Philadelphia Fathers Attend Ballet Class With Their Daughters and Lovingly Dance Their Hearts Out
Author: hearseeno
Jesus.
Look at this, and remember it next time someone says that the gay community survived the AIDS epidemic.
We didn’t survive, we started over. We lost all but an entire generation.
This is what “we survived Reagan, you’ll survive Trump” looks like. No, we didn’t.
^^^ I hate that line. Because a great many people didn’t survive Reagan, and a good many more won’t survive Trump. People who say that clearly haven’t gotten a goddamned clue.
A Back-Channel Plan for Ukraine and Russia, Courtesy of Trump Associates
2/19/17
Good lord. This reads like a Cold War spy novel.
Couple things to keep in mind when you read this article:
1) Who’s who:
Mr. Artemenko = per Ms. Twohey and Mr. Shane: “Ukrainian lawmaker trying to rise in a political opposition movement shaped in part by Mr. Trump’s former campaign manager Paul D. Manafort.” He is opposing the current Ukrainian president Poroshenko, who replaced the former president Yanukovych in 2014 (who had ties to Russia and is currently in exile there). I’m assuming here, then, that Mr. Artemenko is pro-Russia. He is NOT authorized to speak for the Ukrainian government, and instead seems to be attempting to pull power plays to unseat Yanukovych by appealing directly to Trump’s administration.
Mr. Sater = managing director of Bayrock group, was a senior advisor to Trump when Trump SoHo began in 2006 and “who helped Mr. Trump scout deals in Russia”. He has an interesting legal past, including being “an “unindicted co-conspirator” and a key figure in a $40 million scheme involving 19 stockbrokers and organized crime figures from four Mafia families” and “embroiled in a plan to buy antiaircraft missiles on the black market for the Central Intelligence Agency in either Russia or Afghanistan”
Mr. Cohen = per Ms. Twohey and Mr. Shane: “A lawyer who joined the Trump Organization in 2007 as special counsel, he has worked on many deals… He is considered a loyal lieutenant whom Mr. Trump trusts to fix difficult problems.” He is married to a Ukrainian woman, and once worked there.
2) Immediate history that is relevant here:
– Both Mr. Cohen and Mr. Manafort are under investigation by the FBI for their alleged interactions with Russian representatives and connections to Russia and Ukraine.
The F.B.I. is reviewing an unverified dossier, compiled by a former British intelligence agent and funded by Mr. Trump’s political opponents, that claims Mr. Cohen met with a Russian representative in Prague during the presidential campaign to discuss Russia’s hacking of Democratic targets. But the Russian official named in the report told The New York Times that he had never met Mr. Cohen. Mr. Cohen insists that he has never visited Prague and that the dossier’s assertions are fabrications. (Mr. Manafort is also under investigation by the F.B.I. for his connections to Russia and Ukraine.) (Twohey & Shane)
– Before Mr. Manafort ran Mr. Trump’s campaign, he
… had been instrumental in getting Mr. Yanukovych elected [former pro-Russia Ukrainian president], helped shape a political bloc that sprang up to oppose the new president, Mr. Poroshenko, a wealthy businessman who has taken a far tougher stance toward Russia and accused Mr. Putin of wanting to absorb Ukraine into a new Russian Empire. (Twohey & Shane)
– Mr. Artemenko arose out of Mr. Manafort’s efforts at opposition in Ukraine and claims to have compromising material on Poroshenko and associates. He seems to be maneuvering things to oust the current anti-Russia Ukrainian president.
What has recently come to light:
Mr. Sater (former business associate of Mr. Trump) was put in contact with Mr. Artemenko (Ukrainian lawmaker opposing the current Ukrainian administration) to act as a go-between with Mr. Artemenko and the Trump administration. Together they approached Mr. Cohen (Mr. Trump’s lawyer) with a peace plan proposal for Ukraine, which, per Mr. Artemenko, had received encouragement from an unnamed top aide to Mr. Putin.
