Month: February 2018

Steve Kerr: ‘Vote people in who actually have the courage to protect people’s lives’

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University of Arizona basketball legend and current coach of the NBA world champion Golden State Warriors, Steve Kerr, had some words of advice on a subject near and dear to him — gun violence — following the mass shooting in a Florida high school this week. VIDEO.

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Steve Kerr on Florida shooting: ‘Vote people in who actually have the courage to protect’:

Steve Kerr is not sticking to sports.

The Golden State Warriors head coach who is seldom hesitant to speak his mind on non-basketball issues was asked Wednesday his thoughts on the shooting at a Florida high school earlier in the day that has left at least 17 dead, the latest in a plague of U.S. mass killings perpetrated by citizens with access to military-style assault rifles.

Kerr was blunt in his criticism of federal lawmakers, the National Rifle Association and a White House whose national security priorities focus on building a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border.

“Well, nothing has been done. It doesn’t seem to matter to our government that children are being shot to death day after day, in schools. It doesn’t matter that people are being shot at a concert, at a movie theater.  It’s not enough apparently to move our leadership, our government, the people who are running this country to actually do anything. That’s demoralizing.”

“But we can do something about it. We can vote people in who actually have the courage to protect people’s lives, and not just bow down to the NRA because they have financed their campaign for them. Hopefully we’ll find enough people, first of all, to vote good people in, but hopefully we can find enough people with courage to help our citizens remain safe and focus on the real safety issues.  Not building some stupid wall for billions of dollars that has nothing to do with our safety, but actually protecting us from what truly is dangerous, which is maniacs with semiautomatic weapons just slaughtering our children. It’s disgusting.”

Kerr’s statement will rile up the stick-to-sports crowd. But Kerr doesn’t care.

Kerr has previously said gun control should be considered a public health issue.

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Political Calendar: Week of February 18, 2018

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Political Calendar for the Week of February 18, 2018:

Sunday, February 18, 3:00 p.m.: Arizona Democratic Party’s Asian American and Pacific Islander Caucus Election Season Kickoff and New Year Social, at the Island Plate Lunch Hawaiian restaurant, 5575 E. River Road (at Craycroft), #141, Tucson. Join the AZ Asian American Pacific Islander Democratic Caucus to kick off the 2018 Election Season in conjunction with the start of the Lunar New Year. Enjoy delicious food, meet local Democratic candidates and learn about important issues.This is a FREE event, but an RSVP is appreciated! Please RSVP at https://www.facebook.com/events/1561942400549342/ or call (520) 309-6114.”

Monday, February 19: Presidents Day observed.

Monday, February 19, Noon: Democrats of Greater Tucson luncheon, Dragon’s View Restaurant (400 N. Bonita, South of St. Mary’s Road between the Freeway and Grande Avenue, turn South at Furr’s Cafeteria). New price: buffet lunch is $10.00 cash, $12 credit; just a drink is $3.50. Featured speaker is Robert Bulechek on “Energy Issues & TEP Rate Case.” Next Week: Deedra Abboud, candidate for U.S. Senate.

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Spy v. Spy: James Risen explains how the U.S. knows so much about the Russian cyber attack on the U.S. election

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James Risen is a former New York Times national security reporter who won the 2006 Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting for his stories about President George W. Bush’s warrantless wiretapping program. He also was a member of The New York Times reporting team that won the 2002 Pulitzer Prize for explanatory reporting for coverage of the September 11th attacks and terrorism. Risen also authored two books about the CIA, The Main Enemy: The Inside Story of the CIA’s Final Showdown with the KGB (Random House) (2003), and State of War: The Secret History of the CIA and the Bush Administration (The Free Press) (2006).

You may recall that Risen was subject to being held in contempt for refusing to comply with a subpoena to testify about the sources of his information in United States v. Sterling. In the end, Risen was not called to testify at a trial, which ended a seven-year legal fight over whether he could/would be forced to identify his confidential sources.

James Risen is now working as an investigative reporter for The Intercept. In his first column for The Intercept, his latest investigative reporting is the provocatively titled IS DONALD TRUMP A TRAITOR?:Trump and Russia Part 1 (excerpts):

The fact that such an unstable egomaniac occupies the White House is the greatest threat to the national security of the United States in modern history.

Which brings me to the only question about Donald Trump that I find really interesting: Is he a traitor?

Did he gain the presidency through collusion with Russian President Vladimir Putin?

One year after Trump took office, it is still unclear whether the president of the United States is an agent of a foreign power. Just step back and think about that for a moment.

His 2016 campaign is the subject of an ongoing federal inquiry that could determine whether Trump or people around him worked with Moscow to take control of the U.S. government. Americans must now live with the uncertainty of not knowing whether the president has the best interests of the United States or those of the Russian Federation at heart.

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The Trump Black(mail) House

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By Michael Bryan

If Donald Trump is not someone who is being actively blackmailed by Russia, he sure acts remarkably like someone who is being actively blackmailed by Russia.

We know that Russia is a notoriously good blackmailer: their kompromat systems are finely tuned and effective. To successfully blackmail people two things are needed; a reason to blackmail someone (something you want them to do) and information with which to blackmail them (usually a financial or sexual impropriety).

Consider the case of Russia vis-a-vis Donald Trump — as President, Trump has many things Russia would want: control of the American foreign policy and national security apparatus chief among them. Russia is rumored to have information of a sexually compromising nature about Trump (see the Steele Dossier re the so-called “pee pee tape”), but much more damaging, I think, they are in a position to have a great deal of compromising financial information on Trump. The Trumps have admitted that they have gotten a great deal of funding for their projects from Russia over the past decade. Trump is notoriously lax about due diligence in his foreign deals and the Russians and others have likely used the Trump organization to launder money on a massive scale. They also are very likely to have access to financial statements and tax records that could be embarrassing to Trump by virtue of their influence over Trump partners in the former Soviet bloc.

So, Russia clearly has motive and means to blackmail Trump. Is there evidence in Trump’s behavior that he is actively being compromised by blackmail?

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