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todaviia · 2 years

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Why does it take hours to write the appeal? What's in the appeal? What's the "asylum agency", are they lawyers as well?

The "asylum agency" are the Bundesamt für Migration und Flüchtlinge (BAMF for short), it's the German Federal department for (among other things) vetting asylum claims. There are a lot of lawyers (as in, Juristen = people with a law degree) working there, but it's a normal administration job.

Basically in the German asylum system you first fill out an "Asylantrag" (asylum claim). In this you say where you come from and why you think you should be entitled to protection in Germany (both actual asylum - which refers to people who are personally persecuted - as well as subsidiary protection, which applies to people fleeing from general humanitarian disasters such as war).

Then the BAMF checks your asylum claim. Here is a very good English-language longform article by the Atlantic detailing how the BAMF works and what methods they use. Then they make a decision (Bescheid), which either accepts or rejects the claim (appealing it means you refuse to accept their ruling and try to overturn it).

There's TONS of problems with this. Even legitimate refugees often don't tell the truth or do so in a way that is contradictory bc we're talking about usually super traumatized ppl getting like half an hour to tell the absolute worst and often most intimate parts of their lives to a total stranger and THEN these total strangers judge whether they believe that or not.

And they can be super and I mean SUPER unfair about this. For example for the guy whose appeal I wrote today (let's call him F.), he was asked to describe his situation and he said he knew three other gay guys in his city, that they were the only people who knew about his sexuality and that they all were still closeted and still in Iraq. He gives detailed descriptions their meet-ups, their conversations, generally how they lived (it's literally all in the hearing transcript). The interviewer asked for their names. F. said their first names. The interviewer asked for their full names. F. said he doesn't know them.

In the Bescheid, it says among other things "F. was unable to give details including basic information such as names about the people who supposedly were members of the social group of people who shared his oppression. True accounts of persecution are often characterised by the fact that they are very detailed. His claim is therefore not substantiated."

We're talking about an 18-year old gay kid who just fled a country where he legitimately feared for his life because of his sexuality and who basically had to keep this part of himself secret his whole life, in a conversation with a complete stranger in a position of authority. Of course the fact that he didn't give the full names of his closest friends who still lived in that country in that situation must mean he's lying.

It also says it's contradictory and therefore unbelievable that the father would inform another family member about his son's sexuality because the fact that this would bring dishonor to the family means the father would have kept it a secret. (The "conversation" was the father convincing other male family members to join in and kill him - something which happens regularly in the country if you read up on literally any source dealing with LGBT Iraqis - often even clerics get involved to issue fatwas against them).

All in all, even if he was gay, he should have considered living anonymously in a different part of Iraq rather than come to Germany.

And what takes hours is to dig up reputable and up-to-date sources detailing the status of gay men in Iraq (Here is a heartbreaking report by Human Rights Watch btw), especially concerning the different regions of Iraq (Iraqi Kurdistan for example is considered more liberal when it comes to religion, so religious minorities from Iraq just get told to move to Iraqi Kurdistan instead. However, this does NOT apply to sexuality).

Then you try to pad that with other German court decisions abt gay men in Iraq (unfortunately it's mostly lower administrative court decisions, which don't hold much weight - but the VAST majority of them accept gay men from Iraq as legitimate refugees. There's also an ECJ ruling that says gay refugees can not be expected to hide their sexuality in their country of origin, as that would not be expected of straight refugees either and therefore would be discrimination, that's why his chances are quite good bc the Bescheid literally expected that of him) The LSVD has a REALLY great compilation for all sort of different countries of origin.

And then you have to take apart the whole bullshit Bescheid, point out the logical flaws, add other stuff the refugee told you and try to come with proofs for that etc.

It takes A LOT of work.

#also you cant believe what kind of total bullshit sometimes gets written just to keep people out #the absolutely dumbest thing i ever saw was not asylum but spousal-visa related #it was abt ppl from a west african nation who got married in that nation #only to realise fun fact germany automatically assumes all documents from developing countries to be fake #even and especially if its official documents #so it didnt recognize the marriage certificate #and instead started ~verification proceedings via the embassy #(who im pretty sure has no other job except to try and keep ppl out)#they hired a lawyer to ~interview family members - he showed up unannounced at their house at 10 am on a workday #and when the neighbor informed him that the family members were at work and where they worked #he went back home and wrote that family members were not available for interview #so then the embassy wrote they believed its a fake marriage possibly between family members #who seemed to be in on not cooperating in the investigation #(the SECRET investigation which consisted of showing up announced at their house ONCE during work hours)#and that they assume the people were not spouses at all #rather family members #what compelling piece of evidence did they base this completely fucking bogus claim on?#the spouses had the same last name!#EXCEPT THE VAST MAJORITY OF MARRIAGES IN THAT COUNTRY INCLUDING THIS ONE #WAS INTRA-CLAN MARRIAGE #SURNAMES WERE INTRODUCED BY THE COLONISING POWER AND GUESS WHAT THEY JUST BASED THEM ON #if you guessed clan affiliation congratulations #you understand why the vast majority of marriages take place between ppl who had the same surname even before marriage #something which you could find out literally with one google search #or one conversation with anyone from that country #this still took like 2.5 YEARS to resolve

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femalechibiblogger · 3 years

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My Top 7 Underrated Indie-Horror Games

1. Detention

Set in 1960s Taiwan of the White Terror period, students Wei and Ray find themselves trapped and vulnerable in Greenwood High School (翠華中學), which is located in a remote mountainous area. The place they once knew has changed in unsettling ways, haunted by evil creatures known as the "lingered" (魍魎). While hiding from the rampaging monsters, the protagonists unveil mysteries which slowly reveal the dark past of the cursed school.

Detention is a horror adventure video game created and developed by Taiwanese game developer Red Candle Games for Steam. It is a 2D atmospheric horror side-scroller set in 1960s Taiwan under martial law. The game also incorporates religious elements based on Taiwanese culture and mythology. The game was released on 13 January 2017. A demo version was released on Steam Greenlight on 13 June 2016.

The concept of the game originates with the Red Candle Games co-founder Shun-ting "Coffee" Yao. In February 2017, a novel based on the game was published by novelist Ling Jing. A live action film adaptation distributed by Warner Bros. Taiwan was released on 20 September 2019.

2. Layers of Fear

The player takes control of an artist who has returned to his studio. His initial goal is to complete his masterpiece, and the player's role is to figure out how this task should be accomplished. The challenge comes from puzzles which require the player to search the environment for visual clues. The house appears straightforward at first, but it changes around the player as they explore it in first person. These changes in the environment provide scaffolding for the puzzles and provide regular jump scares common to games of this genre.

The game is divided into six chapters with various items for the player to find in order to complete his work. The game is heavily dimmed, and there are objects that uncover certain aspects of the painter's history. While completing the painting, there is a letter that is slowly pieced together, which shows the origin of his masterpiece, and objects which explain the secret of the painter through dialogue flashbacks.

Layers of Fear is a psychological horror video game developed by Bloober Team and published by Aspyr. It was released on Linux, Microsoft Windows, OS X, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One worldwide in February 2016.

In Layers of Fear, the player controls a psychologically disturbed painter who is trying to complete his magnum opus as he navigates a Victorian mansion revealing secrets about his past. The gameplay, presented in first-person perspective, is story-driven and revolves around puzzle-solving and exploration. Layers of Fear: Inheritance was released on 2 August 2016 as a direct follow up add-on to the first game. This time the player controls the painter's daughter with the downloadable content focusing on her apparent relapse into trauma after returning to her old house.

A definitive port for the Nintendo Switch, entitled Layers of Fear: Legacy, was released on 21 February 2018 and it features, in addition to the Inheritance DLC, Joy-Con, touchscreen, and HD Rumble support. A limited physical retail release for the Nintendo Switch and PlayStation 4, published by Limited Run Games in North America, would be available starting October 2018. A sequel titled Layers of Fear 2 was announced in October 2018 and was released on May 29, 2019.

3. The Blackout Club

You are a teenager from a small, modern town. Each morning, you awaken covered in mud or scratches, with no memory of the night before. You've heard of sleepwalking - but this is different. Sometimes you lose entire days.

There are others like you. Your new group of friends bonded over this shared secret, forming a club to investigate the cause of these BLACKOUTS. Together, you discovered a network of bizarre underground tunnels, hidden just beneath the surface of your quiet community. An uncanny, disorienting music beckoned from below.

You hesitated. But last night, your best friend vanished - and now, a mysterious group of adults wants to eliminate you. You must strike back, capture their activities on camera and expose them to the world.

The Blackout Club is a first-person co-op horror game centered around a group of teenage friends investigating a monstrous secret beneath the skin of their small town. 1-4 players explore procedurally-generated missions against a fearsome enemy you can only see with your eyes closed.

The developers describe the content like this:

There is violence in the game where players or enemies might use tranquilizer darts or electric stun guns on another human. Although there is no excessive violence or gore in this game, there are scenes with blood and evidence of crimes such as kidnapping and murder. It should be noted that the player characters and their allies are teenagers. Players are not allowed to injure or hurt another teenager, but the game does depict teens in situations of peril.

4. Cry of Fear

The player controls Simon Henriksson, a 19‑year‑old who wakes up in an alley shortly after being hit by a car. The player must navigate the city solving puzzles and fighting monsters to progress. The game switches between normal gameplay levels representing the city and surrounding areas, and "nightmare" levels, similar to those found in the Silent Hill series of games.

Cry of Fear features many unique mechanics, such as the limited inventory system, which allows the player to carry only 6 items at a time and does not pause the game while the inventory screen is open. Another unique mechanic is the ability to dual-wield inventory items, allowing the use of two weapons at a time, or one weapon and a light source. Item combination is also possible from the inventory screen. Health is recovered by the use of morphine syringes, which can blur the player's vision if overused. Stamina is consumed through strenuous actions such as running and jumping, and can be recovered by resting or the use of morphine syringes.

Some days before Cry of Fear's anniversary, Valve released a Half-Life update for Linux compatibility, making changes in the folders and engine. This update made several Half-Life mods, including Cry of Fear, incompatible with the base game. Team Psykskallar decided that, since no more could be done for the mod itself, they would finish a standalone version. Confusion due to Valve regarding Cry of Fear's status as freeware caused the game to be delayed until April 25, 2013.

5. The Coma: Cutting Class

The story follows Youngho Choi, a freshman student at Sehwa High. In the midst of finals season, a student attempts to commit suicide during their study session. Despite this event, final exams are scheduled to continue as normal. Youngho proceeds to take his exam, but falls asleep from exhaustion due to having gotten no sleep the night before. Consequently, he wakes up at his school desk in the middle of the night and finds that there is more to Sehwa High than he thought.

The Coma: Cutting Class is a 2D survival-horror video game developed and published by Devespresso Games. It was released on October 19, 2015. It follows the story of Youngho Choi as he explores the mystery behind the abandoned Sehwa High school.

A remastered version was released on September 22, 2017 for Steam, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One, and on December 21, 2017 for Nintendo Switch. A mobile version was released on January 17, 2019 for Android and January 22, 2019 for iOS. A sequel, The Coma 2: Vicious Sisters, was released on PC platforms (Steam, GOG) on January 28, 2020.

