News Release Archive - 2016

Will Trump Actually Pull Back from Wars?

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7c8f18190cf8ad616e2ce1c8348f14aaIVAN ELAND, ieland[at]independent.org, @Ivan_Eland
Eland is senior fellow and director of the Center on Peace & Liberty at the Independent Institute.

He said today, “Donald Trump, during the campaign, refreshingly advocated fewer foreign wars and a reassessment of U.S. alliances around the world, but his rumored consideration of Former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich, Sen. Bob Corker (Chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee), or John Bolton disappointingly point in the direction of continuing the standard Republican hawkish foreign policy of George W. Bush — about which Trump complained in the campaign.

“For defense secretary, the seeming consideration of Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.), Stephen Hadley, and former Sen. Jim Talent (R-Mo.) seem to go down the same road.

“The apparent consideration of Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn and Rep.Duncan Hunter (R-Calif.) for National Security Adviser, also have a hawkish tinge.

“Some new voices on the right advocating a more restrained foreign policy are needed — to be more aligned with Trump’s campaign promise to the American people to get involved in fewer foreign wars and reassess, and perhaps scale back, the U.S. role in globe-spanning alliances.”

The “Second-Most Important Vote” Today

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rcv-1-2-3MICHELLE WHITTAKER, mwhittaker[at]fairvote.org, @fairvote
Communications director for FairVote, Whittaker said today: “As millions of voters head to the polls on Election Day there is energy for electoral reform across the country. Americans have a chance to shape democracy for generations to come and improve our political discourse for the better. Maine’s historic opportunity to become the first state to adopt ranked choice voting for statewide offices is an chance for all Americans to look forward to elections where voters have a stronger voice and the will of people is heard.”
She added: “FairVote applauds the tireless work of thousands of grassroots supporters and volunteers to bring ranked choice voting to Maine. Question 5 gives voters a stronger voice and ensures that the will of the people is heard in Maine. In our current system, the way we choose our leaders is failing. As a nonpartisan group, FairVote advocates for proven solutions to make elections better. Voters should have the freedom to vote for the candidate they like the best without fear that their vote will help the candidate they like the least. Studies show that campaigns are less negative in cities that use ranked choice voting. Rewarding candidates who seek to earn every voter’s support is a win for the people of Maine and American democracy as a whole. Ranked choice voting is a nonpartisan reform supported by Republicans, Democrats, and independents. We all recognize the need to make our country a better place for future generations. It begins with how we elect and hold our leaders accountable.”

The Portland Press-Herald published an editorial: “Ranked-choice voting is right for Maine,” which states: “We support Question 5, a proposal to introduce ranked-choice voting in primaries and general elections for U.S. senator, U.S. representative, governor and members of the Maine Legislature.

“This reform represents a bold change, but it’s a change that would bring back something we’ve lost — consensus politics in a time of political fragmentation.”

Also, see: “The Second-Most Important Vote On Election Day,” by Larry Diamond.

Pence and the “Christian Right”: Election a “Win-Win”

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x0013489549-51961-2NBC reports: “Ted Cruz Hits the Trail With Mike Pence.”

FREDERICK CLARKSON, frederick.clarkson[at]gmail.com, @FredClarkson
Clarkson is senior fellow at Political Research Associates, a progressive, social justice think tank in Somerville, Mass. He is the author or editor of several books and hundreds of articles over three decades. He is the author most recently of “Dominionism Rising: A Theocratic Movement Hiding in Plain Sight,” which appears in the Fall issue of The Public Eye quarterly.

He said today: “The election of 2016 will be a win/win for the Christian Right. If Trump wins, they will be viewed as kingmakers — especially since polls have shown that evangelical Christians have been his most loyal backers. If Clinton wins, the Christian Right will go into resistance mode in much the way they did when Bill Clinton was president. It will mean vast fundraising opportunities as they contend against a woman they view as more evil than her husband. The movement will grow, demonstrating that it can win, even in losing.

“Some pundits claim that the Christian Right is dead, dying or deeply diminished. But that claim is no more true now than it was the many times we have heard it over the past three decades.”

“The Christian Right has changed its methods in ways that are often less visible than the pioneering activities of the larger-than-life figures Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell. But their legacy lives on. For example, many contemporary Christian Right leaders were able to justify support for Donald Trump because he was able to articulate their message about religious liberty, despite his dubious record on the issues of abortion and traditional marriage.

