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Los Angeles Times, Part 2: Why Trump Lies

By dianeravitch
April 4, 2017 //
10

This is the second in a series of four editorials by the editorial board of the Los Angeles Times. It was published yesterday.

Donald Trump did not invent the lie and is not even its master. Lies have oozed out of the White House for more than two centuries and out of politicians’ mouths — out of all people’s mouths — likely as long as there has been human speech.

But amid all those lies, told to ourselves and to one another in order to amass power, woo lovers, hurt enemies and shield ourselves against the often glaring discomfort of reality, humanity has always had an abiding respect for truth.

In the United States, born and periodically reborn out of the repeated recognition and rejection of the age-old lie that some people are meant to take dominion over others, truth is as vital a part of the civic, social and intellectual culture as justice and liberty. Our civilization is premised on the conviction that such a thing as truth exists, that it is knowable, that it is verifiable, that it exists independently of authority or popularity and that at some point — and preferably sooner rather than later — it will prevail.

Even American leaders who lie generally know the difference between their statements and the truth. Richard Nixon said “I am not a crook” but by that point must have seen that he was. Bill Clinton said “I did not have sexual relations with that woman” but knew that he did.

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He targets the darkness, anger and insecurity that hide in each of us and harnesses them for his own purposes.
”

The insult that Donald Trump brings to the equation is an apparent disregard for fact so profound as to suggest that he may not see much practical distinction between lies, if he believes they serve him, and the truth.

His approach succeeds because of his preternaturally deft grasp of his audience. Though he is neither terribly articulate nor a seasoned politician, he has a remarkable instinct for discerning which conspiracy theories in which quasi-news source, or which of his own inner musings, will turn into ratings gold. He targets the darkness, anger and insecurity that hide in each of us and harnesses them for his own purposes. If one of his lies doesn’t work — well, then he lies about that.

If we harbor latent racism or if we fear terror attacks by Muslim extremists, then he elevates a rumor into a public debate: Was Barack Obama born in Kenya, and is he therefore not really president?

An ‘extremely credible source’ has called my office and told me that @BarackObama’s birth certificate is a fraud.

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 6, 2012
Libya is being taken over by Islamic radicals—-with @BarackObama’s open support.

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 31, 2011
If his own ego is threatened — if broadcast footage and photos show a smaller-sized crowd at his inauguration than he wanted — then he targets the news media, falsely charging outlets with disseminating “fake news” and insisting, against all evidence, that he has proved his case (“We caught them in a beauty,” he said).

If his attempt to limit the number of Muslim visitors to the U.S. degenerates into an absolute fiasco and a display of his administration’s incompetence, then he falsely asserts that terrorist attacks are underreported. (One case in point offered by the White House was the 2015 attack in San Bernardino, which in fact received intensive worldwide news coverage. The Los Angeles Times won a Pulitzer Prize for its reporting on the subject).

If he detects that his audience may be wearying of his act, or if he worries about a probe into Russian meddling into the election that put him in office, he tweets in the middle of the night the astonishingly absurd claim that President Obama tapped his phones. And when evidence fails to support him he dispatches his aides to explain that by “phone tapping” he obviously didn’t mean phone tapping. Instead of backing down when confronted with reality, he insists that his rebutted assertions will be vindicated as true at some point in the future.

Trump’s easy embrace of untruth can sometimes be entertaining, in the vein of a Moammar Kadafi speech to the United Nations or the self-serving blathering of a 6-year-old.

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He gives every indication that he is as much the gullible tool of liars as he is the liar in chief.
”

But he is not merely amusing. He is dangerous. His choice of falsehoods and his method of spewing them — often in tweets, as if he spent his days and nights glued to his bedside radio and was periodically set off by some drivel uttered by a talk show host who repeated something he’d read on some fringe blog — are a clue to Trump’s thought processes and perhaps his lack of agency. He gives every indication that he is as much the gullible tool of liars as he is the liar in chief.

He has made himself the stooge, the mark, for every crazy blogger, political quack, racial theorist, foreign leader or nutcase peddling a story that he might repackage to his benefit as a tweet, an appointment, an executive order or a policy. He is a stranger to the concept of verification, the insistence on evidence and the standards of proof that apply in a courtroom or a medical lab — and that ought to prevail in the White House.

