Trump 23: The Death Eaters Have Taken the Fucking Country

[Cleopatra7]

I can't believe I'm going to defend NK, but these are strange times we live in today. After yesterday's UN speech, NK really has no reason not to be bellicose, if only for its own need for self-protection. The Iraq War demonstrated that the US has no problem with launching pre-emptive attacks on the flimsiest of evidence. It's also worth remembering that although a lot of nations have nukes, the US is the only country that has ever actually used them against an opponent in battle. As awful as the Kim regime is for the North Kireabs themselves, it has largely minded its own business with regard to foreign policy, especially in comparison to the US, which has been violating the sovereignty of other peoples since the Pilgrims got off the Mayflower. Between our naked racism, massive prison-industrial complex, corrupt government, and slender social safety network, I don't know why we'd expect the North Koreans (or anyone else, for that matter) to look to the US as any kind of moral authority or model worthy of emulation.

[GreyhoundFan]

"RNC taps legal account to help pay for President Trump’s lawyers in Russia probes"

Spoiler

The Republican National Committee is using a pool of money stockpiled for election recounts and other legal matters to pay for President Trump's ballooning lawyer fees related to the multiple Russia investigations, directing more than $230,000 to his attorneys in August alone, party officials confirmed Tuesday.

The RNC will report a payment of $100,000 to Trump's personal attorney John Dowd and a payment of $131,250 to Jay Sekulow, another member of his legal team, in a Federal Election Commission report set to be filed Wednesday.

“They have been paid with funds from a pre-existing legal proceedings account and do not reduce by a dime the resources we can put towards our political work,” RNC spokeswoman Cassie Smedile said in a statement. Reuters and CNN first reported the party payments.

The decision to tap the legal account comes after RNC officials debated this summer whether those funds could be used to help defray the costs related to the Russia probes. Some party officials thought it would be more appropriate to create a separate legal defense fund for the case, The Washington Post reported in July.

RNC officials concluded that it is permissible for the party to pay for the president's legal fees, according to a person familiar with the conversations. Separately, party and administration officials are working to determine whether executive branch staff members, who must comply with gift rules, could have their legal fees defrayed by the RNC or private legal defense funds.

The party's legal account was created by a 2014 spending measure, one of a trio of new accounts slipped into an end-of-the-year bill that dramatically expanded how much wealthy individuals could give to the national parties. Donors are permitted to give triple the amount to the special accounts than they can contribute to the party's main political fund.

Under the law, money for the legal account is to be “used to defray expenses incurred with respect to the preparation for and the conduct of election recounts and contests and other legal proceedings.’’

The RNC has raised millions to go into the account since its creation, thanks to six-figure checks from rich party backers. In July alone, half a dozen donors each contributed $101,700 to the legal account, including Home Depot co-founder Bernard Marcus and San Francisco investment company executive Charles Schwab, FEC filings show.

Trump's reelection committee — which is largely financed by small donors — has also directed to money to lawyers dealing with the Russia investigations. Such payments are permitted under federal law, as long as the legal expenses resulted from campaign activity.

In July, the committee reported paying $50,000 to the law firm of attorney Alan Futerfas on June 27. That payment was made 13 days before it was publicly revealed that Futerfas would represent Trump's eldest son, Donald Trump Jr., who held a June 2016 meeting with a Kremlin-connected lawyer who was said to have potentially damaging information about Hillary Clinton.

In addition, the campaign committee paid the Trump Corporation — a company being run by Trump Jr. and his brother, Eric — more than $89,000 for “legal consulting” on June 30, the report showed.

It remains unknown if Trump, who has said he is worth billions, is personally paying any of his legal expenses. White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders did not immediately respond to a question about whether the president is helping defray the costs.

More shadiness.

[GrumpyGran]

7 hours ago, Destiny said:

I’m about ready to lose my shit. If he doesn’t stop fucking telling us how big his dick is when 3.5 million Americans are getting fucked by a hurricane, I’m gonna lose it.

