Trump 25: Stephen King’s Next Horror Story

[Rachel333]

It's disturbing though to think that an employee could get access to the president's twitter page. If someone thought it would be funny to get into his account and tweet that he was going to bomb North Korea or something then there could be serious consequences. It seems like just maybe Twitter shouldn't be a world leader's primary mode of communication to the public...

[GreyhoundFan]

"President Trump is the master of abhorrent identity politics"

Spoiler

By now it should be clear that racism is a feature of the Trump administration, not a bug.

White House Chief of Staff John F. Kelly’s hideous rewriting of Civil War history is merely the latest evidence. Can anyone really believe “the lack of an ability to compromise” caused that bloody war? Is it possible to become a four-star Marine general without knowing that the Constitution itself was structured around a compromise on slavery? Or that the first half of the 19th century saw a series of equally immoral compromises that let slavery continue?

How can a man whose son died in service of his country believe that “men . . . of good faith” is an acceptable description of military officers who committed treason and took up arms against the United States, as did Robert E. Lee and the rest of the Confederate generals? Do people of good faith hold others in cruel bondage, buy and sell them like chattel and forcibly compel their unpaid labor?

Kelly buys into the racist, revisionist, dripping-with-Spanish-moss version of history that white Southerners concocted as they were imposing the system of Jim Crow repression. Anyone ignorant enough to believe the war was about anything other than slavery should read the declarations issued by the Confederate states upon secession. Here is a quote from Mississippi’s proclamation, which is vile but at least forthright:

“Our position is thoroughly identified with the institution of slavery — the greatest material interest of the world. Its labor supplies the product which constitutes by far the largest and most important portions of commerce of the earth. These products are peculiar to the climate verging on the tropical regions, and by an imperious law of nature, none but the black race can bear exposure to the tropical sun. These products have become necessities of the world, and a blow at slavery is a blow at commerce and civilization.”

Those who profited handsomely from slavery — including the growing financial markets of Wall Street and the bustling textile mills of New England — knew full well that it was wrong. They just didn’t want to give it up.

Kelly’s “good faith” historical claptrap would be bad enough in a vacuum. But it alarmingly echoes President Trump’s “many sides” analysis of the Charlottesville incident — and continues a tone that Trump set at the outset of his campaign, when he vilified Mexican immigrants as drug dealers and rapists.

With remarkable consistency, Trump has picked fights that portray white Americans as besieged, offended or disadvantaged by dark and alien Others. Rather than embrace the nation’s multicultural diversity, he blames it for a host of problems — crime, terrorism, drug abuse, economic stagnation. He encourages whites to fear the coming day when they are no longer a racial majority. He stokes anxiety by dividing the country into “us” and “them.”

And Trump does all of this cynically and deliberately. He saw a handful of black National Football League players kneeling during the national anthem and recognized an opportunity. With a campaign of demagoguery on Twitter, he provoked many more players into joining the protest. But I’m confident he saw that result as a victory, not a failure, because it allowed him to portray a bunch of African American men as unpatriotic for exercising their right to free speech.

Trump is even less inhibited in displaying contempt for Muslims. His repeated attempts at imposing a travel ban covering majority-Muslim countries is not about terrorism; it would do nothing to deter legal-resident or homegrown “lone wolf” attackers, such as the man who allegedly drove a truck down a Manhattan bike path Tuesday and killed eight people. Rather, the call for some sort of draconian religion-based ban is a naked appeal to white Christian nativism.

When Trump miscalibrates and strays into explicit racism, as he did in the case of Charlottesville, there are expressions of shock and horror from fellow Republicans and even members of his Cabinet. But nobody renounces him, except senators who are about to retire. Nobody quits his administration on principle. Trump’s enablers meekly go back to the all-important business of cutting rich people’s taxes.

Making whites feel embattled and aggrieved is central to the Trump presidency. It is what makes him different from all other recent presidents, perhaps going back as far as Woodrow Wilson, who imposed Jim Crow segregation on the federal workforce. It is what makes Trump so corrosive to the national fabric.

There is one master practitioner of identity politics in the United States today. Shamefully, he lives in the White House.

It's sad, but true, that Agent Orange is one of the most corrosive people in politics and the Repugs just shrug and go back to trying to take away our healthcare and cut taxes on the super-wealthy.