Mr. Artemenko’s plan “would require the withdrawal of all Russian forces from eastern Ukraine. Ukrainian voters would decide in a referendum whether Crimea, the Ukrainian territory seized by Russia in 2014, would be leased to Russia for a term of 50 or 100 years.” (Twohey & Shane)
Mr. Cohen said he did not know who in the Russian government had offered encouragement on it, as Mr. Artemenko claims, but he understood there was a promise of proof of corruption by the Ukrainian president.
“Fraud is never good, right?” Mr. Cohen said.
He said Mr. Sater had given him the written proposal in a sealed envelope. When Mr. Cohen met with Mr. Trump in the Oval Office in early February, he said, he left the proposal in Mr. Flynn’s office.
Mr. Cohen said he was waiting for a response when Mr. Flynn was forced from his post. Now Mr. Cohen, Mr. Sater and Mr. Artemenko are hoping a new national security adviser will take up their cause. (Twohey & Shane)
Meanwhile, Rex Tillerson, who is actually the person responsible for such things, has been reassuring the Ukrainian president of “Western unity and solidarity”. And Vice P Pence met with the Ukrainian president and “’underscored U.S. support’ for Ukraine’s sovereignty and territorial integrity and underlined that the U.S. does not recognize “Russia’s occupation and attempted annexation” of Crimea.” At the same time, Russia has just started to “recognize passports and other documents issued by rebel authorities [pro-Russian] in eastern Ukraine.”
~*~
Even though his administration is only a month old, it certainly wouldn’t be the first time that Mr. Trump has sent out avatars from his administration to say the sane and reassuring thing to say in this situation (especially Mike Pence), but then behind the scenes do something completely different.
What do you want to bet that first comes a peace plan that benefits Putin’s plan to expand Russia and throws Ukraine under the bus. Then Trump lifts sanctions against Russia so that Tillerson can facilitate stronger economic ties between Russia and the US – via oil deals. Which will then leave us with a lot of skin in Russia’s game, much like the US has a lot of skin in the game in the Middle East.
The best interests of multinational oil companies are not the same as those of the US and Europe. Their interests would lead the US into more dependence on foreign oil. I remember the days of the Energy Crisis in the 1980s. Political heads rolled when gas prices went up, long lines grew at gas stations, and gas stations closed because they had run out of fuel. I can’t imagine any US politician who could stomach risking the lessons we learned with Jimmy Carter. Will those oil ties with Russia then be “too big to fail?” How much leverage will the US lose in relation to Russia’s actions in Europe? How much leverage will the US lose in relation to Russia’s meddling in our internal affairs?
A Back-Channel Plan for Ukraine and Russia, Courtesy of Trump Associates
Photos: What America looked like before the EPA
Republicans Charge Into Resistance at Tumultuous Town Halls
2/19/17
MOUNT
PLEASANT, S.C. — The Republican lawmakers stood with fixed smiles,
shifting in place, facing down turmoil but no trial inside a municipal
courtroom overstuffed with constituents.Across
the room, the first questioner foretold a long Saturday morning: “Are
you personally proud,” the man, Ernest Fava, 54, said of President
Trump, “to have this person representing our country?” The more than 200
attendees stirred, with at least as many waiting outside.Senator
Tim Scott tried first: “Given the two choices I had, I am thankful that
Trump is our president,” he said, to ferocious boos.Then Representative Mark Sanford waded in: “I think we’re all struggling with it,” he said of the tumultuous first month, to nods.
Continue reading the main story
As
members of Congress return home during a legislative recess many
Republicans are dreading, a hearty few on Saturday charged headlong into
the resistance. At events across the country, lawmakers have strained
to quell the boiling anger at Mr. Trump — and often, the Republican Party — after four extraordinary weeks.The
break from Capitol Hill is doubling as a real-time stress test for both
pro-Trump Republicans and anti-Trump protesters — an early signal of
how much latitude will be afforded to members who continue defending the
president and how much venom they are willing to absorb.…
For the lawmakers, early returns were mixed. In North Harmony, N.Y.,
Representative Tom Reed confronted what felt like interminable jeers,
navigating hostile questions about abortion rights, efforts to dismantle
the Affordable Care Act and Mr. Trump’s tax returns. The crowd at a
senior center was so large that the event was moved to the parking lot
outside. Chants of “Do your job!” rang out.
