Trump 33: Making Norman Bates Look Like a Choir Boy

[GreyhoundFan]

Uh-oh, the recordings struck a nerve: "Trump Signals Consequences for Michael Cohen Over Secret Recording"

Spoiler

BERKELEY HEIGHTS, N.J. — President Trump lashed out at his longtime lawyer, Michael D. Cohen, on Saturday, suggesting that there could be legal consequences for Mr. Cohen’s decision to record a discussion they had two months before the 2016 election about paying a former Playboy model who said she had an affair with Mr. Trump.

“Inconceivable that the government would break into a lawyer’s office (early in the morning) — almost unheard of,” Mr. Trump wrote on Twitter. “Even more inconceivable that a lawyer would tape a client — totally unheard of & perhaps illegal. The good news is that your favorite President did nothing wrong!”

With his tweet, Mr. Trump signaled open warfare on Mr. Cohen, a longtime fixer he had until now tried to keep by his side. Mr. Cohen has publicly discussed the idea of cooperating with the Justice Department as it investigates his involvement in paying women to quash potentially damaging news coverage about Mr. Trump during the campaign.

Mr. Trump’s advisers have viewed the Cohen investigation as possibly a greater risk to the president than the special counsel inquiry into his campaign’s ties to Russia, given Mr. Cohen’s onetime status as the keeper of Mr. Trump’s personal and business secrets.

In going after his longtime associate, Mr. Trump, who left Washington on Friday to spend the weekend at his New Jersey golf course, added another chaotic twist to a head-spinning week that began with a widely condemned news conference with Vladimir V. Putin, the Russian president, in Helsinki, Finland.

The president’s aides, who spent the first part of the week frantically trying to figure out how to clean up the aftermath of the news conference, have had little to say about accusations by women that Mr. Trump’s lawyers had paid them for their silence in the wake of extramarital affairs.

The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Saturday. But in the past, the president’s aides have called the account of the affair by the former model, Karen McDougal, “an old story that is just more fake news,” and have denied that the president was involved.

The recording is sure to raise new questions about what the president knew about the payments and when.

Ms. McDougal says she began a nearly yearlong affair with Mr. Trump in 2006, shortly after Mr. Trump’s wife, Melania, gave birth to their son Barron.

Ms. McDougal sold her story for $150,000 to The National Enquirer, which was supportive of Mr. Trump, during the final months of the presidential campaign. But the tabloid sat on the story, which kept it from becoming public. The practice, known as “catch and kill,” effectively silenced Ms. McDougal for the remainder of the campaign.

On the recording, Mr. Trump and Mr. Cohen were discussing what would essentially have been a reimbursement to American Media Inc., or A.M.I., the parent company of The Enquirer, whose chairman, David J. Pecker, is friendly with the president. The recording was found during an F.B.I. raid on Mr. Cohen’s office this year.

When The Wall Street Journal reported on A.M.I.’s payments to Ms. McDougal days before the election, the Trump campaign denied knowing about them. “We have no knowledge of any of this,” Hope Hicks, the campaign spokeswoman, said at the time, adding that Ms. McDougal’s claim of an affair was “totally untrue.”

On his way to his golf club in Bedminster, the president ignored several questions from reporters about why his campaign would have denied knowledge of the payments if he was on tape discussing them with Mr. Cohen.

Hours later, the president was on Twitter, suggesting that what Mr. Cohen had done was illegal.

New York law allows one party to a conversation to tape it without the other knowing. Over the years, Mr. Cohen, in his dealings on Mr. Trump’s behalf with journalists, opposing lawyers and business adversaries, frequently taped his conversations, unbeknown to the people with whom he was speaking. Mr. Trump himself also has a history of recording phone calls and conversations.

Oh Rufus, he is so freaking delusional: "...your favorite President did nothing wrong" He's certainly not MY favorite president. Of course, if he was referring to my actual favorite president, who is not him, maybe he's on track.

[CTRLZero]

14 minutes ago, GreyhoundFan said:

New York law allows one party to a conversation to tape it without the other knowing.

This quote from the article answered a question I had about the legality of taping the conversation.  I know there are a slew of other legal questions about the tape, and I've got my popcorn ready to go as we watch this latest skirmish. 

