The U.S. Government Has Become the Ultimate Extension of Donald Trump’s For-Profit Brand
A new lawsuit says Donald Trump is profiting off the presidency. That doesn’t begin to capture the heist underway.
Donald Trump and his family, from left, son Donald Trump Jr., son Eric Trump, wife Melania Trump, and daughters Tiffany Trump and Ivanka Trump cut the ribbon at the Trump International Hotel on Oct. 26, 2016, in Washington.
Photo: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images
In a lawsuit filed today, the attorneys general of the state of Maryland and the District of Columbia claim that by accepting millions of dollars and countless more perks from foreign governments, President Trump is at the center of an “unprecedented constitutional violation.” Whether it’s $270,000 in payments from a lobbying firm working for the Saudi government or praise from the Ambassador of Georgia (also a paying customer), Trump’s hotels and properties continue to rake it in from governments across the globe, from Turkey to Kuwait to India to Afghanistan to Qatar.
The attorneys general claim that “President Trump’s personal fortune is at stake,” whenever he makes a policy decision, whether it be about taxes, climate change, or foreign relations — a troubling notion, to say the least. According to the lawsuit, Trump’s continued entanglement in his business violates the constitutional emolument clause that, in theory, prevents the president from taking payments from foreign governments. The lawsuit is damning, saying, “never before has a President acted with such disregard for this constitutional prescription.”
Trump, of course, still profits directly from his business dealings, since he has not divested from his business holdings in any way.
I’ve spent the last five months researching the Trump family’s global brand-based empire and the various ways that the president has turned the U.S. government into the ultimate extension of his for-profit brand, so far without any repercussion. So it’s good to see the law starting to catch up. But the lawsuit touches on a fraction of the ways in which Trump is actively profiting from the presidency. As I write in the introduction to “No Is Not Enough,” we are seeing this unprecedented level of self-dealing because Trump’s business model is itself relatively new, and certainly a first for a sitting president:
Trump was never the head of a traditional company but has, rather, long been the figurehead of an empire built around his personal brand — one that has, along with his daughter Ivanka’s brand, already benefited from its merger with the U.S. presidency in countless ways (membership rates at Mar-a-Lago have doubled; Ivanka’s product sales, we are told, are through the roof). The Trump family’s business model is part of a broader shift in corporate structure that has taken place within many brand-based multinationals, one with transformative impacts on culture and the job market.
What this model tells us is that the very idea that there could be – or should be – any distinction between the Trump brand and the Trump presidency is a concept the current occupant of the White House cannot begin to comprehend. The presidency is the crowning extension of the Trump brand.
We are in entirely uncharted territory, because let’s face it: human megabrands are a relatively new phenomenon. There’s no rulebook that foresaw any of this. People keep asking — is he going to divest? Is he going to sell his businesses? Is Ivanka going to? But it’s not at all clear what these questions even mean, because their primary businesses are their names. You can’t disentangle Trump the man from Trump the brand; those two entities merged long ago.
There’s a whole web of ways the Trumps can make money off their names and their official and unofficial roles in the White House. Patronage at Trump hotels and resorts by foreign governments and corporations is probably the least of it. Here’s an extract from another relevant chapter:
The conflicts tipped into self-parody on April 6, 2017, when, the Associated Press reported, “Ivanka Trump’s company won provisional approval from the Chinese government for three new trademarks, giving it monopoly rights to sell Ivanka brand jewelry, bags and spa services in the world’s second-largest economy.”
But that’s not the only thing that happened that day. “That night, the first daughter and her husband, Jared Kushner, sat next to the president of China and his wife for a steak and Dover sole dinner at Mar-a-Lago.” A political summit whose details had been arranged by none other than Jared Kushner. This goes well beyond nepotism; it’s the U.S. government as a for-profit family business.
Ivanka Trump and her husband White House senior adviser Jared Kushner attend a dinner with President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping, at Mar-a-Lago in Palm Beach, Fla., on April 6, 2017.
Photo: Alex Brandon/AP
And a new twist since the book went to press. In China, three labor activists were detained by the government in May while investigating conditions at factories that make shoes for Ivanka Trump’s brand. This news came not long after the U.S.-based China Labor Watch alleged that some workers in factories that produced for Ivanka’s brand were paid what amounted to less than a dollar an hour, while being forced to work 12.5-hour days, six days a week. Despite mounting international condemnation, the activists have yet to be released. Could it be that the Chinese government decided to provide the ultimate service to the Trump family of brands: silencing whistleblowers who were exposing ugly corporate truths?
A New York Times reporter wrote earlier this month that, upon visiting Trump’s golf course in Bedminster, New Jersey, she was given a (now-discontinued) brochure dangling the possibility of a treat from Trump himself: “If he is on-site for your big day, he will likely stop in.” Despite protestations to the contrary, the idea that Trump-the-man is still deeply involved in Trump-the-business is very much a part of the whole offer of Trump-branded hotels and clubs. And nowhere more so than at Mar-a-Lago:
Mar-a-Lago has already increased its membership fees, to $200,000 from $100,000. And why not? Now, for your fee, you might find yourself witnessing a high-stakes conversation about national security over dinner. You might get to hobnob with a visiting head of state. You might even get to witness Trump announcing that he has just launched an air assault on a foreign country.
And, of course, you might even get to meet the president himself, and have the chance to quietly influence him. (No public records are kept of who comes and goes from the club, so who knows?) For decades, Trump has been selling the allure of proximity to wealth and power — it is the meaning of his brand. But now he’s able to offer, to his paying customers, the real deal.
Anything that increases Donald Trump’s visibility, and the perception of him as all-powerful, actively increases the value of the Trump brand, and therefore increases how much clients will pay to be associated with it — to slap it on their new condo development, say, or, on a smaller scale, to play on his golf courses or buy one of his ties.
Meanwhile, the Trump Organization has worked relentlessly to expand its global reach. And why not? The brand is more visible now than ever before, and customers are willing to pay. As the lawsuit states, Trump’s “high office gives the Trump brand greater prominence and exposure.” And this is the heart of what we need to understand about how dangerous it is to have a president who is in the business of selling not any one particular product but his name:
Given that what the Trump sons — Eric and Donald Jr. — are selling is ephemeral (a name), a buyer could pay $6 million for it or could pay $60 million. Who’s to judge what constitutes a fair market-value price? More worryingly, who’s to say what services are being purchased when a private company pays millions to lease the Trump brand? Do they really think it’s that valuable to their condo tower, or do they think that by throwing in an extra $5 million, they might be looked on more favorably in other dealings that require a friendly relationship with the White House? It’s very difficult to see how any of this can be untangled. A brand is worth whatever buyers are willing to pay for it. That’s always been the appeal of building a business on this model — that something as ephemeral as a name could be vested with such real-world monetary value.
What’s extraordinary about Donald Trump’s presidency is that now we are all inside the Trump branded world, whether we want to be or not. We have all become extras in his for-profit reality TV show, which has expanded to swallow the most powerful government in the world.
The Trumps aren’t going to stop coming up with new ways to cash in on the presidency anytime soon. Since I finished writing “No Is Not Enough,” they’ve announced yet another creative new way to turn the White House into a for-profit family business, which I wrote about last week.
Enter American Idea, “a new midscale brand” hotel chain whose first properties will be in Mississippi, a red state where Trump won 18 percentage points more of the popular vote than Hillary Clinton. This is not just an attempt at crashing the Comfort Inn niche by wrapping it in stars and stripes. It’s also the most vivid window yet into the myriad ways the Trump family is transforming the presidency into a for-profit family business, annihilating the line between government and their web of brands.
It turns out that while the Trump kids were on the campaign trail last year, they weren’t just stumping for their father — they were conducting market research on ways to profit from Trump voters. The sons would return to Trump Tower and report on the quaint and old-timey tastes enjoyed in “real America,” as Eric Trump described it on “Good Morning America.”
