Thar she blows

 

He has great relationships with all the brutes

The US president made no mention of human rights during brief remarks to reporters prior to a meeting with his Philippine counterpart.

  Guardian

And why would he? He doesn't believe in human rights.

Trump has generally avoided publicly admonishing foreign leaders for rights abuses and has even shown an affinity for rulers with autocratic tendencies, including the Egyptian president, Abdel-Fatah al-Sisi, and the Russian president, Vladimir Putin.

[...]

According to a spokesman for Duterte, human rights issues were not raised during the meeting, although the pair did discuss their mutual distaste for Barack Obama.

[...]

Later, the White House press secretary, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, said the matter of human rights came up “briefly”, although she did not say which president raised the issue.

[...]

The two men shared a laugh when Duterte called reporters “spies”.

[...]

Rights groups and US politicians had strongly urged Trump to confront Duterte on the drugs war.

Duterte, a former prosecutor, has taken an indignant stance to criticism, warning the Catholic church “don’t fuck with me” and accusing the UN of issuing “shitting” statements about his policies.

Bigly.

Trump and Duterte seem to have warmed to each other after meeting for the first time on Saturday at an Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (Apec) group meeting in Vietnam.

Two peas in a pod.

On Sunday, Duterte crooned a hit Filipino love song called Ikaw (You) at a gala dinner for summit leaders in Manila, saying it was “on the orders” of Trump.

[...]

“Rodrigo, I would like to commend you on your success as Asean chair at this critical moment of time,” [Trump] said at a press conference. “The show last night was fantastic. And you were fantastic.”

Two narcissist peas in a pod.

Trump raved about his accomplishments on his five-nation journey, including on trade and North Korea, but said he would wait until his return to Washington on Wednesday to elaborate with a “major statement”.

Can't wait.

Sarah Huckabee Sanders lying her way to infamy.

Fake News

Protesters are now militants according to CNN.

They're not militants.  They're protesters.  And those aren't American flags.  They appear to be paper.  Maybe they're sheets.  But if flag underwear and flag costumes aren't flags, hand-painted sheets aren't flags, either.

And, as for "so-called imperialism" -- there's nothing "so-called" about US imperialism.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

If the press won't praise him...

PRESIDENT TRUMP: I think it's been a great trip. In certain ways, it's been very epic. I think things have happened that have been really amazing. Prime Minister Abe came up to me just at the end, and he said that since you left South Korea and Japan, that those two countries are now getting along much, much better. That's from Prime Minister Abe -- that there's been a real bonding between South Korea and Japan. So that was great.

And we had a time in China. You were there. Were most of you there? Jennifer?

Q: We all were, sir.

PRESIDENT TRUMP: They say in the history of people coming to China, there's been nothing like that. And I believe it.

[...]

The opera was great too, but the following night -- that was the first time that theater has been used at the Forbidden City in over a hundred years. You know that. They prepared the theater for that -- the first time in over a hundred years.

No, it was an amazing -- we have an amazing feeling toward each other. And he's for China; I'm for USA. You know, it's one of those things. But we have a great feeling.

So it's been really very incredible. And then today was excellent. Today was a different kind of a thing. It's a conference.

And then tonight they're having a state dinner in Hanoi. And we then go to the Philippines, which was a rough trip the last time. That was a rough presidential trip, but this won't be. And we're staying the extra day because they have the two conferences; they have first day and they have the second day. And the second day, a lot of people say is very important. And I said, you know what, if I'm there, I should do it.

  Air Force 1 Press Pool Transcript

Dear God.

You must read the whole nightmarish thing.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

That's a "No" Then

The possibility of a Duterte visit stems from an April phone conversation between the Philippine leader and his US counterpart, Donald Trump, when Trump invited him to the White House “to discuss the importance of the United States-Philippines alliance.”

Back then, Trump also congratulated Duterte for his “unbelievable job on the drug problem.”

The Philippines’ strongman said that nothing can stop his drug crackdown.

[...]

[Thursday, US] senators accused Duterte’s domestic anti-drug campaign of widespread abuses and casualties.

[...]

Hitting back at the accusations, Duterte advised Washington to look at its own “sins” and threatened to investigate them, referring to civilian casualties during wars in the Middle East.

“It would be good for the US Congress to start with their own investigation of their own violations of the so many civilians killed in the prosecution of the wars in the Middle East,” Duterte stated.

“Otherwise I will be forced to investigate you also. I will start with your past sins.”

[...]

“There will never be a time that I will go to America during my term, or even thereafter,” Duterte said on Friday, as quoted by Reuters.

