Donald Trump and his Coterie of the Craven (part 16)

[fraurosena]

13 minutes ago, 47of74 said:

I was reading this piece on the New Yorker about how the American people can say "You're Fired!" to Donald McFuckNugget.

http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/05/08/how-trump-could-get-fired

One thing I noted was this line.

That probably wouldn't have been good most of our history, but with Donald McFucknugget in charge it's got me wondering if just being part of a committee would have neutered Donnie?

Interesting thought. But I believe that although the president is just one person, the presidency itself, the White House if you will, already consists of a kind of 'committee'. How an official committe as you mention would be effectively different I cannot say. 

As to the current presidunce, he's being held in office by those cronies of his in the White House (and other members of the DOH), so I don't think it would have made a difference if there was a committee. Plus, whole committees can be corrupt as hell too... 

 

[VelociRapture]

On 5/6/2017 at 9:06 PM, 47of74 said:

And Francis is making sure the Giant Orange Tape Worm of Destruction is feeling the heat...

newcenturytimes.com/2017/05/06/trumps-pride-crumbles-as-pope-francis-gives-him-a-scolding-hell-never-forget-details/

 

Dear Pope Francis,

I have many issues with my former faith, but you aren't one of them (for the most part.) Would it be really super wrong for me to ask you to lob your Holy Hand Grenade wherever Trump did right now? I'm assuming it contains holy water and will melt Trump and his goons into a toxic orange puddle we can just mop up and dispose of.

... please?

Oh! And could you talk to the Queen for us? She won't return my calls about adopting America and stranding Donald and Theresa on a deserted island somewhere.

On 5/8/2017 at 6:12 AM, fraurosena said:

Loooong sigh.

Don't you miss him?

 

Hey Barry. It's me again. America. Just calling to say I hope you're doing well and that I really miss you and...

[fraurosena]

3 minutes ago, VelociRapture said:

Hey Barry. It's me again. America. Just calling to say I hope you're doing well and that I really miss you and...

Oh my, now you've got my nostaglia running high there, @VelociRapture!

Takes me back to when I was young and foolish. The young part has long gone, but the foolishness stayed... 

[47of74]

Someone got some shade in against Donnie on Twitter

 

And Maxine Waters got some shade in of her own at Donald J. Putinfluffer

 

[GreyhoundFan]

I think this says it all:

[GreyhoundFan]

"Democrats must unmask Trump’s populist scam. Here’s a place to start."

Quote

Now that Senate Republicans are plunging into a protracted, divisive debate over the monstrous House GOP health bill, top Democratic strategists are consumed with a question: How can the party seize on this moment to hold GOP lawmakers accountable in 2018, keep the grass roots engaged, and, more broadly, bring about a period of Democratic renewal?

In a new memo to fellow Democrats, two senior Democratic strategists are arguing that the party must highlight the fact that the GOP health bill would not only leave many millions of people stranded without coverage — but, crucially, it would do this while delivering an enormous tax cut to the rich.

By highlighting this, the memo argues, Democrats can take advantage of a unique opportunity presented by the GOP health bill. The measure should allow Democrats to unmask Trump’s alleged economic populism as a total scam, and to show that in reality, Trump is furthering a conventionally plutocratic GOP agenda. The memo, which was authored by Dem strategist James Carville and Bridge Project founder David Brock, advises:

Trump was elected because he convinced demoralized Americans he would help their circumstances. … Trump lied to all of them …

The Republican tax agenda — big cuts for the wealthiest — has never been less popular with voters. But by combining their desires to cut taxes for the wealthiest of Americans in the name of stripping health care away from 26 million Americans, what’s left is toxic for anyone who is facing voters next year. Democrats cannot shy away from bringing that message home, and it has to be made consistently and repeatedly between now and next November…

For every single person who stands to lose their health insurance, and every person who is going to pay higher health care bills moving forward, the public needs to know those are direct results of Trumpcare. Simultaneously, we must never lose sight of the contrast at the crux of this legislation — Republicans inflicted all these terrible policies on Americans solely in the name of cutting taxes for millionaires to the tune of nearly $144 billion.