6. The Park

The game follows Lorraine, a struggling single mother and widow with a troubled past, as she searches for her young son, Callum, who goes missing in Atlantic Island Park. Lorraine enters the park after her son just as the park prepares to close for the afternoon, only to find that nighttime comes unnaturally fast as she ascends the escalator and discovers the park to be abandoned, vandalized and rundown as if several years have passed. Despite abandonment, the rides and lights mysteriously still function. Lorraine calls for Callum and his voice calls to her, leading her through the decrepit park.

Lorraine boards several rides which reveal the themes and backstory of the game: the Tunnel of Tales tells the story of Hansel and Gretel, this time with a new ending - in which after cooking the witch in the oven, Hansel and Gretel devour her. On the Ferris Wheel, Lorraine remembers Callum's father Don, a construction worker at the park who died in a fall from the Ferris Wheel when Lorraine was still pregnant with Callum. Between rides, Lorraine expresses her frustration with Callum, her belief that she is a failure as a mother, her history of mental health problems, and her fear that Callum is becoming changed by some mysterious threat. However, while aboard the roller coaster, a monstrous top-hatted ringmaster (identified in the credits as The Boogeyman) accosts Lorraine and claims 'the Witch' has her son.

The Park is a first-person psychological horror adventure game developed and published by Funcom. The game was released for Microsoft Windows via Steam on October 27, 2015 and is a spin-off of an earlier Funcom game, The Secret World. It was released for PlayStation 4 and Xbox One on May 3, 2016 and Nintendo Switch on October 22, 2019. It will be released in Japan on September 24, 2020. The game takes place in the Atlantic Island Park that closed back in the year of 1980 for mysterious reasons that are gradually revealed throughout the game.

The Park is experienced from a first-person perspective as the player, Lorraine, interacts with and experiences the decrepit environment of Atlantic Island Park. There is no combat or defense and the player has no health HUD as Lorraine can only interact with limited objects in-game and there are no enemies to battle. These objects mostly consist of pages that reveal the backstory of the park and later, Lorraine. Lorraine can call out to character Callum at any time during gameplay, and this may have a small affect as it allows Lorraine to follow Callum's voice and thus continue the narrative of the story or to reach necessary areas or objectives within the park such as the rides. The rides act as both exposition and scares. To enter the House of Horrors, Lorraine must find a flashlight. Throughout the game, Lorraine narrates her feelings and memories to the player.

7. Mad Father

Mad Father takes place in northern Germany, where the 11-year old protagonist, Aya Drevis, lives with her father, Alfred Drevis, and their maid Maria. Aya is a shy girl who never goes outside. Her mother, Monika Drevis, was incredibly ill, and presumably died of illness before the occurrence of the game. Her father performs secret research in his laboratory in the house's basement, with the assistance of Maria. Aya is aware that Alfred experiments and kills humans in the basement, as well as the fact that he is involved in an extramarital affair with the younger Maria, a former homeless woman he had taken off the street some years prior.

On the anniversary of Monika's death, the very beginning of the game, Aya awakens at midnight to find herself surrounded by test subjects that escaped from the laboratory. Fleeing back into her room, Aya encounters the mysterious salesman Ogre, who offers her the task of solving puzzles to break into her father's laboratory and uncover his secret. Aya discovers that her father had intended to perform taxidermy on her and convert her into a doll, as he had done to numerous other children, having been enamored with preserving humans after having killed his own mother as a youth. Aya soon discovers that her father killed her mother in fear of her mother taking Aya away to prevent him from performing taxidermy on her.

The game has three endings based on the player's choices. In one ending, Aya allows her undead mother to take her father away to another world. After returning to the real world, she runs into Maria, who knocks her out, takes her to the basement and then kills her, turning her corpse into a doll. In the second ending, Aya saves her father from being taken by her mother's spirit. However, after doing so, Monika reveals to Aya that Alfred murdered her for one of his experiments. Horrified, Aya flees while being chased by a chainsaw-wielding Alfred. While attempting to escape, she runs into Maria. Maria attempts to follow her, but when she fails to capture her, Maria is attacked by Alfred. The game then branches into two endings depending on Aya's actions; if Aya neglects to help Maria and instead attempts to escape the mansion, she is found by her father and killed, with Alfred performing taxidermy on her corpse and rendering her into one of his dolls. In the true ending, Aya helps Maria, declaring that the two shall henceforth live together. Maria then kills Alfred and the two women leave the mansion, which is burned down by Dio, the spirit of one of Alfred's human test subjects.

As the house burns down, Ogre transports Alfred's spirit to another world, where he is free to experiment to his heart's content, creating a mature adult clone of his daughter, leading into the events of Misao. Meanwhile, while walking away from the burning mansion, Aya notices that her father's medical book has survived the blaze. Some years later, Aya and Maria have created a clinic, where they perform medical services free of charge. A poor woman named Jean Rooney arrives for an examination, and Aya uses anesthesia to render Jean unconscious, claiming that Jean will no longer suffer from her illnesses. In another room, Maria muses that Aya has become just like her father and that the tendencies run in the family, heavily implying that Aya has followed in her father's footsteps.

#Top List #my top 7 #indie horror game #Underrated #video games #horror #detention #layers of fear #the blackout club #cry of fear #the coma #cutting class #the park #mad father

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secretshinigami · 5 years

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all right, here goes nothing

Author: @hazblogs For: @weneedtotalkaboutdeathnote Pairings/Characters: Mello/Matt, Mello/Near, Mello, Near, Matt, L Rating/Warnings: T, mention of dermatillomania Prompt: An Au where L defeated Kira, grew older, and basically disappeared. Older Mello (mid 20sish, now a detective) follows a lead that takes him to the washed up L. Author’s Notes: nyello !!!!! after all this time i’m very proud to announce that my gift is here !!! i really hope you like it and that everyone else will too. i had lots of fun !!! have a good day everyone

The recorder makes some shitty ass noise before working, but that’s all xe has, so xe makes it work.

All right, here goes nothing.

“I never imagined I would be alive to tell you this. From the most crack ass place of the Earth, nowhere in Argentina, here’s Mello, also known as the second fucking best detective in the world, and I’m here to report on-”

There’s some background bang that makes xem stop. Xe rereads xer intro one last time, waiting for the noise to subside, and then, xe gives up and gets out that crap laptop from xer backpack and starts typing again. The room is dimly lit, and moss grows on the exposed beams, there are probably termites eating at them.

If xe’s right about this, it could be the most important discovery in the detective world since the fall of Kira.

It’s been… twelve years or so. Mello still remembers what xe did when the news broadcast announced that Light Yagami was dead (xe was cat-fighting Matt for a place closer to the TV) and xe remembers the intolerable feeling of dread that seized xem. “That’s it. We’re all useless now,” was what xe thought, and it’s been half disproved by the years, but the feeling lingers.

Something is making noise again, an awful lot of noise, and – fuck, someone is trying to break in again, aren’t they. Mello grabs xer crowbar and directs a lazy but wary gaze towards the door. It finally flings open, and. Oh yeah. It’s Matt.

“Mells, fuck you,” he says without missing a beat, “I’ve been under the rain for like, fifteen minutes, couldn’t you just come and see who was trying to enter ?”

“Easier to let ‘em come and take ‘em out when they’re already in. That way I don’t get wet,” Mello answers, and Matt makes an indignant noise of protest, before giving up entirely and walking away to shower.

The little house they’re renting on the Argentinian coast is big enough to have three rooms, and they’ve been staying there for some days now, thanks to Wammy’s insufferable donations. Not that they couldn’t afford it by xemself but xe’s been… spending xer money, lately. More than usual.

Matt is back half an hour later, naked – because he knows Mello fucking hates it – and he lingers on the back of the couch long enough to peep at what Mello is typing, before getting a new set of clothes. It’s not exactly warm inside, though it’s far from freezing, and xe sits tightly wrapped in a blanket.

“Any new stuff ?” Matt asks.

“Nope,” xe says, and xe sighs. The leads have been cold for a little while now, not long enough for it to despair, but enough to make xem worry xe is losing track of xer most important witnesses. Though, it’s been weeks since xe has been on that case, and it’s been nothing but one cold shoulder after the other.

“Gimme that computer and go get something to eat,” Matt ends up saying around dinner time, and xe knows it’s only to read more of this… second novel, if you can call it that. Xe isn’t a good writer by any means, though xe thinks xe got better over the years, and this is only a shitty first draft, full of plot bunnies and incoherent rambling. Matt should also not be allowed to read anything on xer newest lead, until xe knows for sure it’s not a sham. Last time was enough.

They end up shutting the laptop off, squeezing both their asses on the small couch, and eating microwave chili with a single spoon. Two adult-sized kids, grown up too fast, looking for old gods under the rain.

My first lead was a woman named Naomi Misora. If you’ve read my previous work, you should know about her – she is the one who helped L solve the Los Angeles BB murder case. She died during the Kira case, however her suicide note contained deeply important information revealed that she had try to contact L before she died. What prevented her ? What are the circumstances of her death ? It seems that her husband Raye Penber was one of the FBI agents sent to chase Kira in Japan, and that after his death she simply wouldn’t go on living decided to commit suicide for an unknown reason. This is not consistent with the person L had described to me, which is why I went to such great lengths to get this letter from her living relatives.

I was disappointed not surprised at the contents of the letter. She did not have any information about where L could be, and hadn’t been contacted by him after the BB murder case, even though she had quit the FBI to become a consultant and eventually a stay at home fiancée. She did manage to mention, though, that she met several people, through the course of her career as a consultant, that claimed to have been helped by L.

This is where my investigation begins.

“So you say you have no idea why L helped you ?” Mello asks, slightly bored. And infuriated. And close to getting up and walking away from this shitplace.

The old woman lives in a hole-in-the-wall, next to a supermarket and a church, and probably only leaves her crappy residence to go to both those locations. Her house is however surprisingly decorated with a fully reconstructed human skull.

Mello would like to insist on the “reconstructed” part – it appears to have been smashed in a hundred pieces, and glued back together before being varnished. It has long since turned yellow, and will probably crumble at the lightest touch. Xe won’t try to grab it, though holding a supposedly real human skull has its charm.

“I don’t, young lady,” she answers, and Mello has to stifle a laugh – it’s been a while since people mistook xem for a girl, but xe guesses the long hair is a disguise enough. “I simply know my husband died in his boat and next, I was contacted by this old woman on the phone who said the greatest detective in the world would like to help.”

Her husband was killed by the English military for getting too close to the Falklands with (as they said to her, after L’s investigation) threatening weaponry: a fishing rod, five knives and a standard rifle. She is the last person to have heard from L in an investigation context, and her help is invaluable. Mello can’t help but feel absolutely cheated.

This is what L was doing ? Seven years ago, before his unofficial retiring, helping this old woman solve the death of a husband she was the only one to mourn was probably the last thing on his mind. Why do it then ?

Matt thinks he knows what this is about. He thinks, and Mello is directly quoting him there, “that you’re looking for L because you never solved any-fucking-thing that he couldn’t have solved, and if you manage to outsmart him, then maybe for once you’ll stop being a bitter little bitch”. Touché, xe had thought, but also, fuck you.

An hour later, Mello exits the house with the feeling that xe is a tiny step closer to unravelling the truth. Xe has a clue – an address in southern Italy. It’s no longer useful to stay in Argentina, thankfully, the weird winter was starting to get on xer nerves. Matt will probably be happy he can go back to England now that his tracking devices aren’t needed.

