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

[GreyhoundFan]

For those who can't stomach watching or listening to Comey's testimony, The WaPo has published a full transcript of the hearing thus far.

[47of74]

55 minutes ago, candygirl200413 said:

I'm still torturing myself watching this hearing and it is such bull shit.

Probably be less painful to use one of these on one's self instead of watching the hearing...

Of course it's less painful than anything having to do with Agent Orange or his Presiduncy.

46 minutes ago, GreyhoundFan said:

No, @VelociRapture, you're not delusional, everyone in Agent Orange's orbit is delusional. It was my understanding that the FBI normally doesn't comment on new investigations, but if subpoenaed, they have to provide Congress the information requested. I could be wrong, but that is how I understand it. This whole situation is a great big Charlie Foxtrot.

 

"NY Attorney General Hires Prosecutor To Target Trump: Report"

 

Yeah looks like Donnie is getting out his own personal victim card;

[GreyhoundFan]

"Comey’s testimony humiliates Trump"

Quote

Before FBI Director James B. Comey began his testimony before the House Intelligence Committee, President Trump was back, compulsively tweeting — and underscoring the growing perception that his allegation that President Barack Obama had Trump’s “wires tapped” is nonsensical, his attachment to reality fleeting and his concern about Russian interference in the election on his behalf is palpable. He tweeted: “James Clapper and others stated that there is no evidence Potus colluded with Russia. This story is FAKE NEWS and everyone knows it!” (Interestingly, he limited the denial of collusion to him, POTUS, only.) Certainly, he had been rattled by a parade of Republican lawmakers affirming there was no evidence of wiretapping. He was right to be anxious.

Comey did in fact confirm that the FBI is currently investigating Russian interference with our elections, including any links with members of the Trump campaign, and whether the latter constituted any crimes. A short time later, Comey lowered the boom. What about evidence of wiretapping, as Trump claimed in tweets? Comey was succinct: “I have no information that supports those tweets.”

...

Comey’s statement was not surprising, but it was nevertheless devastating. To hear the head of the FBI in essence call the president a liar or wide-eyed conspiratorialist is bracing, if not humiliating, for the chief executive. And reflecting on the morning tweet, Trump now seems desperate, childish and vulnerable. He’s been tripped up by his own grandiose lies. At some level he must know it.

Perhaps now Republicans can stop treating the president’s outbursts seriously. They need to call them what they are: Wild lies and accusations designed to distract from the very real investigation into Russian attempts to throw the election his way. In just a few brief lines, Comey eviscerated whatever credibility Trump still had. Whether the intelligence agency will find evidence of collusion remains to be seen. But what we do know is that Trump will not be able to lie his way through this nor distract the public.

...

 

[iweartanktops]

I'm not watching this shit, but apparently Faux News is plugging their ears. 

[GreyhoundFan]

"2 Months In, Trump May Already Own A First: Most Corrupt POTUS. Ever."

Quote

WASHINGTON – Imagine a foreign potentate who uses his official position to promote his private businesses. Who makes face time with visiting dignitaries a perk for his paying customers. Whose top aide urges the citizenry to embrace products sold by the sovereign’s daughter.

For two months now, Americans have not had to imagine any of this. They have been living it.

As President Donald Trump enters his third month in office, he has already established at least one record, however dubious: the president most open and willing to use the prestige of the White House to enrich himself and his family.

“I’m at a loss,” said Robert Maguire, an investigator with the Center for Responsive Politics, a group that advocates for more transparency in government and campaigns. “This idea that the presidency is something to enrich your private interest to the extent he’s doing, not by going on the speaking tour or getting a big book deal after he leaves office, but while he’s in office, sort of milking the office for all it’s worth ― it’s tacky.”

For years, Trump made sure to feature one of his properties and his name-emblazoned jetliner in each episode of his reality TV show “The Apprentice.” Just so, over the past seven weekends, Trump has visited his hotel in Washington, D.C., his golf courses in Palm Beach County and, most frequently, his Mar-a-Lago resort there. The weekend of March 11 – only the second in a month and a half that he did not travel to Florida – he had lunch with top aides at his golf course across the Potomac River from the White House. He did not play golf. He did not stay overnight. All he did was have lunch.

And with each of these visits have come the attendant media coverage, with photos and videos of his for-profit enterprises.

