Trump mis-steps, real and imagined: Today's news for April 6th

CNN:

One week, three more Trump-Russia connections

In December, Donald Trump's son-in-law and close adviser met privately with the head of a Russian bank under U.S. sanctions.

In January, a major Trump donor with ties to his administration flew to a remote island and conferred with a confidant of Russian President Vladimir Putin.

And four years ago, a Trump adviser interacted with a Russian spy trying to elicit intelligence.

That last line is especially troubling because CNN left out a few words about Carter Page that would have made it more innocuous than they made it sound.

First, it should say "former Trump adviser".

Second, Page was a businessman in energy consulting. If the Russians wanted information from him, they could have just hired him. 4 years ago, Page had no access to anything sensitive.

As for the second Trump "associate" named above, Erik Prince was mainly a Trump donor whose connections to Trump might make Prince an acquaintance. It also isn't clear what exactly Prince did wrong by meeting with an Arab prince and a Putin confidant.

Finally, the first one is Jared Kushner's meeting with a Russian banker in December. Although the Russian bank in question is under U.S. sanctions, the purpose of the meeting isn't clear and wasn't by itself illegal. As the story points out:

This is disputed. The White House says Kushner was acting as an adviser to President-elect Trump during the transition period and was a "conduit" to world leaders until Trump named a Secretary of State. The bank says Gorkov met with Kushner as he was meeting with banking and business officials worldwide to discuss a new strategic plan for the financially troubled bank.

There is a lot of 'guilt-by-association" in this story, as well as much of the whole Trump Russian connection conspiracy. The mainstream media has yet to assign a motive for much of the Russian connections, other than Trump trying to use the Russians to "hack the election". The problem with much of the MSM reporting on this is they still haven't made the end connection to Wikileaks, nor have they shown why these meetings are illicit.

W. Mark Felt said it best: "Follow the money." Personal connections and meetings prove nothing.

In other Trump news...

New York Times:

Trump Removes Stephen Bannon From National Security Council Post

For the first 10 weeks of President Trump’s administration, no adviser loomed larger in the public imagination than Stephen K. Bannon, the raw and rumpled former chairman of Breitbart News who considers himself a “virulently anti-establishment” revolutionary out to destroy the “administrative state.”

But behind the scenes, White House officials said, the ideologist who enjoyed the president’s confidence became increasingly embattled as other advisers, including Mr. Trump’s daughter and son-in-law, complained about setbacks on health care and immigration. Lately, Mr. Bannon has been conspicuously absent from some meetings. And now he has lost his seat at the national security table.

In a move that was widely seen as a sign of changing fortunes, Mr. Trump removed Mr. Bannon, his chief strategist, from the National Security Council’s cabinet-level “principals committee” on Wednesday. The shift was orchestrated by Lt. Gen. H. R. McMaster, Mr. Trump’s national security adviser, who insisted on purging a political adviser from the Situation Room where decisions about war and peace are made.

Mr. Bannon resisted the move, even threatening at one point to quit if it went forward, according to a White House official who, like others, insisted on anonymity to discuss internal deliberations. Mr. Bannon’s camp denied that he had threatened to resign and spent the day spreading the word that the shift was a natural evolution, not a signal of any diminution of his outsize influence.

Bannon still seems like a fish out of water in politics. However, this move nudges the ideology of Trump's administration a little closer to "big state". Bannon may not be the ideal libertarian, but he is closer to libertarian than most people in Trump's administration.

Finally, in news from overseas...

Associated Press:

Germany approves bill curbing online hate crime, fake news

Germany's Cabinet on Wednesday approved a new bill that punishes social networking sites if they fail to swiftly remove illegal content such as hate speech or defamatory fake news.

Chancellor Angela Merkel's Cabinet agreed on rules that would impose fines of up to 50 million euros (53.4 million dollars) on Facebook, Twitter and other social media platforms.

German Justice Minister Heiko Maas said that the companies offering such online platforms are responsible for removing hateful content. He said the new bill would not restrict the freedom of expression, but intervene only when criminal hatred or intentionally false news are posted. 

...Maas also said that measures to combat hate speech and so-called fake news will ultimately have to be taken at the European level to be effective.

The bill still needs parliamentary approval.

Who decides what is fake news and what is not? Who decides what is criminal hatred versus just telling things like they are? The answer is obvious when the government is involved: It will be mindless bureaucrats who are given direction from a person or persons with a political axe to grind. Perhaps the Germans can call the bureaucrats the "Ministry of Truth"?

Apparently, George Orwell's writing doesn't translate well into German.