There have always been those who accept the intellectually bankrupt notion that people are entitled to invent their own facts — consider the “9/11 was an inside job” trope — but Trump’s ascent marks the first time that the culture of alternative reality has made its home at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.

If Americans are unsure which Trump they have — the Machiavellian negotiator who lies to manipulate simpler minds, or one of those simpler minds himself — does it really matter? In either case he puts the nation in danger by undermining the role of truth in public discourse and policymaking, as well as the notion of truth being verifiable and mutually intelligible.

In the months ahead, Trump will bring his embrace of alternative facts on the nation’s behalf into talks with China, North Korea or any number of powers with interests counter to ours and that constitute an existential threat. At home, Trump now becomes the embodiment of the populist notion (with roots planted at least as deeply in the Left as the Right) that verifiable truth is merely a concept invented by fusty intellectuals, and that popular leaders can provide some equally valid substitute. We’ve seen people like that before, and we have a name for them: demagogues.

Our civilization is defined in part by the disciplines — science, law, journalism — that have developed systematic methods to arrive at the truth. Citizenship brings with it the obligation to engage in a similar process. Good citizens test assumptions, question leaders, argue details, research claims.

Investigate. Read. Write. Listen. Speak. Think. Be wary of those who disparage the investigators, the readers, the writers, the listeners, the speakers and the thinkers. Be suspicious of those who confuse reality with reality TV, and those who repeat falsehoods while insisting, against all evidence, that they are true. To defend freedom, demand fact.

This is the second in a series.

Categories Democracy, Fake News, Lies, Trump

Los Angeles Editorial: “Our Dishonest President,” Part 1

By dianeravitch
April 3, 2017 //
29

The Los Angeles Times is publishing a series of editorials about Donald Trump. This is the first. It was published yesterday.


It was no secret during the campaign that Donald Trump was a narcissist and a demagogue who used fear and dishonesty to appeal to the worst in American voters. The Times called him unprepared and unsuited for the job he was seeking, and said his election would be a “catastrophe.”

Still, nothing prepared us for the magnitude of this train wreck. Like millions of other Americans, we clung to a slim hope that the new president would turn out to be all noise and bluster, or that the people around him in the White House would act as a check on his worst instincts, or that he would be sobered and transformed by the awesome responsibilities of office.

Instead, seventy-some days in — and with about 1,400 to go before his term is completed — it is increasingly clear that those hopes were misplaced.

In a matter of weeks, President Trump has taken dozens of real-life steps that, if they are not reversed, will rip families apart, foul rivers and pollute the air, intensify the calamitous effects of climate change and profoundly weaken the system of American public education for all.

His attempt to de-insure millions of people who had finally received healthcare coverage and, along the way, enact a massive transfer of wealth from the poor to the rich has been put on hold for the moment. But he is proceeding with his efforts to defang the government’s regulatory agencies and bloat the Pentagon’s budget even as he supposedly retreats from the global stage.

It is impossible to know where his presidency will lead or how much damage he will do to our nation.

These are immensely dangerous developments which threaten to weaken this country’s moral standing in the world, imperil the planet and reverse years of slow but steady gains by marginalized or impoverished Americans. But, chilling as they are, these radically wrongheaded policy choices are not, in fact, the most frightening aspect of the Trump presidency.

What is most worrisome about Trump is Trump himself. He is a man so unpredictable, so reckless, so petulant, so full of blind self-regard, so untethered to reality that it is impossible to know where his presidency will lead or how much damage he will do to our nation. His obsession with his own fame, wealth and success, his determination to vanquish enemies real and imagined, his craving for adulation — these traits were, of course, at the very heart of his scorched-earth outsider campaign; indeed, some of them helped get him elected. But in a real presidency in which he wields unimaginable power, they are nothing short of disastrous.

Although his policies are, for the most part, variations on classic Republican positions (many of which would have been undertaken by a President Ted Cruz or a President Marco Rubio), they become far more dangerous in the hands of this imprudent and erratic man. Many Republicans, for instance, support tighter border security and a tougher response to illegal immigration, but Trump’s cockamamie border wall, his impracticable campaign promise to deport all 11 million people living in the country illegally and his blithe disregard for the effect of such proposals on the U.S. relationship with Mexico turn a very bad policy into an appalling one.