[OtterRuletheWorld]

It's disturbing though to think that an employee could get access to the president's twitter page. If someone thought it would be funny to get into his account and tweet that he was going to bomb North Korea or something then there could be serious consequences. It seems like just maybe Twitter shouldn't be a world leader's primary mode of communication to the public...

Or that Twitter should sure this kind of thing doesn't happen. I imagine if certain employees have access to this, others have access to their ex, etc. That goes for all social media. A good reminder of how private your social media really is.

[GreyhoundFan]

So the official portraits of Agent Orange and Pencey have been released, They have already been improved by the internet. See under the spoiler for the original and updated images.

Spoiler

 

[formergothardite]

30 minutes ago, OtterRuletheWorld said:

Or that Twitter should sure this kind of thing doesn't happen.

Don't you mean and? Twitter shouldn't be the way a world leader primarily communicates his/her thoughts AND Twitter should make sure that things like this shouldn't happen. Trump could also drop his own personal account and use the official White House one that has special protection, but those protections would mean that he would have to give up tweeting his thoughts immediately. 

Using Twitter to discuss all random thoughts is one thing when you are a regular citizen discussing gossip about Kristen Stewart and Robert Patterson, it is another thing when you are a world leader and your tweets can cause international problems or a company's stock to drop. 

There is no excuse for Trump to continue to tweet like he does. He puts our country at risk and shows how self-centered he is. 

[laPapessaGiovanna]

A brief summary of who counts, and who doesn't, in Trump's eyes: Houston, Texas, gets presidential visit, so do Florida, Las Vegas and Puerto Rico (albeit only after lots of bad press and with Trump spewing lots of shit towards local administrations and threatening to withdraw help). California and New York don't get a presidential visit and, even more telling, citizens don't seem to care.

[OtterRuletheWorld]

Don't you mean and? Twitter shouldn't be the way a world leader primarily communicates his/her thoughts AND Twitter should make sure that things like this shouldn't happen. Trump could also drop his own personal account and use the official White House one that has special protection, but those protections would mean that he would have to give up tweeting his thoughts immediately. 
Using Twitter to discuss all random thoughts is one thing when you are a regular citizen discussing gossip about Kristen Stewart and Robert Patterson, it is another thing when you are a world leader and your tweets can cause international problems or a company's stock to drop. 
There is no excuse for Trump to continue to tweet like he does. He puts our country at risk and shows how self-centered he is. 

I can give you "and". I get the idea behind anyone wanting to circumvent the media, but I also hate Twitter. Clearly Trump doesn't have a filter, he seems proud of this I am not defending him. I am defending all politicians who want to tweet. Providing they follow the rules of Twitter or whatever social media platform, I can't get behind a rule that politicians CANNOT tweet. Still, I find it obnoxious. Not because I feel Twitter or anything should be limited to celebrity gossip (clearly not the case) but because I find Twitter to be obnoxious and toxic. That, I realize is a personal opinion. I have never had an account with Twitter, so I am probably in the minority.

I also understand the concerns people have over the President tweeting. There is just nothing to legally stop him and I worry about a slippery slope of trying to prevent it.

Either way, it makes me really happy I don't have a Twitter account. I wouldn't want some employee reading my private messages or posting on my behalf, etc. It really makes me rethink any social media. If this had been an employee who did it to an ex, or some jerk who had assaulted someone and was snooping through their victim's account, it would be wrong. This individuals prank may seem funny in regards to Trump, but could be really devastating in other situations.

A brief summary of who counts, and who doesn't, in Trump's eyes: Houston, Texas, gets presidential visit, so do Florida, Las Vegas and Puerto Rico (albeit only after lots of bad press and with Trump spewing lots of shit towards local administrations and threatening to withdraw help). California and New York don't get a presidential visit and, even more telling, citizens don't seem to care.

I don't know that California entirely cares about being part of the United States anymore. Not that I don't think a visit should happen or that it would be a fair reason to not visit.

[formergothardite]

1 minute ago, OtterRuletheWorld said:

That, I realize is a personal opinion. I have never had an account with Twitter, so I am probably in the minority.