“He should not use his official position to promote his businesses. That doesn’t make him a good businessman. That makes him a bad president,” said Richard Painter, the former top ethics lawyer for President George W. Bush’s White House.

Trump’s White House did not respond to emails for this story. And even some of his usual defenders declined to do so on this topic. “It’s the full employment act for people who write about ethics,” said one former campaign official on the condition he could speak anonymously.

Matt Mackowiak, a Texas-based GOP consultant who often defends Trump, said he couldn’t really offer a sincere defense on this one. “I think he enjoys being at his own properties. He has pride in them. He is comfortable in them. He feels he has a level of control over them,” he said. “Should he not be allowed to go to his own properties?”

Trump’s behavior has no precedent, going back to at least the turn of the last century, ethics experts say. Even in the presidency most often associated with open corruption, it was Warren Harding’s Interior secretary, not Harding himself, who had taken bribes in the Teapot Dome oil lease scandal.

Presidents in recent years have taken care to place their assets in blind trusts, to eliminate possible perceptions of conflicts between their personal interests and those of the United States.

“I don’t think any president in modern history has had a serious conflict,” Painter said.

At a Jan. 11 news conference, though, Trump declared that the president of the United States was legally incapable of having any conflicts of interest, and that, if he chose to, he could serve as president while also running his businesses.

Rather than place his assets in a blind trust – in which he would not even know what holdings he owned, let alone be able to control them – Trump merely turned over temporary managerial control to his adult sons. And they, in turn, have been aggressively marketing the Trump brand abroad, taxpayer-provided Secret Service contingents in tow.

Eric Trump earlier this month even boasted about how well it is going. “I think our brand is the hottest it has ever been,” he told the New York Times.

...

And during the visit of Japan’s prime minister to Mar-a-Lago last month, Trump introduced Shinzo Abe to club members hosting a wedding reception. “They’ve been members of this club for a long time,” Trump explained. “They’ve paid me a fortune.”

“This pay-to-play game has got to stop. He’s president of the United States. It’s corruption of government,” said Painter, now a law professor at the University of Minnesota and part of the legal team suing Trump over the payments his hotels are receiving from foreign entities, possibly in violation of the Constitution. 

The Center for Responsive Politics’ Maguire said Trump’s behavior has disproven predictions by those who believed he would evolve to meet the decorum expected of the presidency. “The expectation was, once he gets into office, of course he won’t be like this,” Maguire said. “And, of course, he has.”

Well, he likes to be the "most" and "biggest"...

[47of74]

26 minutes ago, iweartanktops said:

I'm not watching this shit, but apparently Faux News is plugging their ears. 

I almost wonder what sort of pretzels the five giggling couch tumors will  twist themselves in to over the hearings today.

I imagine they each have their own Faux branded victim cards that they'll be whipping out on behalf of Donnie Dumfuck.

[GreyhoundFan]

I love some of the Tweets in this article.

 

Also, Jimmy Kimmel had a great take on Beauty and the Beast

Quote

Mr. Kimmel also gave a shout-out to Disney’s new movie, “Beauty and the Beast.” But that, too, was a swipe at the president.

“The live-action version of ‘Beauty and the Beast’ opens tomorrow. Now ‘Beauty and the Beast’ is the story of a beautiful woman from a small village who falls for a selfish, disgusting monster who lives in a palace filled with gold. Melania Trump is calling it the feel-good movie of the year.”

 

[RoseWilder]

2 hours ago, VelociRapture said:

I'm sleep deprived and need more coffee, so please excuse me if I'm mistaken, but I thought there was some sort of FBI procedure for announcing things that Comey was following. Something about not commenting on new investigations (like the Trump campaign investigation) emote a hearing, but commenting when an old investigation was reopened (like the email shit)? Can someone explain whether this is true or if I'm so sleepy that I'm starting to become delusional?

I read a theory on this on this blog: 

https://patribotics.blog/2017/01/17/dear-mr-putin-lets-play-chess-louise-mensch-trump-russia/

Quote

When the writer Jason Leopold of Vice asked if Trump had been under investigation in September he got a GLOMAR response: ‘We can neither confirm nor deny the existence of any such records’.

