A century ago, anti-immigrant backlash almost closed America’s doors

Many of us wouldn't be here if the US embraced anti-immigrant bigotry

Matthew Smith, Miami University

Immigrant children at Ellis Island in New York, 1908.
 National Archives/Wikimedia Commons

One hundred years ago, the U.S. Congress enacted the most notorious immigration legislation in American history. Signed by President Calvin Coolidge, the Immigration Act of 1924 dramatically reduced immigration from eastern and southern Europe and practically barred it from Asia.

How the law did this, however, was somewhat subtle: a quota. 

Lawmakers calculated how many immigrants from each European country were residing in the United States in 1890 and then took 2% of that number. 

Only that many newcomers could be admitted from any particular country each year. Before the end of the 19th century, the number of immigrants from outside western and northern Europe was still relatively small – meaning their 2% quotas would be minuscule.

In short, the Immigration Act was unabashedly racist, seeking to roll back the demographic tide. One of its sponsors, U.S. Rep. Albert Johnson, warned the House Committee on Immigration that “a stream of alien blood” was poisoning the nation.

Torn between “the American dream” and fears of an ungovernable “melting pot,” Americans have always viewed immigrants ambivalently. In 1924, as is true today, many citizens thought in terms of “good” immigration versus “bad” immigration. In their minds, 1890 marked a dividing line between the two.

Looking back as a historian of immigration and religion, I’m struck by three changes in U.S. views of immigration over the course of the 19th century.

How the exposure of highly classified documents could harm US security

Why there are laws against storing them insecurely

Gary Ross, Texas A&M University

Boxes containing classified documents are stored in a bathroom of
Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago Club. Department of Justice

When Donald Trump pled not guilty on June 13, 2023, to federal criminal charges related to his alleged illegal retention of classified documents, it was his first opportunity to formally answer charges that he violated the Espionage Act.

The Justice Department alleges that, after his presidency, Trump held, in an unsecure location, documents about some of the nation’s most sensitive secrets, including information about U.S. nuclear programs as well as U.S. and allies’ defense and weapons capabilities and potential vulnerabilities to military attack and that he repeatedly thwarted efforts by the National Archives to retrieve them.

The Conversation asked Gary Ross, a scholar of Intelligence studies, who has investigated cases involving the mishandling and unauthorized disclosure of classified information for multiple U.S. government agencies, to define some of the categories of risk detailed in the indictment and explain how the U.S. and allies may have been harmed.

What’s the risk to US national security?

U.S. national security includes the country’s ability to defend itself, collect and analyze sensitive information about other nations’ capabilities and intentions, and maintain relationships with allies. National security can be compromised in a variety of ways.

Americans are familiar with espionage, or spying. It’s when a government recruits an official or resident of another country – just as the Soviet Union recruited Robert Hanssen, a senior FBI special agent, in 1979 - to provide classified U.S. intelligence.

But the Espionage Act is much broader than traditional spying and includes the unauthorized possession, storage or disclosure of classified information.

According to the federal indictment, Trump stored boxes containing various levels of classified material in different parts of The Mar-a-Lago Club, his Palm Beach, Florida, resort. Boxes were kept on a ballroom stage, in his bedroom and in a bathroom and shower between Jan. 20, 2020, when he left the White House, and Aug. 8, 2021, when the FBI recovered 102 classified documents.

Trump had returned some classified material on Jan. 17, 2021, and June 3, 2021.

This was particularly concerning because, according to the indictment, Mar-a-Lago was the site of more than 150 social events, attended by tens of thousands of people, between January 2020 and August 2021.

Boxes full of classified documents sit on top of an ornate
stage inside the Mar-a-Lago Club’s White and Gold Ballroom.
 Department of Justice

Historically, foreign spies have attempted to enter highly secure U.S. government buildings to obtain classified information. 

In 1987, for example, the U.S. Marine Corps charged two Marine guards with allowing Soviet agents to repeatedly access sensitive areas inside the U.S. Embassy in Moscow.

