Trump 34: Leading the Alternate Reality

[thoughtful]

13 minutes ago, AmazonGrace said:

Feds are squeezing Trump's pecker. You're welcome to use the brain bleach in the bathroom

Just be glad there's nobody in Trump's gang named Zit.

[AmazonGrace]

 

[fraurosena]

Huh. It seems Sessions little bark yesterday has got the presidunce backing down. Sort of.

 

[AmazonGrace]

People prefer previous presidents 

 

[GreyhoundFan]

 

[fraurosena]

He's found out about the purging of bots and trolls from Twitter and he's not happy about it. Now how's he going to peddle his lies?

Love that inadvertent truth in the last sentence though. 

[Cartmann99]

David Pecker should be grateful that his folks didn't name him Richard. School would have been kinda rough with everyone calling him Dick Pecker.

[Howl]

I'm gobsmacked on a daily basis that this has been the new normal for......how long now?  And that a staggeringly large number of people believe it. 

Be comforted to know that there are many, many Republicans who now no longer consider themselves Republicans --  now Independents, WTAF Just Happened to the Republican Party?, Never Trumpers, Trump Regretters. 

Truly, I don't want Trump impeached, because of the possibility of Trump making Pence look good, normal, sane in comparison.  Pence is totally electable in 2020, Evangelical, Good Hair.   When Trump is finally gone, I think it will be like people have been trying to stay standing in a gale force wind that suddenly stops, and then everyone almost falls over.  It will interesting to see what fills that vacuum. 

I know some of y'all are saying, Well, what about the Flynn lie? But so much shit has gone down the river that the Flynn deal seems like small potatoes, UNLESS there will be some ultimately damning information in the Mueller report. 

Musings with my morning tea.  Everything could change overnight!  Or with any Mueller indictment.  

Trump Foundation is under serious scrutiny!    

Awesome Infrastructure Week so far! 

 

[AmazonGrace]

Still trying to lock up his political opponents 

 

[Cartmann99]

Does anybody else hear a wailing sound followed by a KFC bucket hitting a television?

 

[fraurosena]

2 hours ago, Howl said:

I'm gobsmacked on a daily basis that this has been the new normal for......how long now?  And that a staggeringly large number of people believe it. 

Be comforted to know that there are many, many Republicans who now no longer consider themselves Republicans --  now Independents, WTAF Just Happened to the Republican Party?, Never Trumpers, Trump Regretters. 

Truly, I don't want Trump impeached, because of the possibility of Trump making Pence look good, normal, sane in comparison.  Pence is totally electable in 2020, Evangelical, Good Hair.   When Trump is finally gone, I think it will be like people have been trying to stay standing in a gale force wind that suddenly stops, and then everyone almost falls over.  It will interesting to see what fills that vacuum. 

I know some of y'all are saying, Well, what about the Flynn lie? But so much shit has gone down the river that the Flynn deal seems like small potatoes, UNLESS there will be some ultimately damning information in the Mueller report. 

Musings with my morning tea.  Everything could change overnight!  Or with any Mueller indictment.  

Trump Foundation is under serious scrutiny!    

Awesome Infrastructure Week so far! 

 

I've been one of those who has been pointing out the Flynn lies. And I still believe they will lead to Pence's eventual downfall. However, you do have a point in that he might seem like a sane choice after the presidunce. 

Maybe they will put him in place after they've impeached the presidunce. However, impeachment against Pence will still be a possibility based on the Flynn stuff (although there just might be simultaneous impeachment procedures based on what Mueller reports).

Even if for some reason that doesn't happen and Pence gets to sit out a presidency until the next elections, that will be the last of him in politics. I don't agree that he is electable in 2020. The Republican party has lost any and all credibility they ever had and will forever be connected to this presiduncy and the role they played in it (Pence included). I don't think anyone with an R behind their name will be elected president in the foreseeable future. The R-s have effectively side-lined themselves and made way for a new party, possibly the Independants (or whatever they choose to call themselves).

Also, don't despair if Pence does become president after the presiduncial impeachment. It will only be for a short period after all. An impeachment procedure is not done overnight. Before you are rid of the presidunce, the best part of next year will have passed, unless he decides to resign. And with a Congress that is decidedly Democratic  (I believe in that midterm blue tsunami), the damage he can do will be severely limited.

All in all, I'm not as wary of the inevitable impeachment of the presidunce as you are. 

[onekidanddone]

1 hour ago, Cartmann99 said:

Does anybody else hear a wailing sound followed by a KFC bucket hitting a television?

 

On a road trip with the family just crossing the GW bridge into The Bronx heading to NH where cell service is spotty. I am going into quiver full of politics withdrawal. Help me Rufus 

[fraurosena]

The presidunce has a new tactic...

 

Oi, the country's doing great, we're MAGA to the max now. Don't impeach me... please... 

