More Wednesday Morning Male Beauty

More Conservatives Need to Refuse to be Complicit in Misogyny

The embodiment of moral bankruptcy

To date, only three Republican Senators have had the moral integrity to begin calling out Donald Trump for what he is in fact: dangerous, unfit, and a bullying demagogue.  The rest prefer to remain silent as Trump trashes America's reputation on the international arena and dangerously escalates the possibility of war with North Korea and/or Iran.  And even despite their growing unhappiness within the GOP Senatorial ranks, legislation and policy changes have moved forward that will harm many Americans ranging from rolling back Obama era regulations that would have allowed consumers to sue big banks to Betsy DeVos' moves to protect scamming private colleges and universities and dismantle special education policies and programs. Among the conservative pundit class and intelligentsia - assuming anything of the sort still remains - the trend is to quietly normalize the abhorrent and "go along to get along."  Meanwhile, civil society and America's future are damaged, perhaps irreversibly,   The question is whether more self-styled conservatives will say "enough" and stop being complicit in the misogyny that is the hall mark of the Trump/Pence regime and today's Republican Party.  A piece in The Atlantic looks at the disturbing situation.  He are highlights: 

In his speech on Tuesday announcing that he won’t seek reelection to the Senate, Jeff Flake denounced the “reckless, outrageous and undignified” behavior coming from “the top of our government.” Earlier the same day, Bob Corker—also retiring—said Donald Trump “debases the country.” In the days to come, George Will will likely say something similar on MSNBC. Charlie Sykes may do so on public radio. Bret Stephens may pen an anti-Trump column in The New York Times.

Notice a pattern? Plenty of high-profile conservatives still passionately denounce Donald Trump. But few still rely on conservative voters, conservative readers or conservative listeners for their livelihood. Anti-Trump conservatism has become a brain without a body. Intellectually, it remains alive; politically, it’s almost dead.

Eight months ago, I suggested that on the subject of Trump, you could divide conservative commentators into three categories. Category one were the Trump loyalists: Breitbart, Sean Hannity, Laura Ingraham, Ann Coulter.  Their base is talk radio. They pride themselves on speaking for those plainspoken, dirt-under-the-fingernails conservatives who loathe not only Hillary Clinton, but Paul Ryan. Their chief enemies are globalism and multiculturalism, which they believe infect both parties, and are destroying America from without and within. Their ideological forefathers are Joseph McCarthy, George Wallace and Pat Buchanan, . . .

Category number two were Never Trump intellectuals who worked for non-conservative publications: David Frum, David Brooks, Ross Douthat, Jennifer Rubin.  For them, conservatism is about prudence, inherited wisdom, and a government that first does no harm; they see none of those virtues in Trump.

“In between,” I suggested, “are the conservatives who will tip the balance. Unlike Breitbart and company, they generally opposed Trump during the campaign. Unlike Brooks and company, they serve a conservative audience that now overwhelmingly backs him.” We now know what has happened to this third group. It has all but disappeared.  The conservative commentators who could not stomach Trump have largely left conservative media. . . . . Now ensconced in liberal institutions, these commentators are free to condemn Trump with little fear of retribution.

If Flake, Corker, Will, Stephens, Kelly, and Sykes have chosen their principles over their constituents, a different set of conservatives have done the opposite. Take Ted Cruz. At last year’s Republican convention, he famously failed to endorse Trump. Now he’s so tight with the Trumpians that Steve Bannon has declared him the only GOP senator he won’t try to challenge in 2018. Paul Ryan has largely stopped criticizing Trump, too. The House speaker, who last June accused Trump of “textbook” racism for attacking Judge Gonzalo Curiel, on Tuesday told reporters to “forget about” Corker’s attacks on Trump. According to Ryan, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee chairman accusing the president of leading America “towards World War III” isn’t worth discussing.

Cruz and Ryan may be cowardly, but they aren’t dumb. They know that 80 percent of Republicans approve of Trump while less than 40 percent approve of Republican leaders in Congress. Which means that continuing their previous criticism of Trump would likely to cost them their jobs.

Many journalists and media personalities appear to have followed their constituents as well. Since the election, they’ve toned down their criticism of Trump. Last October, radio talk-show host Hugh Hewitt called on Trump to exit the presidential race. But last month, Hewitt rendered a dramatically different verdict: “All in all, Trump has had a pretty good eight months.”

