Your new Attorney General, ladies and gentlemen. Oy-vay.

Elections have consequences.
Bad ones in this case.

General Michael Flynn has been named Trump's national security adviser. Here's Colin Powell's opinion of Flynn:

Colin Powell, a retired four-star general who served under three Republican presidents, slammed Donald Trump’s closest military adviser, retired Gen. Michael Flynn, as “right-wing nutty” and “a jerk” according to the former secretary of state’s personal emails seen by BuzzFeed News.
Flynn has been advising Trump and is a close confidant of the Republican nominee. Powell was discussing Flynn, who served as the director of the Defense Intelligence Agency for two years under president Obama with Powell’s son, former FCC chairman Michael Powell. The two Powells were discussing Flynn’s speech to the Republican National Convention, where he led a chant of “lock her up” about Hillary Clinton.
“I spoke at DIA last month,” Powell wrote in a July 19 email exchange with his son. “Flynn got fired as head of DIA. His replacement is a black Marine 3-star. I asked why Flynn got fired. Abusive with staff, didn’t listen, worked against policy, bad management, etc. He has been and was right-wing nutty every [sic] since. I watched about five minutes on line of his talked [sic] and switched off.”
The Washington Post reported when Flynn was forced out of the DIA that “critics said that his management style could be chaotic,” and he clashed with other senior intelligence officials. Flynn, when was being vetted as a possible vice presidential candidate for Trump, wrote in the New York Post that the “military fired me for calling our enemies radical jihadis.” In a profile of Flynn last month, the Washington Post spoke to a former senior U.S. intelligence official who disputed Flynn’s characterization of his firing, saying it was “about turbulence and a destructive climate” during his tenure.
“Thought it was disgraceful to see a military officer leading chants for a putative President of the United States to be ‘locked up,’” Michael Powell wrote back to his father.
“Pattern of behavior which is why he was fired, real question is how he got that far in the Army,” Powell wrote back. “Found no coverage of his remarks.”
“No surprise, the performance was really terrible. He bumbled, message incoherent and shrill,” Michael Powell said.


Oh yeah, and Flynn is a registered lobbyist and his firm, Flynn Intel Group, lobbies for foreign countries, like Turkey, in favor of their interests on capital hill.

Donald Trump wants to forbid his officials from lobbying for foreign governments, but one of his top national security advisers is being paid by a close ally of Turkey's president.

Retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, a vice chair of the Trump transition who is in the running for a top national security post in the new administration, runs a consulting firm that is lobbying for Turkish interests, an associate told POLITICO. Asked if Flynn's firm was hired because of the general's closeness to Trump, the associate, Robert Kelley, said, "I hope so."


Kelley told POLITICO that the client, a Dutch consulting firm called Inovo BV, was founded by Kamil Ekim Alptekin. Alptekin is chairman of the Turkish-American Business Council, known as TAIK, an arm of the Foreign Economic Relations Board of Turkey, whose members are chosen by the country's general assembly and economic minister. In that role, Alptekin was involved in organizing Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's visit to Washington earlier this year.

The Turkish government's connection to Flynn's client was first reported by the Daily Caller.

A lobbying registration posted Sept. 30 said that Kelley, a former chief counsel to the House National Security Subcommittee, would lobby on bills funding the departments of State and Defense.

"We're going to keep them informed of U.S. foreign and domestic policy," Kelley said in a phone interview. "They want to keep posted on what we all want to be informed of: the present situation, the transition between President Obama and President-Elect Trump."

Kelley said he didn't know if the client presented a conflict of interest. A spokesman for Flynn said he was too busy to answer questions. The Trump transition didn't answer a request for comment.

Last edited by Rongone (11/18/2016 10:33 am)

tennyson wrote:

I believe that Gen Flynn is also just one more bad pick as National Security Advisor. Trump was smart in the sense that this position does NOT need Congressional approval as I am not sure Flynn would have secured it for some of the other positions he was in line for. 

He is a little too chummy with Russia and Putin. He actually was paid for speaking roles on RT (Russia Today) broadcasts and attended their gala celebration in Russia along with Putin. 

http://www.aim.org/special-report/moscows-five-star-treatment-of-a-three-star-army-general/

This is the most concerning pick so far for me. 

Don't think for a second that the expansion of the security state will be limited to Muslims. It will be expanded to all Americans.

And remember,the Obama administration tapped the phone of the Associated Press in an effort to build a case against a government whistleblower. It's easy to foresee the Trump administration do this sort of thing and then some!

My recommendations:

Demand end to end encryption on all electronic communications and devices

Demand Congress limit that amount of information that the NSA can have from private American citizens (and that they provide adequate oversight of the executive branch)

Demand open and transparent FISA courts.