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Trump sides with Russia against FBI at Helsinki summit
July 16, 2018
Trump sides with Russia against FBI at Helsinki summit
BBC News
July 16, 2018
US President Donald Trump has defended Russia over claims of interference in the 2016 presidential election.
After face-to-face talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin, Mr Trump contradicted US intelligence agencies and said there had been no reason for Russia to meddle in the vote.
Mr Putin reiterated that Russia had never interfered in US affairs.
The two men held nearly two hours of closed-door talks in the Finnish capital Helsinki on Monday.
At a news conference after the summit, President Trump was asked if he believed his own intelligence agencies or the Russian president when it came to the allegations of meddling in the elections.
“President Putin says it’s not Russia. I don’t see any reason why it would be,” he replied.
US intelligence agencies concluded in 2016 that Russia was behind an effort to tip the scale of the US election against Hillary Clinton, with a state-authorised campaign of cyber attacks and fake news stories planted on social media.
What has US reaction been?
In a strongly-worded statement, US House Speaker Paul Ryan said Mr Trump “must appreciate that Russia is not our ally”.
“There is no moral equivalence between the United States and Russia, which remains hostile to our most basic values and ideals,” he said, adding that there was “no question” Moscow had interfered in the 2016 election.
“The United States must be focused on holding Russia accountable and putting an end to its vile attacks on democracy.”
Senior Republican Senator Lindsey Graham, a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said Mr Trump had sent the Kremlin a message of US “weakness”.
He tweeted: “Missed opportunity by President Trump to firmly hold Russia accountable for 2016 meddling and deliver a strong warning regarding future elections.”
Fellow Republican Senator Jeff Flake - a staunch critic of President Trump - called his words “shameful”.
Skip Twitter post by @JeffFlake
I never thought I would see the day when our American President would stand on the stage with the Russian President and place blame on the United States for Russian aggression. This is shameful.
End of Twitter post by @JeffFlake
In a series of tweets, Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer said Mr Trump’s actions had “strengthened our adversaries while weakening our defences and those of our allies”.
Skip Twitter post by @SenSchumer
For the president of the United States to side with President Putin against American law enforcement, American defense officials, and American intelligence agencies is thoughtless, dangerous, and weak. The president is putting himself over our country.
End of Twitter post by @SenSchumer
Some US politicians had called for the summit to be cancelled after 12 Russian military intelligence agents were indicted last week by US special counsel Robert Mueller, accused of hacking the presidential campaign of Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton.
Speaking on Monday, President Putin offered to allow US investigators to visit Russia to question the officers.
He made it clear that, in return, Russia would want similar access to people in the US it suspects of criminal activity.
President Trump said Mr Putin had been “extremely strong and powerful in his denial” of any election meddling.
Trump targets opponents back home
Analysis by Jonathan Marcus, BBC diplomatic correspondent
Before their encounter started Mr Putin was already winning on points, by the mere fact that President Trump was meeting him in the first place.
But while Mr Putin came over as the seasoned professional, eager to present his country as an equivalent to the US in terms of being a nuclear superpower; an energy provider; and a key actor in the Middle East, Mr Trump seemed more intent on castigating his opponents back home.
A lot of the questions focused on Russia’s intrusion into the US election campaign (the considered position of the key US intelligence agencies) and specifically the indictment by the Mueller probe of 12 Russian intelligence agents.
Mr Trump would have none of it. He visibly seemed happier with Mr Putin’s assurances than he did with the evidence of his own intelligence agencies. And he even welcomed Mr Putin’s suggestion that Russia could join the investigation and interview the alleged perpetrators itself! Washington’s Nato allies and many seasoned observers on Capitol Hill must have been watching in horror.
Mr Putin described the Helsinki meeting as “candid and useful” while Mr Trump said there had been “deeply productive dialogue”.
Mr Trump said US-Russia relations had “never been worse” than before they met, but that had now changed.
Relations between Russia and the West were severely strained by Moscow’s annexation of Crimea in 2014, which President Putin acknowledged in the news conference.
“President Trump’s position on Crimea is well known. He talks about the illegality of the Crimean reintegration to Russia. We have another point of view… that a referendum was held in accordance with international law. For us, it’s a closed question,” he said.
Both leaders also said they would work together to help resolve the Syrian crisis. The US and Russia back opposing sides in the eight-year-old civil war.
