Trump Has Concealed Details of Meetings With Putin

The Washington Post is reporting that Donald Trump has gone to great lengths to conceal the details of his conversations with Vladimir Putin, including keeping details from top officials in his regime. Frankly, no one should be surprised.  Why would Trump want the U.S. public or his own officials to know the details of his conversations with his handler?   It is all part and parcel of the very disturbing pattern of Trump's pandering to Putin at the expense of American interests at the same time Trump is undermining alliances that Putin detests.  Mere coincidences?  Personally, I think not. Nor did the FBI when it launched its investigation of Trump as a possible foreign operatives as reported by the New York Times as noted in a prior blog post. NONE of this is normal and one has to wonder why "conservatives" who proclaim their patriotism don't see the lashing alarm bells.  Oh, I forgot - they love Trump's racist, pro-white supremacist policies more than they care about the nation's future.  Here are highlights from the Post piece:

President Trump has gone to extraordinary lengths to conceal details of his conversations with Russian President Vladi­mir Putin, including on at least one occasion taking possession of the notes of his own interpreter and instructing the linguist not to discuss what had transpired with other administration officials, current and former U.S. officials said.

Trump did so after a meeting with Putin in 2017 in Hamburg that was also attended by then-Secretary of State Rex Tillerson. U.S. officials learned of Trump’s actions when a White House adviser and a senior State Department official sought information from the interpreter beyond a readout shared by Tillerson.

The constraints that Trump imposed are part of a broader pattern by [Trump] the president of shielding his communications with Putin from public scrutiny and preventing even high-ranking officials in his own administration from fully knowing what he has told one of the United States’ main adversaries.

U.S. officials said there is no detailed record, even in classified files, of Trump’s face-to-face interactions with the Russian leader at five locations over the past two years. Such a gap would be unusual in any presidency, let alone one that Russia sought to install through what U.S. intelligence agencies have described as an unprecedented campaign of election interference.

Special counsel Robert S. Mueller III is thought to be in the final stages of an investigation that has focused largely on whether Trump or his associates conspired with Russia during the 2016 presidential campaign. The new details about Trump’s continued secrecy underscore the extent to which little is known about his communications with Putin since becoming president.

Former U.S. officials said that Trump’s behavior is at odds with the known practices of previous presidents, who have relied on senior aides to witness meetings and take comprehensive notes then shared with other officials and departments.

Trump’s secrecy surrounding Putin “is not only unusual by historical standards, it is outrageous,” said Strobe Talbott, a former deputy secretary of state now at the Brookings Institution, who participated in more than a dozen meetings between President Bill Clinton and then-Russian President Boris Yeltsin in the 1990s. “It handicaps the U.S. government — the experts and advisers and Cabinet officers who are there to serve [the president] — and it certainly gives Putin much more scope to manipulate Trump.”

Senior Democratic lawmakers describe the cloak of secrecy surrounding Trump’s meetings with Putin as unprecedented and disturbing.

Rep. Eliot L. Engel (D-N.Y.), the chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said in an interview that his panel will form an investigative subcommittee whose targets will include seeking State Department records of Trump’s encounters with Putin, including a closed-door meeting with the Russian leader in Helsinki last summer.

The concerns have been compounded by actions and positions Trump has taken as president that are seen as favorable to the Kremlin. He has dismissed Russia’s election interference as a “hoax,” suggested that Russia was entitled to annex Crimea, repeatedly attacked NATO allies, resisted efforts to impose sanctions on Moscow, and begun to pull U.S. forces out of Syria — a move that critics see as effectively ceding ground to Russia.

At the same time, Trump’s decision to fire Comey and other attempts to contain the ongoing Russia investigation led the bureau in May 2017 to launch a counterintelligence investigation into whether he was seeking to help Russia and if so, why, a step first reported by the New York Times.

[S]everal officials said they were never able to get a reliable readout of the president’s two-hour meeting in Helsinki. Unlike in Hamburg, Trump allowed no Cabinet officials or any aides to be in the room for that conversation.