“Some of the best evidence of the success of the Christian Right is that no matter who wins the presidency, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) is still a sitting member of the U.S. Senate from a major state and one of the best known pols in the country. And Mike Pence is either the Vice President; or if his ticket loses, is a party leader and joins Cruz as a contender for the GOP nomination for president in 2020.”

Beyond Dakota Access: Why Build More Fossil Fuel Infrastructure?

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41pooyi1-5l-_sx328_bo1204203200_WENONAH HAUTER, via Seth Gladstone, sgladstone[at]fwwatch.org
Hauter is the founder and executive director of Food & Water Watch. Her books include Frackopoly: The Battle for the Future of Energy and the Environment.

She said today: “After months of unceasing pressure from peaceful water protectors at Standing Rock, people backed by unprecedented unity among North American tribes, it’s not surprising that President Obama has been forced to comment on the controversial Dakota Access pipeline. Now he needs to act. The federal government is failing indigenous communities seeking to protect their sacred lands from indiscriminate desecration, driven by the corporate-driven assault of oil development and destruction. And in suggesting that the pipeline could just be rerouted, Obama misses the key element of resistance to Dakota Access: all new fossil fuel infrastructure must be halted immediately, because our planet is on the brink of climate crisis and there is no excuse for building another 40 years of fossil fuel infrastructure. And no communities should be forced to host a dangerous and destructive fossil fuel pipeline. For the sake of all Americans’ future health and safety, the only acceptable outcome of the Dakota Access situation is to shut the project down for good.”

How Clinton’s Elite Corruption Breeds Trump’s Demagoguery

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51p6zffgttl-_sy344_bo1204203200_-2JANINE WEDEL, jwedel[at]gmu.edu, @janinewedel
Wedel, an anthropologist, is a University Professor in the School of Policy, Government, and International Affairs at George Mason University. She just wrote the piece “Clinton’s Latest Email Scandal And Why It Deserves Scrutiny: When the public’s trust is betrayed, it only fuels a demagogue like Trump.” Her books include Unaccountable: How The Establishment Corrupted our Finances, Freedom, and Politics and Created an Outsider Class, just out in paperback, and Shadow Elite: How the World’s New Power Brokers Undermine Democracy, Government, and the Free Market.

Wedel writes: “With days to go before the election, the FBI has served up its own October Surprise, saying it was examining a new batch of emails in an investigation most thought had generally ended. But at the heart of the broader controversy, Hillary Clinton has no one to blame except herself.

“I have been studying the behavior of influence elites for years as a social anthropologist, and one of the hallmarks of today’s elites is the subverting of standard process. … I examine how the most agile policy makers personalize the bureaucracy, creating workarounds and pushing rules and standards to their limits to both better press their agendas, and to avoid accountability should those agendas later come into question. I have devoted much study to one of the most egregious cases of subverting process, the concerted effort by a small circle of neoconservatives, what I call the Neocon core, to take the United States to war in Iraq in 2003.

“For Hillary Clinton, there has been no case of personalizing the bureaucracy more ultimately damaging to her reputation than her use of a private email server. Watergate player John Dean took to the New York Timeson Monday to say that Trump’s assertion that the email scandal is worse than Watergate distorts the record, and takes our eye off of more significant abuses of power. I agree that ‘Email-gate’ does not deserve that name. It’s a blip compared to what the Neocon core did, both in terms of the subversion itself, and the terrible impact of the decision to engineer a casus belli. But it’s not nothing either.

“Putting aside the very real security concerns raised by using a private server, officials like Clinton and many, many others who subvert standard procedure create a black hole of transparency. At the same time she was Secretary of State, her husband was subverting (his term is more likely ‘innovating’) philanthropic process by mixing business clients with donors, taking donations from corporations and foreign governments in novel and, again, less-than-transparent ways. This emerging elite practice has been dubbed ‘philanthro-capitalism’ and is by no means confined to the Clintons.”

Wedel also recently wrote the piece “Trumpism 101: The Outsider, Ignored For Years. No Longer,” which states: “This rigged system exists, not in the voting booth (as Donald Trump keeps proclaiming), but in policy making arenas. The sense that something huge is amiss has driven millions of Americans to seek leaders they perceive as outside of the system — the most successful being Trump, Bernie Sanders, and a motley collection of third party candidates. In fact, as I argue, the new corruption of Hillary Clinton and many, many elite players of all stripes has paved the way for the likes of Trump and Sanders.”