In the days ahead, The Times editorial board will look more closely at the new president, with a special attention to three troubling traits:

1. Trump’s shocking lack of respect for those fundamental rules and institutions on which our government is based. Since Jan. 20, he has repeatedly disparaged and challenged those entities that have threatened his agenda, stoking public distrust of essential institutions in a way that undermines faith in American democracy. He has questioned the qualifications of judges and the integrity of their decisions, rather than acknowledging that even the president must submit to the rule of law. He has clashed with his own intelligence agencies, demeaned government workers and questioned the credibility of the electoral system and the Federal Reserve. He has lashed out at journalists, declaring them “enemies of the people,” rather than defending the importance of a critical, independent free press. His contempt for the rule of law and the norms of government are palpable.

2. His utter lack of regard for truth. Whether it is the easily disprovable boasts about the size of his inauguration crowd or his unsubstantiated assertion that Barack Obama bugged Trump Tower, the new president regularly muddies the waters of fact and fiction. It’s difficult to know whether he actually can’t distinguish the real from the unreal — or whether he intentionally conflates the two to befuddle voters, deflect criticism and undermine the very idea of objective truth. Whatever the explanation, he is encouraging Americans to reject facts, to disrespect science, documents, nonpartisanship and the mainstream media — and instead to simply take positions on the basis of ideology and preconceived notions. This is a recipe for a divided country in which differences grow deeper and rational compromise becomes impossible.

3. His scary willingness to repeat alt-right conspiracy theories, racist memes and crackpot, out-of-the-mainstream ideas. Again, it is not clear whether he believes them or merely uses them. But to cling to disproven “alternative” facts; to retweet racists; to make unverifiable or false statements about rigged elections and fraudulent voters; to buy into discredited conspiracy theories first floated on fringe websites and in supermarket tabloids — these are all of a piece with the Barack Obama birther claptrap that Trump was peddling years ago and which brought him to political prominence. It is deeply alarming that a president would lend the credibility of his office to ideas that have been rightly rejected by politicians from both major political parties.

Where will this end? Will Trump moderate his crazier campaign positions as time passes? Or will he provoke confrontation with Iran, North Korea or China, or disobey a judge’s order or order a soldier to violate the Constitution? Or, alternately, will the system itself — the Constitution, the courts, the permanent bureaucracy, the Congress, the Democrats, the marchers in the streets — protect us from him as he alienates more and more allies at home and abroad, steps on his own message and creates chaos at the expense of his ability to accomplish his goals? Already, Trump’s job approval rating has been hovering in the mid-30s, according to Gallup, a shockingly low level of support for a new president. And that was before his former national security advisor, Michael Flynn, offered to cooperate last week with congressional investigators looking into the connection between the Russian government and the Trump campaign.

Those who oppose the new president’s reckless and heartless agenda must make their voices heard.

On Inauguration Day, we wrote on this page that it was not yet time to declare a state of “wholesale panic” or to call for blanket “non-cooperation” with the Trump administration. Despite plenty of dispiriting signals, that is still our view. The role of the rational opposition is to stand up for the rule of law, the electoral process, the peaceful transfer of power and the role of institutions; we should not underestimate the resiliency of a system in which laws are greater than individuals and voters are as powerful as presidents. This nation survived Andrew Jackson and Richard Nixon. It survived slavery. It survived devastating wars. Most likely, it will survive again.

But if it is to do so, those who oppose the new president’s reckless and heartless agenda must make their voices heard. Protesters must raise their banners. Voters must turn out for elections. Members of Congress — including and especially Republicans — must find the political courage to stand up to Trump. Courts must safeguard the Constitution. State legislators must pass laws to protect their citizens and their policies from federal meddling. All of us who are in the business of holding leaders accountable must redouble our efforts to defend the truth from his cynical assaults.

The United States is not a perfect country, and it has a great distance to go before it fully achieves its goals of liberty and equality. But preserving what works and defending the rules and values on which democracy depends are a shared responsibility. Everybody has a role to play in this drama.

Categories Accountability, Democracy, Equity, Freedom, Freedom of the Press, Ignorance, Injustice, Lies, Trump

Why the FBI Can’t Tell All About Trump

By dianeravitch
April 2, 2017 //
18

I posted this article a few days ago with the warning that I could not vouch for the source. I have since checked out the website–WhoWhatWhy–and conclude that it is a highly reputable source for honest investigative journalism.