Trump also had other private conversations with Putin at meetings of global leaders outside the presence of aides. He spoke at length with Putin at a banquet at the same 2017 global conference in Hamburg, where only Putin’s interpreter was present. Trump also had a brief conversation with ­Putin at a Group of 20 summit in Buenos Aires last month.

Senior Trump administration officials said that White House officials including then-National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster were never able to obtain a comprehensive account of the meeting, even from Tillerson.

“We were frustrated because we didn’t get a readout,” a former senior administration official said. “The State Department and [National Security Council] were never comfortable” with Trump’s interactions with Putin, the official said. “God only knows what they were going to talk about or agree to.”

Noe of this is normal and true patriots ought to be concerned and demanding that the behavior cease immediately.

Report: Catholic Sexual Abuse Caused by Secrecy and Mandatory Celibacy

I have followed the Catholic Church sex abuse scandal since it first exploded in Boston in 2002.  The expose broken by the Boston Globe coincidentally coincided with my coming out and my efforts to shake off the religious brainwashing of my upbringing as a Roman Catholic were all things sexual were viewed as evil and sinful except in the context of conceiving children - something that helped to increase the rolls of the Catholic Church. It goes without saying that the participants were not supposed to enjoy the conception process. Having been raised Catholic and exposed to the Church's obsession with all things sexual as well as the mandatory celibacy requirement (which historically arose because the Church leadership did not like losing revenues to the families of married priests), I always believed that much of the sexual abuse scandal traced back to the celibacy and the Church's bizarre view of sexuality not to mention the obsession with secrecy among high clergy.  Now, a new Royal Commission report out of Australia (where the scandal has been exploding for more than two years) seems to confirm that celibacy has played a significant role in the widespread sexual abuse  by priests.  The report also notes the dis-ingenuousness of Church efforts to blame the sexual abuse on gay clergy.   The Guardian looks at the report findings:

Mandatory celibacy and a culture of secrecy created by popes and bishops are major factors in why such high rates of child abuse have occurred in the Catholic church, a comprehensive study has found.

The report, which looked at the findings of 26 royal commissions and other inquiries from Australia, Ireland, the UK, Canada and the Netherlands since 1985, found that while the endangerment of children in institutions has been considerably lowered in Australia, children remained at risk in Catholic parishes and schools and Catholic residential institutions in other countries across the world, especially in the developing world where there are more than 9,000 Catholic-run orphanages, including 2,600 in India.

The patriarchal nature of Catholic institutions meant that abuse went unchallenged and, while a small number of nuns were abusers, the report found the risk of offending was much higher in institutions where priests and religious brothers had minimal contact with women. The report estimated about 7% of clergy had abused children between about 1950 and 2000.

“Their contact with women in teacher training institutions would have been carefully proscribed and then they were appointed to male-only schools where they were in charge of young boys and adolescents,” the report said.

“And they were living in all-male religious communities. They had to make do with a sacralised image of a sexless Virgin Mary. It was a recipe for a psycho-spiritual disaster.”

A Catholic priest who assisted the child sexual abuse royal commission, Prof Des Cahill, says discovering he had lived and worked with paedophile priests was part of the reason he has devoted the past five years to analysing why child abuse has plagued the church.

On Wednesday the findings from Cahill and his theologian co-author, Dr Peter Wilkinson, were released in a report, Child Sexual Abuse in the Catholic Church: An Interpretive Review of the Literature and Public Inquiry Reports, published by the Centre for Global Research at RMIT University.

The findings explore why the Catholic church and its priests and religious brothers, more than any other religious denomination, have become synonymous with the historical sexual abuse of children.
 I began wondering: ‘Why did this happen?’,” Cahill told Guardian Australia. “I knew some of the priest perpetrators and I studied with them and I lived with one of them. And yet I was never aware while I was in the church. You have to understand, a priest offender is very secretive and doesn’t want to be found out.”

His and Wilkinson’s findings were made after examining reports from royal commissions, academic studies, police reports and church reports from around the world since 1985. Among the findings was that mandatory celibacy was and remains “the major precipitating risk factor for child sexual abuse” and that popes and bishops created a culture of secrecy, leading to a series of gross failures in transparency, accountability, openness and trust.

