Punk in Finland

Jare Dille-Nalle wrote:Puheet ja käytännön tilanne on sit kaks eri asiaa.

Tuulipuku wrote:

Jare Dille-Nalle wrote:Puheet ja käytännön tilanne on sit kaks eri asiaa.

Vähän niinkuin Trumpin tapauksessa. Kampanjan uhoaminen on jäänyt ja presidenttinä toteuttaa järkipolitiikkaa.

Ingmar Bergmanin kuolema wrote:

Jesse Python wrote:Toi on vitun vaikea kysymys, koska se ei olisi voinut vastata yhtään mitään muuta tohon. Mutta hiton kyseenalaista puhua edes hypoteettisesta ydinaseiskusta Kiinaan tällaisena aikana. Tosta voi kehkeytyä vaikka millainen diplomaattinen selkkaus.

Näinpä. Kiva kuulla, että maailman mahtavin sotaväki alistuu mieluusti siviilien kontrolliin ja pitää sitä ensiarvoisen tärkeänä, mutta hemmetti kun se siviilipuoli on nostanut johtajakseen täyden mielipuolen narsistin

Tuulipuku wrote:

Jare Dille-Nalle wrote:Puheet ja käytännön tilanne on sit kaks eri asiaa.

Vähän niinkuin Trumpin tapauksessa. Kampanjan uhoaminen on jäänyt ja presidenttinä toteuttaa järkipolitiikkaa.

Politico wrote:Boy Scouts chief apologizes after Trump speech

The head of the Boy Scouts of America apologized to the group’s members on Thursday after President Donald Trump delivered a meandering, controversial and frequently political speech to the organization's National Jamboree on Monday .

“I want to extend my sincere apologies to those in our Scouting family who were offended by the political rhetoric that was inserted into the jamboree,” Chief Scout Executive Michael Surbaugh said in a letter published online Thursday. “That was never our intent.”

Surbaugh noted in the letter that the group is nonpartisan and has had a “long-standing tradition” of inviting the sitting president to speak at the event since its inception in 1937. He reiterated that Trump’s appearance at the gathering was “no way an endorsement of any person, party or policies.”

But Surbaugh acknowledged that the president’s remarks had “overshadowed” the rest of the conference and said the organization’s leadership “sincerely regret[s] that politics were inserted into the Scouting program.”

“While we live in a challenging time in a country divided along political lines, the focus of Scouting remains the same today as every day,” he wrote.

The group had already tried to distance itself from Trump's remarks on Monday, which were widely panned as inappropriate. “The Boy Scouts of America is wholly non-partisan and does not promote any one position, product, service, political candidate or philosophy,” the group said in a statement Monday night.

Over the course of the speech, Trump threatened to fire his Health and Human Services secretary, repeatedly bragged about his win in the election last year and the size of the crowd, and went on a tangent about a wealthy man who “got bored with his life of yachts and sailing,” “lost all of his money,” and later ran into Trump at a cocktail party with “the hottest people in New York.”

“It was very sad,” Trump told the kids.

Trump also suggested that the children in the crowd had voted for him in the election when most of them would not have been eligible.

Jussin villapaita wrote:

Politico wrote:Boy Scouts chief apologizes after Trump speech

The head of the Boy Scouts of America apologized to the group’s members on Thursday after President Donald Trump delivered a meandering, controversial and frequently political speech to the organization's National Jamboree on Monday .

“I want to extend my sincere apologies to those in our Scouting family who were offended by the political rhetoric that was inserted into the jamboree,” Chief Scout Executive Michael Surbaugh said in a letter published online Thursday. “That was never our intent.”

Surbaugh noted in the letter that the group is nonpartisan and has had a “long-standing tradition” of inviting the sitting president to speak at the event since its inception in 1937. He reiterated that Trump’s appearance at the gathering was “no way an endorsement of any person, party or policies.”

But Surbaugh acknowledged that the president’s remarks had “overshadowed” the rest of the conference and said the organization’s leadership “sincerely regret[s] that politics were inserted into the Scouting program.”

“While we live in a challenging time in a country divided along political lines, the focus of Scouting remains the same today as every day,” he wrote.

The group had already tried to distance itself from Trump's remarks on Monday, which were widely panned as inappropriate. “The Boy Scouts of America is wholly non-partisan and does not promote any one position, product, service, political candidate or philosophy,” the group said in a statement Monday night.

Over the course of the speech, Trump threatened to fire his Health and Human Services secretary, repeatedly bragged about his win in the election last year and the size of the crowd, and went on a tangent about a wealthy man who “got bored with his life of yachts and sailing,” “lost all of his money,” and later ran into Trump at a cocktail party with “the hottest people in New York.”

“It was very sad,” Trump told the kids.

Trump also suggested that the children in the crowd had voted for him in the election when most of them would not have been eligible.

NBC News wrote:DOJ: Ex-Manafort Associate Firtash Is Top-Tier Comrade of Russian Mobsters

The Department of Justice has identified a former business associate of ex-Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort as an "upper-echelon [associate] of Russian organized crime."

