Bernie Sanders: Trump already breaking campaign promise to ‘drain the swamp’

Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) on Tuesday took aim at Donald Trump’s inclusion of lobbyists and industry executives on his transition team, blasting the president-elect for going back on a campaign promise to keep special interests out of Washington before he has even stepped foot in the White House.

“Mr. Trump described himself as a populist taking on the establishment, someone who would ‘drain the swamp,’” Sanders said. “Unfortunately what we’re beginning to see is what I feared, which is a lot of what Mr. Trump said to get votes is not what he intends to do as president of the United States.”

In a call with reporters, Sanders and Whitehouse urged Trump to adopt or strengthen ethics rules implemented by President Obama aimed at keeping lobbyists and special interests off his transition team and administration. The Obama executive order restricting lobbyists from working in the White House has not always been effective — the administration later issued waivers to allow some lobbyists in — but the order is generally cited by watchdog groups as a positive step toward reducing ethical lapses in the executive branch.

The Trump transition team has yet to publicly indicate what ethics rules, if any, apply to the lobbyists and executives now leading policy and federal agency personnel issues on the transition.

Mr. Trump promised to #DrainTheSwamp, not fill it up. Now do it. pic.twitter.com/gXfcrlp5hC

— Bernie Sanders (@SenSanders) November 15, 2016

Bernie Sanders’ New Memoir May Be a Look Into the Democrats’ Future

Early on in his new book Our Revolution: A Future to Believe In, Senator Bernie Sanders describes the 2014 midterm election as a “disaster” for establishment Democrats who failed to generate grassroots enthusiasm. “The election of 2014 was a wake-up call for the Democratic Party,” he writes. “I wondered if they heard it.”

The sound of last week’s Krakatoan explosion is still reverberating. Sanders finalized his account of his 2016 presidential campaign weeks before Donald Trump’s stunning upset of Hillary Clinton on Nov. 8, but given what’s just occurred the book is inevitably, satisfyingly prescient. It’s hard to escape the idea that the reason Sanders decided to enter the race against Clinton—“The Clinton approach was to try to merge the interests of Wall Street and corporate America with the needs of the American middle class—an impossible task,” he writes—was perhaps her biggest vulnerability against Donald Trump.

Over nearly 450 pages, Sanders argues that the strength of his campaign against Clinton’s brand of centrist Democratic politics shows that there is a hunger for the kind of ambitious policy proposals and grassroots advocacy that fueled his run. “The great crisis that we face as a nation is not just the objective problems that we face,” Sanders writes. “The more serious crisis is the limitation of our imaginations.”

Sanders wins NH write-in race in a walk; may have boosted Hassan

More than one in three in New Hampshire who wrote someone’s name in for President on Nov. 8 picked Bernie Sanders.The Vermont senator got 4,493 write-in votes. That’s more than three times the 1,365 votes cast for the second-most popular figure not on the ballot, Ohio Gov. and 2016 Republican contender John Kasich.Former CIA Operations Officer Evan McMullin got 1,064 and was on the ballot as a write-in in nearly four-fifths of all the states.Among the 12,209 write-in votes, Sanders got 37 percent.Sanders’ popularity did not deny Hillary Clinton her New Hampshire victory. She beat President-Elect Donald Trump by 2,573 votes here.But Sanders’ appeal may have helped Democratic Gov. Maggie Hassan defeat Republican Sen. Kelly Ayotte in New Hampshire by 917 votes. – See more at: http://www.newhampshire.com/voters-first/Sanders-wins-NH-write-in-race-in-a-walk-may-have-boosted-Hassan-11152016#sthash.EwyUViqc.dpuf

Bernie Sanders Asks Obama To Declare Standing Rock A National Monument

Sen. Bernie Sanders just called on President Obama to declare Standing Rock a national monument — to stop the Dakota Access Pipeline.

“So we say to President Obama, in any and every way you can, stop the pipeline. … And if there are other approaches, such as declaring Standing Rock a federal monument, let’s do that,” Sanders said.

Sanders was speaking in front of the White House as part of an international day of action in more than 300 cities across the country and the world.

In the U.S., most of the protests were happening at U.S. Army Corps of Engineers offices. In Washington, D.C., #NoDAPL activists held a peaceful sit-in at the corps’ national headquarters. The action was a call on the corps to stop the pipeline. On Monday, the corps said it had completed its study but still needed more information before it could allow the pipeline to be built along its planned route.

The Washington, D.C., rally-goers walked past Trump International Hotel and stopped for a moment of prayer. President-elect Donald Trump has investments in the company behind the Dakota Access Pipeline, and that company’s CEO donated to Trump’s campaign, according to The Guardian.

Trump Could Face a Nuclear Strike Decision Soon

I was the former nuclear missile launch officer who in October appeared in a TV advertisement for Hillary Clinton, saying: “The thought of Donald Trump with nuclear weapons scares me to death. It should scare everyone.” The ad featured various quotes from Trump’s campaign rallies and interviews, in which he says, among other things: “I would bomb the shit out of ’em,” “I wanna be unpredictable,” and “I love war.” As I walked through a nuclear missile launch center in the ad, I explained that “self-control may be all that keeps these missiles from firing.”