“Our militaries have gotten along better than our political leaders for a number of years and we get along in Syria too,” Mr Trump said.
He added that the US wanted to increase humanitarian aid to the Syrian people.
(via aboriginalnewswire)
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The Official Global Trailer!
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“ When you think of what constitutes English, or French, or any other language, you probably think of books. You think of dictionaries, grammars, AUTHORITIES that tell you what the language is and isn’t.
But I’m here as a linguist to tell you that’s not what language is. Language is an open source project. Well, each language is its own open source project. And we’re all contributing to them all the time.
In fact, if you ask the dictionary-makers they’ll tell you the same thing. We’re the ones who collectively decide whether a word lives or dies – the dictionaries are just a record of how people are already using language. They’re help documentation.
But just because something’s open source doesn’t mean that everyone is equally welcomed to muck about in the source code. When you think about which types of language, which dialects are considered powerful, educated, correct, standard, proper, you’re not talking about any inherent features of the language itself. I can tell you that linguists have NEVER found this.
The prestigious forms of a language are really just those that are historically spoken by people who already in power. And if you think someone’s speech sounds dumb, or uneducated, or sloppy, or inarticulate, it’s because we as a society think the same thing of the people that speak it.
But both languages and open source projects are better when all kinds of people are contributing. Remix language!
”—“Language is open source” (Text of a 90-second lightning talk I gave at AdaCamp Montreal)
For more on the lexicography point, see the TED talks of Erin McKean and Anne Curzan.
(via allthingslinguistic)
(via allthingslinguistic)
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Jackson most infamous as anti-Native American president
This is in response to the recent op-eds praising the Indian killer Andrew Jackson and a plethora of articles in this paper reporting on local efforts by the newly formed Andrew Jackson Foundation to elevate him to the status of a great president.
(via nativeamericannews)
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“For thousands of years, Indigenous Peoples lived free in their territories in the Western Hemisphere. When European monarchies invasively arrived in the Western Hemisphere in the fifteenth, sixteenth, and later centuries, during the so-called Age of Discovery, they claimed the lands, territories, and resources of the Indigenous Peoples, asserting that the monarchies had a right to appropriate on behalf of Christendom. The monarchies’ claims of a Christian dominion (dominance) over Indigenous Peoples and their lands served them pragmatically to fend off competing monarchies and to de-legitimate the long-established autonomous indigenous peoples’ governments. The Doctrine of Discovery is a key premise for non-Indigenous government claims to legitimacy on and sovereignty over Indigenous lands and territories. It is used in particular by former British colonies, specifically, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and the United States of America.” -
HAPPY INTERNATIONAL WOMEN’S DAY!!!
I am here for this.
1. Kathleen Cleaver speaking at a Black Panther rally 1969
2. “Yellow Power to Yellow People” in front of the court house in Oakland, CA 1969
3. Flyer for 2011 rally to end Islamophobia (I could find a couple sources for this one, but they’re all horrifically Islamophobic, so best to take it as is)
4. Giving Thanks for 250 Years of Resistance by Melanie Cervantes
6. Morning White Dove, Cherokee native
7. Activist Angela Davis, who was targeted by the government for having Communist leanings
9. The Gulabi Gang, a group of Indian women who fight violence against women
(via nativenews)
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U of T uses electromagnets to attract girls to science
Groups of students huddle around desks at a university campus as the instructor gives out a quick overview of the job at hand: build a crane, create an electromagnet and pick up metal.
Work begins in earnest, with some of the students building their contraptions with wheels “for better transportation” while others build them for strength.
But these are not university students. They are Grades 3 and 4 students — about half of them girls — who like to spend a few hours on the weekend building stuff and learning about science.
“I’ve been building stuff a long time,” says 8-year-old Yashu Tenneti. “In our school, we’re building bridges out of Popsicle sticks.”
Does she want to be an engineer or scientist when she grows up?
“I don’t know. I want to be many things,” she says.(via mindblowingscience)
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Let’s Send Kids to Science Camp!
Hey guys, this is our last push to raise money for Tech Trek, a nonprofit science camp for kids.
We have shirts for kids and adults (both men and women), and 100% of the money raised is going to the camp. Learn more and get yours at the link.
http://teespring.com/TechTrek-fundraiser