I don't have one either. I'm not particularly a social media person. I think, especially high ranking politicians whose Tweets can cause massive world/national problems, should be required to have a special, protected Twitter(if they are going to have one). Trump could use the official Twitter, but he is so selfish he won't. It doesn't matter how many lives he ruins, he only cares about himself. 

Trump doesn't follow the rules of Twitter, which is one of the reasons he should be kicked off. I think Twitter is too greedy to kick him off, even if it would be for the good of the entire world. 

[Destiny]

It's disturbing though to think that an employee could get access to the president's twitter page. If someone thought it would be funny to get into his account and tweet that he was going to bomb North Korea or something then there could be serious consequences. It seems like just maybe Twitter shouldn't be a world leader's primary mode of communication to the public...

I doubt they have access to the actual account. IME, customer service people have access to suspend accounts for violations of terms of service, but not the actual tweets. Does that make sense?

[OtterRuletheWorld]

31 minutes ago, formergothardite said:

I don't have one either. I'm not particularly a social media person. I think, especially high ranking politicians whose Tweets can cause massive world/national problems, should be required to have a special, protected Twitter(if they are going to have one). Trump could use the official Twitter, but he is so selfish he won't. It doesn't matter how many lives he ruins, he only cares about himself. 

Trump doesn't follow the rules of Twitter, which is one of the reasons he should be kicked off. I think Twitter is too greedy to kick him off, even if it would be for the good of the entire world. 

I do think having a protected account seems ideal, but I also don't know that we can require such things. That is what I am saying with the slippery slope stuff. I agree it is problematic, but I don't know that there is an easy answer without a major fallout. I think a lot of politicians have a "personal" account and an "official" account for this reason.  For example, Bernie has @BernieSanders and @SenSanders. 

33 minutes ago, Destiny said:

I doubt they have access to the actual account. IME, customer service people have access to suspend accounts for violations of terms of service, but not the actual tweets. Does that make sense?

It makes sense, but that likely depends on the position said employee is in. At the very least it raises questions.

[formergothardite]

41 minutes ago, OtterRuletheWorld said:

I do think having a protected account seems ideal, but I also don't know that we can require such things. That is what I am saying with the slippery slope stuff

Where do you think we will slip to that is worse than a selfish, childish president using an unsecured account to tweet whatever awful thought pops into his head even if it causes the stock market to drop? He is putting our country at risk, what is going to be worse than that? 

Using a secure social media account and not using a social media account as a main way to communicate really isn't asking a lot of a president. And in my opinion any person who values their social media account more than they do the safety of the country isn't fit to serve. Trump chose Twitter over America. 

 

[47of74]

I see fuck face didn't get his way on Bergdhal. Of course he's being a total man baby about it.

They played his whining on the radio just now. I forgot myself and told him to shut the fuck up out loud.

[AnywhereButHere]

3 hours ago, laPapessaGiovanna said:

A brief summary of who counts, and who doesn't, in Trump's eyes: Houston, Texas, gets presidential visit, so do Florida, Las Vegas and Puerto Rico (albeit only after lots of bad press and with Trump spewing lots of shit towards local administrations and threatening to withdraw help). California and New York don't get a presidential visit and, even more telling, citizens don't seem to care.

Oh god, please no visits. I'm sure if he survives his term in office, he'll be back here soon enough. Although, the way his mental health seems to be going, by the time he makes it back north to his gilded penthouse, he'll be drooling into his undershirt and reduced to tweeting even more gibberishy forms of "covfefe". so, maybe we'll be spared his visual presence.

(Gibberishy - new word invented by me. I couldn't think of a real one... )

[LeftCoastLurker]

3 hours ago, laPapessaGiovanna said:

A brief summary of who counts, and who doesn't, in Trump's eyes: Houston, Texas, gets presidential visit, so do Florida, Las Vegas and Puerto Rico (albeit only after lots of bad press and with Trump spewing lots of shit towards local administrations and threatening to withdraw help). California and New York don't get a presidential visit and, even more telling, citizens don't seem to care.

I live in Santa Rosa and HELL NO! If he showed his face here it wouldn't be pretty and I'm sure he and his handlers know it. Stay away, stay very far away!

[GreyhoundFan]

"In new interview, Trump openly rages at checks on his authoritarianism"

Spoiler

“Believe the autocrat,” journalist Masha Gessen warned us only days after Donald Trump won the 2016 election. “He means what he says.”