17 minutes ago, GreyhoundFan said:

The good news is that your favorite President did nothing wrong!”

Ha ha!  Thanks for pointing out that there is another interpretation of this line. 

[GreyhoundFan]

"Trump sees dead people. And they talk."

Spoiler

The next time you are about to ridicule something seemingly foolish that President Trump has said or done — and there were many instances in the past week — be forewarned: He has supernatural powers.

He sees dead people.

He doesn’t just see them. He talks to them and relays their thoughts back to the living. This president may do things large, but I’ve been noticing with increasing frequency that he is also a medium.

A few weeks ago, while posthumously honoring a World War II hero, Trump gave the man’s family a report on their departed loved one. He was “looking down from Heaven, proud of this incredible honor, but even prouder of the legacy that lives on in each of you. So true.”

A few weeks before that, at what was billed as a celebration of patriotism at the White House, Trump reported to the crowd that fallen soldiers are pleased with his economic policies and increases in the stock market. “Many of them are looking down right now at our country, and they are proud,” he said.

Sometimes, Trump pinpoints the location of the deceased, using some psychic GPS. At an outdoor Medal of Honor ceremony in May for soldiers lost at a battle in Afghanistan, Trump pointed at a location in the sky and said, “They are looking down right now.” A week before that, outside the Capitol, Trump pointed to a point in the sky over his head and told the family of a slain police detective: “So she’s right now, right there. And she’s looking down.”

Occasionally, something must get lost in the cloud and Trump receives a heavenly miscommunication. Speaking to a steelworker at the White House in March, Trump informed the man: “Your father, Herman, he’s looking down, and he’s very proud of you right now.”

“Oh, he’s still alive,” the steelworker said.

“Then he’s even more proud of you,” Trump said.

Hillary Clinton communed with Eleanor Roosevelt under the auspices of a woman who studied the psychic experience. Nancy Reagan consulted an astrologer after her husband was shot in 1981.

But now we have the president himself talking directly with dead people — and even, on occasion, God. After his inauguration, Trump announced that “God looked down and he said, ‘We’re not going to let it rain on your speech.’ ” (There must have been some miscommunication over the celestial transom, because it rained.)

After a column of mine mentioned one of Trump’s conversations with the dead, I was contacted by Karen Park, a professor of theology and religious studies at St. Norbert College in De Pere, Wis. “My sense is that this is what passes for spirituality for Trump — a world where imaginary dead white people take an elevator to a heavenly penthouse where they look down on him with approval,” she told me.

Many of us believe in an afterlife or at least take comfort in thinking our departed loved ones are, in some form, still with us. But Park is suspicious of Trump’s self-serving “fantasies about happy dead people blessing his presidency and this country.” Such fantasies “make us feel good and require nothing from us at all,” argued Park, who specializes in American religious history.

In fairness, Trump does allow that some people may not land in that gauzy heaven. In 2016 in Iowa, he threw a group of farmers a theological curveball after telling them they would be looking down happily after death. “We hope you’re looking down, anyway,” he amended.

Occasionally, Trump’s conversations with the departed have been strikingly detailed. In May 2017, Fox News’s Jeanine Pirro asked Trump what his late brother Fred is “telling you now.”

“He’s telling me just keep doing what you’re doing,” Trump replied. Fred Trump, in his brother’s view, had particular interest in the border, trade, jobs and North Korea.

Trump’s mother, the president has said on more than one occasion, “is looking down,” particularly around Mother’s Day. His father looks down, too, though seemingly less often.

Trump informed Jerry Falwell Jr., president of Liberty University, that his father “is looking down on you right now and he is proud.” Same with Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen’s mom. And golfer Justin Rose’s father.

This communion across the Great Divide didn’t just come up when Trump ran for president. At a 1984 game of the doomed USFL football league, he told a sportscaster that “I suspect that Bear Bryant might be looking down on the stadium right now.”

Over time, Trump has honed the medium message. Addressing Congress last year, Trump honored the widow of Navy SEAL Ryan Owens, who died in a controversial raid that Trump approved. Lawmakers applauded for more than two minutes.

“Ryan is looking down right now,” Trump reported to the chamber. “And he’s very happy, because I think he just broke a record.”