Xe just hopes this isn’t another false hope.

I went to the police department of Los Angeles looking for the archives of the BB murder case. One of the things Beyond Birthday requested during his stay was a speech-to-text device that he could use with his damaged arms, presumably to write his memoirs. What if there were clues as to L’s whereabouts ? Anything about his past that could get me to where he is now ?

A few days in, I realised my mistake. The memoirs were a series of names and numbers, accompanied with notes as to what appeared to be a suspected cause of death. Most of the names at the beginning I did not know, but for some pages there was a list I recognised as the birthnames of Wammy orphans. This deduction I was able to make seeing my name and Matt’s – and one name I guessed was Near’s. L’s real name, is L.

L Lawliet.

This name was supposed to be my biggest lead – even my former place of residence could be tracked down using my birthname, which is the reason why I keep it a secret, and the Kira investigation showed the importance of this secrecy.

There is nothing, not a single clue, tying L back to his name. He has, for all intents and purposes, no existence under the name Lawliet as I have none under mine, we are for all society but black holes with no ID numbers.

At first comforting, the thought came to be troubling. What if we don’t exist.

The town has its charm, xe have to admit. Matera is a small-ish city looking down on a gorgeous landscape, that has nothing to envy to the beauty of Rome and its cathedrals. It feels… so foreign, so fucking weird, to imagine L sitting at the terrace of café eating ice-cream.

He probably isn’t even here. He probably set never foot in this town. Mello is probably knocking on the door of some stranger right now, and the person opening definitely isn’t someone xe has seen before.

“Cosa posso fare per te, signorina?” asks an old lady with an incredible wig and hands that could definitely strangle a chicken. She seems partially deaf from the way she angles her head, so Mello takes on his strongest normal voice to answer, “Un giovane uomo vive qui?”

“Maestro L, qualcuno ti sta chiamando !” she yells back, and xe has to do a double take to make sure xe didn’t mishear.

He’s here.

A man in his thirties, with dark bags under his eyes. Standing hunched, almost like he’s afraid. Biting on his thumb, and looking at xem without any spark in his eyes.

After all this time looking for him, Mello doesn’t know what to say.

“Cosa vuoi, Laetitia,” he asks eventually, eyeing Mello with deep-seated fatigue.

“La signorina qui ti sta chiedendo,” the old woman answers, and she leaves without giving xem another glance.

They spend a minute or so looking at each other, trying to decide who will make the first move. L looks ready to slam the door in xer face, and his eyes are still so fucking empty – it’s almost frightening.

“Wait,” Mello eventually says as L reaches for the doorknob.

“What do you want,” he asks, voice deeper than xe remembers. “I’m not letting any clients in.”

“I’m not a client,” xe says petulantly, forgetting about the world around them. For a moment xe is thirteen again, looking up at L with stars in xer eyes and wondering what they did to deserve meeting him.

“Do I know you ?” L says, almost wondering aloud. “Your face looks familiar.”

This snatches the words out of Mello’s mouth. So… he doesn’t remember xem. Has xe changed that much ? Xe doesn’t think so, and even then, it’s L xe is talking about, he would remember xer face had he seen xem an infant.

What is happening ?

A thousand pleas die on xer tongue.

L sighs, and closes the door.

I don’t even fucking know what to write in here. This is entry 37 of this journal and I have absolutely nothing to write because L has gone insane and isn’t recognising me and he locked the door in my face. I don’t know if I’m furious or scared or just super tired of it all.

It was so useless in the end I can’t even believe I thought it’d be useful.

Mello hates xemself for not thinking about what xe would do in case this failed.

Well. Rather, in case this succeeded. What did xe think would go on ? A familial reunion ? Talk about a cliché. That would never happen, not with L as xe knew him, so… what exactly was xe hoping for ?

When xe is in doubt, xer first reflex is to call Matt. He always knows what to say, but right now, Mello needs something else (xe can hear him, drawling voice and all, “What did you expect, Mells, just give it up”. This is not what xe needs right now).

Xe calls Near.

Xe forgot xe had his number, but xe does, and it rings once before Near answers the call.

“It’s five in the morning, Mello.” ‘What the fuck’ is implied but not said, and xe appreciates the efforts Near makes not to get on xer nerves.

“You’re in Japan, I forgot.” Xe didn’t. “I…”

“You found him. Matt told me.” Near’s voice is small, tired and still somehow bored, but he knows how important this is for xem, so he settles back on whatever chair he was in and probably starts twirling his hair, a habit he never grew out of.

“He’s a complete dumbass,” Mello seethes. Xe can’t help it, it all goes pouring out. “He didn’t recognise me. And before you tell me it’s something he came up with so I’d leave him alone, no, he really didn’t. I could see it. He really fucking didn’t know who I was, Near. He looked at me like he’d never seen me before and he asked if he knew me. I can’t do it, Near, fuck. I don’t know what I wanted out of this but…”

“But that’s not it,” Near quietly adds, “yeah, I understand.” He heaves a sigh, before going on. “I knew he lived there.”

For a split second, Mello’s vision whites out with fury. “What the fuck. I spent weeks on this.”

Near sighs again. “And what for ? You didn’t even get a pat on the back.” Scratching sounds, the ruffling of white pyjamas, a yawn. “Sorry, that was rude,” Near says, not sounding sorry at all. “I know how important this was for you. Maybe you should try to go back, see if now he recognises you. His memory can’t be that bad.”

Mello huffs haughtily, not ready to admit defeat and make the first step. L will reach him if he wants to. Which is fucking never.

Xe doesn’t know if xe is ok with that.

Maybe Near is right.

“Ok, say I contact him. What do I even say,” Mello asks.

“You try and make friends, I thought you were good at it. Say you’re a fan. That’s not too far off the truth.”

Near has to be joking. A fan ? Xe would literally rather die. Once again Mello is submerged by the hopelessness xe felt when Kira died. In truth, xe knew Near would survive this. Near would prevail because he was godless, had no icons, no one to look up to. This battle of giants was not what his life had at stake.

Mello on the other hand, would stay in L’s shadow all xer life. Had, actually. Second rate detective, xe was, if xe was honest with xemself.

Fuck.

“I’ll just.” It’s Mello’s turn to sigh. “I’ll just let you sleep, Near,” xe says. “Thanks for listening to me.” This does not leave a bitter taste on xer tongue at all. “I’ll catch you later so you can tell me about stuff.”

“I didn’t even know you had my number,” he answers, “you’re probably blocking me right after this call.”

“Yeah, right,” Mello says. “Fucking true. Still. Have fun or whatever. You’ll pay me back for not telling me where he lives.”

“I have,” Near cryptically says, and he hangs up.

The doorbell rings.

I have received a package from a friend a business acquaintance, containing pictures and files about what L has done since retiring seven years ago. It is filled with mundane things such as crumpled grocery receipts, pictures of L sleeping in various locations and orders to have a giant washing machine built in his new house. What for I don’t know, since L barely seems to change clothes.

One thing that struck me was the date of Watari’s death. It was eight years ago, and he apparently died in his sleep of natural causes. I wonder how L took it. It must have had an impact on L’s detective abilities, as the Kira case was to my knowledge the only one where he revealed his face to associates during the case instead of speaking through the phone or through Watari. Had he found ways to interact with the world outside of his comfortable little bubble ?

It doesn’t seem like it. Barely a year after Watari’s death, L was ceasing all detective activity on international soil, solving only one minor police squabble in Wales before retiring to this little town in Italy. Did he lose his mind most of his field of action because of Watari’s death ?

I have another theory. L got bored. He stopped his detective work out of sheer fatigue, tired of never facing a foe as formidable as Kira. Tired of the never-ending squabbles for glory humans have, when he tasted the power of a wannabe god. No one will be as interesting to him as Kira and this destroyed him.

I know this because no one will be as interesting to me as L and

Xe stays in Matera for a little while. Not purposefully trying to cross L’s path, but not avoiding him either, rather, staying in this grey (dark) area where xe avidly goes to every place L might have been seen at times of the day he might be there, while telling xemself xe is totally not hoping they’ll meet. They kind of try to cross his path, ok.

Near’s pictures prove to be faithful. L can be seen helping Laetitia, his babysitter (for lack of a better word), do grocery shopping, or perusing market stalls. He can be seen drinking coffee on the little plaza and – this surprises Mello a great deal – going to church. Xe had never pegged L as a religious guy, not in the same sense as xem, but he doesn’t seem to go there out of devotion rather than out of the compulsive need to get out of the house as much as possible.

Near’s pictures also are useful, inasmuch as Mello is not surprised to see L gnawing at his fingers, pulling at his hair, scratching his leg over his jeans until it bleeds. He has dark circles under his eyes, worse than before, and the light in his room almost never goes off. He barely eats anything other than candy, though Mello sees Laetitia coax him into buying a sweet potato, something she does often judging by how easily L cedes to her demands, and… Mello thinks he gets a clearer picture.

Never meet your idols if you’re not ready to see them crumble under your baffled eyes, xe thinks bitterly.

There’s no point in staying in Matera any longer after xe realises this. Xe leaves at dusk, because xe loves a good theatrical exit. The only thing xe is not sure of is where to go. Matt says he’s busy but that his house is open, Near’s number is long gone from xer contact list – not that xe doesn’t know it by heart, but it’s the symbolic gesture that counts.

Xe errs here and there, going back to Wales for a short while before leaving for Sudan. Xe spends weeks there working on unveiling some of the horrors of the civil war, excruciating work that xe is not sure xe will ever do again. Months pass. Summer turns into autumn, and into winter again, like in Argentina.

Xe receives a message.

It’s from Near. He’s asking for advice. Which isn’t strange, he’s done that before, but Mello never answered and just changed xer number, though that never seemed to stop him.

This time, Mello answers.

There’s nothing like losing someone to make sure you’ll remember those who stay.

#fanfiction #submission #hazblogs #weneedtotalkaboutdeathnote #meronia #melloxmatt #death note #mihael keehl #nate river #mail jeevas #l lawliet #mello #matt #near #dermattillomania #ratings: teen #Demegawa-chan's Sakura TV Special 2019 #m #n

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bountyofbeads · 5 years

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Trump Admits He Spoke to Ukraine About Biden; Pressure to Impeach Builds https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/22/us/politics/trump-impeachment-whistle-blower.html

Let’s be clear about terms here. Trump didn’t try to extort “opposition research” on Biden from Ukraine. He tried to extort Ukraine into *ginning up disinformation* about Biden, and cloaking it in the seeming legitimacy of a law enforcement investigation.

We had this same problem of terminology throughout the Russia investigation, too. Trump and his campaign didn’t solicit “opposition research” on Hillary Clinton. They solicited computer crimes and stolen documents. Opposition researchers don’t do that.

As Trump Confirms He Discussed Biden With Ukraine, Pressure to Impeach Builds

Speaker Nancy Pelosi warned of a “new chapter of lawlessness” and a turning point in the House investigation of President Trump.

By Nicholas Fandos, Jonathan Martin and Maggie Haberman | Published Sept. 22, 2019 Updated Sept. 23, 2019, 9:21 a.m. ET | New York Times | Posted September 23, 10:00 AM ET |

WASHINGTON — President Trump acknowledged on Sunday that he raised corruption accusations against former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr. during a phone call with Ukraine’s leader, a stunning admission as pressure mounted on Democrats to impeach Mr. Trump over allegations he leaned on a foreign government to help damage a political rival.

