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Executive Departments Part 2


Coconut Flan

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In these sad and sorry times, the members of the judiciary branch are turning out to be America's greatest heroes.

 

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"Trump adviser Larry Kudlow hosted publisher of white nationalists at his home"

Spoiler

The publisher of a website that serves as a platform for white nationalism was a guest last weekend at the home of President Trump’s top economic adviser, Larry Kudlow.

Peter Brimelow attended the gathering, a birthday bash for Kudlow, one day after a White House speechwriter was dismissed in the wake of revelations that he had spoken alongside Brimelow on a 2016 panel.

Brimelow, 70, was once a well-connected figure in mainstream conservative circles, writing for Dow Jones and National Review. But over the past two decades, he has become a zealous promoter of white-identity politics on Vdare.com, the anti-immigration website that he founded in 1999.

While Brimelow has long personally rejected the label of “white nationalist,” he acknowledged to the Harvard Crimson in 2016 that his website does “certainly publish a few writers I would regard as ‘white nationalist’ in that they stand up for whites just as Zionists, black nationalists do for Jews, blacks, etc.”

Kudlow said Tuesday that Brimelow was a guest at his birthday party at his Connecticut home and has been someone he has known “forever,” going back to their work in financial journalism. Kudlow expressed regret when he was described details of Brimelow’s promotion of white nationalists on Vdare.com.

“If I had known this, we would never have invited him,” Kudlow said. “I’m disappointed and saddened to hear about it.”

Kudlow said that Brimelow’s views on immigration and race are “a side of Peter that I don’t know, and I totally, utterly disagree with that point of view and have my whole life. I’m a civil rights Republican.”

Kudlow said Brimelow, who also lives in Connecticut, has been “coming to my dinner parties for years,” but said “none of this other stuff has ever come up.”

A White House spokesperson declined to comment and pointed to Kudlow’s interview with The Washington Post.

Brimelow declined to be interviewed by phone. In a statement, Brimelow said, “I’ve known Larry for nearly 40 years. I regard him as a personal friend. They knew my first wife, who died, and were most kind to Lydia when I remarried. We agreed to disagree on immigration long ago.”

Tuesday evening, Brimelow tweeted: “Apparently we’re not supposed to have personal friends anymore. Who knew.”

When asked how he would discuss this matter with Trump, Kudlow said, “Just the way I explained it now, hiding nothing.”

The White House’s brushes with Brimelow come as Republicans are facing challenges on race following Trump’s use of racially charged insults in recent weeks, such as calling his former top African American adviser a “dog,” which several GOP senators have criticized as inappropriate and offensive language.

Trump, who has made a hard-line approach to immigration a centerpiece of his politics, has struggled at times to finesse the way his base and elements of the far right have, at times, been linked.

And Trump’s handling of race-related moments in his presidency has been fraught with disagreements inside the White House about whether the president was responding with the right message and tone.

Last August, Trump declared that counterprotesters at a white supremacist rally in Charlottesville acted violently and should share the blame for the mayhem that left a woman dead and many injured.

“I think there’s blame on both sides. And I have no doubt about it,” Trump said, drawing widespread criticism.

Kudlow, 71, is a former CNBC host who previously worked in the Reagan administration as an economic and budget adviser. During the 2016 campaign, he was a confidant of then-candidate Trump on the economy and trade, and was named director of the National Economic Council in March.

Kudlow has been dealing with health issues this summer as he continues to work with Trump on trade and tax policy. In June, he suffered a heart attack and was hospitalized at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center.

Kudlow has known Brimelow for decades, during which their careers in conservative commentary and networks overlapped.

“Mostly, he was a writer I knew for Forbes and other financial publications,” Kudlow said.

Kudlow’s public positions are far different than Brimelow’s. A former Democrat, Kudlow has been a vocal advocate for a path to legalization for undocumented workers and was an ally of the late New York congressman Jack Kemp, who called on Republicans to do more outreach to minority voters.

“The political tide among conservatives and Republicans may be turning in favor of immigration reform. As a longtime supporter of reform who believes that immigration is a pro-growth issue, I am delighted to see these developments,” Kudlow wrote in a 2014 column for CNBC.com. Kudlow added that the GOP “must return to its big tent roots. It must follow the lead of Ronald Reagan and Jack Kemp. It must reach out to Latinos, African-Americans, young people and women. A conservative Catholic like myself can work inside the same tent as my Log Cabin Republican friends.”

Brimelow’s website is named in honor of Virginia Dare, the first English child born in what is now the United States. Dare has become a symbol for white nationalists who are alarmed by immigration.

The British-born Brimelow has written that Dare, who was white, remains a reminder of the “very specific cultural origins of America at a time when mass nontraditional immigration is threatening to swamp it.”

Vdare.com frequently publishes stories that are popular with the alt-right. The alt-right, short for alternative right, is a small, far-right movement that supports white identity or a whites-only state. Adherents of the alt-right have been known to espouse racist, anti-Semitic and sexist points of view.

