December 26, 2016

Joy Reid warns Trump's properties are about to become instant terrorist targets

The incoming president’s real estate business presents a lot problems for him ethically but MSNBC’s Joy Reid noted that there are even larger concerns at play.

“We cannot discount how his personal conflicts of interest wind up influencing his foreign policy,” she said on “Meet The Press” Sunday. “We don’t know to what international banks he is in debt. We don’t know the extent to which his own pecuniary interests might influence his foreign policy, if his children are still running his company and there’s a hotel to be built in Dubai, does that influence his reaction if the government of Dubai acts in a way we don’t want, in Turkey or other countries.”

But one of the more horrifying things to ponder is the ability for terrorists to target the United States by going after one of the many places all over the world with the president’s name on it.

“You start to have anything with a Trump name on it around the world becoming an instant terrorist target,” Reid said, citing a Republican strategist who revealed that concern. “How do we react to a world in which the name of the president of the United States is plastered all over hotels and hot spots?”

more
http://www.rawstory.com/2016/12/joy-reid-warns-trumps-properties-are-about-to-become-instant-terrorist-targets/

December 25, 2016

Anti-refugee sentiment from election spills over to states

Source: Associated Press

HELENA, Mont. (AP) — The push to restrict refugee resettlements and immigration in the U.S. that figured so prominently in Donald Trump’s election is now headed to states that are preparing to convene their legislative sessions early next year, immigration advocates said.

In Montana, which took in just nine refugee families from January to early December, about a dozen bill requests related to refugees, immigration and terrorism have been filed ahead of next month’s session. The measures include requiring resettlement agencies to carry insurance that would defray the cost of prosecuting refugees who commit violent crimes and allowing towns and cities to request a moratorium on resettlements in their communities.

Refugee rights advocates say those measures are a sign of what is to come as the anti-refugee rhetoric that featured prominently in the presidential election spills over to statehouses and local governments.

“It’s pretty widely known that this is going to be a hard year for those of us who are seeking to protect the rights of refugees and immigrants,” said S.K. Rossi, advocacy and policy director for the ACLU of Montana.

Read more: http://www.salon.com/2016/12/25/anti-refugee-sentiment-from-election-spills-over-to-states/

December 25, 2016

Internet ridicules Trumps narcissistic Christmas tweet: 'No family, no warmth, just a tiny fist &...

Internet ridicules Trump’s narcissistic Christmas tweet: ‘No family, no warmth, just a tiny fist and a tree’

President-elect Donald Trump extended Merry Christmas wishes to his Twitter followers on Sunday morning — with a proper Christmas tree emoji — only to have detractors notice it wasn’t the warmest of greetings.

Just Trump with a raised fist standing in front of a Christmas tree. No Trump kids, not a Trump grandkid to be seen, no Melania, not even Ivanka — just The Donald.

Needless to say, he received a whole lot of non-holiday wishes in return from Twitter users who were less than thrilled to still find the lump of coal that is Trump in their stocking on Christmas morning.

Donald J. Trump ✔
@realDonaldTrump

#MerryChristmas

7:46 AM - 25 Dec 2016
27,866 Retweets 81,995 likes

Tony Posnanski ✔
@tonyposnanski

@realDonaldTrump That picture is extremely festive
7:48 AM - 25 Dec 2016
1,031 Retweets 455 likes

Jen Dent
@JentotheDen
@tonyposnanski
@realDonaldTrump only Donald would send a Christmas card reminding us of our impending doom.

BreadBitch
@mary_olliff

@JentotheDen @tonyposnanski @realDonaldTrump I also love that it's just him, no family, no warmth, just a tiny fist and a tree.
8:12 AM - 25 Dec 2016
1,175 Retweets 1,863 likes

Brian Abrams ✔
@BrianAbrams

@realDonaldTrump you ruined it.