In public and in private, many Democrats said the evidence that has emerged in recent days indicating that Mr. Trump pushed the Ukrainian government to investigate Mr. Biden, and his administration’s stonewalling of attempts by Congress to learn more, were changing their calculations about whether to charge him with articles of impeachment.

The influential chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, who has resisted such action, said the House might now have “crossed the Rubicon” in light of the new disclosures, and the administration’s withholding of a related whistle-blower complaint. A group of moderate freshman lawmakers who had been opposed to an impeachment inquiry said they were considering changing course, while other Democrats who had reluctantly supported one amplified their calls. Progressives, meanwhile, sharpened their criticisms of the party’s leadership for failing to act.

The fast-moving developments prompted Speaker Nancy Pelosi to level a warning of her own to the White House: Turn over the secret whistle-blower complaint by Thursday, or face a serious escalation from Congress.

In a letter to House Democrats, Ms. Pelosi never mentioned the word “impeachment,” but her message hinted at that possibility.

“If the administration persists in blocking this whistle-blower from disclosing to Congress a serious possible breach of constitutional duties by the president, they will be entering a grave new chapter of lawlessness which will take us into a whole new stage of investigation,” Ms. Pelosi, Democrat of California, wrote in the letter.

The allegations center on whether Mr. Trump pressured Ukraine’s newly elected leader, implicitly or explicitly, to take action to hurt Mr. Biden’s election bid at a vulnerable moment for the former Soviet republic, possibly using United States military aid as leverage. Ukraine has been fighting Russian-backed separatists, and the Trump administration had temporarily been withholding a $250 million package of military funding. There have been no indications to this point, however, that Mr. Trump mentioned the aid money on the call.

Mr. Trump showed no sign of contrition on Sunday, telling aides that Democrats were overplaying their hand on a matter voters would dismiss. Publicly, he worked to focus attention not on his own actions but on Mr. Biden’s.

Speaking to reporters, the president defended his July phone call with President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine as entirely appropriate, and stopped short of directly confirming news reports about what was discussed. But he acknowledged that he had discussed Mr. Biden during the call and accused the former vice president of corruption tied to his son Hunter’s business activities in the former Soviet republic.

“The conversation I had was largely congratulatory, with largely corruption, all of the corruption taking place and largely the fact that we don’t want our people like Vice President Biden and his son creating to the corruption already in the Ukraine,” Mr. Trump told reporters before leaving for a trip to Texas and Ohio.

It is still far from clear that the latest scandal surrounding Mr. Trump’s conduct will lead Ms. Pelosi or other top Democrats to bless full impeachment proceedings and a vote. The House Judiciary Committee is already investigating whether to recommend articles of impeachment against Mr. Trump over other matters, but Ms. Pelosi has consistently questioned the strength of the case.

Proponents of impeachment have repeatedly pointed to damaging revelations — including several instances of possible obstruction of justice by Mr. Trump detailed by the special counsel investigating Russia’s interference in the 2016 election — that they believe warrant seeking Mr. Trump’s removal. But they have run into resistance or indifference from their colleagues and the general public, in part because any impeachment proceeding could end in an acquittal by the Republican-controlled Senate.

On Sunday, the pattern appeared to be holding, with the vast majority of Republican lawmakers refraining from comment about the latest allegations against Mr. Trump. A few prominent lawmakers suggested, however, that the White House should disclose the contents of the phone call with Mr. Zelensky.

“I’m hoping the president can share, in an appropriate way, information to deal with the drama around the phone call,” said Senator Lindsey Graham of South Carolina. “I think it would be good for the country if we could deal with it.”

Senator Mitt Romney of Utah, the Republican presidential nominee in 2012, was more critical, deeming it “critical for the facts to come out” and saying, “If the president asked or pressured Ukraine’s president to investigate his political rival, either directly or through his personal attorney, it would be troubling in the extreme.”

At the same time, interviews with more than a dozen Democratic lawmakers this weekend made clear that they believed the latest allegations had the potential to be singularly incriminating, with the potential to advance the impeachment drive just as it appeared to be losing steam. Not only do the allegations suggest that Mr. Trump was using the power of his office to extract political gains from a foreign power, they argued, but his administration is actively trying once again to prevent Congress from finding out what happened.

“I don’t want to do any more to contribute to the divisiveness in the country, but my biggest responsibility as an elected official is to protect our national security and Constitution,” said Representative Debbie Dingell of Michigan, adding that it is “becoming more and more difficult” for Democrats to avoid an all-out impeachment inquiry.

Several first-term lawmakers who had opposed impeachment conferred privately over the weekend to discuss announcing support for an inquiry, potentially jointly, after a hearing scheduled for Thursday with the acting national intelligence director, according to Democratic officials familiar with the conversations. A handful of them declined to speak on the record over the weekend, with some still reluctant to go public and others looking for cues from Ms. Pelosi and their freshman colleagues.

Representative Tom Malinowski, a New Jersey freshman who has supported an inquiry, said the fresh revelations made it clear that Congress must move more decisively.

“There are lines being crossed right now that I fear will be erased if the House does not take strong action to assert them, to defend them,” he said in an interview. “If all we do is leave it up to the American people to get rid of him, we have not upheld the rule of law, we have not set a precedent that this behavior is utterly out of bounds.”

The Intelligence Committee chairman, Representative Adam B. Schiff of California, said Sunday morning that the accumulating evidence of wrongdoing, and of a presidential cover-up unfolding in real time, left the House with few other options. Mr. Schiff spoke with Ms. Pelosi before making his remarks to coordinate their statements, two people familiar with their conversation said, a sign that the speaker may be more comfortable moving toward a direct discussion of impeachment.

“I have been very reluctant to go down the path of impeachment,” Mr. Schiff said on CNN. “But if the president is essentially withholding military aid at the same time he is trying to browbeat a foreign leader into doing something illicit, providing dirt on his opponent during a presidential campaign, then that may be the only remedy that is coequal to the evil that that conduct represents.”

Mr. Schiff first brought the existence of the whistle-blower complaint to light a little more than a week ago, and has been the party’s lead negotiator with the acting director of national intelligence, who has refused to turn it over to Congress.

Progressives in Congress have watched the stonewalling with seething frustration, and in recent days, they have begun to openly second-guess Ms. Pelosi’s go-slow approach.

“At this point, the bigger national scandal isn’t the president’s lawbreaking behavior — it is the Democratic Party’s refusal to impeach him for it,” Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Democrat of New York, who commands considerable influence among progressives, wrote on Twitter late Saturday night.

Representative Pramila Jayapal, Democrat of Washington and the co-chairwoman of the Progressive Caucus, said in an interview that she was now ready to vote outright to impeach Mr. Trump, rather than simply continuing the investigation, and that she planned to make her case in public.

“There is no congressional authority anymore that we are being allowed to exercise, except the one that we have not exercised yet,” Ms. Jayapal said.

But the more crucial issue is whether Democrats from the districts Mr. Trump won or nearly lost can stomach a push to expel him.

Representative Dina Titus of Nevada said once a transcript is made public of Mr. Trump pressuring Mr. Zelensky, she doubted that even Democrats from competitive seats could continue to resist impeachment.

“Once that comes out,” said Ms. Titus, an impeachment proponent, “I don’t see how they can fight it any longer.”

Strikingly, some traditionally cautious veteran Democrats said the party might have no choice but to move toward impeachment. They believe that Senate Republicans, who are clinging to their majority of 53 seats, would pay a political price for protecting Mr. Trump if they voted to exonerate him in the face of damning evidence of malfeasance and a House vote to impeach.

“They’ve got to take a second look” at impeachment, Terry McAuliffe, the former Virginia governor and national party chairman, who is an ally of Ms. Pelosi, said of fellow Democrats. He predicted that the latest revelations would “push some of our folks over.”

James Carville, the longtime Democratic strategist, said he had opposed impeachment, but now thinks the House should move “quick and clean” after obtaining a transcript of Mr. Trump’s phone call. “Let the Senate Republicans stew,” he said.

A cross-section of comments from readers across America on the latest scandal involving the Trump and his administration and impeachment:

"I'm seeing a lot of comments on here pointing blame at House Democrats for their handling of this. But Democrats aren't the problem here, and lashing out at them only plays right into trump's hands, creating the very divisiveness that helped him in 2016. We must not lose sight of where the true corruption lies. I agree that impeachment is more than warranted at this point. But with Barr's justice department now acting like Trump's personal lawyer, and trump's Republican lackeys trying to protect and enable trump at all costs to the country, Democrats are stuck between a rock and a hard place. House and Senate Democrats are the only ones trying to minimize and limit the damage that Trump's corruption is causing to our country. They're the only ones trying to keep a check on this out-of-control administration. But they face an uphill battle and need leverage. That's up to us. It's up to us to march, to make calls, to write letters, to protest, to boycott, to volunteer, to donate, etc. It'll be up to us to vote blue in 2020 (no matter who), up and down the ticket, in numbers too large to manipulate. If there was ever a time to unite and "walk the walk", this is it."

ROBERTA, KANSAS CITY

"It is time, Speaker Pelosi. We have been patient through the Mueller investigation and final report; we have been patient through Trump’s egregious actions, behavior, lies, bigotry, cruelty, human rights’ violations against desperate refugees, polluting our environment, denying us affordable and accessible health care, ad infinitum. You have your smoking gun, Ms. Pelosi and Chairmen Schiff and Nadler. How much longer are you going to sacrifice our democracy, our Constitution, justice, law, order, peace, and security for political expediency?"

KATHY LOLLOCK, SANTA ROSA CA

"I sided with Pelosi when she advised a thoughtful, patient approach the last time The Squad was clamoring for an impeachment inquiry, realizing that without any Republican support, impeachment would die in the Senate and fire up Trump’s base ahead of the 2020 elections. But enough is enough. Trump openly admits he obstructs justice and conspires with foreign powers, and he does it with sneering impunity. Sure, the GOP would block any of Pelosi’s attempts to hold Trump accountable, but we need to see SOME evidence that our leaders believe in their duty to enforce the rule of law and check the president’s clear abuses of power. The world is watching. Let’s try to save face just a little and show everyone that, although we who stand for the rule of law and the principles that this country were founded upon are down, we are NOT out. Even after winning back the Oval in 2020, it will take some time to restore the dignity the office presidency long held; but, we can start by sending a message that most of us do NOT accept this pretender in chief or his gang of cowardly enablers. It’s time for Pelosi et al to RESIST like the future of our nation depends on it!" FED UP, PA

“The administration is endangering our national security and having a chilling effect on any future whistle-blower who sees wrongdoing,” Speaker Nancy Pelosi wrote in a letter on Sunday. And apparently by their overwhelming silence, members of the GOP are just fine with "endangering our national security and having a chilling effect on any future whistle-blower who sees wrongdoing." Although Trump is their leader, these folks continue to support him by remaining mute. They are equally guilty and complicit in the actions he is allowed to do without consequences. There's so much blame to go around, it's mind boggling."