During the campaign, Glenn Beck compared Trump to Hitler and called him an “extinction-level event” for American democracy. Now Beck’s criticisms of Trump are fewer and milder.

National Review has softened its criticisms, too. Yes, the magazine publishes condemnations of Trump, some of them incisive and eloquent. But its editors have shied away from some of the toughest accusations they made during the campaign. In its January 2016 editorial urging conservatives to oppose Trump, the magazine’s editors warned that his brand of populism contained “strong-man overtones.” But on Sunday, its editor Rich Lowry declared that the Trump presidency has brought “no budding authoritarianism.”

Flake and Corker’s attacks on Trump as they prepare to depart the Senate are part of a larger transformation. Trumpism has taken over the Republican Party and the conservative media, making them less intellectual, more nationalistic, and more bigoted. And that takeover has sparked an exodus of more intellectual, less nationalistic, and less bigoted conservatives into the liberal political and journalistic mainstream. How they remake that mainstream—and are remade by it—will shape American public life in the years to come.

Far to many "conservatives" are placing remaining in power or assuaging their prejudices over decency and morality.   Leading the way, of course, are evangelical Christians who, in my view, are the most morally bankrupt of the lot. 

Putin's Revenge on America

Frontline will be running a two-part documentary “Putin’s Revenge,” that will debut on PBS member stations on two consecutive Wednesdays, Oct. 25 and Nov. 1, at 10 p.m.  The program will look not only at Putin's rise to power in Russia - he is a former KGB operative - and his long simmering hatred towards the United States.  It also looks at Putin's plan to use cyber-warfare against his international foes, a list that has America at the top followed by other western nations, with resentments that stretch all the way back to the presidency of George H.W. Bush.  With American democracy in disarray and civil discourse trending downward even as Donald Trump - Putin's favored presidential candidate - strives to roil the western alliances, Putin must be smiling.  As American retrenches, Russia and China move into the void. All of these events, of course, are contrary to the interest of America and its citizens - even those embracing Trumps calls to racism and bigotry - and make up part of Putin's revenge on America.  A piece in Salon looks at the program and the message Americans need to hear.  Here are article excerpts:

Outwardly the purpose of “Putin’s Revenge” is to walk viewers through the political rise of Russia’s autocratic president Vladimir Putin, which the documentary dutifully does by building its narrative around interviews with Russian journalists and dissidents as well as expert contributions from journalists and biographers covering Putin for such publications as The Atlantic and the New York Times.

But Kirk and his co-writer Mike Wiser inform their biographical map by filtering Putin’s hardline autocratic methods through a psychological profile that draws more than a few parallels — Trump. Putin’s history as a former KGB officer is as common knowledge as that photo of him riding a horse shirtless.

Diluted into a meme long ago, that photo is a small part of a long campaign that began with Boris Yeltsin unwisely handing the presidency over to him in 1999. In part one of “Putin’s Revenge,” which airs Wednesday, Kirk and Wiser expediently trace his campaign to consolidate power to the opening days of what was initially his interim leadership, when he sold himself as a reform and a democrat — with the help of his public relations coach.

Even then, a former Putin advisor tells the interviewer, Putin understood that “everything could be manipulated. Any kind of press, any TV program is all about manipulation. It was decided what TV channels would show what news.”

Viewers who have been keeping up with current events are likely familiar with much of this timeline, starting with demolishing of independently run television studios and Putin’s move to bring broadcast media under government control.

That in itself is telling, as is the familiarity of exiled Russian journalist Masha Gessen and opposition figure Vladimir Kara-Murza, whose claim to fame among American viewers is that he survived two assassination attempts by poisoning. Gessen and Kara-Murza have appeared on a number of American news programs as well as night-time talk shows such as “Full Frontal with Samantha Bee” and “The Daily Show.”

But as “Putin’s Revenge” spells out, they are guest stars in a reality show produced by a man obsessed with image and pathologically concerned about how the world sees him. If the similarity to our thin-skinned president is alarming, it should be.

Kirk and Wiser expand upon this idea in the second half, which frames Putin’s animosity toward the united states as a product of a resentment over a lifetime’s worth of perceived humiliations. The title’s “Revenge” refers to his seething over the actions of a number of American presidents, dating back to George H.W. Bush’s celebration of the Berlin Wall’s fall (when a young Putin was a counter-intelligence agent stationed in Dresden, Germany, which Gessen refers to as “a backwater”).