If foreign spies knew Trump stored classified documents at Mar-a-Lago, they may have attempted to enter the property. In 2019, a Chinese business consultant entered the resort and initially got past Secret Service agents. She was stopped in the main reception area, carrying multiple electronic devices.

What’s the risk to sources and methods?

The U.S. uses sources and methods such as spy satellites and foreign citizens or assets to clandestinely gather information about other countries.

Based on the classification markings identified in the indictment, documents Trump stored at Mar-a-Lago contained intelligence from multiple U.S. sources, including satellite images, human sources and intercepted foreign communications, which can include cell phone calls or email messages.

If other countries gained access to this intelligence, their counterintelligence professionals could learn how the U.S. obtained specific information and they could use countermeasures that could render a particular source or method useless to the U.S. moving forward.

In April 1983, a terrorist attack killed 63 people at the U.S. Embassy in Beirut. At the time, the terrorist organization operating in Syria was communicating with counterparts in Iran. The U.S. government began intercepting the traffic, which two media outlets later reported, according to an opinion piece by Katherine Graham published in The Washington Post. 

Shortly after, communication between Syria and Iran stopped and the U.S. intelligence community lost insight into the Syrian terrorists’ activities. This may have left the U.S. unable to detect or prevent an attack by the same terrorist group on the Marine barracks in Beirut six months later. That attack left 241 U.S. service men and women dead.

What’s the risk to US foreign relations and alliances?

Diplomacy, the connection between sovereign states, largely forged through foreign policy, is an important component of national security, as is intelligence sharing among allied intelligence services.

Classified documents meant to be seen only by the
Five Eyes intelligence alliance and newspapers spill onto
the floor of a storage room of the Mar-a-Lago Club. 
The Department of Justice

The U.S., for example, belongs to what is known as the Five Eyes intelligence alliance, in which intelligence agencies from five allied countries share a range of information. 

But, the allegation that a document with Five Eyes classification markings had spilled onto a Mar-a-Lago storage room floor may lead the other four countries to reconsider their level of information sharing with the U.S. It has happened before.

After the 9/11 terrorist attack, a report by the Commission on the Intelligence Capabilities of the United States Regarding Weapons of Mass Destruction documented two instances in which allied intelligence agencies refused to share sensitive information with the U.S. due to concerns that the U.S. would not protect the information.

What are the risks to soldiers and citizens?

In addition to information about U.S. nuclear programs, U.S. and allies’ defense and weapons capabilities and potential military vulnerabilities, the indictment alleges Trump also unlawfully retained classified information about U.S. military retaliation plans in response to a foreign attack.

In enemy hands, this intelligence, if still valid, could significantly increase their ability to develop effective countermeasures or to alter their military tactics. At best, this could prolong a conflict, and, at worst, could allow an adversary to defeat U.S. forces, which could jeopardize citizens’ lives.

In each scenario, the lives of U.S. service members could be placed at increased risk.

Additionally, an enemy able to identify a U.S. vulnerability, particularly a self-identified vulnerability, can also try to exploit that weakness to their advantage, just as the United States did during World War II.

Prior to the 1942 Battle of Midway, U.S. intelligence intercepted and decrypted communications detailing Japan’s military strategy for the upcoming battle.

U.S. forces took advantage of the information, won the decisive conflict and turned the tide of the war.

Ironically, the U.S. was unsuccessful in safeguarding the fact that it had intercepted and decrypted Japanese communications. A Naval officer allowed a Chicago Tribune journalist unauthorized access to classified U.S. communications. 

 The journalist subsequently wrote an article revealing the U.S. penetration. This was one of the few instances in which the U.S. government considered, but ultimately rejected, prosecuting a media outlet for disclosing national defense information.

Gary Ross, Associate Professor of Intelligence Studies, Texas A&M University

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

Pandemic, war and environmental disaster push scientists to deliver quick answers

Here’s what it takes to do good science under pressure

Fiona Greenland, University of Virginia and Michelle D. Fabiani, University of New Haven

A crisis like the COVID-19 pandemic lends urgency to scientific research,
putting researchers under pressure to produce. janiecbros/E+ via Getty Images

How can you know that science done quickly during a crisis is good science?

