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  • The ranking SVR resident must have laughed for a week.

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    • Has Kushner been arrested yet? If not why not? No wonder the FBI were interested in him. If this is true he is guilty of treason so he must be arrested asap.

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      • Originally posted by kato View Post
        Mmm, it's a relative thing. Germany has a relatively (by comparison) small income spread. Minimum wage is 2.0 times welfare level, average income is 4.0 times welfare level and at 6.0 times the welfare level you're earning in the top 10 percent for Germany. In other words the overwhelming majority of people earn within a set +-50% to average. By comparison in the US the average income is higher, but the spread is a whole lot wider - around +-90%.

        In manufacturing wages in Germany can be considered insanely high in fact. My cousin earns enough to feed a family of four on a single income only working 30 hours per week as a CNC lathe operator. It's really ridiculous.
        A good CNC lathe operator always gets paid. The median wage for one in the US is $17 an hour with experienced operators making north of $20 an hour. Oh and wages are climbing as the profession ages and there are fewer and fewer of them to go around.

        Comment


        • Originally posted by GVChamp View Post
          Germany doesn't have the economic, political, technological, or cultural strength that the US uniquely has. Roman Empire vs. 1400s Venice.
          This is more of a side comment, I'm not addressing the substance of the German sub-discussion going on, but...

          Germany is probably around #4 out of 196. Definitely in the top 5. For a country of 80 million, that's nothing to be ashamed of.

          Again, I'm not commenting on what you guys are talking about, it's not a matter of concern to me with all of these things happening domestically. Except for this... the euro is just the Deustchmark writ large. Most of the other European countries wanted the mark as their currency, as it was one of the lone stable currencies on the continent, so the Germans re-named the mark, called it the Euro, re-denominated it, and more or less allowed other countries to adopt newly named, re-dominated mark. Now they act likes its the Germans damned fault.
          Last edited by Ironduke; 28 May 17,, 01:38.
          "Every man has his weakness. Mine was always just cigarettes."

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          • Originally posted by zraver View Post
            A good CNC lathe operator always gets paid. The median wage for one in the US is $17 an hour with experienced operators making north of $20 an hour.
            Average is around $21 here for the profession, with the top 25% of employees making north of $35... (well, 30 actually - but with 14 salaries per year, six weeks vacation and no shift work).

            Comment


            • Originally posted by GVChamp View Post
              Germany isn't even pursuing good policy for Germany, IMO. They have suppressed labor costs for the last 17 years, which is why they can run a current account surplus now. Great way of saying you can get work if you just volunteer to work for nothing.

              http://voxeu.org/sites/default/files...ickey_fig1.gif

              Germans would be better off with higher wages and accommodating monetary policy for the whole Euro-zone.

              But, yeah, Germany first is stupid, since Germany doesn't have the economic, political, technological, or cultural strength that the US uniquely has. Roman Empire vs. 1400s Venice.
              Countries north of Germany tend to have higher wages -- before taxes -- as do Ireland and Switzerland.
              Trust me?
              I'm an economist!

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              • Originally posted by Ironduke View Post
                This is more of a side comment, I'm not addressing the substance of the German sub-discussion going on, but...

                Germany is probably around #4 out of 196. Definitely in the top 5. For a country of 80 million, that's nothing to be ashamed of.

                Again, I'm not commenting on what you guys are talking about, it's not a matter of concern to me with all of these things happening domestically. Except for this... the euro is just the Deustchmark writ large. Most of the other European countries wanted the mark as their currency, as it was one of the lone stable currencies on the continent, so the Germans re-named the mark, called it the Euro, re-denominated it, and more or less allowed other countries to adopt newly named, re-dominated mark. Now they act likes its the Germans damned fault.
                Yeah, the Southern Economies made their own bed. Lower cost financing wasn't a hard sell: basically free money. Short-sighted.

                Still, no matter how strong and big Germany is, it's not even in the same league as the US, so Germany is going to be a lot more dependent on its security and economic relationships than America is. So there's a lot less "Germany first" they can pull off. EDIT: Note that the current economic policy has massively screwed Southern Europeans. I highly doubt any nation will tolerate decades of that, or the EU's habit of shoving governments and policies down throats.

