30 November 19
Andy Borowitz | Giuliani Claims He Has Evidence Linking Biden to Obama
Andy Borowitz, The New Yorker
Borowitz writes: 'In what could be his most explosive allegation to date, Rudolph Giuliani claimed on Monday that he had 'mountains of evidence' linking the Democratic Presidential candidate Joe Biden to former President Barack Obama."
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Marshall Billingslea. (photo: FFT)
Andy Borowitz, The New Yorker
Borowitz writes: 'In what could be his most explosive allegation to date, Rudolph Giuliani claimed on Monday that he had 'mountains of evidence' linking the Democratic Presidential candidate Joe Biden to former President Barack Obama."
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Marshall Billingslea. (photo: FFT)
Mike DeBonis, The Independent
DeBonis writes: "President Donald Trump's decision to nominate an official involved in the Pentagon's post-9/11 use of harsh interrogation techniques to the State Department's top human-rights post has sparked a standoff in the Senate that has extended a nearly three-year vacancy in a key diplomatic position."
Mr Trump’s nomination in January of Marshall Billingslea as undersecretary of state for civilian security, democracy and human rights raised immediate alarms among the activists and former government officials who believe his confirmation would send a dismal message about America’s commitment to human rights abroad.
A September confirmation hearing has intensified those concerns, with several officials accusing Mr Billingslea of improperly minimising his role in the interrogation debate inside of the George W Bush administration.
From 2002 to 2003, Mr Billingslea served as the Pentagon’s point man on military detainees housed at Guantanamo Bay under defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld. In that position, according to a 2008 Senate report, he played a role in promoting interrogation techniques that congress later banned as torture – including the use of hoods or blindfolds, sleep deprivation, prolonged standing, the shaving of beards, the removal of clothing and the use of military dogs to intimidate detainees.
“To put it mildly, I believe that Mr Billingslea is one of the worst possible candidates for this critical senior leadership role overseeing human rights policy for the Department of State,” wrote Thomas Romig, a retired major general who at the time in question served as judge advocate general of the Army, in a recent letter to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
The Trump administration and key congressional Republicans have stood by the nomination, however, arguing that Mr Billingslea’s role in the approval of the torture techniques has been overstated and that he has been an aggressive and effective advocate in his current position as the Treasury Department’s assistant secretary for terrorist financing – a position that, in light of the State Department vacancy, has effectively made him the top US official travelling the world opposing corruption and promoting human rights.
Among those vouching for Mr Billingslea is Juan Guaidó, the leader of the Venezuelan opposition to president Nicolás Maduro, who praised Mr Billingslea in a September letter to the Senate for leading the US effort to sanction members of the Maduro regime.
“Mr Billingslea has been on the front lines fighting against human rights abuses and corruption around the world,” treasury secretary Steven Mnuchin said in a statement. “From leading the charge against hunger profiteers in Venezuela, to thwarting Hezbolloh’s exploitation of Lebanon and calling to account systemic corruption in South Sudan, Mr Billingslea has been instrumental in advancing human rights globally and is more than equipped to continue this charge ... at the State Department.”
But the nomination remains in limbo. Following the 19 September hearing, in which Mr Billingslea faced sharp questioning about his record and repeatedly denied being an “advocate for torture”, senator Robert Menendez, accused Mr Billingslea of having “misrepresented his role” on interrogation policy and called on the Pentagon to declassify and release additional records related to his tenure as principal deputy assistant secretary of defence.
The concerns have been bipartisan: Kentucky senator Rand Paul, also expressed misgivings about Mr Billingslea’s Pentagon record at the hearing and has joined Democrats in requesting more documents. If party lines otherwise hold in the closely divided Foreign Relations Committee, Paul could block the panel from favourably advancing the nomination to the Senate floor.
Mr Paul said in a recent interview that he has asked the Trump administration for any documentation from Mr Billingslea’s time in the Pentagon showing “where he was arguing against widening the ability to do torture”.