GLOMAR responses are named for a submarine and can only be given if a matter of national security is at stake. Mr. Leopold announced he would sue, for why should a concluded investigation be a matter of national security? I told him, with little credibility then and tons now, that the GLOMAR response made sense because there is an ongoing investigation into Mr. Trump and his associates on a matter of national security.

Democrats, including Democrats in Obama’s government who ought to know better, have asked if James Comey had ‘a double standard’ over the investigations into Clinton and Trump. Yes; he did, and he does. He may talk about a criminal investigation. He may not talk about a current, ongoing investigation into espionage, bribery, money laundering and so forth that affects US national security.

 

[VelociRapture]

Thanks @RoseWilderand @GreyhoundFan! I thought it was something like that and I kept getting really confused because so many people were lashing out at Comey. So, he didn't technically do anything wrong then, right? He was following proper protocol?

[GreyhoundFan]

1 minute ago, VelociRapture said:

Thanks @RoseWilderand @GreyhoundFan! I thought it was something like that and I kept getting really confused because so many people were lashing out at Comey. So, he didn't technically do anything wrong then, right? He was following proper protocol?

It seems that way. I think there's still lots to be uncovered.

 

Here's a good analysis of Comey's and Rogers' testimony: "Six big takeaways from Congress’s extraordinary hearing on Russia, President Trump and wiretapping"

 

[fraurosena]

Interesting take on how to interpret the way Comey gave his answers, written Saturday, so before the testimony took place. 

https://www.lawfareblog.com/how-listen-jim-comeys-testimony-monday

In it, three scenarios are set out. The first two boil down to: the FBI has found nothing, or the FBI has found something but it doesn't boil down to much. This is the third scenario:

Quote

In the third scenario, Russia is a very big deal. Comey, in other words, has significant investigative equities to protect and he believes that he needs to be there in order to protect them—in other words, that he has a responsibility to not get himself fired because of his anger about the Trump tweets (or anything else) because he has to make sure the investigation can proceed unimpeded. In this situation, I would expect him to be minimally verbal. He may have to answer yes or no questions in certain instances, including about the truth of the wiretapping allegations, but he will refuse to answer a lot of questions. He will make as little news as humanly possible. He will be exceptionally spare with his opinions. He will make a point of not antagonizing the President. Lots of people will leave disappointed. 

If I were advising Trump, this is the scenario that would scare me most. We know, both from the hospital room testimony and from the Clinton email testimony, how Comey behaves when he feels at liberty to speak. We also know he's angry right now and would presumably love a chance to defend the integrity of his agency and his agents. If he passes up that opportunity, I will read that as a sign that he is biting his lip very hard because there's something more important at stake. 

If I read this correctly, then this scenario has played out today. I hope the Toddler is in dire need of a diaper change right now.

[GreyhoundFan]

It's too bad Agent Orange doesn't read CNN.com: "Donald Trump: America's Marie Antoinette"

Quote

On Thursday, Donald Trump released his budget for 2017, which proposes slashing programs that help some of our nation's most vulnerable citizens, including the poor and the elderly. And then Trump, in his own "let them eat cake" moment, jetted off 24 hours later to spend another weekend at his luxurious private country club Mar-a-Lago, a place described as akin to the Palace of Versailles.

Trump's opulent Mar-a-Lago is an estate that Marie Antoinette would have felt right at home in. It boasts 16th century Flemish tapestries, lavish oriental rugs and a Louis XIV-style ballroom added by Trump that includes $7 million in gold leaf on the walls.

Now if Trump were simply spending his weekends at Mar-a-Lago on his own dime, that would be one thing. But he's not. You, I and every other taxpayer are the ones paying for the five trips Trump has taken there since being sworn in as President.

In other words, instead of spending money on those most in need, Trump is wasting taxpayer dollars on a lavish lifestyle he is seeking to maintain.

What's the cost? Politico has estimated that we pay $3 million each weekend that Trump travels to his palatial country club. That means Trump's five getaways have cost taxpayers in the neighborhood of $15 million for expenses associated with Secret Service, Air Force One, etc.

And that doesn't even include the nearly $1 million in local tax dollars spent by the Palm Beach County Sheriff's office to protect Trump when he stays at Mar-a-Lago.

But that's not the end of the costs we bear for the personal choices of the Trump family. In late January, the President's son, Eric, traveled to Uruguay for a Trump Organization business meeting. The cost for private security was close to $100,000 -- and of course his meeting had nothing to do with the governance of the country.

