Trump 17: James Comey and the Goblin of "You're Fired"

[PsyD2013]

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/president-trump-says-election-were-130857508.html

The Talking Yam thinks if the election were held today he would win by a bigger margin.  Now we can add delusions of grandeur to the list. when asked "What are the words that come to mind when you think of Donald Trump?"

 

[RoseWilder]

1 hour ago, formergothardite said:

I did not know this. What happens if Congress refuses to impeach? Can the man just get away with everything? 

Watching the Three Tiny Trumps fall from grace would be the icing on the cake. The only Trump I will feel sorry for is Barron who is a child and whose life will probably be turned upside down. 

I'm not sure what happens if they refuse to impeach. I read last night that we only need 10% of Republicans to be on board with impeachment. I think when this scandal really kicks into high gear (and it's revealed how many other Republicans are in on it), that will motivate some Republicans to act, if for no other reason than to save themselves. 

As for Barron, I feel bad for him for whatever short-term confusion or chaos this might cause in his life. But if Trump ends up in prison (and intelligence community sources have leaked that the evidence against Trump is so bad, he'll die in prison) that would be a good thing for Barron long term. Tiffany is the only adult Trump child I don't want to punch in the face, and this is probably because Trump seems to ignore her. I would love for Trump to not get the chance to destroy Barron. 

[RoseWilder]

Louise Mensch has been saying for a few weeks now that the FBI has tapes of Mike Pence and Paul Ryan related to this Trump-Russia scandal and that we are most likely going to end up with Orrin Hatch as president. Now she reports this:

https://patribotics.blog/2017/05/13/trumps-presidency-ended-may-9th-hatch-getting-security-briefings/

Quote

Exclusive: Several sources familiar with the matter say that Senator Orrin Hatch of Utah is being given security briefings to prepare him for the Presidency.

Sources close to the legal community indicate that matters are proceeding rapidly in the forthcoming proceedings to remove Donald Trump from office, and to indict the co-conspirators around him.

I know a lot of people don't trust Mensch, so take that for whatever it's worth to you. But I trust her sources. 

I'm not sure how I feel about having Hatch for president. What I know about him, I don't like. But I would LOVE to watch Trump, Pence and Ryan all go up in flames. 

Does anyone here know more about Hatch. I know, as far as how he votes, he seems a lot like Pence, but maybe slightly less extreme (for instance, he's anti-abortion, but strongly in favor of stem cell research.) 

Is he at least a rational enough person that he won't piss off all our allies and get us nuked? 

[formergothardite]

12 minutes ago, RoseWilder said:

As for Barron, I feel bad for him for whatever short-term confusion or chaos this might cause in his life. But if Trump ends up in prison (and intelligence community sources have leaked that the evidence against Trump is so bad, he'll die in prison) that would be a good thing for Barron long term. Tiffany is the only adult Trump child I don't want to punch in the face, and this is probably because Trump seems to ignore her. I would love for Trump to not get the chance to destroy Barron. 

No one better fucking pardon him. He has needed prison for a very long time. Tiffany's saving grace seems to be that she wasn't really raised around Trump. If(when, please be when) Trump goes to prison Melania needs to change her and Baron's last names and move somewhere obscure so the child can grow up without the Trump shame hanging over him. Melanie seems to like privacy anyway. 

4 minutes ago, RoseWilder said:

Louise Mensch has been saying for a few weeks now that the FBI has tapes of Mike Pence and Paul Ryan related to this Trump-Russia scandal

It doesn't make sense that Pence wouldn't know. He is in deep with Trump and he could hardly not realize what is going on. Paul Ryan is such a sleazeball who gives no shits about this country. I hope they all end up in prison. 

I know nothing about Orrin Hatch but at this point our standards are so low that not selling our country to Russia will make him be an okay president. 

[RoseWilder]

17 minutes ago, formergothardite said:

No one better fucking pardon him. He has needed prison for a very long time. Tiffany's saving grace seems to be that she wasn't really raised around Trump. If(when, please be when) Trump goes to prison Melania needs to change her and Baron's last names and move somewhere obscure so the child can grow up without the Trump shame hanging over him. Melanie seems to like privacy anyway. 

New York State is also pursuing a money laundering case against Trump, and he can't pardon himself or his co-conspirators from that one. I'm assuming if Trump can't pardon anyone from that, the new president can't either. 

[sawasdee]

I really, really, really, REALLY want to believe Mensch andTaylor.

But I need more evidence. Not just vaguely cited sources.

And we only hear when they are right. How many times are they wrong?

But I desperately  want to  believe we are near the end of this horrible tunnel - and can rid the world (politically) of tRump, Pence, Ryan et al.

When Orrin Hatch looks good, you know we are going to hell in a handbasket.

 

[Howl]

I don't know anything about Louise Mensch other than what I've read on this forum, but nothing she has claimed so far has surfaced, so I don't know if she is blowing smoke or not.  My "trusted sources" are not speculating about any of this. I know if they could confirm or have confidence in her as a source, they would be talking about it, so who knows.  

That said, IF what she is claiming is true, it will bring down the entire government, which would have a horribly destabilizing effect in every way you can think of, beginning with instability in the stock market, with ripple effects going out from that.  Add to that -- the very large number of vacant upper tier cabinet positions mean many aspects of government would be paralyzed - worse than they are now.  We might crave this kind of collapse as revenge for being stuck with Trump, BUT unintended side effects could be pretty bad.  Like Republicans wetting themselves with happiness and taking advantage of a distracted nation to ram through a LOT of retrograde legislation.  Like the Russians taking advantage, like.....fill in the blank.  That said, I'd take Orrin Hatch over Pence any day, and Hatch is a dick, but not as self righteous a dick as Pence. 

Jeeze, do I miss the days of "No Drama Obama". 

The money laundering case has been settled before it went to court. 

Details here on CNN: 

Russian money-laundering details remain in the dark as US settles fraud case

This is not being discussed yet on the Sunday morning talk show, at least on ABC.com or CNN. 

Spoiler

 

New York (CNN)A major US investigation into Russian money laundering has come to an abrupt end.

The case aimed to expose how Russian mobsters allegedly stole $230 million and hid some of the cash in New York City real estate. Also sure to come up was the suspicious death of the Russian lawyer who exposed the alleged fraud, though US prosecutors weren't alleging that the defendants were behind it.