Aleppo and Mosul and Clinton and Trump

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JOHN PILGER, jpilger2003[at]yahoo.co.uk
Investigative journalist John Pilger’s books include Hidden Agendas and The New Rulers of the World. He recently wrote the piece “Inside the Invisible Government: War, Propaganda, Clinton & Trump,” which states: “Imagine two cities.

“Both are under siege by the forces of the government of that country. Both cities are occupied by fanatics, who commit terrible atrocities, such as beheading people.

“But there is a vital difference. In one siege, the government soldiers are described as liberators by Western reporters embedded with them, who enthusiastically report their battles and air strikes. There are front page pictures of these heroic soldiers giving a V-sign for victory. There is scant mention of civilian casualties.

“In the second city — in another country nearby — almost exactly the same is happening. Government forces are laying siege to a city controlled by the same breed of fanatics.

“The difference is that these fanatics are supported, supplied and armed by ‘us’ — by the United States and Britain. They even have a media centre that is funded by Britain and America.

“Another difference is that the government soldiers laying siege to this city are the bad guys, condemned for assaulting and bombing the city — which is exactly what the good soldiers do in the first city.

“Confusing? Not really. Such is the basic double standard that is the essence of propaganda. I am referring, of course, to the current siege of the city of Mosul by the government forces of Iraq, who are backed by the United States and Britain and to the siege of Aleppo by the government forces of Syria, backed by Russia. One is good; the other is bad.”

FBI Whistleblower on Comey and Clinton

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COLEEN ROWLEY,  rowleyclan [at] earthlink.net, @ColeenRowley
Rowley, a former FBI special agent and division counsel whose May 2002 memo to the FBI Director exposed some of the FBI’s pre-9/11 failures was named one of TIME magazine’s “Persons of the Year” in 2002. See her page at ConsortiumNews.com.

She said today: “Given the beating that FBI Director James Comey is taking from Democratic leaders and partisans as well as from the Clinton campaign, it would be good to remember some of his history. Back in 2013, I wrote a New York Times op-ed [“Questions for the F.B.I. Nominee“] that attempted to question and point out some of the (mostly undeserved) basis for Comey’s reputation for integrity.

“My op-ed came out the day of his Senate confirmation hearing accompanied by a nice torture graphic (although the Times watered it down a little; for instance, they made me change the word ‘torture.’ We settled on: ‘He ultimately approved the C.I.A.’s list of “enhanced interrogation” techniques, including waterboarding, which experts on international law consider a form of torture.’). The op-ed had little effect as Comey sailed through the nomination with full bipartisan support and only one Senator voting against his confirmation.

“Comey is neither saint nor villain but someone who has been around the block. As an acting Attorney General, he’s actually been in his nominal boss’s Loretta Lynch’s exact position and knows how the political pressures as well as media disclosures (i.e. leaking to the public) work. Although he wasn’t really challenging mass surveillance of American citizens or the CIA’s use of torture back March 2004 in Ashcroft’s hospital room, he did stand up to John Yoo’s (presidentially ordained) pettifoggery establishing a form of martial law after 9-11, based on (fascistic) ‘imperial presidency’ war powers.

“Considering his background, I think Comey could be truly worried about the high level of corruption that has engulfed Washington D.C. It should be recalled that he appointed Patrick Fitzgerald as an independent prosecutor to investigate Bush-Cheney’s ‘Plamegate’ perfidy. And don’t forget a young Comey helped investigate the Clintons’ ‘Whitewater’ fraud over two decades ago. Yet after his stint at the Department of Justice, Comey went on to become a Vice-President and General Counsel for Lockheed Martin which donates to and has numerous ties to the Clintons and their Foundation.”  CNN reports: “Hillary Clinton enlists ‘Daisy’ from the 1964 ad to questions Trump on nukes.” Rowley was recently featured on the Institute for Public Accuracy news release “Clinton’s ‘Incredibly Dangerous’ Nuclear Brinkmanship,” which notes: “While many have argued that Donald Trump is unstable and therefore unsuitable to be responsible for making decisions about nuclear war, analysts point to a series of Hillary Clinton policies that risk all out nuclear war.”

Rowley added: “Sorry if my nickname ‘Killary’ offends any Democratic partisans, but Clinton, by my and others’ calculations has callously helped cause the needless deaths of a couple million people (and counting), to some extent motivated by her close ties with Israel and Saudi Arabia (and the millions she derives from these connections). …

“Comey may also be an experienced politician of sorts but his history shows he possesses a tad more integrity than the Clintons.”