                Of course, Switzerland does just fine....
                Last edited by GVChamp; 29 May 17,, 15:33.
                "The great questions of the day will not be settled by means of speeches and majority decisions but by iron and blood"-Otto Von Bismarck

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                • Originally posted by GVChamp View Post
                  Still, no matter how strong and big Germany is, it's not even in the same league as the US
                  Well, before 4 years of Trump. Given how he seems to be bent on destroying the American manufacturing base it's not that unlikely for the US to fall back a bit over the next couple years.

                  Originally posted by GVChamp View Post
                  I highly doubt any nation will tolerate decades of that, or the EU's habit of shoving governments and policies down throats.
                  Anything the EU dictates is approved by the governments of its constituent nations. The EU is pretty much just their scapegoat.

                  Originally posted by GVChamp View Post
                  Of course, Switzerland does just fine....
                  Switzerland has suffered from serious disinflation the last two years, since unpegging their currency from the Euro and their currency is 50% overvalued...

                  Comment


                  • Anything the EU dictates is approved by the governments of its constituent nations. The EU is pretty much just their scapegoat.
                    The EU routinely and casually threatens members AND non-members/future non-members with sanctions and "tough deals." This goes for BREXIT, Poland, Switzerland...I don't think this will end well. People who can't even keep their own house in order can't really threaten other people credibly.

                    Swiss unemployment is 3.3% and neighboring workers beg for admittance.
                    "The great questions of the day will not be settled by means of speeches and majority decisions but by iron and blood"-Otto Von Bismarck

                    Comment


                    • Originally posted by GVChamp View Post
                      Swiss unemployment is 3.3% and neighboring workers beg for admittance.
                      It should be noted that the Swiss "3.3%" are calculated under national SECO rules, and are not comparable to other places.

                      Under ILO common standards (which e.g. Eurostat uses) their unemployment quota is 5.2%, while the USA is at 4.5% and Germany overall at 3.9% (source for Germany and USA, source for Switzerland, all numbers for March). In German NUTS-2 regions bordering Switzerland it's 2.6-3.0% (source).

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                        MORNING BRIEF: EXPLOSION KILLS AT LEAST 80 IN KABUL'S DIPLOMATIC DISTRICT
                        WHITE HOUSE

                        Impeach Trump? Liberal media profiteering from anti-Trump clickbait

                        Dan Gainor
                        By Dan Gainor Published May 30, 2017 Fox News
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                        Media's impeachment chatter
                        Before Facebook battled “fake news,” it went to war with outrageous clickbait stories. It lost -- to the very news outlets who are supposed to be keepers of journalistic integrity.


                        At least those news outlets aren’t truly making up stories. They are just hyping ridiculous, implausible and divisive stories as a way of making money and undermining the president.

                        The news media’s anti-Trump fixation has blossomed into a business model for a struggling industry. The more outlandish the headline, the more people click on it and the more ad revenue it generates. That’s also the precise model for clickbait.

                        The latest craze has been the push to impeach President Donald Trump. It won’t happen, yet so-called news outlets are sending out a tidal wave of digital data on the topic -- stories, videos, tweets and more. Put the word “impeachment” in a headline and watch traffic skyrocket. It’s the same strategy that has driven everything from internet memes to the NeverTrumpers.

                        Journalists and social media experts know that a polarized electorate means demented liberals and besieged conservatives might both click on an impeachment story. So they report on topics that would have laughed at in the past -- a mixture of impeachment-might-really-happen stories and articles on the dangers of a Pence presidency.

                        Some of this is standard, far-left outlets promoting the idea, for example. Ezra Klein’s Vox site urging, “The case for impeaching Trump — and fast”; The New Republic getting behind the idea that, “Democrats Should Proudly Call for Trump’s Impeachment”; and HuffPost’s especially humorous, “The Inevitability Of Impeachment.”


                        Current MSNBC host (as of today) Lawrence O’Donnell took that pitch to cable, “President Donald Trump now sits at the threshold of impeachment,” because of “ignorance.”

                        That’s more like wishful thinking than journalism.

