Donald Trump and the Fellowship of the Alternative Facts (Part 14)

[RoseWilder]

 

[K'Z'K]

7 minutes ago, GreyhoundFan said:

it would be nice if everyone anyone in this administration would follow allany of the ethics rules placed on government employees.

FTFY.

[RoseWilder]

It's surreal how they're committing treason right before our eyes and don't even feel the need to hide it: 

 

[RoseWilder]

Oh please, oh please, oh please let this happen: 

 

[RoseWilder]

This is terrifying: 

 

[GreyhoundFan]

19 minutes ago, RoseWilder said:

Oh please, oh please, oh please let this happen: 

 

That would be WONDERFUL...times eleventy.

 

"This apocalyptic anti-Trump billboard won’t come down until he leaves office, its creator insists". The billboard is great -- Agent Orange between two mushroom clouds, that upon closer inspection are clown faces. Also, AO's flag pin is the Russian flag. And, on the outside are two dollar signs made out of swastikas. There are pictures with the article.

[RoseWilder]

I'm still irritated with The New York Times about this: 

 

[RoseWilder]

I want this to come true so badly: 

 

[JMarie]

3 hours ago, GreyhoundFan said:

The Toddler's winery was discussed a few days ago. Well, guess what? They want to hire more foreign workers.

Maybe if he paid more, some of his supporters would want to work there.

It'd be interesting if a local reporter* went to the winery's Human Resources department and asked to fill out an application, then did a story on the subsequent rejection.

*an "American" reporter (Caucasian, speaks without an accent -- the Republican definition of "American")

[RoseWilder]

 

[RoseWilder]

Brace yourself, your blood pressure is about to rise: 

Fuck you, Neil Gorsuch. 

[Penny]

I would love for any man to go through labor and delivery! 

[RoseWilder]

YES!!

 

[RoseWilder]

Dare we hope that the tide might be turning and the GOP might finally have figured out that Trump is too big of a liability for them: 

 

[RoseWilder]

 

 

[fraurosena]

6 hours ago, GreyhoundFan said:

To the bolded: it would be nice if everyone in this administration would follow all of the ethics rules placed on government employees.

Except the one(s) leaking all the important information on the corruption and collusion of the administration.

 

Maxine Waters says what we're all thinking in her op-ed:

 

[formergothardite]

I have a great fear that absolutely nothing will get done with the Trump/Russia thing. That too many people are corrupt and willing to cover things up. 

[nvmbr02]

1 hour ago, formergothardite said:

I have a great fear that absolutely nothing will get done with the Trump/Russia thing. That too many people are corrupt and willing to cover things up. 

I don't want to believe you are right but I have a sinking feeling that you are.

[Howl]

A little humor from back in Aug. 2016: 

These protesters wanted to humiliate ‘Emperor’ Trump. So they took off his clothes.

And yes, @fraurosena, thanks especially for posting Maxine Waters' statement.  A thousand times this re: mega sleaze bag Comey.  As he was testifying yesterday, I kept thinking, "...but who is protecting us from him?  Who is looking at him for interfering with the presidential election?"

And Maxine Waters?  You go, girl!  Eleventy !!1!!1!!!!11!  

In my mind, there are three issues going on, all related, but kinda separate, or at least worth looking at in a separate way.  The first is direct Russian interference in the presidential election, through email dumps and whatever else.  And yes, it worked in 2016, so you will be working this angle for subsequent U.S. presidential elections, because hey, that had so much fun the first time around and it worked. 

The second is, did Trump family/aides/staff directly collude with the Russians about anything, with lifting sanctions right up there near the top, along with Ukraine and various other WTF issues, including Rex Tillerson/Russian oil.  

The third has to do with historical Trump financial entanglements with skeezy Russians, Ukrainians, and other sleazebag money laundering oligarchs and billionaires, how that came to be, and how it is manifesting today.  Talking Points Memo has a good summary about this titled Follow The Money, Donald Trump Edition and is kind of a "lay down with dogs, wake up with fleas" angle. 

Spoiler

 

...Many people look at this arc of growing dependency on money from the former Soviet Union and look for that moment when Trump becomes so dependent on money from Russia that he's forced to cut a deal with Vladimir Putin; or perhaps his business partners catch him in a compromising situation and then he's owned by nefarious forces in Russia. I do not rule out the possibility that some less lurid version of one of these scenarios did happen. But what many of us see as the smoke, which must somewhere lead to fire, is actually the story itself. The smoke is the story! Or to put it differently, the deep business ties provide a compelling explanation and I think likely sufficient explanation of Trump's persistent coziness and affection with top figures in Russia and Russian geopolitical interests.

It's abundantly clear that from the early aughts through recent years, Trump became highly dependent on money from the former Soviet Union - mainly Russia and Ukraine but also Kazakhstan, Georgia, Uzbekistan and other states. Many of the figures in his orbit were at least in the business of shepherding money out of those countries into New York real estate. In many or most cases the FBI and the DOJ suspected them of money laundering and ties to organized crime.

We tend to think like the people we surround ourselves with. Our priorities and sense of right and wrong and much else are shaped by our own self-interest, how we make our living, how we survive. This isn't conspiracy, it's human nature. This is especially so for someone like Donald Trump whose ideas, philosophies, sense of right and wrong, likes and dislikes are so immediately and unreflectively tied to self-interest. Trump's increasing association with and dependence on this milieu is a strong explanation of his persistent and difficult to explain embrace of Putin, Russia and Russia's geopolitical interests in Europe. This is what I described in my "innocent explanation" post from earlier this month.  

