CHILL OUT

THE TIGHTENING NOOSE:

ALERT: Defense official testifies that Ukrainians asked about hold on security assistance on same day as Trump call with Zelensky-- July 25. https://t.co/1Rpw20F8jQ

— Ellen Nakashima (@nakashimae) November 20, 2019

THE TIGHTENING NOOSE:

[C]onsider the following exchange that took place today between Sondland and Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff, which I reproduce here at some length. You can see, in its text, Schiff probing Sondland as to the elements of the bribery offense--which is quite evidently on Schiff's mind as he asks these questions:

Schiff: Let me get to the top line here, Ambassador Sondland.

Sondland: Okay.

Schiff: You've testified that the White House meeting that President Zelensky desperately wanted [was] very important to President Zelensky, was it not?

Sondland: Absolutely.

Schiff: You testified that that meeting was conditioned, was a quid pro quo, for what the president wanted, these two investigations. Is that right?

Sondland: Correct.

Schiff: And that everybody knew it.

Sondland: Correct.

Schiff: Now that White House meeting was going to be an official meeting between the two presidents, correct?

Sondland: Presumably.

Schiff: It would be an Oval Office meeting, hopefully?

Sondland: A working meeting, yes.

Schiff: A working meeting. So an official act.

Sondland: Yes.

Schiff: And in order to perform that official act, Donald Trump wanted these two investigations that would help his re-election campaign, correct?

Sondland: I can't characterize why he wanted them. All I can tell you is this is what we heard from Mr. Giuliani.

Schiff: But he had to get those two investigations if that official act was going to take place, correct?

Sondland: He had to announce the investigations. He didn't actually have to do them, as I understood it.

Schiff: Okay, President Zelensky had to announce the two investigations the president wanted, make a public announcement, correct?

Sondland: Correct.

Schiff: And those were of great value to the president; he was quite insistent upon them and his attorney was insistent upon them?

Sondland: I don't want to characterize whether they were valued, not valued. Again, through Mr. Giuliani, we were led to believe that that's what he wanted.

Schiff: Well, and you said Mr. Giuliani was acting at the president's demand, correct?

Sondland: Right, when the president says talk to my personal lawyer, Mr. Giuliani, we followed his direction.

Schiff: And so that official act of that meeting was being conditioned on the performance of these things the president wanted as expressed both directly and through his lawyer, Rudy Giuliani. Correct?

Sondland: As expressed through Rudy Giuliani. Correct.

Schiff: And you've also testified is that your understanding, it became your clear understanding that the military assistance was also being withheld pending Zelensky announcing these investigations. Correct?

Sondland: That was my presumption, my personal presumption based on the facts at the time. Nothing was moving.

Schiff: And in fact, you had a discussion, communication with the secretary of state in which you said that [the] logjam over aid could be lifted if Zelensky announced these investigations, right?

Sondland: I did not, I don't recall saying the logjam over aid. I recall saying the logjam.

Schiff: That's what you meant, right, ambassador?

Sondland: I meant that whatever was holding up the meeting whatever was holding up our deal with Ukraine, I was trying to break. Again, I was presuming.

Schiff: Well, here's what you said in your testimony a moment ago, page 18: "But my goal at the time was to do what was necessary to get the aid released, to break the logjam." Okay, that's still your testimony, right?

Sondland: Yes.

Schiff: So the military aid is also an official act, am I right?

Sondland: Yes

Schiff: This was not President Trump's personal bank account he's writing a check from. This is $400 million of U.S. taxpayer money, is it not?

Sondland: Absolutely.

Schiff: There was a logjam in which the president would not write that U.S. check, you believed, until Ukraine announced these two investigations the president wanted.

Sondland: That was my belief.

Remember the words of the statute: Whoever, being a public official, directly or indirectly, corruptly demands anything of value personally in return for being influenced in the performance of any official act has engaged in the crime of bribery.

This exchange seems to me unambiguously to describe a corrupt demand for something personally valuable (investigations of political opponents) in return for being influenced in the performance of two official acts (granting a White House meeting and releasing hundreds of millions of dollars in military assistance).

THE RED HAT IS THE RED FLAG:

The extreme right-wing internet is a small place. The rise of neoreaction inevitably led it to cross paths with another online fringe movement of the mid-2010s: the alt-right.