                        Except the major news media are doing the same darn thing. There’s USA Today asking, “Impeachment: Donald Trump's worst nightmare?” and CNN’s legal analyst claiming, “There are lots of ways to get to impeachment.” ABC, CBS and NBC did their part when news of the alleged Comey memo was released, discussing “impeachment,” “impeachable offenses” and the scary sounding “I-word.”

                        Yes, some Democrats have talked impeachment. It’s mostly the far left who wanted Trump impeached from Day One or kooks and back-benchers. Those are the very politicians journalists use to manipulate an agenda -- normalize something silly or undermine the credibility of an argument. Sen. John McCain’s TV career in a nutshell.

                        When media outlets aren’t talking about Trump, it’s President Mike Pence. HuffPost made the argument, stating that a post-Trump GOP would be splintered. That led to them manufacturing, “The Case For President Pence.” The millenial women’s site Bustle cautioned that, “Trump Impeachment Buzz Looms Large.” Alternet even pretended his tenure would lead to, “A Nightmare Right-Wing Agenda.” And the financial site The Street chose a slightly more business version of that phrasing, “a Nightmare for Tesla and Elon Musk.” Apparently, Pence is the social conservative Freddy Krueger.

                        None of this is journalism. It’s rank speculation. It’s the news media at its worst, ratcheting up anger and anxiety to make some cash.

                        Journalists love these kinds of meaningless stories. “Is That Dress White and Gold or Blue and Black?” Who cares? Let’s get the clicks!

                        TV does it just as much. Does Rachel Maddow have Trump’s tax returns? Oh my Gawd! Not the tax returns!!!! Overhyped? Yep, but at least short-lived. Then there’s the NeverTrump phenomena, pushed by journalists and inside-the-Beltway conservatives desperate to derail Trump’s campaign.

                        That insanity lead to the Evan McMullin disaster, the bogus non-entity trying to steal Utah from Trump to throw the vote into the House of Representatives. It was promoted by many of the same conservative pundits who now attack Trump at every turn. The Donald still beat Clinton in Utah by 18 percent. Eighteen!

                        Nevertheless, The Washington Post was still writing about the “buzz about Utah being in play” on Election Day. Later that day, the Post reminded readers, that McMullin, “had been polling neck-and-neck with Trump despite announcing his candidacy only in August.” In all, the Post mentioned McMullin’s fruitless candidacy 217 times from August to November.

                        Readers got played and it’s happening again. News organizations have learned that, “Trump may be the news industry’s greatest opportunity to build a sustainable model.” And they are going to milk his presidency for every last dollar.

                        Barely a year ago, the Post was anguishing how the “press corps needs a new business model.” They’ve found it and journalists no longer care how legitimate their stories are.

                        As long as it pays their salaries and attacks Trump.


                        Dan Gainor is the Media Research Center's Vice President for Business and Culture. He writes frequently about media for Fox News Opinion. He can also be contacted on Facebook and Twitter as dangainor.


                        http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2017/...clickbait.html
                        To sit down with these men and deal with them as the representatives of an enlightened and civilized people is to deride ones own dignity and to invite the disaster of their treachery - General Matthew Ridgway

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                        • It only happens once in a blue moon, but I think I'll take the day off to watch C-SPAN for this.

                          I'm also interested to see if Trump will make good on his threat to release those "tapes". Trump seems to be hedging a bit and holding back on the nutjob/tapes language since Mueller was appointed, but who knows what his next tweet will say.
                          http://www.cnn.com/2017/05/31/politi...ony/index.html

                          Source: Comey to testify publicly about Trump confrontations

                          (CNN) Fired FBI director James Comey plans to testify publicly in the Senate as early as next week to confirm bombshell accusations that President Donald Trump pressured him to end his investigation into a top Trump aide's ties to Russia, a source close to the issue said Wednesday.

                          A week after he took office in January, Trump allegedly demanded Comey's "loyalty" if he kept him on as FBI director, and he urged Comey to drop his ongoing investigation into Michael Flynn, Trump's fired national security adviser, in a separate, one-on-one meeting.
                          The source said that Comey is expected to stand by those accounts in his testimony.

                          "The bottom line is he's going to testify," the source close to the issue said. "He's happy to testify, and he's happy to cooperate."
                          Officials with the Justice Department and Mueller's office declined to comment.