“I haven’t seen any of that yet, and unless I do, I’m very troubled,” he said.
The Foreign Relations Committee has not moved forward with Mr Billingslea’s nomination since the hearing. In a brief interview earlier this month, chairman James Risch said he supported Mr Billingslea’s confirmation but declined to say when he plans to move forward with it.
“I think that he’s laid out exactly what the situation was, and everybody has to vote on it the way they think is appropriate,” he said.
The post of undersecretary for civilian security, democracy and human rights has been vacant since Mr Trump took office in 2017. It was established during the Obama administration to consolidate various State Department bureaus with the intention of creating a voice in the top echelon of the Foggy Bottom bureaucracy to promote those interests alongside, and occasionally against, the more transactional concerns that hold sway elsewhere in the foreign policymaking bureaucracy.
“The very fact that there hasn’t been an undersecretary arguing for these positions has allowed for them to lose out in many a policy debate thus far,” said Rob Berschinski, who served as a deputy assistant secretary of state and now serves as senior vice president of policy for Human Rights First, a group opposing Mr Billingslea’s confirmation.
“From the human rights community, people are very interested in having that position filled, but only with somebody whose background would allow them to speak authoritatively on the issues,” he said.
Mr Billingslea and his allies have argued that his work in the Treasury Department has made him singularly qualified for the more senior State Department position, pointing to his extensive global travels promoting anti-corruption and human-rights issues and his work to impose financial sanctions on members of rogue regimes.
The conservative foreign policy establishment has praised his work targeting the regimes in Venezuela and Iran with sanctions, as well as people associated with abuses in Myanmar, Nicaragua, and other countries. They have also defended him against attacks on his Pentagon record and noted that mR Billingslea’s Treasury nomination was supported by the late senator John McCain the pre-eminent congressional voice criticising the Bush administration’s use of torture.
“In my years knowing Mr Billingslea, I have found him to be open-minded, a person of immense integrity, committed to human rights of all people, dedicated to upholding our laws and thoroughly devoted to the values Americans hold dear,” said Toby Dershowitz, a senior vice president at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. “Political disagreements are legitimate and part of America’s tradition. But I have found the other objections some have put forth to be unfounded.”
To human rights advocates, Mr Billingslea’s record at Treasury is besides the point: If named to the State Department post, they argue, he will simply lack the credibility to advocate for his portfolio inside the Trump administration and abroad.
“The senior most US official responsible for human rights policy should be disqualified if they have a pro-torture background – that is not a high bar,” Mr Berschinski said. “He’s not going to have any credibility walking into a foreign ministry in Beijing or Riyadh or Cairo. He’ll get the exact same message: Who are you to lecture me?”
At his confirmation hearing, Democrat senator Ben Cardin, asked Mr Billingslea how he would handle just that scenario, where he was confronted on his credibility by a foreign counterpart who raised his torture record.
Mr Billingslea said that he would “advocate for and respect” congress’s 2015 decision to ban torture techniques across the government.
“We have to talk to our counterparts about the fact that we are a nation of law, and we learn from our mistakes, and we evolve,” he said. “And therefore, we will expect that other countries understand this and learn with us on these matters.”
But Mr Billingslea’s other claims at the hearing, suggesting that he was merely a bureaucratic functionary relaying decisions up the chain of command, only intensified the criticism from officials he dealt with at the time. Mr Romig, in his letter, said Mr Billingslea “went out of his way to advocate for using abusive interrogation techniques against detainees in our custody ... despite being told that his positions were wrong, counterproductive, and unlawful by a group of senior military lawyers.”
Mark Fallon, a former senior Naval Criminal Investigative Service official who opposed the use of torture techniques as a leader of an investigative task force at Guantanamo, said the decisions Mr Billingslea supported contributed to the difficultly of bringing its detainees to justice and closing the facility for good.
“Marshall Billingslea was our biggest obstacle within the Pentagon trying to dissuade policymakers from going down a road that we believed was illegal, immoral and ineffective and would derail the ability to bring forth justice,” he said. “So it’s disingenuous for him to claim that he was some type of passive participant.”