The Philippine leader was also surprised that the senators would think he was willing to go to the US.

“I've seen America and it's lousy,” Duterte said.

  RT

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Apparently, HIS Leaks Are Not a Problem

Not only did Trump leak intel information to the Russians, he announced the whereabouts of some of our nuclear submarines to Philippines strongman Duterte while discussing North Korea's president Kim:

(Rozen's tweet is a transliteration of the Russian for, "If you speak Russian".)

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Leaky, Leaky

The tRump called Philippines president Duterte to congratulate him on brutally cracking down on unrest.

“I just wanted to congratulate you because I am hearing of the unbelievable job on the drug problem,” Trump told Duterte at the beginning of their call, according to the document. “Many countries have the problem, we have a problem, but what a great job you are doing and I just wanted to call and tell you that.”

[...]

“You are a good man,” Trump told Duterte, according to an official transcript of the April 29 call produced by the Philippine Department of Foreign Affairs and obtained by The Intercept. “Keep up the good work,” Trump told Duterte. “You are doing an amazing job.”

[...]

Police have killed over 7,000 people, devastated poor areas of Manila and other cities, and used the drug war as a pretext to murder government officials and community leaders.

The new details of Trump’s call with Duterte come on the heels of the Philippine president’s announcement that he is imposing martial law on the autonomous island of Mindanao, where government forces are battling Islamist rebels. “If I had to kill thousands of people just to keep Philippines a thousand times safer, I will not have doubts doing it,” Duterte said.

[...]

The “war on drugs” has drawn condemnation from the United Nations Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial killings, and last month a Philippine lawyer filed a complaint with the International Criminal Court accusing Duterte of mass murder and crimes against humanity. The State Department’s annual human rights report acknowledges thousands of “extrajudicial killings” with impunity and calls them the country’s “chief human rights concern.”

[...]

During his tenure [as mayor of Davao City], he earned the nickname “the Death Squad Mayor” — a title he embraces. According to one former hitman, Duterte formed an organization called the “Davao Death Squad” — a mafia-like organization of plainclothes assassins that would kill suspected criminals, journalists, and opposition politicians, often from the backs of motorcycles. Multiple former members of the group have come forward and said that they killed people on Duterte’s direct orders.

[...]

“In Davao I used to do it personally,” he told a group of business leaders in Manila. “Just to show to the guys [police officers] that if I can do it, why can’t you.”

  The Intercept

Just the kind of guy Trump reveres.

During the call, Trump echoed his publicly stated position that he wants China to take the lead in addressing potential threats from North Korea. “I hope China solves the problem. They really have the means because a great degree of their stuff come [sic] through China,” Trump said. “But if China doesn’t do it, we will do it.”

Duterte then volunteered to call Chinese President Xi Jinping, adding, “The other option is a nuclear blast which is not good for everybody.”

[...]

“We can’t let a madman with nuclear weapons let on the loose like that. We have a lot of firepower, more than he has times 20, but we don’t want to use it,” Trump told Duterte. (In fact, the U.S. has 6,800 nuclear warheads and North Korea is thought to have about 10.) “You will be in good shape,” he added.

“We have a lot of firepower over there. We have two submarines — the best in the world — we have two nuclear submarines — not that we want to use them at all,” Trump said. “I’ve never seen anything like they are, but we don’t have to use this, but he could be crazy so we will see what happens.”

[...]

“Trump has a disturbing tendency to talk very cavalierly about nuclear weapons — as if he is an impulse away from using them,” [Joe Cirincione, president of the Ploughshares Fund and a leading expert on nuclear weapons] said.

  The Intercept

He has a disturbing tendency to talk. And he IS an impulse away from using nuclear weapons. That's one of the greatest dangers of his presidency. He's got zero impulse control.

He can't even finish a sentence without referring back to something about himself.

Read the complete trancript here.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

He Can Do Whatever He Wants - He Doesn't Need Permission

In what is becoming a recurring theme, the Trump administration’s national security and diplomatic apparatus was once again caught off guard when the POTUS extended an official invitation to President Duterte of the Philippines without telling them.

[...]

Such invitations are in clear breach of established diplomatic protocol governing state visits to the White House as established by the US State Department.

[...]

Duterte and Trump share a penchant for brash rhetoric and the projection of a strongman image, particularly when it comes to Islamist terrorism and drug policy.

[...]

“Hitler massacred 3 million Jews. Now, there are 3 million drug addicts [in the Philippines] ... I’d be happy to slaughter them,” Duterte famously said in September.

[...]