                          Final details are still being worked out and no official date for his testimony has been set. Comey is expected to appear before the Senate Intelligence Committee, which is investigating possible connections between the Trump campaign and Russia during last year's presidential election.

                          Comey has spoken privately with Special Counsel Robert Mueller III to work out the parameters for his testimony to ensure there are no legal entanglements as a result of his public account, a source said. Comey will likely sit down with Mueller, a longtime colleague at the Justice Department, for a formal interview only after his public testimony.

                          When he testifies, Comey is unlikely to be willing to discuss in any detail the FBI's investigation into the charges of possible collusion between Russia and the Trump campaign -- the centerpiece of the probe, this source said. But he appears eager to discuss his tense interactions with Trump before his firing, which have now spurred allegations that the president may have tried to obstruct the investigation.

                          If it happens, Comey's public testimony promises to be a dramatic chapter in the months-long controversy, and it will likely bring even more intense scrutiny to an investigation that Trump has repeatedly denounced as a "witch hunt."

                          The appointment of Mueller as a special counsel in the Russia investigation had raised concerns among some members of Congress that his probe could scuttle the chance for Congress and the public to hear directly from Comey. That appears less likely now that Mueller and Comey have discussed the limits of his testimony.

                          Since his firing last month, dramatic accounts have emerged in the New York Times, CNN, and elsewhere about the tense confrontations with Trump that Comey memorialized in memos afterward.
                          Last edited by Ironduke; 01 Jun 17,, 07:58.
                          "Every man has his weakness. Mine was always just cigarettes."

                          Comment


                          • “Draining the Swamp”

                            In the first four months, ethics waivers (is that a thing?) were issued for chief strategist Steve Bannon, Chief of Staff Reince Priebus, senior counselor Kellyanne Conway, White House Counsel Don McGhan and 13 other administration officials.

                            Barack Obama hit that milestone in his eighth year in office.

                            Michael Catanzaro, a former lobbyist from CGCN Group who represented a slew of energy industry clients, is now working as Trump’s top energy adviser. Nancy Beck, a senior official within the EPA office that regulates chemicals, came from the American Chemistry Council, an industry group.

                            Joshua Pitcock, VP Mike Pence’s chief-of-staff, was a lobbyist in Indiana. White House Associate Counsel Daniel Epstein worked for Cause of Action Institute (Koch brothers ‘think’ tank). Special Assistant and Senior Adviser Rene Augustine, White House IT guy Chris Herndon, lawyer Claire Murray

                            The top adviser on retirement policy is Shahira Knight, who previously worked as a lobbyist for Fidelity. Financial policy adviser and National Economic Council member Andrew Olmem, like Catanzaro and Knight, worked for Goldman Sachs. National Economic Council chair Gary Cohn did, too.

                            Appointments pending Senate approval—

                            David Bernhardt, a former energy lobbyist at top K Street firm Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck, nominated to be the No. 2 official at the Interior Department.

                            In context—

                            Obama set a benchmark for White House and executive branch hires that was unprecedented at the time: Anyone who had worked as a registered lobbyist within the prior year was banned from having a job in the administration. To get around that restriction, a lobbyist would have to be granted a waiver.

                            Within the provision on ethics waivers, Trump nixed the ban on former lobbyists taking jobs in the administration, but kept the tightened ethics rules for appointees who had been registered lobbyists within the last two years. Trump’s executive order also removes the Obama-era requirement that officials explain why a waiver was issued and eliminates the oversight mechanism carried out by the Office of Government Ethics.

                            http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/...b0540ffc8473c6
                            https://www.usnews.com/news/us/artic...ethics-waivers
                            http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2017...s-waivers.html
                            Last edited by DOR; 01 Jun 17,, 12:54.
                            Trust me?
                            I'm an economist!

                            Comment


                            • US anti-Trump protesters facing decades behind bars
                              More than 200 anti-Trump protesters are facing felony charges that could land some in prison for 70 to 80 years.


                              When Olivia Alsip travelled to the capital to protest against the inauguration of right-wing US President Donald Trump, she didn't imagine she would end the day behind bars and later face up to 80 years in prison.

                              Thousands of people journeyed from across the US to Washington, DC, to protest on the first day of Trump's presidency, January 20.