Then there are the additional costs we pay for Melania and Barron Trump to live in New York. While Trump's wife and son certainly have the choice of where they want to live, you and I -- not "billionaire" President Trump -- are the ones paying for this personal choice. Though estimates vary, it appears New York taxpayers are saddled with approximately $146,000 per day in security costs. That's over $4 million a month!

Imagine for a moment how Trump would've responded if the Obama family were costing US taxpayers an additional $4 million per month because Michelle and one daughter wanted to remain in Chicago. Or how Trump would have reacted if Obama had traveled to a luxurious private resort five times in the first two months of his presidency, costing millions in taxpayer dollars. Keep in mind Trump blasted Obama when he sporadically went to play golf.

In fact, over the eight years Obama was President, the cost to taxpapyers for his eight annual family vacations to Hawaii was a grand total of approximately $85 million. In contrast, Trump has rung up nearly $15 million going to Mar-a-Lago in just his first two months.

Even putting aside Trump's hypocrisy, the most despicable aspect of this is that Trump is spending our taxes on himself, while at the same time advocating policies that slash the budget and hurt so many vulnerable Americans. For example, Trump has callously called for cutting funding for the Meals on Wheels program, which is a critical lifeline for nearly 2.4 million senior citizens and disabled Americans. Five-hundred-thousand of the people who receive Meals on Wheels are veterans, the group Trump keeps telling us he cares so much about.

Trump is updating the "let them eat cake" line to "let them starve."

The Trump/GOP health care plan would also hurt the most vulnerable Americans, namely the disabled and children. The American Health Care Act would even punish Trump's supporters, because it would negatively impact older Americans and those in rural areas, two populations that favored Trump in the election.

It's becoming increasingly clear that Trump -- like Antoinette -- is a person more concerned with living a lavish lifestyle and less with helping those most in need. The question is, will Trump's base continue to support him once they feel the pain of his policies? Or, like the French did to Antoinette, who continued to live an extravagant lifestyle while they suffered, reject him? Trump's political survival turns on the answers to this.

Can you imagine the tantrum if he heard he was being compared to (gasp) a woman?

[fraurosena]

Of course. Alternative reality. I should have known.

White House doubles down on claim Trump Tower was wiretapped despite FBI congressional hearing

Quote

The White House is holding firm on its claim that Barack Obama arranged for Trump Tower to be wiretapped, despite FBI Director James Comey telling a Congressional hearing he had no evidence to support the allegation.

Speaking after an extraordinary session of the House Intelligence Committee, press secretary Sean Spicer said it was “clear nothing has changed”.

"There's a lot of areas that still need to be covered," he said. "There's a lot of information that still needs to be discussed."

That was despite assurances from both Mr Comey and the National Security Agency director, Mike Rogers, that no such surveillance had taken place. [...]

Mr Trump’s unproven allegations against his predecessor have left him increasingly isolated, with fellow Republican as well as Democratic lawmakers saying they’ve seen nothing from intelligence agencies to support his claim.

But the White House, keen to deflect attention away from the alleged links between Russia and the Trump team, insisted it remained concerned about the activities of the intelligence agencies in monitoring Mr Trump. [...]

The President took to Twitter before the hearing began to accuse Democrats of making up allegations about his campaign associates' contact with Russia during the election.

Oh, and he's keeping up with the obligatory 'but Hillary'.

Quote

He said Congress and the FBI should be going after media leaks and maybe even Hillary Clinton instead. 

 

 

(btw, is there an emoji for painful eyerolling?  I really think we need one...)

[GreyhoundFan]

"Trump wants to defund PBS. ‘Sesame Street’ brutally parodied him for decades."

Quote

You should know a couple of things before we embark on a recap of “Sesame Street’s” surprisingly vicious takedowns of Donald Trump, which span three decades leading up to his political rise.

First: Trump is most often depicted as a grouch — unpleasant monsters who base their culture and economy around garbage. So when “Donald Grump” appears in a 2005 episode as a badly toupeed muppet “whose name equals trash,” that’s not necessarily an insult.

The other thing is that Trump, as president of the United States, wants to end public television funding that created “Sesame Street” — more often known for lessons on counting and sharing than biting satire.

