Trump 37: Tweeting instead of Leading

[fraurosena]

He's not even pretending to be presiduncing anymore. It's permanently 'executive time', so he's following the news 24-7 and tweeting his fear-filled responses. 

 

[onekidanddone]

39 minutes ago, fraurosena said:

He's not even pretending to be presiduncing anymore. It's permanently 'executive time', so he's following the news 24-7 and tweeting his fear-filled responses. 

 

I'm off to have some major dental work done, but I can Guaran-fucking-tee I'll be having a better day than he is right now.

87 pages, but I can't show you right now... yea I'm thinking there isn't a counter report, or if there is it says BUTTER E-MAILS. 

[AmazonGrace]

I' m sure they have written a long list of irrelevant grievances about everyone involved with the investigation but obviously they can't publish anything about the events until they know what Mueller can prove. 

Is anyone actually saying that Rudy isn't going to issue his own opinions about it? (Well If someone helps him find the on button on his laptop)

[AnywhereButHere]

Giuliani's report. Straight from the fingers of the newest manager of the Overlook Hotel.

 

[Audrey2]

The Guliani Report:

1. Crooked Hillary

2. But her emails

3. Benghazi

4. Uranium

5. Obama is a Muslim

6. Obama's birth certificate is now proven to be a fake

7. Obama was born in Kenya

8. Obama was illegally married in a gay marriage to Michelle, who is actually a man.

9. Soros is illegally running the country.

10. Obama is an illegal immigrant.

11. All news stations except FOX must be shut down immediately for trafficking in Fake News.

12. All non Fox reporters should be charged with treason.

13. Heck, all on this list should be charged with treason and dealt with publicly on FOX news, with true Patriot Sean Hannity acting as judge, jury, and executioner.

14. Add Nancy Pelosi to this list. I'm sure she's done something.

 

How did I do?

[GreyhoundFan]

I love J.K. Rowling:

 

[GreyhoundFan]

 

[fraurosena]

Yup.

 

[AnywhereButHere]

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/tillerson-says-trump-directed-him-to-do-things-that-violate-the-law/ar-BBQDnep?ocid=ientp

Quote

Former secretary of state Rex Tillerson said Thursday night that his relationship with President Trump grew tense after he repeatedly told the chief executive that many of the things he was asking him to do were illegal.

"So often, the president would say, 'Here’s what I want you to do, and here’s how I want you to do it,'" Tillerson said at a fundraiser for the MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, in his first public remarks about his truncated tenure since Trump summarily fired him by tweet in March.

"And I would have to say to him, 'Mr. President, I understand what you want to do. But you can’t do it that way. It violates the law,'" he said.

Subscribe to the Post Most newsletter: Today’s most popular stories on The Washington Post

Tillerson, a former chief executive of Exxon Mobil, did not offer any specific examples of which requests he deemed illegal. He said he offered to work to change the law, but that apparently did not curb Trump’s frustration.

"I’d say, 'Here’s what we can do,'" Tillerson said. "'We can go back to Congress and get this law changed. And if that’s what you want to do, there’s nothing wrong with that.' I told him, 'I’m ready to go up there and fight the fight, if that’s what you want to do.'"

Tillerson noted that he had never met Trump before Vice President Pence invited Tillerson to the White House. At the end of his meeting with Trump, Tillerson said, he was offered the job as the nation’s top diplomat.

Tillerson also took a swipe at Twitter — not the president’s use of it, but the short attention span it has helped engender in many Americans.

Saying Trump was elected using modern-day tools to tap into strong emotions, he added, "I will be honest with you. It troubles me that the American people seem to want to know so little about issues that they are satisfied with 128 characters.

"I don’t want that to come across as a criticism of him. It’s really a concern I have about us as Americans, and us as a society, and us as citizens."

Tillerson was fired a few hours after returning from a trip to Africa. Though he had been forewarned that Trump was unhappy with him, Tillerson learned of his dismissal through a tweet in which Trump congratulated his new pick for the job, Mike Pompeo, and concluded with a breezy, "Thank you to Rex Tillerson for his service!"

Laws? What laws? I don't have to obey laws! Says a lot (not that we need more proof) about his character that he'd just rather break laws than work to change them. Despot in training? While it's great that all of Trump's "resigned" staffers are speaking out - it would have been nice if they would've done it while still holding their (tenuous) jobs. Many of them had cache among their republican colleagues, so I wonder if exposing the rot earlier would have helped. I mean, probably not, but diving into the realm of alternate realities and all... maybe we wouldn't be saddled with a Brett Kavanaugh etc...

I definitely agree with Tillerson on his views about Twitter. We've been so conditioned to receive our news and form our opinions from headlines ands soundbites. Even an article of one paragraph has become an insurmountable novel to too many people, sometimes including myself.

