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| Is Vladimir Putin really the evil genius behind Donald Trump? – Toronto Star | ||||
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| Russia edges in as key power broker with North Korea – Nikkei Asian Review | ||||
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| Who’s an Oligarch? Rich Russians Fret Over US Sanctions Label – Bloomberg | ||||
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| Little peace, and our strength is ebbing: A report from the Reagan National Defense Forum. – National Review | ||||
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| James Comey, Sally Yates and Eric Holder defend FBI after Trump’s Twitter attack – Washington Post | ||||
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| Michael Flynn Investigation Sparks Concern About a Politicized FBI – LifeZette | ||||
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| Michael Flynn shouldn’t have lied about doing the right thing | ||||
James S. Robbins, Opinion columnist Published 6:00 a.m. ET Dec. 4, 2017
Former national security adviser Michael Flynn(Photo: Jim Lo Scalzo, epa)
On Friday, President Trump’s former national security adviser, Michael Flynn, pleaded guilty to lying to federal investigators about a perfectly legal conversation he had during the presidential transition with then-Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak.
More: Hijab Barbie: Perfect Christmas gift for non-Muslim parents who want to stick it to Trump Read or Share this story: <a href=”https://usat.ly/2nrcPsc” rel=”nofollow”>https://usat.ly/2nrcPsc</a> |
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| If Michael Flynn’s ‘crime’ is all Robert Mueller has, it is time to move on – USA TODAY | ||||
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| Russia-Trump: President criticised for attacking FBI – BBC News | ||||
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| Kremlin says Flynn didn’t influence Putin’s decision to not retaliate against US sanctions – NBCNews.com | ||||
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| How Donald Trump needs to exit the White House – Washington Post | ||||
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| Mueller Is Moving Quickly Compared To Past Special Counsel Investigations – FiveThirtyEight | ||||
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| 8:47 AM 12/4/2017 Dear Mr. Clapper | ||||
(From a “rank and file” and the very ordinary citizen) Dear Mr. Clapper: To say that the FBI is the “premier law enforcement organization in the world” implies the same underlying logic as to say that “Mr. Clapper is the most perfect gentleman in the world”. Both statements might very well be true, to put the … Continue reading“8:47 AM 12/4/2017 – Dear Mr. Clapper…” |
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| The Early Edition: December 4, 2017 | ||||
Before the start of business, Just Security provides a curated summary of up-to-the-minute developments at home and abroad. Heres todays news. |
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| Clapper pushes back on Trump: FBI is premiere law enforcement organization in world | TheHill | ||||
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| Clapper pushes back on Trump: FBI is premiere law enforcement organization in world – The Hill | ||||
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| In pre-dawn Twitter message, Trump issues a fresh denial about intervening in Flynn investigation | ||||
 President Trump issued a fresh denial Sunday that he asked former FBI director James B. Comey to halt an investigation into the conduct of his dismissed national security adviser Michael Flynn. I never asked Comey to stop investigating Flynn, Trump said in a pre-dawn message on Twitter. Just more Fake News covering another Comey lie! […] |
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| McMaster: National security team not missing a beat because of Trump controversies | ||||
 H.R. McMaster, President Trumps national security adviser, said Sunday that the administration’s controversies including his predecessors guilty plea and rumors of Secretary of State Rex Tillersons departure arent affecting its ability to work with U.S. allies on key issues. McMaster was pressed during an appearance on Fox News Sunday about those and other […] |
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| DOJ And FBI Threatened With Contempt Of Congress For ‘Hiding’ Info On Anti-Trump FBI Investigator – The Daily Caller | ||||
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| 4:02 AM 12/4/2017 The FBIs reputation is in Tatters worst in History! New FBI Director Chris Wray needs to clean house. | ||||
Trump questioned the direction of the federal law enforcement agency and wrote that after Comey, whom Trump fired in May, the FBI’s reputation is “in Tatters worst in History!” He vowed to “bring it back to greatness.” The president also retweeted a post saying new FBI Director Chris Wray “needs to clean house.” AP … Continue reading“4:02 AM 12/4/2017 – The FBI’s reputation is “in Tatters worst in History!” New FBI Director Chris Wray “needs to clean house.”” |
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| We do need the comprehensive, in-depth, objective investigation, reassessment, and reevaluation of the FBI M.N. | ||||
In my humble opinion, we do need the comprehensive, in-depth, objective investigation, reassessment, and reevaluation of the FBI from the times of its inception and establishment: its actions, inactions, and mis-actions, its place and role in the society, and its future roles, not in a “police” state or the “deep” state, but in a free and … Continue reading“We do need the comprehensive, in-depth, objective investigation, reassessment, and reevaluation of the FBI – M.N.” |
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| Trump, Defending Himself After Flynn Guilty Plea, Says F.B.I. Is in Tatters | ||||
But on Sunday, the president condemned Mr. Comey as a liar, saying that “I never asked Comey to stop investigating Flynn” and that Mr. Comey had harmed the bureau and its employees. He also accused the bureau’s agents of spending years pursing a “phony and dishonest” investigation into the email server of his 2016 rival, Hillary Clinton.