We can also see the impact of the Crimea crisis of 2014 - which is the fulcrum of so much of the Trump/Russia story. If Trump had been getting a substantial amount of his buyers and investors from Russia, the imposition of sanctions in 2014 created a major obstacle to his way of doing business. (The big dip in the global oil market likely had a similar impact.) Remember, what's bad for Trump is wrong. That's the rule of thumb. Not just bad for Trump but wrong, stupid, terrible. And it wasn't just bad for Trump, it was clearly a very bad development for many people in his business orbit. Bad for Trump, Bad! Bad for Trump's friends, Bad! Bad for Trump's friends who keep the money flowing, Especially Bad!

 

This also makes me think that Manafort is a very, very big player in a lot of this; we've just seen the tip of the iceberg with that guy. 

[Penny]

1 hour ago, nvmbr02 said:

2 hours ago, formergothardite said:

I have a great fear that absolutely nothing will get done with the Trump/Russia thing. That too many people are corrupt and willing to cover things up. 

I don't want to believe you are right but I have a sinking feeling that you are.

Don't think that, we have to believe that this will be investigated. I just wish it would happen quickly.

[GreyhoundFan]

24 minutes ago, Penny said:

Don't think that, we have to believe that this will be investigated. I just wish it would happen quickly.

Remember that Watergate didn't happen quickly. It was over a year. And that was only domestic, not involving international parties.

 

I can't stand Jeffrey Lord. I wish CNN would ditch him. "Trump didn’t lie, Jeffrey Lord says on CNN. He just speaks a different language — ‘Americanese.’"

Quote

It was a rough night for Jeffrey Lord, CNN’s preeminent surrogate for President Trump.

During a panel discussion on “Anderson Cooper 360” Monday evening, Lord and seven other commentators discussed the president’s baseless claims that President Barack Obama had wiretapped Trump Tower during the campaign. When the conversation turned to Trump’s credibility, Lord appeared to be the lone guest unwilling to call the president a liar.

On an average day, that might have been par for the course for Lord, who has established himself as a reliable Trump booster since joining CNN as a paid analyst in the summer of 2015.

But Lord’s interlocutors weren’t having it. Hours earlier, FBI Director James B. Comey had snuffed out Trump’s wiretapping allegations, testifying under oath that there was “no information” indicating Obama had spied on his campaign. Even Comey was calling Trump a liar, they argued.

Lord saw it differently, repeating the claim by some Trump backers that he didn’t mean what he said about wiretapping and therefore couldn’t be lying.

Trump, he said, was speaking “Americanese” when he tweeted that Obama had orchestrated a “Nixon/Watergate” plot against him. The president’s supporters knew what he meant, but Washington insiders didn’t and blew it out of proportion.

Cooper and other guests seemed baffled.

...

Again shifting gears, Lord brought up a tweet from Trump’s White House Twitter account saying the FBI and the National Security Agency had found Russia “did not influence electoral process.” Asked about the tweet, Comey said it didn’t reflect his congressional testimony. The Washington Post rated the tweet false.

Not a lie, Lord responded. The tweet, like his wiretapping allegations, had been misinterpreted.

“You’re smarter than that,” an exasperated Cooper told Lord as others chimed in. “Oh, come on Jeffrey.”

 

 

But, on a good note: "Andrew Napolitano reportedly pulled from Fox News over debunked wiretapping claims"

Quote

Fox News has reportedly pulled legal analyst Andrew Napolitano from the air over his baseless claim, repeated by President Trump, that British intelligence officials spied on Trump at the request of President Barack Obama.

Napolitano, a regular face on Fox News, has not appeared on the network since Thursday and will not be a guest in the near future, the Los Angeles Times and the Associated Press reported Monday, citing anonymous sources.

A Fox News spokeswoman did not immediately respond to a message seeking comment Monday night. The Dow Jones Newswire also reported the story, along with speculation that Napolitano wouldn’t be gone too long from Fox. The longtime commentator and purveyor of conspiracy theories has a significant following.

The move would distance Fox News from allegations that British officials, as well as National Security Agency Director Michael S. Rogers, have denounced as false. In a series of tweets earlier this month, Trump accused Obama of wiretapping Trump Tower in what he called a “Nixon/Watergate” plot.

...

 

[47of74]

Here comes Man Baby again;

kcrg.com/content/news/Trump-rips-NFL-QB-Kaepernick-during-speech-in-Kentucky-416717133.html

Quote

President Donald Trump has taken a swipe at controversial NFL quarterback Colin Kaepernick at a campaign-style rally in Louisville, Kentucky.

Kaepernick, who played for the San Francisco 49ers but now is a free agent, hasn't yet been signed to another team.

Trump told the crowd he read an article reporting that NFL owners don't want to pick Kaepernick up "because they don't want to get a nasty tweet from Donald Trump."

Go fuck yourself, Donald.

[RoseWilder]

Every time I hear Democrats talking about reaching out to the Trump supporters, it makes my blood pressure rise. Democrats have spent years/decades doing things to improve the lives of WWC Trump supporters and they still stupidly vote against themselves. They're a lost cause. We should focus instead on the people who didn't vote at all and try to get them to the polls. 

[RoseWilder]

Joy Reid has some interesting observations about yesterday's Russia hearing: 

 

[RoseWilder]

I have a feeling Trump has reevaluated his position on this issue: