chocolatpi
chocolatpi's JournalWhy are there no protests of Republican shutdown?
Following my daily reading routine, I read the article below. I will spend the day trying to create an interest in organizing a protest in DC, in front of the White House.
Do government workers fear retaliation? Are they prohibited from attending or organizing protests?
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/opinion/the-shutdown-shows-the-weakness-of-the-resistance/ar-BBSw6BH
The New York Times
The Shutdown Shows the Weakness of the Resistance
By DAVID LEONHARDT 8 hrs ago
The grass-roots progressive movement known as the resistance has had a very good two years. It beat back attempts to take health insurance away from millions of Americans, and it helped defeat a Republican House majority that was enabling President Trump. Neither of those outcomes looked likely when he took office.
But the government shutdown has shown the limits of this new progressive movement. The resistance has had virtually no effect on the politics of the shutdown — and a stronger movement could have a big effect.
When I’ve spoken to people from other countries over the past couple of weeks, they have been shocked that Americans have not begun protesting the shutdown in large numbers. About 800,000 federal workers have now gone almost a month without getting paid. Some are struggling to pay their rent or buy medications. Some have gone to pawn shops to get cash. Major functions of government — airline security, food safety, mortgage processing, farm assistance and so on — have been impaired.
If this were happening in Europe, as Luigi Zingales of the University of Chicago told me, people would be pouring into the streets. And yet in the United States, there has been nothing but a few small, scattered rallies.
Instead of lining up to protest, hundreds of federal workers in Washington lined up last week to eat at makeshift soup kitchens. The photos of them doing so were a study in powerlessness.
Thousands attend Women's March in Phoenix
Video available at link, provided by ABC local channel 15.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/lifestyle/lifestyle-buzz/womens-march-held-at-arizona-state-capitol/vi-BBStwZF
KNXV Phoenix
Women's March held at Arizona State Capitol
Thousands of activists marched at the Arizona State Capitol on Saturday in solidarity with the National Women's March held in multiple cities across the country.
Thousands attend Women's March in Phoenix
Video available at link, provided by ABC local channel 15.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/lifestyle/lifestyle-buzz/womens-march-held-at-arizona-state-capitol/vi-BBStwZF
KNXV Phoenix
Women's March held at Arizona State Capitol
Thousands of activists marched at the Arizona State Capitol on Saturday in solidarity with the National Women's March held in multiple cities across the country.
Thousands attend women's march in Phoenix.
Video available at link. It was provided by ABC local channel 15
https://www.msn.com/en-us/lifestyle/lifestyle-buzz/womens-march-held-at-arizona-state-capitol/vi-BBStwZF
KNXV Phoenix
Women's March held at Arizona State Capitol
Thousands of activists marched at the Arizona State Capitol on Saturday in solidarity with the National Women's March held in multiple cities across the country.
Treasury wants to lift Russia sanctions, don't let it happen
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/congress-is-examining-decision-to-lift-sanctions-on-russian%E2%80%99s-firms/ar-BBROJFbCongress Is Examining Decision to Lift Sanctions on Russian’s Firms
By KENNETH P. VOGEL
11 hrs ago
….snip
The solution approved by the Treasury Department would lift the sanctions against Mr. Deripaska’s companies in exchange for him reducing his stake in EN+ from approximately 70 percent to less than 45 percent, and giving up control of that company and Rusal.
Mr. Deripaska himself would remain on the sanctions list, the department said, casting the agreement as a way to punish the oligarch by separating him from his companies without creating broader economic problems.
Representative Lloyd Doggett, Democrat of Texas, accused the administration of approving “a Rusal ruse” to “cover for one of Putin’s closest buddies.”
Other Democrats contended that the Treasury Department was trying to ram the sanctions-relief decision through before the new Congress had time to stop it, and before the special counsel issued findings that might touch on Mr. Deripaska’s work with Paul Manafort, Mr. Trump’s former campaign chairman and a target of the special counsel investigation.
edit to correct link and add source of article oops
Fed workers go without pay while adm. officials due a 10K raise
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/while-federal-workers-go-without-pay-senior-trump-administration-officials-are-poised-to-get-dollar10000-raises/ar-BBRNQP3Washington Post
While federal workers go without pay, senior Trump administration officials are poised to get $10,000 raises
Lisa Rein, Peter Whoriskey
12 hrs ago
While many federal workers go without pay and the government is partially shut down, hundreds of senior Trump political appointees are poised to receive annual raises of about $10,000 a year.
The pay raises for Cabinet secretaries, deputy secretaries, top administrators and even Vice President Pence are scheduled to go into effect beginning Jan. 5 without legislation to stop them, according to documents issued by the Office of Personnel Management and experts in federal pay.
The raises appear to be an unintended consequence of the shutdown: When lawmakers failed to pass bills Dec. 21 to fund multiple federal agencies, they allowed an existing pay freeze to lapse. The pay freeze for top federal executives was enacted by Congress in 2013 and renewed each year since then. The raises will occur because that cap will expire on Saturday without legislative action, allowing raises to kick in that have accumulated over those years but never took effect. The raises start with paychecks to be issued next week.
Russian GRU launching sofisticated cyber attacks
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/how-russia’s-military-intelligence-agency-became-the-covert-muscle-in-putin’s-duels-with-the-west/ar-BBRwGaBThe Washington Post
How Russia’s military intelligence agency became the covert muscle in Putin’s duels with the West
Anton Troianovski, Ellen Nakashima 1 day ago
…snip
GRU units also are suspected of deploying a highly disruptive computer virus dubbed NotPetya, analysts said. Launched on June 28, 2017 — Ukraine’s Constitution Day — the virus wiped data from the computers of banks, energy firms, senior government officials and an airport in Ukraine.
