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Trump 18: Info to Russia, With Love


Destiny

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30 minutes ago, GreyhoundFan said:

"Sadly, many Branch Trumpvidians won't admit he has ever said or done anything wrong. I'm not sure if it's because they believe him or because they don't want to admit they were wrong to trust him.

I suspect, at least in the case of the ones I know personally, they do not want to admit they were wrong to trust him. In the case of my FIL, who is very vocal about his opinions, he truly believed that Trump was the start of a revolution that was going to fix the government corruption. :pb_rollseyes:

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"Inside the Oval Office with Trump and the Russians: Broad smiles and loose lips"

Spoiler

Comfortable chastising and cajoling in his fluent English, Sergei Lavrov has brought scowls and smiles to the faces of officials from four U.S. administrations during more than two decades as a senior statesman from Russia.

So it was no surprise that when the Russian foreign minister paid a visit to President Trump last Wednesday, there were broad grins all around the Oval Office — just in time for Moscow’s official photographer to memorialize a chummy image of a tête-à-tête that Trump might now wish he could forget.

Lavrov — almost certainly aware of Trump’s proud indifference to the conventions of his office, especially when trying to impress visitors — listened as Trump bragged about the intelligence he receives and shared highly classified information from a U.S. partner with Lavrov and Ambassador Sergey Kislyak, who also attended, according to current and former U.S. officials.

The meeting that produced one of the biggest crises yet for a White House already well accustomed to tumult began as a favor from one president to another.

On May 2, eight days before Lavrov showed up at the White House, Russian President Vladi­mir Putin was on the phone with Trump and made a request. ­Putin had “new ideas” about stopping the civil war carnage in Syria, according to a senior U.S. official, and noted that his top diplomat, Lavrov, would soon be visiting the United States for a previously scheduled meeting with Secretary of State Rex Tillerson.

“Will you see him?” Putin asked Trump, according to the official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe the private talks.

“Yes,” Trump replied.

Lavrov’s itinerary had him going nowhere near Washington — 4,100 miles away in Fairbanks, Alaska, where he and Tillerson would be attending a meeting of the Arctic Council, the group of countries that have territory in the Arctic region. Putin glossed over that detail with Trump, however, and once he agreed to a face-to-face meeting with Lavrov, the Russian minister changed his plans to jet first to Washington.

For the Kremlin, a private audience with the president was a major opportunity to show the world that U.S.-Russia relations were normalizing.

Since the crisis in Ukraine, when Russia annexed Crimea in 2014 and sent troops into breakaway eastern Ukraine, the United States has sought to show that it is not conducting “business as usual with Russian figures,” said Andrew Weiss, a Russia specialist who is vice president for studies at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

But Putin and his deputies, Weiss said, have “sought whenever they could to lessen that international isolation and demonstrate, ‘See, we’re back in the family of nations, and we’re all going to get back to business again.’ ”

Trump on Tuesday said that his meeting with Lavrov was “very, very successful” and that it was a precursor to “a lot of great success over the next coming years” in fighting global terrorism.

Trump’s advisers insisted that the president did nothing wrong.

“What the president discussed with the foreign minister was wholly appropriate to that conversation and is consistent with the routine sharing of information between the president and any leaders with whom he’s engaged,” national security adviser H.R. McMaster told reporters Tuesday.

In one important respect, the Trump administration’s hand might have been forced. After Putin received Tillerson in Moscow last month — meeting privately with the secretary of state for two hours at the Kremlin — the United States owed reciprocity to Russia in the form of an audience with Trump for Tillerson’s Russian counterpart, Lavrov. Rejecting Putin’s request for a Trump-Lavrov meeting would have represented a breach in diplomatic tradition.

Never mind the United States’ growing list of grievances with Russia — which includes the conclusion of U.S. intelligence agencies that Russia interfered with the 2016 presidential election to help elect Trump, as well as Moscow’s refusal to rein in support for Syrian President Bashar al-Assad amid that country’s civil war and humanitarian crisis.

U.S. officials moved forward regardless to orchestrate Lavrov’s meeting with Trump. Weiss said that “throws out the very limited leverage we have with the Russians, and makes it look like we’re softies.”

The meeting took place the morning of May 10 in the Oval Office, the very symbol of presidential power, and White House aides took pains to keep the plan from leaking to reporters. It was not until the president’s daily schedule was released about 10:30 p.m. on May 9 that the Lavrov meeting was confirmed.

The date was set before Trump knew he would be firing James B. Comey as FBI director on the afternoon of May 9. The president’s advisers knew the optics would be bad politically, one of them said, but calculated that the fallout would be just as bad if Trump abruptly canceled on Lavrov, so he kept the appointment.

There was no photo availability for Lavrov pulling up at the White House driveway, as is typical for arriving foreign dignitaries. The meeting was considered “closed press,” meaning that the White House press pool was not allowed to enter the Oval Office for what is known as a photo spray, which usually lasts for a minute or two.

Instead, the U.S. and Russian officials who negotiated the visit agreed in advance that the meeting would be documented only by one official photographer from each delegation. A few hours before the meeting, according to a White House official, some of Trump’s aides wondered why they could not bring in the press corps and were told it had been “predetermined” that there would be no access.

The two photographers took pictures at the start of the meeting and then left the room. White House aides said they were under the impression that the Russian photographer in attendance was on Lavrov’s staff, and were angry when they later saw the photos published online by Tass, the state-owned Russian news agency.

The Tass photographer’s presence also raised security alarms with former U.S. intelligence officials, who cited the possibility that a hidden listening device or other surveillance equipment could have been brought into the Oval Office. Administration officials played down the danger and said the photographer and his equipment were subjected to a security screening before entering the White House.

Still, U.S. officials acknowledge that they were outmaneuvered by their Russian counterparts, at least on the photographers, and “got rolled,” in the words of one.

The images selected by Tass showed Trump, Lavrov and Kislyak laughing, as if telling jokes or engaging in backslapping banter. The White House later released three pictures depicting a more serious exchange between Trump and Lavrov, but not until after the Russian photos circulated widely on social media.

“All of those photos that the Russians released of them all standing around laughing — this is the country that just violated our sovereignty, just interfered in our presidential election,” said Michael McFaul, a U.S. ambassador to Russia under President Barack Obama. “It sends a signal, unfortunately, that Trump doesn’t care about that.”

Weiss said, “The photos of people yukking it up in the Oval Office gave a sense that there’s nothing wrong with U.S.-Russia relations, we’re all pals.”

There were six people from the U.S. side in the room during the Lavrov meeting: Trump, Tillerson, McMaster and deputy national security adviser Dina Powell, as well as two more junior aides who are subject-matter experts, according to a senior administration official.

For Trump and Lavrov, the agenda included a discussion of Ukraine and Syria, though from different perspectives.

In advance of the meeting, Trump was given briefing materials along with a cover memorandum highlighting the points his national security staff wanted him to raise with Lavrov. Normally, McMaster briefs Trump immediately before a foreign leader meeting, but the senior administration official did not know if he did so the morning of Lavrov’s visit.

“In the Obama era, there would be a pre-brief and we would walk through all the talking points,” said McFaul, who prepared Obama for his May 2009 Oval Office meeting with Lavrov. “That would have been the moment to brief the president about what is sensitive information and what is not.”

After last week’s meeting, Lavrov praised Trump. Addressing reporters at the Russian Embassy in Washington, he said, “The dialogue between Russia and the U.S. is now free from the ideology that characterized it under the Barack Obama administration.”

Lavrov dismissed allegations of Russian interference in the U.S. election as a “fictional narrative” — apparently one issue on which he and Trump agree. The president has called investigations into Russia’s meddling a “taxpayer-funded charade” and “a total hoax.”