From there, many moments in recent history were seen by Putin as one slight upon another. Bush’s post- 9/11 and the subsequent topping of Saddam Hussein in Iraq and Muammar Gaddafi in Libya as well as uprisings brewing in former Soviet countries were seen as existential threats. As he centralized power, restoring Joseph Stalin’s national anthem with new words in the process, his quest to make Russia great again became just as much about elevating his standing in the world and deteriorating America’s.

By innovating tactics in cyber warfare and enabling the viral spreading of misinformation via social media, “Putin’s Revenge” posits that Russian interference with American democracy was only a matter of time. Clinton, the latest in a line of old foes, had a questionable reputation among America’s electorate that made her a ripe target. The media’s obsession with the headline-grabbing salaciousness of Trump’s “Access Hollywood” tape drowned out the government’s warning about the hack in October — a warning handled and presented with insufficient urgency, Kirk and Wiser point out.

Frontline’s consistently fulfills its purpose of lining up recent news with history to put current events in a context that’s simple to comprehend. And I suppose “Putin’s Revenge” would be chilling if we weren’t already drowning in apprehensiveness over the dangerous ignorance and instability of our own president, a handy gift to Putin whose thoughtless words enabled and encouraged hackers to attack and exploit our cultural divisions.

“Putin’s Revenge” paints Putin as a spiteful malevolence to sharpen the warning of what we could be facing in the coming campaign cycle. But it also arrives at time when Western media is questioning whether we’re assigning too much power to Putin, as the world’s attention starts to turn toward Russia’s upcoming presidential election.

The only Kremlin- approved challenger so far is a reality TV star and former Russian Playboy model, the daughter of a deceased former St. Petersburg mayor who was one of Putin’s early allies. Everybody understands that election is a sham, and unless Putin somehow decides to relinquish power, he’ll become the second longest-ruler in Moscow, outdone only by Joseph Stalin’s 29 years in power.

Wednesday Morning Male Beauty - Pt 1

Quotes of the Day: Jennifer Rubin and Jeff Flake

Real news outlets - which excludes Fox News and Breitbart - is covered with coverage today that looks at the denunciations of Donald Trump by GOP Senator Jeff Flake of Arizona and GOP Senator Bob Corker.  However, the rebukes actually went beyond Donald Trump.  By extension they applied to every Republican office holder and even to those who voted for Trump and revel in his misogyny and dangerous narcissism.  One of the best summations of this indictment of those who are complicit in Trump's ugliness, bullying, racism and  damage done to America's democracy is in a column in the Washington Post by former conservative columnist Jennifer Rubin.  Here are excerpts:

The message to the GOP and the rest of the country is sobering. If you are going to speak out, as Flake did in a blistering book criticizing Trump, and remain loyal to principles like free trade, immigration and fiscal sobriety, there is no place for you in Trump’s GOP. Moreover, remaining in Trump’s GOP means tolerating, if not enabling, Trump’s noxious mix of dishonesty, bullying, protectionism and racism. It is not a party that tolerates questioning of Trump — or, apparently, our generals. It is not a party that defends the First Amendment or the independence of the courts. 

Many of my Republican "friends" keep trying to keep their heads firmly burrowed into the sand, but the time has come where each of must decide if we are on the side of truth, honesty, morality and decency or  on the side of Trump and the hideous thing that the Republican Party is becoming.

As for Flake's comments today, here are some excerpts via CNN:

We must never regard as "normal" the regular and casual undermining of our democratic norms and ideals. We must never meekly accept the daily sundering of our country - the personal attacks, the threats against principles, freedoms, and institutions, the flagrant disregard for truth or decency, the reckless provocations, most often for the pettiest and most personal reasons, reasons having nothing whatsoever to do with the fortunes of the people that we have all been elected to serve.

None of these appalling features of our current politics should ever be regarded as normal. We must never allow ourselves to lapse into thinking that this is just the way things are now. If we simply become inured to this condition, thinking that this is just politics as usual, then heaven help us. Without fear of the consequences, and without consideration of the rules of what is politically safe or palatable, we must stop pretending that the degradation of our politics and the conduct of some in our executive branch are normal. They are not normal.