                              During the swearing-in, Alsip was among the more than 230 protesters arrested when officers from the Metropolitan Police Department (MPD) blocked off a large area and hauled off nearly everyone.

                              "I am wondering if my 24th birthday next week will be my last as a free person," she says by telephone from Chicago. "I've never in my life had such a painful and stressful experience. There are no words to convey the severity of this."

                              "Our experience in police custody [that day] was totally dehumanising. We were kettled, treated like animals and denied basic human rights and dignity," she recollects. "People were forced to urinate on the streets and denied water and food."

                              The arrests came after Black Bloc anarchists and anti-fascists clashed with police. Officers fired rubber bullets and tear gas at protesters.

                              Anti-Trump chants were occasionally drowned out by the thuds of sound grenades and smoke bombs.

                              Left behind was broken glass from the windows of cafes, restaurants and banks. Declarations of resistance marked the walls and pavements: "Make racists afraid again," and "F*ck Trump".

                              Images of a limousine in flames later made it onto television screens and the front pages of news websites around the world.

                              READ MORE: US anti-fascists 'can make racists afraid again'

                              On January 21, most of the 230 protesters and bystanders arrested the day before were charged with felony rioting, which carries a maximum prison sentence of 10 years and a $25,000 fine.

                              But on April 27, the Superior Court of the District of Columbia returned a superseding indictment which added additional charges for some 212 defendants, three of whom had not previously been charged.

                              With new felony charges including urging to riot, conspiracy to riot and destruction of property, many of the defendants are facing up to 80 years in prison. Many other defendants, among them journalists, are facing more than 70 years.

                              A handful of defendants have made deals with the authorities and entered guilty pleas in exchange for significantly shorter sentences.

                              But more than 130 of them have joined a 'Points of Unity' agreement, a collective pledge to reject any potential plea deals and reject cooperation with the prosecutors that comes at the expense of their co-defendants.

                              Last Friday, 21 defendants filed motions (PDF) to have their cases dismissed.

                              Replying to Al Jazeera by email, MPD spokesperson Rachel Reid said: "the arrests on Inauguration Day is the subject of pending litigation and... the MPD has no comment".

                              The US Attorney's Office for the District of Columbia failed to respond to Al Jazeera's requests for a comment.

                              'Innocent until proven guilty is a falsehood'

                              For Alsip, the ever-present weight of the charges has already taken a toll on her life. "I'm pretty shocked by the impact it's had on my personal life," she explains.

                              "It seems that innocent until proven guilty is a falsehood - all the way from the prosecution and police to the people who had previously supported me in my activism. It's hanging over my head the entire time, which makes it really challenging. It hinders your ability to plan your life."

                              More challenging still, she must travel from Chicago to the capital for each court hearing between now and her trial date in March. She says the legal and travel costs are placing an immense burden on the defendants.

                              "Most of us don't have a whole lot of money," she says, adding that she refuses to take a plea deal.

                              "Generally we are fighting the rich because we are economically or politically disadvantaged and don't have a lot of capital."

                              She adds of protesting Trump's far-right policies: "Communities like ours cannot [be silent]. It's a matter of life and death for some of us. The status quo is extermination and to be ostracised. If there is a time during my life when we need protest most, it's now."

                              Taylor, one of the defendants, spoke to Al Jazeera under a pseudonym due to fear of "harassment by the alt-right" on social media, explaining that several defendants have had their names, addresses and places of employment posted online.

                              Speaking to Al Jazeera by email, Taylor says the charges aimed at "stifling resistance".

                              "I was arrested when the police kettled the crowd," Taylor says, explaining that many protesters and bystanders were disoriented by pepper spray and stun grenades.

                              "The MPD closed off an entire city block and arrested everyone within that block. There was no order to disperse and no warning," Taylor recalls.

                              "It is no coincidence that this repression coincides with the first visible manifestation of resistance to Trump's regime."

                              Taylor's accusations that the police failed to give warnings were echoed in a report (PDF) published by the DC Mayor's Office of Police Complaints.

                              It concluded that "less than lethal weapons were used indiscriminately and without adequate warnings in certain instances".