“None of us touched on that bacchanalia,” Lavrov said, an apparent reference to the Roman festival of drunken revelry.

Speaking the next day in Alaska, Lavrov said the most important takeaway from his Oval Office visit had been that “President Trump reaffirmed his resolve to normalize relations. He later wrote about this on Twitter.”

Trump tweeted a picture of himself posing with Lavrov — alongside a second picture from a meeting his aides had kept secret from reporters, showing him grinning behind the Resolute Desk with Pavlo Klimkin, Ukraine’s foreign minister, who met separately with Trump in the Oval Office on the same day.

Trump used a hashtag: “#LetsMakePeace!”

This whole situation just makes me angrier and sadder every hour.

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"Legal analysts: Trump might have obstructed justice, if Comey’s allegation is true"

Spoiler

Former FBI director James B. Comey’s allegation that President Trump pressed him to shut down the bureau’s investigation into former national security adviser Michael Flynn provides the strongest support yet for a criminal obstruction-of-justice case against Trump, legal analysts say, though even more evidence would probably be required to warrant action.

Comey wrote in a memo that Trump asked him to walk away from the Flynn probe, declaring that Flynn was a good man and asserting to his FBI director, “I hope you can let this go.”

That, legal analysts say, provides a plausible case that the president obstructed justice. The FBI is investigating Flynn’s dealings, as well as possible coordination between the Trump campaign and the Kremlin to influence the 2016 presidential election.

“There’s definitely a case to be made for obstruction,” said Barak Cohen, a former federal prosecutor who now does white-collar defense work at the Perkins Coie law firm. “But on the other hand you have to realize that — as with any other sort of criminal law — intent is key, and intent here can be difficult to prove.”

On Tuesday, all 33 Democrats on the House Judiciary and Oversight and Government Reform committees sent a letter to their Republican counterparts asking to launch an investigation into whether Trump and those in his administration were “engaged in an ongoing conspiracy to obstruct” the various probes by the Justice Department, FBI and Congress. House Oversight Committee Chairman Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah) sent his own letter to the FBI’s acting director, asking him to turn over all records of communications between Comey and Trump, noting that reports about the communications “raise questions as to whether the President attempted to influence or impede the FBI’s investigation.”

The existence of the Comey memo was first reported by the New York Times. Associates of Comey later confirmed the details of it to The Washington Post. Spokesmen for the FBI and the Justice Department declined to comment on it.

The laws governing obstruction of justice require prosecutors to show a person “corruptly” tried to influence a probe — meaning investigators have to find some evidence of what a person was thinking when taking a particular action.

In this case, analysts said, that would mean analyzing the specific details of Trump and Comey’s conversation, assessing what else was happening at the time and possibly talking to Trump associates who had talked with the president about what he wanted to do.

“It depends on what he said and how he said it,” said Edward B. MacMahon Jr., another criminal defense lawyer. “I call all the time and ask prosecutors to stop investigations. It just depends on how it’s done.”

MacMahon noted there are circumstances — such as the CIA worrying about disclosure of classified information — in which one component of the executive branch discourages prosecutors from pursuing a case.

“If the reason you wanted it stopped was because it was going to lead to the prosecution of one of your friends, that would be one thing,” he said. “If you wanted it stopped because you didn’t want to disclose national security information, that’s something provided by statute.”

In a statement, the White House disputed Comey’s characterization of his conversation with Trump, saying “the president has never asked Mr. Comey or anyone else to end an investigation, including any investigation involving General Flynn. . . . This is not a truthful or accurate portrayal of the conversation between the president and Mr. Comey.’’

That is important, analysts said, because if the president were merely asserting that “he personally knows the target of the investigation and he’s just trying to provide his two cents,” that might not present him any legal problems, Cohen said.

“You have Comey’s word against Trump, right?” Cohen said. “You need somebody else that Trump may have spoken to that provides evidence of intent.”

Trump has suggested on Twitter that there might exist tapes of his conversations with Comey. If that is true, those could be critical to proving whose account of the meeting is accurate.

At worst, Cohen said, prosecutors’ theory of the case would be that Trump pressured Comey to stand down on Flynn because he feared the investigation could affect him personally. Last week, Trump removed Comey from his post as FBI director and claimed that Comey had told him three times he was not under investigation.

“While I greatly appreciate you informing me, on three separate occasions, that I am not under investigation, I nevertheless concur with the judgment of the Department of Justice that you are not able to effectively lead the Bureau,” Trump wrote to Comey.

Cohen said that itself could be a piece of circumstantial evidence that Trump was trying to impede an ongoing probe. Trump also said in an NBC News interview that the Russia probe was on his mind when he fired his FBI director.

Cohen said Comey’s memo was “direct evidence” against Trump, but he noted “it only comes out after the termination.”

“The question is, if the president committed the crime or attempted to commit the crime of obstruction, and you serve the Constitution and not the president, why didn’t you say something about this before you were fired?” Cohen said.

When the FBI was investigating Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server while she was secretary of state, President Barack Obama notably said in an interview with Fox News, “I continue to believe that she has not jeopardized America’s national security.” Obama insisted the White House was not meddling in the probe — though his comments undeniably struck at the heart of the matter.

Cohen said that while it was “highly improper” for Trump to insert himself in an investigation in any way, charging him would be difficult. With a lower-profile target, he said, “maybe prosecutors might be aggressive enough to bring a case,” but “it also arguably undermines democracy for prosecutors to go after a sitting president with only circumstantial evidence.”

The Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel has opined in the past that the president cannot be indicted or prosecuted at all, “because it would impermissibly interfere with the President’s ability to carry out his constitutionally assigned functions and thus would be inconsistent with the constitutional structure.”

Trump could be impeached, though, for “treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors.” In the articles of impeachment against Richard Nixon — which were never taken up by the full House of Representatives — legislators cited obstruction of justice.

As much as I despise Chaffetz, I'm pleasantly surprised that he sent that letter to the FBI. Unfortunately, I keep wondering if he had an ulterior motive.

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2 hours ago, Rachel333 said:

Sounds like Trump isn't handling this very well.

Yep I was just coming here to share that very tweet and remark on how Hair Furor wasn't taking the news all that well.  My kingdom to be a fly on the wall at the White House with that orange idiot running around acting like a damn 3 year old.

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Headed to bed shortly, but had to share a handful of great tweets (or re-tweets) from George T:

 

George_takei24.PNG

George_takei23.PNG

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Today I reminisced when Obama surprised Joe with the presidential medal of freedom because even though I bawled my eyes out, it was such happier times.

Why can't we go through a day without people who say they love this country, continue to fuck it up?! I'm having those exhausted moments where it's just like this man is shitting on our nation and no one wants to do anything without ruining themselves and don't actually care about people they are suppose to be serving. ugh.

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4 hours ago, Rachel333 said:

Sounds like Trump isn't handling this very well.

Good. Except for the yelling at staffers bit, I've had my share of days since the election where I rant and rave and use the "F" word. If we don't get to have peaceful nights where we don't have to worry about our country, then neither should he. :snooty:

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You can't even sleep anymore, it's like watching a slow motion trainwreck for months. It's exhausting and yet I can't avert my eyes.

And he is coming to my country soon. What products do you advise using to remove orange shit stains from carpets?

I bet Israelis will be so happy of their soon to be guest's recent betrayal.

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4 hours ago, Cartmann99 said:

Good. Except for the yelling at staffers bit, I've had my share of days since the election where I rant and rave and use the "F" word. If we don't get to have peaceful nights where we don't have to worry about our country, then neither should he. :snooty:

Except he isn't worrying about his country. He's only worried about himself...

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I think I'm going to take a play from the Cognitive  Based Therapy book and have some Magical Thinking.  If I don't look at the news, t hen nothing bad will keep  happening.  

