FOCUS: Dan Rather | The Week Ahead Will Be Unprecedented

12 November 19

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FOCUS: Dan Rather | The Week Ahead Will Be Unprecedented

Dan Rather, Dan Rather's Facebook Page
Rather writes: "We do not know what the week ahead will bring, but we do know it will be unprecedented. To be sure the specter of Nixon and Clinton hang over an impeachment process moving onto the public stage. This time, however, feels far different."

EXCERPT:

My mood is complicated. As a reporter, this a story unlike any in our history. I hope to do it justice. As an American citizen, however, I am struck by sadness, a deep, deep sadness, that we have come to this point. In previous times, we weren't being as driven apart by social media. What will that mean for these hearings? We didn't have a political party with its own propaganda operation, like we do with the President and Fox News. We didn't have such cravenness, such widespread stink of corruption, so much platently undemocratic instincts by those who have sworn an oath to the Constitution.

Yet despite all these obstructions to the process of justice, we are where we are because brave, patriotic Americans stood up and said what the President did was wrong. They will now say so in front of cameras, and posterity. The Democrats in the House, in contrast to the President's smokescreens, have largely comported themselves with restraint and a clear sense of purpose. It will be up to them to pierce the fog of deceit and paint a narrative that shapes public opinion.

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Stephen Miller’s Affinity for White Nationalism Revealed in Leaked Emails

Dan Rather

As immigration goes before the Supreme Court and looms large over 2020 it is vital that we understand what drives the administration’s rhetoric and policies. These released emails from Stephen Miller are a deeply disturbing eye opener that must be addressed by the White House. A very important report from the Southern Poverty Law Center

About this website

SPLCENTER.ORG

Stephen Miller’s Affinity for White Nationalism 

Revealed in Leaked Emails

In the run-up to the 2016 election, White House senior policy adviser Stephen Miller promoted white nationalist literature, pushed racist immigration stories and obsessed over the loss of Confederate symbols after Dylann Roof’s murderous rampage, according to leaked emails reviewed by Hatewatch.

November 12, 2019

In this article

• Miller shares link from white nationalist site
• Miller recommends ‘Camp of the Saints’ to Breitbart
• McHugh says Miller told her to aggregate from American Renaissance
• Confederate flag removals upset Miller after church murders
• Miller focuses on racial identity of killer with ‘alt-right’ beliefs
• Miller says he reached out to anti-Muslim extremist Pamela Geller
• Miller forwards Infowars link to aid McHugh’s reporting
• Miller backs immigration policies Hitler once praised
• Miller posits conspiracy theories about immigration
• Exploring Miller’s reported ties to white nationalist figures

In the run-up to the 2016 election, White House senior policy adviser Stephen Miller promoted white nationalist literature, pushed racist immigration stories and obsessed over the loss of Confederate symbols after Dylann Roof’s murderous rampage, according to leaked emails reviewed by Hatewatch.

The emails, which Miller sent to the conservative website Breitbart News in 2015 and 2016, showcase the extremist, anti-immigrant ideology that undergirds the policies he has helped create as an architect of Donald Trump’s presidency. These policies include reportedly setting arrest quotas for undocumented immigrants, an executive order effectively banning immigration from five Muslim-majority countries and a policy of family separation at refugee resettlement facilities that the Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of Inspector General said is causing “intense trauma” in children.

In this, the first of what will be a series about those emails, Hatewatch exposes the racist source material that has influenced Miller’s visions of policy. That source material, as laid out in his emails to Breitbart, includes white nationalist websites, a “white genocide”-themed novel in which Indian men rape white women, xenophobic conspiracy theories and eugenics-era immigration laws that Adolf Hitler lauded in “Mein Kampf.”

Hatewatch reviewed more than 900 previously private emails Miller sent to Breitbart editors from March 4, 2015, to June 27, 2016. Miller does not converse along a wide range of topics in the emails. His focus is strikingly narrow – more than 80 percent of the emails Hatewatch reviewed relate to or appear on threads relating to the subjects of race or immigration. Hatewatch made multiple attempts to reach the White House for a comment from Miller about the content of his emails but did not receive any reply.