Mr. Trump’s fury at those investigating him stunned even those with fresh memories of his repeated attempts over the past year to disparage intelligence agencies, the State Department and other parts of his government. Senator Dianne Feinstein of California, the top Democrat on the Judiciary Committee, said the frenzied nature of the president’s tweets suggested that he knew that Mr. Mueller was building an obstruction of justice case against him. “I see it in the hyper-frenetic attitude of the White House, the comments every day, the continual tweets,” Ms. Feinstein said on NBC’s “Meet the Press” on Sunday. Eric H. Holder Jr., who was President Barack Obama’s first attorney general, responded to the president’s tweets with one of his own defending the bureau. “You’ll find integrity and honesty at FBI headquarters and not at 1600 Penn Ave right now,” Mr. Holder wrote. As he sought to discredit the Russia inquiry, which he has long called a political “witch hunt,” Mr. Trump on Sunday seized on reports that Mr. Mueller had removed a veteran F.B.I. agent because he sent text messages that appeared to express views critical of Mr. Trump. In several tweets, the president harshly criticized the agent, Peter Strzok, who had previously helped lead the 2016 investigation into whether Mrs. Clinton had mishandled classified information on her private email account. Mr. Strzok is considered one of the bureau’s most experienced and trusted counterintelligence investigators. “Report: ‘ANTI-TRUMP FBI AGENT LED CLINTON EMAIL PROBE,’” Mr. Trump said in his 10th tweet on Sunday, which by the early evening had been retweeted more than 24,000 times. “Now it all starts to make sense!” Most presidents enter the Oval Office with an instinct to defend and promote the integrity and capabilities of the nation’s law enforcement agencies. Mr. Trump arrived with a different compulsion, fueled by a belief that intelligence and law enforcement officials were stoking questions about the legitimacy of his election victory. By suggesting — as he has before — that the F.B.I. and other agencies are motivated by politics, Mr. Trump again embraced the kind of suspicions that feed conspiracy theories about a “deep state” operating with a secret bias against him. Still, even though Mr. Trump’s attacks on government agencies are now a familiar theme, former F.B.I. officials and veteran observers of the agency said they were surprised at the ease with which the president sought to defend himself by attacking the reputations of Mr. Comey, Mr. Mueller, Mr. Strzok and the 35,000 people who work at the F.B.I. Robert E. Anderson Jr., a former top spy hunter at the bureau, said the president’s comments would have a dispiriting effect on F.B.I. morale, especially among those who are not involved in political investigations. “You’ve got men and women working tirelessly in every corner of this world to protect the United States and its people,” Mr. Anderson said. “When he says what he says, it’s an insult and it’s degrading to the men and women who are sacrificing their lives to protect this great nation.” Mr. Anderson also came to the defense of Mr. Strzok, calling him “one of the most methodical, most meticulous, hard-working counterintelligence experts in the entire United States intelligence community.” Mr. Anderson said Mr. Strzok “never displayed political bias.” The president retweeted a Twitter post urging Christopher A. Wray, the current F.B.I. director, to “clean house” at the agency. In a statement on Sunday, Attorney General Jeff Sessions said he had directed Mr. Wray to “review the information available on this and other matters and promptly make any necessary changes.” Mr. Trump has repeatedly described the F.B.I. as an agency in turmoil, often blaming Mr. Comey — a “showboat” and a “grandstander” — for losing support among rank-and-file agents. He cited such supposed turmoil when he fired Mr. Comey in May. But several years of internal employee surveys by the F.B.I. undercut that claim, showing that employees gave Mr. Comey high marks for his leadership. And since taking over four months ago, Mr. Wray