Intrepid Report: Week of December 5, 2016: Trump, a con man extraordinaire

Intrepid Report Newsletter
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Trump nominee will politicize Dept. of Justice By Walter Brasch In his successful run for the presidency, Donald Trump spent a lot of time talking about the Second Amendment and defending gun ownership. He spent very little time talking about the other amendments, other than to say he supported the Constitution. He knew his core support came from those who could effortlessly repeat a phrase, “Donald Trump supports my Second Amendment rights,” without knowing much more than that. State-owned media: The good, the bad, and the ugly By William Blum On November 16, at a State Department press briefing, department spokesperson John Kirby was having one of his frequent adversarial dialogues with Gayane Chichakyan, a reporter for RT (Russia Today); this time concerning US charges of Russia bombing hospitals in Syria and blocking the UN from delivering aid to the trapped population. When Chichakyan asked for some detail about these charges, Kirby replied: “Why don’t you ask your defense ministry?” Phoenix unlikely to rise from Democratic Party’s ashes By Ben Tanosborn After almost four decades of disregard for a decomposing cadaver, party progressives appear ready to cremate the Democratic Party’s corpse and give it a requiem mass, doubtful that their minority status will allow them to revive the party. Not the majority, however, who seem hopeful for a Lazarus’ resuscitation without a Jesus in their midst; a legion of career politicians tending to their own personal needs. Tuesday DAPL construction completion permit denied By Stephen Lendman After months of peaceful protests, withstanding militarized police state viciousness, Standing Rock Sioux Tribe members and supporters won a glorious, though perhaps temporary, victory. The U.S. defines dictatorship By Dave Alpert Fidel Castro, internationally renowned, respected and loved, died on Friday, November 25, at the age of 90. He will always be remembered for his dedication to the well being of the people, not only the people of Cuba but people worldwide. Soviet observation: ‘The only difference between your propaganda and our propaganda is that you believe yours.’ By William Blum On November 25, the Washington Post ran an article entitled: “Research ties ‘fake news’ to Russia.” It’s all about how sources in Russia are flooding American media and the Internet with phoney stories designed as “part of a broadly effective strategy of sowing distrust in U.S. democracy and its leaders.” The vertiginous politics of ‘apolitical’ art By Emanuel E. Garcia, MD The other night in faraway New Zealand, I took my seat at the Michael Fowler Centre to hear what I thought would be the orchestral suite of Bernard Herrmann’s score for Alfred Hitchcock’s cinematic masterpiece, Vertigo. But I got more than I expected: I was delightfully shocked when it soon became apparent that the orchestra would play the entire musical accompaniment to the film while the film itself was being shown. Bunkers and Meatheads By Gilad Atzmon Archie Bunker is one of America’s most beloved TV Characters. Archie was the fictional star of the 1970s television sitcom All in the Family. The iconic satire told the story of a typical American, white, patriarchal, working-class family living in Queens. Archie, the ‘patriarch,’ was a middle-aged WWII veteran, a narrow-minded, conservative, blue-collar worker. A good Christian. A cherished member within Clinton’s basket of deplorables. Archie was a simple man who spoke his mind—an early prototype of president-elect Donald Trump. Wednesday When ‘fake news’ turns deadly By Wayne Madsen Edgar Welch, a 28-year old resident of North Carolina, entered the Comet Ping Pong pizzeria in northwest Washington, DC’s Cleveland Park on a quiet Sunday afternoon claiming to be some sort of citizen journalist who was “self-investigating” a bogus story floating around the Internet. The story, which has no merit, was amplified by social media during the recent presidential campaign. The story claimed that the pizza restaurant was some sort of nexus for a shadowy pedophile ring reaching into the inner circle of Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama. Draconian US Intelligence Authorization Act By Stephen Lendman Congress annually passes intelligence policy authorization bills. The measure for FY 2017 represents a huge leap backwards, reminiscent of the 1950 Internal Security (McCarran) Act—enacted over Harry Truman’s veto. Burn the flag on inauguration day! By William T. Hathaway Let’s welcome our new commander in chief by demonstrating how little he knows about the Constitution of the United States. Each incoming president is required on inauguration day to take the oath of office, affirming to “preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution.” But Donald Trump proved his ignorance of this document when he recently wrote, “Nobody should be allowed to burn the American flag—if they do, there must be consequences—perhaps loss of citizenship