As this blog has reported, top Democrats have researched the so-called Obama-Trump voters — people who voted for Barack Obama in 2012 and switched to Trump in 2016 — and have determined that many of them believe the Democratic Party is in thrall to the wealthy, and Trump isn’t. Thus, driving home the realities of the Trump agenda is an urgent matter, heading into 2018.

The GOP health bill provides an opening to do that, the Carville-Brock memo argues. “Many of the Americans who are likely to suffer most at the hands of the Republican health care bill are the same people who had previously supported Democrats as recently as 2012,” it says. The memo also argues that Democrats “must explain … how our party will do better,” though it doesn’t outline any specific policies Democrats should embrace, instead emphasizing that Democrats need to present themselves as a check on the Trump/GOP plutocratic agenda. “In the coming weeks, we must make sure Americans are fully aware of the disastrous consequences of the Republican bill,” it notes.

Bridge Project is also launching digital ads targeting 24 vulnerable House Republicans who voted for the health bill — ads that should be seen as an early effort to establish a template for 2018:

Note that the ad’s leading attack is that Trumpcare would gut coverage for millions while cutting taxes for the rich — and that Trump has broken his promise to “take care of everybody.” It points out that Trumpcare would gut protections for people with preexisting conditions — but also that Trumpcare would cut $800 billion from Medicaid.

The GOP bill’s provision allowing states to waive the ban on jacked-up premiums for people with preexisting conditions has sucked up much attention. But the bill’s $800 billion in cuts to health spending on the poor, via the phaseout of the Medicaid expansion, combined with its enormous tax cut to the rich, is also a very stark illustration of the true priorities of the Republican Party — and, it turns out, of Trump, too. Throughout the campaign, Trump repeatedly suggested that he supported a robust government role in expanding health care to the poor and sick, and — combined with his vows not to touch Medicare and Medicaid — used this to achieve a patina of ideological heterodoxy that distanced him from Paul Ryan’s GOP, likely helping him win working-class voters.

Trump’s embrace of the House GOP bill blows up that scam. But the GOP bill also should blow up the Republican Party’s ongoing scam on this issue. Republicans have employed all sorts of lies and distortions to hide their cruelly regressive health-care designs behind vague suggestions that they actually want everybody to have “access” to coverage, and continue to do so. But the realities of the House GOP bill plainly reveal their true intentions for all to see.

Indeed, it’s a key political tell that Senate Republicans, in their health bill, are expected to soften not just the House GOP’s efforts to gut protections for preexisting conditions but also its massive gutting of the Medicaid expansion to fund a huge tax break for millionaires. Undoubtedly, though, the GOP bill that emerges at the end of this process will retain a good deal of awful, regressive policy. The question is whether Democrats can drive that home to voters, and make sure they remember what House Republicans tried to pull off — and if so, how much all that will matter, given the realities of the tough Senate map and the difficulties in taking back the House.

...

I agree with the writer. This message needs to be repeated over and over and over, just like the teabaggers did almost a decade ago.

[GreyhoundFan]

"Why Trump can’t do what he said he’d do"

Quote

President Trump has already rendered a verdict on his own skills as a legislative negotiator — in a pathetically premature Rose Garden celebration of a House vote to repeal and replace Obamacare. The full picture is not quite so rosy.

As a policy leader, Trump is unique among recent presidents. He doesn’t lead on policy. Normally a president who wants action on health care would try to unite the caucus by putting forth his own substantive ideas and getting legislators to support them. Trump never had a substantive proposal and never showed any command of the details involved, so he could not play that role. He forcefully pushed House Republicans to vote on something, anything, but he didn’t help resolve differences among them.

The system is adapting to the vacuum at its heart. Before the first, aborted health-care vote, Trump complicated Speaker Paul D. Ryan’s life. He bullied and offended key congressmen and showed discrediting ignorance of important policy details. Before the second vote, Trump made some calls to Republican legislators, but it was Vice President Pence who took the legislative lead. And it was Ryan who won the day, addressing the concerns and objections of wavering Republicans one by one, concession by concession.