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3 hours ago, laPapessaGiovanna said:

You can't even sleep anymore, it's like watching a slow motion trainwreck for months. It's exhausting and yet I can't avert my eyes.

And he is coming to my country soon. What products do you advise using to remove orange shit stains from carpets?

I bet Israelis will be so happy of their soon to be guest's recent betrayal.

I'm sorry you will be subjected to the tangerine toddler. I would stock up on bleach. Lots and lots of bleach for anything he may touch.

 

Great opinion piece: "Trump just can’t seem to stop telling the truth"

Spoiler

One thing we’ve learned the past several weeks is to ignore the White House and wait for President Trump to spill the beans.

Invariably, the president contradicts statements from his communications team and other officials, and blurts the truth. As counterintuitive as it seems, Trump is a truth-teller among spinmeisters.

White House: Baloney! The president did not share any classified information with the Russian foreign minister and ambassador in the Oval Office.

Trump: Yeah, sure, I told them some stuff because: (a) As president, I can do anything I want, including discussing whatever; and (b) I want Russia to step up its fight against the Islamic State.

White House: Absurd! The president did not fire FBI Director James B. Comey because of the bureau’s investigation into possible collusion with Russia. He was simply following the recommendation of Deputy Attorney General Rod J. Rosenstein, of whom no one had ever heard until right this minute, but he’s key to everything going forward.

Trump: Yeah, sure, I was thinking about the Russia investigation. I’ve been thinking of firing Comey since the beginning. He’s a disaster.

Trump can’t help himself. Lies seem to bore him, even when told in his defense. They’re too much trouble. And, besides, he’s always gotten his way by speaking his and everyone else’s mind. His impulse to share his unfiltered thoughts is precisely what makes him both entertaining and a terrible president.

From his own lips: Trump fired Comey at least partly because of the Russia investigation, which he was certainly entitled to do. He fired acting attorney general Sally Yates because she refused to enforce his order limiting immigration, which, most likely, he was legally justified in doing. Lower-court rulings that the order was essentially a religious ban may not hold up in the Supreme Court, according to legal scholars I’ve consulted. Among other reasons, some non-Muslims live in countries included in the order, and millions of Muslims live in countries that weren’t included.

And, yes, he shared information with the Russians, which is well within his constitutional authority, if not obviously prudent. According to The Post, which first reported the story and in which I have faith, Trump revealed the Islamic State’s plan to weaponize laptops to bring down airplanes. He also reportedly divulged the city whence the intelligence came, which could expose the source — something even The Post would not reveal. The information was passed on by a partner country with which the United States had an intelligence-sharing agreement. For the foreseeable future, the media will be consumed with this breach of judgment but not law. Don’t get me wrong. I’m no Trump cheerleader. But a dispassionate evaluation of events would seem timely and provide relief from the exploding-heads parade on TV.

The unanswerable question is: Why would Trump do this? Perhaps he is naive, stupid or sly like a fox. But his odd boast to the Russians that he gets “great intel” — “I have people brief me on great intel every day” — seemed more like showing off than a serious discussion of mutual security concerns.

For a time, all we knew is what the leaker wanted us to know. Then, lo and behold, Trump leapt to the Twitter feed to fill in the blanks. Was this wise? Might his disclosures affect others’ faith in the president? (What faith?) Might it bring harm to sources embedded in enemy territory? (Is there anyone older than 10 who didn’t assume that the Islamic State was weaponizing laptops?)

A contrarian might wonder what else was on the table in that room. And who is leaking, and for what purpose?

Reporters and columnists love leakers and need them as sources of invaluable information. But it should never be assumed that leakers are all noble whistleblowers or that they act solely out of altruism or loyalty to country. In this town, unfortunately, the same goes for friends and colleagues. Whatever the topic or circumstance, the experienced person always keeps one operative question in sight: What does he/she want out of this?

Oftentimes the answer is an unspoken agreement to be of mutual use to one another. This is the subtext in all negotiations and, perhaps, was foremost in Trump’s mind when he pretended to trust the Russians. Maybe it was a test of trust. Maybe it was just careless bumbling. Who knows?

It’s maddening not to know, but of this we can be certain: Wait awhile. Trump, the impulsive truth-sayer, will tell us sooner or later.

 

 

This just popped up as "Breaking News" at WaPo.com: "Putin says Russia is ready to hand over records of Trump’s talks with Lavrov to U.S. lawmakers if White House approves" -- No story yet, but that is interesting.

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7 minutes ago, GreyhoundFan said:

This just popped up as "Breaking News" at WaPo.com: "Putin says Russia is ready to hand over records of Trump’s talks with Lavrov to U.S. lawmakers if White House approves" -- No story yet, but that is interesting

Trump is in way over his head and he really doesn't have a clue. Putin will humiliate and destroy him the second it becomes convenient and Trump doesn't seem to grasp that. 

He has attacked the FBI and only a fool would do that. Trump just doesn't understand that this isn't reality TV anymore and he can't win in a fight against Russia and/or the FBI. 

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22 minutes ago, GreyhoundFan said:

..,

This just popped up as "Breaking News" at WaPo.com: "Putin says Russia is ready to hand over records of Trump’s talks with Lavrov to U.S. lawmakers if White House approves" -- No story yet, but that is interesting.

Oh yeah, because those would be the full, undoctored version. Riiiggghhhttt. :pb_rollseyes:

Technically what he told the Russians wasn't illegal anyway, so sharing the tapes won't help him much in the real world. I would like to hear them though (well not really because his voice annoys the snot out of me) because Putin is playing with him.

"Hey look everyone! The guys I'm colliding with have sent proof that I'm not colliding with them! It's great. The best proof ever!" :pb_razz:

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"Trump made Pence and Sessions leave before he talked to Comey. What was he hiding?"

Spoiler

So why did the president ask his vice president and attorney general to leave the room?

The New York Times reports — and the Washington Post and other news organizations confirm — that President Trump, at a meeting with then-FBI Director James B. Comey the day after national security adviser Michael Flynn resigned, asked Vice President Pence and Attorney General Jeff Sessions to leave him and Comey alone in the Oval Office.

At which point Trump, according to a contemporaneous memo written by Comey, asked the FBI director to drop the Flynn probe. “I hope you can see your way clear to letting this go, to letting Flynn go,” Trump told Comey, according to the memo as reported by the Times. “He is a good guy. I hope you can let this go.”

Does this rise to the level of criminal obstruction of justice? We don’t yet know enough to know. What was Trump’s tone? How insistent was he? Perhaps it wasn’t obstruction at the time — merely enormously unwise and even more improper. The scope of that impropriety is underlined by the reported fact that the president apparently wanted to convey his desire — his implicit instruction? — that the Flynn investigation be ended behind closed doors, with no other witnesses.

This is the kind of conversation that rational, experienced presidents know not to have. It is the kind of conversation that a White House counsel should make sparklingly, crystal clear to a president that he is not to engage in, not even close. It is the kind of conversation that seems completely in character for Trump, who, over the course of the campaign and now in office, has betrayed no — zero — understanding of the necessary separation of the president and his Justice Department when it comes to making independent judgments about political matters and political opponents.

Trump’s plea on Flynn’s behalf — perhaps it was prompted by the belief that his aide was a “good guy,” perhaps by fear about what goods that good guy might have on him — is the mirror image of his debate pronouncement that “if I win, I am going to instruct my attorney general to get a special prosecutor to look into your situation.” The candidate who threatens to jail his opponent easily becomes the president who instructs his FBI director to close an inconvenient investigation.