WHERE THE FUCK ARE HIS ADULTS!?

I think he has disaster exhaustion now. He's shown all the concern he's capable of, now he wants a parade so he can show everybody his toys.

4 hours ago, Howl said:

Actually, I just logged on to say that Jamie Dimon, who should be in prison IMHO, is a raging turd.  He's in DC lobbying to reduce the corporate tax rate, because doing that will goose the economy and create jobs make him even more insanely wealthy beyond even his wildest dreams of avarice. 

Yeah, I saw him and some woman yammering about it this morning. The woman had a bit of a slip of the tongue because the first thing out of her mouth when asked about decreasing corporate taxes was "houses". Yeah, more houses for you, bitch. She's the IBM woman.

[apple1]

Melania is lecturing on bullying.

There are not enough rolling-eye emoticons in the world.

 

Can we say, hypocrisy much?

[GrumpyGran]

7 minutes ago, apple1 said:

Melania is lecturing on bullying.

There are not enough rolling-eye emoticons in the world.

 

Can we say, hypocrisy much?

It seems she really wants to do this. Guessing Barron has experienced it. It's a shame that idiot she's married to prevents her from having any validity in claiming she wants to fight online bullying.

[AnywhereButHere]

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/mueller-seeks-white-house-documents-related-to-trump’s-actions-as-president/ar-AAsgYAA

 

Quote

 Robert S. Mueller III, the special counsel, has asked the White House for documents about some of President Trump’s most scrutinized actions since taking office, including the firing of his national security adviser and F.B.I. director, according to White House officials.

Mr. Mueller is also interested in an Oval Office meeting Mr. Trump had with Russian officials in which he said the dismissal of the F.B.I. director had relieved “great pressure” on him.

The document requests provide the most details to date about the breadth of Mr. Mueller’s investigation, and show that several aspects of his inquiry are focused squarely on Mr. Trump’s behavior in the White House.

I'd be happy about this development, except that Caligula's typical response to Russian controversy is to go blow something up, so I'm more than a little concerned given the current climate with N. Korea.

[GrumpyGran]

15 minutes ago, AnywhereButHere said:

I'd be happy about this development, except that Caligula's typical response to Russian controversy is to go blow something up, so I'm more than a little concerned given the current climate with N. Korea.

I agree, this shows Mueller is starting to go after him which is great. But it will just set him off. Considering the options, it is wrong that I just want him go have a rally somewhere? He can fire up his lunatic supporters and sell them more hats and they can stroke him. Disgusting but harmless. Leave the disaster response to Pence and the NK situation to Tillerson.

[GreyhoundFan]

"Trump’s puzzling speech to African leaders, annotated". Because it's annotated, I can't quote, but it's not very long. It's pitiful that he can't even get the name of the country he speaks about (Namibia) correct.

[GrumpyGran]

12 hours ago, GreyhoundFan said:

"Trump’s puzzling speech to African leaders, annotated". Because it's annotated, I can't quote, but it's not very long. It's pitiful that he can't even get the name of the country he speaks about (Namibia) correct.

I could just picture everyone in the audience shaking their heads. But sadly not surprised. He tries to show that he knows about Africa. And shows that he doesn't know about Africa. Tremendously SAD!

[onekidanddone]

13 hours ago, GreyhoundFan said:

"Trump’s puzzling speech to African leaders, annotated". Because it's annotated, I can't quote, but it's not very long. It's pitiful that he can't even get the name of the country he speaks about (Namibia) correct.

I'm surprised he didn't think Africa is a county.

[fraurosena]

On 20-9-2017 at 2:15 AM, GreyhoundFan said:

Trump is tweeting like a crazy old man for three reasons

One could list three reasons, or a hundred. There is only one real reason he's tweeting like a crazy old man. 

He is a crazy old man.

[47of74]

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/mueller-seeks-white-house-documents-related-to-trump’s-actions-as-president/ar-AAsgYAA
 

I'd be happy about this development, except that Caligula's typical response to Russian controversy is to go blow something up, so I'm more than a little concerned given the current climate with N. Korea.