There are only three known episodes in which the character “Grump” appears, each time playing the villain in a moral allegory.

Whenever Grump visits Sesame Street, chaos is not far behind.

We know of nothing to suggest any link between these skits and Trump’s budget proposal. He is not the first president to desire the elimination of public broadcasting funds. And because the show now airs on HBO, Trump’s plan is unlikely to destroy Sesame Street, as Grump tried so hard to do.

...

The article goes on to talk about "Donald Grump's" three appearances on Sesame Street. They are almost eerie in how realistic they are in their portrayal of the tangerine toddler.

 

[onekidanddone]

3 hours ago, iweartanktops said:

I'm not watching this shit, but apparently Faux News is plugging their ears. 

La La La...Can't hear you.

[fraurosena]

Oh, Paul... don't you know that no matter how you try to spin it, deflect it, alternative fact it...

... we still won't believe you. 

 

[onekidanddone]

48 minutes ago, GreyhoundFan said:

It's too bad Agent Orange doesn't read CNN.com: "Donald Trump: America's Marie Antoinette"

Can you imagine the tantrum if he heard he was being compared to (gasp) a woman?

Read? He reads?

2 minutes ago, GreyhoundFan said:

"Trump wants to defund PBS. ‘Sesame Street’ brutally parodied him for decades."

The article goes on to talk about "Donald Grump's" three appearances on Sesame Street. They are almost eerie in how realistic they are in their portrayal of the tangerine toddler.

 

Thin orange skinned toddler with access to the codes.

[fraurosena]

3 minutes ago, onekidanddone said:

Read? He reads?

I was surprised too, but apparently, he does. Or at least, he used to when still married to Ivana:

Tangerine Toddler 'kept book of Adolf Hitler's speeches in his bedside cabinet'

Quote

Ivana Trump told her lawyer Michael Kennedy that from time to time her husband reads a book of Hitler's collected speeches, 'My New Order', which he keeps in a cabinet by his bed. 

 

[onekidanddone]

4 minutes ago, fraurosena said:

I was surprised too, but apparently, he does. Or at least, he used to when still married to Ivana:

Tangerine Toddler 'kept book of Adolf Hitler's speeches in his bedside cabinet'

 

Figures. He is such fucking fascist Let me guess his favorite movie is the original Birth of a Nation?

[RoseWilder]

1 hour ago, VelociRapture said:

Thanks @RoseWilderand @GreyhoundFan! I thought it was something like that and I kept getting really confused because so many people were lashing out at Comey. So, he didn't technically do anything wrong then, right? He was following proper protocol?

Louise Mensch, whose done some really solid reporting on Russia (mixed in with some theories she's come up) has the theory (and she's careful to point out that it's still a theory at this point) that Putin has people planted in the NY office of the FBI (but not in the branch that Comey works in) and they forced his hand on the release of the late-October Clinton email thing. 

But, as I said, it's still a theory at this point. Although, she has been right about enough things months before the rest of the media that I do start to go hmmmm when she comes up with a theory. 

[onekidanddone]

29 minutes ago, fraurosena said:

Oh, Paul... don't you know that no matter how you try to spin it, deflect it, alternative fact it...

... we still won't believe you. 

 

Too many fucking words Paul. He sounds like a kid who has to write a paragraph and keeps adding words because he thinks using a ton of words makes him look smart.

[iweartanktops]

 

[47of74]

1 hour ago, GreyhoundFan said:

It's too bad Agent Orange doesn't read CNN.com: "Donald Trump: America's Marie Antoinette"

Can you imagine the tantrum if he heard he was being compared to (gasp) a woman?

He'd probably be whining for months if Mrs. Clinton had gotten elected and decided one Saturday to just camp out on the couch all day and watch TV.  In the orange mind he and his fellow billionaires can take time off from work but for anyone else it's a luxury that absolutely cannot be tolerated.

[fraurosena]

The Toddler wants to know how you think he's doing so far ... hu...uhuhu... ha.. hahahaha...HAHAHAAAA 

https://gop.com/survey/president-trump-first-50-survey/

 

[Destiny]

The Toddler wants to know how you think he's doing so far ... hu...uhuhu... ha.. hahahaha...HAHAHAAAA 
https://gop.com/survey/president-trump-first-50-survey/
 

Challenge accepted.