“Historic” U.N. Vote for Nuclear Ban

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AP reports: “United Nations member states voted overwhelmingly on Thursday to approve a resolution calling for negotiations on a treaty that would outlaw nuclear weapons, despite strong opposition from nuclear-armed nations and their allies.

“The vote in the U.N. disarmament and international security committee saw 123 nations voting in favor of the resolution, 38 opposing and 16 abstaining.

“The resolution was sponsored by Austria, Brazil, Ireland, Mexico, Nigeria and South Africa.

“The United States, Russia, Israel, France and the United Kingdom were among the countries voting against the measure.

“The resolution now goes to a full General Assembly vote sometime in December.”

IRA HELFAND, MD, @IPPNW
    Helfand is past president of Physicians for Social Responsibility and is currently co-president of that group’s global federation, the International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War, recipient of the 1985 Nobel Peace Prize.

Helfand said today: “In an historic move the United Nations First Committee voted Thursday to convene a conference next March to negotiate a new treaty to ban the possession of nuclear weapons. The vote is a huge step forward in the campaign to rid the world of nuclear weapons launched several years ago by non-nuclear weapons states and civil society from across the globe.

“Dismayed by the failure of the nuclear weapons states to honor their obligation under Article VI of the Non-Proliferation Treaty which requires them to pursue good faith negotiations for the elimination of their nuclear arsenals, and moved by the growing danger of nuclear war, more than 120 nations gathered in Oslo in March of 2013 to review the latest scientific data about the catastrophic consequences that will result from the use of nuclear weapons. The conference shifted the focus of international discussion about nuclear war from abstract consideration of nuclear strategy to an evaluation of the medical data about what will actually happen if these weapons are used. It was boycotted by all of the major nuclear powers, the U.S., Russia, UK, China and France, the five permanent members of the U.N. Security Council, or P5.

“Further meetings in Nayarit, Mexico and Vienna followed in 2014 and culminated in a pledge by the Austrian government to ‘close the gap’ in international law that does yet specifically outlaw the possession of these weapons. More than 140 countries ultimately associated themselves with the pledge which was fiercely opposed by the United States and the other nuclear weapons states, and in the fall of 2015 the U.N. General Assembly voted to establish an Open Ended Working Group which met in Geneva earlier this year and recommended the negotiations approved Thursday.

“The United States, which led the opposition, had hoped to limit the ‘Yes’ vote to less than one hundred, but failed badly. The final vote was 123 For, 38 Against and 16 Abstentions. The ‘No’ votes came from the nuclear weapons states, and U.S. allies in NATO, plus Japan, South Korea and Australia, which have treaty ties to the U.S., and consider themselves to be under the protection of the ‘U.S. nuclear umbrella.’

“But four nuclear weapons states broke ranks, with China, India and Pakistan abstaining, and North Korea voting in favor of the treaty negotiations. In addition, the Netherlands defied intense pressure from the rest of NATO and abstained, as did Finland, which is not a member of NATO but has close ties with the alliance. Japan which voted with the U.S. against the treaty has indicated that it will, nonetheless, participate in the negotiations when they begin in March.

“The U.S, and the other nuclear weapons states will probably try to block final approval of the treaty conference by the General Assembly later this fall, but, following Thursday’s vote, it appears overwhelmingly likely that negotiations will begin in March, and that they will involve a significant majority of U.N. member states, even if the nuclear states continue their boycott.

“The successful completion of a new treaty will not of itself eliminate nuclear weapons. But it will put powerful new pressure on the nuclear weapons states who clearly do not want to uphold their obligations under the Non-Proliferation Treaty even as they insist that the non-nuclear weapons states meet theirs.

“We have come perilously close to nuclear war on multiple occasions during the last 70 years, and we have been incredibly lucky. U.S. nuclear policy cannot continue to be the hope that we will remain lucky in the future. We need to join and lead the growing movement to abolish nuclear weapons and work to bring the other nuclear weapons states into a binding agreement that sets out the detailed time line for eliminating these weapons and the detailed verification and enforcement mechanisms to make sure they are eliminated.

“This will not be an easy task, but we really have no choice. If we don’t get rid of these weapons, someday, perhaps sooner rather than later, they will be used and they will destroy human civilization. The decision is ours.”