The lead investigator for the 2008 Senate Armed Services Committee report, Joseph M Bryan, also disputed Mr Billingslea’s claim that he “never supported torture nor anything resembling torture” in a letter sent to the Foreign Relations panel the day after the hearing.
“The record established in the [2008 Senate] investigation does not support that assessment,” Mr Bryan wrote, adding that Mr Billingslea recommended “interrogation techniques that included, among other measures, hooding detainees, slapping them, and threatening to transfer them to a third country that the detainee was likely to fear would subject him to torture or death”.
Benjamin Haas, an attorney for Human Rights First who has advocated against Mr Billingslea’s nomination, said the post-hearing outcry should give the Senate pause.
“As if Mr. Billingslea’s pro-torture record isn’t bad enough, it’s shocking that he also brazenly misled the Senate,” Haas said. “On this basis, senators should nix Mr Billingslea’s nomination.”
The altered rules would also reduce benefits received by many people, with 2.2m households set to have their average monthly assistance cut by $127. (photo: Shutterstock)
Oliver Milman, Guardian UK
Milman writes: "Millions of Americans face losing access to food assistance under proposed rule changes by the Trump administration, a new analysis has found."
The changes, if they had been instituted last year, would have resulted in 3.7 million fewer people and 2.1m fewer households receiving the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, known as Snap or food stamps, during an average month, according to the study.
The altered rules would also reduce benefits received by many people, with 2.2m households set to have their average monthly assistance cut by $127. Nearly one million students would lose access to free or discounted lunches.
The analysis, by the not-for-profit Urban Institute, said that three planned changes to Snap would “significantly alter” food-based help provided to poor Americans, with disparities across the country in terms of impact. Benefits would be cut in most states, although states including Vermont, New York, Nevada and Connecticut would fare particularly badly.
The Urban Institute said Snap had a “proven track record of reducing both poverty and food insecurity”.
The US Department of Agriculture, which oversees the Snap program, has put forward new rules that would create stricter work requirements to be eligible for Snap and cap deductions for utility allowances. The third change would restrict the way 40 states automatically provide Snap to families once they get other types of federal assistance.
Sonny Perdue, the US agriculture secretary, wrote in a USA Today op-ed that the Trump administration was “taking steps to restore integrity to Snap and move people toward self-sufficiency”.
The rule changes, Perdue wrote, restore “the dignity of work to a sizable segment of our population, while it is also respectful of the taxpayers who fund the program”.
Seattle police use gas to push back World Trade Organization protesters in downtown Seattle on November 30, 1999. The protests delayed the opening of the WTO conference. (photo: Eric Draper/Daylife/AP)
Daniel Denvir, Jacobin
Denvir writes: "The global justice movement exploded onto the scene in protests against the Seattle WTO meetings twenty years ago today. The movement was far from perfect, but its anarchist, direct action-oriented politics were crucial learning experiences for a left that has today finally found its footing."
It was the dawn of the anti-globalization movement. Or the global justice movement. Or, perhaps, the alter-globalization movement. Whatever you called that movement, it was suddenly clear that an alliance between labor, youth radicals, environmentalists (hundreds of whom marched in sea turtle costumes), and countless others contained incredible power that we had not known we possessed.
We knew what we were against and, in broad strokes, what we were for. Most of all, we asserted that the world could be very different. This all seemed extremely radical after years of Bill Clinton’s carceral neoliberalism insisting that it was the left wing of the electorally possible.
Margaret Thatcher is said to have remarked that Tony Blair and New Labour were her greatest achievements. Bill Clinton was the same for Reagan, consolidating neoliberalism’s power by aligning the Democratic Party behind it. The Cold War’s end promised a new world drawn together by trade under Washington’s benevolent guidance. Instead, bipartisan consensus spawned the demonization of undocumented immigrants, mass incarceration, and an anti-union onslaught as corporations with an increasingly global reach decimated worker power.