It also affected computers in Denmark, India and the United States. The White House called it “the most destructive and costly cyberattack in history.”
In response to the NotPetya virus and other suspected hackings, the United States in March placed sanctions on six GRU officials.
“Ukraine is to 21st-century hybrid warfare what Spain was in the 1930s for battlefield blitzkrieg techniques — the place where the bad guys try out what they may use against us later on,” said Daniel Fried, a former senior State Department official who helped lead the West’s response to Moscow’s aggression against Ukraine.
Russia has denied that the GRU engages in malign activity around the world. After Mueller’s indictment of 12 officers accused of interfering in the U.S. election, Russia’s Foreign Ministry said that “it has become the norm in Washington to promote fake news and initiate criminal proceedings for obvious political purposes.”
Russian GRU engages in malign espionage
The essay below is an excellent source for anyone interested in how Putin has weaponized the internet. That includes deployment of one or more viruses. The timeline is tied to the beginnings of GRU attacks on Ukraine. It’s long and worth the time to read.
Scary stuff considering the buffoon who was selected by Tsar Putin occupies our WH. The Republicans in Congress, especially loud mouth rumpers like Graham, are a disgrace to our democracy. I continue to be disgusted, outraged and shocked by the daily betrayals of the American people by Republicans.
Who are these members of Congress or candidates who have taken Russian/NRA money to fund political self-interests?
I am not in favor of a McCarthy style inquisition. I do expect our Congress to enforce The Rule of Law and follow established law on contributions to campaigns by hostile foreign governments. As an idealist, I want to believe in fair, equal and swift justice for all.
Congress must police their own. They have the tools to do. Establish priorities and hold hearings, bring the filth out into the open for public shaming. Failure to do so is to be complicit in this systematic destruction of our institutions by powers both foreign and domestic.
As always, just my opinion
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/how-russia’s-military-intelligence-agency-became-the-covert-muscle-in-putin’s-duels-with-the-west/ar-BBRwGaB
The Washington Post
How Russia’s military intelligence agency became the covert muscle in Putin’s duels with the West
Anton Troianovski, Ellen Nakashima 1 day ago
…snip
GRU units also are suspected of deploying a highly disruptive computer virus dubbed NotPetya, analysts said. Launched on June 28, 2017 — Ukraine’s Constitution Day — the virus wiped data from the computers of banks, energy firms, senior government officials and an airport in Ukraine.
It also affected computers in Denmark, India and the United States. The White House called it “the most destructive and costly cyberattack in history.”
In response to the NotPetya virus and other suspected hackings, the United States in March placed sanctions on six GRU officials.
“Ukraine is to 21st-century hybrid warfare what Spain was in the 1930s for battlefield blitzkrieg techniques — the place where the bad guys try out what they may use against us later on,” said Daniel Fried, a former senior State Department official who helped lead the West’s response to Moscow’s aggression against Ukraine.
Russia has denied that the GRU engages in malign activity around the world. After Mueller’s indictment of 12 officers accused of interfering in the U.S. election, Russia’s Foreign Ministry said that “it has become the norm in Washington to promote fake news and initiate criminal proceedings for obvious political purposes.”
Chinese espionage
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/chinese-spy-how-a-former-cia-officer-was-caught-betraying-his-country-60-minutes/Dec 23, 2018
Anderson Cooper
This is what espionage looks like. The man standing on the right in the yellow shirt is Kevin Mallory, who once held a top-secret security clearance while working for the CIA and the Defense Intelligence Agency. Footage from a surveillance camera at a Virginia FedEx store in April last year caught him as he prepared to hand a clerk stacks of classified documents to be scanned onto an SD card, the kind that can be inserted into a mobile phone.
Ryan Gaynor: So this is the rare moment, right, in an investigation, in an espionage case, where we actually have video footage of the individual preparing the classified material for transmission to the foreign intelligence service.
We watched the tape with Ryan Gaynor, the FBI supervisory special agent who investigated Mallory, and Jennifer Gellie, who prosecuted the case against him for the National Security Division of the Department of Justice. They say Kevin Mallory sent national security secrets to a Chinese spy on a covert communication device.The man standing on the right in the yellow shirt is Kevin Mallory, who once held a top-secret security clearance while working for the CIA and the Defense Intelligence Agency. Footage from a surveillance camera at a Virginia FedEx store in April last year caught him as he prepared to hand a clerk stacks of classified documents to be scanned onto an SD card, the kind that can be inserted into a mobile phone.
Chinese Spy
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/chinese-spy-how-a-former-cia-officer-was-caught-betraying-his-country-60-minutes/Dec 23, 2018
Anderson Cooper
This is what espionage looks like. The man standing on the right in the yellow shirt is Kevin Mallory, who once held a top-secret security clearance while working for the CIA and the Defense Intelligence Agency. Footage from a surveillance camera at a Virginia FedEx store in April last year caught him as he prepared to hand a clerk stacks of classified documents to be scanned onto an SD card, the kind that can be inserted into a mobile phone.
Ryan Gaynor: So this is the rare moment, right, in an investigation, in an espionage case, where we actually have video footage of the individual preparing the classified material for transmission to the foreign intelligence service.
We watched the tape with Ryan Gaynor, the FBI supervisory special agent who investigated Mallory, and Jennifer Gellie, who prosecuted the case against him for the National Security Division of the Department of Justice. They say Kevin Mallory sent national security secrets to a Chinese spy on a covert communication device.The man standing on the right in the yellow shirt is Kevin Mallory, who once held a top-secret security clearance while working for the CIA and the Defense Intelligence Agency. Footage from a surveillance camera at a Virginia FedEx store in April last year caught him as he prepared to hand a clerk stacks of classified documents to be scanned onto an SD card, the kind that can be inserted into a mobile phone.
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