MARGE KELLER, MIDWEST

" What brought Nixon down was the grievous, unpardonable sin of using the instruments of state—legal and extra-legal—against the other party. Trump probably colluded with Russia to get elected. But he wasn’t yet President, wasn’t yet cloaked in the flag, and hadn’t been able to use the full weight of the nation state to carry out shenanigans and blackmail. This could be a game changer." Michael ROBIN'S, SOUTH DAKOTA

"The Rubicon has indeed been crossed. Speaker Pelosi in her letter’s ultimatum to Trump demands without equivocation that he turn over the whistleblower complaint to Congress instanter or face the immediate prospect of impeachment. She is right to do so. The time has come that it is no longer relevant to the integrity of our form of government whether Trump’s abettors in the Senate choose to share in his ignominy. An analogous question to pose might be whether the FBI and the Justice Department should have declined in the 60’s to go after racial terrorism in anticipation of what kind of verdicts white southern juries might return. There are some things so odious that whatever the immediate outcome may be does not relieve one’s duty to show who we are and what we stand for (and for what we will not). Trump and Barr’s unlawful concealment of the whistleblower complaint from full disclosure to Congress indicates consciousness of guilt." XANADU, FLORIDA

"Please impeach this odious criminal. Netanyahu is out. Boris Johnson is in serious trouble. Trump is on the ropes. Note to Congress: Do your Constitutional duty and began steps toward impeachment. There is no time like the present." SCOTTOPOTTUMAS

"Whether on not the public is paying attention has no bearing on impeachment. The president broke the law, repeatedly. Full stop. We are either a country of laws or a country of lies. It’s way past time for the Democrats to get up and stand for something. They look like a pack of spineless cowards."

SHAWN STEPPER, CA

"When the House of Representatives finally moves to initiate impeachment proceedings, there will be no guarantee of success. However, there will be evidence that surfaces on a daily basis that will both surprise and shock and may move the registration points of citizenry and senators alike. This will escalate what is an already erratic news cycle into one of unseen and perhaps unintended consequences. Not to impeach because you don't have the votes in the Senate is like not getting up in the morning because you are not absolutely certain what will happen that day. Let the adventure begin. Our democracy may well depend on it."

BURHAM HOLMES, VT

"I am afraid that Nancy Pelosi has become very much like Trump in two important respects. One, is that she has repeatedly shown that she is more concerned about the 2020 election and maintaining power than fulfilling her constitutional duty to remove Trump from office for many high crimes and misdemeanors. Secondly, she has threatened (huffed and puffed) far more times than she has acted-well, she hasn't yet-period. I realize that it is an uphill fight to get the Senate to convict. I will, however, point out that, although a different time and era, many thought the same thing applied with Richard Nixon. It is amazing how public pressure can build, as it is now, when the facts and details about wrong-doing in the Oval Office begin to emerge. Republicans are already running scared about 2020. Witness the increasing number of those choosing not to seek re-election. Putting themselves in the position of voting to keep Trump in office in the light of his many transgressions, including the latest, which one could confidently argue amounts to treason (putting personal interests above his oath of office), may be a "bridge too far" for some Republican Senators." SAVKS, ATLANTA

Every time DJT does something incredibly foolish and stupid, I tell myself, "Well, I guess we've hit rock-bottom". And, then he does something even more foolish and stupid. Wake up America! We elected a buffoon. And, it's time to end this colossal mistake. PHILO, ALBANY NY

Perhaps they are waiting to see if he actually does shoot someone on 5th Ave. before they decide to impeach. DR. TLS, AUSTIN TX

It’s important that we define the real problem here. Whether or not Trump promised an explicit quid pro quo regarding financial aid to Ukraine is not the point and may not be provable. We don’t need to prove a criminal act such as bribery. What we have here is proof that Trump is using the position and powers of the presidency to pressure a foreign government to intervene in our electoral process by investigating an opposing candidate. This is clear abuse of the office and the public trust. Speaker Pelosi, enforce the subpoenas with the inherent power of the Congress, force the facts to come out and then, impeach. It’s time." MICHELE, SEATTLE WA

"I think Trump genuinely doesn't understand the gravity of what this phone call evidence means. He is still trying to convince us that any president would do what he did, that it's perfectly acceptable to tell a foreign government to investigate a political opponent in return for payment of foreign aid to that country. Trump is so mired in corruption that I really don't think he understands what the big deal is. And, unfortunately many of his followers don't either. Many Americans still believe that "all politicians do this stuff," and don't want to accept how far off from even the normal quid pro quo in politics this is. Trump's corruption has so skewed what we view as acceptable behavior by presidents that many Americans are not in the least concerned. Trump doesn't seem to sense how far he's gone, and neither do his fans." MS. PEA, SEATTLE

"I think the existence of a tape changed some people's minds. The Zelensky transcript will undoubtedly become public in an impeachment inquiry. You'll have evidence straight from the horse's mouth. If Senate Republicans decline to convict, Democrats can hold it against them in 2020. The optics aren't going to look good for Republicans. Add to this the Inspector General's determination of urgent and serious misconduct. Michael Atkinson was a Trump appointee confirmed by a Republican Senate. Mitch McConnell's discomfiture will increase accordingly. That's before considering the legal process concerning an urgent complaint. You might not get to 60 votes but this matter is clear in a way that Mueller's obstruction claim was not. If the Zelensky transcript really is innocuous, the White House will fold by Thursday. If Trump digs-in, it doesn't matter what the whistleblower complaint ultimately reveals, Democrats will be absolved for beginning impeachment proceedings. Withholding the complaint is obstruction, plain and simple. Win-win. “Let the Senate Republicans stew.”" ANDY, SALT LAKE CITY, UT

If Trump is allowed to continue on like this, there won’t be any point in an election in 2020. He’s subverting democracy right before our eyes. We don’t need the senate to vote to convict. We need the evidence to come out so we know what it is. And congress has the power to get the evidence. They MUST do so. WORTHINGTON, HOUSTON

"How pathetic that Republicans continue to sit around and twiddle their thumbs while trump rips up our democracy and laughs in our faces about it. If Republicans can't work up the backbone to speak up for the U.S. and the Rule of Law, then democracy is already lost." DEJIKINS, ROCHESTER

" As someone who has been skeptical but mildly supportive of impeachment, for the sake of holding the administration accountable to the rule of law, this for me is a turning point. Even the mildest of observers will have no doubt trump is capable of doing what he is being accused of, but to have evidence of a phone call is extraordinary. If/when that comes to light he will say that the Democrats altered his voice and that it’s a fake tape. And 35% of Americans will actually believe him. This is not the same news cycle as when Nixon was impeached and having dualing realities between Fox News and everyone else is going to make this much harder. Darker times still ahead..." DANIEL, STOWE VT

"The media and the Democrats are being played. We’ve known for some time that Gulliani went to the Ukraine to employ them for dirt on Biden. Trump knows he can get away with this behavior, and why not? He’s publicly done it before and no one in this craven congress has held him accountable. He requested Russia’s aid for dirt in on Hillary on live television during a national debate! So I don’t buy this “whistleblower” story one bit. I think his team has leaked this story exactly when they meant to, in a way that would dominate the news as loudly and for as long as they could: by packaging it as a scandal. And the NYT, the Democrats, and everyone else are eating it up by are playing right into their hands. None of this will stick and they know it, but they get to revel in the story while the Democrats wring their hands and complain about how unprecedented it all is. Once again, the Dems are playing politics but the GOP is at war." MIKE F, WESTCHESTER

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marymosley · 5 years

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The Mysterious Mister Mifsud And Why No One Wants To Discuss Him

Below is my column in The Hill newspaper on the name that came up repeatedly in the Mueller hearings to the surprise of many viewers. The name is Joseph Mifsud and we still know little about him because Mueller, like so many others, refuses to discuss him. It is an example of how much of the origins of the Russian investigation remain largely walled off from public discussion.

More of such information arose this week after former Trump Adviser George Papadopoulos announced that he is heading back to Greece to retrieve $10,000 that “he suspects was dropped in his lap as part of an entrapment scheme by the CIA or FBI.” Once again, few people have heard of this money or the underlying allegation.

Here is the column:

Joseph Mifsud: The name of the generally unknown character in the Russia investigation came up, over and over, in the long-awaited House committee hearings with former special counsel Robert Mueller. Republican Jim Jordan of Ohio invoked the name as if it legally required the accompaniment of horror movie theme music; Mueller immediately snapped back that he would not discuss that man. Yet that did not deter Republicans. “Joseph Mifsud,” “Joseph Mifsud” — the mantra continued until the shadowy professor had emerged as the Keyser Söze of the Mueller hearings.

Söze was the mysterious figure in the film “The Usual Suspects.” Another of the film’s characters, “Verbal” Kint, explained to an FBI agent that Söze was a criminal mastermind who committed horrible acts and then disappeared: “Nobody has ever seen him since. He becomes a myth, a spook story that criminals tell their kids at night. Rat on your pop, and Keyser Söze will get you.”

Mifsud appears to be the story that Republicans tell their kids at night. However, it is a new story for most of us. Political analyst David Gergen acknowledged as much during CNN’s live coverage of hearings, saying that Republicans “presented things, frankly, we haven’t talked about much on CNN, aspects of this that are on the right but we don’t — you know — we haven’t visited because we don’t put much stock in a lot of what they’re arguing.”

Indeed, despite the nonstop coverage of the Russia investigation, most news shows have rarely “visited” the allegations linked to Mifsud. Certain subjects are rarely visited by CNN or other networks, at least not substantively. Media largely dismisses the fact that the Clinton campaign also solicited political dirt from foreign intelligence sources, including Russian intelligence, through investigator and British ex-spy Christopher Steele and the research firm Fusion GPS. Few programs mention that Glenn Simpson, a co-founder of Fusion GPS, had dinner with Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya both the day before and the day after she met with Donald Trump Jr. at Trump Tower on June 9, 2016.

Many figures are now household names, such as resigned Trump national security adviser Michael Flynn, former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen and onetime Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort. But not Mifsud, despite his central role as a catalyst of the original investigation. For Republicans, it is like what Kint said about Söze: “The greatest trick the devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn’t exist.”

Two years ago, I wrote about Mifsud and his curious role in the unfolding scandal. He was variously described as a “Russian stooge,” a “KGB cutout” or an intelligence handler. Mifsud had worked as a “full-time professorial teaching fellow” at the University of Stirling in Scotland and was a professor at the London Academy of Diplomacy. He had a degree from the University of Malta and ran in diplomatic circles as a type of dealmaker for grants and conferences. He was said to be a fan and claimed acquaintance of Russian President Vladimir Putin.

For Republicans, if there was a Garden of Eden in the Trump campaign, Mifsud was the snake. It was Mifsud who, in a 2016 meeting in London with then-Trump campaign aide George Papadopoulos, suddenly broached the possibility that the Russians might have emails and dirt on Hillary Clinton. Notably, he had that meeting just after returning from Moscow and allegedly referred to “thousands of emails.” Papadopoulos later repeated what he had been told to Australian diplomat Alexander Downer in a London pub, and Downer reported that to the U.S. government.

