28 October 19
Christopher Dickey | Trump Turns Baghdadi's Killing Into a Reality Show
Christopher Dickey, The Daily Beast
Dickey writes: "The president knows great television when he sees it, and he was enthusiastic about the images he was watching from the White House situation room Saturday night."
Christopher Dickey, The Daily Beast
Dickey writes: "The president knows great television when he sees it, and he was enthusiastic about the images he was watching from the White House situation room Saturday night."
EXCERPT:
Some of the many thousands of radical jihadis and sympathizers around the world who revered Baghdadi will refuse to believe that he is dead; others will honor him as a martyr, and in the realm of Islamic sects, especially a cult like the so-called Islamic State, the “disappearance” of a leader—in Baghdadi’s case a self-proclaimed “caliph”—only serves to intensify the passionate devotion of the faithful. That is one reason the Obama administration buried Al Qaeda’s Osama bin Laden at sea in 2011. There would be no grave to become a shrine.
It’s a given that very few jihadists or would-be jihadists will believe Trump’s version of Baghdadi’s death: cornered as his cronies and family were killed or surrendered, then running into a dead-end tunnel with three of his kids where he detonated a suicide vest to blow them up along with himself. In what truly seemed a Hollywood touch, Trump said the only American injured was a brave K9 soldier (“I call it a dog, a talented dog, a beautiful dog”) who had chased Baghdadi and the kids down the tunnel.
No doubt a fictional movie about the raid already is being planned and scripts written, but if Trump’s account is accurate, the actual video would be much more powerful than a docudrama for the purpose of dissuading potential jihadists and, in his mind, impressing potential voters for Donald J. Trump in next year’s presidential election.
The reasons such a video of the 2011 Osama operation was not released are the same ones that the intelligence community will use to argue against dissemination of the Baghdadi death: because such images could compromise so much about the operation.
But quite apart from Trump’s worthy desire to undermine the messaging of the still virulent ISIS organization, there is also his unworthy inclination to gloat. Remember when Trump tweeted a highly classified high-resolution image of a failed Iranian missile launch earlier this year for little more reason, it would seem, that smug self-satisfaction?
Trump hates it when the fast-turning news cycle that he uses effectively to obscure his failings also works to push his accomplishments into oblivion. (His announcement in September that the son of Osama bin Laden had been confirmed killed fell flat. It had been reported months earlier, but confirmation was delayed, apparently while awaiting DNA from what was left after a missile strike.)
So it’s fair to ask how far how far Trump will go to keep this deadly triumph alive.
One possibility: leaked images of the physical proof that Baghdadi died.
I have covered a fair number of suicide bombings over the years, and the effect of explosive vests is fairly predictable. The torso is destroyed and the extremities, including the head, detach.
So I was not surprised to see it reported by Jennifer Griffin, a national security correspondent for Fox News, that Baghdadi was identified so quickly because there was no need to wait for DNA tests. His head had popped off more or less like a cork, and proof came through “biometrics (facial recognition).”
Trump told the press on Sunday “there wasn’t much left” of Baghdadi, but there were “substantial pieces they brought back.” The head no doubt is among them
Katie Hill. (photo: Caroline Brehman/CQ Roll Call)
Rep Katie Hill to Fight Revenge Porn Upon Leaving Congress
Makena Kelly, The Verge
Kelly writes: "In her resignation letter, Hill wrote that she would pursue all 'available legal options' for the nonconsensual dissemination of her nude images."
Makena Kelly, The Verge
Kelly writes: "In her resignation letter, Hill wrote that she would pursue all 'available legal options' for the nonconsensual dissemination of her nude images."
EXCERPT:
Earlier last week, Politico reported that the House Ethics Committee launched an investigation into Hill over the allegations of improper sexual relationships. That investigation will end as soon as Hill formally leaves office, but those nude images, originally published by the right-wing outlet RedState and the Daily Mail, will follow her around the internet for much longer.
It is with a broken heart that today I announce my resignation from Congress. This is the hardest thing I have ever had to do, but I believe it is the best thing for my constituents, my community, and our country.