Miller’s perspective on race and immigration across the emails is repetitious. When discussing crime, which he does scores of times, Miller focuses on offenses committed by nonwhites. On immigration, he touches solely on the perspective of severely limiting or ending nonwhite immigration to the United States. Hatewatch was unable to find any examples of Miller writing sympathetically or even in neutral tones about any person who is nonwhite or foreign-born.

Miller has gained a reputation for attempting to keep his communications secret: The Washington Post reported in August that Miller “rarely puts anything in writing, eschewing email in favor of phone calls.” The Daily Beast noted in July that Miller has recently “cut off regular contact with most of his allies” outside the Trump administration to limit leaks.

Miller used his government email address as an aide to then-Sen. Jeff Sessions in the emails Hatewatch reviewed. He sent the majority of the emails Hatewatch examined before he joined Trump’s campaign in January 2016 and while he was still working for Sessions. Miller also used a personal Hotmail.com address in the emails and did so both before and after he started working for Trump. Hatewatch confirmed the authenticity of Miller’s Hotmail.com address through an email sent from his government address in which he lists it as his future point of contact:

“I am excited to announce that I am beginning a new job as Senior Policy Advisor to presidential candidate Donald J. Trump,” Miller wrote from his government email on Jan. 26, 2016, to an undisclosed group of recipients. “Should you need to reach me, my personal email address is [redacted].”

Katie McHugh, who was an editor for Breitbart from April 2014 to June 2017, leaked the emails to Hatewatch in June to review, analyze and disseminate to the public. McHugh was 23 when she started at Breitbart and also became active in the anti-immigrant movement, frequently rubbing shoulders with white nationalists. McHugh was fired from Breitbart in 2017 after posting anti-Muslim tweets. She has since renounced the far right.

McHugh told Hatewatch that Breitbart editors introduced her to Miller in 2015 with an understanding he would influence the direction of her reporting. For that reason, and because Miller would have regarded her as a fellow traveler of the anti-immigrant movement, McHugh sometimes starts conversations with Miller in the emails, seeking his opinion on news stories. Other times, Miller directly suggests story ideas to McHugh, or tells her how to shape Breitbart’s coverage. Periodically, Miller asks McHugh if he can speak to her by phone, taking conversations offline.

“What Stephen Miller sent to me in those emails has become policy at the Trump administration,” McHugh told Hatewatch.

Stephen Miller, White House senior adviser, watches as U.S. President Donald Trump, not pictured, speaks during a June 2018 event at the Eisenhower Executive Office Building in Washington with families who have lost relatives to crimes caused by illegal immigrants. (Photo by Joshua Roberts/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

Miller shares link from white nationalist site

Miller sent a story from the white nationalist website VDARE to McHugh on Oct. 23, 2015, the emails show. White nationalist Peter Brimelow founded VDARE in 1999. The website traffics in the “white genocide” or “great replacement” myth, which suggests that nonwhite people are systematically and deliberately wiping white people off the planet.

McHugh started the email conversation by asking if Hurricane Patricia could drive refugees into the United States. The hurricane battered parts of Central America, Mexico and Texas, and the media heavily covered the storm. Miller replied to her by underscoring the possibility that Mexican survivors of the storm could be given temporary protected status (TPS), a George H.W. Bush-era policy that would enable them to live and work in the United States for a limited stay:

McHugh, Oct. 23, 2015, 6:10 p.m. ET: “This being the worst hurricane ever recorded, what are the chances it wreaks destruction on Mexico and drives a mass migration to the U.S. border?”

Miller, Oct. 23, 2015, 6:12 p.m. ET: “100 percent. And they will all get TPS. And all the ones here will get TPS too. That needs to be the weekend's BIG story. TPS is everything.”

McHugh, Oct. 23, 2015, 6:22 p.m. ET: “Wow. Ok. Is there precedent for this?”

Miller, Oct. 23, 2015, 6:31 p.m. ET: [VDARE link]

The VDARE story by Steve Sailer, an anti-immigration activist who traffics in discredited race science, focused on instances in which the United States offered refugees temporary protected status. The article was posted the same day Miller shared it with McHugh.

