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FOCUS: Kris Kobach Is Leading the Most Insidious Dimension of Trump's Assault on Democracy |
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Written by <a href="index.php?option=com_comprofiler&task=userProfile&user=11104"><span class="small">Charles Pierce, Esquire</span></a>
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Sunday, 02 July 2017 11:04 |
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Pierce writes: "But the single most malevolent ethical dwarf in this incredible array of boobs and vandals may be Kris Kobach, the godfather of the national movement to suppress the votes of people the GOP would prefer not to exercise the franchise, and author of some of the most extreme anti-immigration strategies since the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882."
Trump and Kobach. (photo: Getty Images)
Kris Kobach Is Leading the Most Insidious Dimension of Trump's Assault on Democracy
By Charles Pierce, Esquire
02 July 17
Voting rights are in the crosshairs.
 he Republican presidential tactic of crippling agencies you don't like by putting either the incompetent or the actively hostile in charge of them didn't begin in 2017. (Blessings on your memory, James Watt!) But this particular president*'s administration may be the apotheosis of the form. You have Betsy DeVos running the Department of Education and preparing to hand every schoolchild in America over to the tender mercies of Creationist cranks and the assembled tramps and thieves of the education "reform" movement. You have energy industry sublet Scott Pruitt making a dog's breakfast out of the EPA's mission.
But the single most malevolent ethical dwarf in this incredible array of boobs and vandals may be Kris Kobach, the godfather of the national movement to suppress the votes of people the GOP would prefer not to exercise the franchise, and author of some of the most extreme anti-immigration strategies since the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882. In Kobach's mind, of course, these go hand-in-hand in the fight against "voter fraud," which also exists largely between Kobach's ears.
Currently the Secretary of State in Kansas, Kobach would like to succeed Sam Brownback in 2018 as governor of the wreck he's made of the state in his use of it as a lab rat for every crackpot economic theory known to conservative man. At the moment, though, in an act of transparent sabotage, the president* has named Kobach as vice-chairman of his Presidential Advisory Commission on Election Integrity, a snipe hunt the only apparent purpose of which is maintaining the fiction that masses of people, many of them brown, are gaming our elections. (As opposed, I guess, to the Russian ratfckers about whom the president* couldn't care less.) Vice President Mike Pence is the commission's chairman, which pretty much guarantees Kobach a free hand.
That Kobach is helping to run what will turn out to be a monumental bag-job was illustrated quite clearly on Thursday, when Kobach wrote a letter to his fellow secretaries of state that left many jaws on the floor. From The Kansas City Star:
In a Wednesday letter, Kobach asked the Connecticut secretary of state's office to provide the commission with all publicly available voter roll data, including the full names of all registered voters along with their addresses, dates of birth, the last four digits of their Social Security numbers, voting history and other personal information. Kobach said in a phone call that he sent similar letters to election officials in every state and that as Kansas' top election official he will be providing the commission with all of the information for Kansas voters.
This is precisely the same as sending your bank routing and account numbers to that woman claiming to be from Nigeria who holds the deed to King Solomon's Mines. Let us look at Kobach's track record for clues, shall we? From his perch in Kansas, Kobach presides over the Interstate Crosscheck System, a fatally—and some would say, deliberately—flawed data-sharing system notable for its ability to knock eligible voters off the rolls without their knowledge.
Moreover, last week, a federal judge whacked Kobach with a $1000 fine for making "patently misleading representations" in a lawsuit brought by the ACLU seeking information about a document Kobach is holding in a photograph taken with the president* on the occasion of his appointment to said commission. (The document is alleged to contain "adjustments" Kobach would like to make to the Motor Voter Act.) Quite simply, any secretary of state who complies with this request is either too stupid to hold the job, or is in sympathy with Kobach's goal of whitewashing the electorate. (Hi, Jay Ashcroft, SecState of Missouri!)
Alex Padilla, the Secretary of State for California, a substantial state that has been fingered by Kobach and his acolytes as Ground Zero for the mass voter-fraud that exists in their heads, can see a church by daylight and knows a hawk from a handsaw.