When your town hall comes with GUI comments.
Indivisble, getting organized! – #resist!
Indivisible, getting organized! Press roundup, February 14–17
With
Congressional recesses next week, the Indivisible movement’s preparing
for Town Halls. There’s even more national coverage than in Ramping up! (the previous press roundup), including including Claire Foran’s The Anti-Trump ‘Resistance’ Takes Hold in Red States in The Atlantic, Time, Newsweek, NPR, Common Dreams, Talking Points Memo, Vice, and of course Rachel Maddow.Once
again, though, it’s the local newspapers and TV stations who are where
the action is — which is pretty much everywhere at this point! Here’s a
partial roundup … if you know some other links, please leave them as
“responses.”
I’ve been seeing a lot of twitter posts about Townhalls and protests happening in everything from small, rural towns to big cities. The big media franchises seem to be focusing on the narrative of big city protests, but now I’m seeing more local media coverage.
Charlottesville, VA; Buffalo, NY; Boise, ID; Charleston, SC; Rocklin, CA; Sartell, MN; Mansfield, OH; Durango, CO; Yakima, WA; Ogden, UT; Terre Haute, IN; Las Cruces, NM; Dayton, FL; Wilco, TX; West Valley, AZ; Evesham, NJ; Fayateville, AK are just a sampling collated by Jon Pincus in this post.
One of the downsides of apartment life is that you’re included in your neighbors’ lives without a whole lot of either person’s consent involved.
My downstairs neighbor is singing something lovely and operatic, while playing the piano rather badly.
Meanwhile, my upstairs neighbor is having a full out, kicking, screaming, door slamming, and crying tantrum of some kind. I would have more sympathy if this also weren’t the same person who thought that Olympic walking in circles over my head at 2am for 45 minutes was a good way to get exercise.
ICE calls Sheriff Paul Penzone’s new Maricopa County jail policy a ‘dangerous change,’ but judges across U.S are ruling against immigration detainers
What a difference an election can make.
Not long ago, Maricopa County was regarded as the country’s most hostile locality for those living in the United States illegally. With a combination of anti-immigration state laws and a sheriff to enforce them zealously, the county became a deportation machine, its jails accounting for more immigration holds than anywhere else in the country.
But on Friday evening, less than two months into his tenure as Maricopa County sheriff, Paul Penzone unveiled his first major policy announcement: MCSO jails no longer would detain individuals for Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
All inmates, legal residents or not, will be released from jail when the period of time for detention authorized under Arizona state law is up. Until Friday, the jail would issue courtesy “detainers” for the federal government, jailing individuals for up to 48 hours longer than they would otherwise be held for their criminal case, and setting in motion deportation proceedings.
Penzone’s statement at a hastily arranged event underscores a remarkable procedural shift from his predecessor, Sheriff Joe Arpaio. Rather than leading the charge against illegal immigration, Maricopa County likely is now the only county in the state to reject one of ICE’s key partnerships with local jurisdictions.
A statement from ICE Saturday called the new policy an “immediate, dangerous change.”
“MCSO has implemented a policy which will undoubtedly result in dangerous criminal aliens being released to the street to re-victimize the innocent citizens of that community,” the statement said. “Additionally, the new policy puts ICE officers at a higher risk as more fugitive operations teams will need to arrest criminal aliens outside of the secure confines of the county jail.”
Enrique Lucero, field office director for ICE Enforcement and Removal Operations in Phoenix, said in a statement, “This sudden change in posture is unfortunate. Immigration detainers have been a successful enforcement tool to prevent the release of dangerous criminals to our streets and mitigate the possibility of future crimes being committed against the residents of our communities.”