[GreyhoundFan]

Today's big roundup in the WaPo starts with this: "The Daily 202: Fox fallout shows why Trump’s lawyers don’t want Mueller to get an interview"

Spoiler

THE BIG IDEA: Donald Trump’s own lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, distanced himself from his client’s suggestion that it “almost ought to be illegal” for “flippers” to get plea deals in exchange for their testimony. Attorney General Jeff Sessions, who has kept a stiff upper lip as the president repeatedly sought to humiliate him over the past 18 months, forcefully responded as Trump questioned his loyalty. And even though he is unlikely to be indicted, many experts believe the president may have inadvertently confessed to breaking campaign finance law with his latest account of how he reimbursed Michael Cohen for paying hush money so two of his alleged mistresses would stay silent before the 2016 election.

That’s just some of the fallout from a 12-minute interview that aired Thursday morning on “Fox and Friends.” It was Trump’s most problematic sit-down since he told NBC’s Lester Holt last year that the Russia investigation was indeed on his mind when he fired James Comey as FBI director — undercutting the official explanation from White House officials.

It underscored why Trump’s legal team has become so determined to stop special counsel Bob Mueller from getting access, specifically demanding that questions related to potential obstruction of justice be off limits in any presidential interview. Trump’s lawyers say they’re afraid Mueller will lay “a perjury trap,” but the Fox hit shows Trump probably doesn’t need to be coaxed like some bear in the backwoods of Maine with doughnuts. He seems perfectly capable of entangling himself in potential legal and political jeopardy with little prompting.

“The headline bounty is proof that Trump is either too clueless or too reckless to understand the implications of his own words,” writes media critic Erik Wemple. “Whatever the case, his interviewer needs only to place topics before him, and let the tape roll.”

Trump’s remarks on Fox came in response to softballs from host Ainsley Earhardt. Among the questions she posed: “How are you doing? … How is our country's first lady doing? How are your children? … What do you say to those who disagree with your immigration plans? … If the Democrats take back power, do you believe they will try to impeach you? … Is the press the enemy of the people? … What grade do you give yourself so far?”

“I give myself an A ,” he replied.

It seems unlikely that Andrew Weissmann, a dogged prosecutor on Mueller’s team who was formerly chief of the criminal fraud section at the Justice Department, would ask the president to give himself a letter grade. Mueller’s team would undoubtedly ask more targeted questions and press harder for answers. Trump also probably wouldn’t know exactly what they know ahead of time, whether from documents or interviews with other cooperating witnesses.

-- The buzziest part of the interview was Trump’s riff against the routine practice of prosecutors giving criminals more lenient sentences if they cooperate. “It’s called flipping, and it almost ought to be illegal,” the president said. “They just make up lies, I’ve seen it many times. … It's not fair because if … somebody defrauded a bank and he's going to get 10 years in jail or 20 years in jail, but if you can say something bad about Donald Trump … you'll go down to two years or three years, which is the deal (Cohen) made. In all fairness to him, most people are going to do that, and I've seen it many times.”

Trump praised Paul Manafort, his former campaign chairman, for not cooperating with the government. “I've had many friends involved in this stuff,” Trump added, an acknowledgment that it’s hard to imagine other presidents making. “I know all about flipping. For 30 (to) 40 years, I’ve been watching flippers. Everything’s wonderful, and then they get 10 years in jail and they flip on whoever the next highest one is — or as high as you can go.”

Giuliani made a name for himself in the 1980s as the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York, the same office that brought the charges against Cohen this week. Many of his highest-profile victories during the years before he became mayor of the Big Apple were only possible because of so-called flippers. “When it’s done right, it’s fine,” Giuliani told Carol D. Leonnig. “It’s one of the tools prosecutors use. Then it gets tested by a jury. You can’t stop that.”

-- Michael Gerson, a top aide in George W. Bush’s White House, compares what’s transpired this week to Nixon White House counsel John Dean’s bombshell congressional testimony in June 1973. “There is, again, a cancer on the presidency,” Gerson writes in today’s newspaper.

“Dean famously testified about Nixon’s obstruction of justice,” Jonathan Chait adds in New York Magazine. “Nobody claims Dean lied about Nixon. The sin in Trump’s eyes is that he flipped, violating the omerta. Trump even uses Mafia lingo, ‘rat,’ to describe Dean’s cooperation with law enforcement [in a Sunday tweet]. … It is obviously quite rare to hear a high-ranking elected official openly embrace the terminology and moral logic of La Cosa Nostra. But Trump is not just a guy who has seen a lot of mob movies. He has worked closely with Mafia figures throughout his business career.

“Like a mobster, Trump takes an extremely cynical view of almost every moral principle in public life, assuming that everybody in politics is corrupt and hypocritical,” Chait observes. “Since the greatest threat to a mafia don’s business is that subordinates will betray him, he typically surrounds himself with family members, even if they are not the smartest or best criminals. Trump has accordingly surrounded himself with his children, or demonstrated loyalists who would have trouble finding remotely comparable jobs at another business.”

-- Trump’s view of loyalty is a key factor driving his anger toward Sessions, who was the first senator to endorse his campaign in 2016. “Mr. President,” Earhardt said on Fox, “a lot of your supporters are frustrated with the DOJ [and] with Jeff Sessions. There are rumors that you're going to fire him after the midterms …” Without directly answering, the president said: “You know, the only reason I gave him the job is because I felt loyalty.”