"California's participation would only serve to legitimize the false and already debunked claims of massive voter fraud made by the President, the Vice President, and Mr. Kobach. The President's Commission is a waste of taxpayer money and a distraction from the real threats to the integrity of our elections today: aging voting systems and documented Russian interference in our elections," Padilla said.
Connecticut Secretary of State Denise Merrill was a bit more discreet than Padilla in her reluctance to comply. But it's clear she doesn't trust Kobach, either.
"The courts have repudiated his methods on multiple occasions but often after the damage has been done to voters," Merrill said. "Given Secretary Kobach's history we find it very difficult to have confidence in the work of this commission."
As Vanita Gupta points out in that same K.C. Star report, if someone in the Obama administration had made this request, at the very least, there would be a full week of howler monkeys screaming about federalism from every perch in every conservative think-tank in the jungle. At the most, there would be hearing after hearing about the Obama administration's plan to seed thousands of the president's fellow Kenyans in every crucial precinct in Ohio and Florida. What's more important, though, is that the national campaign to roll back voting rights now has reached the highest levels of government, with the blessing of the president* and the president*-in-waiting. This is the final step backwards across the Edmund Pettus Bridge.
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FOCUS: Now We Have a Road Map to the Trump Campaign's Collusion With Russia |
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Written by <a href="index.php?option=com_comprofiler&task=userProfile&user=10204"><span class="small">Jonathan Chait, New York Magazine</span></a>
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Sunday, 02 July 2017 10:53 |
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Chait writes: "Most of the commentary surrounding the Russia scandal has treated the possibility that Donald Trump's campaign deliberately colluded with Moscow as remote, unfounded speculation. The new reporting that has broken this weekend suggests instead that this collusion likely did take place."
Donald Trump. (photo: Dominick Reuter/AFP/Getty Images)
Now We Have a Road Map to the Trump Campaign's Collusion With Russia
By Jonathan Chait, New York Magazine
02 July 17
 ost of the commentary surrounding the Russia scandal has treated the possibility that Donald Trump’s campaign deliberately colluded with Moscow as remote, unfounded speculation. The new reporting that has broken this weekend suggests instead that this collusion likely did take place. It provides a road map to the, or perhaps a, likely avenue through which this occurred.
The figure carrying out the operation in question was Peter W. Smith, who died at the age of 81 earlier this year. Smith is hardly a lone kook. He’s an established Republican donor with a demonstrated history in financing ethically murky investigations, such as paying Arkansas state troopers for stories of Bill Clinton’s sexual dalliances.
Smith surfaced earlier in the week in an explosive Wall Street Journal report by Shane Harris, which Harris followed up on Friday night. What really underscores the significance of Harris’s reporting, though, is a detailed account, also published Friday night, by Matt Tait, a British cybersecurity expert who dealt extensively with Smith. Tait’s report makes it clear that Smith had access to Michael Flynn, at the very least, and was working not only to obtain stolen Clinton emails but also to hide the Trump campaign’s involvement.
Tait had established some expertise analyzing Clinton’s emails; Smith, who said he had been contacted by someone who possessed a cache of emails from Clinton’s private server, wanted help validating them. As Tait explains, he warned Smith that Russia had been conducting an attack on the U.S. elections, but Smith appeared completely unconcerned about it. Smith tried to hire Tait for his project and showed him a document creating an independent-looking organization to try to acquire the stolen emails. The document, Tait reports, “detailed a company Smith and his colleagues had set up as a vehicle to conduct the research: ‘KLS Research’, set up as a Delaware LLC ‘to avoid campaign reporting,’ and listing four groups who were involved in one way or another.” This certainly appears like an attempt to mask the Trump campaign’s involvement in the plot.
The document listed a series of high-level Trump campaign officials: Steve Bannon, Kellyanne Conway, Sam Clovis, Lt. Gen. Flynn, and Lisa Nelson. Bannon and Conway, contacted by the Journal, deny any involvement with Smith. But Smith’s comments to Tait indicate a fairly close understanding of Trump campaign internal dynamics. It is possible he was bluffing, but Smith seemed to be displaying authentic insider credentials.
