This Russian-connetion thing is not going well for our forty-fifth President. NSA captured conversations between the Trump people and Russia a full year before the election.

...and the Trump-Russian connections thicken:

New Development on the Michael Cohen 'Peace Plan' Meeting

Often overlooked by media is the underlying basis for even looking at Russian connections and its meaning.

If Mr Trump had taken the standard arms length approach to Russia, I suspect there would not have been much investigation into any connections which for the most part can easily be explained as routine government business. However, when Mr Trump appeared to be in a bromance with Putin it raises questions about the relationship and when all the contacts are considered in that context, we have questions which matter.

Speculating on possible results of connections, we have the most odious possibility Mr Trump would be willing to allow Russian intervention in Eastern Europe without US retaliation. The evidence which supports that possibility is not hysterical as conservatives and Republicans would have people believe, but is based on facts when considered in the broader context of a changed Republican platform and the many ties between Russians and Trump associates.

The bottom line is we do not know the extent of Russianization of the Trump administration.

This just in...

At least 7 Russian officials have turned up dead since Election Day. Here's what we know.

source

It's from Feb 27 but it's the first I've heard of it.

If Trump had "seriously thought", an oxymoron for his cognition, about running for public office he would have taken more care to conceal his dirty doings. Clearly he did not understand, or misunderestimated, the tenacity of investigative journalism. All he would have to have done would be to hire a shop to do a first pass opposition research on himself. Of course he is way too paranoid to trust anyone to compile such a dossier.

I think he just wanted the bragging points and attention and it got out of hand. He never figured he would get this much screwtiny, as who go to the expense and trouble to do deep international background on an early looser in a primary of 17 colorful candidates.

Now there is a desperate, and likely futile, attempt to retroactively cover up all of that large scale, low hanging fruit, much of which is almost certainly highly criminal money laundering for the Russian oligarchs.

RE:
I am not too worried about this now as I suspect that similarly to his modus operandi of dealing with other contractors, he will simply stiff them. He is a master bait and switch artist. Now that it is exposed his quid pro quo options are severely limited, and he can now earnestly claim to his Rusky friends: I would love to help you all I can, but my hands are tied. They could still destroy him in a flash, but he is betting/hoping that even weakened, they view him as a still useful asset/idiot. The Russians are obviously worried by this unpredictability, that now seems likely worse than the Hillary demon that they knew and understood. What will it take for them to play their high trump card and anoint Prez Pence? Time will tell!

I doubt that Russian golden sexploitation blackmail would worry him, as Pussy-Grabber in chief snatched victory from the jaws of defeat in that scandal, that has immunized him from paraphilia related damage. Even the incestuous and pedophilia angles are shockingly ignored by the true believers. In fact, these otherwise exclusionary characteristic, have strengthened his appeal to the "mens rights" nut/whack jobs, and inexplicably many women have, with sincere so-called Christian values, turned the other cheek.

Tat

5'7" Vlad is a regular killing machine.

So Mark Levin goes on Fox and Friends Sunday and says there is "overwhelming evidence" that BAMZ!!! spied on Trump at Trump Towers:



President* Trump sees the Levin interview and loses his sh!t and goes on a Tweeting frenzy:



Then James Comey Asks Justice Dept. to Reject Trump’s Wiretapping Claim

I can't believe we have a POTUS that acts like some drama queen and flies off the handle when he is slightly provoked.

conservatives believe The Great One is a Constitutional scholar ... I listen to him occasionally and he impresses me as an idiot => he argues the Constitution and then proclaims Pres Obama is a secret Muslim (without benefit of any facts)

Of course he also says only conservatives have the intellect to discern facts and make logical arguments ... I have to conclude he goes brain dead occasionally

Occasionally?? There is no resurrection from brain death!
Which reminds me, what did folks around here give up for lent?
I gave up any hope that there was any sanity in the GOP.
It will not likely improve after Easter. I am reading Revelations and preparing for end-times, as best I can without accepting the Gospel!
Tat

Don't forget, Murdoch is NOT a fan of Trump. He made his peace with Trump but he's probably enjoying all of this, at our expense, of course.

Preliminary reports say that Trump booted Bannon and Priebus off Air Force One before heading down one more time to Mar-A-Lago.

ABC NEWS LINK

Here is a timely update suggesting that we should be prepared for a Hail Mary play tomorrow, in a desperate attempt to distract/derail/deturd the Russian Investigation. You can smell their fear! I am hoping that it is the right time to resurrect that old and beloved thread, based on Bill Maher's memorial to the fallen, yes, Farewell to Douchebags1 I got a little list, and they'll none of them be missed.
Note the list of players:Priebus, Bannon, White House counsel Don McGahn, and Sessions among others. Sessions is particularly notable because he wasn’t scheduled to make the trip but was added to the roster at the last minute, and Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly who will likely be in charge of implementing the plan that will be known as: la Noche de Cristal.