[formergothardite]

Rex Tillerson, the unlikely voice of reason. 

Trump didn't have the slightest idea what he was getting into when he became president. 

[smittykins]

 

3 hours ago, Audrey2 said:

The Guliani Report:

1. Crooked Hillary

2. But her emails

3. Benghazi

4. Uranium

5. Obama is a Muslim

6. Obama's birth certificate is now proven to be a fake

7. Obama was born in Kenya

8. Obama was illegally married in a gay marriage to Michelle, who is actually a man.

9. Soros is illegally running the country.

10. Obama is an illegal immigrant.

11. All news stations except FOX must be shut down immediately for trafficking in Fake News.

12. All non Fox reporters should be charged with treason.

13. Heck, all on this list should be charged with treason and dealt with publicly on FOX news, with true Patriot Sean Hannity acting as judge, jury, and executioner.

14. Add Nancy Pelosi to this list. I'm sure she's done something.

 

How did I do?

You forgot "The Obama daughters are adopted."

[Ozlsn]

1 hour ago, formergothardite said:

Rex Tillerson, the unlikely voice of reason. 

Trump didn't have the slightest idea what he was getting into when he became president. 

I honestly think he thought it was going to be like his "management" of his companies - a bit of schmoozing, a lot of golf, a 'donation' or two to help smooth the way, a bit of screwing over people, not a lot of work. He didn't count on the level of scrutiny the Presidency is under, the fact that many people in roles there have studied law and have an aversion to ending up in prison as a fall guy, that there are a whole lot of embedded constraints around the limitations of powers. He thought he would be a mediaeval king in terms of power - and even they were occasionally reigned in by the counter-balance of the Church.

[fraurosena]

So of course the presidunce felt the need to go completely infantile.

 

[GreyhoundFan]

"Trump is failing everywhere. Here are some fresh signs of it."

Spoiler

In a speech this week in Brussels, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo gamely tried to place a coherent gloss on the jumble of fictions, fantasies, hatreds and seemingly unquenchable impulses toward self-dealing that make up President Trump’s worldview.

But right on cue, this week has produced a string of new events that underscore once again that this worldview, as a basis for major policy decisions, is failing spectacularly.

In his speech, Pompeo declared that Trump “sees the world as it is, not as we wish it to be,” adding: “He knows that nothing can replace the nation-state as the guarantor of democratic freedoms and national interests.” Pompeo defended Trump’s efforts to revamp the international order on terms supposedly more friendly to U.S. interests, articulating the nationalist trope that international institutions and multilateral cooperation, in their current form, are failing globally and, more important, eroding U.S. sovereignty ― its right and ability to act in its own interests.

To whatever degree Trump’s version of this worldview is really the basis for his decisions, there is fresh evidence that it is producing terrible outcomes:

China and climate change. Friday’s New York Times has a remarkable article reporting that Trump’s posture toward China ― both on trade and climate change ― may be putting the planet at greater risk of long-term warming catastrophe. To oversimplify, Trump’s trade war with China and his decision to pull out of the Paris climate deal are giving ballast in China to those who want to slow its efforts to combat climate change.

Those making this case, the Times reports, are pointing out that Trump’s trade war could hurt the Chinese economy and that the United States is retreating on its own commitment to reducing greenhouse gases, so why shouldn’t China retreat as well? As one expert notes, this is taking “the pressure off greater ambition and faster action” on China’s part, an alarming dynamic, since “we’re already way behind.”

To be sure, there is not yet clear evidence that this is seriously happening. But given that the United States and China are both the largest economies and have the largest carbon footprints, the possibility is deeply worrying climate experts. And remember, our retreat is deeply alarming in and of itself. In carrying it out, Trump is blowing off the scientific findings of his own administration, which has determined that the failure to act threatens truly dire outcomes for the planet and for ourselves.

Trump justifies this response to his own administration’s warning by blithely saying: “I don’t believe it.”

The trade wars. Bloomberg News reports that Trump is not just using tariffs as a tool in his trade wars ― he’s now also wielding policy uncertainty as a weapon. As Bloomberg notes, the driving idea here is that, if Trump can sow doubts about the future of our trading relationships with other countries, that will disincentivize U.S. companies from investing abroad and weaken those countries’ leverage in future talks. This fuses Trump’s economic nationalism with chaos as a governing strategy: Putting “America first” means leaving other countries off balance, supposedly weakening them in their zero-sum struggles with us, which can only have “winners” and “losers.”

But Bloomberg reports that this is creating bad outcomes, too: In practice, it means deep confusion within the Trump administration over what our policy is and what China has promised in ongoing talks, which has rattled markets and has emerged as a “drag on business investment decisions from farm states hit by Chinese retaliatory tariffs.” While there’s a temporary truce with China, many analysts are skeptical that China will give Trump the concessions he wants, and there’s no telling where this war will end up.