The trial was set to start on Monday, but late Friday night, federal prosecutors in New York announced they settled the case with Prevezon, the company accused of buying up "high-end commercial space and luxury apartments" with laundered money.

The abrupt conclusion has some involved in the trial wondering why this Russian investigation had been cut short.

"What most concerns me is: Has there been any political pressure applied in this?" asked Louise Shelley, an illicit finance expert who was set to testify in support of the US government on Tuesday.

 

 

2 minutes ago, sawasdee said:

When Orrin Hatch looks good, you know we are going to hell in a handbasket.

I gave you a +1, but dang, I'd like to upvote it 10,000 times! 

[sawasdee]

@Howl

No, no, this is not suspicious at all!

OOH - a rainbow! Look over there!

And I agree with you - the ramifications  of the entire top layer of government perhaps being corrupt will have repercussions.

But is it better to deal with those than let the TT continue to ignore the Constitution, rules of political behaviour,and just the simple rules of civil discourse?

I believe dealing with the fallout of the TT presidency is best done sooner rather  than later. It will damage the country less - and give a chance of recovery.

[47of74]

7 hours ago, formergothardite said:

No one better fucking pardon him. He has needed prison for a very long time. Tiffany's saving grace seems to be that she wasn't really raised around Trump. If(when, please be when) Trump goes to prison Melania needs to change her and Baron's last names and move somewhere obscure so the child can grow up without the Trump shame hanging over him. Melanie seems to like privacy anyway. 

It doesn't make sense that Pence wouldn't know. He is in deep with Trump and he could hardly not realize what is going on. Paul Ryan is such a sleazeball who gives no shits about this country. I hope they all end up in prison. 

I know nothing about Orrin Hatch but at this point our standards are so low that not selling our country to Russia will make him be an okay president. 

That's one reason Gerald Ford was no good in my book.  He should have made Nixon face justice instead of pardoning his ass.  I think if Ford hadn't done that corrupt bargain with Nixon and made him face justice future Presidents would not have felt so emboldened to get away with stuff.  Nixon should have spent a long time in prison but got off real light.

If I had my way the Constitution would be changed so that Presidents cannot pardon their predecessors until 35 years after the President in question has left office, or two successive Congresses have given a two thirds plus five majority approval for the person being pardoned early.

[RoseWilder]

6 hours ago, Howl said:

I don't know anything about Louise Mensch other than what I've read on this forum, but nothing she has claimed so far has surfaced, so I don't know if she is blowing smoke or not.  

She reported on the FISA warrant last fall and then was proven correct when the mainstream media began reporting on it five months later. That's a pretty big scoop. 

There have been other small things as well that she reported on that turned out to be true (she traced Trump's plane landings during the campaign and found a Russian plane landing in every city when Trump did. Rachel Maddow later reported on it.) 

There are other cases as well, but you get my point. 

[Howl]

Sorry, I meant nothing has surfaced from her very recent and quite dramatic claims/predictions of a week or two ago, which were reported here on FJ.   Time will tell. 

[GreyhoundFan]

I thought SNL did a fabulous job last night with the cold open featuring "Lester Holt" interviewing the TT. They managed to hit on much of the crap from this week. Seeing Ryan as a waiter bringing ice cream (TWO scoops) made me laugh my socks off.

 

"Trump must be impeached. Here’s why."

Spoiler

The time has come for Congress to launch an impeachment investigation of President Trump for obstruction of justice.

The remedy of impeachment was designed to create a last-resort mechanism for preserving our constitutional system. It operates by removing executive-branch officials who have so abused power through what the framers called “high crimes and misdemeanors” that they cannot be trusted to continue in office.

...

Now the country is faced with a president whose conduct strongly suggests that he poses a danger to our system of government.

Ample reasons existed to worry about this president, and to ponder the extraordinary remedy of impeachment, even before he fired FBI Director James B. Comey and shockingly admitted on national television that the action was provoked by the FBI’s intensifying investigation into his campaign’s ties with Russia.

Even without getting to the bottom of what Trump dismissed as “this Russia thing,” impeachable offenses could theoretically have been charged from the outset of this presidency. One important example is Trump’s brazen defiance of the foreign emoluments clause, which is designed to prevent foreign powers from pressuring U.S. officials to stray from undivided loyalty to the United States. Political reality made impeachment and removal on that and other grounds seem premature.

No longer. To wait for the results of the multiple investigations underway is to risk tying our nation’s fate to the whims of an authoritarian leader.

Comey’s summary firing will not stop the inquiry, yet it represented an obvious effort to interfere with a probe involving national security matters vastly more serious than the “third-rate burglary” that Nixon tried to cover up in Watergate. The question of Russian interference in the presidential election and possible collusion with the Trump campaign go to the heart of our system and ability to conduct free and fair elections.

Consider, too, how Trump embroiled Deputy Attorney General Rod J. Rosenstein and Attorney General Jeff Sessions, despite Sessions’s recusal from involvement in the Russia investigation, in preparing admittedly phony justifications for the firing on which Trump had already decided. Consider how Trump used the vice president and White House staff to propagate a set of blatant untruths — before giving an interview to NBC’s Lester Holt that exposed his true motivation.

Trump accompanied that confession with self-serving — and manifestly false — assertions about having been assured by Comey that Trump himself was not under investigation. By Trump’s own account, he asked Comey about his investigative status even as he was conducting the equivalent of a job interview in which Comey sought to retain his position as director.

Further reporting suggests that the encounter was even more sinister, with Trump insisting that Comey pledge “loyalty” to him in order to retain his job. Publicly saying he saw nothing wrong with demanding such loyalty, the president turned to Twitter with a none-too-subtle threat that Comey would regret any decision to disseminate his version of his conversations with Trump — something that Comey has every right, and indeed a civic duty, to do.

To say that this does not in itself rise to the level of “obstruction of justice” is to empty that concept of all meaning. Obstruction of justice was the first count in the articles of impeachment against Nixon and, years later, a count against Bill Clinton. In Clinton’s case, the ostensible obstruction consisted solely in lying under oath about a sordid sexual affair that may have sullied the Oval Office but involved no abuse of presidential power as such.

