US Politics in Trump era
David Wurmser, Key Iraq War Architect, Advising Trump on Iran
Elliott Abrams Isn’t Going to Bring “Democracy” to Venezuela
On December 11, 1981 in El Salvador, a Salvadoran military unit created and trained by the U.S. Army began slaughtering everyone they could find in a remote village called El Mozote. Before murdering the women and girls, the soldiers raped them repeatedly, including some as young as 10 years old, and joked that their favorites were the 12-year-olds. One witness described a soldier tossing a 3-year-old child into the air and impaling him with his bayonet. The final death toll was over 800 people.
This Thanksgiving, I’m grateful for Donald Trump’s Honesty
There’s no question that Donald Trump is the most flagrantly, compulsively, and voluminously dishonest president in American history — which is saying something, given the competition. He’s probably told 27 more lies during the time it took you to read this one sentence. But as preposterous as it sounds, there’s a case to be made that he’s simultaneously America’s most honest president.
It Didn’t Just Start Now: John Kelly Has Always Been a Hard-Right Bully
Any examination of Kelly’s past public remarks makes clear he is not a sober professional, calculating that he must degrade himself in public so he can remain in place to rein in Trump’s worst instincts behind the scenes. Rather, Kelly honestly shares those instincts: He’s proudly ignorant, he’s a liar, and he’s a shameless bully and demagogue.
Donald Trump Used the United Nations to Threaten a Massive Violation of International Law
The United States has never cared much about international law. But most U.S. presidents had at least made an effort to pretend that they did. Based on President Donald Trump’s speech Tuesday to the United Nations General Assembly, this is yet another American tradition that he’s discarding. Trump’s overturning of this American norm came during his blusterous threats against North Korea:
Undercover in North Korea: “All Paths Lead to Catastrophe”
The whole thing begins with the division of Korea in 1945. People think it began with the Korean War, but the Korean War only happened because of the 1945 division [of Korea by the U.S. and Soviet Union at the end of World War II]. What we’re seeing is Korea stuck in between. Essentially no Americans know what happened between 1945 and the start of the Korean War. And few Americans know what happened during the war. [Syngman Rhee, the U.S.-installed ultra right-wing South Korean dictator, massacred tens of thousands of South Koreans before North Korea invaded in 1950. Rhee’s government executed another 100,000 South Koreans in the war’s early months. Then the barbaric U.S. air war against North Korea killed perhaps one-fifth of its population.]
Anthony Scaramucci, Trump’s New Communications Director, Said Citizens United Made Possible a “Sleeper Cell” of Hedge Fund Managers
In 2011 Scaramucci celebrated Citizens United for making possible exactly what the Supreme Court said wouldn't happen. Here’s what Scaramucci said about Citizens United, himself and Cooperman: Scaramucci, the organizer of the dinner, told me the next day that the guests had witnessed the “activation” of a “sleeper cell” of hedge-fund managers against Obama. “That’s what you see happening in the hedge-fund community, because they now have the power, because of Citizens United, to aggregate capital into political-action committees and to influence the debate,” he said. “The President has a philosophy of disdain toward wealth creation. That’s just obvious, O.K.? We talked about it all night.” He later said, “If there’s a pope of this movement, it’s Lee Cooperman.”
U.S. Decline to Banana Republic Accelerates as Trump Places Son-in-Law Jared Kushner in White House
Nine Ways the U.S. Voting System Is Rigged But Not Against Donald Trump
Voting isn't rigged against Donald Trump - it’s rigged in obvious and subtle ways against minorities and people without much money. Between one-quarter and one-third of American adults, up to 50 million people, are eligible to vote but aren’t registered to vote. The unregistered are younger, poorer and less white than registered voters.
D.C. Hivemind Mulls How Clinton Can Pass Huge Corporate Tax Cut
Even as Democratic voters are concentrating on beating Donald Trump, the Very Serious People of D.C. are quietly plotting a highly unpleasant surprise for them. Article talks about where the money for proposed programs will come from and how to pay for them. Progressives want taxes from corporate profits and articles discusses the politics of this process.