But the Trump-Comey Oval Office encounter, however Comey took it at the time, becomes even more sinister in light of the FBI director’s firing. In January, Trump reportedly sought a pledge of loyalty from Comey and failed to obtain it. In February, he pressured Comey to drop a pending investigation. In May, he fired him over “this Russia thing.” The lawyers can debate whether this satisfies the technical elements of obstruction. As a political matter, it more and more looks that way.

It is so amazing that the TT has been able to exist on this planet for so many years without developing a lick of sense.

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I made a little video today of Hitler finding out that Trump told the Russians about Steiner.

The video is at this site;

http://www.captiongenerator.com/512252/Hitler-finds-out-about-Trumps-most-recent-antics

You may have to turn the subtitles on if they're not already.

I couldn't figure out how to YouTube for proper sharing.

Maybe when I have more time I'll make a proper YouTube version of this video.

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12 minutes ago, 47of74 said:

I made a little video today of Hitler finding out that Trump told the Russians about Steiner.

The video is at this site;

http://www.captiongenerator.com/512252/Hitler-finds-out-about-Trumps-most-recent-antics

You may have to turn the subtitles on if they're not already.

I couldn't figure out how to YouTube for proper sharing.

Maybe when I have more time I'll make a proper YouTube version of this video.

Great job!

 

I enjoyed this opinion piece: "For Liberals, Is It Time to Move to Norway?"

Spoiler

Whenever a Republican gets elected president, it is a standard reflex for die-hard liberals and progressives to wring their hands and moan about moving to Canada or Europe.

For those of us who have lived abroad — when I was 19, I moved with my girlfriend to her grandmother’s house in Norway, fleeing my father’s bankruptcy and my own economic struggles — migratory thoughts are a cozy daydream, fueled by nostalgia and idealism, but no more than that.

I thought of returning abroad after Bush v. Gore. But like thousands of crestfallen liberals, I ended up deciding that things were bad but not quite bad enough — that George W. Bush was a terrible president, but that he was just one man, a usurper. The calamity of his reign, I figured, would pass.

This time around, though, I’m thinking of living again in Scandinavia more seriously than I ever have before. Something fundamental has changed in America, for the worse.

Continue reading the main story

It’s not just Donald Trump’s volatility, or the unfitness of his cabinet appointees, or his possible collusion with Russia, or the certain prospect that everything from health care to quality education will soon be inaccessible to great numbers of Americans.

It’s that with or without Mr. Trump, America may no longer be the America that I returned to from Norway (after my girlfriend and I were unable to obtain visas) and whose blessings and opportunities eventually made it possible for me to make a career and a life.

Donald Trump did not single-handedly create the present atmosphere of fear, violence and impending chaos; the enthusiastic reception of propaganda and fake scares; the effectiveness of xenophobia and talk of war; the callous indifference to weakened and marginalized people. Mr. Trump took the lid off the Pandora’s box of anti-democratic forces that had been seething for decades.

America once prided itself on sustaining and improving upon the legacy of ancient Greek democracy. Today it is the dysfunctions, not the virtues, of the ancient Greeks that are ascendant. Baleful words with archaic roots rattle in the mouth like loose teeth: plutocracy, kleptocracy, gerontocracy, kakistocracy. The anti-democratic pathologies generated by American democracy have now overwhelmed it.

On those days when the daydream of escape to another country is strongest, I think to myself that I do not want to live in, and I do not want my children to grow up in, a country where anyone, even a mentally ill person, can buy a gun.

I do not want to live in a country where health care is a lavish perk that only the wealthiest people can afford.

I do not want my children to face a future where politics and public policy are dedicated to the achievement of a single goal: the unlimited accumulation and retention of wealth for the richest Americans, even at the expense of the poor and sick.

There seems to be no way out. In this vital, energetic, creative, prosperous, boundary-bursting country, there is no impassioned, continuous, organized opposition to the present political establishment.

You would think that by now a figure — someone younger than my 59 years — would have appeared to inspire people with true American values, a figure who could serve as an antithetical rallying point, laying the groundwork for the midterm elections and beyond. But there is no one. The Democrats are powerless, often more eager to fight one another for ascendance in their party than to fight a threat to the Republic.

Perhaps the most disturbing portent of a bleak American future is that for all the millions of words proving not just Mr. Trump’s dishonesty and unfitness to serve but also the dishonesty and unfitness of most of the people he has put in positions of authority and influence, there is no clamorous outrage that is not easily dismissed as partisanship.

Truth has lost its traction. Reality has become as fungible as a cross-listed stock. That is a development that goes deeper and will be more consequential than the advent of Donald Trump.

No wonder my thoughts turn more and more these days to Norway, where health care and world-class higher education are free and where the oil-rich government has saved about $170,000 for each of its citizens in case of a rainy day. The contrast makes me want to weep. For the first time in 40 years, and now with a wife and two children, I find myself planning to propose to my wife that we all move to another country.

But then something happens.

The stronger my sense of a national betrayal, the more reluctant I am to leave. I love too much the magnificent, boisterous, diverse, regenerative and regenerating America that is being betrayed.

The daydream of escape is really just another way to comfortably adapt to a different politics. It is a way to calm myself. But I do not want to be calm.

Even as I am convinced that America is losing its very sense of self, I cannot shake my anger over what is being lost. I want to stay, and to stay angry — and to funnel that anger into some type of opposition.

Yet once I decide against escaping, I succumb to a general atmosphere of escapism that seems to have taken hold of the country.

For all the rage in America now, it is not the American way to remain indignant and enraged. Instead we stumble into the pitfalls of idealization and optimism. The judges will save us, the Senate will save us, the generals will save us, whistle-blowers from the F.B.I. will save us, the I.R.S. will deliver Trump’s tax returns to the Republic like Moses presenting the stone tablets of the Law to the Jewish people.

This national brightness is a drug as strong as the dream of escape to a different place.

It is as all-encompassing as our present bad politics. Idealization and optimism are the dominant notes of the worlds of entertainment and consumerism in which we all are engulfed, realms that can seemingly assimilate just about any experience into a type of gratification.

Every time we laugh at Alec Baldwin’s virtuosic, consoling parodies of Mr. Trump, we make the president a little more familiar, a little more normal.

Though it cuts against the American grain, we have to put the brakes on all this positive thinking. This is no time for American optimism or idealism.

It is, rather, a time of rapidly spreading nihilism that requires a constant committed and practical response.

So goodbye, positive thinking.

And goodbye, Norway.

For now.

 

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Just now, GreyhoundFan said:

Great job!

 

I enjoyed this opinion piece: "For Liberals, Is It Time to Move to Norway?"

  Hide contents

Whenever a Republican gets elected president, it is a standard reflex for die-hard liberals and progressives to wring their hands and moan about moving to Canada or Europe.

For those of us who have lived abroad — when I was 19, I moved with my girlfriend to her grandmother’s house in Norway, fleeing my father’s bankruptcy and my own economic struggles — migratory thoughts are a cozy daydream, fueled by nostalgia and idealism, but no more than that.

I thought of returning abroad after Bush v. Gore. But like thousands of crestfallen liberals, I ended up deciding that things were bad but not quite bad enough — that George W. Bush was a terrible president, but that he was just one man, a usurper. The calamity of his reign, I figured, would pass.

This time around, though, I’m thinking of living again in Scandinavia more seriously than I ever have before. Something fundamental has changed in America, for the worse.

Continue reading the main story

It’s not just Donald Trump’s volatility, or the unfitness of his cabinet appointees, or his possible collusion with Russia, or the certain prospect that everything from health care to quality education will soon be inaccessible to great numbers of Americans.

It’s that with or without Mr. Trump, America may no longer be the America that I returned to from Norway (after my girlfriend and I were unable to obtain visas) and whose blessings and opportunities eventually made it possible for me to make a career and a life.