Ultimately, Mueller concluded there was no evidence supporting a conspiracy theory against the Trump campaign, and he found no evidence that any Trump official knowingly worked with Russian hackers or trolls. Yet Mifsud appears to be there at the genesis. What remains a curiosity is that Mueller indicted various people for false statements. Most were relatively minor criminal cases in terms of sentencing, leading to a few weeks in jail for people like Papadopoulos. The Mueller report indicates Mifsud lied repeatedly to investigators on sensitive national security issues — and yet Mueller did not charge him with a single count. Cooperating witnesses were sentenced for lying but not Mifsud. Conversely, if Mifsud acted on behalf of U.S. officials to create the foundation for the Russia investigation, then that raises a host of other questions. For example, if Mifsud was an American agent (which he denies), why would he allegedly lie to the United States government?

As acknowledged by CNN’s Gergen, this is all very interesting — and it was not (as widely treated by the media) ridiculous for Republicans to raise with Mueller. The most credible point about Mifsud is that his relative anonymity in news coverage reflects a broader problem: There is a consistent effort to preserve a narrative that the Russians interfered in the 2016 election to help Trump. That was demonstrably true. However, it is not the only story. The Russians also had contacts and shared information with the Clinton campaign.

While Democrats have been highly emotive in demanding answers to the “full” story about Russian efforts, they have consistently opposed any effort to investigate such contacts within their own party or associates, dismissing that as a distraction. Likewise, documented anti-Trump bias by key players in the Russia investigation is treated as “unfortunate” or “not relevant.” There is every reason to be concerned that these same key players used people such as Mifsud to launch an investigation during the Obama administration against figures in the opposing party. If the Bush administration had launched secret surveillance of Clinton’s campaign staff, the media would hardly have been so cavalier.

That is how we end up with the mysterious Mr. Mifsud. He is unknown precisely because he is unwelcome in mainstream stories. The “usual suspects” do not “visit” that part of the story, particularly the absence of any criminal charge in a sea of indictments of Russian trolls and hackers. Even Mueller walled off that story. Mueller was supposed to investigate all Russian interference in the elections, and his inquiry took him to bank fraud and tax violations entirely unrelated to the election or to Russians. Yet there is no evidence that he ever investigated Russian intelligence efforts directed at Clinton campaign officials and associates.

While Mueller would say there is an ongoing investigation into such matters, that investigation did not start until long after Mueller’s appointment. The question is, what will happen when that investigation is completed? Will Democrats demand the same full disclosure of the facts, to get to the bottom of those contacts and efforts to influence our elections? In “The Usual Suspects,” Kint told the FBI agent that another character “always said, ‘I don’t believe in God, but I’m afraid of him.’ Well, I believe in God, and the only thing that scares me is Keyser Söze.” Söze feared precisely because he was so obscure.

Democrats have made Joseph Mifsud scary in the same way. He could just be a rumor-spreading, Putin-loving professor from Malta. Or he could be a master spy working for the Russians — or for Western intelligence. What makes him so scary is not what we know but what we don’t know … that and the fact that no one on Mueller’s team or in the political establishment wants to talk about him

Jonathan Turley is the Shapiro Professor of Public Interest Law at George Washington University. You can follow him on Twitter @JonathanTurley.

The Mysterious Mister Mifsud And Why No One Wants To Discuss Him published first on https://immigrationlawyerto.tumblr.com/

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toldnews-blog · 5 years

Photo

New Post has been published on https://toldnews.com/world/united-states-of-america/state-of-the-union-trumps-address-will-be-postponed-claims-pelosi-aide-live/

State of the Union: Trump's address will be postponed, claims Pelosi aide – live

2.59pm EST14:59

Two senators have introduced legislation to require the special counsel to directly submit a report to Congress rather than simply to the attorney general.

Natasha Bertrand (@NatashaBertrand)

Dem Sen. Blumenthal and GOP Sen. Chuck Grassley have introduced The Special Counsel Transparency Act, which “requires that a Special Counsel submit a report directly to Congress and the public at the conclusion of an investigation,” or if he/she is fired or resigns. pic.twitter.com/2x1WbC72DL

January 28, 2019

2.17pm EST14:17

Another Democratic presidential candidate will enter the fray tonight.

New Age author Marianne Williamson will announce her bid.

Marianne Williamson (@marwilliamson)

Join me tonight as I formally announce my candidacy for the Democratic nomination for president. Live in Los Angeles, the Saban Theatre 8440 Wilshire Blvd. 7:30PM, or livestream at https://t.co/zVBvuNdwg8

January 28, 2019

Williamson travelled to Iowa last summer exploring a bid.

1.51pm EST13:51

Gwyneth Paltrow has a podcast?

Allan Smith (@akarl_smith)

Schultz told Gwyneth Paltrow on her podcast there’s “a lack of civility” and “a lack of respect” in the U.S.

“We are imprinting a young generation with a lack of civility and hate and fear – and I don’t think we’re going to know the consequences of that for quite some time.”

January 28, 2019

1.34pm EST13:34

Trump ‘very pissed off’, ‘really hopping mad’

According to Politico he is, anyway – over claims made by former aide Cliff Sims in the new book Team of Vipers.

Sims’ book is due out tomorrow but was scooped up by the Guardian last week. It tells the now familiar tale of White House chaos, bickering and skullduggery. And apparently it has really upset the president.

From Politico:

President Donald Trump is “very pissed off” and “really hopping mad” at former aide Cliff Sims’ new book that reveals firsthand the chaos and infighting that is ever present in his White House, according to several current and former White House officials.

Trump is asking aides: “Who is this guy? Why is he writing this book? He wasn’t even in meetings,” the sources said. He also dismissively refers to Sims – who served until last May as director of White House message strategy and a special assistant to the president —as “the videographer” because he also helped Trump with the weekly video and radio addresses, according to three current and former White House officials.

Trump: mad. Photograph: Mandel Ngan/AFP/Getty Images

Updated at 1.39pm EST

1.20pm EST13:20

Potential billionaire presidential candidate Michael Bloomberg has thrown some shade at potential billionaire presidential candidate Howard Schultz, claiming an independent run for president would “end up re-electing” Trump.

Schultz announced this weekend that he is considering running for the White House as a “centrist independent, outside of the two-party system”.

On Monday Bloomberg, who is considering running as a Democrat, said he has crunched the numbers – and all an independent run would do is split the anti-Trump vote.

It’s no secret that I looked at an independent bid in the past. In fact I faced exactly the same decision now facing others who are considering it.

The data was very clear and very consistent. Given the strong pull of partisanship and the realities of the electoral college system, there is no way an independent can win. That is truer today than ever before.

In 2020, the great likelihood is that an independent would just split the anti-Trump vote and end up re-electing the president. That’s a risk I refused to run in 2016 and we can’t afford to run it now.

Bloomberg: don’t do it, Schultz. Photograph: Shannon Stapleton/Reuters

Updated at 1.22pm EST

1.03pm EST13:03

Poll! Poll! Poll!

This one is from Marquette Law School, who have surveyed Wisconsin voters. It seems 42% of Wisconsinites approve of the job Trump is doing, while 52% disapprove.

That approval rating is better than the national average, but it’s down from October, when 47% approved of Trump’s performance.

Worse news for Trump – who narrowly won in Wisconsin in 2016 – is that not many people say they will vote for him in 2020:

Among all registered voters, 27% say they would definitely vote to reelect Trump if the 2020 elections were held today, 12% say they would probably vote to reelect him. Eight per cent would probably vote for someone else and 49% would definitely vote for someone else.

Updated at 1.13pm EST

12.38pm EST12:38

Sanders to give White House briefing

Martin Pengelly

White House press secretary Sarah Sanders is due to give an on-camera press briefing at 3pm ET.

Ordinarily that would not be news but these are not, as many eminently qualified people have observed, normal times. Sanders last briefed the White House press corps on camera on 18 December, Trump recently tweeted that he had told his press secretary “not to bother”, and the general dwindling of this once-glorious illustration of the power of the first amendment/blast of sound and fury signifying nothing has become a story in itself.

Amid the usual economies with the actualité and tetchy exchanges with grandstanding reporters with on-camera presences to think about, Sanders will doubtless be asked whether Trump is going to shut down the government again if he doesn’t get his money for a wall. On Sunday, the president spoke to the Wall Street Journal and said he thought the chances of bipartisan negotiators producing a deal on border security funding he could accept were “less than 50/50”.

The president also said he doubted he would accept less than the demand for $5.7bn for his border wall that caused the last shutdown, and doubted whether he would accept any deal involving a path to citizenship for young undocumented migrants, a Democratic priority.

Earlier the same day, acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney went on the talk shows and was duly asked if Trump was prepared to shut down the government again in three weeks’ time, if his prediction proves accurate and no deal is produced.

“Yeah, I think he actually is,” Mulvaney said. “He doesn’t want to shut the government down, let’s make that very clear. He doesn’t want to declare a national emergency.”

Most observers assume Trump will in fact do the latter, in an attempt to bypass Congressional budget control altogether.

“The president’s commitment is to defend the nation, and he will do it either with or without Congress,” Mulvaney told Fox News Sunday.

Acting without Congress would likely trigger both legal challenges and intense political and philosophical debate about the extent and/or abuse of executive power.

So that will be fun.

Updated at 1.16pm EST

12.05pm EST12:05

An early endorsement for Kamala Harris, from Congressman Ted Lieu:

Ted Lieu (@tedlieu)

I endorse @KamalaHarris for President.

Known Kamala for many years & worked together on various issues. She embraces the future, not the past, and is the person we need to move America forward.

Watch the #HarrisTownHall tonight at 7 pm PT / 10 pm ET to learn more about Kamala. https://t.co/P4ywl9U3Op

January 28, 2019

The Iowa caucuses are just 12 months away! Could this be a game-changer?

Updated at 12.07pm EST

11.57am EST11:57

Will Maryland governor Larry Hogan, a Republican, mount a presidential primary challenge against Donald Trump?

Probably not, but it hasn’t stopped news organizations from speculating. CNN is particularly keen on the idea, noting that Hogan “enjoys high approval ratings” in Maryland.

But CNN adds, a little underwhelmingly: “There’s been no indication of any concrete steps toward a primary bid and a spokesperson for Hogan did not respond to CNN’s request for comment.”

Larry Hogan, applauding about something or other. Photograph: Patrick Semansky/AP

11.24am EST11:24

There’s nothing like a bit of Brexit news to make one feel better about US politics.

The latest development in the ongoing shambles is that a top EU official believes the risk of a “no-deal Brexit” – which essentially amounts to the UK crashing out of the EU with no clear plan forward – is now “very high”.

The Guardian’s man in Westminster Andrew Sparrow has the latest developments.

Shakespeare. Photograph: Andy Rain/EPA

And if you’re still confused – like me – about terms like “backstop”, “Norway plus” and “SuperCanada”, then here’s a handy guide.

Updated at 1.15pm EST

11.17am EST11:17

Shutdown cost the economy $11bn, says Congressional Budget Office

The border wall-inspired government shutdown cost the economy $3bn in the fourth quarter of 2018 and is expected to cost $8bn in the first quarter of 2019, according to the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office.

Some of $11bn that will be recovered once federal workers start getting paid again, the CBO says. But not all:

Although most of the real GDP lost during the fourth quarter of 2018 and the first quarter of 2019 will eventually be recovered, CBO estimates that about $3bn will not be. That amount equals 0.02% of projected annual GDP in 2019. In other words, the level of GDP for the full calendar year is expected to be 0.02% smaller than it would have been otherwise.

The CBO says the cost to the economy is due mainly to “the loss of furloughed federal workers’ contribution to GDP, the delay in federal spending on goods and services, and the reduction in aggregate demand (which thereby dampened private-sector activity)”.