has repeatedly praised the bureau’s work force. In a speech in October, Mr. Wray described the bureau’s employees as “outstanding and dedicated.” “I wake up every day fired up to come to work — to be part of this extraordinary group — and to see where we can go next,” he said. Mr. Trump’s efforts to shift attention away from Mr. Flynn’s guilty plea began Saturday night, when he assailed the Justice Department for its handling of the Clinton email investigation and questioned the department’s dedication to living up to its name. “Many people in our Country are asking what the ‘Justice’ Department is going to do about the fact that totally Crooked Hillary, AFTER receiving a subpoena from the United States Congress, deleted and ‘acid washed’ 33,000 Emails?” he wrote, referring to messages that Mrs. Clinton’s lawyers had deemed unrelated to her government work. “No justice!” In another tweet Saturday night, Mr. Trump accused the F.B.I. of destroying Mr. Flynn’s life for his lying to agents, while letting “Crooked Hillary Clinton” off easy for what he said were her own lies to agents. “Rigged system, or just a double standard?” he said. But Mr. Trump appears to remain especially fixated on Mr. Comey, who testified before Congress in June that the president had asked him to drop the inquiry into Mr. Flynn’s activities one day after Mr. Trump had fired Mr. Flynn. Mr. Comey declined to do so, and the president fired Mr. Comey several months later. In one tweet on Sunday, Mr. Trump blamed “years of Comey” at the helm of the F.B.I. for what he views as the damage to its reputation. “After years of Comey, with the phony and dishonest Clinton investigation (and more), running the FBI, its reputation is in Tatters — worst in History!” Mr. Trump wrote. “But fear not, we will bring it back to greatness.” The tweet drew a sharp rebuke from Mr. Holder. “The FBI’s reputation is not in ‘tatters,’” Mr. Holder wrote on Twitter. “It’s composed of the same dedicated men and women who have always worked there and who do a great, apolitical job.” Continue reading the main story |
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| Met Opera Suspends James Levine After New Sexual Abuse Accusations | ||||
But now the Met — the nation’s largest performing arts organization and one of the world’s most prestigious opera houses — finds itself in the position that Hollywood studios, television networks and newsrooms have confronted in recent weeks, answering questions about what it knew about allegations of sexual misconduct against one of its stars, and what actions it did and did not take.
Mr. Gelb said allegations about Mr. Levine had reached the Met administration’s upper levels twice before, to his knowledge. One was in 1979, when Anthony A. Bliss, who was then the Met’s executive director, wrote a letter to a board member about unspecified accusations about Mr. Levine that had been made in an unsigned letter. “We do not believe there is any truth whatsoever to the charges,” Mr. Bliss wrote in the letter, a copy of which was obtained by The Times, which said the Met had spoken “extensively” with Mr. Levine and his manager. “Scurrilous rumors have been circulating for some months and have often been accompanied by other charges which we know for a fact are untrue.” (Mr. Bliss died in 1991, and there is no record of the original, unsigned letter, so the specific accusations against Mr. Levine in it remain unclear.) Anthony A. Bliss, then executive director of the Met Opera, wrote this letter to a Met board member who had received anonymous accusations about James Levine, the music director at the time.  OPEN Document And then in October 2016, after Mr. Levine had stepped down from his position as music director, Mr. Gelb said he was contacted by a detective with the Lake Forest Police asking questions about Mr. Pai’s report. |
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| Sex cases put spotlight on sex addiction, but is it real? | ||||
Is sex addiction a true addiction, a crime, or a made-up condition used by misbehaving VIPs to deflect blame or repair tarnished images?