That’s insulting to Caligula to compare him to the Orange Toxic Megacolon.

[fraurosena]

On 20-9-2017 at 1:07 PM, Destiny said:

I’m about ready to lose my shit. If he doesn’t stop fucking telling us how big his dick is when 3.5 million Americans are getting fucked by a hurricane, I’m gonna lose it.

WHERE THE FUCK ARE HIS ADULTS!?

Sorry, @Destiny, the adults are too busy looking the other way and trying to once again resurrect the zombie-deathcare bill, hallucinating and high on the power of having the majority on the Hill now. 

[fraurosena]

21 hours ago, GrumpyGran said:

I agree, this shows Mueller is starting to go after him which is great. But it will just set him off. Considering the options, it is wrong that I just want him go have a rally somewhere? He can fire up his lunatic supporters and sell them more hats and they can stroke him. Disgusting but harmless. Leave the disaster response to Pence and the NK situation to Tillerson.

Huh, so that's why he just held a rally before the UN! Did you notice how disappointed he was when he didn't get the adulation he was anticipating? And nobody wanted his maga hats either. So SAD.

However, @GrumpyGran, although I hate to disagree with you. let's not leave NK to Tillerson, please. He has zero diplomatic experience and has decimated the diplomatic corps of the State Department. I don't think such a bumbling fool will be taken seriously by anybody, and he'll do more harm than good.

Pence can go to the disaster areas and stay there, and actually do the christian thing and help with the rebuilding process. Mother can even tag along and magnanimously hand out food to the needy.

[GreyhoundFan]

Short answer: NOPE: "Does Trump even know what he hates about the Iran nuclear deal?"

Spoiler

President Trump knows that the deal negotiated between the United States, China, Russia, Britain, France, Germany and Iran to restrain Iran’s nuclear program is just terrible. As he said at the United Nations on Tuesday, “The Iran deal was one of the worst and most one-sided transactions the United States has ever entered into. Frankly, that deal is an embarrassment to the United States, and I don’t think you’ve heard the last of it — believe me.”

Now he says he has made a decision on whether to pull out of the deal, but he won’t tell us what it is. After all, you always want to leave the audience eager to tune in for next week’s episode.

But ask yourself this: What exactly is it that Trump thinks is so bad about the agreement? Does he even know?

There’s no evidence that he does. During the 2016 campaign, he repeatedly complained about the money we “gave” Iran (in fact, we agreed to release Iranian funds that had been frozen in Western banks), but these days he can’t seem to offer a reason that it was supposedly the worst deal in history. And yet, it now looks entirely possible, if not likely, that he will pull out of the deal, which could lead it to collapse. Which would then leave Iran free to pursue nuclear weapons. Mission accomplished!

At this point, we’ve stopped expecting that the president himself will have anything resembling well-thought-out reasons for the actions he takes, even those with potentially catastrophic consequences. But what about the less ignorant people who work for him? What do they have to say?

The critical context here is that all of Trump’s key advisers seem to disagree with him on the wisdom of abandoning the agreement. I keep coming back to this paragraph from a New York Times story in July:

At an hourlong meeting last Wednesday, all of the president’s major security advisers recommended he preserve the Iran deal for now. Among those who spoke out were Secretary of State Rex W. Tillerson; Defense Secretary Jim Mattis; Lt. Gen. H. R. McMaster, the national security adviser; and Gen. Joseph F. Dunford Jr., the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, according to an official who described internal discussions on the condition of anonymity. The official said Mr. Trump had spent 55 minutes of the meeting telling them he did not want to.

So what we have is a group of serious, informed national security aides practically begging their unserious, ignorant boss not to do something spectacularly stupid, a herculean effort that only succeeds temporarily. It’s important to remember that according to the International Atomic Energy Agency and virtually every informed observer, Iran is in fact complying with the agreement. It’s working.