But in Nixon’s case, the list of actions that together were deemed to constitute impeachable obstruction reads like a forecast of what Trump would do decades later — making misleading statements to, or withholding material evidence from, federal investigators or other federal employees; trying to interfere with FBI or congressional investigations; trying to break through the FBI’s shield surrounding ongoing criminal investigations; dangling carrots in front of people who might otherwise pose trouble for one’s hold on power.

It will require serious commitment to constitutional principle, and courageous willingness to put devotion to the national interest above self-interest and party loyalty, for a Congress of the president’s own party to initiate an impeachment inquiry. It would be a terrible shame if only the mounting prospect of being voted out of office in November 2018 would sufficiently concentrate the minds of representatives and senators today.

But whether it is devotion to principle or hunger for political survival that puts the prospect of impeachment and removal on the table, the crucial thing is that the prospect now be taken seriously, that the machinery of removal be reactivated, and that the need to use it become the focus of political discourse going into 2018.

I've been writing little outlines for the calls I will be making to my senators and representative tomorrow. They are all Dems, so they don't have a huge amount of power, but it's time for Dems to stop being wimpy and nice.  I hope that the investigations do take down the TT, Pence, Ryan, and the three oldest Drumpf children. Our country deserves no less.

[GreyhoundFan]

"Under Trump, inconvenient data is being sidelined"

Spoiler

The Trump administration has removed or tucked away a wide variety of information that until recently was provided to the public, limiting access, for instance, to disclosures about workplace violations, energy efficiency, and animal welfare abuses.

Some of the information relates to enforcement actions taken by federal agencies against companies and other employers. By lessening access, the administration is sheltering them from the kind of “naming and shaming” that federal officials previously used to influence company behavior, according to digital experts, activists and former Obama administration officials.

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration, for instance, has dramatically scaled back on publicizing its fines against firms. And the Agriculture Department has taken off-line animal welfare enforcement records, including abuses in dog breeding operations and horse farms that alter the gait of racehorses through the controversial practice of “soring” their legs.

In other cases, the administration appears to be dimming the prior spotlight on the background and conduct of top officials. The administration no longer publishes online the ethics waivers granted to appointees who would otherwise be barred from joining the government because of recent lobbying activities. Nor is the White House releasing logs of its visitors, making it difficult for the public to keep track of who is stopping by to see the president’s inner circle.

The administration has also removed websites and other material supporting Obama-era policies that the White House no longer embraces. Gone, for instance, is a White House Web page that directed prospective donors to private groups that aid refugees fleeing Syria and other embattled nations.

Officials also removed websites run by the Environmental Protection Agency and the Interior Department that provided scientific information about climate change, eliminating access. for instance, to documents evaluating the danger that the desert ecology in the Southwest could face from future warming. (On Friday, protesting against the disappearance of the EPA website, the city of Chicago posted the site online as it had existed under the Obama administration.)

And within a week of President Trump’s inauguration, the White House retired the two-year-old Federal Supplier Greenhouse Gas Management Scorecard, which ranks firms with major federal contracts on their energy efficiency and policies to curb carbon output.

“The President has made a commitment that his Administration will absolutely follow the law and disclose any information it is required to disclose,” said White House spokeswoman Kelly Love in an email Sunday.

The White House takes its ethics and conflict of interest rules seriously,” Love added, “and requires all employees to work closely with ethics counsel to ensure compliance. Per the President’s Executive Order, violators will be held accountable by the Department of Justice.”

But Norman Eisen, who served as President Barack Obama’s special counsel for ethics and government reform, said the changes have undermined the public’s ability to hold the federal government accountable.

“The Trump administration seems determined to utilize a larger version of Harry Potter’s cloak of invisibility to cover the entire administration,” said Eisen, now a fellow with the Brookings Institution’s governance studies program.

Across the vast breadth of the government, agencies have traditionally provided the public with massive data sets, which can be of great value to companies, researchers and advocacy groups, among others. Three months ago, there were 195,245 public data sets available on www.data.gov, according to Nathan Cortez, the associate dean of research at Southern Methodist University’s Dedman School of Law, who studies the handling of public data. This week it stood at just under 156,000.

Data experts say the decrease, at least in part, may reflect the consolidation of data sets or the culling of outdated ones, rather than a strategic move to keep information from the public. But the reduction was clearly a conscious decision.

Cortez said the Obama administration increased the amount of government data offered to the public, although the information was at times incomplete or inaccurate and sometimes used as a “regulatory cudgel.” Under Trump, the government is taking transparency “in the opposite direction.”

In some cases, federal Web pages are being routinely maintained. In other cases, information that was once easily accessible to the public has moved to locations that are harder to find, access and interpret. Yet other data has entirely vanished.

The Education Department, for instance, continues to update weekly how many universities and colleges are being investigated for how they handle claims of sexual assault and harassment under the federal statute, Title IX, which prohibits gender discrimination.

Under Obama, OSHA regularly sent out news releases to publicize the fines levied against companies, aiming to discourage others from engaging in similar behavior. President George W. Bush’s administration had a similar policy, issuing dozens of news releases each month.

Business groups have criticized the practice as scapegoating.

“The issue of shaming through news releases has been a real issue with my members,” said Randy Johnson, senior vice president for labor, immigration and employee benefits at the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, in an interview, adding, “It’s about trying to drive customers away, so that will put pressure on companies to settle” with the Labor Department rather than fight the alleged violations in court.

Since Trump took office, OSHA has issued more than 200 citations of $40,000 or more, according to the agency’s former deputy assistant secretary Jordan Barab, which was the threshold for issuing a news release under Obama.

But OSHA has issued only two stand-alone press statements on fines of at least $40,000, along with one on a judicial ruling. The releases include an incident where two men died in a collapsed trench in Boston where the agency found the company did not provide safety training or proper safeguards and when a worker in an auto insulation manufacturer in suburban Toledo had his right hand amputated by a machine.

A record of OSHA’s enforcement actions is still available online, but accessing it requires navigating the Labor Department’s extensive website to access raw data that largely lacks context and can be opaque.

Howard Mavity, a labor and employment lawyer at Fisher & Phillips who represents management, said in an interview that Obama officials’ practice of “regulation by shame . . . angered some employers, as well as me.” But putting a near-total stop to the news releases, he said, “was too far the other way.”

“Those news releases served a valuable role, to constantly alert and catch employers’ attention,” Mavity said.