Donald Trump did not single-handedly create the present atmosphere of fear, violence and impending chaos; the enthusiastic reception of propaganda and fake scares; the effectiveness of xenophobia and talk of war; the callous indifference to weakened and marginalized people. Mr. Trump took the lid off the Pandora’s box of anti-democratic forces that had been seething for decades.

America once prided itself on sustaining and improving upon the legacy of ancient Greek democracy. Today it is the dysfunctions, not the virtues, of the ancient Greeks that are ascendant. Baleful words with archaic roots rattle in the mouth like loose teeth: plutocracy, kleptocracy, gerontocracy, kakistocracy. The anti-democratic pathologies generated by American democracy have now overwhelmed it.

On those days when the daydream of escape to another country is strongest, I think to myself that I do not want to live in, and I do not want my children to grow up in, a country where anyone, even a mentally ill person, can buy a gun.

I do not want to live in a country where health care is a lavish perk that only the wealthiest people can afford.

I do not want my children to face a future where politics and public policy are dedicated to the achievement of a single goal: the unlimited accumulation and retention of wealth for the richest Americans, even at the expense of the poor and sick.

There seems to be no way out. In this vital, energetic, creative, prosperous, boundary-bursting country, there is no impassioned, continuous, organized opposition to the present political establishment.

You would think that by now a figure — someone younger than my 59 years — would have appeared to inspire people with true American values, a figure who could serve as an antithetical rallying point, laying the groundwork for the midterm elections and beyond. But there is no one. The Democrats are powerless, often more eager to fight one another for ascendance in their party than to fight a threat to the Republic.

Perhaps the most disturbing portent of a bleak American future is that for all the millions of words proving not just Mr. Trump’s dishonesty and unfitness to serve but also the dishonesty and unfitness of most of the people he has put in positions of authority and influence, there is no clamorous outrage that is not easily dismissed as partisanship.

Truth has lost its traction. Reality has become as fungible as a cross-listed stock. That is a development that goes deeper and will be more consequential than the advent of Donald Trump.

No wonder my thoughts turn more and more these days to Norway, where health care and world-class higher education are free and where the oil-rich government has saved about $170,000 for each of its citizens in case of a rainy day. The contrast makes me want to weep. For the first time in 40 years, and now with a wife and two children, I find myself planning to propose to my wife that we all move to another country.

But then something happens.

The stronger my sense of a national betrayal, the more reluctant I am to leave. I love too much the magnificent, boisterous, diverse, regenerative and regenerating America that is being betrayed.

The daydream of escape is really just another way to comfortably adapt to a different politics. It is a way to calm myself. But I do not want to be calm.

Even as I am convinced that America is losing its very sense of self, I cannot shake my anger over what is being lost. I want to stay, and to stay angry — and to funnel that anger into some type of opposition.

Yet once I decide against escaping, I succumb to a general atmosphere of escapism that seems to have taken hold of the country.

For all the rage in America now, it is not the American way to remain indignant and enraged. Instead we stumble into the pitfalls of idealization and optimism. The judges will save us, the Senate will save us, the generals will save us, whistle-blowers from the F.B.I. will save us, the I.R.S. will deliver Trump’s tax returns to the Republic like Moses presenting the stone tablets of the Law to the Jewish people.

This national brightness is a drug as strong as the dream of escape to a different place.

It is as all-encompassing as our present bad politics. Idealization and optimism are the dominant notes of the worlds of entertainment and consumerism in which we all are engulfed, realms that can seemingly assimilate just about any experience into a type of gratification.

Every time we laugh at Alec Baldwin’s virtuosic, consoling parodies of Mr. Trump, we make the president a little more familiar, a little more normal.

Though it cuts against the American grain, we have to put the brakes on all this positive thinking. This is no time for American optimism or idealism.

It is, rather, a time of rapidly spreading nihilism that requires a constant committed and practical response.

So goodbye, positive thinking.

And goodbye, Norway.

For now.

 

 

Some times if I could meet my great-great-grandparents - specifically the ones that came over from Germany and Luxembourg - I would say to them what the hell were you thinking moving over here and that they should have stayed in Europe.

I think it would be somewhat ironic if people moved back to where their ancestors came from in Europe  because that area is better socially and politically than what we have here.  Heck sometimes I wouldn't mind moving to Luxembourg where my family is largely from originally.

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Great op-ed: "It’s Chicken or Fish"

Spoiler

Since President Trump’s firing of F.B.I. Director James Comey, one question has been repeated over and over: With Democrats lacking any real governing power, are there a few good elected men or women in the Republican Party who will stand up to the president’s abuse of power as their predecessors did during Watergate?

And this question will surely get louder with the report that Trump asked Comey in February to halt the investigation into the president’s former national security adviser.

But we already know the answer: No.

The G.O.P. never would have embraced someone like Trump in the first place — an indecent man with a record of multiple bankruptcies, unpaid bills and alleged sexual harassments who lies as he breathes — for the answer to ever be yes. Virtually all the good men and women in this party’s leadership have been purged or silenced; those who are left have either been bought off by lobbies or have cynically decided to take a ride on Trump’s Good Ship Lollipop to exploit it for any number of different agendas.

It has not been without costs. Trump has made every person in his orbit look like either a “liar or a fool,” as David Axelrod put it. So call off the search. There will be no G.O.P. mutiny, even if Trump resembles Captain Queeg more each day.

That’s why the only relevant question is this: Are there tens of millions of good men and women in America ready to run and vote as Democrats or independents in the 2018 congressional elections and replace the current G.O.P. majority in the House and maybe the Senate?

Nothing else matters — this is now a raw contest of power.

And the one thing I admire about Trump and his enablers: They are not afraid of, and indeed they enjoy, exercising raw power against their opponents. They are not afraid to win by a sliver and govern as if they won by a landslide.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell had the power to block President Barack Obama from naming a Supreme Court justice and he did not hesitate to use it, the Constitution be damned.

Trump had the power to appoint climate deniers to key environmental posts and he did it — science be damned. And Trump had the power to fire Comey, even though it meant firing the man investigating him for possible collusion with Russia, and Trump did just that — appearances be damned.

Democrats and independents should not be deluded or distracted by marches on Washington, clever tweets or “Saturday Night Live” skits lampooning Trump. They need power. If you are appalled by what Trump is doing — backed by House and Senate Republicans — then you need to get out of Facebook and into somebody’s face, by running for Congress as a Democrat or an independent, registering someone to vote for a Democrat or an independent, or raising money to support such candidates.

Nothing else matters.

The morally bankrupt crowd running today’s G.O.P. are getting their way not because they have better arguments — polls show majorities disagreeing with them on Comey and climate — but because they have power and are not afraid to use it, no matter what the polls say. And they will use that power to cut taxes for wealthy people, strip health care from poor people and turn climate policy over to the fossil fuel industry until someone else checks that power by getting a majority in the House or the Senate.

Personally, I’m not exactly a rabid Democrat. I’m more conservative on issues of free trade, business, entrepreneurship and use of force than many Democratic candidates. I think the country would benefit from having a smart conservative party offering market and merit-based solutions for our biggest challenges — from climate to energy to education to taxes to infrastructure — that was also ready to meet Democrats halfway. But there is no such G.O.P. today. The party has lost its moral compass.

Just think about that picture of Trump laughing it up with Russia’s foreign minister in the Oval Office, a foreign minister who covered up Syria’s use of poison gas. Trump reportedly shared with him sensitive intelligence on ISIS, and Trump refused to allow any U.S. press in the room. The picture came from Russia’s official photographer. In our White House! It’s nauseating. And the G.O.P. is still largely mute. If Hillary had done that, they would have shut down the government.