                              Sam Menefee-Libey of the DC Legal Posse, an activist group that supports the defendants, describes the charges as "specious" and a "blatantly politicised" effort to deflect attention from the police's "brutal force" on January 20.

                              "Folks know that the carceral state is a defining fact of political life for communities of colour and the left for decades, and this is also a notable escalation of that," he argues, adding that the prosecution of the defendants will set a precedent for further crackdowns on dissent.

                              "I don't understand why people aren't treating this as more than 200 canaries in a coal mine," he says, calling for broader solidarity with the defendants.

                              "Thousands of people put themselves on the line while engaging in direct political action on Inauguration Day. Many of them were met with horrible police violence, and it deserves more attention."

                              Restricting protests

                              As protests flourish in cities and towns across the US, at least 18 states are now considering 30-plus bills designed to curb protests by introducing increasingly severe penalties for demonstrators.

                              Earlier this month, Oklahoma Governor Mary Fallin signed into law a bill that will increase penalties against activists who trespass on property with a "critical infrastructure facility".

                              Another bill in Missouri will prohibit protesters from wearing masks or disguises during demonstrations, while proposed legislation in several states - Florida, Tennessee, Georgia and Iowa - will impose harsher punishment on people who block traffic or trespass.

                              Rights groups have denounced the bills. The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) has vowed to challenge anti-protest bills in state legislatures.

                              Deeming the proposals as unconstitutional, the ACLU says it "will fight in statehouses against any bill that violates the First Amendment, and for any that become law, we're hopeful the courts will see these bills for what they are: unlawful infringements on our right to speak".

                              The United Nations warned in March that 16 such bills, if passed, will violate international human rights law and have a "chilling effect" on protesters. The bills would strip "the voices of the most marginalised, who often find the right to assemble the only alternative to express their opinions".

                              Nick Zerwas, a Republican state representative in Minnesota, coauthored one of the bills introduced recently in his state legislature. It aims to impose a harsher punishment for protesters who block freeways, access to airports or access to public trains.

                              "It's already against the law to block a freeway or access to airport already, or a commuter train," says Zerwas, speaking to Al Jazeera by telephone.

                              Explaining that the punishment would increase from misdemeanour to gross misdemeanour for those offences, he adds: "I think the criticisms are just misdirected. You don't have a first amendment to pull your car perpendicular in the freeway in the middle of a protest, for instance."

                              Growing confrontations

                              The crackdown on protests comes at a moment of growing confrontations between anti-fascists and other leftists on the one hand, and activists from the alt-right and other hardline Trump supporters on the other.

                              Matthew Whitley, a spokesperson for the Metropolitan Anarchist Coordinating Council (MACC), argues that there is a "clear bias" in the treatment of left-wing protesters and pro-Trump demonstrators, among them far-right hardliners.

                              Whitley pointed to the case of a 34-year-old member of the Industrial Workers of the World, a left-wing union, who was shot by a Trump supporter outside a speech by former Breitbart editor Milo Yiannopoulos in January.

                              "The strange reality now is that we have a president in power who is supported by white nationalists, neo-Nazis and the far-right," he argues, pointing out that although far-right activists have been arrested, they have not experienced the kind of mass arrests faced by anti-Trump protesters on Inauguration Day.

                              "The fact that Trump is supported by these groups inevitably has to have an impact - he's not going to oversee a harsh crackdown on his own supporters."

                              Arguing that the charges against her and other protesters are politicised, Olivia Alsip alludes to an incident that took place the day before her arrest. John Joseph Boswell, a millionaire who travelled to the capital to celebrate Trump's inauguration, was arrested after sexually assaulting a maid in his hotel room.

                              Although he later pleaded guilty to a misdemeanour sexual abuse charge, Boswell was given a suspended sentence of 10 days in jail, a $50 fine and six months of probation.

                              "If the government cared about people's suffering they'd be working with us and engaging oppressed communities. But private property is more important to the government and society at large than human lives," Alsip concludes.

                              "I'm looking at spending more than three times my age in prison for going to a protest. No human being should be in a cage that long, especially not for trying to live."
                              http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/fea...063956218.html

                              Comment


                              • https://www.washingtonpost.com/world...dfc_story.html

                                Trump administration moves to return Russian compounds in Maryland and New York

                                Two luxury retreats, in Centreville, Md., and Oyster Bay, N.Y., where Russian diplomats have gone for decades to play tennis, sail and swim, were shut down by the Obama administration in retaliation for Moscow’s alleged hacking in the presidential election.