Trump wanted $5.7bn for the border wall, in exchange for ending the shutdown.

Updated at 11.26am EST

10.46am EST10:46

Pelosi: no State of Union on Tuesday

Donald Trump will not give his State of the Union address on Tuesday, according to an aide to Nancy Pelosi.

CNN reports that the address – Trump’s second – is not going to happen as had been scheduled before the shutdown.

The back-and-forth over Trump giving his State of the Union speech in the House chamber was a running sidenote to the government shutdown.

Pelosi asked Trump to postpone the address until after the shutdown ended, citing security concerns. Trump rejected that, saying he was going to do it anyway. Pelosi again said he would not be allowed to. The master dealmaker then caved, agreeing to postpone the speech.

It’s now unclear when Trump will address the nation.

Updated at 11.59am EST

10.19am EST10:19

There’s more bad news for Trump today – in the form of a Washington Post-ABC poll that finds the president “has largely underperformed the even modest expectations that Americans had for him as he took office”.

Nearly six out of ten Americans have an unfavorable view of Trump as a person, according to the survey. A majority of people also “doubt his empathy, honesty and ability to make political deals”, according to the Post.

The poll compares the expectations people had for Trump in January 2017 to current views of the president.

The Washington Post (@washingtonpost)

Midway through first term, Trump is failing to meet the public’s expectations for his job performance, Post-ABC poll finds https://t.co/ukVYXSIcWc

January 28, 2019

When Trump took office 50% of people thought he would do a good job on reducing the federal deficit, according to the poll. Now only 33% think he is doing well.

The federal deficit was a longtime rallying cry for Republicans under Obama, but McConnell and co were strangely silent as Trump’s tax cuts caused the deficit to balloon to $779bn in 2018 – an increase of 17%.

Updated at 10.20am EST

9.37am EST09:37

Martin Pengelly

Howard Schultz. Photograph: Justin Lane/EPA

Howard Schultz’s announcement that he is considering a run for the White House as an independent has caused consternation among Democrats, who fear a third-party run from a candidate with many of their policies – Schultz himself told CBS he’s a “lifelong Democrat” and listed some progressive-ish policy positions – could split the vote and hand a second term to Trump.

Trump himself duly tweeted about the former Starbucks chief executive on Monday morning, saying that Schultz is not “the smartest person” … because he is. No presidential nickname has yet been coined.

Schultz himself acknowledged that his ambitions are not for everyone, telling the news site Axios he knows he is:

going to create hate, anger, disenfranchisement from friends, from Democrats.

Axios reports that the billionaire businessman is, however, convinced he is doing the right thing. He’s certainly doing the write thing, releasing a campaign-oriented biography today with a launch in his native New York.

It’s called From the Ground Up: A Journey to Reimagine the Promise of America. Before you rush to the store to order it, consider this from the Guardian’s Lloyd Green, on the often (if not always) dubious pedigree of the presidential campaign book:

9.09am EST09:09

Good morning and welcome to our live coverage of the day’s political news.

In Washington and around the country, hundreds of thousands of federal employees will return to work for the first time in 2019 as museums and national parks prepare to open. A surprising climb down by Donald Trump ended the longest shutdown in US history on Friday, but it could be a several more days before employees receive their pay.

Congress has less than three weeks to present Trump with a border security plan he likes. A bipartisan group of members were selected to lead the negotiations but Trump has already dismissed the prospect that they will come up with a proposal he would sign. In that case, Trump has vowed to declare a national emergency to build his wall along the south-western border. And on the talk shows on Sunday, acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney said the president could shut down the government again.

Trump has no public events scheduled today but that doesn’t mean we haven’t heard from him and won’t be hearing more.

Already this morning he has tweeted about tarrifs and bible study classes. He also taunted former Starbucks chief executive Howard Schultz, saying he doesn’t have the “guts”’to run for president.

Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump)

Howard Schultz doesn’t have the “guts” to run for President! Watched him on @60Minutes last night and I agree with him that he is not the “smartest person.” Besides, America already has that! I only hope that Starbucks is still paying me their rent in Trump Tower!

January 28, 2019

#Democrats #Donald Trump #Republicans #Trump administration #Trump-Russia investigation #US elections 2020 #US federal government shutdown 2019 #US news #US politics

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thisdaynews · 5 years

Text

Agriculture Department buries studies showing dangers of climate change

New Post has been published on https://thebiafrastar.com/agriculture-department-buries-studies-showing-dangers-of-climate-change/

Agriculture Department buries studies showing dangers of climate change

President Donald Trump and Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue have both expressed skepticism about climate change and appear to have suppressed research efforts on the topic. | Andrew Harnik/AP Photo

POLITICO Investigation

The Trump administration has stopped promoting government-funded research into how higher temperatures can damage crops and pose health risks.

The Trump administration has refused to publicize dozens of government-funded studies that carry warnings about the effects of climate change, defying a longstanding practice of touting such findings by the Agriculture Department’s acclaimed in-house scientists.

The studies range from a groundbreaking discovery that rice loses vitamins in a carbon-rich environment — a potentially serious health concern for the 600 million people world-wide whose diet consists mostly of rice — to a finding that climate change could exacerbate allergy seasons to a warning to farmers about the reduction in quality of grasses important for raising cattle.

Story Continued Below

All of these studies were peer-reviewed by scientists and cleared through the non-partisan Agricultural Research Service, one of the world’s leading sources of scientific information for farmers and consumers.

None of the studies were focused on the causes of global warming – an often politically charged issue. Rather, the research examined the wide-ranging effects of rising carbon dioxide, increasing temperatures and volatile weather.

The administration, researchers said, appears to be trying to limit the circulation of evidence of climate change and avoid press coverage that may raise questions about the administration’s stance on the issue.

“The intent is to try to suppress a message — in this case, the increasing danger of human-caused climate change,” said Michael Mann, a leading climate scientist at Pennsylvania State University. “Who loses out? The people, who are already suffering the impacts of sea level rise and unprecedented super storms, droughts, wildfires and heat waves.”

Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue, who has expressed skepticism about climate science in the past and allegedly retaliated against in-house economists whose findings contradicted administration policies, declined to comment. A spokesperson for USDA said there have been no directives within the department that discouraged the dissemination of climate-related science.

“Research continues on these subjects and we promote the research once researchers are ready to announce the findings, after going through the appropriate reviews and clearances,” the spokesperson said in an email.

“USDA has several thousand scientists and over 100,000 employees who work on myriad topics and issues; not every single finding or piece of work solicits a government press release,” the spokesperson added.

However, a POLITICO investigation revealed a persistent pattern in which the Trump administration refused to draw attention to findings that show the potential dangers and consequences of climate change, covering dozens of separate studies. The administration’s moves flout decades of department practice of promoting its research in the spirit of educating farmers and consumers around the world, according to an analysis of USDA communications under previous administrations.

The lack of promotion means research from scores of government scientists receives less public attention. Climate-related studies are still being published without fanfare in scientific journals, but they can be very difficult to find. The USDA doesn’t post all its studies in one place.

Since Trump took office in January 2017, the Agricultural Research Service has issued releases for just two climate-related studies, both of which had findings that were favorable to the politically powerful meat industry. One found that beef production makes a relatively small contribution to greenhouse gas emissions and another that removing animal products from the diet for environmental reasons would likely cause widespread nutritional problems. The agency issued a third press release about soy processing that briefly mentioned greenhouse gas emissions, noting that reducing fossil fuel use or emissions was “a personal consideration” for farmers.

By contrast, POLITICO found that in the case of the groundbreaking rice study USDA officials not only withheld their own prepared release, but actively sought to prevent dissemination of the findings by the agency’s research partners.

Researchers at the University of Washington had collaborated with scientists at USDA, as well as others in Japan, China and Australia, for more than two years to study how rising carbon dioxide in the atmosphere could affect rice — humanity’s most important crop. They found that it not only loses protein and minerals, but is also likely to lose key vitamins as plants adapt to a changing environment.

The study had undergone intensive review, addressing questions from academic peers and within USDA itself. But after having prepared an announcement of the findings, the department abruptly decided not to publicize the study and urged the University of Washington to hold back its own release on the findings, which two of their researchers had co-authored.

In an email to staffers dated May 7, 2018, an incredulous Jeff Hodson, a UW communications director, advised his colleagues that the USDA communications office was “adamant that there was not enough data to be able to say what the paper is saying, and that others may question the science.”

“It was so unusual to have an agency basically say: ‘Don’t do a press release,’ ” Hodson recalled in an interview. “We stand for spreading the word about the science we do, especially when it has a potential impact on millions and millions of people.”

Researchers say the failure to publicize their work damages the credibility of the Agriculture Department and represents an unwarranted political intrusion into science.

“Why the hell is the U.S., which is ostensibly the leader in science research, ignoring this?” said one USDA scientist, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to avoid the possibility of retaliation. “It’s not like we’re working on something that’s esoteric … we’re working on something that has dire consequences for the entire planet.”

“You can only postpone reality for so long,” the researcher added.

* * *

With a budget of just over $1 billion, the USDA’s Agricultural Research Service — known as ARS — is often referred to as “one of the best kept secrets” in the sprawling the department because of its outsized impact on society. The agency has pioneered a variety of major breakthroughs, from figuring out how to mass produce penicillin so it could be widely used during World War II to coming up with creative ways to keep sliced apples from browning, and has for decades been at the forefront of understanding how a changing climate will affect agriculture.

The agency has stringent guidelines to prevent political meddling in research projects themselves. The Trump administration, researchers say, is not directly censoring scientific findings or black-balling researchon climate change. Instead, they say, officials are essentially choosing to ignore or downplay findings that don’t line up with the administration’s agenda.

Some scientists see the fact that the administration has targeted another research arm of USDA, the Economic Research Service, as a warning shot. Perdue is moving ERS out of Washington, which some economists see as retribution for issuing reports that countered the administration’s agenda, as POLITICO recently reported.

“There’s a sense that you should watch what you say,” said Ricardo Salvador, director of the food and environment program at the Union of Concerned Scientists. “It’s going to result in some pretty big gaps in practical knowledge. … it will take years to undo the damage.”

Among the ARS studies that did not receive publicity from the Agriculture Department are:

A 2017 finding that climate change was likely to increase agricultural pollution and nutrient runoff in the Lower Mississippi River Delta, but that certain conservation practices, including not tilling soil and planting cover crops, would help farmers more than compensate and bring down pollutant loads regardless of the impacts of climate change.

A January 2018 finding that the Southern Plains — the agriculture-rich region that stretches from Kansas to Texas — is increasingly vulnerable to the effects of climate change, from the crops that rely on the waning Ogallala aquifer to the cattle that graze the grasslands.

An April 2018 finding that elevated CO2 levels lead to “substantial and persistent” declines in the quality of prairie certain grasses that are important for raising cattle. The protein content in the grass drops as photosynthesis kicks into high gear due to more carbon in the atmosphere — a trend that could pose health problems for the animals and cost ranchers money.

A July 2018 finding that coffee, which is already being affected by climate change, can potentially help scientists figure out how to evaluate and respond to the complex interactions between plants, pests and a changing environment. Rising CO2 in the atmosphere is projected to alter pest biology, such as by making weeds proliferate or temperatures more hospitable to damaging insects.