In a new interview, President Trump once again telegraphed his desire to see the Justice Department investigate Hillary Clinton over the array of fake scandals that he and his allies have been talking about in recent weeks. But in this case, he went further than that. Asked by radio host Larry O’Connor about demands that the Justice Department probe those scandals, Trump openly stated his frustration with his inability to get the department to do his bidding in this regard:

“The saddest thing is, because I am the President of the United States, I am not supposed to be involved with the Justice Department. I’m not supposed to be involved with the FBI. I’m not supposed to be doing the kind of things I would love to be doing. And I am very frustrated by that. I look at what’s happening with the Justice Department, why aren’t they going after Hillary Clinton with her emails and with her dossier, and the kind of money — I don’t know, is it possible that they paid $12.4 million for the dossier, which is total phony, fake, fraud and how is it used?

“It’s very discouraging to me. I’ll be honest, I’m very unhappy with it, that the Justice Department isn’t going — maybe they are but you know as President, and I think you understand this, as a President you’re not supposed to be involved in that process. But hopefully they are doing something and at some point, maybe we are gonna all have it out.”

Everyone is making a big deal about that last line, as if it suggests that Trump is going to “have it out” with the Justice Department if it doesn’t do his bidding. But Trump could have meant that eventually, an investigation might take place, and then the (fake) facts will come “out.”

Instead, the important news here is that Trump signaled that he wants to be able to get the Justice Department and the FBI to investigate his political opponent. What is “discouraging” and “frustrating” to Trump is not simply the fact that the outcome he wants — an investigation into Clinton for whatever fake scandal might provide the pretext for that to happen — isn’t taking place.

Rather, what’s galling to Trump is the very existence of institutional barriers on him that are designed to protect the independence of law enforcement and insulate it from political interference. Getting law enforcement to target Hillary Clinton is something that he would like to be doing, if only he could do so. As Benjamin Wittes, the founder of the Lawfare blog, put it to me Friday morning: “It’s totally corrupt. Not in the monetary sense, but in the sense that he aspires to get people to violate their oaths of office, having taken his own oath insincerely.”

This reflects far more than mere disregard for the institutional functionings of our government. It’s deeply entangled with Trump’s own legal and political travails and his anger at having to submit to institutional processes himself. Trump demanded then-FBI Director James B. Comey’s loyalty, then fired him when it was not forthcoming, then admitted that this was due to the Russia probe. Trump openly raged at Attorney General Jeff Sessions for failing to protect him from the investigation. He has since repeatedly demanded that the Justice Department target Clinton — and has now openly declared that he would prevail on the department to do so if only he could.

All this is why Trump’s new comments are doubly worrisome when viewed in the context of the Russia probe. The suite of new scandals that Trump and his media allies have been talking about — the made-up Uranium One scandal and the absurdly exaggerated claim that payments ultimately leading to the “Steele Dossier” show that Clinton is the one who colluded with Russia — are about more than merely distracting from the ongoing revelations from the Mueller probe. Trump’s allies are brandishing these tales as part of a concerted effort to paint special counsel Robert S. Mueller as a corrupt actor himself, to goad Trump into closing down Mueller’s investigation, either by pardoning his close associates or moving to remove him.

The problem for Trump’s allies is that Trump’s lawyers, and Trump himself, are resisting those efforts. But there is no chance that Trump is doing so out of respect for institutional boundaries, since he already has seriously considered moving against Mueller. Rather, he is likely motivated by self-preservation. But Trump’s allies surely know that if there is one way to prevail on Trump to act, it’s if his sense of rage and grievance at the unfairness of the situation boils over. Trump has now openly revealed that he is chafing at the constraints that prevent him from unleashing the Justice Department on Clinton. How is it possible that there is no investigation into Clinton, even as the illegitimate investigation into his own campaign’s conduct continues? If he can’t change the former, his allies will continue telling him, the only way left for him to make the situation fair is to do whatever must be done to shut down the latter.

It’s perfectly plausible that Trump will not, in the end, opt for this course of action. But when Trump openly advertises his total contempt for the rule of law, as he did in this new interview, we should believe him, and prepare for the attendant possibilities accordingly.

...