I think if you scan the website, see who writes for it, who edits it, who is on the board of directors, you will agree this is not fake news.

Here is the mission statement:

WhoWhatWhy embodies a form of investigative reporting that is rigorous, relentless and scientific — we call it forensic journalism.

Forensic journalism requires skepticism towards power and credentialed expertise; a determination to unearth the facts interested parties want to keep hidden; and an unflinching commitment to follow the trail wherever it leads. We are truth seeking-not quote seeking.

We take on controversial topics others will not touch and dig deep to uncover and name the institutions and persons shaping our world. Our organization is neither partisan nor ideological and only provides accounts based on extensive research and thorough sourcing.

In addition to producing rigorous investigative reporting, we seek to further the long-term survival and betterment of the news industry as a whole.

The story with which I began is about the possible connection between Trump and the Russian mafia. This story has enormous implications for our democracy and for future elections.

It begins:

The Federal Bureau of Investigation cannot tell us what we need to know about Donald Trump’s contacts with Russia. Why? Because doing so would jeopardize a long-running, ultra-sensitive operation targeting mobsters tied to Russian President Vladimir Putin — and to Trump.

But the Feds’ stonewalling risks something far more dangerous: Failing to resolve a crisis of trust in America’s president. WhoWhatWhy provides the details of a two-month investigation in this 6,500-word exposé.

The FBI apparently knew, directly or indirectly, based upon available facts, that prior to Election Day, Trump and his campaign had personal and business dealings with certain individuals and entities linked to criminal elements — including reputed Russian gangsters — connected to Putin.

The same facts suggest that the FBI knew or should have known enough prior to the election to justify informing the public about its ongoing investigation of potentially compromising relationships between Trump, Putin, and Russian mobsters — even if it meant losing or exposing a valued informant.

***

It will take an agency independent of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) to expose Donald Trump’s true relationship with Moscow and the role Russia may have played in getting him elected.

Director James Comey recently revealed in a congressional hearing for the first time that the FBI “is investigating … the nature of any links between individuals associated with the Trump campaign and the Russian government and whether there was any coordination between the campaign and Russia’s efforts.”

However, a two-month WhoWhatWhy investigation has revealed an important reason the Bureau may be facing undisclosed obstacles to revealing what it knows to the public or to lawmakers.

Our investigation also may explain why the FBI, which was very public about its probe of Hillary Clinton’s emails, never disclosed its investigation of the Trump campaign prior to the election, even though we now know that it commenced last July.

Categories Democracy, Media, Trump

Darren Walker: How the Arts Changed My Life and Enrich the Nation

By dianeravitch
April 2, 2017 //
8

Darren Walker is president of the Ford Foundation. He was recently honored at the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C., and used the occasion to explain how his exposure to the arts changed his life.

He said,

“As a little boy, I lived with my mother and sister in a little shotgun house—in an African-American community in rural Liberty County, Texas. My grandmother worked as a maid in the home of a wealthy Houston family. And every month, she would bring me old art magazines and programs from arts events the family attended.

“I remember, vividly, feeling transfixed by the magic I saw on those pages—by images of worlds to which I had no other exposure. I remember flipping through those magazines and programs, and falling in love, swiftly and deeply. Those pages unlocked my capacity to imagine a world beyond my own—and to imagine my place in it.

“Simply put, the arts changed my life. They imbued me with the power to imagine, the power to dream, and the power to know I could express myself with dignity, and beauty, and grace.

“But here’s the thing: I was lucky.

“I was lucky to have the right grandmother. Lucky that she worked as a maid in the right house. Lucky that house was inhabited by the right wealthy family, who subscribed to the right magazines, and had diverse interests in the arts. Lucky that family showed their love by giving me their discarded magazines and programs.”

He then goes on to explain how important the arts are to the nation, not only as cultural enrichment but as a thriving economy. But the arts cannot be measured or valued by dollars alone.

“You see, all of us here tonight: We are all the lucky ones. Because there are children across the country growing up in circumstances not unlike those of my childhood—children who, day after day, experience in their lives the most terrible manifestations of inequality.

“For them, exposure to the arts, to imagination and ambition, remains a matter of chance or circumstance. But it shouldn’t be. It can’t be. Not in a democracy like ours.