It is often said that children are watching. Well, they are. And what are we going to do about that? When the next generation asks us, Why didn't you do something? Why didn't you speak up? -- what are we going to say?
 Mr. President, I rise today to say: Enough. We must dedicate ourselves to making sure that the anomalous never becomes normal. With respect and humility, I must say that we have fooled ourselves for long enough that a pivot to governing is right around the corner, a return to civility and stability right behind it. We know better than that. By now, we all know better than that.

When we remain silent and fail to act when we know that that silence and inaction is the wrong thing to do -- because of political considerations, because we might make enemies, because we might alienate the base, because we might provoke a primary challenge, because ad infinitum, ad nauseum -- when we succumb to those considerations in spite of what should be greater considerations and imperatives in defense of the institutions of our liberty, then we dishonor our principles and forsake our obligations. Those things are far more important than politics.

Acting on conscience and principle is the manner in which we express our moral selves, and as such, loyalty to conscience and principle should supersede loyalty to any man or party. We can all be forgiven for failing in that measure from time to time. . . . . . But too often, we rush not to salvage principle but to forgive and excuse our failures so that we might accommodate them and go right on failing—until the accommodation itself becomes our principle.

I have children and grandchildren to answer to, and so, Mr. President, I will not be complicit. . . . . giving in to the impulse to scapegoat and belittle threatens to turn us into a fearful, backward-looking people. In the case of the Republican party, those things also threaten to turn us into a fearful, backward-looking minority party.

We were not made great as a country by indulging or even exalting our worst impulses, turning against ourselves, glorying in the things which divide us, and calling fake things true and true things fake. And we did not become the beacon of freedom in the darkest corners of the world by flouting our institutions and failing to understand just how hard-won and vulnerable they are. 

When I resigned from the Republican Party more than a decade and a half ago after 8 years as a precinct captain and City Committee member, I did so for the reasons Flake enunciated.   Adhering to principles and morality and Constitutional values always supersedes loyalty to Party.  Yet, that is not the case with a majority of Republicans nowadays. Moral and decent Republicans need to exit the GOP and vote Democrat whenever possible to blunt the hideousness that is flowing through the GOP from the White House down. 

More Tuesday Morning Male Beauty

Democrats Should Embrace Impeachment

The caption of this post is from an op-ed in the New York Times that lays out the argument as to why Democrats should embrace a movement to have Donald Trump impeached.  Like many others, I view Trump as toxic, dangerous and a threat to society.  His only "success" to date is placing a man on the U.S. Supreme Court who believes that the real or feigned religious beliefs of Christian extremists override the nation's laws.  Meanwhile, his Cabinet appointees/henchmen seek to usher in pollution and an unwinding of safety regulations that protect everyday American families.  On the education front, the opponent of public education, Betsy DeVos is undoing 72 different rules that will do harm to special education students and many others.  If this is not all bad enough, Republicans have introduced the following bills in the House of Representatives:

1. HR 861 to Terminate the Environmental Protection Agency 

2. HR 610 - Vouchers for Public Education (which may end free public education as we know it)
3. HR 899 to Terminate the Department of Education (which may lead to greater disparity between states)
4. HR 69 to Repeal the Rule Protecting Wildlife 
5. HR 370 to Repeal the Affordable Care Act 
6. HR 354 to De-fund Planned Parenthood 

7. HR 785 - National "Right to Work" (this one is actually a 'Right to fire you whenever your boss feels like it" law, and it would effectively end unions)

8. HR 83 - Mobilizing Against Sanctuary Cities Bill 

9. HR 147 to Criminalize Abortion (“Prenatal Nondiscrimination Act”) 

But back to impeachment.  Here are column highlights:

Last week, Tom Steyer, the billionaire progressive donor, announced a $10 million campaign calling for President Trump’s impeachment, beginning with a television commercial running in all 50 states. Trump, the spot says, has “brought us to the brink of nuclear war, obstructed justice at the F.B.I., and in direct violation of the Constitution, he’s taken money from foreign governments and threatened to shut down news organizations that report the truth.” Appearing on screen, Steyer asks, “If that isn’t a case for impeaching and removing a dangerous president, then what has our government become?”

It’s a good question. Yet while most elected Democrats probably agree that Trump’s presidency is a nightmare, they’ve been largely reluctant to use the “I” word. The base wants impeachment — according to an August survey from the Public Religion Research Institute, 72 percent of Democrats support efforts to remove Trump from office. But inside the Beltway, calling for impeachment remains strangely taboo.