The loudest voices of dissent before Seattle were failed presidential candidates Pat Buchanan, a far-right extremist, and Ross Perot, an ideologically-incoherent crusader against corruption. The global justice movement finally gave us an alternative. It was an incipient left-wing rebuttal to the idea that we were living in the best of all possible worlds.
We saw that a cutthroat capitalism that destroyed the environment and exploited workers everywhere could only be confronted by people everywhere uniting. But though we believed this struggle would be the movement of our lifetimes, it soon disappeared. Twenty years later, however, we can see that we were right. Today’s left revival in the United States began that Tuesday morning, when radical protesters—organized by the Direct Action Network and trained by the Ruckus Society in Earth First!-style tactics—linked themselves together at strategic intersections and successfully blocked delegates from entering the WTO.
“Those who were arguing they were going to shut the WTO down were in fact successful today,” Seattle Police Chief Norm Stamper lamented.
The government refuses to release Adham Hassoun. (photo: Anadolu Agency)
Charlie Hogle and Courteney Leinonen, ACLU
Excerpt: "Adham Hassoun completed his criminal sentence and was set to be released from prison almost three years ago. But the government - now claiming unprecedented and unconstitutional powers under the USA Patriot Act - continues to hold Adham in detention, indefinitely and without charge."
We’re in court to secure his freedom.
Adham has called the United States home for 30 years. Born in Lebanon to Palestinian refugees, Adham and his family — like many other refugees — suffered violence at the hands of various armed factions. In search of peace, Adham moved to the United States in 1989, joining many other members of his family. He earned a degree in computer science, married, and had three children.
In 2007, the government charged Adham with crimes related to his support for Muslims suffering and defending themselves in military conflicts abroad in the 1990s. These “material support” charges were filed under a federal statute that has been used aggressively by the U.S. government — often improperly — to criminalize First Amendment protected speech and other non-violent acts the government deems connected to terrorism.
Upon conviction, the government asked the court to put Adham in prison for life, but the judge presiding over the trial said “no.” She pointed out that Adham posed no threat to anyone in the United States or elsewhere, and that the crimes for which Adham was convicted involved “no violent acts, had no identifiable victims, and were never directed against the United States or Americans.” Instead, she determined, they were motivated by Adham’s interest in “the plight of Muslims throughout the world,” and his “firsthand” knowledge of “what happened to a country when internal politics turned violent.”
Adham completed his 15-year sentence, reduced by two years for good behavior, in October 2017. By law, he should be a free man. But the government refuses to release him. Instead, it has cited one flawed executive power after the other in order to deny our client his constitutional rights.
The government first claimed it could keep Adham locked up under an immigration statute that allows the government to detain immigrants for no more than six months pending their removal from the United States. But, as the child of Palestinian refugees, Adham is not a citizen of any country, and had no country to which he could immediately go to.
Then, after the six months ran out and a federal judge again ordered Adham’s release, the government declared Adham a national security threat and invoked a federal immigration regulation — one that has been used just once before — to keep Adham locked up without any charges.
Protesters call for an end to Israel's violence in Palestine. (photo: Andrew Stefan/RSN)
Reflections on the International Day of Solidarity With the Palestinian People
Haidar Eid, Mondoweiss
Eid writes: "The 29th of November marks the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian people. This anniversary is commemorated every year by the United Nations."
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Haidar Eid, Mondoweiss
Eid writes: "The 29th of November marks the International Day of Solidarity with the Palestinian people. This anniversary is commemorated every year by the United Nations."
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A protest against the Keystone XL pipeline. (photo: iStock)
Police Discussed Stopping Keystone XL Protesters 'by Any Means'
Sam Levin and Will Parrish, Grist
Excerpt: "U.S. law enforcement officials preparing for fresh Keystone XL pipeline protests have privately discussed tactics to stop activists 'by any means' and have labeled demonstrators potential 'domestic terrorism' threats, records reveal."