“Everyone deserves to experience the arts. No child should need a permission slip to dream.

“Art is not a privilege. Art is the soul of our civilization; the beating heart of our humanity; a miracle to which we all should bear witness, over and over again, in every home—from the most modest and humble to the grandest and well-fashioned.

“And tonight—in this place, our national cathedral to the arts, and in this moment, these perilous and challenging times in our nation’s history—I would argue that we need the arts and humanities more than ever before.”

As an aside, I was reminded of a line attributed to Winston Churchill. Allegedly, someone said during World War 2 that the government had to spend less on the arts and more on the military. He is said to have replied, “If we don’t have the arts, then what are we fighting for?” My googling indicated that the quote is apocryphal, but it is good nonetheless.

Categories Art, Arts Education, Democracy

Arthur Camins: Don’t Be Fooled: In a Democracy, Public Schools Are Better than Private Schools

By dianeravitch
April 1, 2017 //
13

Arthur Camins, scientist and specialist in innovation, kicks off our celebration of April Fools Day with his timely warning not to be fooled by Trump and DeVos: in a democratic society, public schools are better than private schools. They are the only path to a better education for all. We need them. We do not need to resurrect the segregation that existed before the Brown decision. We have not achieved its democratic goals, but we should not abandon them.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/58deb703e4b03c2b30f6a629

He writes:

“It’s April Fools Day, which reminds me: Donald Trump and Betsy DeVos want us to think that private schools are better, not just for rich folks like them, but for everyone else too– Just like with Paul Ryan and health care. Don’t be fooled. It is a ruse. Public is better!

“Growing up, I knew the meaning of private places. Private places were about gates, both physical and de facto. Private meant, “Keep out!” Private schools were not for me, but for someone else. Private clubs were for someone else. Private roads were for someone else. I understood that the people who were saying, “Stay on your side of the gate,” were usually rich and Christian, and always White. That meant not me as a Jew. I knew for certain that it also meant, not for Blacks and not for poor folks. Sometimes, private meant no women. The message was always clear: “We do not want you around us!”

“As a nation, we need to be better than that.

“Make no mistake. The folks inside the gates of privilege aim to stay there. However, to do so they need the rest of us to believe three things: First, that they have privileges because they deserve them and the rest of us do not; Second, that there is a chance, however slim, that a few of us just might get inside and become privileged too; Third, having just a few folks inside the gates and the rest of us outside is the way things are and always will be.

“Unfortunately, in the minds of some of those standing outside the gates looking in, private implies, “That’s Better than what I have. I want that too.” Growing up, I also knew about some outside folks who managed to slip inside the gate. I grew to despise them because once inside they chose to identify with their former gatekeepers. They did not join struggles to remove gates or to make things better for everyone….

“If we want a country in which the greatest good for the greatest number of people is a high priority, public is better. I think most folks think so too. That’s why we have public schools, roads and bridges, police, firefighters, parks, Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid just to name a few public services. These are common-good activities that we cannot afford as individuals, so we share the costs. Not everyone goes to school, but we all benefit from an educated citizenry. Not everyone drives, but without good road and bridges, we would all suffer. Some of us are not old and in need of extra medical care, but we might be someday. Cost sharing brings broad access. It makes economic sense. For most of us, it is also a moral responsibility.”

Categories Corporate Reform, Democracy, Education Reform, Hoax, Hypocrisy, School Choice, Supporting public schools, Trump

Bruce Baker: Why #PublicGoodsMatter

By dianeravitch
March 31, 2017 //
45

Bruce Baker employs a series of tweets to demonstrate the fallacy of “the money follows the child.” Public money is collected for the public good. Public money supports services and institutions for future generations, not just for those now using them. The oft-heard demand that “the money follows the child” is fallacious. It is used to privatize institutions created for all.

https://schoolfinance101.wordpress.com/2017/03/28/public-goods-the-money-belongs-to-the-child-fallacy-in-tweets/

Categories Charter Schools, Democracy, Education Industry, For-Profit, Privatization, School Choice, Supporting public schools, Vouchers

Virginia: Governor McAuliffe Vetoes Legislation to Expand Charters and Gut Local Control

By dianeravitch
March 25, 2017 //
10

Congratulations, Governor McAuliffe of Virginia for protecting the children and public schools of Virginia from predatory privatizers. For standing up to Trump, DeVos, and the corporate reform movement inside the Democratic Party, I add you to the honor roll of this blog.