This question has taken on new relevance with the COVID-19 vaccine rollout. Researchers developed vaccines in under a year – easily breaking the previous record of four years. 

But that pace of development may be part of the reason about 1 in 7 unvaccinated adults in the U.S. say they will never get the COVID-19 shot. This is in spite of continued assurances from infectious disease experts that the vaccines are safe.

Scientists are called on to come up with answers under pressure whenever there is a crisis, from the Challenger space shuttle explosion to the 2020 California wildfires. As they shift from “regular” to “crisis” research, they must maintain rigorous standards despite long hours, mentally demanding tasks and persistent outside scrutiny. Thankfully, science produced under urgent conditions can be just as robust and safe as results produced under normal conditions.

We are two social scientists interested in understanding how researchers can best work on urgent problems and deliver useful findings.

In a recent study, we focused on “conflict archaeologists,” an interdisciplinary group tasked with rapid assessments of archaeological destruction in Syria during the war between 2014 and 2017. Observers feared that one particular form of destruction, artifact looting, was a major source of revenue for terrorist groups, including the Islamic State. Prominent policymakers, security officials and a worried public wanted clear answers, quickly.

Then-Secretary of State John Kerry praised the work of crisis
archaeologists as ‘the gold standard’ in a 2014 speech about the looting
of cultural artifacts. U.S. Department of State, CC BY

By any measure, conflict archaeologists succeeded. They produced findings that improved scientific knowledge. Their research led to a landmark bipartisan bill signed by President Obama. Perhaps most importantly, they raised public awareness of the problems associated with looting and smuggling archaeological materials.

Our latest research aimed to understand how work cultures played a role in these achievements – and what lessons can be applied in crisis science across disciplines.

Estimated Cost of Post-9/11 US Wars Hits $8 Trillion With Nearly a Million People Dead

"What have we truly accomplished in 20 years of post 9/11 wars, and at what price?"

JON QUEALLY for Common Dreams

With the final U.S. soldiers leaving Afghanistan after nearly 20 years of occupation and war, a new analysis released September 1 shows the United States will ultimately spend upwards of $8 trillion and that nearly one million people have lost their lives so far in the so-called "global war on terror" that was launched after the attacks of September 11, 2001.

According to Brown University's Costs of War Project, which has been releasing reports on the financial and human costs of the post-9/11 wars at regular intervals since 2010, the total cost of the war and military operations in Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria, Yemen, Somalia, Pakistan, and elsewhere over the last two decades have directly killed at least 897,000 to 929,000 people—an estimate the researchers say is conservative.

Rhode Island election tidbits

Last minute facts for those of you who have not voted.

By Will Collette

Police in Graham, North Carolina gas voting rights marchers who were
attempting to go inside to cast their ballots. The marchers had a permit. 

On Saturday, I updated my latest election coverage to note the endorsement of the three Charlestown Democrats running for Town Council by our federal Representative Jim Langevin.

I left out the peculiar endorsement by Republican state Representative Blake “Flip” Filippi for the Charlestown Citizens Alliance (CCA Party) slate even though there are two Republicans running in the race in opposition to the CCA Party.

This led to a fast and furious endorsement of Grace Klinger and Stephen Stokes, who are running as Republicans under the Charlestown Residents United (CRU) banner, from the Rhode Island State Republican Party to clearly rebuke Flip for breaking party rules.

For the record, Flip has also endorsed the far right armed militias that are terrorizing several states and he is also endorsing Donald Trump for re-election. Flip displayed his usual strong convictions by noting his endorsement of Trump came out of this deep reasoning: “I don’t like a lot of the stuff, the rhetoric, but a lot of the people I dislike and institutions I dislike hate Donald Trump.”

Attaboy, Flip! Voting hate all the way.

Last February, the Providence Journal asked Flip about his presidential preference and reported this result:

Filippi’s choice of words sparked some criticism on Twitter. He said he liked [Rep. Tulsi] Gabbard “because of her perspective on war and peace and if not her, Donald Trump because he is not a globalist. ... He believes in strong nation states.”