The result is not pretty — a bill that seriously underfunds Medicaid and leaves a large gap of coverage between Medicaid eligibility and a useful tax credit to purchase insurance. The bill also employs the threat of higher premiums to ensure that people keep continuous coverage, replacing a mandate with a disincentive. But those premiums are not capped — essentially allowing insurers to deny coverage to people with preexisting conditions who haven’t kept continuous coverage. That is political poison.

Republicans are generally hoping that the Senate will inject some rationality and compassion into the process — adequately funding Medicaid, making the tax credit means-tested and more generous to those at the bottom, and encouraging continuous coverage in some other way. But this is all occurring with very little guidance from the top. The Senate process led by Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) seems, so far, to be designed to function without presidential input.

Trump is giving an entirely new meaning to “Rose Garden strategy.” His goal is successful votes and Rose Garden ceremonies, with the content of those victories subcontracted. Trump, no doubt, views this as a strong executive focusing on the big picture. But this is not the result of management theory. It is the only possible choice for a chief executive who is being introduced to substantive issues and debates for the first time and seems to find them tedious. “Nobody knew health care could be so complicated,” Trump said at one point, in a statement more fitting to a congressional intern.

...

But Trump, more than most, is severed from the people and priorities he ran on. What he said during the campaign about the struggles of the working class is important. But it has almost no relationship to his governing agenda. Trump’s budget director produced a budget to please the House Freedom Caucus, not to deal with the downsides of globalization. Republicans in the House cobbled together a health-care bill that has something for almost everyone — except the struggling working class that doesn’t qualify for Medicaid.

This is the price of Trump’s emptiness. On major economic issues, he has not produced policy that tilts toward the needs of the working class. He has not rallied his party to address these problems in practical ways. Instead, he has outsourced his policy priorities and thus outsourced his political uniqueness.

During the presidential election, we heard, time and time again, that Trump is not a politician and would do what he said he’d do. The two points are actually in tension. Because Trump knows little about governing and less about policy, he can’t do what he said he’d do. And this only adds to the sum of American cynicism.

 

 

[nvmbr02]

Annnnnd Comey has been fired. That should have happened months ago but I have a feeling Trump's reasons for firing him are a wee bit different from my own. I guess he isn't going to get another air kiss from Trump now.

[nvmbr02]

Alright. I am seeing this letter a few places on twitter. Notice the second paragraph. WTF?? Is this real?  ETA... Sorry!! I didn't realize it was so big and now I can't edit the picture out. Fail.

 

[onekidanddone]

Like a moth to a flame I can't stay away.  I'm hopeless.  I'm now obsessing over Comey and wondering how that he is gone will the Russia scandal be made to disappear? I am frighted that Orange Freak is going to appoint somebody who would just not investigate or send the evidence through the shredder 

[formergothardite]

4 minutes ago, onekidanddone said:

I am frighted that Orange Freak is going to appoint somebody who would just not investigate or send the evidence through the shredd

There is no doubt he is going to appoint exactly the sort of person who will do this. I just hope there are enough good people left who are scrambling to save evidence. The only reason Flynn was fired was because info was leaked, if Trump tries to make this go away, I hope stuff starts leaking left and right. That is the only way that he will be held accountable. 

[nvmbr02]

4 minutes ago, onekidanddone said:

Like a moth to a flame I can't stay away.  I'm hopeless.  I'm now obsessing over Comey and wondering how that he is gone will the Russia scandal be made to disappear? I am frighted that Orange Freak is going to appoint somebody who would just not investigate or send the evidence through the shredder 

This is my fear too. While I am no fan of Comey and I do believe he is incompetent I am very unsure if the person appointed will continue with the investigation or if they will be another Trump puppet. 

[GreyhoundFan]

Here's more from the WaPo about Comey's firing.

Quote

FBI Director James B. Comey has been dismissed by the president, according to White House spokesman Sean Spicer - a startling move that officials said stemmed from a conclusion by Justice Department officials that he had mishandled the probe of Hillary Clinton’s emails.