Governor Terry McAuliffe vetoed legislation intended to remove the authorization of charter schools from local school boards. He also vetoed legislation to permit virtual charter schools.

“Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe Thursday vetoed legislation sponsored in the House of Delegates by Del. Steve Landes that would have allowed the state Board of Education to create regional charter school divisions.

“The Senate version of the charter schools bill was introduced by Sen. Mark Obenshain, R-Harrisonburg.

“Also Thursday, the governor vetoed for the second year in a row legislation sponsored by Del. Dickie Bell that would have created a statewide virtual school program that would have provided Virginia students a full-time online education program.

“The charter school legislation would have allowed eligible school divisions to establish regional charter schools governed by a regional board. Landes said the legislation was narrowly drawn and would have included at least one school in the regional division that failed two of the last three years to reach state accreditation. Landes said logically, two neighboring school divisions could partner on a regional charter school at the elementary, middle or high school level.

“Under current Virginia law, the creation of charter schools is left to each individual school board. Only nine charter schools exist in Virginia.

“In announcing his veto, McAuliffe said: “establishing regional governing school boards that remove authority from local school boards and their members, this legislation proposes a governance model that is in conflict with the Constitution of Virginia.”

“The governor said “public charter school arrangements are already available to divisions at the discretion of the local school board, which makes the ultimate decisions about the establishment, renewal and dissolution of charter schools with its division.”

“Obenshain responded to McAuliffe’s veto saying he [Obenshain] has been “a passionate advocate’’ for charter schools. He said the schools offer “a lifeline for escaping a handful of failing school divisions.”

“The senator said the governor’s veto leaves Virginia behind other states. “With charter schools recognized nationwide as a bipartisan educational solution to improve our children’s futures, Virginia remains far behind.”

“Obenshain noted that Virginia has nine charter schools supporting 2,000 students while Florida has 500 charter schools.”

Be it noted that Governor McAuliffe is a close associate of the Clinton family. His vetoes on these bills give a morsel of hope that there might once again be a mainstream in the Democratic Party that recognizes the power and importance of public education.

Categories Corporate Reformers, Democracy, Education Industry, Honor Roll, Privatization, Virginia

A Summary of Today’s Hearings about Russian Role in Our Elections

By dianeravitch
March 20, 2017 //
19

This is a useful and informative summary of the highlights of today’s hearings, where intelligence officials confirmed that they are investigating possible collusion between the Trump campaign and the Russian government. They also said they knew of no evidence that Trump Tower was wiretapped.

The most amusing part of the summary is the compilation of tweets by Trump. He thinks the day’s exchanges cleared him of any culpability for anything. The funniest tweet is the last one cited, where he questions whether there is an investigation of collusion between the Clinton campaign and the Russian government.

Bottom line: don’t hold your breath waiting for a Trump-Spicer apology to President Obama or to the British government, which Spicer and Trump accused of spying on behalf of the Obama administration.

Paul Krugman sums it up: we are in an era of Trumpian infallibility. The president is never wrong and never apologizes. Strangest of all is that he gets his information not from the nation’s intelligence agencies (which he doesn’t trust) but from rightwing wackos like Alex Jones of InfoWars and “Judge” Napolitano of Fox News.

Categories Democracy, Trump

The Most Important Post You Will Read This Week: The Reclusive Tycoon Who Financed the Alt-Right and Trump

By dianeravitch
March 20, 2017 //
90

I will not post anything again for a while today, unless there is breaking news. You need time to read this article in full.

It is a long article by Jane Mayer of the New Yorker, who has written major books about the dark money fueling rightwing politics.

The article is an in-depth analysis of the role of billionaire Robert Mercer and his daughter Rebekah in the creation of the Trump presidency.

It is a long read. It is an important read, to understand the threat to our democracy posed by the power of unaccountable billionaires.

It is fascinating, like watching a car crash, in this case, a political tragedy.

It begins with the shocking news that Patrick Caddell, who long ago was a pollster for Jimmy Carter, is now helping Trump behind the scenes.