Sam Levin and Will Parrish, Grist
Excerpt: "U.S. law enforcement officials preparing for fresh Keystone XL pipeline protests have privately discussed tactics to stop activists 'by any means' and have labeled demonstrators potential 'domestic terrorism' threats, records reveal."
Internal government documents seen by the Guardian show that police and local authorities in Montana and the surrounding region have been preparing a coordinated response in the event of a new wave of protests opposing the controversial Keystone XL tar sands pipeline, which would carry crude oil from Canada to Montana, South Dakota, and Nebraska.
Civil rights organizations say the documents raise concerns that law enforcement is preparing to launch an even more brutal and aggressive response than the police tactics utilized during the 2016 Standing Rock movement, which drew thousands of indigenous and environmental activists opposed to the construction of the Dakota Access pipeline (DAPL) to North Dakota.
At Standing Rock, law enforcement organized repeated rounds of mass arrests and filed a wide array of serious charges in local and federal courts against activists. Police also deployed water cannons, teargas grenades, bean bag rounds, and other weapons, causing serious injuries to protesters.
The documents are mostly emails from 2017 and 2018 between local and federal authorities discussing possible Keystone protests. They show that police officials are anticipating construction will spark a sustained resistance campaign akin to the one at Standing Rock and that police are considering closing public lands near the pipeline project.
The new records have come to light as the Keystone pipeline project has overcome numerous legal hurdles with help from the Trump administration, and as the project’s owner, TC Energy (formerly TransCanada), is moving forward with initial construction efforts.
Among the major revelations in the documents:
- Officials at a 2017 law enforcement briefing on potential Keystone XL protests said one key tactic would be to “initially deny access to the property by protestors and keep them as far away [from] the contested locations as possible by any means,” according to an email summary from a U.S. Army Corps of Engineers security manager in Nebraska in July 2017.
- Officials with the Bureau of Land Management said in 2017 that the bureau had 10 armed officers in Montana and was prepared to “work with local [law enforcement] to deny access to federal property.” In 2018, Army Corps officials were also in discussions with the Montana disaster and emergency services department to discuss ways to “close access” to lands near the pipeline route, including areas typically open for hunting and other activities.
- A “joint terrorism task force” involving the U.S. Attorney’s office and other agencies, along with federal “counterterrorism” officials, said it was prepared to assist in the response to protests and a “critical incident response team” would be available for “domestic terrorism or threats to critical infrastructure.” Authorities have also preemptively discussed specific potential felony charges that protesters could face, noting that a “civil disorder” statute was used to prosecute activists at Standing Rock.
- Authorities have been preparing for possible protests in the Fort Peck area, home to a Native American reservation and indigenous people opposing the project.
“There is a lot of muscle behind this effort to make sure that Keystone is constructed,” said Alex Rate, legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Montana, which obtained the documents through records act requests and shared them with the Guardian. “There are historically marginalized communities, primarily indigenous folks, who have grave concerns about the impact of this pipeline on their sovereignty, their resources, their religion, and culture. They have a first amendment right to assemble and make their viewpoints heard.”
Remi Bald Eagle, intergovernmental affairs coordinator of the Cheyenne River Sioux tribe, which is located along the pipeline route, said the police buildup was part of a long history of armed subjugation of native people in the region.“This is an experience of the tide of Manifest Destiny still coming at us,” Bald Eagle said, referring to the 19th-century belief that U.S. settlers had the right to expand across the continent.
The files follow repeated revelations that the FBI and other law enforcement agencies have investigated environmental groups and leftwing activists as possible “terrorists.”
Keystone XL was rejected by the Obama administration and then revived by Donald Trump shortly after his inauguration in 2017. The $8 billion project has been subject to multiple legal challenges, including over the environmental review process, but pre-construction efforts are now under way.
Opponents of Keystone XL have warned about the environmental and cultural impact of the project for a decade — concerns that came into sharper focus last month after the existing Keystone pipeline, which follows a similar route, leaked 383,000 gallons of tar sands into a swath of North Dakota wetlands.