Many alt-right followers are young white men who have found common cause online and who promote traditional gender roles. Coined by activist Richard Spencer in an effort to avoid being labeled racist or white supremacist, the phrase was intended as an umbrella term that would cover disparate points of view, but the focus on a whites-only state appears to be a core principle.

Several longtime associates of the president also attended the private party at Kudlow’s home in rural Redding, Conn., according to Politico, including political strategist Roger Stone and businessman Christopher Ruddy, both of whom have also known Kudlow for years. Politico reported that members of the media such as CNBC’s Michelle Caruso-Cabrera and Fox News anchor Brian Kilmeade, who is one of the president’s favorite personalities, attended as well.

As Kudlow’s party convened, former speechwriter Darren Beattie was still fuming over his exit from the West Wing, according to a person close to him.

Beattie, who holds a doctorate from Duke University and was one of the rare academic voices who rallied behind Trump’s presidential campaign two years ago, had strongly resisted the push for his resignation by White House officials late last week. He was subsequently fired Friday, according to three people familiar with the decision who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly.

Kudlow said Tuesday that he was not aware of Beattie’s dismissal over the weekend or the reasons behind it. Beattie’s departure was sparked by an inquiry by CNN’s investigative unit about his appearance at a 2016 panel discussion where he and Brimelow spoke, the people said. That event, the H.L. Mencken Club conference in Maryland, has been attended in the past by alt-right leaders such as Spencer, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center, which tracks extremist groups.

“In 2016 I attended the Mencken conference in question and delivered a stand-alone, academic talk titled ‘The Intelligentsia and the Right.’ I said nothing objectionable and stand by my remarks completely. It was the honor of my life to serve in the Trump Administration. I love President Trump, who is a fearless American hero, and continue to support him one hundred percent. I have no further comment,” Beattie said Sunday in a statement.

Beattie, on Tuesday, published what he says are his remarks from that panel. The conservative website that posted his speech said it had “been edited only slightly to correct a few typographical errors.” The Post has not independently verified what Beattie said on the panel.

Brimelow has defended Beattie.

“Disgraceful that the Trump White House would fire Darren Beattie just for speaking at the same conference as me, even apart from fact I’m not a ‘white nationalist’,” Brimelow tweeted Sunday.

Brimelow’s Vdare.com then tweeted minutes later that it “will publish anyone critical of immigration disaster, but that certainly does include people who think whites have rights, because they do . . . for now.”

 

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On 8/20/2018 at 5:15 PM, AmazonGrace said:

More fun with Scotty:

 

Oh fucking hell!  This man is like a fungal infection. Just when you think it has gone away..BLAM heeeees back.

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Who'd've thought the Evil Keebler Elf would grow a backbone! 

 

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Oh boy. Will this end well? Or are we in for another big news day... and a new AG?

 

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Is this posted in another thread and I just missed it? If so, I apologize. 

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/22/us/politics/betsy-devos-guns.html

No.  Just fucking no.

*Here's a novel idea, use grants to get supplies into classrooms instead of Donors Choose (but thank goodness for those donors). It would be amazing if we did not have to count exactly how many boxes of tissues we use because we can't afford to purchase any more for our school. 

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McGahn has told a confidant that he doesn't expect to leave Trumpworld entirely after he leaves the White House. He privately said he expects to continue to be of assistance to the president through the re-election campaign.

Wouldn't McGahn's future in Trumplandia depend on what he told Mueller? 

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This one made me laugh:

 

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  • 2 weeks later...

Methane schmethane

https://www.cnn.com/2018/09/11/politics/epa-methane-leak-proposal/index.html

Quote

The Environmental Protection Agency is set to unveil a new proposal that relaxes requirements for how energy companies monitor and repair methane leaks, according to a new report.

The New York Times reported Monday that the EPA plans to roll back an Obama era-regulation as soon as this week that would make it easier for oil and gas companies to release methane, a powerful greenhouse gas that scientists say contributes to global warming.

The new proposal weakens a 2016 rule requiring energy companies to conduct leak inspections on their drilling equipment as regularly as every six months, according to the Times, which reviewed a draft of the proposal.

Under the EPA's new proposal, companies would perform a leak inspection at least once a year, in most cases, and every two years for low-producing oil and gas wells, the Times reported.

Oil and gas drillers are currently required to fix methane leaks within 30 days, but the new rules give a company 60 days to fix leaks, according to the newspaper.

The EPA and the White House did not respond the Times' multiple requests for comment. The EPA did not immediately return CNN's request for comment.

According to the Times, other proposed changes include doubling the amount of time between inspections of equipment that traps and compresses the natural gas and allowing gas energy companies to follow state-level methane standards, as opposed to federal standards, if they operate in a state with different standards.