“To be clear I support both,″ he later said on Twitter.

State Sen. Gayle Goldin tweeted this response: 

“Filippi said he supports Trump because Trump isn’t a ‘globalist’ — a term embraced by alt-right to spread hate of Jews. We can disagree on policy (after all, that’s what we are elected), but I will not turn a blind eye to dog whistle antisemitism by R.I. GOP leaders.”

Former member of Congress from Hawaii Tulsi Gabbard ran a strange campaign for the Democratic nomination, drawing strong criticism from other Democrats, perhaps most strongly from Hillary Clinton who referred to Gabbard as a “Russian asset” being groomed by the Russians to run a spoiler third party campaign. Gabbard was also criticized for her free-lance “diplomacy” to some of the worst despots in the Middle East such as Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad.

Gabbard barely registered above 1% in the primaries. Her best result was second-place in American Samoa (even though she was the only Samoan running in 2020) behind Michael Bloomberg that netted her only Convention delegate.

Early Voting

As we go into the last day of early voting, 3,531 Charlestown mail-in ballots and early votes have been registered by the Secretary of State. That’s 58% of the 6,115 total active voters in town. Remember to drop off your mail-in ballots at the drop box at Town Hall, NOT in a mail-box or at the Post Office, Under RI law, all votes must be RECEIVED by November 3.

Rating the General Assembly on the Environment

By Matt Wuerker, Politico

The Environmental Council of Rhode Island has issued its traditional pre-election scorecard and gives the whole General Assembly (as well as Gov. Gina Raimondo) an “incomplete, lacking leadership” rating for passing NO major environmental legislation in the past two years.

This is largely due to the blockades by Speaker of the House Nick Mattiello (DINO-Cranston) and lack of initiative by Senate Majority Leader Dominick Ruggerio and the Governor.

ECRI did what they could with what they had and listed legislators by their attempts to pass environmental legislation – they scored legislators by how many bills they introduced or co-sponsored.

Here’s how our local Senators and Reps did.

SENATE: Sen. Sue Sosnowski (D-South Kingstown) had the highest score in the state Senate with 25 attempts. Bridget Valverde (D-SK, NK, Narragansett and EG) came in sixth with a score of 9. 

Republicans Dennis Algiere who represents the southern end of Charlestown and Elaine Morgan who represents Charlestown north of One both scored ZERO.

HOUSE: The top South County score – ninth place – went to Carol McEntee (D-SK) with a score of six. Bob Craven (D-NK with strong Charlestown ties) came in 16^th with 5. Kathy Fogarty (D-SK) had two.

The rest of our South County House members tallied big fat goose eggs. That includes environmental activist Teresa Tanzi (D-SK) and Flip Filippi (CCA Party) who generally takes anti-environmental positions.

Teresa is so high on Speaker Mattiello’s shit list that she refrains from putting her name on bills so they don’t automatically get killed, though in some cases, she was actually blocked from co-sponsoring bills she really likes. If Mattiello fails to get re-elected or doesn’t get the votes to continue as House Speaker, Teresa may be able to resume her fight for the environment.

War crimes. schmore crimes

Mageau again tries to defend the indefensible

Argues that no one should criticize Trump for pushing the US toward war with Iran

By Will Collette

Charlestown’s preeminent historian, political scientist and seer James Mageau wrote yet another letter to the Westerly Sun, this time to lambast anyone who would dare criticize Donald Trump’s unilateral decision to assassinate Iran’s top general.

The drone killing of General Qassem Soleimani on January 3, took the US campaign against Iran to a new level. 

The US and Iran have been enemies since the 1979 Iran hostage taking crisis though never actually at war even after the US shot down an Iranian passenger jet in July 1988 killing 290 people.

Until Trump came along, the United States and other world powers had reached a state of relative albeit nervous peace with Iran after the 2015 signing of an agreement that halted Iran’s march toward acquiring nuclear weapons. The deal was signed by China, France, Russia, United Kingdom, United States, and Germany together with the European Union.