Other documents are simply absent. Just days after taking office, Trump instituted a policy under which appointees are barred from working on any issue on which they have lobbied in the past two years, but the government can still waive this restriction. The administration has not made public which waivers, if any, it has granted.

The waivers detail contacts that could have precluded the person from serving and in some cases outline what contacts that person can have with former clients.

Michael Catanzaro represented clients including American Fuel and Petrochemical Manufacturers and Devon Energy as a partner at the CGCN Group before becoming special assistant to the president for domestic energy and environmental policy in February. Since joining the White House, Catanzaro has played a key role in drafting executive orders that could affect his former clients, including orders on climate and offshore drilling. The administration has not explained what steps, if any, he took to avoid a conflict of interest with those clients.

Catanzaro declined to comment.

Robert Glicksman, a George Washington University environmental law professor, was making the final edits on a law review article when he noticed that a government website he was relying on had vanished. Gone was the ecological assessment issued by the Bureau of Land Management for the Chihuahuan Desert, while another one was archived and a third was moved to an entirely different site.

“It’s one of the most important tools for BLM in understanding the current and likely impact of climate change on the public lands,” Glicksman said, adding that each document ran hundreds of pages and included technical and scientific information. “All that research is essentially off the boards, for now.”

The BLM did not respond to a request for comment.

In some cases, experts say, shelving disclosure requirements can hamper innovation in the private sector. Two years ago, the White House launched the greenhouse gas score card for federal contractors, listing whether they had disclosed their carbon output, have a goal to cut it and could face business risks from climate change. The site was archived within a week of Trump taking office.

Jason Pearson, executive director of the Sustainable Purchasing Leadership Council, said that action removed a powerful incentive for private companies to improve their environmental practices.

“That transparency about positive action can be one of the most important motivators for the broader community to take action,” he said.

Yeah, this administration doesn't want any important info made public. They only want crap spewed by the tangerine toddler to be out there.

[GreyhoundFan]

Somehow I doubt it... "Melania Trump loves being a mom. As first lady, will she be mom-in-chief?"

Spoiler

As a new mother, Melania Trump marveled over her son, Barron.

“The love. It’s unconditional love,” she told the Palm Beach Daily News in an interview published on her first Mother’s Day.

For much of her husband’s chaotic presidency so far, Mrs. Trump has stayed out of Washington. Similarly, during Donald Trump’s campaign, she remained in the background and did not display deep passion for any particular policy issue.

But in the 2006 interview about her baby, she seems in awe.

“It’s a miracle almost, I could say, that two people can create,” she said. “It’s very, very special.”

Her first Mother’s Day as first lady is an important marker, perhaps more for Melania Trump than her predecessors. The reason she has given for not fully engaging with the duties of her office is her commitment to care for Barron.

She has remained in New York so that he could complete the school year and has only sporadically held public events as first lady. Her first solo engagement during her husband’s presidency was a visit to a hospital in Manhattan where she read “Oh, the Places You’ll Go!” to a handful of sick children. It was a motherly thing to do.

One of the handful of events she has hosted in the White House was a reception Friday for mothers of military veterans in the East Room. It began with President Trump promising his “complete and total support” to the military and mentioning his proposed increases in defense spending.

Then he praised his own mother, who he said was looking down on him, before introducing his wife. Mrs. Trump spoke for a few minutes from prepared remarks about the experience of being a mother.

“As everyone in this room knows, mother is a title that claims your heart and changes your life forever,” she said. “In fact, it has been said that having a child means allowing your heart to walk around outside of your body. For the mothers of someone who has or is serving our country, this must be especially true.”

About 200 military mothers attended the brunch, where they enjoyed salad, sandwiches and sweets followed by performances by the Army chorus and the Marine band.

Mrs. Trump is learning more about veteran’s issues. On a Thursday in April, she attended a White House event honoring wounded members of the military; she also accompanied her husband on a visit to Walter Reed National Military Medical Center.

She may take up advocacy on behalf of veterans as she increases her activities, which her staff says will happen once she has moved to Washington. Tradition dictates that the first lady, as wife of the commander in chief, supports military families, and it is an issue that nearly every first lady has engaged with in some fashion.

Still, mothering seems to be what compels Mrs. Trump, and even the demands of Washington and her husband’s ascension to the highest office in the nation have not deterred her from that first priority.

“My husband is traveling all the time. Barron needs somebody as a parent, so I am with him all the time,” she told People magazine last year, adding that she helps her son with his homework and takes him to extracurricular activities.

Donald Trump is hiring and firing with dramatic flair, and his administration is hurtling along swiftly, but Mrs. Trump’s home life seems largely unchanged from that description.

“She’s a fierce wife and mother, a protective mother,” said a longtime acquaintance.

As she prepares to move to Washington — which the president has said will happen in four weeks — will her focus broaden?

Former first lady Michelle Obama also came to Washington reluctantly and worried about her daughters, who were slightly younger than 11-year-old Barron Trump. She instructed her staff to give her daughters’ activities priority on her calendar and returned to the White House residence by 3 p.m. most days to greet them when they came home from school.

Still, within a year of her husband’s taking office, she rolled out a campaign against childhood obesity as her first advocacy issue.

Mrs. Trump still has time to more fully develop a platform as first lady, but what she does soon after she moves to Washington will indicate whether she plans to be mom-in-chief or mother solely to her son.

I have a feeling she'll hide in the White House until the TT moves out, either to a federal penitentiary or back to Drumpf Tower.

[RoseWilder]

5 hours ago, Howl said:

Sorry, I meant nothing has surfaced from her very recent and quite dramatic claims/predictions of a week or two ago, which were reported here on FJ.   Time will tell. 

I give this scoop from Mensch more credence because she has jointly released it with Claude Taylor, and his most recent prediction did come true. 

And on that note, here are several of Taylor's latest tweets: 

 

[fraurosena]

11 hours ago, GreyhoundFan said:

I thought SNL did a fabulous job last night with the cold open featuring "Lester Holt" interviewing the TT. They managed to hit on much of the crap from this week. Seeing Ryan as a waiter bringing ice cream (TWO scoops) made me laugh my socks off.

 

"Trump must be impeached. Here’s why."

  Hide contents

The time has come for Congress to launch an impeachment investigation of President Trump for obstruction of justice.

The remedy of impeachment was designed to create a last-resort mechanism for preserving our constitutional system. It operates by removing executive-branch officials who have so abused power through what the framers called “high crimes and misdemeanors” that they cannot be trusted to continue in office.