The declaration came in a 115-page filing as part of the government's case against Dmytro Firtash, a Ukrainian oligarch who was once involved in a failed multimillion-dollar deal to buy New York's Drake Hotel with Manafort, and an important player in the Ukrainian political party for which Manafort worked.

Firtash is being prosecuted for what federal prosecutors in Chicago say was his role in bribing Indian officials in order to get a lucrative mining deal to sell titanium to Boeing.

The government says that prosecuting Firtash and his co-defendant in the alleged scheme, Andras Knopp, "will disrupt this organized crime group and prevent it from further criminal acts within the United States."

In 2008, according to court records, Manafort's firm was involved with Firtash in a plan to redevelop the Drake Hotel for $850 million. Firtash's company planned to invest more than $100 million, the records say.

One of the other partners working with Manafort on the deal was the former exclusive broker for Fred Trump's properties, Brad Zackson. Fred Trump is the now-deceased father of Donald Trump.

Eventually, documents show, Firtash's investment company transferred $25 million into escrow to further the project.

Also in 2008, according to a State Department cable posted by WikiLeaks, Firtash told U.S. Ambassador William Taylor that he got his start in business with the permission of one of Russia's most well-known organized crime bosses, Semion Mogilevich. But Firtash claimed to Taylor that he was forced to deal with such people.

Firtash was a major backer of Ukraine's Party of Regions, the pro-Russian party for which Manafort worked for many years, according to the federal criminal complaint and another leaked State cable. Manafort's firm made more than $17 million in gross revenue from the party in just two years, according to his recent Foreign Agent Registration Act filing. Another leaked cable said that Manafort's job in 2006 was to give the Party of Regions an "extreme makeover" and "change its image from … a haven for mobsters into that of a legitimate political party."

In interviews and statements to NBC News, Manafort has said he "never had a business relationship" with Firtash. "There was one occasion where an opportunity was explored. ... Nothing transpired and no business relationship was ever implemented."

The government's 115-page filing came in response to a motion to dismiss by Firtash's lawyers, who say the government has failed to establish that any crime occurred in the U.S.

In a statement to NBC News, Firtash attorney Dan Webb said the government filing makes two accusations that are not part of the federal indictment — that Firtash is connected to Russian organized crime, and that he made bribe payments intended for individuals in the U.S. Webb said there is "no evidence" that Firtash is linked to organized crime, and the accusation that he made bribe payments "is also false, and that is why the government did not include it as well in its own indictment."

The U.S. Attorney's Office for the Northern District of Illinois did not respond to a request for comment.

New Yorker wrote:Anthony Scaramucci Called Me to Unload About White House Leakers, Reince Priebus, and Steve Bannon

n Wednesday night, I received a phone call from Anthony Scaramucci, the new White House communications director. He wasn’t happy. Earlier in the night, I’d tweeted, citing a “senior White House official,” that Scaramucci was having dinner at the White House with President Trump, the First Lady, Sean Hannity, and the former Fox News executive Bill Shine. It was an interesting group, and raised some questions. Was Trump getting strategic advice from Hannity? Was he considering hiring Shine? But Scaramucci had his own question—for me.

“Who leaked that to you?” he asked. I said I couldn’t give him that information. He responded by threatening to fire the entire White House communications staff. “What I’m going to do is, I will eliminate everyone in the comms team and we’ll start over,” he said. I laughed, not sure if he really believed that such a threat would convince a journalist to reveal a source. He continued to press me and complain about the staff he’s inherited in his new job. “I ask these guys not to leak anything and they can’t help themselves,” he said. “You’re an American citizen, this is a major catastrophe for the American country. So I’m asking you as an American patriot to give me a sense of who leaked it.”

...“Is it an assistant to the President?” he asked. I again told him I couldn’t say. “O.K., I’m going to fire every one of them, and then you haven’t protected anybody, so the entire place will be fired over the next two weeks.”

I asked him why it was so important for the dinner to be kept a secret. Surely, I said, it would become public at some point. “I’ve asked people not to leak things for a period of time and give me a honeymoon period,” he said. “They won’t do it.” He was getting more and more worked up, and he eventually convinced himself that Priebus was my source.

“They’ll all be fired by me,” he said. “I fired one guy the other day. I have three to four people I’ll fire tomorrow. I’ll get to the person who leaked that to you. Reince Priebus—if you want to leak something—he’ll be asked to resign very shortly.” The issue, he said, was that he believed Priebus had been worried about the dinner because he hadn’t been invited. “Reince is a fucking paranoid schizophrenic, a paranoiac,” Scaramucci said. He channelled Priebus as he spoke: “ ‘Oh, Bill Shine is coming in. Let me leak the fucking thing and see if I can cock-block these people the way I cock-blocked Scaramucci for six months.’ ” (Priebus did not respond to a request for comment.)

...“I’ve called the F.B.I. and the Department of Justice,” he told me.

“Are you serious?” I asked.

“The swamp will not defeat him,” he said, breaking into the third person. “They’re trying to resist me, but it’s not going to work. I’ve done nothing wrong on my financial disclosures, so they’re going to have to go fuck themselves.”