In September, the Trump administration denied temporary protected status to residents of the Bahamas fleeing the destruction of Hurricane Dorian despite widespread destruction.

“I don’t want to allow people that weren’t supposed to be in the Bahamas to come into the United States, including some very bad people and some very bad gang members and some very, very bad drug dealers,” Trump said of Bahamians on Sept. 9.

The ethnic makeup of the Bahamas is more than 90% black, according to statistics from the CIA. The administration has also attempted to cut TPS for residents of other countries, including Honduras and Nepal. Sailer mentioned both Honduras and Nepal in the context of TPS in his VDARE story.

Emails show that White House senior policy adviser Stephen Miller recommended racist French novel "The Camp of the Saints" to conservative website Breitbart News in 2015.

DAN RATHER

Dan Rather

As we reach the end of a week of news unlike any I can remember, we feel an ever-present tension knowing the next week, or even hour, will likely bring new headlines of this unraveling moment in history.

And yet... life goes on. I turn the television to the familiar comforts of a post-season baseball game, an adult beverage in hand. My wife Jean and I talk about books we are reading, and matters of family and friends. Outside our home, I know that there are soccer games and PTA meetings and art shows. There are first dates and long hikes and jigsaw puzzles. A dance floor is crowded. A long conversation takes place over cups of coffee. A moment is remembered in a photo album.

I know there are also the pains of life, the illnesses, the lost jobs, the addictions. There is a child being bullied, a family business closing, a rift between siblings.

All of this, the good and the bad, has always been part of life. And government, in its most idealized form, is supposed to work to make life better, to protect, heal, and provide opportunity. Government is not functioning in that way, at least on the national level, and not by a long shot. And yet for most Americans, life by some standards hasn't changed much. The economy is generally good. Kids still go to school. Loved ones still get sick. Life, once again, goes on.

What to make of this disconnect? For starters, we cannot forgot that for many among us, these times are particularly cruel, especially as racial animosity rears its violent head and our immigration system betrays our ideals and often notions of humanity itself.

But that is not all the damage being done, of course. Much more is going on that is more difficult to feel, at least in the way it shapes our immediate lives. But that does not lessen its danger. It only enhances it. What we are losing is the mechanics that allowed our nation to flourish, to become better, to occupy a place of leadership in the world. This is much bigger than just one president, but therein lies a path towards hope.

No president is bigger than the country he or she serves. No president should be allowed to be bigger than our values. No president should be able to shatter what we hold dear without hearing from the electorate that this is not who we are or what we will be.

It's okay that life goes on. We need to be true to our communities, our families, and ourselves. But those bonds can also be a base for confronting the existential threat that looms over us. Take a breath this weekend. Tend to what is around you that needs care, and from that strength and sense of purpose turn your eyes, hearts, and energy to the larger task at hand.

I have lived through many times of crises when the pain felt much more immediate to many more Americans than it does today. The way this nation persevered was by millions of decent and determined people coming together to fight for what was right.

Dan Rather | There Are Some Things More Important Than Money

15 October 19

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COME ON FOLKS, HELP THE PEOPLE WHO HELP: Yes Reader Supported News really is supported entirely by the community it serves. Entirely. That is really how we do it. It’s people like you who just step us and say, “Okay I’ll Make a Donation.” Thank you! / Marc Ash, Founder Reader Supported News

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Dan Rather | There Are Some Things More Important Than Money

Dan Rather, Dan Rather's Facebook Page
Rather writes: "We see a president who, for a lifetime, has put his own greed above all else, who now seems to be making decisions about the direction of our country by considering his own self-interest and that of his family."
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Soldiers. (photo: PA)

Spencer Ackerman and Christopher Dickey | US Surveillance Turns Away From ISIS - and to Its Own Troops

Spencer Ackerman and Christopher Dickey, The Daily Beast

Excerpt: "The retreat of U.S. forces in Syria away from the Turkish invasion is having a downstream effect benefiting the so-called Islamic State. The American surveillance aircraft that had been watching ISIS are now watching their own troops."