                                By Karen DeYoung and Adam Entous May 31 at 7:16 PM

                                The Trump administration is moving toward handing back to Russia two diplomatic compounds, near New York City and on Maryland’s Eastern Shore, that its officials were ejected from in late December as punishment for Moscow’s interference in the 2016 presidential election.

                                President Barack Obama said Dec. 29 that the compounds were being “used by Russian personnel for intelligence-related purposes” and gave Russia 24 hours to vacate them. Separately, Obama expelled from the United States what he said were 35 Russian “intelligence operatives.”

                                Early last month, the Trump administration told the Russians that it would consider turning the properties back over to them if Moscow would lift its freeze, imposed in 2014 in retaliation for U.S. sanctions related to Ukraine, on construction of a new U.S. consulate on a certain parcel of land in St. Petersburg.

                                Two days later, the U.S. position changed. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson told Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak at a meeting in Washington that the United States had dropped any linkage between the compounds and the consulate, according to several people with knowledge of the exchanges.

                                In Moscow on Wednesday, Kremlin aide Yury Ushakov said Russia was “taking into account the difficult internal political situation for the current administration” but retained the option to reciprocate for what he called the “expropriation” of Russian property “if these steps are not somehow adjusted by the U.S. side,” the news outlet Sputnik reported.

                                Senior Tillerson adviser R.C. Hammond said that “the U.S. and Russia have reached no agreements.” He said the next senior- level meeting between the two governments, below the secretary of state level, will be in June in St. Petersburg.

                                Before making a final decision on allowing the Russians to reoccupy the compounds, the administration is examining possible restrictions on Russian activities there, including removing the diplomatic immunity the properties previously enjoyed. Without immunity, the facilities would be treated as any other buildings in the United States and would not be barred to entry by U.S. law enforcement, according to people who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive diplomatic matters.

                                Any concessions to Moscow could prove controversial while administration and former Trump campaign officials are under congressional and special counsel investigation for alleged ties to Russia.

                                [Comey may testify before Senate as early as next week on Trump interactions]

                                Changes in the administration’s official posture toward the compounds come as Russian media recently suggested that Kislyak, about to leave Washington after serving as ambassador since 2008, may be proposed by the Kremlin to head a new position as U.N. undersecretary general for counterterrorism.
                                A fence encloses an estate in the village of Upper Brookville in the town of Oyster Bay, N.Y., on Long Island on Dec. 30, 2016. (Alexander F. Yuan/Associated Press)

                                Kislyak, who met and spoke during the campaign and transition with President Trump’s former national security adviser, Michael Flynn; Trump’s White House adviser and son-in-law, Jared Kushner; Attorney General Jeff Sessions; and others, is known to be interested in the post. His replacement as ambassador, Deputy Foreign Minister Anatoly Antonov, was confirmed last month by the Russian Duma, or parliament. Officials in Moscow said Russian President Vladi*mir Putin will officially inform Trump of the new ambassador when the two meet in July, at the Group of 20 summit in Hamburg. It will be Trump’s first meeting with Putin as president.

                                The U.N. General Assembly must first approve establishment of the counterterrorism slot, part of a larger U.N. reorganization and the first new post at that level for decades.

                                Russia will almost certainly claim the slot as the only member of the five permanent members of the Security Council without one of its nationals in a senior U.N. position. Jeffrey Feltman, a former senior U.S. diplomat, is undersecretary-general for political affairs; comparable jobs for peacekeeping, humanitarian affairs and economic affairs are held, respectively, by nationals from France, Britain and China.

                                Secretary General António Guterres will decide who fills the new job, although both Russia and the United States are expected to make their views known.

                                Kislyak has repeatedly rejected descriptions of him in the U.S. media as a spy. Asked whether U.S. intelligence considered him to be one, James R. Clapper Jr., the former director of national intelligence, told CNN on Sunday that “given the fact that he oversees a very aggressive intelligence operation in this country — the Russians have more intelligence operatives than any other nation that is represented in this country, still even after we got rid of 35 of them — and so to suggest that he is somehow separate or oblivious to that is a bit much.”