...

Now the country is faced with a president whose conduct strongly suggests that he poses a danger to our system of government.

Ample reasons existed to worry about this president, and to ponder the extraordinary remedy of impeachment, even before he fired FBI Director James B. Comey and shockingly admitted on national television that the action was provoked by the FBI’s intensifying investigation into his campaign’s ties with Russia.

Even without getting to the bottom of what Trump dismissed as “this Russia thing,” impeachable offenses could theoretically have been charged from the outset of this presidency. One important example is Trump’s brazen defiance of the foreign emoluments clause, which is designed to prevent foreign powers from pressuring U.S. officials to stray from undivided loyalty to the United States. Political reality made impeachment and removal on that and other grounds seem premature.

No longer. To wait for the results of the multiple investigations underway is to risk tying our nation’s fate to the whims of an authoritarian leader.

Comey’s summary firing will not stop the inquiry, yet it represented an obvious effort to interfere with a probe involving national security matters vastly more serious than the “third-rate burglary” that Nixon tried to cover up in Watergate. The question of Russian interference in the presidential election and possible collusion with the Trump campaign go to the heart of our system and ability to conduct free and fair elections.

Consider, too, how Trump embroiled Deputy Attorney General Rod J. Rosenstein and Attorney General Jeff Sessions, despite Sessions’s recusal from involvement in the Russia investigation, in preparing admittedly phony justifications for the firing on which Trump had already decided. Consider how Trump used the vice president and White House staff to propagate a set of blatant untruths — before giving an interview to NBC’s Lester Holt that exposed his true motivation.

Trump accompanied that confession with self-serving — and manifestly false — assertions about having been assured by Comey that Trump himself was not under investigation. By Trump’s own account, he asked Comey about his investigative status even as he was conducting the equivalent of a job interview in which Comey sought to retain his position as director.

Further reporting suggests that the encounter was even more sinister, with Trump insisting that Comey pledge “loyalty” to him in order to retain his job. Publicly saying he saw nothing wrong with demanding such loyalty, the president turned to Twitter with a none-too-subtle threat that Comey would regret any decision to disseminate his version of his conversations with Trump — something that Comey has every right, and indeed a civic duty, to do.

To say that this does not in itself rise to the level of “obstruction of justice” is to empty that concept of all meaning. Obstruction of justice was the first count in the articles of impeachment against Nixon and, years later, a count against Bill Clinton. In Clinton’s case, the ostensible obstruction consisted solely in lying under oath about a sordid sexual affair that may have sullied the Oval Office but involved no abuse of presidential power as such.

But in Nixon’s case, the list of actions that together were deemed to constitute impeachable obstruction reads like a forecast of what Trump would do decades later — making misleading statements to, or withholding material evidence from, federal investigators or other federal employees; trying to interfere with FBI or congressional investigations; trying to break through the FBI’s shield surrounding ongoing criminal investigations; dangling carrots in front of people who might otherwise pose trouble for one’s hold on power.

It will require serious commitment to constitutional principle, and courageous willingness to put devotion to the national interest above self-interest and party loyalty, for a Congress of the president’s own party to initiate an impeachment inquiry. It would be a terrible shame if only the mounting prospect of being voted out of office in November 2018 would sufficiently concentrate the minds of representatives and senators today.

But whether it is devotion to principle or hunger for political survival that puts the prospect of impeachment and removal on the table, the crucial thing is that the prospect now be taken seriously, that the machinery of removal be reactivated, and that the need to use it become the focus of political discourse going into 2018.

I've been writing little outlines for the calls I will be making to my senators and representative tomorrow. They are all Dems, so they don't have a huge amount of power, but it's time for Dems to stop being wimpy and nice.  I hope that the investigations do take down the TT, Pence, Ryan, and the three oldest Drumpf children. Our country deserves no less.

As a foreigner, I have a question about this calling senators and representatives. Why do you only call "your" senators and reps? Couldn't you call Republican senators and reps? Not your own, I mean? Who's stopping you from doing that? Is it a 'not done' thing? Or is it something else? Because if I were an American, I'd be calling, mailing, faxing every damned polititcian I could think of, mine or not, and first and foremost, I'd be deluging the Republicans with my questions and comments. 

[singsingsing]

38 minutes ago, fraurosena said:

As a foreigner, I have a question about this calling senators and representatives. Why do you only call "your" senators and reps? Couldn't you call Republican senators and reps? Not your own, I mean? Who's stopping you from doing that? Is it a 'not done' thing? Or is it something else? Because if I were an American, I'd be calling, mailing, faxing every damned polititcian I could think of, mine or not, and first and foremost, I'd be deluging the Republicans with my questions and comments. 

I don't think anything's stopping anyone from doing that, but the idea is that your own representative is directly accountable to you. Come election time, you'll have a hand in voting to keep him or her in office or send him or her packing. Also, your representative's job is basically to work for his or her constituents and address the issues of your own area. So in theory, he or she should be most concerned about complaints coming from his or her own constituents. 

[Howl]

Our local TV station just aired part of the Spicy's Back! clip from SNL on the morning news.  Heh! 

 

[laPapessaGiovanna]

Clinton was too hawkish for Repuglicans (insert sarcasm font), so what are they saying now that Trump lifted Obama's restrictions to selling arms to UAE and a 100bn worth of deal has been reached with them? Oh well as long as they'll use the arms against people who are brown and poor there's no problem right? 

And guess whose royal asses the Putinfluffer will kiss in his first presidential trip abroad?

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/may/12/us-saudi-arabia-arms-deal-donald-trump-visit

Spoiler

The United States is close to completing a series of arms deals for Saudi Arabia totaling more than $100bn, a senior White House official said on Friday, a week ahead of Donald Trump’s planned visit to Riyadh.

The official, who spoke to Reuters on condition of anonymity, said the arms package could end up surpassing more than $300bn over a decade to help Saudi Arabia boost its defensive capabilities while still maintaining US ally Israel’s qualitative military edge over its neighbors.

“We are in the final stages of a series of deals,” the official said. The package is being developed to coincide with Trump’s visit to Saudi Arabia. Trump leaves for the kingdom on 19 May, the first stop on his maiden international trip.