Comey was fired as he is leading a counterintelligence investigation to determine whether associates of President Trump may have coordinated with Russia to meddle with the presidential election last year. That probe began quietly last July but has now become the subject of intense debate in Washington. It is unclear how Comey’s dismissal will affect that investigation.

“The president has accepted the recommendation of the Attorney General and the deputy Attorney General regarding the dismissal of the director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation,” Spicer told reporters in the briefing room.

Spicer also said that Comey was “notified a short time ago.” This is effective “immediately,” he said.

Officials said Comey was fired because senior Justice Department officials concluded he had violated Justice Department principles and procedures by publicly discussing the investigation of Hillary Clinton’s use of private email. Just last week, President Trump publicly accused Comey of giving Clinton “a free pass for many bad deeds’’ when he decided not to recommend criminal charges in the case.

Officials released a Tuesday memo from the Deputy Attorney General, Rod Rosenstein, laying out the rationale behind Comey’s dismissal.

“The FBI’s reputation and credibility have suffered substantial damage, and it has affected the entire Department of Justice,’’ Rosenstein wrote. “I cannot defend the director’s handling of the conclusion of the investigation of Secretary Clinton’s emails, and I do not understand his refusal to accept the nearly universal judgment that he was mistaken. Almost everyone agrees that the director made serious mistakes; it is one of the few issues that unites people of diverse perspectives.’’

In a letter to Trump, Attorney General Jeff Sessions said that he agreed.

“I have concluded that a fresh start is needed at the leadership of the FBI,’’ Sessions wrote. “I must recommend that you remove Director James B. Comey, Jr. and identify an experienced and qualified individual to lead the great men and women of the FBI.’’

Shortly before the announcement, the FBI notified Congress by letter that Comey had misstated key findings involving the Hillary Clinton email investigation during testimony last week, but nothing about that issue seemed to suggest it might imperil Comey’s job.

The letter was sent to the Senate Judiciary Committee on Tuesday, more than a week after Comey testified for hours in defense of his handling of the Clinton probe.

“This letter is intended to supplement that testimony to ensure that the committee has the full context of what was reviewed and found on the laptop,’’ wrote FBI Assistant Director Gregory A. Brower.

In defending the probe at last week’s hearing, Comey offered seemingly new details to underscore the seriousness of the situation FBI agents faced last fall when they discovered thousands of Clinton aide Huma Abedin’s emails on the computer of her husband, Anthony Weiner.

...

At another point in the testimony, Comey said Abedin “forwarded hundreds and thousands of emails, some of which contain classified information.’’

Neither of those statements is accurate, said people close to the investigation.

Tuesday’s letter said “most of the emails found on Mr. Weiner’s laptop computer related to the Clinton investigation occurred as a result of a backup of personal electronic devices, with a small number a result of manual forwarding by Ms. Abedin to Mr. Weiner.’’

The letter also corrected the impression Mr. Comey’s testimony had left with some listeners that 12 classified emails were among those forwarded by Abedin to Weiner.

“Investigators identified approximately 49,000 emails which were potentially relevant to the investigation,” the letter said. “All were reviewed with a particular focus on those containing classified information. Investigators ultimately determined that two e-mail chains containing classified information were manually forwarded to Mr. Weiner’s account.’’

Ten other emails chains that contained classified information were found on the laptop as a result of backup activity.

The letter also clarified some of the figures Comey gave regarding ongoing terrorism probes.

...

Comey’s incorrect comments about Abedin surfaced again this week at a different Senate hearing, when Cruz pressed former director of national intelligence James R. Clapper Jr. to say how he would handle an employee who “forwarded hundreds or even thousands of e-mails to a non-government individual, their spouse, on a non-government computer.’’

Clapper said such conduct “raises all kinds of potential security concerns.’’

At the hearing last week, Comey spent hours defending his handling of the investigation of Clinton’s use of a private server for work while she was secretary of state, saying it made him “mildly nauseous” to think his decisions might have affected the outcome of the presidential election, but insisting that he had no regrets and would not have handled it differently.

Comey’s decision-making during the Clinton inquiry has come under sustained criticism from Democrats — including Clinton — who say it was a major factor that contributed to her presidential election defeat in November to Donald Trump. On Oct. 28, less than two weeks before Election Day, the director notified Congress that new Clinton-related emails had been found on a laptop belonging to Weiner.

Days later, investigators obtained a search warrant to examine about 3,000 messages on the device that were work-related. Of those, Comey said, agents found a dozen that contained classified information, but they were messages investigators had already seen.

Comey’s public comments about the Clinton case have been a source of public debate since he first announced last July that he would not recommend charges against anyone in connection with her use of a private server for government business.

At the time, he called the use of the server “extremely careless’’ but said it did not rise to the level of a crime.

...

I agree that the whole "rationale" for his firing being the mishandling of the 'but her emails' investigation is a smoke-screen to distract from the Russia connection. Also, Sessions pushing for an "experienced and qualified individual" is laughable because nobody in this administration is experienced and qualified. They want a puppet, nothing more.

[nvmbr02]

8 minutes ago, GreyhoundFan said:

 

I agree that the whole "rationale" for his firing being the mishandling of the 'but her emails' investigation is a smoke-screen to distract from the Russia connection. Also, Sessions pushing for an "experienced and qualified individual" is laughable because nobody in this administration is experienced and qualified. They want a puppet, nothing more.

I am also seeing Trey Gowdy being mentioned by many twitter comments, I haven't seen an actual source for the info. in my mind Gowdy = end to the investigation, at least on the FBI side of things

We are way past the point of needing an independent investigation/prosecutor..

[GreyhoundFan]

9 minutes ago, nvmbr02 said:

I am also seeing Trey Gowdy being mentioned by many twitter comments, I haven't seen an actual source for the info. in my mind Gowdy = end to the investigation, at least on the FBI side of things

We are way past the point of needing an independent investigation/prosecutor..

I wouldn't doubt it. Gowdy is a real piece of work. Sadly, with Lyan and Bitch in charge in congress, we won't get an independent investigation.

 

This is an interesting piece: "Trump is waging a war on millennials"

Quote

Trumpcare is, on the whole, terrible. But if you’re a millennial, it does have one thing going for it: It’s virtually the only piece of the Trump platform that advantages the young at the expense of the old.

The rest of the Trump agenda could be broadly characterized as full-on generational warfare against the young. If enacted, it will rob millennials and subsequent generations of earnings, benefits, consumer protections and even — if you look far enough into the future — a habitable place to live.

Let’s start with the Trump tax plan.

The latest iteration of this “plan” is so vague as to be meaningless. But based on proposals President Trump released during the campaign, and comments made in recent weeks by both administration officials and Republican legislators, the coming overhaul will almost certainly be heavily weighted toward the wealthy. An earlier version of the plan directed about half the value of tax cuts to the top 1 percent of earners, according to a Tax Policy Center analysis.

These tax cuts also look likely to add trillions to the debt, again based on analyses of earlier plan versions. (Despite administration promises, virtually no serious economists believe the plan would “pay for itself” through additional economic growth.)

All this amounts to a massive intergenerational transfer of wealth, one that hits millennials in at least two ways. The first has to do with who benefits most from a top-heavy tax cut.

A marginal rate cut is most valuable when you’re in your peak earning years, which tend to come around middle age. That’s because when your income is highest, so is your tax liability.

Millennials are at the beginning of their careers, and both their wages and taxes are low relative to what they will earn, and remit to Uncle Sam, as they gain work experience. All this means that a tax cut today, particularly one tilted toward the highest earners, would not help young people as much as it would mid-career people in their 40s and 50s.

The second is that an unfunded tax cut — like anything else that increases the federal debt — is not free. Eventually someone has to pay for it.

 By the looks of things, that someone is not going to be baby boomers. Instead, younger Americans will pick up the tab, through higher taxes, fewer government services or both. Already millennials worry that their entitlements have been irreparably endangered by fiscal profligacy; a 2014 Pew Research Center survey found that half believe there won’t be anything left in the Social Security system by the time they retire.

Taxes are hardly the only way the Trump administration is giving millennials the shaft. A host of changes to the student lending industry are doing the same.

These include reversals of Obama-era policies designed to limit fees that struggling borrowers must pay, and to reduce the likelihood that new student loan contracts are awarded to lenders with a record of shoddy service or illegal behavior.

But perhaps the Trump agenda plank that harms the largest swath of millennials is the administration’s climate change policy. Or lack thereof.

...

 

 

 

 

 

The WaPo has published reaction to Comey's firing from both houses of congress. Some interesting stuff. One that I liked:

Quote

...

Rep. John Conyers Jr. (D-Mich.)

“Today’s action by President Trump completely obliterates any semblance of an independent investigation into Russian efforts to influence our election, and places our nation on the verge of a constitutional crisis. There is little doubt that the President’s actions harken our nation back to Watergate and the “Saturday Night Massacre.” This decision makes it clear that we must have an independent, non-partisan commission to investigate both Russian interference in the U.S. election and allegations of collusion between the government of Vladimir Putin and the Trump campaign. Today’s actions reek of a cover up and appear to be part of an ongoing effort by the Trump White House to impede the investigation into Russian ties and interference in our elections.

“I am particularly concerned that President Trump fired Director Comey based in part on the recommendation of Attorney General Sessions–who was forced to recuse himself from the underlying investigation based on his own actions and misconduct. This shocking decision by the President is beyond the pale and itself warrants independent inquiry and hearings, and reinforces the need for the Attorney General himself to step down given his own obvious and ongoing conflicts.

“Though we may not have always agreed with James Comey, he was critical to overseeing the ongoing investigation into Russian interference with the 2016 election. The Administration’s after-the-fact efforts to rationalize this blatantly self-serving political firing–by complaining about the manner Director Comey handled the investigation into Secretary Clinton’s emails—is too cute by half and does not even pass the smell test.”

...

 

[nvmbr02]

Sorry everyone. It is 10 am here and I've had like 4 cups of coffee and I just can't walk away from the whole Comey thing.  Perhaps a bit of proof Trumps letter firing Comey was all for show?

 

[Howl]

2 hours ago, nvmbr02 said:

Annnnnd Comey has been fired. That should have happened months ago but I have a feeling Trump's reasons for firing him are a wee bit different from my own. I guess he isn't going to get another air kiss from Trump now.

I know, right.  I go to spin class and I get back and Comey's been fired.  WHAT THE FUCK! 

I'm no Comey fan, in fact I think he screwed Hillary and possibly threw the election by releasing "the letter" right before the election.  But this is just nuts. 

This country needs special prosecutors and independent commissions.  That said, a special prosecutor will work with an FBI headed by a Trump appointee, because a special prosecutor relies on the FBI's investigative arm for information, like a DA relies on police investigations.  We're watching CNN right now.   Some commentators think we're on the verge of a constitutional crises.  I don't think so, but that's the depth of the crazy from Trump.  

Russia, Russia, Russia  #MarshaMarshaMarsha

 

[VixenToast]

Well, it feels like it could lead to a constitutional crisis. I feel so powerless. I need to start writing in my diary and record this. Maybe I can live off the proceeds of publishing it once the world is at peace once more. 

[JMarie]

"A confluence of events."  That's how Kellyanne Conway explained today's events to Anderson Cooper.  Why does she even try to defend Trump?

[Howl]

Aaaaaaand Kellyanne is BACK on CNN Trumpsplaining Comey's firing to Anderson Cooper. Anderson, of course, isn't having it, and Kellyanne is in prime bullshit mode "This letter is about restoring confidence in the FBI" and now she's pivoting to trying to blame the Democrats for not having confidence in Comey, not voting correctly on healthcare and something else, because Democrats.  She's repeating her talking points. 

Interestingly, she cites the line in the president's letter to Comey, noting that Comey supposedly reassured Trump three times that he (Trump) was not under investigations. This is disingenuous and a way to avoid discussing the timing of firing the head of the FBI who is investigating him and his family and his staff (past and present).  

Kellyanne is saying over and over and over that this has nothing to do with the Russia investigation.  

Comey appears to have been put on a small jet to go home to D.C. (He's in LA right now, but no longer the head of the FBI, so can't get on his special FBI jet to go home.)

[GreyhoundFan]

Hmmmmm: "All of Trump’s campaign statements just vanished from his website. So let’s remember them."

Quote

The Trump campaign website went away this week. According to a news release, it's been replaced by a new site that the president's reelection campaign (yes, already) calls a one-stop shop for “fact-based information” that the mainstream media doesn't want you to know about.

On donaldjtrump.com, you can check out never-before-seen rally photos, buy merchandise and get the real, unfiltered scoop on what your president is up to.

Sounds pretty handy. One problem: The website revamp also appears to have vanished every single news release and public statement issued during President Trump's first campaign.

Gone is Trump's call in 2015 for a ban on Muslim visitors, which The Washington Post's Fred Barbash wrote about in detail.

But gone also is his famous statement on “COMPELLING MEXICO TO PAY FOR THE WALL”; and the less-famous one comparing refugees to car payments; and the write-up of “TRUMP'S 'VERY GOOD' ECONOMIC SPEECH.”

You'll notice we're still linking to these items.

Whatever the reasons for their disappearance from the website, the statements are all preserved in the Internet's unofficial archives. So naturally, people are now sifting through them, assembling highlight reels of the campaign's greatest literature — even if it no longer officially exists.

Here's our attempt.

Disclaimer: This can't possibly be a complete or even representative sampling of Trump's many, many deleted campaign statements, of which nearly a dozen were once issued in a single day.

Here's what appears to be the very first of them: a March 18, 2015, announcement of Trump's presidential exploratory committee.

It quotes his senior political adviser, Corey Lewandowski: “Mr. Trump has the vision and leadership skills to bring our country back to greatness.”

Lewandowski, you may recall, went on to become Trump's campaign manager — then abruptly resigned after a string of accusations that he roughed up reporters and made inappropriate comments to women.

The early Trump campaign communicated with a bombast that alternately repelled and captivated the electorate.

“The American Dream is dead — but if I win, I will bring it back bigger and better and stronger than ever before.”

— Trump, announcing his candidacy in June 2015.

Even something as perfunctory as filing a financial disclosure statement became, in the campaign's wording, a feat of paperwork “not designed for a man of Mr. Trump's massive wealth.”

“First people said I would never run, and I did,” Trump said in that statement. “Then, they said I would never file my statement of candidacy with the FEC, and I did. Next, they said I would never file my personal financial disclosure forms. I filed them early.”

The next logical step in that sequence, however, continues to vex Trump as president: He never released his tax returns.

...

The article is full of links to the wayback machine. I guess Donnie Dumbfuck doesn't know that the Internet is forever. I think back to the great line from the movie, "The Social Network": "The Internet is not written in pencil."

[Destiny]

I hate Comey as much as the next lady, but I sorta feel sorry for him. How humiliating. Can you imagine being fired and finding out, while you are presenting to the agency you got fired from, FROM TV?

 

[JMarie]

I can't wait to see how Sean Hannity spins today's events as the fault of Democratic snowflakes.

 

Okay, so it's 18 minutes into the show, and I've had enough.  Trump was just draining the swamp, like he said he would, and Comey deserved to go.  After all, he didn't go after Hillary the way he should, and Hannity listed the charges Hillary should be facing.  This is news only Fox News will tell you, and don't believe what the false mainstream media is saying.  Hillary emails, Hillary uranium, Hillary blah blah blah. 

 

[nvmbr02]

14 minutes ago, Destiny said:

I hate Comey as much as the next lady, but I sorta feel sorry for him. How humiliating. Can you imagine being fired and finding out while you are presenting to the agency you got fired from FROM TV?

Agree 100%.

[Howl]

Here's a thought.  Is Trump going to try to go after Hillary again, by putting someone in place in the FBI who decides to find that Hillary's use of a private server rises to the level of a criminal act?  Yes, it's a crazy thought, but it would energize Trump's Crooked Hillary base, and they would keep on loving him.