a senior fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School’s Carr Center for Human Rights Policy -- quoted the director of U.S. Cyber Command Admiral Mike Rogers.
"This was not something that was done casually, this was not something that was done by chance," Rogers said. "This was not a target that was selected purely arbitrarily. This was a conscious effort by a nation state to attempt to achieve a specific effect.”
"There are several possible explanations for Trump’s position" in avoiding an investigation, said Shattuck. "They are not mutually exclusive."
In each of these scenarios, the president-elect is engaging in behaviors that fall under the definition of treason, Shattuck wrote, which is committed by a person “owing allegiance to the United States who...adheres to their enemies, giving them aid or comfort." The crime of misprision of treason is committed by a person “having knowledge of the commission of any treason [who] conceals and does not disclose."
1. Trump may be attempting to shore up his political standing ahead of the meeting of the Electoral College on Monday.
2. He may be trying to undermine public confidence in U.S. intelligence agencies so that when he is inaugurated in January, he can "intimidate them and have a freer hand in reshaping the intelligence product to suit his objectives."
3. He may be testing to see whether the American public is willing to follow his lead over that of the intelligence community and "follow his version of the truth about national security threats."
4. He may be attempting to cover up evidence of "involvement or prior knowledge by members of his campaign team or himself in the Russian cyberattack."
Shattuck said, "By denigrating or seeking to prevent an investigation of the Russian cyberattack Trump is giving aid or comfort to an enemy of the United States, a crime that is enhanced if the fourth explanation applies -- that he is in fact seeking to cover up his staff’s or his own involvement in or prior knowledge of the attack."
While there has been no disclosure thus far of evidence that shows Trump was involved in or knew in advance about the Russian government's actions, Shattuck said that a thorough investigation is clearly warranted.
He then laid out a series of known quantities that contribute to the air of suspicion and doubt around Trump's claims that there was no collusion between his campaign and the Russian government.
"Paul Manafort, Trump’s former campaign manager, has had extensive political dealings with the Russian government. Trump’s designate for National Security Adviser, Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, has appeared as a commentator for Russian state television and sat with Vladimir Putin at a Russian gala. As a candidate, Trump repeatedly praised Putin and took positions favorable to the Russian government. As reported by the New York Times, the president-elect’s son, Donald Trump Jr., told a real estate gathering in 2008 that 'Russians make up a pretty disproportionate cross-section of a lot of our assets,' adding, 'we see a lot of money pouring in from Russia.' Two days after the election, Russia’s deputy foreign minister, Sergei Ryabokov, was quoted by the Times as saying that 'there were contacts' between Moscow and the Trump campaign, and that members of the campaign staff 'were staying in touch with Russian representatives.'”
To continue to stall an investigation, Shattuck said, will leave Trump permanently vulnerable to questions about the legitimacy of his presidency. The president-elect, he said, must act quickly to "clear the air" lest "a specter of treason" hover over him and his presidency.
On Saturday evening, Republican President-elect Donald Trump followed up his "unpresidented" tweet about China's seizure of a U.S. unmanned research vehicle with another poorly-typed tweet that sent Twitter jokesters into overdrive.
"We should tell China that we don't want the drone they stole back.- let them keep it!" Trump posted after the final stop of his "Thank you" tour, which ended with a rally in Mobile, Alabama.
Apparently not content to provoke the Asian superpower with calls to the Taiwanese president, Trump has decided that passive aggressive Twitter meltdowns are the way to really wind China up.
U.S. President-elect Donald Trump wrapped up his post-election "thank you" tour on Saturday with celebratory geysers from water cannons, greetings from hoop-skirted Southern belles and some gloating over the TV newscasters who had expected him to lose.
In the last in a series of rallies Trump has staged during the past three weeks - mainly in battleground states that gave him the margin of victory in the Nov. 8 election - Trump came back to where it all began for his improbable presidential campaign.
It was in Mobile, Alabama, last year where Trump, a real estate magnate and reality television star with no previous political experience, drew a huge crowd that gave notice to his rivals that he was a threat for the Republican presidential nomination.