A statement Saturday from the Maricopa County Attorney’s Office said Penzone’s decision came after consulting with the office, which is the legal adviser for Maricopa County officials. It cited cases around the country, including one in Dallas County, Texas, that said that county officials without certain federal authority may not rely on a civil immigration detainer to maintain custody of individuals beyond the time it would take to release them under state law.
The decision was hailed by immigration-rights advocates, but it also raised concerns with some Republican elected officials, who say the policy should be finessed to ensure compliance with the federal government.
“The county needs to find some way to make sure that these ICE-targeted illegal aliens aren’t released on the street but wind up in federal custody where they belong,” said state Rep.John Kavanagh of Fountain Hills, a co-sponsor of the controversial Senate Bill 1070.
Penzone said Friday that the sheriff’s office would continue to work with ICE agents but would not facilitate departing inmates’ transfer to ICE. He could not offer clarification on how ICE agents would collect those the agency deemed fit for deportation.
“ICE will have to take a more aggressive position on how to act on those,” Penzone said.
The statement from ICE Saturday said it would continue to seek to collaborate with the sheriff’s office and with other law enforcement agencies in the Phoenix area "to help ensure that individuals who may pose a threat to our communities are not released onto the street to potentially reoffend and harm our citizens.“
Federal judges rule against ICE detainers
A map published by the Immigrant Legal Resource Center shows that all Arizona jails were complying with ICE detainers as of December 2016. The Arizona Republic has found no evidence that any other county has dropped that collaboration in the intervening weeks.
Calls and emails to local sheriff departments on Saturday largely went unanswered, but representatives for Yuma and Yavapai counties said their jails would continue to honor ICE’s requested detainers.
Angie Junck, supervising attorney for the Immigrant Legal Resource Center, said it was the center’s understanding that Maricopa County was the first to drop the ICE holds.
Junck said similar policy changes in other states have sparked ripple effects in neighboring counties.
RELATED: No more ‘courtesy holds’ for federal immigration agents
Penzone on Friday said his decision was based on the advice of the county attorney’s office, and due to a “threat of litigation.” Although the sheriff did not specify to which lawsuit he was referring, advocates believe it was a December complaint in federal court, in which a U.S. citizen held on a detainer alleged the process was unconstitutional.
Junck also said ICE and localities across the country have faced similar lawsuits, and courts have unanimously ruled against the detainers.
“On every single case, this is a violation of the Fourth Amendment,” she said, referring to the amendment in the U.S. Constitution that bans unreasonable searches and seizures.
RELATED: Police show little appetite for Trump immigration order
Immigration advocates say that the detainers effectively amount to a new arrest, since individuals otherwise would have been released from jail. Because ICE holds incarcerate without probable cause, advocates and many courts say they violate an individual’s rights against unlawful arrest and detention.
Although ICE detainers are still widely accepted across the country, federal judges in Pennsylvania, California and Oregon have all ruled against detainers in some fashion, Junck said. A case heard by the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that Lehigh County, Pennsylvania, authorities did not have to enforce ICE detainers because they were not mandatory.
Junck said many jurisdictions saw the writing on the wall and cut ties with ICE before litigation.
She cited changes in California, where more than 100 jurisdictions revised their policies on ICE holds after an Oregon federal court ruling, according to a 2014 article in the Orange County Register. The Oregon judge found that Clackamas County had unlawfully detained a woman and would have to pay her in damages.
“In California, the sheriff’s council did an analysis, and said ‘This is not worth the liability,’” Junck said.
In Arizona, strong support continues for the holds
For many law-enforcement officials and politicians in Arizona, the change in policy might be a tough sell.
Asked recently about President Donald Trump’s efforts to expand federal immigration authority to local police, Republican Pinal County Sheriff Mark Lamb said his agency will continue aiding the federal government in apprehending those who crossed the border illegally.