As Donald Jr. put it, he realized “there’s something here, there’s a market here that we’ve been missing our entire lives by focusing only on the high end.” And there were more perks to tagging along on the campaign trail. They also met people who donated to the Trump campaign, and some of those very people are now the first partners for this new venture.
So let’s unpack that a bit. In Trump’s world, voters are future customers, campaign donors are future investors, and election results are a rich vein of consumer data.
The new lawsuit, though welcome, is only the first step of understanding the merger of the Trump Organization and the White House – with its almost infinite possibilities for corruption and influence peddling.
Naomi Klein’s new book, No Is Not Enough: Resisting Trump’s Shock Politics and Winning the World We Need, will published by Haymarket Books on June 13. www.noisnotenough.org
Ivanka Trump goes on Fox News and talks about how “we (as if she and her family were elected) to do big, bold things” Or want to make “a positive impact on the lives of many people”
She might want to think about paying Chinese workers a fair wage making her expensive clothes. Or bring those jobs to the states and pay people a fair wage.
What a soft spoken hypocrite.
A democracy cannot (and does not) exist with this kind of nepotism. However, what one sees with the Trump Admin is nothing new. What he and his family are doing is exactly what everyone is doing. But they are just a little bit more discreet, with journalist (The Intercept journalist included) are covering it up by their refusal to investigate my allegations of corruption. The obsession of journalists with wikileaks, as the ONLY source for exposing Amer. govt. corruption is seriously hampering the integrity of their work. I hope Naomi Klein and her colleagues at The Intercept will start “looking outside the box” and “see The Big Picture.” (see http://www.warondomesticterrorism.com)
Another great TI piece. We need daily exposes on the Trump family kleptocracy. Can’t believe how stupid this country is that he’s still not impeached.
Just another Trump Family hit piece. They’ve been taking constant bombarding since announcing the run. Stop already, the country knew it elected a businessman, with all his worldly businesses, and it approved.
Knew? He stole the election, bro. Get educated, bro.
Trump stole the election? No. He did not. If anyone stole an election it was Corporate Shillary and her elite enablers who cleared the field and rigged the democratic primary for her.
The election was about change. It was over the day she got the nomination. I say this as someone who loathes Trump and everything he represents.
You know you just advocated business ties on one hand with Trump and then on the other condemned Hillary for the same thing?
I would suggest that the US *DID NOT* know what Trump was going to do after the election. Any idiot who thinks that the government can be run like a business will be impeached quite soon. Any idiot who sells dresses on WHITEHOUSE.GOV and doesn’t expect to get shut down quickly is an IDIOT. The people that voted for Trump did *NOT* expect billionaires to be put in Cabinet positions, NOR did they expect to have the KKK in the Whitehouse and put Sessions in charge of the DOJ. Nor did they think that 23 million+ will be out of coverage on Healthcare. The people did not expect that Trump (with the aid of the Russians) used nefarious means to get elected. The people did NOT KNOW that Paul Manafort was an agent for Russia. The people did not know that the head of the security council was open to Russian blackmail, they also didn’t know that the same person would formulate a plan to kidnap a Turkish cleric. Nor did they know that Trump has violated several US laws that link him to Iranian terrorists and the Russian Mob. Nor did the people know that every time Trump goes to Mar a Lago for a weekend it would cost the taxpayers 25 million $.
Nor did they know that Trump would use his position as President to benefit himself by telling Foriegn embassies that they should book all their functions at Trump Hotel in DC. That in itself violates the emoluments clause in the constitution. Nor did they know that Trump owes the Russians somewhere between 200-400 millions of dollars. Nor did they expect that Trump would use as his personal assitant a person that is trying to sell one of his properties to the Chinese for a cool 100 millions dollars and use his position to do so.
I submit that if the American people would have even remotely guessed that he would do so he would not have been elected.
Get over Trump…..there’s bigger problems
.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?list=PLwfFtDFZDpwulG0PJ9IID0iypsRXDSa1E&v=JZfEiiKTTbw
Wow. Quoting yourself to prove your “point”.
I really lost some respect for TI when they started publishing this dilettante’s inanity. Objectively, Klein has no training, experience, education, or knowledge related to anything she writes. A real shame that she has taken up residence here.
“The initiation fee was previously $200,000 up until 2012, when it was cut down to $100,000 following the Bernie Madoff scandal.”
http://www.businessinsider.com/mar-a-lago-doubles-membership-fee-to-200000-2017-1
So, actually, they returned fees to their previous level. Probably should have mentioned that.
I bet by next week DC doesn’t *have* an Attorney General, or at least, doesn’t have any right to sue any part of the federal government. They want to be a state, they think they’re a city, but all they are is a territory subject to every passing whim of a federal government that will cover Trump’s rear.
You just set a record for the number of levels on which one person can be wrong. I suggest starting with a 6th-grade Civics textbook and working up from there….
Just to do a touch up, I wish Ms. Klein or a few others would go after the Clinton Foundation corruption. It was reportedly massive. Hillary is out of power and can’t retaliate (legally) against whistle-blowers. (RIP Seth Rich)
Take advantage of the respite to root out the Clinton/Bush era corruption. This Trump malfeasance, so far at least, is skin deep and easily hosed off.
Who Is More Corrupt: Trump, Clinton or Obama? Surprising Answer!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_f-pD0URZ-k
whataboutery
The technique or practice of responding to an accusation or difficult question by making a counter-accusation or raising a different issue.
whishywashery
The technique or practice of wishing journalists would do their jobs in an honest and aboveboard manner with integrity and justice for all.
Implying that journalists are not honest or aboveboard when they do not include your opinion of Clinton.
A good example of whataboutery.
” would do their jobs in an honest and aboveboard manner with integrity and justice for all”
Thanks, that made me smile.
Errr, you know about Naomis links to the Clinton’s, right?
Going after the Clinton foundation is clearly not something you can expect from her.
Neither combating climate change, for a matter a fact.
http://www.wrongkindofgreen.org/category/non-profit-industrial-complex-organizations/organizations/350-org-1sky/
Kushner’s company is also heavily involved in renting 1,000s of houses they bought as foreclosures (for a song) during the housing crash. With little maintenance, they milk regular working class people, taking them to court regularly. A slumlord.
If Trump delivers on his promises to his base, all will be well and the Trump brand will be enhanced. If Trump stumbles into ignominy and failure, the Trump brand will decline significantly and become worthless.
Trump promised to:
1. Replace healthcare with “something wonderful.”
2. Grow the economy at 4%
3. Create jobs and prosperity.
4. Fix infrastructure
5. Kill TPP.
6. Get rid of ISIS.
7. Protect Social Security
and so on.
Exactly none of those things have happened nor will happen. Trump is a liar and fraud, so what does that say about his supporters?
With Corbyn-led Labour now polling 6% higher than Conservatives:
Taibbi: Goodbye, and Good Riddance, to Centrism – Jeremy Corbyn delivers another blow to the defining political myth of our era
@free
Mona is calling on all morally enlightened people who are able to do so, to contribute to the Courage Foundation’s emergency legal defense fund for Reality Winner.
The Courage Foundation’s advisory board includes these individuals: Thomas Drake, Daniel Ellsberg, John Kiriakou and Chris Hedges. I have personal knowledge that John Kiriakou — a torture whistleblower who was imprisoned — is especially and fiercely supportive of this fundraiser.
Convince me that Reality wanted to prove that the FBI is the producer and leaker of fake news, and I will happily donate to this foundation ?
Non sequitur.
Bail refused !
@Voice from Europe
Mona is wholly and always fact-based. Facts like this: ” ‘Austerity is over,” May tells Tories.” One suspects that has to do with Labour now polling 6% higher than Tories. And that Jeremy Corbyn is more likely than not to be Prime Minister next year on this date.
We’ll see who was right June 13th , 2018.