An October 2018 finding in conjunction with the USDA Forest Service that climate change would likely lead to more runoff in the Chesapeake Bay watershed during certain seasons.

A March 2019 finding that increased temperature swings might already be boosting pollen to the point that it’s contributing to longer and more intense allergy seasons across the northern hemisphere. “This study, done across multiple continents, highlights an important link between ongoing global warming and public health—one that could be exacerbated as temperatures continue to increase,” the researchers wrote.

Those were among at least 45 ARS studies related to climate change since the beginning of the Trump administration that did not receive any promotion, according to POLITICO’s review. The total number of studies that have published on climate-related issues is likely to be larger, because ARS studies appear across a broad range of narrowly focused journals and can be difficult to locate.

Five days after POLITICO presented its findings to the department and asked for a response, ARS issued a press release on wheat genetics that used the term “climate change.” It marked the third time the agency had used the term in a press release touting scientific findings in two and a half years.

While spokespeople say Perdue, the former Georgia governor who has been agriculture secretary since April 2017, has not interfered with ARS or the dissemination of its studies, the secretary has recently suggested that he’s at times been frustrated with USDA research.

“We know that research, some has been found in the past to not have been adequately peer-reviewed in a way that created wrong information, and we’re very serious when we say we’re fact-based, data-driven decision makers,” he said in April, responding to a question from POLITICO. “That relies on sound, replicable science rather than opinion. What I see unfortunately happening many times is that we tried to make policy decisions based on political science rather than on sound science.”

President Donald Trump, for his part, has been clear about his views on climate science and agricultural research generally: He doesn’t think much of either.

In each of his budgets, Trump has proposed deep cuts to agricultural research, requests that ignore a broad, bipartisan coalition urging more funding for such science as China and other competitors accelerate their spending. Congress has so far kept funding mostly flat.

The president has also repeatedly questioned the scientific consensus on climate change. After the government released its latest national climate assessment in November, a sweeping document based on science, Trump bluntly told reporters: “I don’t believe it.”

Officials at USDA apparently took the hint and the department did not promote the report, despite the fact that it was drafted in part by its own scientists and included serious warnings about how a changing climate poses a threat to farmers and ranchers across the country.

* * *

The USDA’s failure to publicize climate-related research does more than just quell media coverage: It can also prompt universities, fearful of antagonizing a potential source of funding, to reconsider their own plans to publicize studies.

The saga of the rice study last spring shows how a snub from USDA can create spillover effects throughout the academic world.

Emails obtained by POLITICO from one of the study’s co-authors show that ARS communications staff actually wrote a release on the study, but then decided not to send it out. The Agriculture Department and UW in Seattle had initially planned to coordinate their releases, which would both be included in a press packet prepared by the journal Science Advances, which published the study in May.

The journal had anticipated there would be significant media interest in the paper. Several earlier studies had already shown that rice loses protein, zinc and iron under the elevated CO2 levels that scientists predict for later this century, raising potentially serious concerns for hundreds of millions of people who are highly dependent on rice and already at risk of food insecurity. This latest study by ARS and its academic partners around the world had confirmed those previous findings and — for the first time — found that vitamins can also drop out of rice in these conditions.

Several days before the paper was slated to be published, Hodson, the UW communications official, sent ARS communications staff a draft of the press release the university was planning to send out. ARS officials returned the favor, sending UW their own draft press release. The headline on USDA’s draft was clear: “Rising Carbon Dioxide Levels Can Reduce Vitamin Content in Rice,” though the body of the release did not mention the word “climate.”

All seemed to be on track for the rollout. A few days later, however, Hodson got a phone call from an ARS communications staffer. She told him that the agency had decided not to issue a press release after all and suggested UW reconsider its plans, noting that senior leaders at ARS now had serious concerns about the paper, according to the emails.

The staffer explained that officials were “adamant that there was not enough data to be able to say what the paper is saying, and that others may question the science,” Hodson wrote in his email to his colleagues shortly after the call.

Having the Agriculture Department question data just days before its publication struck many of the co-authors as inappropriate. The paper had already gone through a technical and policy review within ARS, both of which are standard procedure, and it had gone through a stringent peer-review process.

Kristie Ebi, one of the co-authors from UW, replied to Hodson: “Interesting — USDA is really trying to keep the press release from coming out.”

Nonetheless, senior leaders at UW took USDA’s concerns about the paper seriously, Hodson said. (It also wasn’t lost on anyone, he said, that other parts of the university receive substantial grant funding from the Agriculture Department.) The university conducted an internal review and determined that the science was sound. It went ahead with its press release.

The USDA’s attempt to quash the release had ripple effects as far as Nebraska. After catching wind of USDA’s call to the University of Washington, Bryan College of Health Sciences, in Lincoln, Neb., delayed and ultimately shortened its own release to avoid potentially offending the Agriculture Department.

“I’m disappointed,” said Irakli Loladze, a mathematical biologist at Bryan who co-authored the rice paper. “I do not even work at the USDA, but a potential call from the government agency was enough of a threat for my school to skip participating in the press-package arranged by the journal. Instead, our college issued a local and abbreviated release.”

A spokesperson for Bryan College said that the institution supports Loladze’s work and noted that the college ultimately issued its own press release and covered the study in its own publications.

“There was no omission or intentional delay based on what others were saying or doing,” the spokesperson said.

Despite the efforts of the Agriculture Department, the rice paper attracted substantial international press coverage, largely because many of the outside institutions that collaborated on the study, including the University of Tokyo, promoted it.

Kazuhiko Kobayashi, an agricultural scientist at the University of Tokyo and co-author on the paper, said he couldn’t understand why the U.S. government wouldn’t publicize such findings.

“It’s not necessarily bad for USDA,” he saidin an interview.“Actually, it’s kind of neutral.”

“In Japan we have an expression:sontaku,” he said, offering his own speculation about the political dynamic in the United States. “It means that you don’t want to stimulate your boss … you feel you cannot predict your boss’s reaction.”

A USDA spokesperson said the decision to spike the press release on the rice study was driven by a scientific disagreement, not by the fact that it was climate-related.

“The concern was about nutritional claims, not anything relating to climate change or C02 levels,” the spokesperson said in an email. “The nutrition program leaders at ARS disagreed with the implication in the paper that 600 million people are at risk of vitamin deficiency. They felt that the data do not support this.”

The spokesperson said no political appointees were involved in the decision.

Authors of the rice study strongly disagreed with the concerns USDA raised about their paper. In an email leading up to publication, Loladze, the Bryan College researcher, accused the department of essentially “cherry picking” data to raise issues that weren’t scientifically valid, according to the emails.

* * *

When the Agriculture Departmentchooses to promote a study, the impact can be significant, particularly for the agriculture-focused news outlets that are widely read by farmers and ranchers.

Earlier this year, when the agency decided to issue its release about the study finding that producing beef — often criticized for having an outsized carbon and water footprint — actually makes up a very small fraction of greenhouse gas emissions, the agricultural trade press cranked out several stories, much to the delight of the beef industry. The study had also been supported by the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association.

The USDA’s efforts to hide climate work aren’t limited to ARS. A review of department press releases, blog posts and social media shows a clear pattern of avoiding the topic. These platforms largely eschew the term “climate change” and also steer clear of climate-related terms. Even the word “climate” itself appears to have now fallen out of favor, along with phrases like carbon, greenhouse gas emissions, adaptation and sequestration.

In April, for example, USDA sent out a press release noting that USDA officials had signed on to a communique on the sidelines of a G-20 agricultural scientists’ meeting that reaffirmed their commitment to “science-based decision making.” The release made no mention of the fact that most of the principles USDA had agreed to were actually related to “climate-smart” agriculture.

Scott Hutchins, USDA’s deputy undersecretary for research, education and economics, told POLITICO at the time that he emphasized science-based decision-making in the release — not climate — because that was the strength the participants brought to these international dialogues. He added that there was “no intent whatsoever” to avoid including the words “climate smart” in the release.

A spokesperson for USDA said that department leadership “has not discouraged ARS or any USDA agency from using terms such as climate change, climate, or carbon sequestration, or from highlighting work on these topics.”

But David Festa, senior vice president of ecosystems at the Environmental Defense Fund, which works with farmers and ranchers on climate mitigation, said tensions within the USDA over climate issues are preventing a more robust discussion of the effects of climate change on American agriculture.

“USDA really could and should be leading… and they’re not,” Festa said.

Aaron Lehman, an Iowa farmer whose operation is roughly half conventional, half organic grain, said farmers are simply not getting much information from USDA related to how to adapt to or mitigate climate change.

“My farmers tell me this is frustrating,” said Lehman, who serves as Iowa Farmers Union President.

The gap in the conversation is particularly pronounced right now, he said, as an unprecedented percentage of growers across the Midwest have had difficulty planting their crops because fields are either too wet or flooded— an extreme weather scenario that’s been disastrous for agriculture this year.

“Farmers have a sense that the volatility is getting worse,” he said.

“You get the sense that it’s very sensitive,” Lehman said of the current dynamic around climate science at USDA. “But if you can’t have an open conversation about it, if you feel like you’re being shunned, how are we going to make progress?”

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Even during the George W. Bush administration, when climate change was first deemed a “sensitive” topic within ARS — a designation that means science and other documents related to it require an extra layer of managerial clearance — the department still routinely highlighted climate-related research for the public.

In the first three years of the Bush’s second term, for example, USDA promoted research on how farmers can change their tilling practices to reduce carbon being released into the atmosphere, a look at how various farm practices help capture carbon into soil, and a forecast on how rising CO2 levels would likely affect key crops. The communications office highlighted work showing that using switchgrass as a biofuel in lieu of ethanol could store more carbon in soil, which would not only mitigate greenhouse gas emissions but also boost soil health. There was also a release on a study simulating how climate change would pose challenges to groundwater.

Under Bush,the department publicly launched a five-year project on “Climate Friendly Farming” and touted a sweeping initiative aimed at better understanding and reducing agriculture’s greenhouse emissions.

“Even a small increase in the amount of carbon stored per acre of farmland would have a large effect on offsetting U.S. greenhouse gas emissions,” an ARS release noted in 2005.

Jim Connaughton, who served as chairman of the White House Council on Environmental Quality and director of the White House Office of Environmental Policy during the Bush administration, said he was encouraged that USDA and other agencies have so far been able to continue conducting climate science even as the issue has become more politically sensitive within the current administration. However, he noted it was “really unusual” for research agencies to systematically hold back scientific communication.

During the Bush era, he said, “The agencies were unfettered in their own decisions about publicizing their own science.”

“The tone from the top matters,” he added. “The political appointees are taking signals about their own communication products.”

During the Obama years, USDA became increasingly outspoken about climate change and the need to involve agriculture, both in terms of mitigation and adaptation.

The department came up with sweeping action plans on climate change and climate science and highlighted its work on a number of different platforms, including press releases, blog posts and social media blasts. In 2014, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack also launched Climate Hubs in 10 regions across the country aimed at helping farmers and ranchers cope with an increasingly unpredictable climate.

“We were trying to take science and make it real and actionable for farmers,” said Robert Bonnie, who served as undersecretary for natural resources and the environment at USDA during the Obama administration. “If you’re taking a certain block of research and not communicating it, it defeats the purpose of why USDA does the research in the first place.”

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