Members of the two movements didn't agree on everything: While Land and Moldbug valorize capitalism and see democracy as the major barrier to a better future, alt-right ideologues like Richard Spencer and Jared Taylor valorize whiteness and see Jews and non-whites as the problem. Nonetheless, the two shared core ideas, like an emphasis on the role of genetics in creating human hierarchies, that make them comfortable coexisting in the same online spaces. "Although I am not a white nationalist, I am not exactly allergic to the stuff," as Moldbug once put it. (Land is somewhat more critical, writing in The Dark Enlightenment that "the opportunity for viable ethno-supremacist politics disappears into a logical abyss.")

The result is considerable cross-pollination between neoreactionaries and the alt-right. Ideas and terminology crossed the different group lines; some fringe influencers, such as the YouTuber Colin "Millennial Woes" Robertson, have described themselves as being both neoreactionaries and members of the alt-right. A 2018 Southern Poverty Law Center investigation found that several posters on The Right Stuff , an alt-right website, were heavily influenced by neoreaction.

"Many of the ideological seeds that would make me open to Hitlerism started with Dark Enlightenment," one of the posters quoted in the study wrote.

This is the most likely means through which the racist movement became introduced to the term "accelerationism." There's no meaningful use of the term or attention paid to Land among American racists prior to the alt-right's encounter with The Dark Enlightenment -- and why would there have been? An abstruse techno-capitalist philosophy seems to have little in common with the herrenvolk hatred of the KKK. It wasn't until the rise of neoreaction and the alt-right -- two very online movements that shared members in common -- that the encounter would have happened.

It's somewhat ironic, then, that "accelerationism" has displaced the alt-right in the eyes of many internet racists.

In popular usage, the "alt-right" is generally taken to refer to racists on the internet. That's actually a bit imprecise: The alt-right is a specific subset of online racists, one that believes white nationalism can triumph by trolling journalists and staging real-life demonstrations like Charlottesville. The basic model is Hitler and the Nazi party: Win power through democratic elections, then enact your goals.

This has long been a controversial strategy in the neo-Nazi community. It had been tried before in the 1950s and 1960s by the American Nazi Party, whose charismatic leader, George Lincoln Rockwell, attempted to turn it into a legitimate force. Rockwell staged a rally on the National Mall, demonstrated against civil rights, and planned marches through Jewish neighborhoods on Jewish holidays. This amounted to very little politically and, in 1967, Rockwell was assassinated by a former member of his own party.

The alt-right's leaders believed the time was right for another try, in large part thanks to Donald Trump and the internet.

Trump is seen by the alt-right not as a crypto-Nazi, but as an outsider sympathetic to white nationalist goals. He served as a figurehead, a rallying point that could help them convert larger numbers of Americans to their cause. The internet allowed them to try out their message with a mass audience: memes and trolling and message boards allowed them to bypass media gatekeepers and reach Trump fans who might be receptive to white nationalist ideas directly. Indeed, the combination of Trump's rise and alt-right online activity did swell the movement's ranks considerably.

The 2017 Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, was supposed to be proof of concept, a demonstration that the pro-Trump shitposters could be turned into a real-world political movement. What actually happened was a wave of national revulsion and backlash, particularly after the murder of counterprotester Heather Heyer by a white nationalist. The alt-right lost access to social media platforms, was hounded out of public demonstrations by Antifa, and unequivocally denounced by virtually everyone in American politics (except Trump). The second Unite the Right rally, held in DC in 2018, was a pathetically low-turnout affair.

Neo-Nazis, alt-right, and white supremacists take part in the night before the Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, on August 11, 2017. Christina Animashaun/Vox; Zach D. Roberts/NurPhoto via Getty Images

The silver lining for the alt-right -- the president's "very fine people" comment -- wasn't enough to salvage things. Trump, despite all his vicious rhetoric and anti-immigrant policies, had failed to stop what white supremacists see as the existential threat to America: the country's long-term movement toward becoming a majority-minority country. The alt-right's theory of change through elections lost favor with others on the white supremacist fringe.

"From 2015, when Trump announced and attacked Mexicans that first day, through around Charlottesville, these people really thought they were going to be victorious in the electoral [process] and be able to take a peaceful route back to power," says Heidi Beirich, the director of the Southern Poverty Law Center's Intelligence Project. "That has been completely given up on."