That’s why for me, in 2018, the most left-wing Democratic candidate for House or Senate is preferable to the most moderate Republican, because none of the latter will confront Trump. And Trump’s presidency is not just a threat to my political preferences, it is a threat to the rule of law, freedom of the press, ethics in government, the integrity of our institutions, the values our kids need to learn from their president and America’s longstanding role as the respected leader of the free world.

That’s why there are just two choices now: chicken or fish — a Democratic-controlled House or Senate that can at least deter Trump for his last two years, or four years of an out-of-control president. This G.O.P. is not going to impeach him; forget that fantasy. Either Democrats get a lever of power, or we’re stuck emailing each other “S.N.L.” skits.

So, I repeat: Run as, raise money for or register someone to vote for a Democrat or independent running for House or Senate on Nov. 6, 2018. Nothing else matters.

It’s chicken or fish, baby. It’s just chicken or fish.

Sobering, but true.

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Truly hoping that the Queen takes a pass on Trump, and absolutely no one would hold it against her.  The Queen obviously adored the Obamas. 

Now back to the latest scandal -- which one is that? you ask.  It's the Trump revealing highly classified info to the Russians.  McMaster is being trotted out, front and center, telling us "Nothing to see here, move along, giddy up, get going."  

Was thinking back to an op-ed pointing out that once someone comes into the Trump orbit, they are sucked into a black hole,  compromised and tainted immediately (Deputy attorney general Rod J. Rosenstein, are you listening?) doing the dirty work of attempting damage control for Trumps indefensible bloviating gaffes and actions.  This google search:  Is McMaster being compromised by the Trump administration?  turned up a May 9 article in ForeignPolicy.com   titled 

The Knives Are Out for Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster: In the White House “Game of Thrones for morons,” Steve Bannon is trying to turn the president against his national security advisor.

Spoiler

Inside the White House, opponents of Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster, President Donald Trump’s second national security advisor, want him out. This week, they’ve made their campaign against him public, leaking to reporters details about the rocky relationship he has with his boss and trying to paint him as someone hellbent on overseas nation-building projects that are doomed to fail. The timing isn’t accidental. The effort to damage McMaster comes as the Trump administration decides what its policy should be in Afghanistan, a debate that’s pitting McMaster against Steve Bannon, Trump’s chief strategist.

This article does a great job of highlighting some of the crazy posturing and infighting instigated by Steve Bannon, with Bannon trying to undermine McMaster and send him out the door.  It's easy to forget about Bannon, who has no media presence, but a still potent force behind the throne.  "Game of Thrones for morons" does pretty much sum it up, but the stakes are real for policy in the Middle East, ISIS, Afghanistan, Syria and anywhere else in the world.  

Will McMaster be the latest victim of the Trump White House? Is he lying when he claims that Trump's revelations to Lavrov and Kislyak were "wholly appropriate"?  Is McMaster being set up as a lying liar who lies? Everybody just misunderstanding what took place at the meeting and the Russians didn't get any very special intel?

Yup, the wheels are coming off the gilded spray painted throne. 

This just in: Putin offers transcript of Trump meeting with Lavrov   Can't stop laughing at this.  If they had a recording, on the other hand.....

Now the White House is being pressured to provide their own transcript! Carry on. 

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@Howl  I agree about The Queen. She shouldn't have to put up with the TT. The NYT published an article about/to the aides in this administration, including McMaster, and how associating with TT is ruining McMaster's reputation. I agree with what was written. "Free Advice to Trump Aides: Quit While You Can"

Spoiler

On Monday night, Lt. Gen. H. R. McMaster, President Trump’s widely admired national security adviser, held a hastily convened news conference to try to knock down reports that Mr. Trump had shared highly classified information with Russia — only to have Mr. Trump appear to confirm the reports in two Tuesday morning tweets.

“General McMaster spent decades defending this nation, earning his integrity and honor. Trump squandered it in less than 12 hours,” responded the Republican strategist John Weaver in a tweet. The journalist and former speechwriter for George W. Bush, David Frum, asked: “How does McMaster not resign today? That thing he said ‘did not happen’ the president has just defended doing.”

General McMaster may find a way of avoiding that conclusion for now, but — if the yelling from the inmates of the West Wing is anything to go by — the moral and intellectual contortions now required of those who serve in the White House are extracting a heavy cost. It is tempting to believe, for instance, that the president’s press spokesman Sean Spicer will forever be remembered for the evening Mr. Trump fired the F.B.I. director, James Comey, when Mr. Spicer cowered among the bushes on the White House grounds to avoid journalists. But in all likelihood, Mr. Spicer will soon find himself at the center of yet another humiliating tableau, one that will supplant that last one in the public consciousness.

After all, before people started decorating their shrubbery with Sean Spicer lawn ornaments, he was best known for the petulant, hectoring and surreally dishonest press briefings that Melissa McCarthy immortalized on “Saturday Night Live.” No one knows the next national joke that will have Mr. Spicer as a punch line, but one thing is clear. As long as he works for this president, he is unlikely to recover his dignity.

The same is true of most people in Mr. Trump’s orbit. To serve this president is to be diminished.

It took Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein a mere two weeks in the administration to trash his sterling reputation through his involvement in Mr. Comey’s firing. Trump associates have tried to pin the blame for the president’s manifold displays of incompetence on the White House chief of staff, Reince Priebus — whose internal nickname, according to The Week, is Rancid — but the truth is that Mr. Trump is ruining Mr. Priebus’s reputation, not vice versa. Lesser-known figures will also probably find that their time in the administration has hindered, rather than helped, their career prospects.

“You don’t find people who mentioned they worked at the Nixon White House unless they were high enough and conspicuous and had to admit it,” John Dean, former White House counsel to Richard Nixon, told me.

Certainly, some who are serving should stay put for the good of the nation. We need sane and competent people like Secretary of Defense James Mattis to remain in government and dissuade the president from cavalierly starting a nuclear war. It’s understandable why career officials in the Justice Department or the State Department would want to hunker down and try to preserve their institutions from Mr. Trump’s wrecking ball. But there are a great many other people, both famous names and faceless officials, whose jobs have nothing to do with safeguarding the republic.

Mr. Trump’s entire communications staff could resign tomorrow without imperiling the citizenry. And for their own good, as well as the good of the nation, they should.

Out in America, Mr. Trump still has plenty of genuine admirers, people who view him as a brilliant, iconoclastic businessman. But there is scant evidence of such respect among the people who actually work with him in Washington. The New York Times recently reported that there are “deep resentments among his scarred staff,” and The Washington Post writes of aides “bewildered and alarmed by how Trump arrives at his decisions.” These men and women are suffering personally while propping up a presidency they appear to hold in contempt. They are allowing themselves to be permanently tarnished through their association with a man whose name is destined to become the root of a political epithet signifying disgrace, like McCarthyite or Nixonian.

They aren’t just selling out their country. They’re selling out themselves.

Great prizes await the first few people to break ranks and tell the country what they know about this corrupt and degenerate presidency. The majority of Americans who fear and disdain Mr. Trump will hail them as patriots. There are book and movie deals to be had and cable contracts to sign.

The political tell-all can be a lucrative career move. Scott McClellan, a press secretary for George W. Bush, had a No. 1 New York Times best seller with his scathing memoir of the Bush White House, “What Happened: Inside the Bush White House and Washington’s Culture of Deceit.” George Stephanopoulos, a former senior aide to Bill Clinton, wrote a best-selling account of his White House disillusionment, “All Too Human: A Political Education,” which served as part of his transformation from politico to highly paid TV journalist. Mr. Dean, who basically invented the form of White House confessional with his 1976 book “Blind Ambition: The White House Years,” continues to enjoy a successful career as an author and pundit.