How soon before he starts sporting faux military uniforms with dozens of medals, just like other banana dictators?

[onekidanddone]

18 minutes ago, GreyhoundFan said:

"In new interview, Trump openly rages at checks on his authoritarianism"

  Reveal hidden contents

“Believe the autocrat,” journalist Masha Gessen warned us only days after Donald Trump won the 2016 election. “He means what he says.”

In a new interview, President Trump once again telegraphed his desire to see the Justice Department investigate Hillary Clinton over the array of fake scandals that he and his allies have been talking about in recent weeks. But in this case, he went further than that. Asked by radio host Larry O’Connor about demands that the Justice Department probe those scandals, Trump openly stated his frustration with his inability to get the department to do his bidding in this regard:

“The saddest thing is, because I am the President of the United States, I am not supposed to be involved with the Justice Department. I’m not supposed to be involved with the FBI. I’m not supposed to be doing the kind of things I would love to be doing. And I am very frustrated by that. I look at what’s happening with the Justice Department, why aren’t they going after Hillary Clinton with her emails and with her dossier, and the kind of money — I don’t know, is it possible that they paid $12.4 million for the dossier, which is total phony, fake, fraud and how is it used?

“It’s very discouraging to me. I’ll be honest, I’m very unhappy with it, that the Justice Department isn’t going — maybe they are but you know as President, and I think you understand this, as a President you’re not supposed to be involved in that process. But hopefully they are doing something and at some point, maybe we are gonna all have it out.”

Everyone is making a big deal about that last line, as if it suggests that Trump is going to “have it out” with the Justice Department if it doesn’t do his bidding. But Trump could have meant that eventually, an investigation might take place, and then the (fake) facts will come “out.”

Instead, the important news here is that Trump signaled that he wants to be able to get the Justice Department and the FBI to investigate his political opponent. What is “discouraging” and “frustrating” to Trump is not simply the fact that the outcome he wants — an investigation into Clinton for whatever fake scandal might provide the pretext for that to happen — isn’t taking place.

Rather, what’s galling to Trump is the very existence of institutional barriers on him that are designed to protect the independence of law enforcement and insulate it from political interference. Getting law enforcement to target Hillary Clinton is something that he would like to be doing, if only he could do so. As Benjamin Wittes, the founder of the Lawfare blog, put it to me Friday morning: “It’s totally corrupt. Not in the monetary sense, but in the sense that he aspires to get people to violate their oaths of office, having taken his own oath insincerely.”

This reflects far more than mere disregard for the institutional functionings of our government. It’s deeply entangled with Trump’s own legal and political travails and his anger at having to submit to institutional processes himself. Trump demanded then-FBI Director James B. Comey’s loyalty, then fired him when it was not forthcoming, then admitted that this was due to the Russia probe. Trump openly raged at Attorney General Jeff Sessions for failing to protect him from the investigation. He has since repeatedly demanded that the Justice Department target Clinton — and has now openly declared that he would prevail on the department to do so if only he could.

All this is why Trump’s new comments are doubly worrisome when viewed in the context of the Russia probe. The suite of new scandals that Trump and his media allies have been talking about — the made-up Uranium One scandal and the absurdly exaggerated claim that payments ultimately leading to the “Steele Dossier” show that Clinton is the one who colluded with Russia — are about more than merely distracting from the ongoing revelations from the Mueller probe. Trump’s allies are brandishing these tales as part of a concerted effort to paint special counsel Robert S. Mueller as a corrupt actor himself, to goad Trump into closing down Mueller’s investigation, either by pardoning his close associates or moving to remove him.

The problem for Trump’s allies is that Trump’s lawyers, and Trump himself, are resisting those efforts. But there is no chance that Trump is doing so out of respect for institutional boundaries, since he already has seriously considered moving against Mueller. Rather, he is likely motivated by self-preservation. But Trump’s allies surely know that if there is one way to prevail on Trump to act, it’s if his sense of rage and grievance at the unfairness of the situation boils over. Trump has now openly revealed that he is chafing at the constraints that prevent him from unleashing the Justice Department on Clinton. How is it possible that there is no investigation into Clinton, even as the illegitimate investigation into his own campaign’s conduct continues? If he can’t change the former, his allies will continue telling him, the only way left for him to make the situation fair is to do whatever must be done to shut down the latter.