But I doubt the Intercept will still be ‘alive’…..
Jeremy Corbyn received a rousing standing ovation upon his first entrance into the Commons since the election. That, for the man who was widely heralded by the punditocracy as the certain death of Labour and All that is Good and True.
Over here in Europe you win the elections when you can form a majority in parliament. According to the latest count the conservatives 318+ DUP 10 form a majority. Labour finished second with 261 members…. which is Not a majority. All the rest is wishful thinking, my dear Mona.
Wishful thinking, eh?
Versus Hillary’s ill-gotten gains this is insignificant ?
The author has made their political preferences quite clear !
Here is an example of running the government as a businees:
Demanding Cambodia to repay $US500 million, the cost of bombing and killing hundreds of thousands of Cambodians
“Cambodians are responding with outrage to the U.S. government’s demand that the country repay a nearly 50-year-old loan [$US500 million] to Cambodia’s brutal Lon Nol government, which came to power through a U.S.-backed coup and spent much of its foreign funds purchasing arms to kill its own citizens”
“the U.S. was giving weapons to Lon Nol, it was bombing the Cambodian countryside into oblivion and creating millions of refugees fleeing into Phnom Penh and destroying all political fabric and civil life in the country”
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-03-14/after-destroying-cambodia-us-wants-country-repay-it-bombs-they-dropped
Brilliant!
No one knows where to look in that photo: do I look at my dad lovingly, his mouth agape? Just look straight ahead, smile.
Brilliant!
It is welcome news to see that The Intercept has temporarily stopped obsessing about creating a false equivalency between Trump and Hillary and the Democrats, and that they are finally covering what will probably go down in history as the most corrupt administration in history,. However, this is not real reporting. Instead it’s just one more lame editorial that does not tell us anything we did not know. When will The Intercept actually roll up its sleeves and do real reporting? Mr.Omidyar, it”s time for a shake up, you’re not getting your money’s worth.
You must have missed the memo, Alberto. The ‘Now, let’s be realistic’ memo went out on APRIL 10, 2017.
Parasites plain and simple. The murkan voters need to congratulate themselves for their display of ignorance by voting this reality show circus barker into office. USA, USA we’re you know morons
America and any other successful Nation is a for profit enterprise. The problem is not profit but inequity. Government by the wealthy for the wealthy to include Clinton(s), Bush(S) and many members of congress and our courts. Trump is just a more glaring example of profit for the few at the expense of the many. Worse this creates conflict that obscures stewardship of the future. The entire society is blinkered by the greed for wealth both riches and Government subsidies of programs without adequate planning and pricing.
At least Trump was rich before going into politics. He is not one of those whose primary motivation was to get rich through politics.
If you take a good look at the correspondents dinner where Obama insults Trump in public, you could be tempted to think that was the moment Trump decided he would teach the Washington swamp a lesson. And he did !
Really? How do you you know Trump was rich before coming to Washington? Have you seen his taxes? More likely he was afloat in debt , as he has been most of his career. If he were so wealthy why would he need to bilk every charity he’s ever been associated with? Why would banks consider him toxic? The king of debt at one point confessed to his daughter that the doorman in his building was wealthier than he was because he did not owe as much money. It is very likely that this man has only been kept afloat by mob money from Russia and elsewhere. Do not be fooled — Trump is the swamp and he will try to wring every cent he can out of his position as president.
You’re so completely right. He lived the poor, deplorable life travelling in his company jet from golf course to golf course…. and the tax files that were leaked showed he only paid 38 million in income taxes in 2005. But Alberto, everything is relative, isn’t it ?
If your definition of not-rich is being afloat in debt then I’ve got a shocker for you! Are you ready? Cause it’s a doozy!
https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/GFDEBTN
Now quit slacking and get back to whatever mundane job fills your days and be the dutiful little tax paying debt slave your masters demand.
“At least Trump was rich before going into politics” Good point.
Many swing voters voted Trump in. So far Trump has pumped little swamp water only further poisoned the well. Swing voters will vote him out if he does not move toward constrictive change, as he promised. He has an uphill fight, he and everyone else know this from day one.
correction: move from constrictive to constructive change.
Didn’t he look presidential when he launched those Tomohawks and MOAB…
Even the MSM turned positive.
Mr. Trump has exercised admirable self restraint, in my opinion. I expected that by now he would have razed the White House and replaced it with a 50 story hotel. He hasn’t renamed any major landmarks after himself. He hasn’t turned Yellowstone National Park into a golf course.
It costs about a billion dollars to launch a major party campaign for president. But only one of the two candidates wins. That means the winner must pocket two billion dollars just to break even. If each of Mr. Trump’s progeny also pockets a billion dollars, that starts to approach a nice return on investment, but nothing extraordinary. The US is still relatively wealthy, and its leader should be able to live in a style at least equal to kleptocrats from other countries – as well as be able to provide for his family.
So I think this article overstates its case. Presidents want to enrich themselves, just like everyone else. They just have more tools at their disposal to accomplish this.
“But only one of the two candidates wins.”
I have to disagree.
When the two preferred candidates represent the same agenda,
as was the case in 2016, both faces of the agenda share in the Win-Win.
Sure, they point fingers and sneer at each other, but that seems to be
all they are capable of doing and that is also how their candidates view
the suckers who vote for them. People who voted for the Hillary or
the Donald are, first and foremost,
obsessed with domination and share in the disdain
for equal justice, societal well being, the environment, and the
truth – no matter what words they use to deceive themselves and others.
The supporters of the two-face operation insist that
there is a real difference in their preferred candidate’s lies and
intentions and it is driven by the importance of a willfully
ignorant religiosity to both candidate’s supporters.
Just as he crusaders of the middle ages believed that a god-given desire
for economic domination must determine and infuse the exceptional
purity of their version of feudal serfdom and liege, so it is with the
supporters of the neo-fascism of today, whether they call themselves
democrat or republican or christian or jew or muslim or…….
Everybody wins the great prize of the dream of domination and the
most lovely sense of superiority without having to soil their
pit of pragmatism with any nasty integrity.
Holy shit you may be the stupidest Trump apologist yet.
I see that “mona” is begging for money in the name of the woman that the intercept helped throw in jail. You ‘progressives’ are so seriously fu_ck_ed up it’s not even funny.
The intercept is bankrolled bt the ebay-paypal mafia corporation, corrupt to the core. The intercept employees are so inept that that they managed to get their sources arrested and now they are begging for more money!
Fu_ck_ing disgusitng. Hey you millionaire ‘liberals’ what about you spend your own money, the money you steal from poor people while pretending to ‘help’ them.
Free Reality.
do not be so afraid
the election of jeremy corbyn is a hint of things to come in the US
the criminal currency system will be replaced
the thieves of wallstreet will have their citizenship revoked
the lying whore media will have their licenses pulled
THEINTERCEPT WILL BE PROMOTED
The election of Jeremy Corbyn ? You have been reading to much Mona propaganda….
How is it corrupt? Less whining, more facts, else you just sound stupid as hell.
Since I ripped ya up, and you dont know. I just want to say, things are more complicated than this newscrap can convey, unless you read news from all over. Which you don’t
..
So complicated only Naomi understands them….but she has a crystal ball.
She wishes her ball was some kind of magic. Everything I’ve read by Naomi in months kinda, or in the case of everything this week, skips the mark. To miss the mark is one thing, but to be redundant for redundancy? Two words, sean spicer
Another shocker from Nostradamus……
All of you buy her doomsday book before you die !
Name a name TI. How many of your interns/ commenters put their name/ moniker with J stoolhill? Just a hunch. But who else? Somebody gotta release the caged pigeons. I bet it feelsgood for scahill to be known? Maybe it’s Biddle?
The irony is that Ms. Klein has been cashing in on these articles for the past few days to hawk her book. What’s the difference? Maximize your outcome.