Was Owens looking down happily? Did he care if he posthumously broke an applause record?

God knows. And the president.

 

[AuntK]

This is a MUST READ! (Sorry, tried to link it, but couldn't get it to work!) Absolutely TERRIFYING!

www.salon.com  "How Low Can Trump Go?"

Here's a quote: "This man is not going to be driven from office by either Congress or the courts. He is going to fight, and fight to the death of democracy if necessary, because he has no loyalty to the Constitution or love of democracy. All he has is love of Trump."

 

[47of74]

Fuck Face got something right for once....

Quote

Twitter users pounced on President Donald Trump early Saturday after he boasted about being “your favorite President.”

Trump misleadingly claimed it was “inconceivable that the government would break into a lawyer’s office,” when Cohen’s office was in fact raided by the FBI earlier this year as part of a probe into possible campaign finance violations.

Trump also claimed it was “even more inconceivable that a lawyer would tape a client” and suggested it was “totally unheard of” and “perhaps illegal.” “The good news is that your favorite President did nothing wrong!” he added.

It was Trump’s assertion that he was “your favorite president” that raised eyebrows online, however. Dozens of tweeters responded in much the same way, with many making a similar point about former President Barack Obama:

Yeah, my favorite President didn't do anything wrong.

 

[GreyhoundFan]

Aw, the stable genius is unhappy: "In private, Trump vents frustration over lack of progress on North Korea"

Spoiler

When he emerged from his summit with Kim Jong Un last month, President Trump triumphantly declared that North Korea no longer posed a nuclear threat and that one of the world’s most intractable geopolitical crises had been “largely solved.”

But in the days and weeks since then, U.S. negotiators have faced stiff resistance from a North Korean team practiced in the art of delay and obfuscation.

Diplomats say the North Koreans have canceled follow-up meetings, demanded more money and failed to maintain basic communications, even as the once-isolated regime’s engagements with China and South Korea flourish.

Meanwhile, a missile-engine testing facility that Trump said would be destroyed remains intact, and U.S. intelligence officials say Pyongyang is working to conceal key aspects of its nuclear program.

The lack of immediate progress, though predicted by many analysts, has frustrated the president, who has fumed at his aides in private even as he publicly hails the success of the negotiations.

“Discussions are ongoing and they’re going very well,” Trump told reporters Tuesday.

The accounts of internal administration dynamics come from conversations with a half-dozen White House aides, State Department officials and diplomats, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the sensitive ­negotiations.

Officials say Trump has been captivated by the nuclear talks, asking staffers for daily updates on the status of the negotiations. His frustration with the lack of progress has been coupled with irritation about the media coverage of the joint statement he signed on June 12 in Singapore, a document that contains no timeline or specifics on denuclearization but has reduced tensions between the two countries.

“Trump has been hit with a strong dose of reality of North Korea’s negotiating style, which is always hard for Americans to ­understand,” said Duyeon Kim, a Korea expert at the Center for a New American Security.

Trump’s interest in the issue has put a particularly bright spotlight on Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, who has tried to wring concessions from his counterpart, Kim Yong Chol, a former spy chief viewed by the Trump administration as uncompromising and unable to negotiate outside the most explicit directives from Kim Jong Un.

A low point from the perspective of U.S. officials came during Pompeo’s third visit to Pyongyang on July 6 when he pressed North Korean officials for details on their plans to return the remains of U.S. soldiers killed during the Korean War, as they had agreed to do in Singapore. The issue had been discussed in several meetings and was viewed by the United States as an easy way for North Korea to demonstrate its sincerity.

But when Pompeo arrived in Pyongyang, the North Koreans insisted they were still not ready to commit to specific plans, according to diplomats familiar with the discussions.

The delay angered U.S. officials, who were under pressure to ­deliver given Trump’s premature ­announcement on June 20 that North Korea had already “sent back” the remains of 200 soldiers.

The sentiment worsened when Kim Jong Un chose not to meet with Pompeo during his stay as had been expected. Pompeo later denied that a meeting was planned, a claim contradicted by diplomats who said the secretary initially intended to see the North Korean leader.