Trade deficits. Trump’s zero-sum view of trade has led him to embrace the idea that trade deficits are inherently bad ― signs we’re getting taken advantage of by other countries. This is a highly simplistic view, but regardless, our trade deficits are now soaring, which means he’s failing by his own self-assigned standard. As Heather Long details, this is being caused by Trump’s trade wars, due to which “the United States continues to import a lot of foreign goods but has struggled to sell products such as soybeans abroad.”

The basic problem here isn’t just trade deficits. It’s what his trade-deficit panic says about how weak his grasp on the intricacies of trade really is. Trump calls himself “Tariff Man,” but he doesn’t know how tariffs and trade policy work, and as Paul Krugman notes, there are just no real U.S. constituencies behind what he is doing, which appears rooted in volatile impulses that are producing miserable results.

This is also very much the case on immigration, the other big issue on which Trump is implementing his nationalist vision. Trump is trying everything possible to slash the numbers of asylum seekers and refugees admitted to the United States, on the grounds that they represent a massive criminal and economic threat, that we need to get other countries to stop taking advantage of us by “sending” them, and that we’re already doing more than our global fair share. This, again, is rooted in the goal of strengthening national sovereignty.

But Trump’s depiction of those migrants is actually based on lies, dehumanization and hate. And his underlying ideas about immigration are proving entirely ineffectual in the face of serious problems, which require more regional cooperation and a redoubling of efforts to address migrants’ plight humanely and efficiently, not less of these things.

There’s no question that the liberal international order that Pompeo decried is in need of repair. But as Dan Drezner and Stewart Patrick explain, Trump’s guiding vision is often little more than the notion that unraveling multilateral cooperation wherever possible is inherently good for America, because multilateral cooperation is inherently bad for us ― when in fact it does hold the key to solving problems in a complex, interconnected world, even if its outcomes must be dramatically improved.

Pompeo says that Trump “sees the world as it is, not what we wish it to be.” But as we’re seeing on one front after another, precisely the opposite is true. And the results this is producing are likely to get worse.

 

[AmazonGrace]

 

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/justice-department/trump-s-legal-team-has-joint-defense-agreement-stone-ally-n941436

[AmazonGrace]

41 minutes ago, fraurosena said:

So of course the presidunce felt the need to go completely infantile.

 

#BeBest 

[formergothardite]

51 minutes ago, fraurosena said:

So of course the presidunce felt the need to go completely infantile.

 

What happened to that thing about how he only hired the best and smartest people?

We are watching him unravel on Twitter. If this is what he Tweets can you imagine what he is screaming at people? 

[AmazonGrace]

 

[Howl]

The Reach Around touching/not touching deal.  Jeez what a scumbag. 

[onekidanddone]

6 hours ago, Audrey2 said:

The Guliani Report:

1. Crooked Hillary

2. But her emails

3. Benghazi

4. Uranium

5. Obama is a Muslim

6. Obama's birth certificate is now proven to be a fake

7. Obama was born in Kenya

8. Obama was illegally married in a gay marriage to Michelle, who is actually a man.

9. Soros is illegally running the country.

10. Obama is an illegal immigrant.

11. All news stations except FOX must be shut down immediately for trafficking in Fake News.

12. All non Fox reporters should be charged with treason.

13. Heck, all on this list should be charged with treason and dealt with publicly on FOX news, with true Patriot Sean Hannity acting as judge, jury, and executioner.

14. Add Nancy Pelosi to this list. I'm sure she's done something.

 

How did I do?

13. Hold my bottle of Trump wine and watch this 

[fraurosena]

Delusional much?

 

[fraurosena]

 

[fraurosena]

 

[GreyhoundFan]

"The latest filings show that nobody can save Trump now"

Spoiler

At the end of the day Friday, we learned what federal prosecutors in New York think of Michael Cohen:

Federal prosecutors said in a new court filing that President Trump’s former lawyer Michael Cohen should spend significant time in prison — saying his assistance to investigators probing the president does not outweigh his past crimes.

The filing was made Friday as Cohen prepares to be sentenced next week in two separate cases, one involving campaign finance violations and lying to a bank, and another in which he admitted to lying to Congress about efforts during the 2016 presidential campaign to get a Trump Tower built in Moscow.

Cohen had asked for a sentence of no prison time, citing his cooperation with investigators, but prosecutors for the Southern District of New York filed a memo arguing that he should serve significant time, possibly years, in prison.