Beware of cornered narcissists with power! Nothing is more dangerous!!
Tat

Donald Trump panics over Russia: Jeff Sessions, Priebus, Bannon all huddled at Mar-a-Lago

Good!

So this gal named 'Becca wrote this little diddy on her blog:


That's some really good dirt, 'Becca!!

Speaking about precious bodily fluids, this I think is the origin of that phrase used in this context!
Tat




And here is the original so-called "Money Shot"
Tat

FORBES:Trump's Wiretap Tweets Raise Risk of Impeachment

This is a defining moment, perhaps THE defining moment.
No, I don't mean Trump's idiotic tweets, I mean the idea, the notion, that this nation seems to be prepared to IGNORE the salient points put forth by Noah Feldman, to wit:


What Noah Feldman says demands another question:
Is the United States of America still a nation of laws or have we now become a nation of men instead.

The points made here raise, perhaps for the final time, whether America is a nation of laws or a nation of men.
If America has now proven to be the latter, then there is nothing left worth saving.

And so far, I do not SEE ONE DAMN THING that supports the argument that we are still a nation of laws.
So don't take the easy way out and just accuse me of being Debbie Downer, or buying into hopelessness.
At the very worst, I am operating on a surplus of caution, preparing for the worst while still hoping for the best.
And for me, that concept of "best" merely consists of a revised definition of what America really is.


(I would define Pennsylvania as being red at this time, not blue.)



I COULD choose to just cut out Canada and call Maine, Massachusetts, Vermont, New Hampshire, Connecticut, Rhode Island, New York, New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland, California, Oregon, Washington, Minnesota and Illinois "America" and call the rest "Trumplandia" like it shows on my map.

Or I could include Canada in the hopes that Canada might be interested in acquiring some 130 to 140 million new hardworking taxpayers and a helluva lot of natural resources and high tech capabilities.

Either of those are extremely hopeful positions, the former being much more "apple pie American", the latter being a pragmatic and more economically responsible approach to future prosperity.

But the one thing I do KNOW in my heart and soul, is that it's a fact that Trumplandia WILL NEVER EVER make peace with the above parts of the country. They haven't in the 160 years since the Civil War. It's never going to happen.
I love all my dear friends who live down there but I see them as wonderful people who live in a foreign country.
I respect their decision to live there.
I tried my best to BE one of those people for thirteen years and it wasn't enough to measure up to the values that are held dear by a majority of people down there. I was still a Yankee as far as most people were concerned.
Thus, I was still, even after thirteen years, a foreigner.
I've just come to the conclusion that maybe those people were right.

I am no longer interested in trying to save some idiots in Kentucky who are determined to re-segregate schools,
(KY House Bill 151) or save health care for people who voted for the man who is determined to take it away from them, or fight to save a river two thousand miles from my home which had just cleaned up it's oil spills just in time for a law to be passed that allows the same companies to spill even more oil into it all over again, or try to stop a war that apparently GOD TOLD some wealthy men they had every right to start, or hold back gerrymandering which is bound to become enshrined in a state constitution should two more Republican legislators win their seats in the next three weeks, or fight to save overtime in a state that had already taken it from me ten years ago anyway.
We can get rid of Trump. We could get rid of FORTY Trumps.
Oh gee, forty down and forty million left to go?

That is the country they WANT.
I'm saving my humanity for protecting my family, my friends and my loved ones.

It's not that I suddenly hate my country.
I loved America. That country doesn't exist anymore except for a few small pockets with a giant cesspool in the middle.
It's just gone, plain and simple.

Maybe a new America will rise from the ashes, but probably not in my lifetime. Maybe, with a little luck, in my kids lifetimes.

It already has a well-established name: Dumbf**kistan

These maps have been around for years.

I could live with this new map. I have more in common with the folks in blue on this map, than I do with the red middle.

Yeah, and sometimes they get revised a wee bit.
And this time, it is starting to look like this map is in earnest.

...and we should be a wall along our eastern and southern borders keeping those nasty red-state deplorables out.

Vote data 2016
It might be fun to divide the U.S. up into red states and blue states based on which went for whom (the map is somewhat inaccurate, btw - I know that NM went blue), but remember that in all of them there are many voters of both hues.