Unable to secure an agreement on remains during his trip, Pompeo scheduled a meeting between the North Koreans and their Pentagon counterparts to discuss the issue at the demilitarized zone on July 12. The North, however, kept U.S. defense officials waiting for three hours before calling to cancel, the diplomats said. The North Koreans then asked for a future meeting with a higher-ranking military ­official.

“Leaving another U.S. official standing at the altar, waiting forlornly for the North Korean representative to show up adds insult to injury,” said Bruce Klingner, a North Korea scholar at the conservative Heritage Foundation. “Pyongyang has reverted to its heavy-handed negotiating tactics.”

The Trump administration has maintained a strong public show of support for the negotiations, even as North Korea denounced the United States’ “unilateral and gangster-like demand for denuclearization” after Pompeo’s last visit and described the discussions as “cancerous.”

On Wednesday, Trump said he secured a commitment from Russia to “help” with the North Korea issue. “The process is moving along,” he tweeted. “Big benefits and exciting future for North Korea at end of process!”

But late last week in meetings with his aides, Trump bristled about the lack of positive developments in the negotiations. And on Friday at the United Nations, his ambassador, Nikki Haley, accused Russia of blocking efforts to discipline North Korea’s illegal smuggling.

Trump and his senior team “haven’t given up entirely” on the goal of full denuclearization, but they are worried, said one person familiar with the discussions.

Climbing down from earlier soaring rhetoric, Trump told CBS this week that “I’m in no real rush. I mean whatever it takes, it takes,” he said.

That more patient approach stands in contrast to earlier Trump administration demands for North Korea to dismantle its nuclear program within a year.

“Trump is too vested to walk away right now,” said Victor Cha, a North Korea expert who the Trump administration nearly selected to be the next U.S. ambassador to Seoul. “At least until after the midterms.”

U.S. officials lay some of the blame on Kim Yong Chol, who despite being North Korea’s chief negotiator has consistently stonewalled discussions by saying he is not empowered to talk about an array of pertinent issues.

That dynamic drew the ire of U.S. officials in an early July meeting in Panmunjom when he refused to discuss the opening of a reliable communications channel or even specific goals of Pompeo’s then-upcoming trip to Pyongyang, diplomats briefed on the meetings said.

The U.S. officials in the meeting, led by State Department official Sung Kim and the CIA officer Andy Kim, wanted to discuss Pompeo’s visit and make progress on returning the fallen soldiers’ remains. But Kim Yong Chol said he was authorized only to receive a letter Trump had written to Kim Jong Un.

When U.S. officials tried to raise substantive issues, Kim Yong Chol resisted and kept asking for the letter. Unable to make headway, the Americans eventually handed over the letter and ended the meeting after only an hour.

“[Kim] has a reputation for being extremely rude and aggressive,” said Sung-Yoon Lee, a North Korea scholar at Tufts University.

Kim Yong Chol’s negotiating tactics so frustrated U.S. officials that several expressed hope that he would be replaced as top negotiator by Ri Yong Ho, the North’s more agreeable minister of foreign affairs. The swap appeared possible because of the joint statement in Singapore, which explicitly named Pompeo as the top U.S. negotiator but referred to his counterpart only as a “relevant high-level DPRK official.”

“I think there is a debate within North Korea over assigning Kim Yong Chol or Ri Yong Ho as the counterpart,” said Cha, who is also a scholar at Georgetown University. “Ri knows the issues better and can speak perfect English. Kim is a former spy, not a negotiator.”

Ri greeted Pompeo at the airport earlier this month alongside Kim Yong Chol, but the former spy chief spent more time with Pompeo than any other senior North Korean official during the two-day visit, seemingly solidifying his position.

In the absence of progress on denuclearization, the Trump administration is likely to focus on the war remains.

At a meeting in the demilitarized zone on Sunday, the two sides agreed to recommence field operations to search for the remains of some 5,300 Americans still missing from the conflict in North Korea. Pompeo said this week that he believes the first sets would arrive in the United States “in the next couple weeks.”

U.S. officials familiar with the discussions said the North pledged to return 55 sets of remains on July 27, the 65th anniversary of the signing of an armistice that ended the war. But Pentagon officials, who sent transit cases to the demilitarized zone weeks ago, are wary of North Korea’s pledges given its previous cancellations.