Trump faulted the nation’s chief law enforcement officer for not “taking over” the Justice Department and grumbled, as he often has, that Sessions agreed to recuse himself from the investigation after revelations that he had not been honest during his Senate confirmation hearing about contacts with Russian agents. Trump said on Fox, “What kind of man is this?!”

Sessions issued this formal statement in response: “While I am Attorney General, the actions of the Department of Justice will not be improperly influenced by political considerations,” he said in a news release. “I took control of the Department of Justice the day I was sworn in, which is why we have had unprecedented success at effectuating the President’s agenda …”

-- Another element of the Fox interview that was widely picked up was Trump’s claim that he didn’t know about Cohen’s hush money payments until “later on” and did not reimburse him with campaign money. “They didn't come out of the campaign, they came from me,” he said. “Almost everybody that runs for office has campaign violations. But what Michael Cohen pleaded to weren't even campaign related.  They weren't crimes. … You know, campaign violations are considered not a big deal, frankly.”

Here are some of the ensuing headlines:

• Business Insider: “Trump appears to have a misunderstanding of campaign-finance law, and may have inadvertently admitted to breaking the law as a result.”
• Vox: “Trump seems to confess to campaign finance violations.”
• Newsweek: “Trump just admitted to a federal crime in ‘Fox & Friends’ interview, Obama ethics chief says.”
• CNN: “The 36 most outrageous lines in Trump's Fox News interview.”

-- For decades, Trump has obsessed over magazine covers with his face on them. They hang all over his office in Trump Tower. There will be some doozies on newsstands next week that he might not like.

Time magazine depicts the president treading water:

... < posted elsewhere >

The New Yorker shows the president being chased by bloodhounds:

... < continues online >

 

 

[formergothardite]

52 minutes ago, fraurosena said:

The Republican party has lost any and all credibility they ever had and will forever be connected to this presiduncy and the role they played in it (Pence included). I don't think anyone with an R behind their name will be elected president in the foreseeable future

I really wish I could be this positive! Pence is rarely seen with Trump(that I've noticed) and seems to be out doing normal things like supporting NASA. If he gets away without being convicted of a crime, the evangelical crowd will throw themselves behind him in 2020. Pence will denounce Trump, lots of people will pretend they weren't die hard Trump supporters, history will be rewritten with Pence being a godly man who was in the background defending our country, and with the gerrymandering and voter suppression and without a strong Democratic candidate, I can see him winning easily. 

 

[GreyhoundFan]

[GreyhoundFan]

[GreyhoundFan]

[GreyhoundFan]

[Howl]

2 hours ago, fraurosena said:

I've been one of those who has been pointing out the Flynn lies. And I still believe they will lead to Pence's eventual downfall. However, you do have a point in that he might seem like a sane choice after the presidunce. 

Maybe they will put him in place after they've impeached the presidunce. However, impeachment against Pence will still be a possibility based on the Flynn stuff (although there just might be simultaneous impeachment procedures based on what Mueller reports).

Even if for some reason that doesn't happen and Pence gets to sit out a presidency until the next elections, that will be the last of him in politics. I don't agree that he is electable in 2020. The Republican party has lost any and all credibility they ever had and will forever be connected to this presiduncy and the role they played in it (Pence included). I don't think anyone with an R behind their name will be elected president in the foreseeable future. The R-s have effectively side-lined themselves and made way for a new party, possibly the Independants (or whatever they choose to call themselves).

Also, don't despair if Pence does become president after the presiduncial impeachment. It will only be for a short period after all. An impeachment procedure is not done overnight. Before you are rid of the presidunce, the best part of next year will have passed, unless he decides to resign. And with a Congress that is decidedly Democratic  (I believe in that midterm blue tsunami), the damage he can do will be severely limited.

All in all, I'm not as wary of the inevitable impeachment of the presidunce as you are. 

As my best friend says about many things, "More will be revealed!"   I don't discount your scenario, which seems viable, in any way.  It's that Flynn has just been lost to me due to the daily WH crap avalanche, since he was ditched in the early days of the administration.  

I'm focused right now on the mobbed up aspect of Trump's general malfeasance --  Russian mobligarchs both in the home country and the US.  I've been following a twitter account called Lincoln's Bible that is all over Trump's lifetime mob connections. 

Just started reading "Collusion: Secret Meetings, Dirty Money, and how Russia Helped Donald Trump Win."  I'm only in the second chapter and we've already covered Orbis (Christopher Steele's outfit) and Simpson at Fusion GPS and how Fusion came to hire Simpson.  Oh, and how Christopher Steele accidentally uncovered the global FIFA corruption scandal.  Anyway, the original subject of Steele's interest was Manafort.  Luke Harding, the author, was The Guardian's Moscow bureau chief between 2007 - 2011 and got the boot from writing too many critical articles about Putin and corruption. 

[GreyhoundFan]

[GreyhoundFan]

[GreyhoundFan]

[GreyhoundFan]

[GreyhoundFan]