Before I retire for the evening, I’d like to again announce that the Courage Foundation is taking donations for an emergency legal defense fund for Reality Winner. Please donate, if you are able.
Take Mona’s sleep agent, you too will go to bed
Or maybe it was Biddle. He was afterall last on the list. And we don’t see his name everyday. Do we?
For whatever I’ve said in objection to the documents or questions I raised about Ms. Winner, I would hope anything I’ve said wouldn’t stop anyone in helping in the defense fund.
I don’t think my words have that power..nevertheless, thought it needed saying. Peace.
Grace, We Are the defense fund. Anyone who $eriously Jimmy Swaggarts this upon us? Sorry, Flog yall. Where’s Wikileaks when you need em (this time)?
Grace, I get it, and I am definitely among those who found the original story to constitute over-hyped garbage. It has the merest sliver of newsworthiness, but it does have that sliver. In my strong view, whistleblowers need support, regardless of how any one of us weights the value of any specific piece of information.
Thank you for being clear about supporting the Reality Winner emergency legal defense fund.
Jeremy, Im not touting Free you. We’ll see, maybe I’m wrong? Maybe you and Amy aren’t actually cia stooge-made? You sure sound like you are.
Loved the article! I want to read your book.
Then read it and you’ll love your life even more.
You’re sounding more like a troll with every comment.
You hope to wind people up, but actually you’re being brazenly offensive.
Or perhaps it’s Scahill’s beard giving you visions of wicked whiskers.
Really you poet, you. I’m so proud of you, telling me who brought the folded printout to be commented on. Great Journalism, poet.
I used to visit frequently for quite a lovely binge.
Now it’s very rarely that I do not read and cringe.
Drunken-monkey moderated neoliberal sass,
Intercepted Intercept, cut off at the pass.
Russia! Trump! What a dump of Demo-grump and gruel.
The left is left behind and starved of any kind of fuel.
Fades the adversarial, gone the keen-edged view,
Now a rag blown by the wind of Mackey and his crew.
Scahill scathes and Greenwald grates against the dreadful storm,
Yet no structure here remains to keep the seeking thinker warm.
Please , Greenwald and Scahill are foundind partners. Mackay is just a hired hand. Phoney socialists blame the workers
No.
They’re not.
“About The Intercept
After NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden came forward with revelations of mass surveillance in 2013, journalists Glenn Greenwald, Laura Poitras, and Jeremy Scahill decided to found a new media organization dedicated to the kind of reporting those disclosures required: fearless, adversarial journalism. They called it The Intercept.”
Certainly sounds like they are.
What GilG thinks something “sounds” like is wholly irrelevant. That bit you quoted does not describe a partnership, which has a specific legal meaning.
Greenwald performs journalism services for First Look Media under the same terms he preformed them for Salon and the Guardian — as an independent contractor. Scahill has a similar contractor status. They perform those services for First Look’s non-profit outlet, The Intercept. Scahill, Greenwald and Laura Poitras are founding editors of The Intercept.
Partnership can have legal or practical meaning. Please provide backup to your claim that Greenwald’s relationship to the intercept is strickly as an indendent contractor.
No. I’m not your performing monkey. I’ve provided evidence for you before, several times, including showing you your error when you claimed The Intercept was for profit. That’s quite enough of wasting my time on your baseless spewings.
Moreover, you spouted a falsehood in claiming Greenwald and Scahill are “partners” in an erroneous attempt to make them supposed management/owners a opposed to “employees.” That is not the case and I’ve sufficiently explained why.
Look you have been caught in too many falsehoods for me to take your word as proof of anything. If you wont back up your claim then i must assume you cannot back up your claim.
Nope. Never lied about a thing. And I do not give a shit whether you posture as being unwilling to take my word. Don’t care.
As i said, i must assume you cannot back up your claim. Your reputation for telling falsehoods requires it.
Glenn’s status is easily determined by examining filings that all 501(c)(n) entities are required to file on an annual basis.
You can look it up.
The Zionist hack says first: “Greenwald and Scahill are foundind partners.”
Shown this is false, the Zionist hack then claims: “Partnership can have legal or practical meaning.”
The same Zionist hack who falsely claimed this site was for profit and backed down only when shown incontrovertible evidence that it was wholly false.
Zionist hacks calling others liars is akin to a NAMBLA member accusing someone of child abuse. That member could be right, but….
I suggest you read the 501c Scahill is listed in the section for officers and key employees.
That’s nice.
Its motr than nice its proof you were again wrong about his staus. Either a willful lie, or just ignorence.
It’s “proof” of nothing; your ongoing crusade to depict this site and its writers as nefarious is driven by your virulent Zionism, which the writers you continually malign find deeply problematic. (Even if that item in the 501c demonstrated what you attempt to argue about Scahill — it doesn’t — Glenn Greenwald’s name would be conspicuously missing.)
You have long been demonstrated to be a Zionist shill, vainly trying to tear down various writers and commenters at this site (and the site itself) who are antithetical to your ethno-religious, supremacist notions.
Shame on you.
You can English!
You’re not seriously suggesting Greenwald and Scahill had anything to do with the hideous CFR neoliberal invasion of this place, are you? Admittedly they seem reluctant to talk about what a sold-out bore Naomi Klein has become or what this publication has devolved into, but that could be simple discretion.
When have either of them been described as discrete when writing about other journalists? They love speaking truth to power except when they are the power. Too funny.
Both can rightly be given some shit for letting it look that way. Denial, inertia and the path of least resistance are more likely explanations.
One can certainly fall into those traits when one is considering who is signing their check.
One can, or not. One can also know someone well, someone who has never operated from venal motives, and observe their known psychology causing certain blind spots, especially when their personal lives have become…dynamic.
I know Glenn, quite well. I’m not going to prove it to you — because anyone whose opinion matters to me already already knows it or knows I wouldn’t lie — but he and I actually were professional partners at one time. I know what makes him tick. And what doesn’t. While you are utterly clueless.
You simply detest him and any writer who exposes Zionism and Israel. That’e the entire reason for your endless petulance, including here and now.
I didnt ask you about it, or to prove it so do not pretend any one but you cares. You brag about the fact that you knew him at every opportunity. I notice thart GG will come beloe the line to reply to poster but he never acknols you. I think hes embarrassed and hopes you will act on your threat to leave. I know you well enough to know it wont happen.
You know zero about my relationship with Glenn. When he and I communicate it is in private (except sometimes on Twitter). In any event, I know him from long personal and professional experience, and thus am positioned, as you are not, to know that your nasty innuendo and claims about him are wholly false.
Shame. On. You.
They are always discrete. They have never been seen occupying the same body.
A better person would have resisted that. I did. :)
According to my older friends Greenwald was very discrete regarding other journalists at The Guardian and at Salon, where he wrote previously. It is said he even said polite things about Joan Walsh while at Salon, which I think is preposterously inappropriate but quite classy.
Much as I’ve come to despise Joan Walsh, it just is the case that she never once tried to interfere with what Glenn wrote. No matter who complained or about what. That merits a certain amount of loyalty. But just a certain amount.
There’s reason to believe some attention is now being paid.
This is great news!
Glenn and Jeremy’s responsibility for the neoliberal invasion seems, mostly, to be limited to inadequate attention and supervision.
I hear, through the grapevine, that steps are being taken to address that problem.
I’ve heard the same, Doug.
I didn’t think it would happen, as they are outnumbered greatly, but here’s hoping.
Yup. Here’s hoping.
Recent events have sent major shocks through the system, so hope, in this case, is not entirely irrational.
G&J may be outnumbered but I don’t think they are outgunned.
If it were me, if my name was inextricably linked to a site that was becoming a cesspool of vapidity and/or neoliberal dreck, I’d be taking the position that my name would not continue to be associated, unless. And I’d expect my friends to be suggesting that position.
Yeah. I heard some of their friends are suggesting just that.