See my official statement below.
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After the accusations first arose, Hill released a statement blaming her “abusive husband” who she is in the middle of divorcing for the controversy. The allegations included a consensual three-person sexual relationship with a female campaign staffer and her estranged-husband and one with her male legislative director, Graham Kelly. There is no evidence that proves any impropriety with Kelly.
“During the final tumultuous years of my abusive marriage, I became involved in a relationship with someone on my campaign,” Hill said last week. “I know that even a consensual relationship with a subordinate is inappropriate, but I still allowed it to happen despite my better judgment. For that I apologize. I wish nothing but the best for her and hope everyone respects her privacy in this difficult time.”
Sen. Sam Ervin listening as Sen. Howard Baker (left), Sam Dash (right) and an unidentified man confer during the Watergate hearings. (photo: Gjon Mili/The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images)
How to Run a Successful Impeachment Hearing
Ian Millhiser, Vox
Millhiser writes: "If Democrats want the Trump impeachment hearings to succeed, they cannot rely on a process that seems designed to ensure that every member of the committee gets five minutes of screen time and to accomplish little else."
Ian Millhiser, Vox
Millhiser writes: "If Democrats want the Trump impeachment hearings to succeed, they cannot rely on a process that seems designed to ensure that every member of the committee gets five minutes of screen time and to accomplish little else."
EXCERPT:
It’s almost impossible to keep a narrative going, or to wear down a witness. The topic of questioning can change every time a new lawmaker begins their time at the mic. When a particularly effective questioner gets a chance to speak, hostile witnesses can filibuster until the end of that lawmaker’s time. And every time a member of the opposing party steps up, the questions can rapidly descend into conspiracy theories touted by the least responsible conservative outlets.
Maybe this disjointed feast of grandstanding is good enough for a hearing investigating how a deputy undersecretary managed a federal grant program. But it is no way to bring down a president. Just think of last July’s hearing with special counsel Robert Mueller, a debacle for Democrats, where Democratic lawmakers struggled to extract interesting answers from a surprisingly reluctant witness — while many Republicans touted conspiracy theories about Russian false flags and secret “Western” intelligence operatives.
If Democrats want the Trump impeachment hearings to succeed, they cannot rely on a process that seems designed to ensure that every member of the committee gets five minutes of screen time and to accomplish little else.
The hearings are all the more important because it is so unlikely that the Republican-controlled Senate will ultimately vote to remove Trump from office. As a constitutional matter, the House could hold an impeachment vote whenever it wants, with or without hearings.
But, as a practical matter, the impeachment hearings are Democrats’ opportunity to argue before a jury consisting of the entire American electorate.
Democrats “should remember that this isn’t a criminal trial, and their job isn’t to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Trump committed some particular crime,” Josh Chafetz, a law professor at Cornell and the author of Congress’s Constitution: Legislative Authority and the Separation of Powers, told me. “Their job is to convince the American public that Trump should be removed from office.”
Questions should be asked by a professional prosecutor, not by members of Congress
There is an entire profession devoted to the task of convincing lay people that a person accused of a crime is guilty: prosecutors.
If Democrats want the impeachment hearings to succeed, they shouldn’t send amateurs — even amateur members of Congress — to do a professional’s job.
This has been evident to members of Congress investigating past scandals, who have brought in outside prosecutors to do at least some of the questioning. As attorney Seth Rosenthal notes in a 2007 paper arguing that Supreme Court confirmation hearings should be led by expert counsel: “Congress has tasked outside counsel with leading the investigations into and conducting questioning at hearings on the following matters, among others: Watergate; the Iran-Contra scandal; the Keating Five scandal; and Whitewater.”
One of the turning points in the Watergate investigation, for example, came when Nixon aide Alexander Butterfield revealed to Senate Watergate Committee Chief Counsel Samuel Dash — the lawyer the Senate brought on to question witnesses — that the president knew that the Oval Office was bugged. Dash “became known for his measured questioning of White House witnesses, slowly drawing out answers that sometimes struck like bombshells,” according to the New York Times.
“Butterfield’s revelation that Nixon himself knew his office was bugged led directly to the supreme court decision, in United States v Nixon, that the president must hand over the tapes” the Guardian noted in its obituary of Dash. “And, that decision led, in August 1974, to Nixon’s forced resignation.”
Students protest outside the U.S. Capitol on Sept. 20 as part of a climate strike. They demanded action by lawmakers while chanting 'shame on you.' (photo: Astrid Riecken/WP)
National Park Service Withdraws Proposal to Make Protesters Pay for Security
Michael E. Ruane and Marissa J. Lang, The Washington Post
Excerpt: "The National Park Service announced Monday it is withdrawing a proposal that could have, among other things, made protesters repay the federal government for the cost of security at demonstrations."
Michael E. Ruane and Marissa J. Lang, The Washington Post
Excerpt: "The National Park Service announced Monday it is withdrawing a proposal that could have, among other things, made protesters repay the federal government for the cost of security at demonstrations."
EXCERPT:
Opponents said the measure would have saddled protest organizers with enormous costs, crippling their ability to protest and exercise their rights under the Constitution. The proposal would have affected gatherings on the Mall, President’s Park, around the White House and other federal land in the Washington area.
To obtain a permit for a protest in the District, organizers already are required to provide amenities to demonstrators, such as toilets, medical tents and cooling stations for hot days. The Park Service proposal to charge for security would have added a hefty price tag for organizers of larger events.
“If someone called me to say, ‘I want to have a protest,’ and I said, ‘Cool, the Park Service is going to charge you $150,000 for security,’ they would hang up the phone,” Samantha Miller, an organizer with DC Action Lab, a company that helps plan demonstrations in Washington, said recently. “There are already a lot of preexisting fees that organizers get asked to pay. Add in something like a security fee, and there’s just no way most people or organizations would be able to afford it.”
About 750 First Amendment demonstrations converge on the Mall annually. The largest rallies often require additional support from Park Service personnel and Park Police to ensure safety and to limit harm to federal land, which prompted the agency to seek ways for recouping those costs.
The Park Police has requested hundreds of thousands of dollars in emergency funding over the past two years to support such events. In a statement, the Park Service said the volume and complexity of permit requests has increased substantially in recent years.
Kevin Denny II with his wife, Jamie, and son, KJ. (photo: Milena ViVenzio/Memories By The Smile Photography)
The US Doesn't Offer Paid Family Leave - but Will That Change in 2020?
Miranda Bryant, Guardian UK
Bryant writes: "The US is one of only three countries in the world not to offer statutory paid maternity leave, according to analysis by the International Labour Organization."
Miranda Bryant, Guardian UK
Bryant writes: "The US is one of only three countries in the world not to offer statutory paid maternity leave, according to analysis by the International Labour Organization."
EXCERPTS:
By American standards, however, Nicholson was comparatively lucky. The US is one of the world’s richest countries, but one in four women go back to work within 10 days of giving birth, according to the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists.
The US is one of only three countries in the world not to offer statutory paid maternity leave, according to analysis by the International Labour Organization. The others are the Marshall Islands and Papua New Guinea.
By comparison, Estonia gives women 85 weeks at full pay for maternity leave, while the UK, found by Unicef to be one of the least family-friendly of the world’s richest countries, offers maternity leave for the equivalent of 12 weeks full pay.
But after years of inaction in the US, national conversation around the issue of paid family leave – which can include childbirth, serious illness and caring for a sick family member – has started to gain political ground. Eight states and the district of Columbia have passed their own paid family leave bills – four of which have already implemented it.
“For me it’s a simple thing,” said Ellen Bravo, co-Director of Family Values @ Work. “If you value families then you have to make it possible for people to do exactly what we say we care most about, being responsible family members, following doctors’ orders, we have to make it possible for people to do that without falling off an economic cliff.”
A man walks along a street with an electoral poster ahead of the local election in Bogota, Colombia October 24, 2019. (photo: Reuters)
Colombians Vote in Regional Elections Marred With Violence
teleSUR
Excerpt: "Seven candidates have been killed, a dozen attacked and more than 100 threatened, says voting rights group the Electoral Observation Mission."
teleSUR
Excerpt: "Seven candidates have been killed, a dozen attacked and more than 100 threatened, says voting rights group the Electoral Observation Mission."
EXCERPTS:
A total of 36.8 million people are eligible to vote in Sunday's elections.
According to the country's electoral authorities, 11,590 voting centers were installed across in 26 departments and 190 municipalities in the country.
Colombians will elect a total of 1,101 mayors, 32 governors, 1,101 municipal councils, 32 departmental assemblies and 1,040 local administrative boards.
Voters turnout in Bogota for Colombia's regional elections. However, some areas, particularly in the countryside, have been blighted by violence in the run up to the vote. #ColombiaElige2019
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Seven candidates have been killed, a dozen attacked and more than 100 threatened, says voting rights group the Electoral Observation Mission (MOE).
That compares with the five candidates killed in the last round of regional and local elections in 2015.
Josua Dubón GarcÃa, an employee of Guatemala's National Council for Protected Areas, walks along a beach at the mouth of the Motagua River on the Caribbean coast on Oct. 1, 2018. (photo: Celia Talbot Tobin)
How Plastic Pollution Is Making Central America Uninhabitable
Amelia Urry, The Intercept
Urry writes: "With few, if any, properly contained landfills in Guatemala, the rainy season regularly washes large quantities of trash out of dumps and into the rivers."
Amelia Urry, The Intercept
Urry writes: "With few, if any, properly contained landfills in Guatemala, the rainy season regularly washes large quantities of trash out of dumps and into the rivers."
EXCERPTS:
Worldwide, an estimated 80 percent of ocean plastic comes from land as “mismanaged waste.” Indeed, in Guatemala, there are almost no properly managed landfills and virtually no public water treatment plants. The result is a noxious chowder of sewage, industrial and agricultural runoff, and an ever-replenished flotilla of plastic trash, churning out from the river mouth toward the massive Mesoamerican reef, which has long supported rich biodiversity and fishing communities from Cancún to Nicaragua. Now, the beaches here and in neighboring Honduras are regularly buried in artificial tidewrack of toothbrushes, makeup containers, old syringes and bottles of IV fluid, action figures, streamers of plastic film, and foil chip bags.
As for plastic, it’s not hard to follow the problem back to its source.
“The plastic industry is aggressively moving to increase production,” said Judith Enck, a former regional U.S. Environmental Protection Agency administrator and public policy professor at Bennington College. A 2016 report predicted that plastic production would double in the next 20 years. Enck pointed out that despite recent bad press around plastics in the U.S., petrochemical companies are still making plans for new plants to turn byproducts from fracking into plastic. “They’re just marching right ahead with literally dozens of new plants in the United States.”
This gives companies a strong incentive to sell more plastic in the developing world, where growing economies have provided new markets for cheap and disposable plastic products. At a market in Puerto Barrios, a small city about 40 minutes from El Quetzalito, stand after stand displayed cheap, plastic-wrapped soccer jerseys and novelty T-shirts, baseball caps made of foam and plastic mesh, neon-colored toys, cheap sandals and shoes, and more.
One large and growing source of plastic waste is packaging, especially laminated foil packets that are frequently used for food and other single-use products like soap or shampoo. These are popular in emerging economies like Central America and Asia, Enck pointed out, because it might be affordable for people to buy small quantities of a product instead of a whole bottle. But these materials, made up of specialized plastics and foils laminated together, are rarely recyclable.
“Big companies are putting out all these products that they know have no chance of being recycled,” Enck said. “And they are selling them in places with not a lot of access to landfills.”
In other words, with business as usual today, companies design and produce nonbiodegradable, nonrecyclable materials that will be used once and then discarded to flow directly to the ocean.
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