According to our allies and the international arms inspectors who went on-site, Iran was abiding by the terms of the agreement to take no action to build nuclear weapons. Nonetheless, Trump decided the US would pull out of the agreement largely because Trump cannot tolerate (or is it “toleride?) any policy that bore President Barack Obama’s name.

Since Trump’s sabotage of Iran nuclear deal, it’s been all downhill as fighting has intensified all across the Middle East from Yemen to Syria mostly involving groups backed variously by the U.S., Russia, China and Iran. Turkey has gotten into the act after Trump sold out the Kurds, our best allies in the fight against ISIS.

Fox News

Soleimani’s job was to coordinate Iran’s side in all these conflicts similar to the way the US Central Command coordinates US troops and forces backed by the US.

In no way do I praise Soleimani who by all accounts directed countless attacks – including acts of terror – against US interests and US citizens.

But I do criticize Trump’s decision to escalate and to push us closer toward war against Iran with no sign of any planning, forethought, intelligence or consultation. 

I do criticize the complete lack of evidence that Soleimani posed such an imminent threat that we needed to risk war to take him out. I do criticize Trump’s constantly changing story about why he did it. Even his own top officials can’t back him up as he pulls new rationales out of his butt.

Trump's story changes from day to day. One day, he says Iran was going to hit four US embassies. His Secretary of Defense says he saw no such intelligence...and no embassies were notified. 

Then Trump says, finally, "It doesn't really matter" after apparently running out of stories to tell.

Here is Mageau's letter to the editor with my comments in Bold Red.

Trump May Have Already Sparked A Wildfire In The Middle East

The Aftermath of the Suleimani Assassination Has Barely Begun

By Terry H Schwadron, DCReport Opinion Editor

It’s much more than a massive escalation of war tensions in the Middle East that Donald Trump achieved in ordering the single rocket attack that killed Qassim Suleimani.

By killing the top Iranian military commander and hated foe, intentionally or not, Trump managed in his single swath of a sword to set an already uneasy world on edge.

Just as we were suddenly supposedly withdrawing all U.S. troops from the region, we’re sending thousands more.

Everywhere we look, the fundamental questions seemed widespread and the same: While taking out Suleimani has been a longtime goal, are Americans, in fact, safer today?

Is there a strategy here? Or did Trump just act without thinking through the effects? Does this move us any closer to a renegotiation to end Iran’s nuclear weapons development?

Consider these other effects from the same strike:

From Foreign Policy Without Direction To War Without A Goal

Trump is doing EXACTLY what he predicted (wrongly) that Obama would do

By Terry H Schwadron, DCReport Opinion Editor

The psychiatrists call it "projection." A mentally ill person projects his
own faults and disturbing thoughts onto someone else.

It’s official now, the sabers are out and swinging.

A U.S. attack on the Baghdad airport in Iraq that killed the powerful commander of the Quds Force of Iran’s Revolutionary Guards Corps is a major escalation of violence with Iran. 

As expected, Iran threatens retaliation—in the Middle East and wherever Iranian’s terrorist partners can reach in embassies, on isolated bases or even in Israel.

Has our White House thought through the consequences?

Both U.S. and Iranian governments confirmed the assassination of Maj. Gen. Qassim Suleimani, an important figure in the Iranian hierarchy. The head of Iranian militias operating in Iraq and three others also were slain.

Americans are trying to figure out whether there is a strategy here, whether this was a gut reaction by Trump, whether we know how to get out of yet another Middle East cauldron.

We are playing out the years’ long resentments between the United States and Iran just as Donald Trump is withdrawing American troops from Syria and Iraq and just as Trump himself is burdened by impeachment. Indeed, Trump has been talking about seeking peace with Iran even as we have launched two strikes against Iranian-leaning militias and Suleimani.

It’s time for an intervention

Trump is dangerously crazy

By Bandy X. Lee

If Donald Trump were not president, he would have been held and evaluated long ago.  Mental health professionals have deemed this a “no brainer” since early 2017.  

Dangerousness is more about the situation than the person, and we ask questions such as whether the environment, including others, can constrain the person and whether one has access to weapons.