or a year in jail!” The Supreme Court, however, thinks otherwise. It has twice ruled that burning the national flag is not a crime but a form of free speech protected by the First Amendment, a legal way to protest government policies. Will 2017 mark a reshuffling of the world order? By Linda S. Heard The past is usually considered a predictor of the future. However, it appears that mass disenchantment with the status quo, built up over decades, is poised to rattle Western political norms. No politician or pollster or think tank can predict with any confidence what challenges await us next week let alone next year. There are too many unknowns, too many variables, but what can be said with certainty is that 2017 will witness great change. Cuba, Fidel, Socialism . . . hasta la victoria siempre! By William Blum The most frequent comment I’ve read in the mainstream media concerning Fidel Castro’s death is that he was a “dictator”; almost every heading bore that word. Since the 1959 revolution, the American mainstream media has routinely referred to Cuba as a dictatorship. But just what does Cuba do or lack that makes it a dictatorship? Thursday Grab bag of valid U.S. visas available overseas By Wayne Madsen State Department officials are pretending to scratch their heads over the bust of a “fake” U.S. embassy operating in the Ghanaian capital of Accra that was issuing valid U.S. visas to Ghanaians, Togolese, Ivorians, and others for a whopping $6,000. After Ghanaian authorities rolled up the fake embassy, said to have been operated by Ghanaian and Turkish organized crime syndicates, State Department officials claimed that the criminals who ran the “embassy” paid off corrupt officials to “look the other way.” However, corrupt Ghanaian government officials do not issue valid U.S. visas, U.S. State Department foreign service officers are responsible for the control and issuance of visas. WMR exposed U.S. visa fraud involving U.S. foreign service personnel in a series of articles beginning ten years ago. Emboldened by Trump, Ohio GOP pass extreme attack on abortion rights By Nadia Prupis Ohio lawmakers approved a bill late Tuesday that bans abortion once a fetal heartbeat can be detected. The bill is now headed to Governor John Kasich’s desk. If signed, it will be one of the strictest abortion laws in the country. Freedom Rider: Black fear in the age of Trump By Margaret Kimberley Black Americans were lost and politically helpless before Election Day in 2016. Having a black Democrat in the presidency hid a multitude of sins. As a group we have lost jobs, the little wealth we had, and literally our lives and freedom from the police state. Donald Trump’s election just made what was already true crystal clear. Disgraceful US Anti-Semitism Awareness Act By Stephen Lendman Long ago, anti-Semitism was an issue in America, very much so when I grew up. No longer. Today it’s in vogue to be Jewish. Power to the people: John Lennon’s legacy lives on By John W. Whitehead Militant nonviolent resistance works. Friday ‘We’ll look at everything’: More thoughts on Trump’s $1 trillion infrastructure plan By Ellen Brown The Trump agenda, it seems, is not set in stone. The president-elect has a range of advisors with as many ideas. Steven Mnuchin, his nominee for Treasury secretary, said in November that “we’ll take a look at everything,” even the possibility of extending the maturity of the federal debt with 50-year or 100-year bonds to take advantage of unusually low interest rates. Repeal Obamacare? GOP should be careful what they wish for Now that they'll control the White House and Congress, Republicans still haven't got a clue what to do about health care. By Wendell Potter For years, Republicans have been condemning Obamacare and vowing to repeal and replace it. Now that they’ll soon be able to do that, they’re like the dog that caught the car: Now what? Microsoft, Facebook, Twitter and YouTube conspire to censor online content By Stephen Lendman Powerful interests in America threaten alternative sources of news, information and opinion. Racism, capitalism and denialism By Frank Scott Given the founding of the nation in vicious ethnic cleansing of the original inhabitants and the forced immigration of kidnapped Africans in chains, racism, the false notion that humans are members of different races with some superior or inferior by virtue of skin tone, has taken hold of the minds of most Americans. Given the taught and learned rationalization of that material ugliness of national origins as being natural divisions among humans, this is understandable. But when racism becomes a fetish used to keep divisions among people that insure minority wealth’s continued dominance of what is supposed to be a democracy, its hateful supporters and sincere opponents become equal participants in the perpetuation of an ugly lie. Fatah, hold your applause: Palestinian body politic rotten to the core By Ramzy Baroud In July 2003, the then Palestinian Authority chairman, Yasser Arafat, described Mahmoud Abbas as a ‘traitor’ who “betrayed the interests of the Palestinian People.”