If they are mere independent contractors as Mona claims why woul they supervise?
Because of their names and status as founding editors. Their reputations are bound to the site’s. As I said, were it me, I’d be ending my contractual relationship with a site that was harming my reputation, unless that harm was ameliorated.
G and J look like they’re comfortable hanging out with stoolies. J always has, to me, in fact as soon as I saw his name around, uh oh alphabet soup stewed rats in the mix. But I absolutely hate democracynow and I have since neverforget spawned them.
Yeah I said it. Who out of these 4 had closest contact with j? Because he aint on the up and up. Mark my words. It’s him or his underling. Rat. Cia j
Maybe go sleep it off?
If I were you, my friend, I would (a) check the definition of libel; and (2) hope that Jeremy doesn’t want to bother with inconsequential weasels like you.
Of course, if we were to track your identity and find that you have deep pockets. . . ;^)
I called out the story from Yemen. Alphabet soup. You dont have access Al Jazeera, Al Monitor, Middle East Eye and Middle East Monitor don’t. But ya did! Wasn’t that great? Why havent you reported anything about the 2-700 different chains of command our, the Us’s tax $ have funded? Ya fuggin stoolie.
Jeremy “Revealing Dirty Wars” Scahill is probably the least likely ‘rat’ I could conceive.
In 2015-ish, a previous employee (without your poetic acumen) described much the same environment as you have.
Singing this to the tune of Whose Line Is It Anyway’s “Hoedown!” actually works… ;-)
Apparently The Intercept has sunk so pathetically low they fill headline space with Naomi Klein writing schlock articles around self-promoting quotes from her new book, “No Is Not Enough: Resisting Trump’s Shock Politics and Winning the World We Need”, published by Haymarket Books on June 13, dont’cha know. I’m surprised there’s no Amazon link right in the article.
This BS makes Mackey’s endless Twitter quotefests look like Pulitzer material.
And this emoluments clause nonsense is more fake news and rabbit trails designed to distract and impede. This too shall end up in the bit bucket along with the Comey funding request story and Russian hooker dossier. Perhaps Trump should just roll his businesses and brand into a global foundation and let his kids do speaking gigs for $250K apiece. Maybe that would appease the Naomi Kleins of the world.
I have no problem with Intercept writers pushing their books, provided said books are worth pushing. And the articles in which the pushing occurs are also worthwhile.
So she’s self promoting her book, never mind the content.
And since the Clinton’s are scoundrels why shouldn’t the Donald be one too.
Two wrongs don’t make a right. It seems you’re defending immorality, greed, and ruthlessness. Think twice, mate, especially now that fascism reared its ugly face.
I was being sarcastic.
Great Comment. Although I think Grump hung himself out to randumbly profit from yet another fluke, you’re right. But Jared is a complete moron, and Sessions, a complete failure. All he wants to talk about is Co. Wa. Ak. Or. Ca. Mi. And the rest of the actual taxable economy at this point. Mona? Your issue…?
I hope Roger Stone is enjoying Mona being questioned as to the veracity of the drug war being her’s. As he, not her, brought up 200,000 jobs, state, county bankruptcies.
Personal squabbles should stay in the same sub-thread.
Why you keep invoking my name all over is hard to understand. Whatever the reason, it constitutes thread pollution.
I’m sick of people who could never get published themselves filling the comments with their boring shitty complaints. You don’t like it, then don’t read it.
” …filling the comments with their boring shitty complaints. You don’t like it, then don’t read it.”
Take your own advice about the comment section.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4CZZvRhtnWc&t=0m15s
The American people are being ‘duped’ by this corruption.
New? I don’t know. the tools imposed by the west on resource rich countries. It’s pretty difficult to get worked up about Trump using his office for personal gain when the cost of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are tipping ~$5 trillion. The Trump administration is US foreign policy and propaganda becoming US domestic policy and propaganda — the chickens are coming home to roost.
Great comment. Keep at em.
Thanks. The comment software cut of my post mid sentence and I just didn’t take time to fix it.
The intercept has gone from a legitimate watchdog of government power to a yet another (among millions of others) leftist mouthpieces.
Overwrought and constantly telling us the sky is blue.
No shit.
Did DJT hide the fact he knew and took advantage of the sleazy nature of politics for personal gain?
Shocker.
No one cared. Including yours truly.
Hillary was the anti-christ. Whatever DJT is, whatever his corrupt self-serving flaws – he is not Lucifer walking the earth.
Agree completely. Note Obama’s recent $400k speech recently or better at the Clinton “Foundation” slush fund. Trump is no different really.
Agree again that this site published a hell of a lot of “the sky is blue” stories that offer no insight into current events.
I visit websites with 10% of the vast budget of an oligarch or less which publish actual analysis and insight instead of the same old – old left – song.
Intercept: the old terms of left/right have been superseded they are artifacts of history. There is an insurgency against the established order and power structure and its institutions including the institution of journalism.
The editors of this site have chosen the establishment over the insurgency, the book royalties over the community and the people in it.
No one leaks here – is trust the issue?
Most unfortunately, that’s been so. Mattathias Schwartz should go missing from these “pages.” That alone would constitute a major improvement.
Oof! That feels, to me like a punch in the gut. If the founders of this site were to read it and take it to heart, it would sear their souls.
It is at the moment. We are hoping for, and doing all we can to encourage, changes that will repair and heal the wound.
Agreed.
The Clinton Foundation as documented in Clinton Cash, her email server, the pay to play and RIGGING the election against Bernie – none of that mattered or even now matters to the Intercept. Would there be anything similar investigative or would it be all “we love you saint Hillary” had she been elected?
A fake charity that exploited Hatians? You don’t care.
There is very little reporting here. It has turned into a bash-Trump, and isn’t even good at that.
As I noted over at the Guardian (on my third avatar identity so far, after the first two were banned):
Naomi Klein: ‘Trump is an idiot, but don’t underestimate how good he is at that’
11 Jun 2017 17:42
https://profile.theguardian.com/user/id/16819288?page=1
The Blairite and Clintonite political movements made a very calculated decision: they’d give wholehearted private support to corporate wealth, while quietly undercutting working people’s wages and pensions, education and health care, and environmental protections – but would continue to publicly call themselves “liberals” based on image issues dredged up from the 1960s: women’s rights, minority rights, etc. This is a weak facade covering up a program that revolves around giving plutocrats complete control of government in exchange for personal wealth. (Aka bribery).
As anyone watching the Corbyn campaign can see, “liberal media” is entirely in the Blairite-Clintonite camp. They keep trying to use phrases like “nostalgic socialism” to describe any common-sense policies that don’t serve the agenda of the uber-wealthy. Those so-called “socialist” (really more like FDR New Deal) policies include:
Domestic job growth in manufacturing and technology (especially clean energy).
A basic single-payer healthcare system for all.
Equal access to debt-free college education for all.
A cost-of-living increase in the minimum hourly wage.
Breakup of too-big-to-fail banks and corporations (enforcing antitrust laws).
Protection of air, water and food from pollution that causes asthma, cancer and other health problems.
Protection of wilderness and oceans from short-sighted exploitation.
Transition from fossil fuels to renewable energy to slow climate change.
Infrastructure repair and expansion (public transit, roads, railways, electric grid, fiber optic grid, bridges, ports. . .)
No more reckless foreign policies such as regime change, arms sales to dictatorships. . .
Respect and tolerance for all people regardless of race, religion, ethnicity, gender. . .
Those are common sense policies that increase the quality of life for the vast majority of people; but most are blocked because they might harm profit margins for billionaires.
You got this. Don’t mention the war on drugs as a major ongoing policy blunder. Next, recommend the latest set of ‘mental health’ concoctions to impact the web and you Photosymbiosis can get paid for your comments like Mona!