This was the moment that neo-Nazi accelerationism really began its rise to prominence -- and promote its new and more violent theory of change to supplant the ideas of the "alt-cucks," as accelerationists derisively termed their white nationalist opponents.

LESS TOM IS MORE SONG:

Just ahead of Tom Waits' 70th birthday, an all-star lineup of female musicians will honor the songwriting legend with a new tribute album, Come On Up to the House: Women Sing Waits. Prior to the record's November 22nd release via Dualtone Music Group, the whole thing is streaming below along with a Track by Track breakdown.

Noted Waits acolyte and musician Warren Zanes produced the effort, which sees 12 artists turning in beautiful renditions of Waits classics and deep cuts. Each one puts their own touch on the songs, peeling back Waits' often experimental compositions and his distinct gravely voice to reveal the magnificent songwriting at their core.

Women Sing Waits was previewed with renditions by Patty Griffin ("Ruby's Arms") and Courtney Marie Andrews ("Downtown Train"). Other contributors include Aimee Mann, Phoebe Bridgers, Angie McMahon, Rosanne Cash, Joseph, The Wild Reeds, Corinne Bailey Rae, and Shelby Lynne & Allison Moorer.

"FACT":

Ken Starr on Fox News: "It doesn't look good for the president, substantively." pic.twitter.com/kDBdx0DapS

— Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) November 20, 2019

THERE IS NO OMERTA AMONG TRUMPBOTS:

omg Rudy is going after the GOP counsel in real-time!? https://t.co/o6qebd8Wvk

— Jesse Lehrich (@JesseLehrich) November 20, 2019

ALWAYS BET ON THE dEEP sTATE:

Schiff and team have run the most effective Congressional probe in history. Informed of the WB complaint on Sep 9, and in a little over two months have broken WH obstruction, got docs & testimony, flipped reluctant witnesses, and revealed the entire plot. Seriously impressive.

— Matthew Miller (@matthewamiller) November 20, 2019

HOW WOULD DEVIN'S BEHAVIOR BE ANY DIFFERENT...:

Nunes' opening statement, delivered just moments earlier, appeared unprepared for Sondland's revelations.

Nunes began by comparing the Democrats' impeachment push to former special counsel Bob Mueller's probe, listing off numerous charges that although he dismissed at false were actually proven true.

"Trump had a diabolical plan to build a Trump Tower in Moscow," he said. (True.) "Trump changed the Republican National Committee platform to hurt Ukraine and benefit Russia," he added. (True.) "Trump's son-in-law lied about his Russian contacts while obtaining his security clearance," he continued. (True.)

"It's a long list of false charges, and that's merely a partial list," Nunes declared after reading the largely corroborated list.

Nunes then went on to claim that Democrats were again pushing false charges in the Ukraine case.

"When the Democrats can't get any traction for their allegations of a quid pro quo, they move the goalposts and accuse the president of extortion, then bribery, and as a last resort, obstructing justice," Nunes said, moments before Sondland explicitly described a "quid pro quo."

"In closing, the Democrats fake outrage that President Trump used his own channel to communicate with Ukraine," Nunes continued. "I'll remind them that our first president, George Washington, directed his own diplomatic channels to secure a treaty with Great Britain. If my Democratic colleagues were around in 1794, they'd want to impeach him, too."

Moments later, Sondland blew up the entire narrative of the top Republican  on the panel.

"Secretary Perry, Ambassador Volker and I worked with Mr. Rudy Giuliani on Ukraine matters at the express direction of the President of the United States," Sondland said. "We did not want to work with Mr. Giuliani . . . We all understood that if we refused to work with Mr. Giuliani, we would lose an important opportunity to cement relations between the United States and Ukraine. So we followed the president's orders."

"As I previously testified, if I had known of all of Mr. Giuliani's dealings or of his associations with individuals now under criminal indictment, I would not have acquiesced to his participation," Sondland added. "I know that members of this committee have frequently framed these complicated issues in the form of a simple question: Was there a 'quid pro quo?' As I testified previously, with regard to the requested White House call and White House meeting, the answer is 'yes.'"

At one point in his statement, Nunes warned Sondland that he was about to be "smeared," apparently referring to Democrats. After Sondland's opening statement, many suggested that Nunes' prediction was misdirected.