This is bad news for Cohen, but there’s something else interesting in the filing: Prosecutors explicitly state that Cohen coordinated with President Trump on hush money payments to Stormy Daniels and Karen McDougal over his alleged affairs with them: “as Cohen himself has now admitted, with respect to both payments, he acted in coordination with and at the direction of Individual-1.” That’s Donald Trump.

We knew this already — and we knew that Trump lied about it, claiming not to know about the payments — but this says that prosecutors believe that Trump ordered Cohen to commit a crime.

That brings us to the second document that dropped at the same time, from special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s office. In contrast to the New York prosecutors, Mueller states that Cohen’s cooperation in his investigation was substantial and helpful. But much of what Mueller has to say is vague. For instance:

Cohen provided the [special counsel’s office] with useful information concerning certain discrete Russia-related matters core to its investigation that he obtained by virtue of his regular contact with [Trump Organization] executives during the campaign.

What does that refer to? We don’t know. That means that there is more to this story that Mueller has yet to reveal.

And he will reveal it. One of the remarkable things about the discussion we've been having lately is that the president still seems to think that he can be saved from whatever this investigation uncovers. He just announced that William Barr will be his next attorney general, and the New York Times reported that in private, "Mr. Trump has also repeatedly asked whether the next pick would recuse himself from overseeing the special counsel investigation into whether his campaign conspired with Russia in its interference in the 2016 election." It's as though he thinks this investigation is in its early stages and can be quashed by a properly loyal underling.

But at this point it doesn't matter. It's far too late. Trump's former aides have cooperated, they've conducted their interviews with the special counsel, they're being sentenced, the documents have been reviewed, the connections have been traced, and the full picture is soon to be revealed.

This scandal can’t be hidden away. Republicans in Congress can’t save Trump, his attorney general can’t save him, and no amount of desperate tweets can save him. Accountability is on its way, and it’s arriving very soon.

 

[Audrey2]

2 hours ago, AmazonGrace said:

 

Oh look, a boob touching a boob! I wouldn't put up with it, but again, it's a Trump syncopant, so she may not have a problem with it. It's disgusting to me.

13 minutes ago, GreyhoundFan said:

"The latest filings show that nobody can save Trump now"

  Reveal hidden contents

At the end of the day Friday, we learned what federal prosecutors in New York think of Michael Cohen:

Federal prosecutors said in a new court filing that President Trump’s former lawyer Michael Cohen should spend significant time in prison — saying his assistance to investigators probing the president does not outweigh his past crimes.

The filing was made Friday as Cohen prepares to be sentenced next week in two separate cases, one involving campaign finance violations and lying to a bank, and another in which he admitted to lying to Congress about efforts during the 2016 presidential campaign to get a Trump Tower built in Moscow.

Cohen had asked for a sentence of no prison time, citing his cooperation with investigators, but prosecutors for the Southern District of New York filed a memo arguing that he should serve significant time, possibly years, in prison.

This is bad news for Cohen, but there’s something else interesting in the filing: Prosecutors explicitly state that Cohen coordinated with President Trump on hush money payments to Stormy Daniels and Karen McDougal over his alleged affairs with them: “as Cohen himself has now admitted, with respect to both payments, he acted in coordination with and at the direction of Individual-1.” That’s Donald Trump.

We knew this already — and we knew that Trump lied about it, claiming not to know about the payments — but this says that prosecutors believe that Trump ordered Cohen to commit a crime.

That brings us to the second document that dropped at the same time, from special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s office. In contrast to the New York prosecutors, Mueller states that Cohen’s cooperation in his investigation was substantial and helpful. But much of what Mueller has to say is vague. For instance:

Cohen provided the [special counsel’s office] with useful information concerning certain discrete Russia-related matters core to its investigation that he obtained by virtue of his regular contact with [Trump Organization] executives during the campaign.

What does that refer to? We don’t know. That means that there is more to this story that Mueller has yet to reveal.

And he will reveal it. One of the remarkable things about the discussion we've been having lately is that the president still seems to think that he can be saved from whatever this investigation uncovers. He just announced that William Barr will be his next attorney general, and the New York Times reported that in private, "Mr. Trump has also repeatedly asked whether the next pick would recuse himself from overseeing the special counsel investigation into whether his campaign conspired with Russia in its interference in the 2016 election." It's as though he thinks this investigation is in its early stages and can be quashed by a properly loyal underling.

But at this point it doesn't matter. It's far too late. Trump's former aides have cooperated, they've conducted their interviews with the special counsel, they're being sentenced, the documents have been reviewed, the connections have been traced, and the full picture is soon to be revealed.

This scandal can’t be hidden away. Republicans in Congress can’t save Trump, his attorney general can’t save him, and no amount of desperate tweets can save him. Accountability is on its way, and it’s arriving very soon.

 

Why did I hear the Peanuts music (aka Linus and Lucy) playing as I read this?