 

[GreyhoundFan]

2 hours ago, fraurosena said:

As a foreigner, I have a question about this calling senators and representatives. Why do you only call "your" senators and reps? Couldn't you call Republican senators and reps? Not your own, I mean? Who's stopping you from doing that? Is it a 'not done' thing? Or is it something else? Because if I were an American, I'd be calling, mailing, faxing every damned polititcian I could think of, mine or not, and first and foremost, I'd be deluging the Republicans with my questions and comments. 

One of the first questions many senators' and representatives' staffs will ask is for your address, so they can verify you are a constituent. Especially with all the uproar, many reps are refusing feedback from non-constituents. I posted an article a few days ago where (mostly Republican) representatives were requiring ID to attend town hall meetings because they didn't want anyone from outside their district. I tried calling Lyan's office once and could tell that my remarks were unwelcome, even though I was very polite, when the staffer asked for my address, and I was honest that I am not from his home district. I pointed out that, as speaker, he should be representing everyone, but that didn't go anywhere.

 

Great opinion piece: "Preet Bharara: Are there still public servants who will say no to the president?"

Spoiler

The most dramatic hearing I helped to arrange as chief counsel to a Senate subcommittee took place 10 years ago Monday, when James B. Comey, then deputy attorney general in the George W. Bush administration, described how he and FBI Director Robert Mueller intervened at the hospital bedside of Attorney General John Ashcroft.

The encounter occurred in 2004, after White House Chief of Staff Andrew H. Card Jr. and White House Counsel Alberto R. Gonzales tried to overrule Comey’s and Mueller’s legal objection to a secret terrorist surveillance program. When the White House nonetheless sought the ailing Ashcroft’s blessing to proceed, Comey prepared to resign. Ultimately, Comey and Mueller prevailed.

Jim Comey was once my boss and remains my friend. I know that many people are mad at him. He has at different times become a cause for people’s frustration and anger on both sides of the aisle. Some of those people may have a point. But on this unsettling anniversary of that testimony, I am proud to know a man who had the courage to say no to a president.

And in the tumult of this time, the question whose answer we should perhaps fear the most is the one evoked by that showdown: Are there still public servants who are prepared to say no to the president?

Now, as the country once again wonders whether justice can be nonpolitical and whether its leaders understand the most basic principles of prosecutorial independence and the rule of law, I recall yet another firestorm that erupted 10 years ago over the abrupt and poorly explained firing of top Justice Department officials in the midst of sensitive investigations. The 2007 affair was not Watergate, the more popular parallel invoked lately, but the lessons of that spring, after the Bush administration inexplicably fired more than eight of its own U.S. attorneys, are worth recalling.

When the actions became public, people suspected political interference and obstruction. Democrats were the most vocal, but some Republicans asked questions, too. The uproar intensified as it became clear that the initial explanations were mere pretext, and the White House couldn’t keep its story straight. Public confidence ebbed, and Congress began to investigate.

In response, the Senate launched a bipartisan (yes, bipartisan) investigation into those firings and the politicization of the Justice Department. Early on, the then-deputy attorney general — Comey was gone by then — looked senators in the eye and said the U.S. attorneys were fired for cause; although such appointees certainly serve at will, this assertion turned out to be demonstrably false. We learned that the U.S. attorney in New Mexico, David C. Iglesias, was fired soon after receiving an improper call from Republican Sen. Pete V. Domenici pushing him to bring political corruption cases before the election. We learned that Justice Department officials in Washington had improperly applied a conservative ideological litmus test to attorneys seeking career positions, to immigration judges and even to the hiring of interns.

Ultimately, amid the drumbeat of revelations, every top leader of the department stepped down under a cloud. Finally, Gonzales himself resigned. Strict protocols were put in place severely limiting White House contacts with Justice officials on criminal matters. The blow to the morale and reputation of the department was incalculable.

For me, the past week has been deja vu all over again. To restore faith in the rule of law, three obvious things must happen: First, we need a truly bipartisan investigation in Congress. That means no partisan nonsense — just a commitment to finding the facts, whatever they may be, proving (or disproving) Russian interference in our election and anything related. Congress is a check and a balance, and never more important than when a bullying chief executive used to his own way seems not to remember the co-equal status of the other two branches.

Second, the new FBI director must be apolitical and sensitive to the law-enforcement mission, not someone with a long record of reflexive partisanship or commentary on the very investigative issues that will come before the bureau. Unfortunately, some of the candidates paraded by cameras this past weekend reality-show style fall into that category. I can’t think of anything worse for FBI morale, for truth-finding or for public trust. More than ever the FBI needs a strong and stabilizing hand, which means somebody who has not spent most of his or her career pandering for votes, groveling for cash or putting party over principle.

Finally, I join in the common-sense call for an independent and uncompromised special counsel to oversee the Russia investigation. Given the manner of Comey’s firing and the pretextual reasons proffered for it, there is no other way. My former colleague, now-Deputy Attorney General Rod J. Rosenstein, is a respected career prosecutor but has mostly deserved the doubts he generated with his peculiar press-release-style memo purporting to explain Comey’s sudden sacking. He can still fix it. The move would not only ensure the independence of the investigation, but also provide evidence of Rosenstein’s own independence.

History will judge this moment. It’s not too late to get it right, and justice demands it.

I wholeheartedly agree.

[sawasdee]

Someone on WaPo comments suggested that if tRump were struck by lightning on a golf course, then even evangelicals would get the message........

[GreyhoundFan]

8 minutes ago, sawasdee said:

Someone on WaPo comments suggested that if tRump were struck by lightning on a golf course, then even evangelicals would get the message........

Maybe it would shock some sense into him...nah, that wouldn't happen.

 

"The amateurish autocrat"

Quote

...

At the end of his first 100 days, the debate was tilting toward ineptitude. Trump didn’t know or care much about policy, shifted from one issue position to another, shunned eloquence in favor of often-deranged tweeting and didn’t even bother filling hundreds of government jobs.

The wealthy, especially Wall Street types, rejoiced when Trump backed away from many of his populist-sounding economic promises, particularly on trade, and moved toward a conventional, if rather radical, conservatism: steep tax cuts for the rich, deregulation on a grand scale. For the privileged, happy days were here again.

Those who fear Trump’s authoritarian side acknowledged that his potential for excess had been at least partly contained by our system of rights. The freedom to organize and express opposition, the power that free elections confer on every citizen, the independence of the courts and the liberty of the media — all are very much alive.