In a statement to The Republic Saturday, Yuma County Sheriff’s Office spokesman Alfonso Zavala said the jails there will continue to honor ICE detainers for individuals held on state charges.
“Yuma County does notify ICE when an inmate is being released, at which time they respond to our facility and assume custody,” he said. “We do not have the same issues as some Northern and remote counties throughout the United States, where ICE is unable to pick up inmates during normal release times, and cannot comment on their policies and procedures.”
State Rep. Kavanagh, who on Friday night told the Republic he was “very disappointed” in the decision and might attempt to take away state funding, softened his stance when reached again on Saturday.
Kavanagh said he would have to talk to Senate attorneys to figure out how federal judges’ decisions outside the appeals court for Arizona, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, restrict ICE detainers in Arizona. While those decisions are technically not binding here, Kavanagh said he would hope to explore new ways to coordinate with ICE without potentially violating court orders.
Those actions could include an early alert to ICE before release, or a contract to set aside cells in the county jail specifically for ICE detainees, he said.
“These ICE detainers have been honored all around the country for years, except for in sanctuary cities. Circuit court decisions are creating a cloud of uncertainty over the detainers,” Kavanagh said.
“I would want to talk to our attorneys to see the reasonableness of the action and also possibly explore other actions that the county could take if it continues not honoring ICE detainers to demonstrate that they are in fact willing to enforce federal law as fully as possible.”
Sheriff: Immigration agents will remain at jails
Penzone on Friday said Maricopa County jails would not be dropping their relationship with ICE. An ICE representative will remain in the jails and still will screen all who are booked in. The changes will come at the back end, when a defendant is to be released. Though ICE agents will receive a notification when one of their flagged detainees is released, they will no longer be held for longer than a U.S. citizen.
If ICE agents wish to detain these individuals on their own, Penzone said, “ICE will have to take a more aggressive position.” The sheriff did not offer any other logistical details on this point, however.
RELATED:New lawsuit challenges immigration holds in jails
It was unclear how many inmates typically are on 48-hour holds in Maricopa County jails. A spokesman for the Sheriff’s Office said there were 2,581 Maricopa County jail releases to ICE in 2016 and 249 to date in 2017.
Penzone would not provide details, but the “threat of litigation” to which he referred may involve a lawsuit filed in December by Jacinta Gonzalez Goodman, who was arrested in March and held overnight in jail without probable cause based on a detainer request. Gonzalez, a Mexican-born U.S. citizen, said she should have been freed the evening prior, when a judge had released her on her own recognizance.
Gonzalez’s attorney, Mark Fleming with the National Immigrant Justice Center, said the timing of Penzone’s announcement would point to his client. He said although the lawsuit was filed in court in December, the complaint was officially served to Penzone last week.
Fleming said Penzone’s announcement was a step in the right direction but doesn’t mean the lawsuit is over.
“We have concerns about a blanket discrimination (by using) place of birth as a metric,” he said. “We’re concerned that ICE officers in the jail are not acting appropriately.”
Fleming said he hopes the lawsuit and Penzone’s words send a signal to other Arizona localities, particularly in light of the new presidential administration. Key elements of President Trump’s immigration plans rely on the aid of police and jails, he said.
“Against the backdrop of the administration’s executive order … we want to remind folks that what ICE is asking currently is unlawful,” he said. “And the thought that the administration would try to force localities to do something that is unlawful is really concerning, and hopefully would not stand up in court.”