The new Keystone records, which come from a number of government agencies and were released after a protracted legal battle, also show that officials have specifically met with police involved in the Standing Rock response to discuss “lessons learned.” North Dakota police officials told law enforcement prepping for Keystone that one of their biggest mistakes was their failure to keep activists far away and shut down access to nearby lands.
In one 2018 BLM document, labeled “KEYSTONE XL PIPELINE PUBLIC SAFETY ISSUES,” officials discussed the “available resources” to respond to protests in Montana.
“The FBI will have primary investigative authority for all national security investigations, including but not limited to international terrorism, domestic terrorism, and weapons of mass destruction,” BLM wrote.
U.S. Border Patrol would also be available to assist law enforcement around the border and has access to “drone assets,” the document continued. Border Patrol also provided a surveillance drone that police used to track Standing Rock protesters.
BLM also discussed purchasing “riot batons,” helmets, and gas masks in advance of possible protests.
Mike Glasch, an Army Corps spokesperson, said that the “by any means” comment came from the agency’s security chief, who was “relaying talking points” from police officials in Mandan and Morton County in North Dakota, adding: “Any method that we would employ to protect the safety of our employees and the public, as well as property and equipment, would be within the limits of the law and be the least invasive possible, while still protecting the public’s first amendment rights.”
A spokesperson for the Morton county sheriff, Kyle Kirchmeier, said he advises law enforcement that “may be involved with potential pipeline protests to make it their goal to keep protesters off of private property and any areas that may be considered a public hazard, such as ditches or highways,” adding that he “is supportive of people’s right to protest, but they need to do so in a lawful manner.” Kirchmeier said he did not recall the 2017 briefing.
A Mandan police spokesperson declined to comment.
Glasch said the Army Corps had not closed access to its land around the project, but added: “Since a construction site comes with inherent hazards, options are being analyzed for methods to keep any non-essential personnel away from potential construction sites, while at the same time considering constitutional rights.” He said it was too early to speculate about specific potential closure plans.
A spokesperson for the U.S. Attorney’s office did not respond to questions about the “terrorism” references but said the office’s “goal is to provide coordinated assistance to local, tribal, and state law enforcement to protect public safety and civil rights, and to protect federal lands, while enforcing federal law.”
The FBI declined to comment.
A Border Patrol spokesperson said the agency would “assist, upon request, with any law enforcement activities within the border area near the pipeline.”
Spokespeople for BLM and TC Energy did not respond to questions.
“Law enforcement are getting ready. They’ve been having meetings behind closed doors,” said Angeline Cheek, an indigenous organizer from the Fort Peck reservation. “We know that they’re preparing … We’ve been preparing for the last three years.”
Rate, from the ACLU, said there was no legal justification for the government to preemptively shut down lands in an effort to stop protests. He said it was also troubling for law enforcement to prepare a “militarized” response and suggest that activists could pose terrorist or criminal threats before any actions had even begun.
“They are thinking of them as potential ‘domestic terrorists.’ There is simply no support for adopting that paradigm,” said Rate. “The public justifiably thinks of BLM as a land management agency and not necessarily in the business of arming themselves and going out and squelching protesters.”
Candi Brings Plenty, an Oglala Lakota Sioux activist working with the ACLU of Montana, said they were not surprised to learn that law enforcement was talking about stopping indigenous activists “by any means.”
“That is the type of language that has been spoken to us our whole lives,” they said, adding: “We live these injustices on a daily basis. This is finally being unveiled for what it is.”
Brings Plenty, who led a two-spirit camp at Standing Rock, said they would not be intimidated by law enforcement and hoped people would still support the fight against Keystone — instead of just accepting the pipeline.
“It’s almost become the norm for folks to look the other way, feeling like there isn’t something they can do, that it’s beyond their grasp,” they said. “I want folks to see these pipelines the way they do the glaciers in the Arctic. This is happening right here in their own front yard.”
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