Thanks to copious leaks, we already know a lot more about the internal workings of the Trump White House than we do about past administrations, but there is still immense interest in what is really going on and how the major players feel about it. It would be worth the price of a hardcover just to learn how Kellyanne Conway — who, according to the “Morning Joe” hosts Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski, said she needed to shower after defending Mr. Trump during the campaign — sleeps at night.

“There are going to be a lot more best-selling authors coming out of the Trump administration than out of the Obama administration,” said Eric Nelson, the editorial director of Broadside Books, the conservative imprint at HarperCollins. “Trump makes everybody he touches a national story.”

Those who stick around, however, will discover that in politics, being part of a national story can be ruinous. Members of Mr. Clinton’s administration had to shoulder huge legal bills, some running into hundreds of thousands of dollars, after being forced to testify before congressional committees and grand juries. As Mr. Stephanopoulos noted in 1998, “A single trip to the grand jury can cost you $10,000.”

Congressional and legal investigations into Mr. Trump’s presidency — including his ties to Russia, his firing of Mr. Comey and the overlap of his business interests and his governing responsibilities — are likely to be even more extensive than those Mr. Clinton faced, particularly if Democrats take back either house of Congress next year.

“Anybody who is there now, if they’re anywhere close to the problems, they’re probably going to need an attorney, and it’s going to get expensive,” Mr. Dean warned. “I think a lot of people are going to get hurt.”

Allies of the Clintons set up legal defense funds to pay off some of their aides’ bills. People working for this administration should ask themselves whether they are confident that anyone close to Mr. Trump, a man notorious for stiffing his contractors, would do the same.

Ordinarily, whistle-blowers have to decide between following the moral course of action and looking out for their own material security. For officials contemplating jumping off the sinking ship of the Trump presidency, however, ethical and venal incentives are in unusual alignment. The time is ripe to get out.

 

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Jennifer Rubin wrote another good piece: "Why impeaching Trump is no longer out of the question"

Spoiler

The invaluable Lawfare bloggers explain that while obstruction of justice is normally hard to prove, in President Trump’s case there is an extraordinary amount of evidence that he intended to curtail the investigation of former national security adviser Michael Flynn and the Trump campaign’s possible collusion with Russian officials:

In this instance there’s at least prima facie evidence that would tend to support inferences of obstruction. According to the memo, after all, a conversation took place in which the President asked the FBI director to “see your way clear to letting this go, to letting Flynn go,” and, in the [New York] Times’s words, “told Mr. Comey that Mr. Flynn had done nothing wrong.” So assuming the memo is accurate, there’s at least an act that a reasonable person would understand as seeking to influence the investigation. As the Times story notes, “[t]he existence of Mr. Trump’s request is the clearest evidence that the president has tried to directly influence the Justice Department and F.B.I. investigation into links between Mr. Trump’s associated and Russia.” While in and of itself, the request could be understood as just a plea for mercy, which is not obviously obstructive, the fact that it comes from a superior with the power to remove the investigator—alongside the fact that Trump then did fire Comey—makes obstruction a plausible reading of the apparent facts.

There are other elements here that also make a case more plausible. For one thing, there’s a contemporaneous memo. There’s also a witness: Comey himself, who could presumably testify as to the circumstances of the meeting. To the extent anyone claimed his story was a subsequent fabrication, the memo could be used as evidence to rebut that claim.

However, it is not necessary to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that the president obstructed justice. We are now talking about impeachment. “The critical point is that impeachment for obstruction of justice is ultimately not just a legal question; it’s also a political question, albeit a political question highly inflected by the law and often discussed in the language of the law,” the Lawfare post explains. “The boundaries of the impeachable offense are not coextensive with the boundaries of the criminal law.” In other words, obstruction of justice is what “a majority of the House of Representatives and a two-thirds majority of the Senate” say it is if the goal is to remove the president so that he can do our democratic institutions and national security no further injury. If Republicans do not act first and are shellacked in the 2018 elections, obstruction may be what a majority of a Democratic-controlled House and two-thirds of the Senate say it is.

Several points should be kept in mind.

First, the underlying question of possible collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia is virtually irrelevant. The issue is now the alleged obstruction by the president once in office.

Second, the problem does not end with the president. To the extent that the attorney general and vice president were involved, they, too, are in peril. Third, unlike Richard Nixon, Trump may never be forced to resign. He is looking at going down in history as a joke, the worst and most inept president ever, someone who couldn’t survive his first year. Knowing that fate, he would struggle to hold on to power. However, if the House proceeds with impeachment, it can delve into conflicts of interest, attempts to intimidate judges and violations of the Constitution’s emoluments clause. Once Congress starts subpoenaing business records to explore those issues, Trump might flee rather than reveal his finances, which are apparently so troubling that he has refused to reveal them.

Finally, Trump went to war with the media and the intelligence community, trying to destroy sources of objective truth. This was a grave error insofar as both those institutions are incentivized to demonstrate their professionalism, courage and devotion to the Constitution. The speed with which new, damning facts surface will likely increase. Trump chose to demonize the wrong people.

 

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Never piss off the intelligence community - they know where to look for the bodies!

Thank heavens tRump is as stupid as he is corrupt.

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"Trump’s ‘huuuuuge’ Caribbean estate is on the market for $28 million, prompting questions"

Spoiler

The opulent beachfront estate that recently went on the market on the Caribbean island of St. Martin has a number of appealing factors, including two elaborately adorned villas and an expansive pool overlooking the crystalline waters of Plum Bay.

And there’s another unique aspect that nearby properties can’t claim: It is owned by the president of the United States.

Le Chateau des Palmiers, which President Trump described as “one of the greatest mansions in the world” when he bought it in 2013, was quietly listed for sale last month on the website of Sotheby’s International Realty, whose St. Martin office noted coyly in an Instagram post, “It’s huuuuuge!” The price, according to a person familiar with the listing: $28 million.

It’s unclear why the property is for sale. It earned Trump between $200,000 and $2 million in rental fees between 2014 and mid-2016, according to financial disclosures. Officials with the White House and the Trump Organization did not respond to repeated requests for comment.

The effort to sell the high-priced estate in the midst of Trump’s tenure could present a similar ethical problem to the one his lawyer cited in defending his decision not to sell off his company after the election: that a buyer could overpay as a way to gain currency with the president.

If the estate is sold, the public probably would learn little, if anything, about who has purchased it.

Public records in the French territory do not always show details of private property transactions. Trump would eventually have to disclose the sales price on his financial disclosure form — a report detailing 2017 transactions must be filed in the spring of 2018 — but he would not be required to reveal the identity of the buyer.

In January, before his inauguration, Trump placed his business holdings in a revocable trust overseen by his son Donald Jr. and longtime Trump Organization executive Allen Weisselberg. He said he was turning over management of the Trump Organization to his two eldest sons, who Trump said are “not going to discuss it with me.”

However, experts said Trump did not give up control of his assets under the trust agreement.

The trust appears to be seeking substantially more for the St. Martin residence than Trump paid the previous owners, Steve Hilbert and his wife, Tomisue. Hilbert, an Indiana businessman who had licensed a caviar-based skin-care line developed by Melania Trump, sold Donald Trump the house in 2013. At the time, the Hilberts were seeking $19.7 million for the oceanfront compound, although the final sales price was never disclosed.

Lesley Reed, the Sotheby’s agent who is representing the property, declined to comment on the current listing, citing a nondisclosure agreement.

The palm tree-ringed estate — whose name translates as “Home of the Palms” — covers nearly five acres and includes a tennis court and a fitness center. There are nine bedrooms between the oceanside villa and garden villa, including a two-story master suite, as well as a commercial-size catering kitchen and media room. Chandeliers, marble floors, gold-hued wallpaper and heavy gold curtains dominate the interior, according to photos accompanying the listing — decor that dates to the Hilbert’s ownership, according to people who toured it then.