Nonetheless, members of this anti-Trump wing insisted on vigilance against Trump’s alarming indifference to the basic norms of self-government, his affection for thuggish leaders and his vicious attitude toward opponents.

Last week, the argument took a sharp, decisive and chilling turn. Trump proved that we can never be lulled into losing focus on the ways he could undermine the rules and principles of our democratic republic.

Sen. Richard J. Durbin (D-Ill.) appeared Friday on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” and spoke the essential truth: “I think we ought to get to the bottom line here. President Trump is dangerous.”

Yes, he is.

The firing of James B. Comey as FBI director and the administration’s fog of lies aimed at clouding the real reason for Trump’s decision are the most important signs that we have a leader who will do whatever it takes to resist accountability.

He will fire anyone who gets in his way. Trump’s dismissal of Sally Yates, the acting attorney general, and Preet Bharara, the U.S. attorney in New York, can now be seen in a more sinister light. Rod J. Rosenstein, the deputy attorney general on whom the Trump apparat initially tried to pin responsibility for Comey’s firing, may be next — if he is the person of integrity his friends describe.

Of course, Trump can be fairly regarded as both incompetent and authoritarian. We may be saved by the fact that the feckless Trump is often the authoritarian Trump’s worst enemy. If we’re lucky, Trump’s astonishing indiscipline will be his undoing.

At first, his pathetically deceitful spokespeople tried to pretend that the president’s firing decision arose from a deep if newfound concern for how Comey had treated Hillary Clinton. Then Trump blew up his own spin. He told NBC’s Lester Holt that he had long planned to get rid of Comey, and that it had something to do with “this Russia thing.” Here’s betting that spin will have changed again by the time you read this, because hinting that you’re hindering an investigation of yourself is not a good idea.

Not one word out of Trump’s White House is believable on its face, and sowing convenient untruth is another mark of autocracy. So is Trump’s effort to rig future elections, which is what his commission on “election integrity” is really all about. It will seek to justify making it as hard as possible for Trump’s opponents, particularly in the minority community, to vote.

And like authoritarians everywhere, he aims not simply to defeat his enemies but to humiliate them. Thus his assault on Comey in the Holt interview as a “showboat” and “a grandstander” — talk about a lack of self-awareness — and his Twitter threat Friday: “James Comey better hope that there are no ‘tapes’ of our conversations before he starts leaking to the press!” Presidential obsessions with “tapes” are perilous.

Trump clearly realized that reports of his demanding Comey’s loyalty made him sound like a mafia don or a two-bit despot.

It was fitting that Trump’s jolliness with the Russian ambassador and foreign minister was photographically captured last week by Tass, Vladimir Putin’s government news agency. The pesky American media were excluded from this happy meeting of minds. It can no longer be seen as outlandish to suspect that Trump’s role model is Putin, a man he has praised for having “very strong control over a country.” This should scare us all to death.

 

[AuntK]

Random thoughts -

Everyone knew that Trump had a yuge learning curve to master upon taking office.  However, as the events of the last week clearly illustrate, there has been absolutely NO progress in learning the job. The Comey debacle, an unprofessional shitshow, the "briefing in the bushes," the Russians in the Oval, indicate how clueless he is. As George Will said, (much more eloquently), he doesn't even know what he doesn't know. And the Secret Service or somebody who is going to be checking the Oval for Russian bugs better check the Situation Room as well as Donnie Dumbass may have paraded them down there too!

Secondly, as for that honorary law degree from Liberty U - even an EARNED law degree from Liberty isn't very impressive!  It's not Harvard or Yale, or hell, it's not even the University of Mississippi or the University of (fill in the state).  I hope there are no Liberty law grads here, but I'm speaking from experience in hiring lawyers!

Finally, I just read in Huff Post that Callista Gingrich, (Mrs. Gingrich #3), is going to be appointed ambassador to the Vatican. Seriously. Not to cast the first stone, but as I recall, she was the intern having the 6- year affair with Newt Gingrich (yuck), now her husband, while Newt was seeking to impeach Clinton for Cinton's intern dalliance. In fact, Callista and Newt  were actually doing the deed on the marital bed while the then Mrs. Gingrich (#2) was hospitalized!!! Wonder what she will discuss with the Pope? Maybe fidelity in marriage?

You just can't make this stuff up.

1 hour ago, sawasdee said:

Someone on WaPo comments suggested that if tRump were struck by lightning on a golf course, then even evangelicals would get the message........

As much as he plays golf, he is really risking it!  Especially in Florida - more lightening strikes than any other state in the country!

[CTRLZero]

4 hours ago, fraurosena said:

Why do you only call "your" senators and reps? Couldn't you call Republican senators and reps? Not your own, I mean?

It's apparently all about the votes, so if you can't vote for them, they probably won't care.  This doesn't make sense, especially when you may be interested in what's going on with a particular committee, but you have no representatives on said committee.  Sometimes various committees ask for input (i.e., surveys, public hearings), but it is a less-than-optimal situation.  I have sent thank you notes to a couple of local representatives who surprised me by voting against the AHCA, even though they are Republican.  I'm still learning how to more effectively make my voice heard.

2 hours ago, GreyhoundFan said:

I pointed out that, as speaker, he should be representing everyone, but that didn't go anywhere.

I sent a postcard expressing this to Trump, but I don't think he gets anything, much less the concept of representing people like me who are not ultra-wealthy.

[GreyhoundFan]

26 minutes ago, CTRLZero said:

snip

I sent a postcard expressing this to Trump, but I don't think he gets anything, much less the concept of representing people like me who are not ultra-wealthy.

LOL -- you are assuming he can read..

 

"The Daily 202: Loyalty is a one-way street for Donald Trump"

Spoiler

THE BIG IDEA: Many West Wing staffers have sacrificed their personal reputations by parroting falsehoods on behalf of Donald Trump. How will their devotion be repaid? Perhaps with pink slips.

The president has a congenital inability to take personal responsibility for his own mistakes. Throughout his career, he’s sought out scapegoats whenever situations get hairy. He’s doing it again amidst the continuing fallout from his decision to fire James Comey as FBI director.

Trump demands unquestioning loyalty from his subordinates, but kowtowing and paying fealty do not ensure that he’ll return the favor.