7:47 AM - 25 Dec 2016

more
http://www.rawstory.com/2016/12/internet-ridicules-trumps-narcissistic-christmas-tweet-no-family-no-warmth-just-a-tiny-fist-and-a-tree/

December 25, 2016

Trump Accuses NBC of 'Purposely' Misquoting His Nuclear Weapons Comments (Except They Didnt)

Trump Accuses NBC of ‘Purposely’ Misquoting His Nuclear Weapons Comments (Except They Didn’t)

The holiday season might be the time of peace on Earth, good will towards men, and all of that other fuzzy stuff, but that’s not stopping President-Elect Donald Trump from swiping at the media again.

On Saturday, Trump claimed that NBC intentionally misquoted him over his recent comments about expanding America’s nuclear weapons capacity:

Donald J. Trump ✔
@realDonaldTrump

.@NBCNews purposely left out this part of my nuclear qoute: "until such time as the world comes to its senses regarding nukes." Dishonest!

3:59 PM - 24 Dec 2016
13,035 Retweets 44,945 likes

Here’s the original tweet for context:


Donald J. Trump ✔
@realDonaldTrump

The United States must greatly strengthen and expand its nuclear capability until such time as the world comes to its senses regarding nukes

11:50 AM - 22 Dec 2016
20,601 Retweets 68,311 likes

It is unclear whether Trump’s anger was directed towards an online article or a segment on TV. Nonetheless, it is worth noting that NBC has an article containing Trump’s quote in full, and Politico noted that the network reported on the same complete quote at multiple points in their recent TV broadcasts.

more
http://www.mediaite.com/online/trump-accuses-nbc-of-purposely-misquoting-his-nuclear-weapons-comments-except-they-didnt/

December 25, 2016

Trump communications director leaves to 'spend time with family' after staffer hints at sex scandal

Source: RawStory

TOM BOGGIONI
25 DEC 2016 AT 09:23 ET


In a surprising Christmas Eve announcement, newly appointed White House communications director Jason Miller has stepped down from his position after a Trump transition member hinted on Twitter that a sex scandal may be brewing.

According to the [link:http://www.nydailynews.com/news/politics/trump-loses-jason-miller-white-house-communications-director-article-1.2922711New York Daily News], Miller announced that he is walking away only two days after being appointed, saying his wife is expecting their second child and, Its clear they need to be my top priority right now, and this is not the time to start a new job as demanding as White House communications director.

In a series of tweets, now hidden from view, Trump advocate and transition staffer A.J. Delgado cast a shadow over Millers announcement, writing, Congratulations to the baby-daddy on being named WH Comms Director! before adding, The 2016 version of John Edwards. The Edwards mention no doubt referring to the ex-Democratic presidential nominee whose career was derailed by an affair and a child out of wedlock.

In a series of tweets captured by [link:http://www.mediaite.com/online/trump-advisor-a-j-delgado-deletes-twitter-account-after-cryptic-tweets-about-jason-miller/Mediaite], Delgado leveled more accusations at Miller, writing, When people need to resign graciously and refuse to, its a bit spooky, hinting that Millers troubles may have begun earlier. Delgado added, Jason Miller. Who needed to resign yesterday.

Read more: http://www.rawstory.com/2016/12/trump-communications-director-leaves-to-spend-time-with-family-after-staffer-hints-at-sex-scandal/

December 25, 2016

Ryan proposes fines, ethics moves on grandstanding House members

By Bloomberg News December 24 at 6:59 PM
House Speaker Paul D. Ryan and his Republican lieutenants want to hit fellow lawmakers with fines and potential ethics violations if they engage in live-streaming or other disruptions on the House floor.

The move is a belated response to this summer’s 25-hour sit-in by Democrats protesting Republican inaction on gun-control legislation.

Under the proposed new rules package, which was seen by Bloomberg News, members could face a $500 fine through deductions to their paychecks for a first offense of using electronic photography or audio or visual recording, as well as for broadcasting from the chamber’s floor. A $2,500 fine would be leveled for the next such offense and each subsequent violation.

The new rules also clarify which conduct is to be deemed disorderly or disruptive during floor proceedings, including blocking access by other members to microphones or what is known as “the well” — the front of the chamber.