The key to understanding the significance of this report is to put it together with a sentence from Harris’s first story on this in the Journal, which reports that U.S. investigators “have examined reports from intelligence agencies that describe Russian hackers discussing how to obtain emails from Mrs. Clinton’s server and then transmit them to Mr. Flynn via an intermediary.”
So, according to Harris’s reporting, Russians were trying to transmit emails from Clinton’s server. Tait is describing in detail a Republican operative trying to obtain stolen emails from Russia. So we have evidence both of the campaign’s request and Russian efforts to fulfill the request.
Smith is deceased (at an old age, there is no grounds for suspicion about the cause of his death), but Michael Flynn, a figure he reportedly worked for, is very much with us and facing significant legal jeopardy. Flynn’s lawyer has said he has “a story to tell.” This might be part of the story.
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What Does It Mean to Be Black in America? |
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Sunday, 02 July 2017 08:20 |
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Sterling writes: "Time and again, the quest for knowing what it meant to be black in America provided unfortunate revelations, which became more evident when I was in school."
Jeffrey Sterling. (photo: AP)
What Does It Mean to Be Black in America?
By Jeffrey Sterling, Reader Supported News
02 July 17
 hen I am released from prison, I must see “I Am Not Your Negro,” Raoul Peck’s film about writer James Baldwin and his book that was never written. The film is the most recent entry in my “things to do when I’m free” list. The few reviews I had access to were enough to pique my interest in the film, and that interest became list-worthy after a friend sent me the book version of the film. The book moved me because it is filled with reflections of my own unwritten story. “I Am Not Your Negro” asks the question I have posed my entire life: What does it mean to be black in America?
When I was young, James Baldwin scared me. I happened upon some of his writings during my escapes to the public library; his words left me with an uncomfortable sense of who I was. He was frighteningly clear that America would see and judge me solely based on the color of my skin. I didn’t need anyone to tell me I was black. I knew it and the realization held more pride for me than angst. My challenge was to figure out what being black actually meant. It wasn’t so much that I didn’t want to believe what Baldwin was saying about being black in America; I didn’t want to accept it. I was reading about the same bleak meaning of being black that I was trying to escape from. I could not accept the recurrent, self-effacing sentiment I was hearing from blacks in my hometown that I, and every other black person, “... ain’t nuthin’ but a nigger and always gonna be so ‘cause the white man ain’t gonna let you be nuthin’ but a nigger.” What I saw and felt around me was that blacks were angry, fearful, and in some ways submitting to the burden of a particular understanding of being black in America. And this meaning wasn’t coming from the big cities or the Deep South that I wanted Baldwin’s America to be limited to; this was from small-town, heartland USA. That very real terror was what scared me. I resolved to turn that fear into determination. I was desperate to convince myself that I could be whatever I wanted to be and that I could find an identity that was mine and not thrust upon me because of the color of my skin. I had to forget about Baldwin and set out to find my own experience of being black in America. In Baldwin’s own defiant words, “I am not a nigger, I’m a man.”
However, time and again, the quest for knowing what it meant to be black in America provided unfortunate revelations, which became more evident when I was in school. For example, I remember feeling liberated when I reached the 7th grade because finally I was going to be able to select the classes I was interested in. I was so excited to choose more advanced English classes, hoping to delve deeper into writers like Shakespeare, Haley, and Dickens, or discover new voices. And yet, whatever outward excitement I exuded was short-lived. A few semesters were enough to put others on notice about me. I was confronted with questions, interrogations:
“Why you takin’ classes with them white folks?”
I neither had the opportunity nor experience to answer these questions before an answer was made for me: “Hmph ... that niggah ain’t nuthin’ but uh Oreo.”
Such were the questions and judgments I heard again and again during high school, college, and law school, and they weren’t limited to the suspicions of fellow classmates and observers. Even my beloved grandmother expressed wariness at who I thought I was in response to my excitement about being accepted into law school. “I thought it was okay you going off to college, but I don’t know about law school,” she told me. “I just think that’s above where colored folks ought to be.”