Scaramucci also told me that, unlike other senior officials, he had no interest in media attention. “I’m not Steve Bannon, I’m not trying to suck my own cock,” he said, speaking of Trump’s chief strategist. “I’m not trying to build my own brand off the fucking strength of the President. I’m here to serve the country.” (Bannon declined to comment.)

...He cryptically suggested that he had more information about White House aides. “O.K., the Mooch showed up a week ago,” he said. “This is going to get cleaned up very shortly, O.K.? Because I nailed these guys. I’ve got digital fingerprints on everything they’ve done through the F.B.I. and the fucking Department of Justice.”
“What?” I interjected.

“Well, the felony, they’re gonna get prosecuted, probably, for the felony.” He added, “The lie detector starts—” but then he changed the subject and returned to what he thought was the illegal leak of his financial-disclosure forms. I asked if the President knew all of this.

“Well, he doesn’t know the extent of all that, he knows about some of that, but he’ll know about the rest of it first thing tomorrow morning when I see him.”

Scaramucci said he had to get going. “Yeah, let me go, though, because I’ve gotta start tweeting some shit to make this guy crazy.”

Minutes later, he tweeted, “In light of the leak of my financial info which is a felony. I will be contacting @FBI and the @TheJusticeDept #swamp @Reince45.” With the addition of Priebus’s Twitter handle, he was making public what he had just told me: that he believed Priebus was leaking information about him. The tweet quickly went viral.

Scaramucci seemed to have second thoughts. Within two hours he deleted the original tweet and posted a new one denying that he was targeting the chief of staff. “Wrong!” he said, adding a screenshot of an Axios article that said, “Scaramucci appears to want Priebus investigated by FBI.” Scaramucci continued, “Tweet was public notice to leakers that all Sr Adm officials are helping to end illegal leaks. @Reince45.”

A few hours later, I appeared on CNN to discuss the overnight drama. As I was talking about Scaramucci, he called into the show himself and referenced our conversation...

...“When I put out a tweet, and I put Reince’s name in the tweet,” he said, “they’re all making the assumption that it’s him because journalists know who the leakers are. So, if Reince wants to explain that he’s not a leaker, let him do that.”

Scaramucci then made a plea to viewers. “Let me tell you something about myself,” he said. “I am a straight shooter.”

“Reince is a fucking paranoid schizophrenic, a paranoiac,” Scaramucci said.

“I’m not Steve Bannon, I’m not trying to suck my own cock,” he said, speaking of Trump’s chief strategist.

“They’ll all be fired by me,” he said.

Politico wrote:Trump also suggested that the children in the crowd had voted for him in the election when most of them would not have been eligible.

Independent wrote:
US military chief says transgender policy will not be changed just because of Trump's tweets

A top military official has said there will be “no modification” to the military's transgender policy after President Donald Trump announced a ban on transgender service via Twitter.

"There will be no modifications to the current policy until the President's direction has been received by the Secretary of Defense and the Secretary has issued implementation guidance," General Joseph Dunford, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, wrote in a message to military leaders.

He added: "In the meantime, we will continue to treat all of our personnel with respect.”

Mr Trump sparked outcry on Wednesday when he tweeted that the US government would not “accept or allow Transgender individuals to serve in any capacity in the U.S. Military”.

The announcement seemed to take the Pentagon by surprise, despite Mr Trump’s claims that he consulted with “generals and military experts”. Sources told Buzzfeed that many at the Pentagon watched Mr Trump’s tweets roll out in suspense, fearing he was preparing to announce military action against North Korea. The Pentagon directed all requests for comment to the White House.

General Mark Milley, the chief of staff of the US Army, said on Thursday he had no advance knowledge of Mr Trump's decision. He added that was not unusual.

"I personally did not, but nor would I have expected to," Milley said while speaking at the National Press Club.

At a press briefing on Wednesday afternoon, Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said the White House had not determined what would happen to the more than 2,500 transgender people serving on active duty in the US military.

“Implementation policy is going to be something that the White House and the Department of Defense have to work together to lawfully determine,” she said, adding that the Department of Defense would “keep you posted as that takes place”.

Pressed for more detail on the policy, Ms Huckabee Sanders threatened to shut the press briefing down.

Mr Trump’s decision ends an Obama-era policy that sought to fully integrate the military by June of 2017. The policy was to be rolled out in waves, first allowing current transgender service members to serve openly and receive medical care.

The Trump administration was in the process of considering the final wave – allowing new transgender recruits to enlist – when Mr Trump made his announcement.

Defense Secretary James Mattis was troubled by the surprise announcement, according to Politico. Sources said he felt no need to rush to a decision, and was awaiting the results of an extensive Defense Department policy review. He had recently requested six more months to consider the roll-out.

Tony Johnson, a national security researcher and former Pentagon adviser, predicted the decision would not go over well with the larger military community, either.

“This is a complex issue for the uniformed services, and it is a complex and difficult issue for the policy makers,” he told The Independent. “But it should be said that in my experience, all those people have been dedicated to the principles and values that the US purports to have, and [purports] to defend across the world.”

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world ... ebook-post