We will see all of our fears—and the new president-elect’s self-control—put to the test over the next four years. When Trump takes the oath of office on Jan. 20, 2017, there will be no shortage of combustible tensions around the globe. And Trump will need to make some critical decisions quickly—including whether he truly wants, as he suggested during the campaign, a world in which there are even more nuclear powers than we have today.

Giuliani took money from Qatar, Venezuela, Iranian exiles

Rudy Giuliani’s paid consulting for foreign governments would present conflicts of interest as the nation’s top diplomat that would make the Clinton Foundation look trifling.

Since leaving the New York mayor’s office, Giuliani has made millions as a lawyer and consultant, including for some clients at odds with U.S. foreign policy. When some of those ties surfaced amid Giuliani’s own presidential bid in 2007, they were considered to pose an unprecedented number of ethical quandaries for a potential commander in chief.

Now those concerns have no doubt been eclipsed by Donald Trump’s own web of business entanglements, which are still not completely known to the public. Giuliani’s participation in Trump’s transition and contention for the job of secretary of state poses a direct challenge to Trump’s promises to root out Washington self-dealing and ban his administration’s officials from lobbying for foreign governments.

Ugly and Unprepared, ‘Knife Fight’ Breaks Out in Trump Transition

While Republicans have been outwardly celebrating their victories, President-elect Donald Trump’s transition to power is reportedly mired in chaos and infighting as competing factions duke it out to see whose version of “Make America Great Again” will dominate under the new world order.

A “knife fight” is how one source described the backroom disagreements over “key cabinet appointments and direction, both for internal West Wing positions and key national security posts,” CNN reported.

On one side is the newly-appointed and highly-controversial chief strategist Steve Bannon, who—as chairman of the inflammatory Breitbart News and a figurehead within the global alt-right movement—is seen as a political outsider who is expected to hold significant influence over Trump’s international policy decisions.

On the other side, CNN reported, are “more traditional Republican operatives” such as Trump’s chief of staff and former Republican Party chair Reince Priebus.

“A particular challenge,” CNN noted, “is lack of clarity about the division of power among Priebus, Bannon, and Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, who also has a key role in transition decisions. Another source tied to the transition described the resulting confusion as ‘buffoonery.'”

Local Gun Restrictions Could be ‘Eviscerated’ Under Trump

Facing a looming Republican-dominated Congress under the right-wing President-elect Donald Trump, gun control advocates warn that local gun restrictions are about to be “eviscerated.”

Many Republican members of Congress have long sought to pass sweeping national right-to-carry legislation, to force “reciprocity” between states when it comes to right-to-carry legislation.

Reciprocity legislation has been a major priority of the National Rifle Association (NRA), which endorsed Trump’s candidacy.

Under such a law, a person with a concealed-carry permit in West Virginia would be able to legally carry a firearm in New York City as well, avoiding the city’s lengthy and expensive permitting process. It would also allow residents of areas with strict gun control to travel to states with loose restrictions, purchase a gun, and legally carry that gun when they return back home.

The Guardian reported Monday: “Trump, who himself has a permit to carry a concealed firearm, has already endorsed a new reciprocity law as part of his gun rights platform. Concealed-carry permits from one state ‘should be valid in all 50 states,’ his platform reads, calling the proposal ‘common sense.'”

The president-elect also promised to appoint judges with a right-wing stance on guns to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Israel’s Hard-Liners Are Emboldened by Donald Trump’s Win

Emboldened by Donald Trump’s presidential victory, Israeli right-wing politicians are renewing calls to ditch the “two-state solution” to the conflict with the Palestinians — a bedrock of U.S. foreign policy in the region.

“The combination of the changes in the United States, in Europe and the region provide Israel with a unique opportunity to reset and rethink everything,” Naftali Bennett, a senior Israeli Cabinet minister, told a gathering of the Foreign Press Association in Jerusalem earlier this week.

“It’s no secret that I think that the notion of setting up a Palestine in the heart of Israel is a profound mistake,” added Bennett, Israel’s education minister and the leader of the pro-settlement Jewish Home party. “I believe that we have to bring alternative new ideas instead of the Palestinian state approach.”

The “two-state solution,” is a proposed solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict which calls for “two states for two groups of people.”

Omaha protesters participate in nationwide ‘NO DAPL’ protest

The crowd in Downtown Omaha Tuesday were growing and demonstrators say the pipeline fight is not over despite Monday’s recommendation by the Army Corp. of Engineers to temporarily stop pipeline construction.

There were singing, drums and prayer and there are dozens of signs with slogans like people over pipelines.

The Army Corp of Engineers released their report from a study launched September 9th, which would allow for further discussion and analysis with the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe who contend that the pipeline, which would run underneath a portion of the Missouri River in Lake Oaehe could contaminate the tribes drinking water.

People we spoke to earlier say the message the NO DAPL day of action is to ask President Obama to put a permanent stop to the pipeline.