I was devastated and confused. While attempting to find my own identity, I was acting against the social identity expected of me. To my classmates and my grandmother, being black meant not being white, certainly not doing things viewed as typically white. There’s a still in “I Am Not Your Negro” from “Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner” of Isabelle Sanford’s character looking at Sidney Poitier’s character with suspicion, almost rebuke, questioning what he’s doing in a place where he doesn’t belong. From the first time I saw that scene, I was haunted by the way Sanford looked at Poitier; this was the way I was being seen. Baldwin characterized the look by explaining blacks didn’t like the film and felt Poitier was “in effect, being used against them.” I felt a definite resentment, but I couldn’t understand it because from my standpoint, I was just being myself.
It didn’t make sense to me. I couldn’t understand why having and pursuing my own interests was seen as a denial of my blackness. Blackness carries with it so many assumptions, so many burdens, and I wanted to refuse them all. Being black had to mean more than what I was seeing and experiencing. The angst was so debilitating, my only answer was to retreat into myself and my dreams with blinders on. I was not denying being black; I was refusing the burden of the meanings of being black that did not permit me to be what I wanted and knew myself to be.
Through the years, I revisited Baldwin. After the initial shock, I came to realize that there was something positive for me in what Baldwin was saying. I realized that he was speaking the language of race from and by those whose lives were defined and limited by it. By revealing America and its falsehoods of race, he was telling me that I was more than the obstacles that would confront me. This newfound encouragement in Baldwin would prove essential to withstand the burdens to come.
I was proud when I joined the CIA. I used to go around to the front of the building from the parking lots so I could proudly walk across the emblem in the main lobby instead of using the usual employee entrances. I had found my dream job and I was determined to succeed. I just knew that I was going to be accepted and treated equally, like any other employee. I, of course, felt that was the case until I was told it actually never was.
I was eager and excited when the time finally came for me to take a position abroad, out in the field. I completed my training as a case officer: I studied and learned a new language, and I proved my capability working on the Iran desk. I was within a few weeks of departure when I was called into my supervisor’s office.
“We’ve been thinking about your assignment.”
“Yeah? I’m just about set to go, is there more I need to be doing?”
“Well, we’re ... uh ... concerned. We’re worried that you kinda stick out as a big black guy speaking Farsi.”
I was dumbfounded: they were taking my assignment from me solely because I was black. The CIA, in no uncertain terms, was telling me what being black in America meant to them. Once again, I was “beyond where colored folks ought to be.” They were calling me a “nigger” just as, if not more than, those who didn’t feel I fit who I was supposed to be in their America. ‘‘No!” rang through my mind as I calmly asked, “When did you realize I was black?” “The decision’s already been made.” They gave my assignment to a white officer who did not have the operational experience, training, or qualifications that I had.
That experience was not the only instance of my being subjected to the CIA definition of black in America. My determination to succeed and not fall prey to racial prejudice carried me through years of subjugation, culminating in my suing the CIA for discrimination. Much to my dismay, a court ruled to dismiss my suit — not because the discrimination didn’t happen, but because such a trial posed a threat to the national security of the country. In dismissing my action against the CIA and denying me a fundamental right, in its decision, the court stated, “We recognize that our decision places, on behalf of the entire country, a burden on Sterling that he alone must bear.” The court was confirming, under the auspices of the law, the very real burden of what it means to be black in America not only for me, but for all black Americans.
I further understood the meaning of being black when I learned that fighting the CIA made me a persona non grata to the black leaders and civil rights organizations to whom I pleaded for assistance. Instead of receiving help, I was encouraged to leave the country. And then there was being a defendant in a trial that would have made Jim Crow proud. Now I sit in prison, which is to many the ultimate meaning of being black in America. And it is here that I have been reacquainted with James Baldwin. His words in “I Am Not Your Negro” embody my story all along. As much as I wanted to deny him, I have lived every bit of his pondering, “when you wonder what your role is in this country and what your future is in it.” I have dared to ask the question, what does it mean to be black in America? I have learned that it is a question no one wants you to ask if the answer does not fit within the boundaries set by the myth of whiteness that taints the viewpoints of both black and white America. I have had to wonder whether choosing to ask the question is an answer unto itself. As Baldwin would say, it has been more of a journey: “I am saying that a journey is called that because you cannot know what you will discover on the journey, what you will do with what you find, or what you find will do to you.” Finding what it means to be black in America has been a wonderful and tortuous journey, but it was one I was always going to take.