Concerns regarding a possible conflict of interest have also been raised. Trump’s name is stamped on a $150 million, 57-floor tower in Manila, in a licensing deal that netted the Trump brand millions of dollars.

It has now emerged that Duterte himself appointed the chairman of the development company behind the tower, Jose E. B. Antonio, as a trade envoy to Washington.

  RT

If anything puts the Inflatable Rooster at risk from losing his job, it's his arrogance.

But here's the fun part of playing up to other assholes:

Criticism of Mr. Trump’s invitation to Mr. Duterte continued on Monday. “Countries with close bilateral ties to the Philippines, particularly the United States, have an obligation to urge accountability for the victims of Duterte’s abusive drug war, rather than offer to roll out the red carpet for official state visits with its mastermind,” said Phelim Kine, a deputy director in Human Rights Watch’s Asia division.

[...]

Duterte of the Philippines said on Monday that he might not accept President Trump’s invitation to visit the White House, because he was “tied up” with a busy schedule.

“I cannot make any definite promise,” Mr. Duterte said, adding, “I’m supposed to go to Russia, I’m also supposed to go to Israel.”

  NYT

Whoa. Dare to publicly dismiss the Trump? Wouldn't want to be around the Oval Office today.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Russia Offers to Aid the Philippines

After the president of the Philippines announced a separation from the US – a statement which his government has since walked back – Russia’s ambassador to the country said Moscow is ready to provide assistance to and fully cooperate with Manila.

“Formulate your wish list. What kind of assistance do you expect from Russia and we will be ready to sit down with you and discuss what can and should be done,” Russian Ambassador Igor Khovaev told GMA News on Friday.

He went on to state that Russia is open to working with the Philippines in “any area, any field of possible cooperation.”

  RT

I'm sure we only lost the alliance of the Philippines because their president is a bad man, and not for anything we've done.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

They Always Back Down

They have to.

One of the things I liked about Hugo Chavez was that he never did.

President Rodrigo Duterte of the Philippines has expressed regret for calling Barack Obama a “son of a whore” – a remark that led to the US leader cancelling their meeting during a regional summit in Laos.

[...]

As Duterte arrived in Vientiane, the capital of Laos, for the Association of South-East Asian Nations summit on Monday evening, he was already rowing back on the remark, saying he did not want a fight.

“I do not want to quarrel with him. He’s the most powerful president of any country on the planet,” Duterte said. Instead, he said, he was angry at members of the US state department who “keep on mouthing” statements about human rights.

  Guardian

 ...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Well, I Think That Went Well, Don't You?

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

P.S.  What's a pool spray?

Comedy Central

While the Hillary and Donald show is in full swing, Obama is busy making his end of run PR photo op legacy trips, which included the Philippines.

Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte warned Obama not to question him about extrajudicial killings — more than 2,000 suspected drug dealers and users have been killed since Duterte launched a war on drugs after taking office two months ago.

Duterte said Obama must not throw questions at him, or else, “son of a bitch, I will swear at you in that forum,” the Associated Press reported.

Obama later said he asked his staff to determine if meeting with Duterte would still be productive.

  USA Today

UPDATE:

Bullying China

And reminding the Philippines who they belong to.

China has accused the US of “sabotaging regional peace” after the Pentagon chief announced a military buildup in the Philippines, disputing Chinese territorial claims. Ash Carter said he will visit an aircraft carrier in the disputed region.

Speaking in the Philippines on Thursday, Defense Secretary Ash Carter said the US will keep nearly 300 troops, including Air Force commandos in the Philippines through the end of the month, despite completing the joint military drills.

[...]

Speaking at a joint press conference with his counterpart, Defense Secretary Voltaire Gazmi, the Pentagon chief said the new measures are not aimed at provoking tensions in the region but rather “to tamp down tensions here."

[...]

Speaking at a different occasion at a closing ceremony after a joint military exercise, Carter promised Washington “will continue to stand up for our safety and freedoms” and those of its allies.

[...]

“This is the network - peaceful, principled, and inclusive – America continues to stand for, and stand with.”

  RT

"Peaceful, principled, and inclusive" - America in a nutshell.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

It's Sunday

Two people died and nearly 1,000 more were injured after a million Filipinos flooded the streets of Manila in a mad rush to catch a glimpse of a highly revered Jesus statue.

  RT

And what could they see?  It was covered with other (rudely selfish) crazy people.

Many tried their utmost to get near the 200-year-old statue in order to throw small towels to volunteers manning the carriage, believing that wiping parts of the cross and statue will miraculously transfer its supposed healing powers to them.

That or get you killed.

The government viewed Friday’s procession as a potential precursor to a visit by Pope Francis to Manila next week, which could attract up to 6 million people.