Some members of Congress are awaiting the results of the investigation being conducted by Robert Mueller, the special counsel, and the case for impeachment may become stronger when his inquiry is complete. Yet whatever Mueller discovers, we have credible reasons for impeachment right now. The Constitution dictates that presidents be impeached for “treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors.”

[L]egal scholars have laid out cases for impeachment based on Trump’s blatant violations of the Constitution’s emoluments clause; his abuse of power in pardoning the former Arizona sheriff Joe Arpaio; and for passing Israeli intelligence to Russian officials, among other misdeeds. In July, Representative Brad Sherman, a California Democrat, introduced an article of impeachment on the grounds that Trump attempted to obstruct justice by firing James Comey from the F.B.I. Yet he had only a single co-sponsor . . Steyer, a hedge fund manager-turned-environmentalist who spent more than $91 million on behalf of Democrats in 2016, finds this reticence baffling. “What is the calculus to being silent on the most important issue of the day, where it’s absolutely critical to the American people, and it will go on the historical record of what you did or didn’t do?” he asked me. “I don’t understand.” I’ve spoken to Democrats who fear making impeachment too partisan, holding out hope that if Trump’s behavior becomes egregious enough Republicans might join the effort to hold him accountable. . . . And, of course, some on the left believe that a functioning Mike Pence administration would be worse than the dysfunctional Trump regime.

There are strategic merits to all these arguments. But they leave many Americans terrified by Trump’s erratic behavior and incompetence feeling marooned, confused as to why their leaders aren’t treating this presidency like the civic emergency that it is. At some point, we need politicians to address the crisis in front of us.

[A] Republican-controlled Congress has little incentive to act. But even if Democrats retake the House in 2018, Sherman told me, impeachment “would still require a change in public opinion.”

This is why Steyer’s campaign is potentially useful, even if at first glance it seems quixotic. . . . . But Steyer is aiming at movement-building; he wants to reach people who desperately want Trump gone but don’t know what to do about it. “We’re asking electeds to stand up for the right thing, but we’re going to American citizens to ask them to demand it,” he said.

Democrats may wish to return to a less destructive brand of politics, but that’s not an option while Trump sits in the White House.

While he does, we’re all better off if he thinks impeachment is a possibility. “I’m hoping that if Trump is aware that he could be removed, that that awareness constrains him to the extent he can be constrained,” Sherman said. And the best way to show Trump that people are serious about impeaching him is to put the message on television.

Myeshia Johnson Stands Up to Donald Trump

With his non-stop trail of lies that are constantly being documented as false, one would think that Donald Trump, a/k/a Der Trumpenführer, would realize at some point that refusing to stop lying only digs his hole deeper.  Now, with the widow of Sergeant La David Johnson joining Congresswoman Federica Wilson, Sgt. Johnson's mother, Trump nonetheless continues to lie.  His sickness and narcissism will simply never allow him to do the decent and moral thing is to apologize.  Equally troubling, of course, is General Kelly's willingness to lie and prostitute himself for the benefit of a morally bankrupt individual.  Hopefully, Kelly's place in history will be forever sullied.  Ditto for every other individual who has thrown away morality, honesty, and decency to serve Der  Trumpenführer.   Having nearly lost a family member in Afghanistan, I DO take all of this personally since, unlike Trump, I know that real people and real lives are involved.  Trump disgusts me. A piece in the New Yorker looks at Myeshia Johnson's refusal to bow down to Trump's lies.  Here are excerpts:

There were two moments during her interview on “Good Morning America” when the expression of the face of Myeshia Johnson, the widow of Sergeant La David Johnson, was transformed by a sudden smile. One came when George Stephanopoulos asked if it was true that she and La David—who was twenty-five when he died, three weeks ago, in Niger—had met when they were just six years old. “Yes, sir,” Johnson said. The other was when he mentioned that she was expecting her third child, a daughter, in January. Her oldest child is six now. Those are circumstances that could overwhelm anyone. But Johnson, throughout the six-and-a-half-minute interview, was steady, calm, and focussed on two goals: asking for answers about how her husband had died, and standing up to President Donald Trump, who, she said, when he called her, “couldn’t remember my husband’s name.” “I heard him stumbling on, trying to remember my husband’s name, and that’s what hurt the most, because, if my husband is out there fighting for our country, why can’t you remember his name?”

It’s a good question, and there might have been a charitable answer—Trump’s own emotion about the difficult task at hand, perhaps. But then the President responded by—in effect—calling Johnson, a Gold Star widow, a liar.