The concerns expressed at an ethics conference at Yale and in the public-service book, The Dangerous Case of Donald Trump, unfolded over the past two years with exactitude: incitements to violence, cruel policies against children that lay the groundwork for future violence, and the fostering of a culture of violence both domestically and abroad.

With the impeachment hearings, Trump’s behavior has grown even more erratic … his psychological structure makes him especially prone to violent revenge in the face of humiliation.

With the announcement of an impeachment inquiry, we warned of our entering “a very dangerous state” and the need to handle the situation adeptly from a psychological point of view.  We wrote an urgent letter to Congress members gathering 250 signatures.  

Three days later, without informing his advisors, the president unleashed Turkish forces on our allies and handed over advantage to our enemies.  These are predictable and therefore preventable events.

2019, The Year Trump Made A Hash Of U.S. Foreign Policy

Just one of those things that happen when you have a crazy person in charge

By Terry H. Schwadron, DCReport Opinion Editor

Trump actually curtesied to the King of Saudi Arabia, despite 11 of the 12
9/11 suicide bombers who were Saudis (and likely supported by some
Saudi leaders) and the murder of Jamal Khashoggi

End of year proves a good platform for looking back to sum up administration achievements or missteps over the year, as well as how certain we are about the directions in which our nation is moving.

Americans looking at foreign policy and our relationships overseas will find this year deepened U.S. isolationism, widened support for authoritarian governments, made American primacy in trade the weather vane for our thinking, as opposed to, say, human rights,  and continued Donald Trump’s role as a worldwide disrupter.

A foreign policy built on tariffs and the threat of tariffs creates and maintains an underlying sense of uncertainty among investors.

The only person Trump has NEVER criticized is Vladimir Putin (BBC)

The year will start and end with Trump’s confusing meld of domestic political gain toward his reelection with the formation of the people and policies of America’s standing with the rest of the world. 

The impeachment proceedings that hang over the end of the year are a textbook on using the levels of official policies and rogue personal political desire for dirt on political enemies with interference in domestic elections by foreign governments.

Overall, our foreign policy year is a mixed record at best, even if you somehow subscribe to American boorishness in the china shop of diplomacy.

Congress Must Weigh Trump’s Poisonous Narcissism As Well As His Corruption

Psychological factors need to be considered as well as legal considerations in this impeachment

By Bandy X. Lee

Leading psychiatrists and I, along with more than 650 other mental health professionals, submitted a “Petition to the Judiciary Committee of the U.S. House of Representatives,” to include our statement on the psychological dangers of the president. 

It reads: “We are speaking out at this time because … as the time of possible impeachment approaches, Donald Trump has the real potential to become ever more dangerous, a threat to the safety of our nation.” 

We believe we have an ethical obligation to warn of the danger that Mr. Trump poses as the impeachment process proceeds and have offered ourselves for consultation.

The World Mental Health Coalition was formed to step in where we believe our own professional associations have failed in leadership. 

The American Psychiatric Association’s own ethics guideline states: “Psychiatrists are encouraged to serve society by advising and consulting with the executive, legislative, and judiciary branches of the government.”

We are deeply concerned about the president’s mental instability, which continues to go unmanaged alongside his unchecked proximity to nuclear weapons and other war-making powers

Shrinks warn Trump might do something catastrophic if impeached

350 Mental Health Professionals Warn Congress That Nuclear-Armed Trump 'A Threat to Safety of Our Nation'

By Jake Johnson, staff writer for Common Dreams

A group of more than 350 health professionals—led by three preeminent psychiatrists—delivered a petition to the House Judiciary Committee on Thursday warning that President Donald Trump's allegedly deteriorating mental state could result in "catastrophic outcomes," including nuclear war, as the possibility of impeachment looms.

"We bear in mind that Donald Trump, as president, has the unfettered authority to launch nuclear weapons at any time for any reason," psychiatrists Bandy Lee, John Zinner, and Jerrold Post said in a statement accompanying the petition. 

"Short of this calamity, there are many other dangers he can pose by the use, fueled by rage, of his assumed absolute executive authority, and by the loyalists who serve him."