Such action could lead to potential referral to the Committee on Ethics and sanctions against members, according to an accompanying section-by-section analysis of the new rules package.

more
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/ryan-proposes-fines-ethics-moves-on-house-members-after-disruptions/2016/12/24/fe4e2996-ca2c-11e6-8bee-54e800ef2a63_story.html?utm_term=.f2333c249c6c&wpisrc=nl_headlines&wpmm=1

December 25, 2016

What the Hanukkah story teaches us about the Trump administration

Today, we have to be the Maccabees.

By Danya Ruttenberg December 23

Danya Ruttenberg is rabbi-in-residence at Avodah and author of "Nurture the Wow: Finding Spirituality in the Frustration, Boredom, Tears, Poop, Desperation, Wonder, and Radical Amazement of Parenting."

In 175 B. C., an insecure, despotic ruler came to power. He was narcissistic and known for a level of extravagance and display that bordered on the bizarre. Despite his occasional ability to captivate his subjects by appearing gracious, he was said to have, in his heart, a cruel tyrant’s contempt for his subjects. Political positions under him were easily bought; he installed unqualified cronies in high positions and quickly turned on one if another offered him more money for the same job. He was quick to anger, nicknamed “the madman,” and it wasn’t long into his reign that he began curtailing civil liberties, restricting the freedom of religion, and pillaging his subjects’ resources for his own profit.

Antiochus IV Epiphanes seized rule illegitimately over the Seleucid Empire, including Judea; the kingship was meant to have gone to his nephew, but he took it by force. He allowed bribes to drive his appointments of the high priest several times and plundered the treasury of the Holy Temple in Jerusalem for its gold. In a fury about a humiliating loss in Egypt, he cracked down in Judea, outlawing observance of the Sabbath and ritual circumcision and defiling the temple by erecting an altar to Zeus there, complete with pig sacrifice. He sent his officers to slay and destroy, with an agenda that was less about Hellenism — that is, the demand that the Judeans assimilate into the kingdom’s dominant Greek-influenced culture — than it was about denationalization, a full eradication of their way of life.

As Hanukkah begins, the parallels between that ancient story and what’s happening in U.S. politics are hard to ignore. There are the questions around Donald Trump’s rise to power — his connections to Vladimir Putin and possible Russian interference in the election. There’s his cabinet, stacked with donors and those whose positions on everything from minimum wage to immigration, public schools, privatization and the environment could affect us in devastating ways. Trump’s pursuit of his own financial gain seems to be pointing us toward a kleptocracy, collusion with brutal regimes and terrifying shifts in foreign policy. He threatens freedom of speech, assembly and the press, as well as American Muslims‘ free exercise of religion, among his other authoritarian tendencies. Trump may very well sack the temple of our democracy and social safety nets. Like Antiochus, he could eradicate the way of life that has defined this country.

Antiochus’s regime was, needless to say, terrifying and devastating for the Judeans, who had to decide whether to be martyred — as many were — or to submit to his demands. A small handful of zealots chose a third option, however, protesting his decrees and the complicity of some of their fellow Judeans. After an initial skirmish, the Maccabees ran for the hills and, soon, were engaged in all-out warfare with the massive Seleucid army. They were outmanned and underarmed; many of the Maccabean soldiers didn’t even have swords and armor. But they made use of their superior knowledge of their terrain: They were light, quick and mobile, relying on ambush techniques and superior tactical skill. Slowly, painstakingly, they beat back the Seleucids and eventually gained their freedom.

more
https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2016/12/23/what-the-hanukkah-story-teaches-us-about-the-trump-administration/?utm_term=.4f7335f6daca&wpisrc=nl_headlines&wpmm=1

December 25, 2016

Trump's pick for attorney general is shadowed by race and history

Evelyn Turner is 80 now and a stroke survivor, but she can still recall sitting in a packed courthouse in Selma, Ala., facing a jury that could send her and her husband, an aide to Martin Luther King Jr., to prison for 150 years.

The charges: mail fraud, voting more than once, and changing absentee ballots.

The trial “was nerve-racking,” recalled Turner, a mother of four. “I didn’t know if I was going to go to jail and leave my family.”