There were no accompanying words of compassion for Johnson, who said that the call “made me cry even worse.” Beyond the lack of empathy, this is a steep escalation of Trump’s claims that Representative Frederica Wilson, who was in a car with Johnson during the call, and said that the President had not been respectful, had “totally fabricated” her account of it. Trump has taken to calling Wilson “wacky”; his chief of staff, the retired general John Kelly, called her an “empty barrel” in a press conference last week, and put out a story about watching in disbelief as she grandstanded during an F.B.I. ceremony a number of years ago—a story that was, as a video of the event proves, demonstrably false. Did they think that Myeshia Johnson would not speak up for Wilson? If so, they were wrong.

When Stephanopoulos said, “The President said that the congresswoman was lying about the phone call,” Johnson did not hesitate. “Whatever Ms. Wilson said was not ‘fabricated,’ ” she said, speaking evenly. “What she said was one hundred per cent correct.” It was all on speakerphone, she said. “Why would we fabricate something like that?” The Trumpian answer is that, if it makes the President look bad, it must be a lie.

Myeshia Johnson also addressed a point that seems to have particularly outraged Kelly: that Wilson was listening in on the call, which he portrayed as a violation of something “sacred.” It was an odd complaint, given that Kelly himself had listened in, too, but Johnson put it to rest with a reminder that she was an actor in all this, rather than just a symbol. “I asked Master Sergeant Neil to put his phone on speaker, so my aunt and uncle could hear as well,” she said, referring to the service member assigned to them, who was on the line with the White House, and to her husband’s aunt and uncle, who raised him after his mother died when he was a small child. (They have been identified as his parents in some press accounts; his aunt, Cowanda Jones-Johnson, had earlier backed up Wilson’s account.) Wilson, Myeshia Johnson added, was there, too, because she had worked with La David’s uncle in an elementary school and had guided La David in a mentoring program called 5000 Role Models. “She’s been in our family since we were little kids,” Johnson said.

In the video of the speech that Wilson gave which so offended Kelly, she asked members of law enforcement in the audience to stand up and be honored. It is hard to know what bothered Kelly about her appearance that day. Wilson herself, in an interview with the Times, said that she had no explanation—“I’m just flabbergasted,” she said—but she added, in regard to the general context of the affair, that the Administration is stocked with “white supremacists.” (The Times noted that she was not speaking about Kelly personally.) In any event, Trump might need to learn that there are women who will neither praise him nor stay quiet or shrink when he attacks. Some of them are Gold Star widows. Generals are not the only ones who get to speak, for military families or for the country.  

Trump is morally disgusting.  Anyone who continues to support him is, in my opinion, equally lacking in morality and decency.   They might like this assessment, but I believe that this charge is true.  And don't even get me started on the moral bankruptcy of the evangelical Christians who continue to stand by Trump and his hideous agenda.  Oh, and did I mention Trump's racism

After Niger Attack, McCain Calls for War Powers Debate

Questions continue to be raised about U.S. military actions in Niger after the ambush that killed four American soldiers.  Most Americans, including members of the U.S. Senate who should have known such military actions, knew nothing of America's involvement in Niger much less what the Americans who lost their life were doing their.  With an individual in the White House that I personally  deem to be unfit for office and mentally ill, it is critical that Congress reclaim its power to declare war - Section 8, Article I of the U.S. Constitution grants this power to Congress, not the president -  and launch any significant military action. We most certainly do not want the narcissistic liar-in-chief making unilateral war powers decisions that could reap horrific consequences to America and the world.  As Voice of America is reporting, the attack that killed four U.S. service members, it appears that there was a massive intelligence failure in Niger:

A local official and an analyst say residents of the Niger village where four Green Beret soldiers were killed this month may have delayed the soldiers while an ambush was set up and helped to lead the victims into a deadly trap.

"The attackers, the bandits, the terrorists have never lacked accomplices among local populations," said Almou Hassane, mayor of Tongo-Tongo where the attack took place, in what is believed to be his first interview with a Western news organization.

The village chief in Tongo-Tongo, Mounkaila Alassane, has been arrested since the attack, Hassane said, lending credibility to the suspicion of local involvement. He is in government custody according several officials.