Clinton’s America: Wall Street in the Saddle

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NOMI PRINS, Jaime Leifer, jaime.leifer [at] publicaffairsbooks.com, @nomiprins
Prins is author of All the Presidents’ Bankers: The Hidden Alliances That Drive American Power and just wrote the piece “Waking Up in Hillary Clinton’s America: Wall Street in the Saddle” for TomDispatch.com.

She writes: “At the heart of American political consciousness right now lies a soul-crushing reality for millions of distraught Americans: the choices for president couldn’t be feebler or more disappointing. On the one hand, we have a petulant, vocabulary-challenged man-boar of a billionaire, who hasn’t paid his taxes, has regularly left those supporting him holding the bag, and seems like a ludicrous composite of every bad trait in every bad date any woman has ever had. On the other hand, we’re offered a walking photo-op for and well-paid speechmaker to Wall-Street CEOs, a one-woman money-raising machine from the 1 percent of the 1 percent, who, despite a folksiness that couldn’t look more rehearsed, has methodically outplayed her opponent. …

“In this election, Hillary has crafted her talking points regarding the causes of the last financial crisis as weapons against Trump, but they hardly begin to tell the real story of what happened to the American economy. The meltdown of 2007-2008 was not mainly due to ‘tax policies that slashed taxes on the wealthy’ or a ‘failure to invest in the middle class,’ two subjects she has repeatedly highlighted to slam the Republicans and their candidate. It was a byproduct of the destruction of the regulations that opened the way for a too-big-to-fail framework to thrive. Under the presidency of Bill Clinton, Glass-Steagall, the Depression-era act that once separated people’s bank deposits and loans from any kind of risky bets or other similar actions in which banks might engage, was repealed under the Financial Modernization Act of 1999. In addition, the Commodity Futures Modernization Act was passed, which allowed Wall Street to concoct devastating unregulated side bets on what became the subprime crisis. …

“One possible contender for treasury secretary in a new Clinton administration would be Bill Clinton’s Under Secretary of Domestic Finance and Obama’s Commodity Futures Trading Commission chairman, Gary Gensler (who was — I’m sure you won’t be shocked — a Goldman Sachs partner before entering public service). These, then, are typical inhabitants of the Clinton inner circle and of the political-financial corridors of power. …

“Among the emails sent to John Podesta that were posted by WikiLeaks is an article I wrote for TomDispatch on the Clintons’ relationships with bankers. ‘She will not point fingers at her friends,’ I said in that piece in May 2015. ‘She will not chastise the people who pay her hundreds of thousands of dollars a pop to speak or the ones who have long shared the social circles in which she and her husband move.’ I also suggested that she wouldn’t call out any CEO by name. To this day she hasn’t.” Prins’ past pieces include “Madoff in the White House? How Trump’s Conflicts of Interest Could Become Ours.”

 

Israeli “General’s Son” Facing Sentencing, on U.S. Election

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MIKO PELED, mikopeled [at] gmail.com, @mikopeled
Peled is an Israeli peace activist and author of the memoir The General’s Son, Journey of an Israeli in Palestine. Currently in San Diego, Peled will be in New York State and then Washington, D.C. (Nov. 3 to 7) before going to Jerusalem where he will be sentenced on Election Day.

He said today: “Nonviolent demonstrations in Palestine have been going on since 2005, protesting their lands and fresh water supply being taken by Jewish settlements. I was arrested Friday, Aug 3, 2012 in the village of Nabi Saleh and was charged with disturbing the peace, participating in an illegal gathering and entering a closed military zone. I was acquitted by a judge in October 2015. The government of Israel won the case on appeal, claiming that I was guilty by association because I anticipated disturbances and rock-throwing would occur at the protest, and chose to attend anyway.

“This prosecution is clearly politically motivated. These weekly demonstrations are part of the Palestinian peaceful, nonviolent resistance often attended by Nobel laureates and other people who are respected worldwide. The only disturbance of the peace is when the army shows up and starts to shoot, first tear gas, then rubber-coated bullets and then live ammunition.

“As privileged Jews in the state of Israel, I and other Israeli activists face minor consequences even if we are found guilty of the charges. This is in stark contrast with what Palestinians face if they are arrested in the same place and are faced with the same charges.”

Peled’s sentencing takes place on Nov. 8th — Election Day in the U.S. He says, “The 2016 elections give Americans an opportunity to speak up against the $38 Billion boondoggle in foreign aid to Israel. Israel is a fully developed country that neither needs nor deserves foreign aid. Much of this money will go to activity that contravenes U.S. laws, yet both major candidates wholeheartedly support it.”