But if Trump is going to pull out of the agreement, those same advisers are going to have to justify his decision in public. So they’ve settled on the argument they’ll use, should that happen. It goes like this: Sure, the nuclear agreement is working. But Iran does other bad stuff that’s not covered by the agreement, so that’s why we need to walk away from it.

As McMaster said this morning, “It’s really about how our approach to this deal fits into our broader Iran strategy to address what Iran is doing,” because they take destabilizing actions and support unsavory groups, and have also continued to pursue a ballistic missile program. Both of those things are problematic, but neither one was covered by the nuclear deal, whose goal was to address Iran’s nuclear program.

Or as Tillerson said, “Perhaps the technical aspects have [been met], but in the broader context the aspiration has not.” Ah yes, the aspiration, that’s what’s important. It’s kind of like when Trump orders $100,000 worth of pianos from you, and you deliver the pianos, but he decides to concern himself more with his aspiration that he not pay you the $100,000.

The next person who is fortunate enough to interview Trump should ask him: If we abandon the nuclear agreement, what happens then? His hope can’t be that it would survive without us (a possibility), because if that’s the case, then there would be no point to backing out. So he must be hoping that the agreement would collapse. And then what? He can’t possibly be so stupid as to believe that Iran would say, “Okay, you win! We’ll give you everything you could ever want and ask nothing in return,”  but I’m not so sure. Much more likely is that Iran would decide that there’s no point in making any kind of agreement with this administration, because Trump can’t be trusted to keep to his word. Indeed, at this point, why would any government anywhere — particularly North Korea’s — believe that if it made an agreement with the United States and upheld its end of the bargain that we’d do the same?

We all know the real reason Trump wants to walk away from the nuclear accord. It isn’t because Iran is violating the terms, because it isn’t. It isn’t because the terms were terribly unfair to the United States, because they weren’t. It isn’t because Iran is doing things outside the agreement that we don’t like, because those actions exist outside the agreement. It’s because Trump is a petulant man-baby who believes that anything that has Barack Obama’s name on it has to be destroyed, no matter the consequences.

Nevertheless, there may be one way out of this crisis that Trump seems determined to create. If he really wants to address Iran’s ballistic missile program or its support for terrorist groups, he can leave the nuclear deal in place and start negotiations on an entirely new agreement to deal with those problems. We’d have to offer Iran something in return for changing what it’s doing, though. Given what a great dealmaker Trump believes himself to be, you’d think he’d jump at the chance to try something like this. But I wouldn’t get your hopes up.

 

[onekidanddone]

9 hours ago, fraurosena said:

He is a crazy old man.

Crazy old man with access to the codes.

[fraurosena]

Just a little reminder for all Repugliklans on the Hill...

 

[onekidanddone]

Turo synagogue in Newport Rhode Island.  My family used to visit when I was a kid.

[Howl]

Trump has hied off to Alabama to support Luther Strange in his primary run against ex-judge Roy Moore, to fill Jeff Sessions' vacant seat.  Luther Strange is a serious Trump leg humper/limpet, and ex-judge Roy Moore has been kicked off the Alabama supreme court not once but twice, because he's what passes for a normal fundamentalist these days a raging fundamentalist fanatic.  Alabama, I cry for you.  

[onekidanddone]

55 minutes ago, Howl said:

Trump has hied off to Alabama to support Luther Strange in his primary run against ex-judge Roy Moore, to fill Jeff Sessions' vacant seat.  Luther Strange is a serious Trump leg humper/limpet, and ex-judge Roy Moore has been kicked off the Alabama supreme court not once but twice, because he's what passes for a normal fundamentalist these days a raging fundamentalist fanatic.  Alabama, I cry for you.  

Picking between Strange or Moore is like asking if you want to be attacked by fire ants or a huge swarm of hornets.

From what I skimmed in the news the turnout is going to be quite low. Seems like the runoff is only bringing out the crazy. Are the Democrats even going to put forth any effort in the general election, or are they like always in deep red states, but shrug and walk away?