One of Pompeo’s key objectives ahead of the Pyongyang meeting was to improve basic communications with the North, which had been spotty and unresponsive through intelligence and diplomatic channels, U.S. officials said. The two sides have established working groups aimed at improving the communication problem, a senior State Department official said.

Many of the president’s top security and intelligence officials have long doubted that North Korea would live up to any of its commitments. But given the lack of options outside of the diplomatic realm, some analysts said a tolerant approach still provides the best outlook.

“I worry that Trump might lose patience with the length and complexities of negotiations that are common when dealing with North Korea, and walk away and revert back to serious considerations of the military option,” said Duyeon Kim, the Korea scholar. “Getting to a nuclear agreement takes a long time, and implementing it will be even harder.”

 

[GreyhoundFan]

[GreyhoundFan]

[AmazonGrace]

3 hours ago, GreyhoundFan said:

Sorry who is step 1 guy?

[Smoochie]

12 minutes ago, AmazonGrace said:

Sorry who is step 1 guy?

Dan Qualye, Bush SR's VP.

[AmazonGrace]

 

[SilverBeach]

11 hours ago, Smoochie said:

Dan Qualye, Bush SR's VP.

He didn't know how to spell potato.

[onekidanddone]

10 minutes ago, SilverBeach said:

He didn't know how to spell potato.

In Danny’s case potato is spelled B R A I N

[47of74]

Yeah look who's coming to Iowa now

Quote

President Donald Trump is scheduled to come to Dubuque on Thursday, July 26.

According to a tweet from U.S. Representative Rod Blum on Sunday, the president will be there for a roundtable event.

This comes after Vice President Mike Pence spoke in Cedar Rapids on July 11 to campaign for Blum.

The Republican congressman is expected to face a difficult reelection effort against Democrat Abbey Finkenauer in Iowa's 1st Congressional District.

Round table?  Why does the term circle jerk come to mind here?

[fraurosena]

It seems that today he’s reverted back to not believing American intelligence agencies again. It’s all a hoax folks!

 

[candygirl200413]

Because don't you remember the first president that started a war via twitter?

[AmazonGrace]

 

[AmazonGrace]

This man is gonna stick it to the KGB

[47of74]

7 hours ago, candygirl200413 said:

Because don't you remember the first president that started a war via twitter?

Yep, it's Monday so of course Spanky McFuckFace is on Twitter again acting stupid. 

The internet of course, is letting Spanky have it for his Twitter tantrum

 

[47of74]

And this gentleman on Twitter also raised a good point.  If this was an ordinary person acting like Spanky they'd most likely have family members seeking medical intervention.

Yeah my parents are also about the same age as Spanky and I couldn't see them acting like Spanky did over the past eight hours.

[thoughtful]

33 minutes ago, 47of74 said:

Yep, it's Monday so of course Spanky McFuckFace is on Twitter again acting stupid. 

The internet of course, is letting Spanky have it for his Twitter tantrum

 

Kodi, I'm sorry to say Trump is being himself.

[Rachel333]

Trump's tweet is currently at the top of reddit's iamverybadass. Trump also has two posts on the all time top page of iamverysmart. 

[GreyhoundFan]

 

[GreyhoundFan]

 

[47of74]

Spanky McFornicateFace's behavior is so bad that even the APA is telling its members to forget the Goldwater Rule;

Quote

A leading psychiatry group has told its members they should not feel bound by a longstanding rule against commenting publicly on the mental state of public figures — even the president.

The statement, an email this month from the executive committee of the American Psychoanalytic Association to its 3,500 members, represents the first significant crack in the profession’s decades-old united front aimed at preventing experts from discussing the psychiatric aspects of politicians’ behavior. It will likely make many of its members feel more comfortable speaking openly about President Trump’s mental health.

The impetus for the email was “belief in the value of psychoanalytic knowledge in explaining human behavior,” said psychoanalytic association past president Dr. Prudence Gourguechon, a psychiatrist in Chicago. “We don’t want to prohibit our members from using their knowledge responsibly.”

That responsibility is especially great today, she told STAT, “since Trump’s behavior is so different from anything we’ve seen before” in a commander in chief.