NO REST FOR THE AWAKE - MINAGAHET CHAMORRO

During the 2016 election, I followed the website FiveThirtyEight on a daily basis. I found the commentary to be very enlightening, as it wasn't just their reporting about polls, but also their analysis on what makes a poll informative or effective. The media in general often times picks polls that fit the narrative they are trying to promote, or they have their own internal hierarchy over what makes one poll useful and another less so. But these critical information points are rarely discussed openly, even if more astute media viewers or consumers can make their own best guesses. Although after Trump's victory in the election, I stopped consuming that type of poll-focused news. But as the US mid-term election season is starting up again, and we've ahead a round of very interesting special elections, I've slowly been drawn back to the website. This type of coverage, in the form of a group chat around the recent apparent Democratic-victory, is what makes it su

When I am writing or working, I like to have MSNBC playing in the background. Although definitely not on weekends, as I don't find their barrage of prison reality TV shows very appealing. On weekends I watch clips on Youtube and recently they started a new show with longtime foreign affairs and war correspondent Richard Engel called On Assignment with Richard Engel.  I've enjoyed the first few pieces released on Youtube on his show. They've both been critical of Trump and talked about the international dimensions to his business connections. This is one of the things that makes Trump different from previous Presidents, even those who were also wealthy, his international business empire that he is absolutely using the powers and privileges of the off to enrich and enhance. Here's a few of the clips from On Assignment:  

In December of last year, I met with a friend for breakfast at Shirley's in Hagåtña. The central topic of our meeting with current pushes for Guam's decolonization. This breakfast was happening at the start of a two-week period of activity around educating the island around the issue. The Commission on Decolonization and the Office of the Governor was about to start a series of three village meetings to help educate the island community about political status change. After not meeting since July, the Commission itself was set to meet earlier that week. Through my own political status task force, the Independence for Guåhan Task Force, we started a podcast series named Fanachu! and also held one of our monthly General Assembly meetings. Despite the flurry of recent activity around the issue, my friend wasn’t convinced that anything had really changed. That all of these activities whether they be teach-ins, coffee shop conversations, debates or for

For those attached to the United States, whether as eager patriotic citizens or uncomfortable colonial subjects, the past week was filled with an unbelievable amount of revelations and insinuations about Donald Trump’s campaign, Donald Trump’s administration and Russia. The relationship between the US and Russia is at a point that would be almost unrecognizable to someone just a few years ago. There is a Republican president of the US, repeatedly praising the leader of Russia Vladimir Putin. And rather than align his statements with the underlying adversarial relationship between the two countries, he goes to any extent to not back down, even to the point of maligning the US rhetorically in order to maintain his praise for Russia and its leader. Early on, you could argue that this was due to Trump’s blind neophyte level of political acumen, but now it just looks suspicious.  This was even compounded to a degree that basically brutalized any possible commonsense under

The newest train wreck in more than a hundred days of constant train wrecks. Once again I can't turn away, and I find myself reading everything I can about President Trump firing FBI Director James Comey. So many comparisons to Richard Nixon and the Watergate scandal, and still so much resistance from Republicans to take their role as a co-equal branch of government and provide oversight to the chaotic Trump administration. Here are some articles out of the deluge I've been wading through the past two days. ************************* Comey's dismissal may turn the anti-Trump wave into a tsunami by Dana Milbank Washington Post May 9, 2017 This will not stand. President Trump performed his latest impersonation of a Third World strongman, firing FBI Director James B. Comey late Tuesday in ham-handed fashion as it was becoming clear that the FBI probe into Trump’s ties to Russia, which Comey was overseeing, was becoming a bigger problem for Trump while new te

Gof malåte' si Rachel Maddow. Gi este na pakyo' taihinasso. Hu sen agradesi i minalate'-ña. Mana'annok este gi primet na attikulu. Ti ha tatitiyi i hemplon i otro na media. Kada kumuentos si Trump. Ya ha na'annok ta'lo i tinaimamahlao-ña. Yan mabababa i ilu-ña. I otro media, ma tatiyias i take'-ña. Kulang puyitos gi lancho. Ma kekekånno' todu i papet etgue-ña Twitter. Lao si Rachel ti ha cho'cho'gue ayu. Mas tahdong i chine'gue-ña. Ha cho'cho'gue' i diposti i che'cho'-ña i journalist.  Ha kekena'famta i minaghaet. Yan ha na'annok i manmana'attok ni' i manakhilo'. ******************** Rachel Maddow on How She Doubled Viewership Under Trump: 'I Stopped Covering the Twitter Feed' by Brian Flood March 3, 2017 The Wrap MSNBC’s “The Rachel Maddow Show” has been on a roll, posting her best ratings month ever in February and nearly doubling her viewership. Her

For those of you in Guam who might not know much of former General Michael Flynn, who recently resigned at National Security Advisor to President Donald Trump, here are some article to get you up to speed. ************************************* Trump Campaign Aides Had Repeated Contacts With Russian Intelligence by Michael S. Schmidt, Mark Mazzetti and Matt Apuzzo New York Times February 14, 2017 WASHINGTON — Phone records and intercepted calls show that members of Donald J. Trump ’s 2016 presidential campaign and other Trump associates had repeated contacts with senior Russian intelligence officials in the year before the election, according to four current and former American officials. American law enforcement and intelligence agencies intercepted the communications around the same time they were discovering evidence that Russia was trying to disrupt the presidential election by hacking into the Democratic National Committee, three of the officials said. The