While the soldiers were still in the village, a fake terror attack was staged nearby, according to Aksar and local sources. The soldiers rushed to the scene, where about 50 or more assailants with vehicles and motorcycles opened fire with Kalashnikovs and heavy weapons.

Four Nigerien soldiers and three Americans were killed on the spot. The body of the fourth American soldier was found 48 hours later, about a mile away from the initial site, CNN reported.

Rhissa Ag Boula, a high-ranking government official and a former Tuareg rebel chief in Niger, told VOA that the fourth soldier, La David Johnson, had remained at the front line while the others retreated under heavy fire.

The attack has raised questions in Niger, especially since the U.S. Army operates drone bases in the country and has significant intelligence resources there.

"That's what really shocked us: how, at their level, with all the resources they have, they could not have strong intelligence to avoid what happened there," said Hassane.

No group has officially taken responsibility for the attack. According to sources in the region, however, it is the work of Abu Adnan al-Saharaoui, who calls himself the Islamic Emir of the Great Sahara, affiliated with the Islamic State group.

Senator John McCain, has rightly called for a renewed debate in Congress to set parameters for the ability of the White House to authorize military actions overseas.  While the Niger incident is the immediate catalyst, fears of what Der Trumpenführer might seek to do in North Korea and Iran are no doubt at the back of McCain's mind and the minds of millions of other Americans. Politico looks at McCain's call for a new debate on limiting the president's powers to authorize military operations.  Here are article highlights:

Senate Armed Services Committee Chairman John McCain (R-Ariz.) on Monday seized on the deadly ambush in Niger to call for a new congressional authorization for U.S. military operations overseas.

McCain told reporters Monday that he and the Armed Services panel’s top Democrat, Rhode Island Sen. Jack Reed, are working on a proposal to update the broad war powers Congress gave the commander in chief after the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

The deaths of four U.S. soldiers in Niger earlier this month have stoked fresh interest in a new war powers vote, which the Trump administration has indicated it would not oppose — although it says it has all the legal authority it needs to conduct anti-terrorism operations under the existing 2001 authorization.

“We’re going to have to have” an updated authorization for the use of military force, said McCain, who has previously called for a new war powers resolution.

The Senate Foreign Relations Committee had already been scheduled to hold an Oct. 30 hearing on the president’s war powers, which Chairman Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) called “excellent” timing Thursday. But he remains unsure about any practical movement on an updated war powers measure. Indeed, lawmakers as well as senior Pentagon officials are still getting up to speed on critical facts regarding the Oct. 4 attack that killed four members of the U.S. Army Special Forces. Armed Services panel members are set for a Thursday briefing on the ambush in Niger, where the Pentagon’s Africa Command has stepped up its efforts against militants affiliated with the Islamic State terrorist group. Senior senators in both parties, including Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) and Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), said on Sunday that they were unaware of the size of the U.S. military presence in Niger, though the White House formally notified the Hill about troops in Niger in June.

Lawmakers are now pressing to know more about the events of Oct. 4, and Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Joe Dunford pledged on Monday to provide those details.  “We owe the families as much information as we can find out about what happened,” the four-star Marine general said.

“With regard to Congress and the criticism we’re not providing enough information, … if the Congress doesn’t believe that they’re not getting sufficient information, then I need to double my efforts to provide them with information,” Dunford added.

Defense Secretary James Mattis last week said the type of attack that occurred in Niger was “considered unlikely,” but he nonetheless promised to “rapidly” release the findings of an investigation into the incident.

This year’s previous pitches to update the 2001 war authorization have been attached to other legislation, and have failed to come to fruition. A proposal to repeal the authorization by Rep. Barbara Lee (D-Calif.) was added to annual House defense spending legislation in June, but removed from the bill by House GOP leadership before it went to the floor.

And an attempt in September by Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) to add a repeal of the 2001 and 2002 war authorizations to the must-pass National Defense Authorization Act was rebuffed by the Senate.  Lee, the only lawmaker to vote against the 2001 war authorization, called moves by Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) to derail her proposal “undemocratic.”

“People are asking, ‘Why are we in Niger?’ Rightfully so,” Lee said in an interview with Politico. “Well, a debate would provide information and answer a lot of questions and put Congress back in the mix in terms of us doing our job, because certainly we’re not.” 

Congress needs to take back its power and limit the ability of an unfit malignant narcissist to authorize military action based on mere whims and petulant bursts of angry over his fragile ego. 

Tuesday Morning Male Beauty - Pt 1