The issue of confession was also examined. Last month, Australia’s child sex abuse royal commission called for clergy who refused to report child sexual abuse to police because the information was received during a religious confession to face criminal charges.
 The recommendation prompted an angry response from the archbishop of the archdiocese of Melbourne, Denis Hart, who said he would risk going to jail rather than report allegations of child sexual abuse raised during confession, and that the sacredness of communication with God during confession should be above the law.
 The report states that “young and vulnerable Catholic children, especially boys, were in danger and at risk in the presence of psychosexually immature, psychosexually maldeveloped and sexually deprived and deeply frustrated male priests and male religious, particularly those who had not satisfactorily resolved their own sexual identity”.

“This was especially so if these priests and religious were confused or in denial about their homosexual orientation while training and operating in a profoundly homophobic Church environment,” the report found.

Courtin said that the evidence was “absolutely clear” that sexual crimes involving children and paedophilia “have nothing to do with homosexuality at all”.

And homosexuality is one of the reasons or excuses that the church has used for a long time and it’s wrong, inappropriate and inaccurate of them,” she said. “Paedophilia does not equate with homosexuality.” 

After several years of therapy, I finally resolved the psychological damage from my Catholic upbringing. I also left the Catholic Church and after a brief interlude as an Episcopalian, I remain technically a member of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America ("ELCA") which liturgically is like the Catholic Church liturgy prior to the break between Martin Luther and the Catholic Church and which does not have the self-perpetuating Church hierarchy of the Catholic Church ( ELCA bishops must be reviewed and reappointed and local pastors are not imposed by remote and out of touch bishops).

Meanwhile, The Atlantic is reporting on the child pornography charges against a member of the Vatican diplomatic corps in Washington, D.C. (note that the Vatican refused to waive diplomatic immunity which would have allowed prosecution):

The Holy See announced on Friday that a priest who is part of its diplomatic corps has been recalled to Rome following allegations that he violated child-pornography laws. The official had been accredited to serve in Washington, D.C., and the U.S. Department of State notified Catholic Church leaders about the alleged crime through diplomatic channels. The Vatican has opened an investigation and is keeping the name of the accused priest confidential. The AP reported that the U.S. government requested that the official’s diplomatic immunity be lifted. The request was denied.

The moral bankruptcy at the Vatican continues despite Pope Francis' improved PR efforts.

Vatican Legal Scheme to Dodge Liability to Victims

It is revealing to watch the Roman Catholic Church - which sheds crocodile tears for victims of sexual abuse - try to utilize every legal maneuver available to dodge the consequences of the sins and malfeasance of the Church hierarchy from Popes on down the line. Claim remorse, but do all possible to protect the Church's one true God: money and its riches. It is too bad that as much effort did not go into protecting children and youth from known sexual predators. Part of true remorse is accepting the consequences of one's wrong doing and the Church still has not taken this step - and likely never will. Certainly not under the current leadership. Here are highlights from Google News on the latest strategy of the Vatican to yet again abuse the victims of predator priests:
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The Vatican on Monday will make its most detailed argument yet for why it is not liable for bishops who allowed priests to molest children in the U.S., in a motion that could affect other efforts to sue the Holy See in American courts, The Associated Press has learned.
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In a motion to dismiss a lawsuit on jurisdictional grounds, the Holy See is expected to argue that a key Vatican document calling for secrecy in church trials for sex abuse cases was not, as victims' lawyers say, proof of a Vatican-orchestrated cover up. The Vatican's U.S. attorney, Jeffrey Lena, said Sunday there was no evidence the document was even known to the archdiocese in question — much less used.
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In addition, the Holy See is expected to assert that bishops aren't Vatican employees because they aren't paid by Rome, don't act on Rome's behalf and aren't controlled day-to-day by the pope — factors courts use to determine whether employers are liable for the actions of their workers, Lena told the AP.
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The Holy See is trying to fend off the first U.S. case to reach the stage of determining whether victims actually have a claim against the Vatican itself for negligence for the failure of bishops to alert police or the public about Roman Catholic priests who molested children.
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The case was filed in 2004 in district court in Louisville, Kentucky, by three men who claim they were abused by priests decades ago and claim negligence by the Vatican. Their attorney, William McMurry, is seeking class-action status for the case, saying there are thousands of victims across the country.
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The Vatican's motion is being closely watched as the clerical abuse scandal swirls around the Holy See, since the court's eventual decision could have implications for a new lawsuit naming top Vatican officials that was recently filed in Wisconsin and another one in Oregon is pending before the Supreme Court.
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In my view, the argument that bishops are not employees of the Vatican is beyond disingenuous. Bishops can only be appointed and can only be removed by the Pope. Moreover, every diocese pays an assessment to the Vatican just as every parish pays an assessment to the diocese in which it is located. It is a feudal style system with all power vested ultimately in Rome. In justice, the Vatican needs to get nailed on this. If the Church will not reform itself for the right reason, then perhaps huge monetary losses will force it to change.