Shows how much the Dems really think of the poor and people of color in red states, it is just "oh well fend for yourselves".

[47of74]

Kim Jong Un may have done an educational service for this country...

 

[GreyhoundFan]

To tie in with his op-ed from the other day, Dana Milbank has this: "President Trump actually is making us crazy"

Spoiler

President Trump is making us ill. He’s also driving us crazy.

Since I wrote last week about the possibility that Trump is literally killing me (in the form of high blood pressure), the reaction has been, as the kids say, sick.

From the left came a flood of responses from people experiencing all manner of symptoms, real or imagined, of what I called Trump Hypertensive Unexplained Disorder: Disturbed sleep. Anger. Dread. Weight loss. Overeating. Headaches. Fainting. Irregular heartbeats. Chronic neck pain. Depression. Irritable bowel syndrome. Tightness in the chest. Shortness of breath. Teeth grinding. Stomach ulcer. Indigestion. Shingles. Eye twitching. Nausea. Irritability. High blood sugar. Tinnitus. Reduced immunity. Racing pulse. Shaking limbs. Hair loss. Acid reflux. Deteriorating vision. Stroke. Heart attack.

It was a veritable organ recital.

From the other side came a similar profusion of responses, in email, on Facebook and from the cesspool known as Twitter, of people wishing me dead. “Hurry up and die already! . . . DO US ALL A FAVOR AND JUST CURL UP AND DIE !!!!!!!!! . . . With any luck at all Milback (sic) will succumb. . . . just see a dr. You know, Dr Kevorkian.” Dozens of Trump supporters delighted in responding by making vulgar references to vaginas, and one wrote to my wife to say it gave him “endless satisfaction” to report that my death is likely.

Then there was somebody under the Twitter handle @deacongfrost: “I HAPPILY KILL YOU.”

I wrote the original piece half in jest, but the response showed something deeper: A large number of people reporting stress-reduced illnesses in the Trump era, and another large number of people so consumed by political disagreement that they desire the death of someone who has different views. Clearly, Trump is causing, or at least aggravating, mental-health problems on both sides.

A timely new paper discusses this phenomenon in the Trump era and the challenge it has caused to the mental-health profession, which is moving toward giving political views a more prominent place in psychotherapy. The paper, by New York analyst Matt Aibel, will be published in January in the journal “Psychoanalytic Perspectives.” Aibel, a college friend of mine, gave me an advance copy.

“Since the start of Trump’s rise to power,” Aibel writes, analysts “have become acutely attuned to traumatic arousals” in patients from the political environment. “Several colleagues have shared that many formerly eating disordered patients were retriggered to bulimic episodes that hadn’t occurred in many years until Trump’s candidacy. . . . In the run-up to the election, mental health providers of all stripes were reporting ‘a striking number of anxious and depressed clients who are fixated on the election, primarily fearful of Trump.’ Since Election Day, such colloquialisms as Trump Slump, Trump Anxiety and Trump Affective Disorder achieved cultural and perhaps even clinical currency (in an informally diagnostic sense, of course) along with increases in reported incidents of bullying” and the like.

Those on the right might label this “Trump Derangement Syndrome,” much as I and others detected an “Obama Derangement Syndrome” previously. But the mental trauma caused by politics has reached a point, Aibel argues, where psychoanalysts must rethink how they do things.

“Freudian psychologists had little interest in the political. But the profession is coming to realize that ‘the personal’ and ‘the political’ are in reality not distinct,” as Aibel puts it. In our current us-vs.-them, zero-sum politics, “dearly held self-representations distort perceptions, alter judgment, resist disconfirming factual evidence and remain impervious to rational argument, a phenomenon well-documented in the political and social science literatures . . . and disconcertingly demonstrated by the Trump faithful’s clinging to their ‘alternative facts.’ ” Aibel acknowledges the unique difficulty in getting people to examine the unconscious parts of political perceptions, because of the “strong pulls of tribalism and moral certitude,” but it must be attempted.