Diehard Coders Just Rescued NASA’s Earth Science Data
On Saturday morning, the
white stone buildings on UC Berkeley’s campus radiated with unfiltered
sunshine. The sky was blue, the campanile was chiming. But instead of
enjoying the beautiful day, 200 adults had willingly sardined themselves
into a fluorescent-lit room in the bowels of Doe Library to rescue
federal climate data.Like similar groups
across the country—in more than 20 cities—they believe that the Trump
administration might want to disappear this data down a memory hole. So
these hackers, scientists, and students are collecting it to save
outside government servers.But now they’re going even further. Groups like DataRefuge and the Environmental Data and Governance Initiative, which organized the Berkeley hackathon to collect data from NASA’s earth sciences programs
and the Department of Energy, are doing more than archiving. Diehard
coders are building robust systems to monitor ongoing changes to
government websites. And they’re keeping track of what’s already been
removed—because yes, the pruning has already begun.Definitely heroes….
a) riz ahmed’s big bro is a psychiatrist. idk why this makes me so happy, but it does.
b) the article is a good read. it’s one thing to recognise narcissistic traits in a public personality and to discuss narcissism in a general sense, but when you’re putting the weight of your profession behind your opinion, you’d damn well put some professional groundwork in first. which in psychiatry usually means a one-on-one structured diagnostic interview. dr. ahmed talks about observation over a period of time to diagnose unco-operative/distressed patients but that’s still something done under relatively controlled conditions and hardly applies for the diagnosis of a personality disorder.
c) i can’t imagine diagnosing trump with a mental illness does any good at all–either in terms of countering his policies or the people he surrounds himself with, or in reducing the stigma and prejudices around mental illness in general, or to the reputation of psychiatrists and psychiatry as a valid medical science.
I agree that arm-chair diagnoses are fraught with dangers both to the subject but also to the person performing them.
I don’t think it’s helpful to go out on a limb and diagnose someone – when the process of diagnosing someone is 1) for treatment purposes, 2) done under controlled circumstances that don’t exist here. We’re comparing apples to oranges, not apples to apples, and then drawing conclusions. (As a technical aside: I keep seeing quotes about Dr. Allen Frances about Trump not meeting criteria because of the lack of distress or impairment. Dr. Frances wrote the criteria for a former version of the DSM – the new criteria for personality disorders in place since 2013 do NOT include anything about needing to experience distress or impairment. – which is all beside the point, because we never get to see the private version of Trump and so how would we know if he experiences distress and impairment, anyway.)
I think I’m agreeing with Dr. Ahmed here in saying I do believe it is helpful to talk about personality traits – what are the things we have seen across similar situations that help us be able to be reasonably certain we’re going to see them again in another similar situation. So, comparing oranges to oranges – what have we seen of the public version of Trump that can help us predict what he is likely to continue doing as the public version of Trump?
- It is unreasonable to hope that he will ever, ever “pivot.” He is who is regardless of context.
- He feeds off of positive regard, and will say and do anything to obtain it from the person(s) in front of him. And if he’s not getting it, he will reject and marginalize.
- It is unreasonable to expect him to be rational. He believes what he believes, and what he believes is not directly related to reality.
- It is unreasonable to expect him to be consistent. Because it is not directly tied to reality, what he believes will be unstable. It will change from moment to moment to suit the needs of the moment.
- It is unreasonable to expect him to follow societal norms. He will not adhere to expectations for his behavior based on any form of social contract. It doesn’t matter if it’s “don’t use your handshake as a play for dominance,” or “don’t leave your wife behind when getting out of the car to go somewhere” or “don’t mess with the balance of power between the three branches of government because that path leads to the death of democracy.”
- The drama is the point. Everything else is secondary. It is not reasonable to expect that he will “learn” from the “mistakes” of this first month. It is not reasonable to expect good communication and planful development and application of policy. There is little motivation and effort put into these kinds of things, because the emotional high is the point. If things go more smoothly, it will be because people in his administration have learned better how to manage him, but there will always be disruptions.
I really wish we could have had these discussions in a way that had more impact. Because we, as a society, keep expecting him to act in a certain way that he is just NOT going to act – and then we keep being shocked. If we don’t take these traits seriously, then we’re constantly caught in a cycle of shock, outrage, and reaction. We, as a society, keep giving him the emotional reactions that feed the cycle. We’re constantly a step behind.
Hearseeno 