It’s perfectly plausible that Trump will not, in the end, opt for this course of action. But when Trump openly advertises his total contempt for the rule of law, as he did in this new interview, we should believe him, and prepare for the attendant possibilities accordingly.

...

How soon before he starts sporting faux military uniforms with dozens of medals, just like other banana dictators?

I bet he has his old reform school military school uniform. It won't fit him anymore but that won't stop him

[WiseGirl]

2 minutes ago, onekidanddone said:

I bet he has his old...uniform. 

The only uniform I want to see on him comes in orange, and only orange.

[fraurosena]

29 minutes ago, GreyhoundFan said:

news here is that Trump signaled that he wants to be able to get the Justice Department and the FBI to investigate his political opponent.

Although I agree with the article as a whole, this sentence has a glaring and above all galling and appalling mistake. He has not signaled that he wants to be able to get the Justice Department and the FBI to investigate his political opponent.

No. He has signaled that he wants to be able to get the Justice Department and the FBI to investigate a private citizen.

I am appalled to see that his continued campaign rhetoric (although he won the elections a full year ago) has gotten people at WaPo into thinking Hillary is still his opponent. It seems his tactics are working. Damn.

[Audrey2]

49 minutes ago, WiseGirl said:

The only uniform I want to see on him comes in orange, and only orange.

Since he's such a friend of Joe Arpaio, I'd also be good with black and white stripes and pink underwear.

[Rachel333]

The word on what? What does this actually mean? Gah

[GreyhoundFan]

24 minutes ago, Rachel333 said:

The word on what? What does this actually mean? Gah

My dear @Rachel333, you don't understand it because you have more than two brain cells rubbing together. I'm sure it would make sense if you were a blathering idiot, like the orange menace.

[GreyhoundFan]

From my local news radio station: "Analysis: Trump’s Twitter deactivation was a national security vulnerability"

Spoiler

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump’s Twitter feed was deactivated Wednesday around 6:45 p.m. by a rogue employee of the company. It was restored after about 11 minutes. 

The event created a staggering national security black hole. Here’s why.

The deactivation was proof that use of an insecure messaging system by the U.S. president could leave him and the nation susceptible to the actions of anyone with access to that messaging system.

For example, if, during the incident, an incendiary message had been posted, and subsequently interpreted or misinterpreted by an adversary with access to nuclear or other conventional weapons, that adversary could have responded with action culminating in disastrous results.

Another scenario: Twitter users can schedule tweets, which means the person who had briefly taken over could have written messages during the 11 minutes of darkness that might not be revealed for days, weeks, months or even years.

One can only hope that function of the president’s Twitter account has now been checked and cleared.

Yet another scenario: Intelligence agencies across the globe spend billions of dollars trying to penetrate the president’s secure bubble, his thoughts and intentions. A rogue employee inside a social media organization willing to seize control of the president’s Twitter account and hand it over to a bad actor just for a few moments could trigger the unthinkable.

Forty-two million people read every word Trump writes on his Twitter account. Among them are U.S. enemies, adversaries, friends and intelligence operatives, all mining every tweet for context. Likely among them are people such as North Korean leader Kim Jong Un, Russian President Vladimir Putin and Iranian President Hassan Rouhani. Even leaders of terrorist and criminal cyber-organizations in opaque places around the globe likely read his feed.

No doubt Trump was warned about this early in his presidency, but the warnings could only refer to hypothetical instances. This incident is evidence of what those well-founded advisories warned about.

Simply put: For 11 minutes, the president’s control over his own words was stolen.

Why the TT shouldn't be allowed to use twitter, reason #492,381,933.

[GreyhoundFan]

From Jennifer Rubin: "Trump’s latest impeachable actions"

Spoiler

At the core of President Trump’s unfitness and his malfeasance in office is his interaction with the Justice Department and the courts. This goes from the merely verbal denigration of the courts — “a joke,” “a laughingstock,” “so-called judges” — to actual actions such as firing the FBI director, reportedly imploring the FBI director to lay off of former national security adviser Michael T. Flynn, trying to meddle in the prosecution of Joe Arpaio (whom he subsequently pardoned for criminal contempt of court) and, now, directly encouraging the Justice Department to go after a political opponent for spurious, long-ago debunked claims.