In August, the EPA announced its plan to devolve regulation of coal-fired power plants back to the states, which would boost the coal industry and increase carbon emissions nationwide. The agency also announced its proposal to freeze fuel-efficiency requirements for automakers and withdraw California's waiver to set its own emissions standards.

 

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"The White House’s new attack on the international system"

Spoiler

In his first major policy address since joining the White House in April, national security adviser John Bolton offered a particularly aggressive demonstration of President Trump's "America First" agenda. He threatened the International Criminal Court, a U.N.-mandated body based in The Hague, with punitive measures should it pursue an investigation into alleged U.S. war crimes in Afghanistan. He warned that the United States would ban ICC judges and prosecutors from entering the country, sanction their funds in the U.S. financial system and punish any company or government that complies with an ICC investigation into Americans.

In effect, Bolton declared that these officials — including respected jurists and rights activists — could receive the same treatment as certain Kremlin-linked oligarchs or shadowy financiers of extremist groups.

"We will not cooperate with the ICC. We will provide no assistance to the ICC. We will not join the ICC. We will let the ICC die on its own,” Bolton said at an event hosted by the Federalist Society, a conservative legal group. “After all, for all intents and purposes, the ICC is already dead to us.”

Bolton outright urged the collapse of the ICC, casting it as a cabal of unaccountable foreign bureaucrats — not unlike the language used by right-wing populists to tar European Union officials. Like them, Bolton explicitly attacked the "global governance dogma" of the bloc and hailed Britain's decision to leave it.

The tough rhetoric reflected Bolton's long-standing animosity toward the ICC, an institution he lobbied against while serving in the George W. Bush administration. Bolton and some Republican allies see the organization's powers as an illegitimate infringement of national sovereignty and a supposed violation of American constitutional rights.

In truth, the ICC has little jurisdiction over the United States, which, like other major powers including India and China, never ratified the convention that established the court. "Then-president Bill Clinton signed the convention in 2000," explained Buzzfeed's Emily Tamkin, "but never presented it to Congress for ratification, and George W. Bush authorized the United States to 'un-sign' it in May 2002" — a move vociferously backed by Bolton.

In his remarks, Bolton poured scorn on the court for seeking to exercise "supranational" powers over the United States and mocked it as a toothless instrument of justice. "The hard men of history are not deterred by fantasies of international law such as the ICC," he said. "The idea that faraway bureaucrats and robed judges would strike fear into the hearts of the likes of Saddam Hussein, Hitler, Stalin, and Gaddafi is preposterous, even cruel."

Instead, Bolton extolled "the righteous might" of the United States and its allies as "the only deterrent to evil and atrocity" in the world. It was a tidy summation of his worldview, anchored by an ironclad faith in American military power and a deep suspicion of the international bodies that could check it.

Bolton also announced the shuttering of the Washington office of the Palestine Liberation Organization, in part because Palestinian leaders had called on the ICC to investigate Israel's expansion of settlements in the West Bank. It's yet another nail hammered by Trump into the coffin of the Middle East peace process.

“These people have decided to stand on the wrong side of history by protecting war criminals and destroying the two-state solution,” said chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat. “I told them if you are worried about courts, you should stop aiding and abetting crimes.”

But for Bolton and other Trump administration officials, American misdeeds — or deeds in general — are not the business of outsiders. "The new broadside against the ICC follows steps by the administration challenging international cooperation in other areas," my colleagues reported. "This year, the administration has withdrawn from the U.N. human rights body and threatened to pull out of the World Trade Organization, in addition to halting U.S. funding for the U.N. body that aids Palestinian refugees."

In the case of Afghanistan, the ICC's chief prosecutor announced last November that she had "reasonable evidence" to investigate allegations regarding the abuse, torture and even rape of at least 88 Afghan detainees, allegedly carried out by U.S. armed forces in Afghanistan and at clandestine CIA interrogation centers in Europe between 2002 and 2014.

The announcement angered the Trump administration, but it was welcomed by other American practitioners of international law.

"Should an investigation go forward, the Trump administration’s best response would be to engage openly with the ICC by making a genuine and transparent domestic effort to investigate, and, where warranted, prosecute those Americans most responsible for serious crimes connected with the Afghan war," wrote Kip Hale, an attorney who has worked at other war-crimes tribunals, in Foreign Affairs last year. "This policy would not only protect American interests by promoting the moral authority of the United States but it is also the most credible and expedient way to put the allegations to rest."

It's certainly true that the ICC is far from a perfect institution — critics, for example, point to its disproportionate prosecution of African officials. But it still represents a key cog in the international system, and one that could yet provide justice for the hideous crimes of those like Syrian President Bashar al-Assad or Myanmar's generals.

Instead, it may yet become another casualty of Trump's wider war on liberal internationalism. "It is an all-out bid by Donald Trump to end the ICC, the world’s foremost criminal tribunal, and with it, the very concept of international justice," wrote the Guardian's Simon Tisdall. "Bolton is the man wielding the knife. And there is a strong possibility they will succeed."

 

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