The trio of mental health professionals implored the Judiciary Committee to "take these danger signs seriously and to constrain his destructive impulses" as the impeachment inquiry moves forward.

As Common Dreams reported Thursday, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) announced she has asked House Judiciary Committee Chairman Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-N.Y.) to prepare articles of impeachment against Trump.

"We have come to the conclusion that there is an ethical obligation to warn of the danger that President Trump poses. We believe that there is a possibility of our stumbling into a war," the statement reads. "Impeachment is the ultimate rebuke of a president, which President Trump has intensely feared, at least since the appointment of the special counsel."

VIDEO: Six specific ways Trump has sold out America

 To watch this video on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u4rQBL8eyOQ

Who needs a separation between church and state?

How Mike Pence meddled in foreign aid to reroute money to favored Christian groups
By Yeganeh Torbati for ProPublica

Last November, a top Trump appointee at the U.S. Agency for International Development wrote a candid email to colleagues about pressure from the White House to reroute Middle East aid to religious minorities, particularly Christian groups.

“Sometimes this decision will be made for us by the White House (see… Iraq! And, increasingly, Syria),” said Hallam Ferguson, a senior official in USAID’s Middle East bureau, in an email seen by ProPublica. “We need to stay ahead of this curve everywhere lest our interventions be dictated to us.”

The email underscored what had become a stark reality under the Trump White House. Decisions about U.S. aid are often no longer being governed by career professionals applying a rigorous review of applicants and their capabilities. 

Over the last two years, political pressure, particularly from the office of Vice President Mike Pence, had seeped into aid deliberations and convinced key decision-makers that unless they fell in line, their jobs could be at stake.

Who are the Kurds and why should you care?

Why there is no Kurdish nation: Trump wasn't the only one who sold them out
John Broich, Case Western Reserve University

Flag of Kurdistan on military uniform. Bumble Dee/Shutterstock.com 

Since U.S. troops left their region, roughly 180,000 Kurds of northeastern Syria have been displaced, and over 200 have been killed.

Those Kurds, soldiers who’d battled the Islamic State and families, had hoped to secure a future Kurdistan state in areas now targeted by Turkish warplanes and patrolled by Russian mercenaries.

This is only the latest reversal for the Kurds, a group of around 40 million who identify with a regional homeland and common historical background, but are now divided between four countries. 

Despite their many attempts, they have never won and kept a Kurdish nation.

There’s A Secret ‘Deep State’ Army Quietly Uncovering Trump’s Corruption

Inspectors General alert Congress to abuses in government, from the Pentagon to ICE

By Tom Buerkle

Our government’s Inspectors General pose one of the biggest threats to Donald Trump’s presidency. The IGs’ unique status as independent watchdogs who report both to their own agencies and to Congress make them powerful tools to root out presidential abuse, fraud and corruption.

The Intelligence Community Inspector General triggered the House impeachment investigation by bringing forth the anonymous whistleblower complaint revealing that Trump pressured Ukraine’s new leader to publicly declare the country was digging dirt on Joe Biden.

Multiple IG inquiries now bear down on Trump’s maladministration of our government, each gathering facts about Team Trump’s disregard for the rule of law.

Abuse of asylum seekers on our southern border is in the sights of the Department of Homeland Security’s IG. In a July report, he called on officials to take immediate action to alleviate “dangerous overcrowding and prolonged detention of children and adults” in the Rio Grande Valley.

Team Trump’s conduct makes clear it wants to suppress or distract attention from critical inspectors general reports

The number of people border patrol agents apprehended there more than doubled to 223,000 from October 2018 and May 2019, compared with the same period a year earlier.

‘Egregious Violations’ and Little Discipline

A separate report the previous month cited “egregious violations” of standards at Immigration and Customs Enforcement detention facilities in California and New Jersey. Yet another reported on a lack of oversight of misconduct and discipline.

In an August report, the Pentagon’s inspector general warned that without American troops in Syria the combined forces of Iraq’s army and the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces would be “unable to sustain long-term operations against ISIS militants” at a time when that Islamic group was increasing its attacks in the region.