Then it gets into the life and personality and actions of Robert Mercer, a billionaire who says little except with his vast wealth. Mercer hates the Republican party as much as he hates the Democratic party. He wants to destroy both. He has financed Breitbart and Steve Bannon. At first, he backed Ted Cruz, hoping he would be the outsider who smashed the system. But as Cruz faded, he poured his millions into Trump as the perfect outsider, the one who could break the Republican party and the entire system.

The Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision paved the way for a politically active billionaire like Mercer to buy politicians.

Mercer doesn’t like to talk to anyone. He once said to someone that he prefers the company of cats to humans. He loves computer code.

Mercer hates the Clintons. Over the years, he has financed every conspiracy theorist who published anything that would smear the Clintons.

Mercer thinks that racism in America is vastly overstated. In his rarified life, he never sees any racism. He supported Jeff Sessions.

One of Mercer’s notions is that nuclear radiation makes people healthier. He strongly supports nuclear power.

Mercer doesn’t believe that climate change is real or important.

Mercer doesn’t believe we need a government. He wants to destroy it.

When you read this article, you will understand why every Trump cabinet appointee is determined to slash and undermine their agency; that is what Mercer wants.

The Mercers work closely with the Koch brothers.

Pollsters working for Mercer found “mounting anger toward wealthy elites, who many Americans believed had corrupted the government so that it served only their interests. There was a hunger for a populist Presidential candidate who would run against the major political parties and the ruling class.” This yearning to overturn the system worked in favor of Bernie Sanders but also Donald Trump. As Mayer notes, Mercer and a billionaire oilman named William Lee Hanley–two of the richest men in America–“paid [Patrick] Caddell to keep collecting polling data that enabled them to exploit the public’s resentment of elites such as themselves.” Caddell wanted a third-party candidate–“Mr. Smith Goes to Washington”–but Trump was the one who capitalized on that public hunger for an outsider determined to smash the establishment (of which he was part).

To understand Trump, to understand the Alt-right, to understand the danger our country and our democracy is in, read this article.

Categories Billionaires, Democracy, Trump

What to Ask About Russian Hacking in the Hearings Tomorrow

By dianeravitch
March 19, 2017 //
12

Tomorrow, the House of Representatives intelligence committee will hold hearings to investigate allegations of links between the Trump campaign and the Russian government. Members will also ask questions about Trump’s claim that Obama ordered the wire tapping of Trump Tower during the presidential campaign and that this alleged surveillance was carried out by the British spy service.

It should be an interesting day unless everyone takes the Fifth Amendment or asks to go into executive session.

Louise Mensch, a former member of the British parliament and now a New York-based journalist, suggested that specific individuals should be asked to testify, and she explains who and why in this article, which appeared yesterday in the New York Times:

It should be relatively easy to get at the truth of whether there was collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia over the hacking. I have some relevant experience. When I was a member of Parliament in Britain, I took part in a select committee investigating allegations of phone hacking by the News Corporation. Today, as a New York-based journalist (who, in fact, now works at News Corp.), I have followed the Russian hacking story closely. In November, I broke the story that a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act court had issued a warrant that enabled the F.B.I. to examine communications between “U.S. persons” in the Trump campaign relating to Russia-linked banks.

So, I have some ideas for how the House committee members should proceed. If I were Adam Schiff, the leading Democrat on the committee, I would demand to see the following witnesses: Carter Page, Paul Manafort, Richard Burt, Erik Prince, Dan Scavino, Brad Parscale, Roger Stone, Corey Lewandowski, Boris Epshteyn, Rudolph Giuliani, Michael Flynn, Michael Flynn Jr., Felix Sater, Dmitry Rybolovlev, Michael Cohen, Jack Dorsey, Mark Zuckerberg, Peter Thiel, Robert and Rebekah Mercer, Stephen Bannon, Sebastian Gorka, Michael Anton, Julia Hahn and Stephen Miller, along with executives from Cambridge Analytica, Alfa Bank, Silicon Valley Bank and Spectrum Health.

There are many more who need to be called, but these would be a first step. As to lines of questioning, here are some suggestions.

To the White House director of social media, Dan Scavino: “You tweeted an anti-Semitic meme about Hillary Clinton from Donald Trump’s account during the election. That meme appeared to have come from an automated account on a Russian-controlled network of malware-infected computers, or botnet. What knowledge did you have of the existence of a network of fake Twitter profiles that supported your campaign and were partisans of Russia?”