Supreme Court Hears Washington State Referendum 71 Case

One of the ironies of the activities of the Uber-Christians is that in addition to wearing their religion on their sleeves much like the ostentatious Pharisees condemned in the Bible, they also pat themselves on the back and claim to be "real Americans" and pretend to be the defenders of democracy. That is except for when democracy and political disclosure laws are inconvenient and might demonstrate to the world that they are actually nasty bigots who prefer to harm the civil rights of other citizens anonymously. The case that was just argued before the U.S. Supreme Court involving the Christianist effort to block the release of the names of those who signed petitions to place a potential repeal of same sex domestic partnership rights on the ballot shines a bright light on the hypocrisy of these self-congratulatory "Christians." Few things pose a bigger threat to democracy than ballot measures put in place by anonymous parties - conspirators if you will - with no transparency as to who and what money interests are behind the anti-liberty initiatives. The Advocate looks at this story and surprisingly, Antonin Scalia may not help out his fellow religious extremists. Here are some highlights:
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Gay rights opponents arguing before the U.S. Supreme Court to keep secret the names of petitioners who opposed a Washington state domestic partnership law said on Wednesday that such disclosure would have a chilling effect on freedom of speech.
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During oral arguments in Doe v. Reed — a lawsuit arising from Washington’s Referendum 71, in which voters ultimately approved an “everything but marriage” law for gay couples — Protect Marriage Washington attorney James Bopp. Jr. argued that “no person should suffer harassment” as a result of participating in the political process by signing a petition.
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Several justices appeared skeptical of Bopp’s arguments, however. Justice Antonin Scalia, who has historically voted against protecting anonymous speech, was particularly aggressive in questioning Bopp, saying that, “Running a democracy takes a certain amount of civic courage.”
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“The First Amendment does not protect you from criticism, or even nasty phone calls when you exercise your political rights to legislate,” Scalia said. Scalia told Bopp that he is asking the Court “to enter into a whole new field” by asking the justices to overturn Washington’s open records law.
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"The people of Washington evidently think that this is not too much of an imposition upon people's courage, to stand up and sign something and be willing to stand behind it," Scalia said. Scalia further ridiculed Protect Marriage Washington's attempt to block disclosure of the signatures, calling the arguments "touchy-feely."
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Washington attorney general Rob McKenna argued that public disclosure of petition signatures, is, like campaign contributions and voter rolls, vital to the state’s interest in protecting against fraud.
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A majority of Washington voters approved the expanded domestic partnership rights for same-sex couples in November. Following the referendum, Protect Marriage Washington sued to block the release of the signatures it had collected, fearing that those in favor of stripping gays and lesbians of expanded domestic partnership rights would face harassment and retribution.
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I can think of few things more un-American or more cowardly than wanting to attack the civil rights of other citizens and then hide behind anonymity rather than stand up publicly for their convictions. Indeed, the Protect Marriage Washington crowd come across as some what akin to Nazi informants who anonymously turned in Jews.