And people crack wise about Kim Jung Un crazies.

I wonder if Pope Frank is having second thoughts....but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Drip, Drip, Drip

Justin Raimondo’s speculation was spot on. Greenwald’s latest story involves the specifics of who the NSA is collecting information from.

In March, The Washington Post revealed that the NSA had developed the capability to record and store an entire nation’s phone traffic for 30 days. The Post reported that the capacity was a feature of MYSTIC, which it described as a “voice interception program” that is fully operational in one country and proposed for activation in six others. (The Post also referred to NSA documents suggesting that MYSTIC was pulling metadata in some of those countries.) Citing government requests, the paper declined to name any of those countries.

[...]

SOMALGET is part of a broader NSA program called MYSTIC, which The Intercept has learned is being used to secretly monitor the telecommunications systems of the Bahamas and several other countries, including Mexico, the Philippines, and Kenya. But while MYSTIC scrapes mobile networks for so-called “metadata” – information that reveals the time, source, and destination of calls – SOMALGET is a cutting-edge tool that enables the NSA to vacuum up and store the actual content of every conversation in an entire country.

[...]

All told, the NSA is using MYSTIC to gather personal data on mobile calls placed in countries with a combined population of more than 250 million people. And according to classified documents, the agency is seeking funding to export the sweeping surveillance capability elsewhere.

[...]

NSA documents indicate that SOMALGET has been deployed in the Bahamas to locate “international narcotics traffickers and special-interest alien smugglers” – traditional law-enforcement concerns.

[...]

Documents show that the NSA has been generating intelligence reports from MYSTIC surveillance in the Bahamas, Mexico, Kenya, the Philippines, and one other country, which The Intercept is not naming in response to specific, credible concerns that doing so could lead to increased violence. The more expansive full-take recording capability has been deployed in both the Bahamas and the unnamed country.

[...]

The NSA documents don’t specify who is providing access in the Bahamas. But they do describe SOMALGET as an “umbrella term” for systems provided by a private firm, which is described elsewhere in the documents as a “MYSTIC access provider.” (The documents don’t name the firm, but rather refer to a cover name that The Intercept has agreed not to publish in response to a specific, credible concern that doing so could lead to violence.)

[...]

By targeting the Bahamas’ entire mobile network, the NSA is intentionally collecting and retaining intelligence on millions of people who have not been accused of any crime or terrorist activity. Nearly five million Americans visit the country each year, and many prominent U.S. citizens keep homes there, including Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa), Bill Gates, and Oprah Winfrey.

[...]

If the NSA is using the Drug Enforcement Administration’s relationship to the Bahamas as a cover for secretly recording the entire country’s mobile phone calls, it could imperil the longstanding tradition of international law enforcement cooperation that the United States enjoys with its allies.

  Glenn Greenwald

I doubt it. But it might require a court order to block access to certain VIPs.

“It’s surprising, the short-sightedness of the government,” says Michael German, a fellow at New York University’s Brennan Center for Justice who spent 16 years as an FBI agent conducting undercover investigations. “That they couldn’t see how exploiting a lawful mechanism to such a degree that you might lose that justifiable access – that’s where the intelligence community is acting in a way that harms its long-term interests, and clearly the long-term national security interests of the United States.”

Not to worry. We’ve weaseled our way around worse revelations.

Informed about the NSA’s spying, neither the Bahamian prime minister’s office nor the country’s national security minister had any comment. The embassies of Mexico, Kenya, and the Philippines did not respond to phone messages and emails.

They’re all waiting for Big Boss USA to tell them what they can and cannot say.

Beyond a desire to bust island pot dealers, why would the NSA choose to apply a powerful collection tool such as SOMALGET against the Bahamas, which poses virtually no threat to the United States?

The answer may lie in a document that characterizes the Bahamas operation as a “test bed for system deployments, capabilities, and improvements” to SOMALGET. The country’s small population – fewer than 400,000 residents – provides a manageable sample to try out the surveillance system’s features. Since SOMALGET is also operational in one other country, the Bahamas may be used as a sort of guinea pig to beta-test improvements and alterations without impacting the system’s operations elsewhere.

[...]

[The] ability to record and replay the phone calls of an entire country appears to be a relatively new weapon in the NSA’s arsenal. None of the half-dozen former U.S. law enforcement officials interviewed by The Intercept said they had ever heard of a surveillance operation quite like the NSA’s Bahamas collection.

And probably wouldn’t say if they had.

UPDATE: 5/21 - Wikileaks says they're going to publish the name of the fifth country.