When I was a yoot up in Idaho, it was a SOLIDLY blue state based on large numbers of blue collar workers (timber, mining, farming). I vaguely remember the reddening of the mountain bluebird state as outside money from energy corporations (mainly Texas based) poured in to back Republican candidates, buying their votes on national big energy issues - I also remember an influx of wealthy 1st world Californians seeking seclusion and refuge in 3rd world Idaho. (One could be middle-class in CA, but rich in ID on the same money). With all the money came waves of gooey propaganda that gradually converted the blue collar workers from hating the oligarchs to hating liberals and environmentalists who were trying to protect what was left of the now heavily logged, mined, industrially farmed, and pigshit polluted landscape. The propagandists spun that effort to protect the environment into an assault on jobs. Voila! Idaho became a red state. The jobs went away anyhow, because of mechanization, depletion, and economics; but the New World View, created by corporate spin, continues to dominate in many peoples' minds.

You all know how Trump is crazy, right? He's delusional, narcissistic, self-absorbed, all too ready to believe rumors and innuendo - these are also the qualities that make people vulnerable to unethical salesmen. We all suffer from these frailties, to varying degrees. It's my opinion that the right wing suffers from them more, both in politicians who take advantage of voters' gullibility, and the gullibility of voters. But on the flip side, this human condition also makes it extremely difficult for top quality politicians (there are a few, and many more who would like to be) to advance truly good ideas (note the pragmatic resistance to Bernie Sanders displayed here at RR during the primaries).

Back to the voter numbers and the map... Trump was elected with quite a small number of votes. Some big fat guesses are that more than half of his votes came from gullible folks (see the Idaho story above) who suckered more for his sales pitch than for Clinton's. Some portion of his votes were from people who have a shallow ideological notion that they would prosper more with a Trump administration (in various way; money, racial dominance, religious dominance, power, etc.).

The potential vote number for the "liberal" way were huge, but the sales pitch neither turned out the apathetic, nor stimulated the dutiful. The undecideds who didn't vote (40% of all eligible voters) and half of Trump's voters (25% of eligible votes) equals 52% of the eligible vote that could have gone Left that didn't, if the Left only had a pitch that hooked people. Add to that the 27% that she did get (79%) and you can see that the nation is not that red!

Why is it so hard, then? Partly, it is because the Left is generally not comfortable with the snake-oil "alternative facts", propaganda, fear-mongering, and hyperbole that the Trumpests are so good at. This is not a character flaw, but it is a competitive disadvantage when the average human condition is one of mental laziness and gullibility.

The solution? Frankly, I don't know. It is not a natural thing for ethical people to toss ethics aside in order to "win", no matter how pragmatic the reason. But, as the Logtroll is fond of saying, "You can't solve a problem until you understand what the problem is..."

I am a little disappointed as I was hoping you would say you have a solution looking for a problem.

I know it is not politically correct to mention such things but something stands out to me. Whether there is any real basis for this observation, I don't know, and I don't know if it makes any difference.

It struck me that a number of conservatives are 2nd or 3rd generation descendants of immigrants. What do the interlopers know about America and our democratic traditions? Maybe Americans have forgotten what it means to be American. Does the Tocquevillian notion of American exceptionalism even apply in a modern world?

Education is the key. "An educated citizenry is a vital requisite for our survival as a free people." (paraphrase of Pres Jefferson). We have fallen into two broad camps of the educated and the ignorant, of fear and hopeful optimism. The specter of fascism has reared its head only because fear and ignorance are tolerated, endorsed and elevated to a virtue.

I do not care what ones conclusions are, but they must be immersed in logical, objective thought based on facts. We have entered a critical inflection zone in which a continuation down this path will guarantee the dissolution of democracy in America. Will we have real patriots willing to fight against this tyranny or will Americans quietly acquiesce to the wishes of a dictator?

I have these questions:

What does this education look like, and how is it accomplished?

What does the fighting look like?

I am all for good general education, and better educated people statistically seem to be more rational thinkers. But how do we get representatives who will work for better general education? There needs to be a successful sales pitch (another form of education) developed for this that will get the positive attention of the zombie voters.

I am ambivalent about the "fighting" angle. My assessment is the the Rightie activists are better fighters, because they are unethical. It appears that having vastly greater numbers of protesters is an effective optic, but the violent factions need to be suppressed. The most effective turnout strategy is to vote, as the title fight is the election.

One essential item needed for a top sales pitch is to have it delivered by a top salesman. Hillary was not a top salesman, though I observed that she was getting better at it. But learning to be a top salesman is no substitute for charisma. Especially in today's pervasive visual media world.

For some reason, conservatives don't seem to need as much charisma. Neither Bushes had much - Gore and Kerry were total duds. I would not have said that Trump has much, but I think he has plenty with some kinds of people - it's "negative" charisma. Carter was low on it, Reagan very high, Bill Clinton very high, and Obama very high (but sporadic). I suggest that charisma be the top characteristic of the next liberal candidate.

That said, it's easy to figure out what the majority is in a lot of them. New Mexico might be starting to turn purple but the GOP still runs most of the city and county government, and there is still enough of a Right Wing majority to keep them in there.

In the end, this is still a football game, whether we want it to be or not, so in the end, either the Blue Team wins or the Red Team wins. From a football perspective, the map is still somewhat accurate despite all the growing trends.
One thing is clear though. Civil war of some kind is an inevitability because you can get rid of a THOUSAND Trumps but you will still be stuck with all those people who would rather stick needles in their eye than not vote Republican, and the Republicans know this.
They know this because their chief skill lies in targeted messaging and proper investment in focused messaging tools.
They have spent literally billions and when someone spends billions, it's a good bet that at least SOME results are expected.
The result that the GOP expects is quite simply "the dismantling of the administrative state."
I can only think of maybe five Republicans who are willing to voice objections over a statement like that, thus their silence on Bannon's signature line of agitprop equals consent.
The phrase is a highly polished way of saying something much more despicable: the dismantling of liberal democracy in favor of corporate authoritarian theocracy along white supremacist lines and built on a foundation of purist libertarian anarcho-capitalist economics.
They also have spent billions on dismantling education, so that the kind of talk Bannon uses isn't subjected to critical thinking.
That is an INSURANCE policy, and a very long lasting one at that.
It's generational in scope.

I am not a betting man but I will place a bet on a breakup of this country that vaguely resembles the breakup of the USSR some time in the next ten to twenty years, and some sort of resulting internal war type reaction.

And I'd say it's a safe bet that the breakup is probably going to happen along lines vaguely similar to that map, give or take a couple of states here or there.

NM is still pretty blue. The dems in the state are plagued with the same problem recently of gubernatorial candidates with low charisma running for office. Our single R Congressman comes from a part of the state that is essentially Texas oil country. The state lege is all blue by pretty solid margins.

Registered voters: 46% D; 31% R

NM political demographics

Us blue-staters took a vote - we don't want New Mexico. Bye Felicias.

I don't know about that, Rick.
But the problem is, no way is a land bridge going to be built between NM and the three West Coast states, so New Mexico will still be a slightly blue island in the middle of a red war zone anyway.

Maybe New Mexico and Colorado could try pairing their fortunes together.

Want charisma, celebrity, glamour?

Run George Clooney. Yes, he's a progressive Democrat. And VERY popular.

Spot on, mate! And his partner is even more spectacular.

first let it be noted that based on sociological studies many people are fixed in youth as being either conservative or liberal. On top of that there is a group who possess an irrational fear of government in particular and change in general. Can not address the irrational

I also believe for the most part people can learn the basics of clear logical thought based on facts. This is critical for education. It is a long term project as one must learn what facts are and how to process them.

I look around the world and see varying degrees of violence related to changes in government. America was founded in a revolution. Turkey experienced an attempted coup. Hungary revolted from Russian rule. Any number of countries are in civil war.

In the west we have a long tradition of orderly non-violent transfer of power. It makes sense. Suppose a president assumes some degree of authoritarian power (unitary executive) which borders on the collapse of democracy. Would Americans be sheep and allow the water boarding to begin? Would we allow government to deport Muslims?

I know these are extreme examples but the current occupant of the WH has surrounded himself with people who are purveyors of bigotry and a revolutionary approach to deconstruct government. The one redeeming feature of dictatorship is the ease with which everything can be done without the encumbrances of government interference.

I just had to ask the question as apparently repubicans/conservatives are on board for anything.

Heh heh heh...Republicans would start slitting their wrists if he decided to run.

Oprah Winfrey is thinking about running too. We'd def get the black and women's vote.

They'd really be slitting their wrists if Oprah ran.

Oprah would be cool, but George has that White and Male thing going for him.

Plus far more celebrity than Trump and women LOVE him. They like and admire Oprah but very few of them have Oprah sex fantasies.

I'm just thinking that if people are dumb enough to vote for celebrities, might as well give them one who is sane and ethical. Of course, Trump is not the first: Think Ronnie and even Eisenhower.

Turns out that Michael Flynn was a foreign agent while working for the Trump campaign, Mike Pence had to know this while he heading the transition team.