Defenders of Proposition 8 Ignore Court Orders

In a demonstration of their contempt for the courts and the civil laws, the proponents of Proposition 8 have ignored the third federal court order compelling them to turn over internal campaign materials and memos in the federal court case wherein the Constitutionality of Proposition 8 under the U.S. Constitution is at issue. One can only hope that Judge Walker will begin sending some of the recalcitrant defendants in the case to jail so that they will turn over the ordered materials. Obviously, the proponents of Proposition 8 do not want daylight shined on their internal conspiracy and machinations against the civil rights of others. Unfortunately, the behavior of the proponents of Proposition 8 is typical of Christianists who deem themselves above the law. The Court's latest order compelling the production of the materials can be viewed here. Proposition 8 and the Right to Marry has commentary on the situation. Here are some highlights:

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Today Judge [Spero] dropped the hammer on Prop. 8 proponents and ordered immediate production of internal communications concerning their campaign strategies and messages to voters. Among other things, Judge [Spero] admonished Prop. 8 proponents that his previous discovery orders, while being appealed to the Ninth Circuit, remain in effect because the appellate court has not issued a stay. Thus, Prop. 8 proponents risk contempt of the court if they continue to withhold production. According to today’s order, Prop. 8 proponents are ordered to produce additional responsive documents on a rolling basis to conclude not later than the close of fact discovery on November 30, 2009.
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Obviously, those who have nothing to hide do not act in the manner of the proponents of Proposition 8 in this lawsuit. One can only wonder what embarrassing and revealing materials they are trying to keep out of the court case. Bigotry needs to be exposed wherever it exists and subjected to the light of day and public scrutiny.

FAITH, DOPES AND SECRECY

This is a good opinion piece on Yahoo News (http://news.yahoo.com/s/ucrr/20070824/cm_ucrr/faithdopesandsecrecy;_ylt=AhIePVZqTef2F0F9a8hqS4b9wxIF) . Here are some highlights that further convince me that Chimperator Bush will go down in history as one of the nation's worse presidents (the bold highlights are mine):

NEW YORK -- So, the CIA has been forced to declassify the summary of an investigation by its own inspector general saying that 50 or 60 agents and officials had a great deal of information as early as January 2000 that might have prevented the carnage of Sept. 11, 2001.

The 19 pages, finally and grudgingly released more than two years after they were written, are devastating, confirming suspicions that the National Security Agency refused to give the Central Intelligence Agency transcripts of telephone conversations between al-Qaida conspirators, and the CIA did not tell the Federal Bureau of Investigation that two of those conspirators were in the United States. The responsibility for that level of incompetence, said the summary, rests primarily with the CIA director at the time, George Tenet. That is, of course, the same George Tenet who was awarded the country's highest civilian honor, the Medal of Freedom, by President Bush on Dec. 14, 2004.

The medal was awarded that same day to Gen. Tommy Franks, who led the military to easy victory in Iraq, without any planning for what to do after the battle and the overthrow of Saddam Hussein's government. The medal also went to J. Paul Bremer, who was sent to Iraq as an American Caesar, and who ignored looting, disbanded the Iraqi army, and stripped away any experience and expertise that existed in the defeated country by dismissing all members of the former ruling Baathist party -- while somehow losing billions of dollars of our money.

"Three Blind Mice" was the headline of London's Daily Telegraph in reporting the White House ceremony honoring Tenet, Franks and Bremer. I would put it this way, then and now: Abideth in Washington, faith, dopes and secrecy, but the greatest of these is secrecy. The faith of George W. Bush's White House comes down to this: God will provide, so why should we worry ourselves? Bad things will not happen to or be done by good people. And the dopes get the medals.

But it is secrecy that is the most dangerous and will be the most damaging legacy of these Bush years. This president is not the first to want to govern in secrecy -- Richard Nixon comes to mind -- but he is certainly the most small-minded. When it comes to information, this White House, as we know, refuses to accept that either Congress or the courts is an equal branch of government and wants almost all its actions and regulations classified under "executive privilege." It is reclassifying formerly public information, both current and historical, and is in the process of effectively dismantling the Freedom of Information Act.

What the people know and when they know it is the engine of democracy. What we don't know or what we find out too late will hurt us. And that is the idea: The secrecy is necessary to protect the dopes and hide the incompetence. Protect them from whom? From the people; secrecy slowly but very surely throttles democracy.