Partisanship drives so much of our lives: where we live, who our friends and spouses are, where we worship and go to school. Mental-health professionals can’t expect to understand or help their patients if they don’t take into account the socio-political beliefs that determine so much about who we are and how we think. “The political, as unusually challenging as it may be to work with, is understood as an essential, irreducible aspect of our self-representations and an undeniably consequential factor in our difficulties in living,” Aibel writes.

I hope the new approach works, though I fear that those most likely to subject themselves to psychotherapy are not the ones who send social-media messages wishing for my death.

As the mental-health professionals sort this out, I’ll be contemplating the many suggestions helpful readers sent in for treating my own Trump-induced illness: acupuncture, Himalayan herbs, vitamin supplements, yoga, flossing, playing with puppies — and the most common suggestion, unplugging from the news. If only I could.

 

[fraurosena]

Say one thing for this administration, say they're persistant.*

 

Trump to Replace Travel Ban With Revised Requirements

Spoiler

The White House could issue new requirements this weekend for travelers entering the United States, replacing President Donald Trump’s controversial ban on visitors from six Muslim countries, administration officials tell NBC News.

The announcement, expected by Sunday, will supersede the 90-day travel banon issuing visas to visitors from Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, and Yemen, which expires Sunday.

The new restrictions will be based on a Homeland Security and State Department review of the kinds of information that must be provided about visitors and immigrants hoping to enter the U.S. The new guidelines are aimed at preventing terrorists and other security threats from entering the country, officials said.

Following the review, the State Department asked U.S. diplomats around the world to gather the information from foreign governments, warning that visitors will be eligible to enter the country only after the requests are fulfilled.

Once those responses came back, Homeland Security and State Departments reported to the White House on which countries agreed to provide the required information and conform to US requirements, and which did not.

Based on that report, the White House is expected to announce the new restrictions, probably in the form of a presidential proclamation, administration officials said. For many countries on the list, visas will be restricted, meaning that only specified categories of travelers can get them.

Any country that flunks the test can get itself off the list by agreeing to conform to the US requirements, which include issuing electronic passports with a photo, regularly reporting passport thefts, and notifying the US of suspected terrorists. Plus countries must also "take measures to ensure that they are not and do not have the potential to become a terrorist safe haven."

The original White House order, imposed in January, caused chaos in some of the nation’s airports as customs officials were left to interpret the meaning of the surprise order. After it was struck down in court, a revised order was issued in March.

The executive orders have faced a litany of legal challenges. The Supreme Court ruled in June that parts of the current travel ban could be enforced until the court hears argument, on October 10, about whether the president had authority to impose it in the first place.

Lawyers tell NBC News they are unsure what this latest move could mean for the case. 

*For those of you who may not get this reference: Joe Abercrombie, The First Law trilogy. 

[AnywhereButHere]

Just more proof that this guy's marbles are gathering steam as they roll on down the hill. The looks of incredulity on the faces of everyone around him are great. It's like they're wondering if he's nuts or if they're seeing a collective mirage. 

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.glamour.com/story/trump-says-melania-wanted-to-be-with-irma-first-responders/amp

Quote

There have been some deeply awkward moments between President Donald Trump and his wife, Melania, and one of the most absurd examples might have slipped past you. At a visit to Fort Myers, Florida, last week to survey the aftermath of Hurricane Irma, Trump sent his regards on behalf of his absent wife—while she was standing right next to him.

 

[apple1]

1 minute ago, AnywhereButHere said:

Just more proof that this guy's marbles are gathering steam as they roll on down the hill. The looks of incredulity on the faces of everyone around him are great. It's like they're wondering if he's nuts or if they're seeing a collective mirage. 

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.glamour.com/story/trump-says-melania-wanted-to-be-with-irma-first-responders/amp

 

I had seen this on TV right after it happened. I actually thought I had mis-heard.

Surprised the TV news didn't mention this.