Trump was supposedly FOR SHOCKED that his former National Security Adviser Michael "Good Guy" Flynn was a foreign agent - at least that's what the White House said.

AP reports that the Trump transition team was indeed told before the inauguration — sometime between November 8 and January 20 — that Flynn would probably have to register as a traitor foreign agent if he wanted to be national security adviser. That comes from a “White House official and a person with direct knowledge of the discussions." Per the AP:


***Pffft*** Trump didn't know?!? I call bullsh!t.

Trump's White House can't even figure out how to lie about Flynn being a foreign agent. Sad.

One thing to note: Flynn was a Turkish agent, not Russian. Turkey is in NATO, so technically not an enemy. So "traitor" may be a little far-fetched.

Certainly! They would stampede like sheep into dictatorship and martial law (or its equivalent).

All that is needed is for the Deep State to engineer a Reichstag Fire, or a 9/11 or other incident. Laws and Constitution would be trampled into dust by the mindless herd.

We've already seen it happen with the so-called "Patriot Act."
.

Dr Strangelove Updated

There is a Wordpress.com website that lists, in esquisite detail with supporting links, 76 connections of Donald J Trump to Russia Oligarchy or Putin himself. It's really quite good.

Trump Watchdog.com

Here are a few examples, minus links. If you want to read the details of the links, go the link provided above.

Stop the presses:

Key Democratic Officials Now Warning Base Not to Expect Evidence of Trump/Russia Collusion
The Intercept

...and then there is this as well:

Russian bank tells DOJ mysterious Trump computer connections may have been hacker hoax

Bummer.

I'm not one who believes there would be a smoking gun. Remember, these are Russian professionals. Where evidence will connect Trump's minions and Russia are the amateurs, like Mike Flynn, Jared Kushner, or Donald Trump, Jr., who are not sophisticated enough to cover their tracks. Trump, of course, has the ability to stifle any serious investigation by not providing documents, serving up distractions and the support of moral-less sycophants in his administration and Congress.

I'm frustrated NW_P, I see a repeat of the Reagan/W years in our country's future. It sucks.

Maybe you are still blocking on the Bush years! Reagan, who would now be a pinko librul, only invaded Grenada. Bush and Cheney brought the world to catasstrophy that just keeps on giving.

Consider how you think the world would be now, if Gore had been president. Now try to conceive the long term damage inevitable after only a few years of Trump! I cant and dont want to even consider it! Butt, here we are!
I blame Karl Rove and FuxGnus!

Tat

Well Cheney did. I never believed that George W was the affable dimwit that many said he was. I always thought it was a con, and that he really was dark, sinister, and soulless man.

Turns out that George W really IS an affable dimwit and it's Cheney (...and Libby) that re-wrote the Intel to get us into a unnecessary war of inconvenience, I learned after viewing the Frontline link above.

I actually have, many times. Which is why I don't believe there is a God - no way would a supposed superior and intelligent being allow the Republicans to ever control our government and our lives.

Pretty sure that our world would be a much better and safer place today, had Gore been President instead of W Bush.

I don't see Michelle Obama hugging Dick Cheney. Just sayin'

Interesting development:

"I'm not gonna sit here and say, 'I'm not a Russian stooge,' because it's a (expletive) lie."

Noting he had appeared on RT "probably 100 times or more," he said sarcastically, "There's my Russian connection." (Alex Jones)

---Guess what, dumbass: If you're on RT all the time, you ARE a Russian stooge.
RT is the mouthpiece of The Kremlin.

Well no, simply BEING on RT a lot may just mean you are in the news. They do want people to watch after all.

But if RT loves you, THEN you are at least a "fellow traveler". Trump may not have been in the direct employ of the Kremlin, but they certainly were headed in the same direction for a very long time and a lot of Russian money ended up in Trump's accounts because so many Russians bought real estate in Trump buildings. In all past decades since the 40's this is exactly the kind of thing the FBI would watch very closely.

I still suspect they have some video of Trump doing nasty stuff, because they try that with everybody of any importance who visits Russia. Maybe it's impact would not be significant since Trump has already bragged about his sexual misadventures with women and teens.

I became increasingly depressed, today, as it became increasingly obvious that Putin won our election. Recent reportage has showed conclusively that the Russian election disruption campaign was orchestrated to deliver, and successfully delivered, Trump the White House in order to disrupt our Democratic institutions, and weaken our position in the world.

No mistake, we are already at war - we just didn't know it. Trump was not legitimately elected, the Republican party colluded in giving that power to Putin, and it will take a MASSIVE effort of political will to right the ship. I doubt we're capable of mustering it.