You are utterly demented. If any single issue has been mine for decades — well before it was mainstream — it was ending the obscenity known as the “war on drugs.” Nothing you write — including the bullshit to and about me — had any merit, at all.
If you again state lies about me personally, such as horseshit claims that I get paid to post here, I will report you. I’m not anonymous, so I can be libeled. I suggest you have a care.
Mona, I almost always like your comments, even when you attack needlessly/ helplessly. You brought up the pharma-brand, not me. In terms of the debacle you just called ‘mine’? Did you read the book, “The Underground Empire”? What year did you read it and briefly, how would you summarize the text(s)/ impact of that/those debacles?
You decided the topic was not only relevant, but yours. Did you read that book? When?
I know! You want to write Jabberwocky 2.0, and this practice!
Did you read that book? Simple question. It predates the www. By years as did my first two reads of it. When did the drug war become yours? And how did you take it from Falcon, Shui, and Steinberg’s Company? You are a shill, paid or pro bono.
Incoherence is not helpful.
I was reading Rufus King, Pete McWilliams, and making recourse to the DRCNet Shaffer drug library (and learning how to debate drug policy) back before there was a real Internet, when it was just CompuServe. In fact, my notoriety on that issue is what first brought me to the attention of this guy by the name of Glenn Greenwald, back when he was still just some guy.
But none of that is here nor there. You simply have no idea what you are talking about nearly every time your fingers get to typing.
Really? Mona? I have no idea? What did you? Pesonally, not to speak of your mandatory pro bono work, personally, what did you ever due to make this drugwar your’s?
When exactly did you claim this issue and where the fuck you been? Maybe a hasbeen I think you’re either a coulda or wouldabeen. Ive been reading your comments for years. Never even close to was, from what I’ve read, you’re trippin. When was your last flashback to the bunk acid you never took?
It becomes harder to ignore the antagonism in many of your posts. Try letting your intelligence rule your negative emotions.
You’ll just have to get used to it — it’s how I roll. Incoherent drivel, mindless conspiracy theories, unreason etc. appall me. I do not suffer them gladly, and never have.
No, Mona. I won’t ever get used to antagonism. It’s divisive and plays into the hands of the ruling class. Of course, you decide how you roll in your life. Many of your posts contain valuable insights that are diminished by your often antagonistic approach. Hope I could help. Peace.
Demented? So the wonder-drugs you’re carpetbagging won’t work afterall? Maybe you’ll get some non-demented marks. Good luck!
Fossil fuels aren’t the problem w.r.t. climate change. Animal farming is.
Banned at The Guardian..LOL!
You are a remarkably good writer who would be an asset at TI !
The only thing worse than being banned at The Guardian is not being banned at The Guardian.
Yup. You know why they banned me? I kept quoting from, and linking to, Max Blumenthal. No shit.
Good for you. For me it was non-interventionism and promoting Jill Stein, I think.
Either this wallpaper goes, or I do…
Ha!! I miss the old Guardian UK, where you could comment on almost all articles.
I usually just read thru them, which were always wickedly better than the articles!
I got banned at The Guardian about 3 months after Glenn started working there. I think it was for my habit of referring to the British as America’s poodles and pathetic monarchists. That and plenty of choice posts about the pathetic and inconsistent censorship by the moderators.
As a general rule, the very best people have been banned by the Guardian.
No one not banned by The Guardian would ever have been granted a seat at the Algonquin Round Table — or Arthur’s for that matter.
There’s probably some sort of club on can join…
Naomi, the following tortuously punctuated 62 word sentence should be taken outside and shot:
“Trump was never the head of a traditional company but has, rather, long been the figurehead of an empire built around his personal brand — one that has, along with his daughter Ivanka’s brand, already benefited from its merger with the U.S. presidency in countless ways (membership rates at Mar-a-Lago have doubled; Ivanka’s product sales, we are told, are through the roof).”
Seriously? “has, rather, long been”?
Anyway, I don’t see anything here that hasn’t been happening for a long time already. The only difference with today’s president is that he can’t be bothered to keep it a secret because he understands that most people already realise what goes on in the name of democracy.
It’s not as if a poor or working class person could become the next president. If you are not independently rich, or have been indoctrinated into the party since childhood, the doors to the higher levels of the political system are closed.
With Trump’s presidency, politics has officially become “a business”. The fact that we, the governed are now subservient to those who we elect is being waved in our faces. Profit is the name of the game with big pay-offs for the directors. Workers should consider themselves lucky if they keep their jobs.
It’s always been this way. This is just the first time since the French Revolution that a significant political leader has chosen to treat their subjects and allies with such raw contempt. We all know how that worked out for Marie Antoinette!
The only other thing new with this president is the fact that he can’t keep his electronic mouth shut, no matter, for example, how much he insults every Brit or Swede by using their tragedy for his own benefit. This is a man who knows no grace, diplomacy, discretion or compassion.
That such a rude, uncultured, ignorant man became the US president is a shame on the United States.
Open a history book.
If that’s too much reflect on the prior 8 years.
Don’t go back to sleep after Trump is gone.
The Intercept is the most amazing site on the interent. The intercept is amazingly perfect because the editors of the intercept only care about Truth.
No doubt, now that trump is president the Great USA has become a Bad Place and now the Great American Government is corrupt. If only Philosophers like Klein and Hillary Clinton were allowed to rule the serfs everything would be Perfect again.
ps: if you are thinking of ‘leaking’ to the intercept think twice cause what the intercept will do for you in exchange for the information is throw you in jail.
Rather than cheap shots, you could put your money where your keyboard is. Everyone able, should donate to the Reality Winner emergency legal defense fund.
Not if I can help it I won’t. If somebody somehow hacks my sh!t and Jeremy Hammonds it her way? Nothin I can do about that. If I believed any of it, aside from the botch by/ infiltration of the staff of The Intercept, I wouldnt even click on to this site, let alone, comment. I feel for Reality Leigh Winner, and thank her for her service to our country, and Im talking about the leak, not the 150something kills? And 250something captures. But she was the one who figured out all that, went to work for the nsa and totally geeked it. Thinkin about it, Reality should have paid a lot more attention to the story of Jeremy Hammond and a lot less to weakend at bernies. Right? How does The Intercept have fewer US legal defense resouces than Wikileaks? I mean that’s what this independent defense fund seems to infer?
Benzodiazepines can be habit forming, but can also be useful for slowing the racing mind.
By the way, as soon as I read the Huffpost piece about her arrest and the manner that this was ‘handled’ by those four journalists, I knew that wasn’t a botch. Now since then, no statement of anything, no publicly fired stool? That is definately an on-going botch, IMO. At least this great author has material to educate and enthrall us.
Not publicly. Not yet. And for some very compelling reasons pertaining to the interests of Reality Leigh Winner.
You and everyone can donate to her legal defense fund here.
The racing mind? I try to brief in my comments, but not as hard as I try to biteback against people who actually know what they’re reading. Since you are offended because you’re a berniebot, Im going to try to slow down to the minset of an elderly angry person, it’s all you need to hear. Aamerricinns waannt tuuee OWN!!! THEIR COMMENT SECTIONS! The reference to a thirty-something was arbitrary bernty didnt share the podium with anyone.
Progressive? Maybe my 45 year old brain goes too fast? I had never seen the word you typed for big-pharma up there, are you getting paid for that public mental health service announcement? Is it helping you Mona?
What you think you know and what you actually know are very different things.
Now, if you want to be a useful and compassionate human being:
Donations to Courage’s fund for Reality Winner can be made at CourageFound.org/Reality-Winner
Really Doug? Useful? Get your head straight lawyer. I know about everyone of you has to do an amount of pro bono work. Very few of you has done as much or as risky pro bono work as I have. Yeah Im a moniker on this set of threads. But keep talkin that useful shit. If I have to post who I am, due to this? I will, but you aint gonna like what you read from me thereafter. Free Jeremy Hammond!