To the Trump campaign adviser and businessman Carter Page: “You have said that the Trump campaign approved your July visit to give a speech in Moscow. Provide the committee with a full list of everyone you spoke to during that trip and describe precisely what was discussed. Were sanctions ever a topic?

“When you met the Russian ambassador, Sergey Kislyak, at the Republican National Convention in Cleveland, what was the conversation?

“When you returned to Moscow after the election, you presented slides comparing Rex Tillerson and Hillary Clinton as secretaries of state before Mr. Tillerson was announced as Mr. Trump’s choice. Who told you Mr. Tillerson would be the pick?

“Stephen Miller, then a campaign spokesman, stated that Jeff Sessions was putting together the foreign policy team. How were you recruited to that team? What contact did you have with its head, Mr. Sessions?

“Did you at any time discuss leaking, hacking, WikiLeaks, the release of emails phished from the Clinton campaign chairman, John Podesta, or any other information not publicly available on Mrs. Clinton, or any person related to her campaign, with any Russian national, in the United States or elsewhere?

“Describe any and all financial discussions you had with any person during the campaign about the sale of a 19.5 percent stake in the state-owned Russian oil company Rosneft.”

To the former Alabama senator, now attorney general, Mr. Sessions: “Describe any communications, not merely meetings, you had with Russian citizens during the campaign. Did you ever discuss a shift in policy on Ukraine to be exchanged for the lifting of sanctions?

“Describe in full the content of your conversations with Mr. Kislyak. Were you aware that the Russian ambassador was also alleged to be a recruiter of spies?

“Did you select Mr. Page as a foreign policy adviser for the Trump campaign? If not, who did? Why did you consider him suitable to serve on your team?

“To your knowledge, did you break the law during the campaign? If so, how? To your knowledge, did anyone else related to the Trump campaign break the law during the campaign?

“Did you have any knowledge during the campaign of serving F.B.I. agents and police officers whom Rudy Giuliani, Erik Prince and Mr. Flynn claimed were leaking information to them? Did you advise anybody involved that this was against the law? If not, why not?

“Did you know Mr. Flynn was lying to Vice President Mike Pence about his calls to Russia? Did you know Mr. Flynn misled Vice President Pence on the matter of his son’s security clearance?

“Do you have any knowledge, direct or indirect, whether Mr. Trump’s lawyer Michael Cohen, or any member of his family, traveled out of the country to meet with Russians during the campaign? Do you have knowledge of whether Mr. Cohen, or any Trump associate, directly or through shell companies, made payments either to hackers or to internet companies that ran a botnet of fake accounts and websites on behalf of Russia?”

On Nov. 7, I reported that sources had told me of the existence of a FISA warrant targeting two Russia-linked banks. That warrant gave permission for the communications of American citizens that were incidentally collected as part of that investigation to be examined. (I did not report the existence of a wiretap, nor do I have any knowledge of such.)

This is an issue of the utmost consequence. If Mr. Trump’s tweet alleging that Trump Tower was wiretapped on the orders of President Barack Obama was untrue, Mr. Trump is guilty of a slur. If, however, the president tweeted real news, he revealed the existence of intercepts that cover members of his team in a continuing investigation. That would be obstruction of justice, potentially an impeachable offense.

The framing of the committee’s questions matters immensely. Legally, witnesses cannot confirm or deny even the existence of a current national security investigation. The very mention of a “FISA warrant” would allow Mr. Sessions to avoid the substance by excusing himself from commenting. Committee members must therefore word their questions without reference to any case. I would simply ask Mr. Sessions this:

“Was the president’s tweet about a wiretap at Trump Tower, to your knowledge, illegal? If so, to whom have you reported this offense?

“To your knowledge, did any person illegally inform the president that there was a wiretap at Trump Tower?”

The president’s unwillingness to answer questions about contacts between his campaign team and Russian officials, and the pattern of contradictory and misleading statements on those contacts, are toxic. Never in American history has a president been suspected of collaborating with a hostile foreign power to win an election. The founders provided three equal branches of government to protect the republic. The American people now depend on the House committee to do its job and uncover the truth.

Categories Democracy, Lies, Trump
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