I'm now curling up in the fetal position with my copy of a Russian-English dictionary to be able to communicate with our new overlords.

I know how you feel! Putin and his crew were mainly motivated by his hatred of Hillary Clinton, and intended to weaken her almost certain Presidency. This hatred was enthusiastically magnified, with exquisite timing, so that many American voters, already uneasy with her, were convinced that anything would be preferable. I saw otherwise sane humans expressing florid hatred for her, and was puzzled by it, but now it is clear brainwashing.

Putin and the boys are no doubt orgasmic, with elation that can only be compared to what Bin Laden felt as he saw on TV, expecting some annoying minor damage to Twin Towers, and seeing total collapse of both.

He may have also realized at that point: 1. Ooops I may have gone too far!
and 2. I am a dead man walking!

Putin has no similar second thoughts, and I doubt if he has anything to fear. This is what is so troubling, along with our realization that the constitution has nothing to remedy an illegitimate win. There is no do-over amendment, but there should be. Otherwise, the lesson learned by the GOP is that there is no downside to traitorous action, and will be bound to repeat it.

I have been considering the amendment and ratification process, and am also reaching for SSRIs. I predict there will never be another ratified amendment or at least not one acceptable to Democrats. Two thirds of House and Senate, and two thirds of state legislatures. Unless, of course in our worst dreams the GOP could repeal the Twenty-Second Amendment.

Cheers
Tat

CONservatives on other sites yammer that there is no evidence that votes were changed.

Because CONservatives so fail at nuance, I explain to them an election can be "hacked" by releasing emails for one side in order to paint that side in a bad light. - which is EXACTLY what happened.


No one ever claimed that votes were altered. Perception was altered.


hack
v. hacked, hack·ing, hacks
a. To alter (a computer program): hacked her text editor to read HTML.
b. To gain access to (a computer file or network) illegally or without authorization.

Exactly what Comey said under oath.


FBI Director Comey confirms probe of possible coordination between Kremlin and Trump campaign

This is not opinion or fake news. This is testimony under oath before Congress by the director of the FBI.

я только немного говорю по-русски

I may be able to stumble around a little, temporizing as I try to learn Mandarin ... I don;t know who he will sell out to first

You are correct, in that the effort to set this right will require a level of political will not seen since 1860 and it is made even more difficult with the deep political divide.

The seemingly prescient dystopian novels from the 50's and 60's may have come true.

Hold Fast

Я только немного говорю по-русски??

You need to ask Phil for a decoder ring...

My orphan Annie decoder ring asks: Do you speak Tiger?
Tat
Tiger Translate

Well wasn't today fun kids?

Nunes running interference - possibly leaking classified information, Schiff "more than circumstantial", Manaforts 2005 help Russia Manifesto, and CNNs potential coordination between trump campaign and hackers.

Also brietbart under investigation for Russian ties.

Ohh also Wall street journal editorial board hitting hard against trump for his, well speaking trumpian.

Is it my birthday or something?

No Birthday, but maybe a delayed St.Patty's day gift! Sorry, but we are out of gin.
Tat

It was only Monday (3 days ago) that Director Comey exploded Trump's wire tap lie....

I really want to see the paranoid psychotic, Roger Stone, testifying about the "Deep State" and their plans to kill him.

Or what about the goofy Carter Page as he begins talking to himself.

Or Gen Flynn, the great American hero, consummate paranoid Islamophobe, testifying about the "Deep State" and why they got everything wrong about the 1.3B Muslims who are out to get everyone.

Or Manafort. Just a businessman innocently connected to Russian power circles.

Taken as a whole, I see a good movie in 2 years ... The Real Manchurians

Oh my!! Trump's bff at The Enquirer, Michael Pecker, just threw Michael Flynn under the bus:



Wonder what that is all about? Is Flynn gonna turn states evidence against the Orange Clown™...erm, President Trump - and Trump caught wind and this is his pre-emptive strike?!? Inquiring minds want to know!

The Enquirer is such a load of crap these days. Last week their cover story was about Obama's trial for wiretapping. Don't their readers ever wonder why nothing "reported" ever turns out to be true? I guess they take there modus operendi from Trump.

And Trump didn't catch Flynn, he hired him!

Details, details, to the Trump faithful.

The beginnings of another Joe McCarthy episode. How many day till impeachment?