In a series of tweets, he called on the Justice Department to go after the Democrats: “Everybody is asking why the Justice Department (and FBI) isn’t looking into all of the dishonesty going on with Crooked Hillary & the Dems … People are angry. At some point the Justice Department, and the FBI, must do what is right and proper. The American public deserves it!” In remarks to reporters, he continued on in this vein. “I’m really not involved with the Justice Department. I’d like to let it run itself, but honestly, they should be looking at the Democrats. They should be looking at [John] Podesta and all of that dishonesty. They should be looking at a lot of things. And a lot of people are disappointed in the Justice Department, including me.”

There is no president in modern memory who has repeatedly and directly called on the Justice Department to investigate a political opponent in such a manner. A politician, one could imagine, upon new and actual evidence of wrongdoing, might say something like, “The appropriate authorities should look into this.” That’s not what Trump is doing here. He is both assuming guilt and applying pressure to go after an opponent based on scurrilous propaganda that he and his followers have generated. This is the conduct of a Third World dictator, and by any stretch of the imagination, an abuse of presidential power.

Trump’s latest call — following “lock her up” chants at rallies that continued after his election — is not an isolated event, but, as noted before, part of an ongoing pattern of trying to lean on the Justice Department either to pursue or not to pursue criminal proceedings against specific individuals. This certainly clears the bar of abuse of power established in the impeachment of Richard Nixon (who “merely” countenanced using the CIA to shut down the FBI’s investigation of the Watergate break-in) and goes well beyond the discrete action of Bill Clinton in lying under oath in the Paula Jones matter and to the grand jury. Trump’s conduct is pervasive, and if allowed to go unpunished will permanently distort our constitutional system. We simply cannot tolerate presidential meddling in our criminal-justice system to protect friends and persecute enemies.

“There is no bigger abuse of power than the president ordering his Justice Department to investigate his political enemies or back off his political allies, and Trump has done both,” says former Justice Department communications director Matthew Miller. “If he did it in secret, it would be treated as an enormous scandal, but because he does it in public, we have all gotten used to it. But it’s still the worst possible abuse of power, and the kind of thing everyone in Congress should demand end immediately — with the most serious consequences if he doesn’t.”

Republican leadership, however, has entirely abandoned its constitutional obligations and makes no effort to halt such conduct. The leaders are not acting in good faith to uphold their oaths of office — namely to defend the Constitution.

What should a conscientious member of Congress be doing? First, he or she should be condemning the president’s conduct and demanding that it stop. Second, he or she should consider whether the conduct above, if confirmed (e.g. did Trump ask former FBI director James B. Comey to drop the case against Flynn?), would rise to the level of impeachable conduct. In doing so, a member of Congress would want to consider whether, if the conduct were condoned, our system of justice would be damaged henceforth. I would suggest that this is an easy call.

Special counsel Robert S. Mueller III may come to see the president’s behavior to have been in violation of criminal statutes — witness intimidation, obstruction of justice, etc. He may seek indictments against others who he thinks conspired with Trump, for example, in the firing of Comey. It remains to be seen whether Mueller thinks a sitting president can be indicted (the current Justice Department position is that a sitting president cannot), whether he manages to get Trump named (as Leon Jaworski did with Nixon) as an “unindicted co-conspirator,” or whether he makes (again, as Jaworski did) a non-public referral to Congress (e.g. not publicly exposing grand jury testimony but including it for use by Congress for impeachment).

Whatever Mueller decides to do, however, members of Congress cannot — consistent with their oaths — remain silent. In doing so, they demonstrate their unfitness to serve and provide ample reason to replace them with representatives and senators who will defend the Constitution.

 

[fraurosena]

5 hours ago, GreyhoundFan said:

and, now, directly encouraging the Justice Department to go after a political opponent

Et tu, Jennifer Rubin?

Sigh.

I think I’ll have to contact WaPo and complain that they should stop spreading Fake News. 

Hillary Clinton is not a political opponent. She’s a private citizen, and has been for almost a year now. 

[laPapessaGiovanna]

9 hours ago, Rachel333 said:

The word on what? What does this actually mean? Gah

His Word, the best Word. He's feeling messianic. No limits to his ego.