That didn’t stop commander-in-chief Trump from abruptly tweeting a major change in Mideast policy on Oct, 7 that endangered both our national security and our elite troops in northern Syria. 

Trump tweeted without notifying the generals and blindsided even White House national security officials.

Turkey’s invasion forced our soldiers to flee so quickly that they left half-eaten meals, 
prompting Russian state television to mock our troops. American warplanes had to bomb our own nearby munitions dumps to keep the weapons from hostile hands.

Fierce criticism from Republicans led Trump to retreat and use American forces to prevent ISIS from gaining control of Syrian oil fields and perhaps seize them, which would be a crime under international law.

Curious Cloud Contract

The Defense Department Acting IG is investigating the Pentagon’s awarding of a $10 billion cloud computing contract to Microsoft. Amazon had long been considered the favorite to win the business because it provides cloud services to the CIA. Trump has long attacked Amazon’s founder, Jeff Bezos, accusing his Washington Post of spreading fake news.

Even Trump’s trade wars are getting close scrutiny. The Commerce Department’s IG office late last month warned Secretary Wilbur Ross that lax procedures mean favored companies and industries could improperly influence department officials to win exemptions from the Trump’s steel and aluminum tariffs. 

And only days earlier IG Peggy Gustafson told Ross she lacked the staff to properly vet the huge increase in foreign investments into our country that the Trump administration is demanding to blunt China.

Team Trump’s conduct makes clear it wants to suppress or distract attention from critical IG reports or even just making documents available to Congressional investigators. Last April Trump ordered his entire administration to largely ignore Congressional oversight, a core function of Congress under our Constitution’s system of checks and balances.

Inspectors General Unite

After Trump’s Justice Department tried to silence the Ukraine whistleblower in October, 67 of the 73 IGs rallied to the whistleblower’s defense.

The Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel had tried to silence the intelligence whistleblower, whose complaint triggered the impeachment inquiry. That drew a sharp rebuke from the Council of the Inspectors General on Integrity and Efficiency.

The IG’s letter warned that such suppression efforts “could seriously undermine the critical role whistleblowers play in coming forward to report waste, fraud, and abuse across the federal government.”

Brave Bureaucrats

Significantly, the first of 67 signatures on the Oct. 22 letter came from the Justice Department’s own IG, Michael Horowitz.

That united public defense was an act of “bureaucratic bravery,” John Hudak, deputy director of the Center for Effective Public Management at the Brookings Institution, told DCReport.

There’s no small irony in the activism of the IGs. Congress created these watchdogs in all cabinet departments and federal entities under a 1978 law, part of a wave of clean government legislation passed after the Watergate scandal forced Richard Nixon to resign rather than face impeachment.

The inspectors general are unlikely to thwart administration policy, at least in the short run.

To Trump they provide a convenient foil, embodying what he claims is a “deep state” of unelected bureaucrats, a claim that fuels conspiracy theorists and fringe elements who claim our federal government is a criminal organization.

And they can’t force change, but their reports can motivate Congress and the White House to act. The Office of Personnel Management’s IG calls for tighter data security went unheeded until 2015, when during the Obama administration OPM revealed suspected Chinese hackers had stolen sensitive information including Social Security numbers of nearly 20 million people who applied for government background clearances.

IG Budget Cuts

IGs have a unique independent status, reporting both to their executive agencies as well as to Congress. They also deliver real value, generating $14 in cost savings and fraud recoveries for every dollar they spent in fiscal 2018. That gives them clout and allies on both sides of the political divide.

Team Trump has cut IG budgets, as did Obama. They declined more than 7 percent over six years, to $2.5 billion in fiscal 2018, even as overall federal spending rose by more than 16 percent, to $4.1 trillion. That may explain why IG induced savings and recoveries fell to $36.2 billion, down 22% from $46.3 billion.

Today nine cabinet departments lack a Senate-confirmed IG, including the CIA, the Pentagon, Education and Health and Human Services. A president who knows that IGs dig up facts which he has tried to keep hidden is, predictably, in no hurry to plug that gap.