The current administration has all the earmarks of a failed Presidency and not even a hundred days yet

Report: judge-granted FISA warrant defined Donald Trump as a Russian agent of influence
Report: judge-granted FISA warrant defined Donald Trump as a Russian agent of influence

Now that Congressman Devin Nunes has announced on live television this week that someone in the White House is under surveillance, and now that Boris Epshteyn has abruptly resigned from the White House in the fallout from it, Mensch is confirming that Epshteyn was one of the four people named in the warrant. But it’s one of the other three names that sets off the biggest alarms.

In addition to Boris Epshteyn, the other three people in the Trump campaign who were named in the FISA warrant were Carter Page, Paul Manafort, and Donald Trump himself. For these four men to have been named in the FISA warrant granted by the judge, they would need to have been considered Russian agents, or Russian agents of influence.

America and Russia have one thing in common -- a lot of people in the streets protesting. I suppose Trump is watching the goings on in Russia, looking for tips on how a real leader handles protesters.

Nunes 3 stooges attempt at stonewalling continues. I wont be suprised in the slightest if he shows up on TV with the remains of a custard pie on his face.

WaPo playing a blinder:

WaPo: WH tries to muzzle Sally Yates
WH: We would love sally to testify
WaPO: erm heres the letters you sent trying to stop her

Boom.

House meetings cancelled, Yates apparently to testify in Senate Ctte.

1st republican comes out demanding Nunes recuse himself... Jared linked to Shady Russian Banks. Things are getting hotter and faster! I got blueballed for 6 years with Bush (Phrasing). Please dont let it happen again.

This on top of the wet fish slap in the face of trumpcare last week.

As the bottom feeders in 4 chan would say: TOP KEK.

Also:

My initial impression was that the Russian thing was overblown. I no longer think so. The desperation with which the Trump administration is trying to prevent the investigation indicates SOMETHING is going on, and it doesn't look good.

Or does it?

20 witnesses to testify in front of the Senate intel Ctte. 5 tomorrow publicly.

I'm 50/50 on whether the stonewalling will continue in the Senate.

If the stonewalling don't continue, the Boss will know who needs to be shown the door. And that right quick.

1st session of Senate Intel Ctte hearing

hoo boy

Here’s what we’ve learned from the Senate hearing on Russia so far -WaPo.

The Senate Intelligence Committee wants to avoid the partisanship we've seen in the House intelligence committee.

Russia has a history of meddling in other countries' affairs.

Some Russian interference techniques are easier to spot than others.

This isn’t just about the U.S. and Russia.

This may be the final nail for Nunes: White House aides shared intelligence files with Nunes. At least three or four news outlets have now reported this, including this link from FOX.

sooo .... going back to Spicer's question, why would the WH release the reports to Rep Nunes so Nunes could report them to the WH?

Is it the Keystone Kops or a highly sophiscated [sic] intelligence apparat?

Keystone Cops.

It seems to be a physical manifestation of the Gish Gallop

Part 2 of the hearing a lot more technical detail on the how. Not as explosive as part 1.

If only Ma_Russian were here to provide some much needed discussion.

Flynn offers to testify on Russia ties in exchange for immunity: report


BOOM

so .... would one say Hannity's Litany of Lies is a Gish Gallop or is alliteration a little too much

I have not read the article and will probably wait a while to check the developer solution.

Has Gen Flynn's attorney advised Flynn he may have committed crimes? Does he have something to offer? Maybe the story of Gulen's rendition was true? Are even more people implicated? Turkey is a non-Russian actor. Did Rep Nunes see some incidental collection of conversations with Turkish folks which implicate the WH?

I was going to write a political thriller but my fiction was too tame.

Rumour has it that the FBI has refused the offer!

Would not that mean the FBI has everything Gen Flynn has to offer?

Is it time for Nunes to be firmly planted into the Douchebadg slot, or do we need a poll with a 2/3 majority. With things moving so fast I forgot to confirm the Ryan care bill here after opening the douchebag file on 3/17.

Many jobs and positions that require special skills have various certification needed as prerequisites, though there are often grandfather clauses allowing proven job experiences to take the place of actual certifications. This WH crew and many Representative failed to take :Coverup 101! Nunez never learned this on the job, as the GOP did nothing during the Obama years, so cover up skills were never finely honed, or became atrophic through disuse.

Repeating Benghazi or Emails makes cerebral neuron shrink like Jerky.

Tat

Here's the thing about Flynn's offer and demand: he's the biggest fish so far. Remember Oliver North? He got transactional immunity, lied anyway, and his convictions were eventually thrown out even though that testimony was not used against him. The FBI doesn't want to go through that again.