You don’t have to. As you may know, anonymous speech is perfectly acceptable and an American tradition. On the other hand, if you have no reason to hide behind a nom de ‘net, why not use your own identity?
As for Jeremy H, he should certainly not be in prison on the Stratfor charges. Free him, for sure. Then, send him to anger management and impulse control classes and teach him to do a better job picking his battles and his strategy and tactics (restaurant rampages are a generally bad idea, for a number of reasons).
Have you donated to Winner’s fund, yet?
Doug is not a lawyer. He knows enough to be one, but he isn’t.
Oh FFS, knock off the nonsense. There is a young woman in custody facing ten years in a federal prison whom Doug is working hard to assist, and here’s you, spewing unhinged rants and puffing yourself up with inane innuendo that you are Really Somebody. pffft
Either help, or get out of the way.
IAAAL. I am an amateur lawyer.
Law for fun, not profit. ;^)
Well, IAAL, and I hereby confer upon you status of de facto juris doctor! If only you knew how much that’s worth. ;)
Starbucks has gotten so expensive. . .
are you a troll or really this mentally deficient?
$100 million in the Clinton Foundation …
We have people like Hillary and Trump because of people like Naomi Klein.
No. We have CrookdClintOs and Trumps bc they are, N Klein just writes about it all, so the unaware be educated. Just like watching the weather channels.
@Tim
It’s a pay to play scam, among other things. And gee whiz, it sure did help out Haiti. Democracy Now!:
Yes, CrookdClintons indeed supported the maintaining of low non living wages so B$CEO could then share and donate the profits for favors. Even badly affected the US RedCross!
Thank you for the better explanation than I gave. Spot on.
It’s all good. ;)
Thanks Naomi and for speaking out on msnbc this a.m.
http://www.msnbc.com/morning-joe/watch/naomi-klein-on-a-yes-agenda-to-counter-trump-965368899973
Almost… a… new… lighthearted version of… innocent, in its bald-face garrulousness, “The Ugly American”…
Naomi: Donald Trump is a creep, a cretin, a scoundrel, the epitome of greed and narcissism and the worst president the U.S. has ever had. And those are the nicest things it occurs to me to say about him.
However, the partisan assumptions underlying this piece (notably that Trump’s behavior is somehow different from certain Democrat predecessors, except, perhaps insofar as he and his cronies don’t even bother to try to conceal or costume it) are unworthy of you and of The Intercept. What we expect and deserve, from you and the publication, is journalism that explores the reality under the veneer of the bogus “two-party” system of our political theatre and addresses the underlying reality.
We don’t need even one more paragraph of thinly-disguised partisanship, and we sure as hell don’t want it. And it doesn’t matter whether it’s penned by Robert Mackey, Mattathias Schwartz, or by you.
Just stop it. Remember who you are and the contributions you are able to make to the world’s understanding of disaster capitalism — and return to work of that caliber and importance. Writing such as the above serves, effectively, the neoliberal wing of the One Party with two right wings, and I know you don’t really want your work to do that. Do you?
I read through the piece twice, and tried really hard to evaluate it as I would if not for the Mackey/Schwartz dreck (and even some from Klein).
Unfortunately, it proved impossible to wipe my mind sufficiently to know what I’d think if the “if not for” didn’t obtain.
she pushed those pillars on msnbc this am specifically calling out the “leaderful moment” with the likes of Nina Turner, and calling out Macron as a hillary-without-the-baggage aka obama.
http://www.msnbc.com/morning-joe/watch/naomi-klein-on-a-yes-agenda-to-counter-trump-965368899973
Well at least she didn’t say anything about Russia!
Yeah, there is that. ;^(
Well, I have to agree.
I suppose the thinking is this: the effort to block Trump’s agenda (which really is nothing but ExxonMobil’s agenda, as far as I can tell, >75%, at least) is so important that these kind of one-sided attacks that neglect similar behavior for decades by leading establishment Democrats and Republicans are somehow justifiable.
I don’t buy it. The greatest fascist threat in the United States in the past 20 years was the Cheney-Rumsfeld neocon alliance; a lot of us worked hard around the clock to bring those bastards down, only to see Obama cover up the worst of their excesses in alliance with Wall Street and the Borg State. Complete betrayal, that was Obama – and utter tool of neoliberal Wall Street interests, as per the Warren Buffett funding train, that’s been obvious enough.
But I suppose, from a purely tactical viewpoint, attacking Trump has some good points. From a strategic perspective, though, what do they hope for? Pence as President? He’s even sleazier than Trump. Bringing back the Clintonite and Blairite crowd? All the shady actors associated with the Clinton Foundation and the Clinton Global Initiative? Those people are scarier than Trump, anyone who bothers to look can see that. They’d be marching on towards WWIII right now; I’m quite happy Hillary Clinton, Victoria Nuland, and Michele Flournoy were given the boot, and it’s certainly not because I’m misogynist; Tulsi Gabbard and Elizabeth Warren would be great national leaders, in contrast.
The real solutions to the problems we face are perhaps just too radical for those who live in the lap of corporate power and luxury to come to grips with, perhaps. The whole neoliberal project has to be dismantled, one way or the other. Hopefully this can be done peacefully and diplomatically.
If Trump was impeached, Pence, with his Christian Fascists for Extinction bona fides, is a man behind whom the Clinton “Democrats” feel certain they can stand, equivalent in almost every detail to their prototype Clinton/McCain/Lieberman model, sporting perhaps a cross instead of a star of David as a hood ornament. Like Dodge and Plymouth sharing a chassis…
Hence their mighty push for impeachment.
Trump has a record of exceedingly shady business dealings and he clearly views the Presidency as an opportunity to enrich himself, family members and close business associates. Loading up the federal justice department with “loyalists” who will help him with such schemes is obviously part of that agenda.
It is good to see people focusing their attention on this, but let’s be honest – Trump can easily defend himself by pointing to similar arrangements between Hillary Clinton, the Clinton Foundation, and Bill Clinton’s speaking fee deals, during the Obama Administration. Or, the arrangement Dick Cheney entered into to keep profiting from Halliburton & Co. by putting his assets into a “blind” trust – then delivering billions in Iraq war contracts to Halliburton, KBR etc.
Since neither of those two previous corrupt rip-offs of the public were ever investigated or prosecuted, Trump can merely say he’s done nothing his predecessors haven’t done. He’d have to say “we’re all crooks, really” and that doesn’t play well – but it would be an admission of just how corrupt the federal government in the United States has become.
Clearly, the only political route forward to opposing Trump is to remove flawed corrupt establishment Democrats from any role in DNC party politics – which basically means the entire leadership who was backing Hillary Clinton. Otherwise, it’ll just be more of the same.
The Clintons and Obama have done the same thing.
When Obama was busy betraying the voters who elected him to
the Illinois Senate in order to get more money for a national campaign,
he deliberately turned his district from east-west southside Chicago
to north-south to include the most affluent corporatists.
Penny Pritzker (sp?) stepped right up to help lay the groundwork
for her own promotions with Obama – who continued to sell schemes
which were harmful to the residents of the southside of Chicago
throughout the rest of his self-promoting corporate faking presidency.
Sure, Trump is lousy, but he wouldn’t have been able to do this crap
if it wasn’t right in line with the shared agenda of both the democrats
and the republicans.
Making it all about Trump is disingenuous.
The Courage Foundation has launched an emergency appeal for defense funds for Reality Winner, the young woman accused of leaking the document on which last Monday’s Intercept story on “Russian hacking” of voting-related computers was based:
Please donate what you can and share this information and the relevant links widely.
Donations to Courage’s fund for Reality Winner can be made at CourageFound.org/Reality-Winner
Reality, Is the CIA requiring you to disavow your relationship with the CIA as a plant to accomplish a classified agenda at arms length so that if you are caught or captured they can deny your involvement with them?
Stop. It.