When his plane landed at the Mobile airport on Saturday, it taxied beneath blasts from two water cannon trucks. Stepping off the plane, a half dozen young women wearing Old South hoop skirts in a panoply of pastel colors were on hand to greet him.
Speaking at Ladd-Peebles Stadium, where there was a steady drizzle that he said would ruin his suit, Trump relived his tense election night when he went from big underdog to eking out a victory over heavily favored Democrat Hillary Clinton.
Faced with predictions that he would lose, Trump said he told his wife, Melania, that he was at peace with his campaign because he had worked so hard.
"I went to my wife and I said, 'You know what, I don't feel badly about this,'" Trump said.
Trump said the faces of the newscasters seemed to sink as his fortunes improved, part of his running diatribe against the U.S. mainstream news media that he claims is stacked against him.
"They got paid a lot of money," Trump said of television commentators. "They don't know what the hell they're talking about, folks."
Trump, who will be sworn into office on Jan. 20, took swings at a few other favorite targets from his campaign: corporations that outsource jobs, Islamic State militants, drug dealers, illegal immigrants, and the political culture in Washington.
But he pulled his punches when it came to first lady Michelle Obama, who in excerpts from an interview with Oprah Winfrey set to air on CBS on Monday, said: "We feel the difference now. See, now, we're feeling what not having hope feels like."
"I honestly believe she meant that statement in a different way than it came out," Trump said.
Trump lost the popular vote by more than 2.5 million votes but still won 306 votes in the Electoral College, plenty more than the 270 required to win.
With some Democrats now saying the Electoral College should be abandoned and that the presidential election should be decided by the popular vote, Trump said he's happy with the system the way it is now.
"I never appreciated it until now, how genius it was," he said.
(Additional reporting by Roberta Rampton in Washington; Editing by Paul Simao)
A Republican candidate for the Louisiana House of Representatives says that he is boycotting any Muslim-owned business as well as any businesses that employ Muslims.
Mic.com reported that Michael "Duke" Lowrie believes that it is the patriotic duty of all Americans to withhold their consumer dollars from businesses that benefit Muslims in any way.
The former paramedic and firefighter announced this week that he is running to represent Louisiana's District 8 in the state House. He told the Shreveport Times that he stands by remarks he made about not supporting Muslim businesses or companies that hire Muslim workers.
"We are a Christian nation. The threat of Islamic terrorism is real. Too many times, politicians are sometimes so afraid to speak the truth because of the PC culture in which we live. I'll call it how I see it. We must tackle Islamic extremism head on. I believe President Trump will do that," Lowrie said in a statement on Friday.
In a November, 2015 Facebook post, Lowrie wrote, "Many of you may or may not know but Shreveport - Bossier was one of the cities on the Islamist kill lists. Perhaps they despise our hospitality here or our over the top support for our military. Regardless the fact is the Islamist (sic) seek to kill us and make us submit to their false religion and god."
The "ISIS Kill List" conspiracy is a misinterpretation of an ISIS propaganda effort from March of 2015, according to Snopes.com. ISIS published a list of U.S. service personnel it deemed as enemies of Islam and their home addresses.
Snopes said, "Although the March 2015 ISIS report was treated seriously by the U.S. military and law enforcement at the time it was issued, the Pentagon noted that the list seemed to be more of an ISIS social media scare tactic using information taken from publicly available online sources than an actual threat."
Lowrie and others among the conspiracy-minded view the "Kill List" as a blueprint of what targets the terror group plans to "destroy."
In his Facebook post, Lowrie said, "The fact is the Islamist [sic] seek to kill us and make us submit to their false religion and God. There are many who worship, if you call it that, Islam here among us. I do not believe they deserve peace of our culture or the continued fruits of our society while following this religion. I for one will no longer knowingly go to or do business with any establishment that has someone who I know is a follower of Islam working there."
The election to fill the House seat takes place on March 25. So far, Lowrie is the only candidate who has declared.
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