"It's like Nunes hasn't read Sondland testimony," wrote former Sen. Claire McCaskill, D-Mo. "He should have said 'Amb Sondland you will be smeared . . . by the Republicans on this committee and the [White House].'"

WHISTLEBLOWN:

Gordon Sondland, the US ambassador to the European Union, is testifying to the House Intelligence Committee Wednesday morning in the highest-stakes impeachment hearing yet -- and his opening statement has now been released.

In it, Sondland confirms that there was a "quid pro quo" imposed on Ukraine, and says that he was carrying out the "orders" of President Donald Trump.

THE ONLY EXISTENTIAL THREAT IS INTERNAL:

Yisrael Beytenu leader Avigdor Liberman may have failed in his efforts to push for a unity government, but on Wednesday he managed to unite lawmakers from right to left -- in condemning him.

Liberman was attacked from all across the political spectrum following a fiery speech in which he blamed both Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Blue and White party chief Benny Gantz for the failure to reach a unity government and ruled out joining a government with either the "anti-Zionist" ultra-Orthodox parties or the "fifth column" Arab lawmakers, signaling that Israel was headed for a third election in a year.

C.H.U.D. II:

As Lt. Col. Alexander S. Vindman sat in a stately chamber testifying on Tuesday, the White House posted on its official Twitter account a message denouncing his judgment. His fellow witness, Jennifer Williams, had barely left the room when the White House issued a statement challenging her credibility.

In President Trump's Washington, where attacks on his enemies real or perceived have become so routine that they now often pass unnoticed, that might not seem all that remarkable -- but for the fact that Colonel Vindman and Ms. Williams both still work for the very same White House that was publicly assailing them.

With the president's allies joining in, the two aides found themselves condemned as nobodies, as plotting bureaucrats, as traitors within and, in Colonel Vindman's case, as an immigrant with dual loyalties. Even for a president who rarely spares the rhetorical howitzer, that represents a new level of bombardment.

Mr. Trump has publicly disparaged cabinet secretaries, former aides and career officials working elsewhere in the government, but now he is taking aim at people still working for him inside the White House complex by name.

"This White House appears to be cannibalizing itself," said William C. Inboden, a former national security aide to President George W. Bush. "While many previous White House staffs have feuded with each other and leaked against each other, this is the first time in history I am aware of a White House openly attacking its own staff -- especially for merely upholding their constitutional duties."

SNARKY PUPPY ON TINY DESK CONCERT:

NOR DID BREMMER SUCCEED IN KILLING WALLACE:

Here's that closing statement from Schiff, via ABC. It's worth a watch.

"My Republicans colleagues, all they seem to be upset about with this is not that the president sought an investigation of his political rival ... Their objection is he got caught."pic.twitter.com/M8r8JLrH61

— Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) November 20, 2019

ABOVE AVERAGE IS OVER:

This modified view is based on a novel research technique developed by a Stanford PhD student in economics named Michael Webb, who built his own algorithm to compare language from 16,400 AI patents with the specific words used to describe 769 different jobs in the government's official occupational database, known as O*NET.

For example, Webb unearthed verb-object combinations in patents related to marketing that included "measure, effectiveness"; "analyze, data"; "identify, markets"; and "monitor statistics." To a considerable extent, these terms mirror those found on O*NET to explain what a marketing specialist does. Among them: "measure the effectiveness of marketing, advertising, and communications programs and strategies," "collect and analyze data on customer demographics, preferences, needs, and buying habits to identify potential markets," and "monitor industry statistics and follow trends in trade literature."

Such a high degree of overlap between the two sets of texts indicates that AI is poised to have a significant impact on a particular occupation.

In all, according to Brookings, some 25 million workers in the U.S. stand to be touched the most by AI. That's about 15% of the nation's labor force.

In addition to marketing specialists, the jobs where AI is expected to make the furthest inroads in the foreseeable future are sales managers, computer programmers, and personal financial advisers. Across these four fields, workers earn an average of $104,000 a year.

Employees with bachelor's degrees are seven times more exposed to AI than those with just a high school diploma, Brookings says. And Asian-American and white workers look to be far more subject to the changes brought by AI than are Hispanics or African Americans.