A tide of high-profile sexual misconduct accusations against celebrities, politicians and media members has raised these questions – and sowed confusion. Sex addiction is not an officially recognized psychiatric diagnosis, though even those who doubt it’s a true addiction acknowledge that compulsive sexual behavior can upend lives. Either way, there is an important distinction, sometimes blurred, between a mental condition and a crime. Some men who have been accused of assault or other sexual crimes have sought treatment for sex addiction or other unspecified conditions. But compulsive behavior is very different from a crime, and the vast majority of people who suffer from sexually compulsive behavior do not harass or assault others. There’s “an extremely fine line between addict and offender” and sometimes the two overlap, said psychologist Leah Claire Bennett of Pine Grove Behavioral Health & Addiction Services, a rehab center that offers sex addiction treatment in Hattiesburg, Mississippi. Despite pressure from some therapists, sex addiction was not included in the most recent edition of the manual that psychiatrists use to diagnose mental illness. “The reason is very simple,” said Dr. Charles O’Brien, a University of Pennsylvania psychiatry professor involved in the manual’s 2013 update. There is no rigorous scientific proof that compulsive sexual behavior affects the brain in the same ways that have been shown with addiction to drugs or alcohol, he said. “There’s an overuse of the word ‘addiction,’” O’Brien said. “There are many treatment programs. That doesn’t make it a disorder.” Still, some skeptics don’t dispute that compulsive sexual behavior can become a serious problem. The issue for some is whether it amounts to mental illness, or whether it might result from a different psychiatric condition, such as obsessive-compulsive disorder. Robert Weiss, a California-based sex addiction therapist, said the condition involves unrestrained compulsive sexual behavior without regard to consequences. Sometimes that leads to illegal behavior. The International Institute for Trauma and Addiction Professionals says sex addiction affects from 2 percent to 5 percent of the general population but that only 10 percent of those with this addiction engage in criminal sexual behavior. Most patients and sex offenders are men. Some treatment programs won’t admit patients accused of rape and other violent sex crimes, referring them to centers or therapists who specialize in treating sex offenders. Addiction treatment at Pine Grove, The Meadows in Arizona and other high-profile residential rehab centers can cost tens of thousands of dollars. Despite country club-like settings, there’s nothing cushy or indulgent about sex addiction therapy, Weiss said. Pine Grove requires daylong sessions including group therapy daily for up to three months. Some centers use 12-step programs similar to Alcoholics Anonymous, but they don’t require swearing off sex for good. Some use brain “retraining” exercises, or sharing stories about bad behavior with a roomful of strangers. Some centers use equine therapy. Weiss says that interacting with horses can help patients recognize problems sometimes associated with sex addiction, including overly aggressive, controlling behavior. The New York Post published a photograph last year that it said showed former New York congressman Anthony Weiner riding a horse as part of treatment at a Tennessee sex addiction rehab center. Weiner was sentenced in September for sexting with a teenager. He said at the time that he was undergoing therapy and had been “a very sick man for a very long time.” Weiss and other therapists say sex addicts are never cured, but they can learn to manage their behavior and avoid triggers, including avoiding jobs and circumstances that could lead to a repeat of problem behavior. L.J. Schwartz, a former real estate adviser in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, says a nearly 30-year addiction to sex almost ruined his life. Schwartz says his addiction included having sex with strangers at adult bookstores or masturbating there while watching porn nearly every chance he got; working as a stripper; and phone sex. He was never arrested but says his behavior endangered his job and marriage. “There’s no pleasure derived from sex addiction; it’s pain,” Schwartz said. He says a 12-step program helped him resist his compulsions and he now works as a recovery coach for other patients. But hard evidence that treatment works is lacking. “There’s not a lot of data,” Bennett acknowledged. “We have a lot of anecdotal evidence. We can see the change in people,” she said. She said Pine Grove plans a long-term study to measure the benefits. Whether treatment can repair tarnished images is uncertain. “The accusations levied against Harvey Weinstein, Kevin Spacey, Louis C.K. and others for sexual assault, harassment and abuse have created righteous outrage and concerns that ‘sex addiction treatment’ is being used to excuse their offensive behavior,” the addiction professionals institute said in a recent statement. Whether any of these men have a diagnosed mental condition has not been publicized. A representative for Weinstein confirmed that he is receiving treatment and has been taking his recovery and sessions seriously. But the representative declined to specify Weinstein’s condition or the treatment he is receiving for it. A former publicist for Spacey said he also is seeking unspecified treatment. Bennett said some people do use sex addiction as an excuse, “but that’s not who we’re treating here at Pine Grove. These people’s lives are in shambles. They’ve been traumatized throughout their lives. They have huge psychological wounds and are using very maladaptive ways of coping.” Actor David Duchovny voluntarily sought rehab for sex addiction in 2008 while starring on Showtime’s “Californication.” Married to actress Tea Leoni at the time, he had been dogged by cheating rumors. His career never stalled. He returned to “Californication” for the remainder of its run and has continued to appear in high-profile roles. When sex addiction may have contributed to criminal behavior, a trip to rehab could bolster a defense attorney’s argument that the accused person has changed, said Samuel Pillsbury, a professor at Loyola School of Law in Los Angeles. But it’s a less effective strategy for violent crimes, he said. “It’s very difficult for me to imagine a prosecutor deciding, ‘Oh, he’s in rehab, I’ll drop the charges or I’ll reduce the charges significantly,’” Pillsbury said. “But it could have an effect on sentencing.” |
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