A website that aggregates luxury properties, 7th Heaven Properties, initially listed Chateau des Palmiers with an asking price of $28 million, although it subsequently changed it to “price on application,” per the Sotheby’s request, according to a 7th Heaven representative.

Four St. Martin real estate agents told The Washington Post that the $28 million price tag far outstrips the amount that sellers are getting for the most exclusive properties on the Caribbean island, where the market is still rebounding from the 2008 banking crisis.

The most luxurious homes on the market are asking $15 million to $17 million, agents said. A 10-bedroom hillside estate on a lot adjacent to Chateau des Palmiers is for sale for $4.75 million.

“It’s a lot of money,” Hanneke Snow, the owner of Re/Max Island Properties, said of the price for the president’s property. “If it were in St. Barts, you would have a bigger chance. But if the name Trump is attached to it, people may want to see it.”

Arun Jagtiani, the owner of Island Real Estate Team, said that he thinks the property is “overpriced by about $10 million.”

“If someone does pay anything close to the asking price, it will be because they are paying a premium to say they own a property that was once owned by President Trump,” Jagtiani said.

Jagtiani has had at least one client whose interest was piqued by the estate’s lineage. In February 2016, as Trump’s profile in the Republican presidential primaries was rising, Jagtiani said he was showing estates in the area to a Russian investor and mentioned that Chateau des Palmiers was owned by the New York developer.

“He seemed to light up when we mentioned the name ‘Trump,’ ” said Jagtiani, who declined to share his client’s name. “He seemed very excited and asked to see it. He wasn’t clear if he was looking for himself or a friend. But he was intrigued.”

Even though the property was not on the market, the Russian investor arranged to tour the estate but never followed up after viewing it, he said.

The sale of the St. Martin estate would be one of the biggest transactions involving Trump’s assets since he took office.

In January, in response to calls for him to divest his real estate empire, Trump attorney Sheri Dillon said that selling all his holdings could actually “exacerbate” possible conflicts of interest.

“Whatever price was paid would be subject to criticism and scrutiny,” Dillon said at a news conference. “‘Was it too high, is there pay-for-play, was it too much pay to curry favor with the president-elect?’”

Dillon declined to comment for this story.

To navigate potential conflicts, Trump tapped Republican lawyer Bobby Burchfield to serve as his outside ethics adviser. He also named George Sorial, a longtime Trump Organization executive, to serve as chief compliance officer.

It is unknown what limits, if any, they have put on the St. Martin sale. Burchfield declined to comment, referring calls to the Trump Organization officials, who did not respond to a list of detailed questions on the matter.

Don Fox, a former general counsel and acting director of the Office of Government Ethics, said if he were advising Trump, he would suggest that he take the estate off the market.

“Mr. President, why the urgency to sell this property?” Fox said. “Why not hang on to it, continue to collect rent, and then at then end of the term, sell it to whoever you want for whatever price you can get? It takes the issue out of play.”

Trump’s 2013 purchase of the estate was a byproduct of a bitter legal fight between Hilbert and another business titan.

Trump had been a regular guest at Chateau des Palmiers when it was owned by Hilbert, who headed the Indiana-based insurance company Conseco, according to court documents and the property’s website at the time. In 1998, the two joined forces to purchase the General Motors Building on New York’s Fifth Avenue and soon were vacationing together in St. Martin and other locales.

On a now-defunct website that advertised rentals of Chateau des Palmiers, Tomisue Hilbert noted that guests included “many of the NBA’s greatest stars and some of the world’s most powerful people, including Donald Trump” and “many Hollywood celebrities.”

Around 2010, the Hilberts began trying to sell the St. Martin retreat, initially seeking $29 million, according to court records. Three years later, it was still on the market and the asking price was down to $19.7 million.

Around the same time, Hilbert’s legal battle erupted with billionaire John Menard, the founder of a home-improvement store chain who had partnered with Hilbert on an investment fund. Caught in the middle was Melania Trump’s skin-care line, which Hilbert had licensed through a company financed by the Menard fund.

In the late summer of 2013, shortly before Melania Trump was deposed in the case, Donald Trump purchased the St. Martin estate, according to court records.

“Because of the horrible position that this unfounded ridiculous litigation has put us into, we had to sell the home,” Hilbert testified in federal court, according to a transcript. “So I went to Donald and asked if he would buy it.”

Neither Hilbert nor Menard responded to requests for comment.

Donald Trump proudly announced his new purchase in an email to Trump Organization clients, calling it “the jewel in St. Martin’s crown” and offering it for weekly rentals, according to a copy of his message included in legal filings.

“By all accounts Le Chateau des Palmiers is considered to be one of the greatest mansions in the world,” he wrote.

He or his family appeared to visit the island frequently in 2014. Trump-owned aircraft flew into the St. Martin airport at least six times that year, according to Federal Aviation Administration records.

The flights tapered off in 2015, the year Trump launched his presidential bid. Since then, the property appears to have been used largely for rentals.

“You’ll feel almost presidential when you stay in Chateau Des Palmiers,” read a Sotheby’s Instagram post promoting the estate around Election Day last fall. “This place is huge.”

Its $28 million asking price makes the Trump property the 12th-most expensive home on the market in the Caribbean, according to Point2 Homes, a website that aggregates international real estate listings.

The home’s gilded style might appeal to a relatively narrow market, agents said.

“There is certainly a lot of ‘wow’ factor to the property,” Jagtiani said. “The location is stunning. But I’ve seen mixed reviews for the decor. There is a lot of gold in there. It’s rather gaudy, if you will.”

Maayke de Haan, the owner of Antilles Realty, described the look as “very old-fashioned.”

“It’s a style that does not appeal to everybody,” she said, but added, “the finishings are stunning for the right clients.”

Jonathan Schaede, a broker with Sunshine Properties, said the listing for Chateau des Palmiers has drawn some inquiries, but mostly from people “calling for curiosity reasons.”

“I think it’s going to be very interesting when it does sell,” he said. “The world is looking to see who is going to buy this property.”

“If a Russian person falls in love with the house, how would the world react to it?” Schaede added. “Or if someone from China or Saudi Arabia? It’s definitely not an easy transaction at this particular time.”

Maybe he's seeking money to pay those fabulous lawyers, you know, the ones who won an award in Russia,

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I am going to leave the planet for a while. At least until we get our  country can get back dignity.  I'll be setting my out of office message accordingly

Donald Trump Jr. has weighed in on the controversy over his father’s meeting with then-FBI Director James Comey by endorsing a tweet that argues President Trump did nothing close to obstruction of justice.

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Donald Trump Jr. has weighed in on the controversy over his father’s meeting with then-FBI Director James Comey by endorsing a tweet that argues President Trump did nothing close to obstruction of justice.

Taking to Twitter, Trump’s eldest son forwarded along to his followers a tweet by longtime celebrity journalist Geraldo Rivera, who wrote: “News Flash, @realDonaldTrump hoping @JamesComeyFBI cuts @MikeFlynn some slack because he is a ‘good man’ is not close to #Obstruction.” Donald Trump Jr. added his assessment: “Truth.’’

Donald Trump Jr.’s reaction is the first public indication from his family about the news that the president asked Comey to drop the FBI’s probe into former national security adviser Michael Flynn, according to notes written by Comey following a February meeting with the president.

“I hope you can let this go,’’ Trump said, according to the Comey notes, which were described by the associates. Comey referred to Flynn as “a good guy,” according to the associates, but declined to drop the probe.

TT Jr. quoting Geraldo Rivera because he is full of credibility (or maybe just full of shit).   Yes we have sunk to a new low like De Ja Vu All Over Again.*  TT and friends motto... "Sink to a new level of depravity... rinse..lather...repeat" 

*Now I am going to have that Fogerty song running in my head all day

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