EXCERPT:

Esper said in a Monday statement that the Turkish invasion—which the administration is now claiming to have always opposed despite Trump’s public acquiescence to it—had endangered the anti-ISIS mission. Erdogan will bear “full responsibility” for any ISIS resurgence, according to the Pentagon chief. 

At the Beirut Institute Summit in Abu Dhabi, Gen. David Petraeus, former director of Central Intelligence and, prior to that, commander of U.S. Central Command, which oversees the U.S. military operations in the Mideast, warned there was no walking away from the threat of ISIS or from the region. 

“Trying to leave the Middle East is a little like Michael Corleone trying to leave the Mafia,” Petraeus said, referring to the Godfather movies. “You can try but you are going to keep being pulled back in.”

Sir John Scarlett, former head of the Britain’s foreign intelligence service, MI6, said flatly there is “no substitute” for the U.S. in the region, notwithstanding Trump’s desire to bail out.

“It certainly does not appear there is a master plan,” said Petraeus. 

“I am deeply concerned that a U.S. withdrawal will lead to an ISIS resurgence,” said Robert Ford, a former U.S. ambassador to Syria, and along with that will come huge ethnic displacement, refugee flows, and damage to U.S. credibility.

“Clearly ISIS is going to be resurgent after this,” Petraeus said, and there will be a new “tsunami of refugees.”

Some of the participants noted the irony of the way the situation is developing, as the U.S. will now, in practical terms, rely on the savage regime of Bashar al-Assad—which once it hoped to oust—to finish the job of eliminating ISIS fighters.

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An engraving by Theodor de Bry depicting Christopher Columbus landing on Hispaniola on Dec. 6, 1492. (photo: Theodor de Bry/Library of Congress)

Here Are the Indigenous People Christopher Columbus and His Men Could Not Annihilate
Gillian Brockell, The Washington Post
Brockell writes: "In Hispaniola - what is now Haiti and the Dominican Republic - Columbus encountered the Lucayans' cousins, the Taino."
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Protestors gather outside the house (right) where Atatiana Jefferson was shot and killed, during a community vigil for Jefferson on Sunday, Oct. 13, 2019, in Fort Worth, Texas. Jefferson, a 28-year-old black woman, was shot in her home by a white Fort Worth police officer during a welfare check. (photo: Smiley N. Pool/AP)

Fort Worth Officer Who Killed Black Woman in Her Home Charged With Murder
Tom Dart, Guardian UK
Dart writes: "The Fort Worth police officer who fatally shot Atatiana Jefferson inside her bedroom after arriving to conduct a welfare check was charged with murder on Monday night, authorities said."
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On Oct. 13, Simone Biles became the gymnast with the most medals earned at the world championship level at the World Gymnastics Championship in Stuttgart, Germany. (photo: Matthias Schrader/AP)

New GOAT: Simone Biles Makes History Winning 25th World Championship Medal
Karu F. Daniels, The Root
Daniels writes: "Numbers don't lie. And neither does the number of medals won. Simone Biles is living proof of this as the agile athlete makes sports history for winning the most medals of any gymnast. Ever."
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A woman holds placards depicting pictures of jailed Catalan separatist leaders Jordi Turull and Carme Forcadell in Barcelona on October 14, 2019. (photo: Lluis Gene/AFP/Getty Images)

ALSO SEE: Barcelona Braces for More Protests After Catalan
Separatists Sentenced to Prison

Spain Gives Lengthy Sentences to Catalan Leaders for Secession Attempt
Aritz Parra and Ciaran Giles, Associated Press
Excerpt: "Spain's Supreme Court on Monday convicted 12 former Catalan politicians and activists for their roles in a secession bid in 2017."
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Hurricane Florence. (photo: BBC)

If Facts Don't Make You Prepare for a Hurricane, What Does?
Kate Yoder, Grist
Yoder writes: "If anyone in the United States knew firsthand that climate change was here, it would be the residents of New Hanover County, North Carolina, home to Wilmington and one of most vulnerable places in the country to hurricanes and sea-level rise."
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