The U.S. attorney bringing the election fraud case was Jeff Sessions, today a four-term Republican senator from Alabama who is President-elect Donald Trump’s nominee for attorney general. Back in 1985 when his prosecutors tried the Turners and a third activist, black Americans were gaining ground in elective offices across the South. Sessions’s office charged the “Marion Three” — named after the Perry County town where the voter fraud allegedly took place — with tampering with absentee ballots cast by mostly elderly black voters to favor the activists’ preferred candidates.

Sessions’s team lost the case. After deliberating for three hours, a jury of seven blacks and five whites found the defendants not guilty on all charges. The case and allegations of racial insensitivity figured prominently at a Senate hearing a year later at which Sessions’s nomination to be a federal judge was defeated by a vote of the Judiciary Committee. Some 30 years later, he will appear before the same committee — of which he is now a senior member — as the nominee to become the next attorney general.

more
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/trumps-pick-for-attorney-general-is-shadowed-by-race-and-history/2016/12/24/1432cffa-b650-11e6-959c-172c82123976_story.html?utm_term=.a24a250b4521&wpisrc=nl_headlines&wpmm=1

December 25, 2016

Evangelicals side with Israel. That's hurting Palestinian Christians.

When Americans sing carols about the ‘Little Town of Bethlehem’ this Christmas, they should keep in mind who lives there.

By Bethany Allen-Ebrahimian December 23

Bethany Allen-Ebrahimian is an assistant editor at Foreign Policy.

This week, Christmas pageants across the country will reenact the scenes of the nativity; carolers will sing the beloved hymn, “O Little Town of Bethlehem”; and millions will turn their hearts toward that ancient city, where many believe that Jesus was born. But it’s likely most Americans haven’t pondered what that birthplace is like today — or who lives there.

Bethlehem is the most heavily Christian city in Palestine. Its Arab Christian mayor, Vera Baboun, describes her hometown the “capital of Christmas” and says that between Bethlehem proper and the surrounding Bethlehem governate, there are upward of 38,000 Christian residents. Christmas celebrations there form an integral part of city life. “Bethlehem is the city that gave the message of peace to the whole world,” Baboun told me in a November interview at a conference hosted by the Middle East Institute in Washington, D.C. “But today, Bethlehem does not live the peace that it gave to the whole world.”

The existence of Palestinian Christians, and the difficulties they face under Israeli occupation in their homeland, is a blind spot for American Christians. Evangelicals in particular are often strong supporters of Israel and suspicious of Muslims but don’t seem to realize that those aren’t the only groups at play in the region.

“I and many other Americans of Palestinian Christian ancestry will often get asked: When did you convert? ‘2,000 years ago, when did you convert?’ is a standard response,” said Gregory Khalil, president and co-founder of the U.S.-based Telos Group, a self-styled pro-Israel and pro-Palestine organization that advocates peace in the region.

more
https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2016/12/23/evangelicals-side-with-israel-thats-hurting-palestinian-christians/?utm_term=.dd74c7e68878&wpisrc=nl_headlines&wpmm=1

December 25, 2016

No survivors found after Russian military plane with 92 on board crashes en route to Syria

Source: The Washington Post

By David Filipov December 25 at 9:56 AM

MOSCOW — A Russian military passenger plane carrying dozens of Red Army Choir singers, dancers and orchestra members plunged into the Black Sea minutes after it took off en route Sunday to a military base in Syria, killing all 92 people on board, Russia’s Defense Ministry said.

The cause of the crash had yet to be determined Sunday afternoon. Officials were ruling out terrorism, though Russia’s Federal Security Service was looking into everyone who could have come in contact with the jet on the ground.

Maj. Gen. Igor Konashenkov, a military spokesman, told reporters that no one survived after the aging Soviet-era jet, which had set out from Moscow, crashed shortly a refueling stop at the airport in the Black Sea resort city of Sochi.

“The area of the crash site has been established,” Konashenkov said. “No survivors have been spotted.”

Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/no-survivors-found-after-russian-military-plane-with-92-on-board-crashes-en-route-to-syria/2016/12/25/d4bca3f0-ca7c-11e6-a22f-f4d703887285_story.html?utm_term=.19d2cb425489&wpisrc=nl_headlines&wpmm=1