WHY BOLTON LEFT:

[B]reaking the current impasse is contingent upon some kind of an interim gesture by the US, with 'back channel' assistance, that provides Iran with the incentive it needs to come to the negotiating table - especially given that the contours of a potentially acceptable arrangement that covers issues such as the sunset clause in the existing JCPOA agreement, continued monitoring of Iranian nuclear facilities as well as some kind of a comprehensive agreement covering Iran's missile program are within grasp.

On matters pertaining to the region, once again recent developments suggest that hitherto hostile and uncompromising stances between Iran, the UAE and Saudi Arabia may have finally reached a turning point, in view of the realisation by the likes of the UAE that finding ways of de-escalating tensions through dialogue and diplomacy is by far the preferred option for ending tensions and violence in places like Yemen and Syria.

For the longer term, it is also worth noting that within Iran, all decisions aimed at reaching any kind of a ground breaking compromise, not just with the US but even key regional states such as Saudi Arabia, is considered in the backdrop of fierce feuding waged by various competing factions jockeying for the promotion or protection of their interests in the all important battle for succession in the post-Khamenei era. Ironically, US 'maximum pressure' has actually made an impact on this all important debate, in that it has worked to discredit forces of moderation - such as the current incumbent government, which wanted JCPOA to serve as a stepping stone for reducing Iran's forced economic reliance on China in exchange for much closer economic ties with the US (and its EU partners), especially in key areas having to do with the petroleum industry and aviation.

YEAH, BUT STROZCK HAD AN AFFAIR!:

 "Today was a graveyard for Republican talking points," he said Tuesday night, tackling three GOP arguments: That all the testimony is second-hand, the idea that there could be no U.S. military aid-for-investigations quid pro quo because Ukraine didn't know the aid was being withheld, and that this is no big deal because Ukraine got the money without announcing an investigation of the Bidens.

"The reason that the president had to give the aid is because he got caught," Toobin said. "The whistleblower complaint comes in Sept. 9, they get notice that they've been busted, and it's only then that the aid is released" on Sept. 11.

Jen Psaki, former White House communications director for President Barack Obama, said she was struck by the afternoon testimony where Tim Morrison and Kurt Volker, the Republican witnesses, "basically acknowledged that everything that was done was wrong and they just didn't know about it." Psaki was skeptical of their ignorance, she added, but "they said Biden didn't do anything wrong, they said that the Ukraine Crowdstrike is a conspiracy theory, and they both acknowledge that the president of the United States should not be seeking political dirt on an opponent" from foreign governments.

BECAUSE THE BIDENS AREN'T IN CHAINS IN KIEV?:

More than $35 million of the roughly $400 million in aid to Ukraine that President Trump delayed, sparking the impeachment inquiry, has not been released to the country, according to a Pentagon spending document obtained by the Los Angeles Times.

Instead, the defense funding for Ukraine remains in U.S. accounts, according to the document. It's not clear why the money hasn't been released, and members of Congress are demanding answers.

The controversy began when Trump withheld the assistance package while urging new Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky to conduct investigations of Trump's political opponents. The White House lifted its hold on the money on Sept. 11 after a whistleblower report emerged alleging a quid pro quo.

THE RED HAT IS THE RED FLAG:

The report attributed the fall in terrorism-related deaths to the fall of Islamic State in Iraq and victories in Somalia over al-Shabab insurgents.

"The collapse of ISIL in Syria and Iraq was one of the factors allowing Western Europe to record its lowest number of incidents since 2012, with no deaths attributed to the group in 2018," IEP executive chairman Steve Killelea wrote in a statement, referring to Islamic State by an alternate acronym.

Western Europe also saw numbers of deaths from all terrorist incidents fall for the second year in a row, down from 200 in 2017 to 62 deaths in 2018. The region also recorded its lowest number of incidents since 2012.

However, the report said an increasing number of countries are experiencing terrorist attacks, as a result of the rise of far-right terrorism.

In 2018, 71 countries suffered at least one terrorism-related death, the second-highest number since the beginning of the century.

The report highlights the March 2019 attack on two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand, where 51 people were killed as an example of terrorism spreading to countries with "almost no prior history" or terrorist activity" as a result of far-right ideology.

Over the past five years western Europe, North America and Oceania have seen an increase of 320% in attacks committed by far-right terrorists.