A young woman currently has the vast resources of the Trump-led state arrayed against her and faces ten fucking years in a federal penitentiary. It’s not time to break out the Illuminati-think.
There is absolutely no basis — none — to believe that Reality Winner is or was a “plant” by any agency of the US Government.
We don’t know anything at all except that Ms. Winner is a young woman in terrifying circumstances, facing a decade in federal prison. Well, we also know that, whoever may have leaked the relevant document, the world-class bungling by the writers and editors at The Intercept who handled it virtually guaranteed that someone at that facility in Augusta, whether guilty of anything or not, would be sitting where Reality Winner is now.
So, barabbas, grow some compassion and improve your judgment — and, if you are able, send a few dollars to help pay for the youngster’s upcoming enormous legal bills.
Donations to Courage’s fund for Reality Winner can be made at CourageFound.org/Reality-Winner
She may not have been a plant, but that document sure seems like it was. Devoid of evidence, just more unproven vague allegations by hidden NSA experts. And the Intercept story completely missing the likelihood that the CIA’s own toolkit could have been used to falsely flag any such operation. The document’s pedigree and truth value is important, because if it was leaked on purpose by the NSA, Ms Winner would not have been doing anything illegal, if she did anything at all.
In the meantime, she and her family need basic competent legal advice, #1 being STOP TALKING TO POLICE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-7o9xYp7eE
The government has not questioned the authenticity of the document, so we may assume that it is “real.”
The fact that is is little more than a collection of vague allegations and “analyst judgments” doesn’t distinguish it from a whole host of other garbage the originates with these three-letter tax-wasters and threats to freedom and human dignity.
Everyone should, most assuredly, refrain from talking to the police, but that’s easier said than done, especially if you’re a frightened 25-yr-old surrounded by Fibbies.
Most important, now, is to help provide for Ms. Winner’s defense against the unlimited resources and unlimited hostility of the Trump-Sessions DOJ.
Have you contributed, yet?
Donations to Courage’s fund for Reality Winner can be made at CourageFound.org/Reality-Winner
Wrong article, dolt.
All articles here are the right articles in which to promote donations to the Reality Winner legal defense fund.
@mona
my point is, the fraudulent schemes and lies of the spy state would have to go on the defensive and in so doing, be trapped in their own web of deceipt.
think on it….
i absolutely will
but if states that the cia put her there to tear down true media, what’s the cia going to do, deny it?
Not really news. No one with more than one brain cell thought Trump was honest anyway. Trump supporters don’t require honesty from a Republican, only from Democrats.
@Naomi
Making money from Russian oligarchs vs making money from US oligarch.
This is Trump’s real sin in American politics and why the Clinton campaign concocted the Russian collusion story. Clinton making pay-to-play allegations against trump is laughable.
Pot, Meet Kettle
You say “for profit” like it is some sort of dirty word. Shall we run around and worry about that today? Or shall we concern ourselves with more pressing things? You are the journalist, so I guess you know best. Probably even have a diploma and all. A country of 300million in a world of 7billion all being bullied and coerced by a minority who wish to stay on top of the pile and skim off all the tastiest rewars that provides. Previously Obama. Now Trump. Next time who knows? We willingly and docilely put our lives in their hands as they are so much brighter and better than us and from their lofty peaks can see all that more clearly. Make us all the same and weed out the contingencies. It is good to know you are out there shining a light on those dark corners, their house of cards will surely tumble.
As we are still dealing with an incredibly powerful Clinton controlled DNC, it would be nice to do some current investigative reporting on that and not be blinded by the Bernie movement.
Start exposing what you know quite well, is there
This article is an elaboration of headline news.
Lol
Um, right now the DNC is no where near as powerful as Trump and the GOP, but go ahead keep deflecting criticisim of Trump.
Time to collapse both Dems and GOP and start over as they are all corrupted.
??
blinded by the Bernie movement?
re: election in Britain:
Blinded by the light…. from a high powered foto bulb
in their eyes in the night
conservatives running in fright
scattering about like roaches in the light
blinded by the light
Great bunch of comments so far on this one. Im not trying to type Grace’s explanation for her words; but I will tell you a few of the problems I have with old Bernout. First, before he rolled over like a lapdog after we, his voters were blatantly robbed, he never even shared the podium let alone the cult-like limelight with any young person who could politically capitalize on that connection. Anybody disagree with that assessment? No. It’s a fact. It’s to me the only point that needs to be made about the complete failure of Sanders/16. There is nothing progressive without young people being given a greater voice and actually listening to them, young people, not just half-assedly speaking for them and their dreams, till it’s time to shut up and smile like an elderly shill. Which is what he did. Let’s hear about some people in their thirties who dont continue to call their ex-con father daddy, publicly.
Yes. All of us abiding in the universe of The Reasonable and Rational. Including Nina Turner.
Ha! I think Bernie’s groups are gaining momentum and I’m excited they are.
I only meant the “Russia Did It” crowd are incredibly powerful and, handily, bipartisan. I don’t expect they’ll go down easily and if the DNC or H have a nickel left ..they’ll fight to the end in any future election. The Never Trumpers formed quite the coalition..and we aren’t the UK.
I certainly didn’t intend to disparage Bernie!
Blinded By the Light..lol
Clinton Foundation? They didn’t even provide services in response for the money. It was pay to play.
If you can write an article like this and infer this is a new phenomenon with Trump then you have a very, very short memory and are willfully only looking under one rock.
“didn’t even provide services in response for the money”
The Clinton foundation is a non-profit charity you fool.
“The Clinton foundation is a non-profit charity you fool.”
That spent most of its money on travel expenses or on “talk” or the wonderful help they gave Haiti?
Whether it was their C Foundation or the Global Initiative, most everything was partnered with some business and was offered only with policy changes…the ultimate AID Dealers.
Like many non profits, a great way to
raise tax free income for many perks, while providing the minimum to keep the tax status.
Now you understand why the Clinton campaign had to say it was Russian collusion and not pay to play politics when dealing with Trump. She would have been laughed out of the building.
In the end, Trump’s real crime here is that he’s making money from the wrong oligarchs.
Why the surprise?
America has fast become a third world country:
For profit school/universities
Students actually starving
For profit media, controlled by the owners of the country
For profit judicial system
For profit prisons
For profit healthcare
For profit Agriculture/so-called food production
For profit Congress
For profit Supreme Court
For profit Presidency
For (ginormous) profit government contracts
Militarized police force
Out of control armaments manufacturers.
For profit weapons manufactures
For profit addictive drug peddlers.
And nobody cares!……… (enough to do something about it, except tut, tut!)
Can you name one non-profit weapons manufacturer?
I sincerely want to know.
Greedy and disgraceful if not illegal.
This could turn out to be the most honest presidency ever – straight up and down along capitalist lines, in future instead of wasting billions on farcical elections simply put the President position up for auction and take the highest bidder. God loves America but I bet Jesus would hate it.
Mar-a-Lago has already increased its membership fees, to $200,000 from $100,000. And why not?
The presidency has been privitised. Future presidents will be able to vacate the spy-bugged leaky whitehouse and rent MAR-A-LAGO as their new HQ. And why not?
Lol..though I doubt another business person would ever want to head this government again.
We’ll be stuck with sponsored and logoed politicians…better versed in bs than Trump.
yep.
please remind me, did you cover Obama’s $400K payout?
Did who cover it? And why do you ask?
Yes..good stuff..also..Democracy Now did a piece on KidK’s Real Estate empire today
That was a good exposé on KidK!
And the sad thing is it is his greed that made him less dangerous than the Neo-con Hillary.One of the only redeeming qualities Trump has was his willingness to work with Russia and not start WW3 as the neo-cons planned.
Is this a little overwrought, perhaps?
Perhaps!
Yes, of course it is
It’s just the future of your children at stake.
So kick back, have a few beers and watch a sillyball game on the box.