                                [Russian ambassador told Moscow that Kushner wanted secret communications channel with Kremlin]

                                The Russian compounds — a 14-acre estate on Long Island and several buildings on secluded acreage along the Corsica River on Maryland’s Eastern Shore — have been in Russian possession since the days of the Soviet Union. According to a Maryland deed in 1995, the former USSR transferred ownership of the Maryland property to the Russian Federation in 1995 for a payment of one dollar.

                                Russia said it used the facilities, both of which had diplomatic immunity, for rest and recreation for embassy and U.N. employees and to hold official events. But U.S. officials dating to the Reagan administration, based on aerial and other surveillance, had long believed they were also being used for intelligence purposes.

                                Last year, when Russian security services began harassing U.S. officials in Moscow — including slashed tires, home break-ins, and, at one point, tackling and throwing to the ground a U.S. embassy official entering through the front of the embassy — the Obama administration threatened to close the compounds, former Obama officials said.

                                In meetings to protest the treatment, the Obama administration said that it would do so unless the harassment stopped, and Moscow dropped its freeze on construction of a new consulate to replace the one in St. Petersburg, considered largely unusable because of Russian spying equipment installed there. Russia had earlier blocked U.S. use of a parcel of land and construction guarantees in the city when sanctions were imposed after its military intervention in Ukraine and annexation of Crimea.

                                The threat of closing the compounds was not pursued. In late December, after U.S. intelligence said there had been election meddling, and in response to the ongoing harassment in Moscow, Obama ordered the compounds closed and diplomats expelled. “We had no intention of ever giving them back,” a former senior Obama official said of the compounds.

                                Trump, then at his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida, appeared to disparage the Obama administration sanctions, telling reporters, “I think we ought to get on with our lives.”

                                Surprisingly, Russia did not respond. It later emerged that Flynn, in a phone conversation with Kislyak, had advised against retaliation and indicated that U.S. policy would change under the Trump administration.


                                The Kremlin made clear that the compound issue was at the top of its bilateral agenda. Russia repeatedly denounced what it called the “seizure” of the properties as an illegal violation of diplomatic treaties.

                                On May 8, the U.S. undersecretary of state for political affairs, Thomas Shannon, traveled to New York to meet with his Russian counterpart, Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov on what the State Department described as “a range of bilateral issues” and what Russia called “irritants” and “grievances.”

                                Ryabkov brought up the compounds, while Shannon raised St. Petersburg and harassment, suggesting that they deal with the operation of their diplomats and facilities in each others’ countries separate from policy issues such as Syria and proposing that they clear the decks with a compromise.

                                Russia refused, saying that the compound issue was a hostile act that deserved no reciprocal action to resolve and had to be dealt with before other diplomatic problems could be addressed. In an interview with Tass, Ryabkov said Moscow was alarmed that Washington “carries on working out certain issues in its traditional manner, particularly concerning Russia’s diplomatic property in the states of Maryland and New York.”

                                Two days later in Washington, Tillerson told Lavrov that the United States would no longer link the compounds to the issue of St. Petersburg.

                                Immediately after their May 10 meeting at the State Department, Tillerson escorted Lavrov and Kislyak to the Oval Office. There, they held a private meeting with Trump. The night before, the president had fired FBI Director James B. Comey, who was then heading an FBI investigation of the Russia ties.

                                Comey, Trump told the Russians, was a “real nut job,” and his removal had “taken off” the *Russia-related pressure the president was under, the New York Times reported. Later in May, the Justice Department appointed former FBI director Robert S. Mueller III as special counsel to oversee the federal investigation.

                                In a news conference at the Russian Embassy after his meetings with Tillerson and Trump, Lavrov said of the compound closures, “Everyone, in particular the Trump administration, is aware that those actions were illegal.”
                                13

                                “The dialogue between Russia and the U.S. is now free from the ideology that characterized it under the Barack Obama administration,” he said.

                                Julie Tate contributed to this report.
                                There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there has always been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that "My ignorance is just as good as your knowledge."- Isaac Asimov

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