Jeffrey Sterling, a former CIA case officer, is currently serving a 3 1/2-year prison sentence for leaking classified information to a New York Times reporter. His forthcoming book will be published by Nation Books.
Reader Supported News is the Publication of Origin for this work. Permission to republish is freely granted with credit and a link back to Reader Supported News.
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When Muslims Are the Victims, We Refuse to Call It Terrorism |
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Sunday, 02 July 2017 08:16 |
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Ismail writes: "The lack of reporting is not the only problem; a dual reluctance to brand attacks against Muslims as 'terrorism', while attacks by white men are reported as anything but terror, just smacks of sheer media double-standards in the eyes of British Muslims."
Resham Khan was an aspiring model until she became victim of a vicious acid attack in east London. (photo: Independent)
When Muslims Are the Victims, We Refuse to Call It Terrorism
By Sufyan Ismail, Independent
02 July 17
The differences in how we talk about attacks on Muslims, as opposed to those perpetrated by Muslims, reveal a double standard rooted in Islamophobia
 ameel Muhktar and his cousin Resham Khan will never forget what happened at 9.15am on June 21. They were victims of a horrific acid attack by a white male in east London. Jameel went into an induced coma and Resham’s career as an aspiring model is now over. The pair firmly believe this was an Islamophobic hate crime.
As shocking as the attack was, most mainstream media has either failed to cover it or at best relegated it to a minor story. One can’t help but feel that if Jameel and Resham were James and Rebecca, and white rather than Asian, then their images would have made headline news for at least a day.
This is not the first time tragedy befalling British Muslims has been treated differently from non-Muslims. Cast your mind back to the brutal murders of Mohammed Saleem and Mushin Ahmed, who were knifed and kicked to death respectively. Compare and contrast the coverage of their murders to the rightful attention received by Jo Cox’s vicious murder and fusilier Lee Rigby’s. The latter names are now rightly permanently etched into our minds, whereas Mohamed Saleem and Muhsin Ahmed are virtually unknown outside the Muslim community.
The lack of reporting is not the only problem; a dual reluctance to brand attacks against Muslims as “terrorism”, while attacks by white men are reported as anything but terror, just smacks of sheer media double-standards in the eyes of British Muslims. When Jo Cox was murdered by a right-wing terrorist, The Sun preferred to report it as “mental illness of a loner” while the Daily Mail was fiercely criticised for not even putting it on the front page. No surprise then that in the immediate aftermath of the Finsbury Park tragedy, Ashish Joshi of Sky News was hounded by Muslims filled with rage outside the mosque who demanded that the mowing down of Muslims be called out for what it is: a “terrorist attack”.
The simple, underlying, and inconvenient truth is that Islamophobia is now institutionalised within parts of our society. This week I wrote an open letter to the Home Secretary challenging her to come good on the “full protection” she promised British Muslims and revealing some troubling statistics. Figures show there are nearly 7,000 anti-Muslim hate crimes a year. Between March 2016 and March 2017, there were 143,920 anti-Muslim or anti-Islamic Tweets sent from the UK – this amounts to 393 a day.
The National Equality Panel found Muslims are paid 13-21 per cent less than others with equal qualifications. BBC research showed Muslim job applicants were three times less likely to be offered an interview.
For every one occasion a positive or neutral reference is used to describe Muslims in the print press, there are no fewer than twenty-one occasions of negative or extremist references. ChildLine showed that Muslim children seem to be bearing the brunt of a 69 per cent increase in playground racism with “bomber” and “terrorist” being used all too frequently.
To add insult to injury, since 2010 successive Tory governments which could have tackled Islamophobic hate crimes have effectively boycotted mainstream Muslim organisations and instead dealt with a tiny number of government stooges lacking any credibility in the Muslim community. Worse still, if media reports are to be believed then Mak Chishty, the former Met officer roundly criticised by over 100 Muslim organisations may well land the job of the new countering extremism commission – more evidence that the Government is just not listening.
Only when we treat Muslims like equals will things finally improve.
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