Several people who have spoken with the president tell Philip Rucker that he has been quick to blame his staff for the blowback to axing Comey. “Privately, Trump has lashed out at the communications office — led by press secretary Sean Spicer and communications director Michael Dubke — and has spoken candidly with advisers about a broad shake-up that could include demotions or dismissals,” Phil reported on the front page of Sunday’s paper. “Yet Trump did not inform Spicer and Dubke of his decision until about an hour before it was announced, keeping them and other senior aides out of the loop because he feared the news might leak prematurely. … Their defenders said they were assigned an impossible task of orchestrating on short notice a complete rollout plan — from crafting and distributing talking points to lining up lawmakers, legal experts and other Trump supporters to give interviews.”

The president and his family members do not want to hear these excuses. “Trump is in some ways like a pilot opting to fly a plane through heavy turbulence then blaming the flight attendants when the passengers get jittery,” Phil observed. “Some of Trump’s allies said they are worried that the president views the Comey episode entirely as a public-relations crisis — a branding problem — and has not been judicious about protecting himself from legal exposure as the FBI continues to investigate possible links between his campaign and Russia. … One GOP figure close to the White House mused privately about whether Trump was ‘in the grip of some kind of paranoid delusion.’"

THE PRICE OF LOYALTY:

-- Trump reportedly asked Comey to pledge his loyalty three times during a one-on-one dinner in late January, but the FBI director refused to do so. Comey allies say he believes this conversation is what led to his termination last week.

The president denies asking Comey to pledge personal loyalty, but he also says that he does not think doing so would be inappropriate. “I don’t think it would be a bad question to ask,” Trump said in an interview that aired Saturday night on Fox News. “I think loyalty to the country, loyalty to the United States, is important. You know, I mean, it depends on how you define loyalty.”

-- When you consider Trump’s history, there is nothing surprising about him asking Comey for a loyalty oath.

You might recall that the president installed minders inside key agencies as soon as he took power in January. These apparatchiks, who have already proven their devotion to the president, are charged — above all — with monitoring the loyalty of cabinet secretaries and reporting back to the White House. “This shadow government of political appointees … is embedded at every Cabinet agency, with offices in or just outside the secretary’s suite,” Lisa Rein and Juliet Eilperin reported in March. “The White House has installed at least 16 of the advisers at departments including Energy and Health and Human Services and at some smaller agencies such as NASA … These aides report not to the secretary, but to … a White House deputy chief of staff.”

The administration’s head hunters have struggled for months to find well-qualified people for high-level posts because any past criticism of Trump is often disqualifying. Trump rejected Rex Tillerson’s first choice to be his deputy because he’d criticized Trump during the campaign. A top aide to Ben Carson was summarily fired and escorted out of the Housing and Urban Development headquarters by security in February after a Trump loyalist discovered a critical op-ed he had written last fall.

During the GOP primaries, Trump asked attendees at his rallies to physically pledge loyalty. “Raise your right hand,” he said last March in Orlando, for example. He then told the crowd to repeat after him: “I do solemnly swear that I — no matter how I feel, no matter what the conditions, if there’s hurricanes or whatever — will vote, on or before the 12th for Donald J. Trump for president." Jewish groups complained at the time about the disconcerting imagery of people raising their right arms in what looked like a Nazi salute.

“Asked during a 2014 speech about the trait he most looks for in an employee, his answer was unequivocal: loyalty,” Bloomberg notes.

BUT LOYALTY DOES NOT CUT BOTH WAYS:

-- Last year, Trump repeatedly cited his refusal to fire then-campaign manager Corey Lewandowski, after he forcibly grabbed a female reporter and then denied it (even though there was video), as a testament to his own character. “Folks, look, I'm a loyal person,” Trump said at one town hall. “It would be so easy for me to terminate this man, ruin his life, ruin his family.” (He even cited Lewandowski during a meeting with Jewish leaders to make the point that he’d stay loyal to Israel if elected.) “This campaign, above all other things, is about loyalty,” Lewandowski told New York Magazine around this time.

Shortly thereafter, however, Trump fired Lewandowski. Then a few months after that, struggling in the polls, the candidate fired his replacement. It was a reminder that, for Trump, loyalty is always conditional. There are strings attached.

-- Trump has described himself as a “loyalty freak,” according to a profile written last summer by Politico’s Michael Kruse, but what he really meant by that is that he wants people under him to stay loyal to him.

-- From a prescient BuzzFeed profile in April 2016: “A review of the billionaire's tumultuous, decades-long career — including interviews with former employees, aides, and confidantes — suggests that Trump's dedication to even his closest allies can wear thin, particularly at moments of professional crisis. Far from a tight-knit family of blood brothers, The Donald's inner circle has been purged and repopulated many times over the years. Devoted workaholics burn out and flame out. Longtime alliances end with lawsuits and tabloid sniping. Sometimes reconciliation follows, sometimes grudges endure — and rarely does Trump refuse to bury the hatchet when it's good for the bottom line.”

Trump has even been willing to throw family members under the bus to avoid accepting fault for his own mistakes. “In 1990, when the disastrous opening of the Taj Mahal Casino threatened to unravel Trump's Atlantic City casino empire, he aimed his fury at his younger brother, Robert, who worked on the project,” the Buzzfeed story noted. “According to a 1991 book written by a former Trump executive, the magnate angrily berated Robert in front of other employees. Robert immediately departed the casino seething, according to the book, saying, ‘I don’t need this.’ … The episode put a lasting strain on their relationship.”

-- “Perhaps one of the most fraught positions for someone to occupy in Trump’s orbit is that of the PR man,” The Atlantic noted back in March: “Long before he earned the distinction of becoming the first president to live-tweet cable news, Trump was a headline-obsessed media junkie who devoured the New York Post daily and demanded round-the-clock attention from the publicists on his payroll. In one emblematic example from the early ‘90s, Trump became irate that he was losing the media battle with his first wife, Ivana, as their breakup dominated the tabloids—so he fired the public-relations consultant that his family had employed for more than two decades. Asked about the incident years later, the consultant, Howard Rubenstein, waved it off as a short-lived temper tantrum. ‘There was a time when [Trump] was upset with everybody,’ he shrugged. Still, in retrospect, the episode seems to have foreshadowed Trump’s widely chronicled displeasure with Spicer.”

...