Trump's morning tweet, however, may be a signal to his toady Nunes to make the offer even though no one else would. He could be doing what George HW Bush did with Cap Weinberger - he pardoned him so that he could never testify against Bush for his role in Iran-contra. Notorious Presidential Pardons - TIME. Prosecutors were livid.

We don't need Flynn's testimony. We're more likely to be convicting him. This is getting deep and ugly, fast.

Developer solution is useless, if fixative solution is used first. No silver emulsion, no image, latent or otherwise.

Darkroom skills like dodging and burning have become political terms. I was ready to release my get rich darkroom invention, the darkroom light clapper, when digital killed the darkroom market forever.

Tat

Do we have any facts to "fix"????

So far we have Gen Flynn had connections to Russians of unknown legality and he wants immunity of some kind. We can speculate using some of the new degrees of separation flow charts connecting a wide variety of Trump associates with Russians of varying kinds and we can add an intriguing story about illegal rendition.

NWP:: of course the Contra story is always on my mind. Why would anyone believe Gen Flynn would not lie or has already made a deal with Mr Trump. This is a kin to reporters who continue to say surveillance could not have been done because someone had to have a warrant .... unless of course it was illegal surveillance which they never mention.

This machine has so many moving parts Rube Goldberg would be proud

I don't see why this is such a big deal. If they have probable cause they get a warrant. If they have a warrant then they investigate. This is what the FBI and other law enforcement agencies are supposed to do! It is not partisan and it's not even political. If Donald Trump was doing something illegal they are supposed to catch him, even if he's running for President.

Some of his "accusations" just make him seem more guilty. Not to mention the botched Nunes fiasco. It's sort like watching The Three Stooges trying to cover up a pie-theft.

What is in the public domain so far:

Senate Intel Ctte detailed the Russian interference in the US election. Watch the hearing if you haven't. its illuminating about the methodology. A fake news infrastructure was built up. That infrastructure was merged with hack and release of info. A concerted info warfare attack was made favouring one candidate....Trump.

FBI Director Comey confirmed that there is an ongoing investigation into the trump campaigns links to Russian operatives. Flynn, Manafort, Page and Stone are the key figures so far ( not yet named formally).

Trumps campaign/administration has been favourable towards the russian government, going so far as to tone down the GOP platform in August. This would appearto be a quid pro quo. It could just be an expression of foreign policy softening, another "reset"

Those are the known facts. At the moment we are reading the behaviour of the trump administration in that context. The kind interpretation is that a bunch of amateurs is attempting to minimise any political damage from the optics of wrong doing (where no wrong doing took place) giving the appearance of guilt.

The kind interpretation is that The Donald is an aloof administrator who is focused on results rather than details, persuaded by strong personalities competing within his team rather than reasoned deliberation. Style and appearance over substance.

Even if I were that kind, this is the president of the united states under discussion. Even if that kind interpretation were true the buck stops with him. There are no training wheels for a presidency.


On a slightly different note, i actually felt sorry for the man today. see for yourself

Not me...they had to make sh!t up about Obama. This guy manages to create gaffs and screwups for every news cycle.

The kind interpretation would be that he is an administrator at all.

Tillerson...now there's your aloof administrator.

Actually, I'm not all that unhappy about Ivanka and her husband taking on so much. Donald can just go play golf and hang out in Florida, and our first woman President will be Ivanka. She's got to be more competent than her dad. At least she's not hitting the senility deadline.

Oops, forgot about President Nancy Reagan after the shooting. It's great to have family you can depend on when it just starts to get away from you.

Admittedly, I have mixed feelings about Ivanka and Jared. They are widely seen as moderating influences on Donald. The problem, of course, is motivation. Although I tend to defend the patriotic impulses of government officials, I see little evidence of that in Trump world.

Not to mention that they do not appear to have much in the way of relevant qualifications, experience or skills.

Well, I have said that any jerk off the street could do a better job than Donald Trump. Ivanka meets that qualification. She also graduated cum laude with a bachelor's degree in economics in 2004 from Wharton. So she has the capability to learn the job. Maybe the temperament?

Certainly things that Donald does not have. Probably better qualified than some US Presidents.

Good God, is the bar really that low?!

Obviously, it is lower than that. Maybe in negative territory.

It's a misnomer to refer to what the Russians did as "hacking" because they actually did very little computer hacking compared to their MAIN efforts.
Their main efforts were not directed at computers, they were directed at the American people in the form of psyops and psychological warfare.
Computers did not get hacked so much as the ability of the American people to think critically and act upon reliable and accurate information.
The Russian Act of War was an INFORMATION WAR.
And the man sitting in the Oval Office right now was part of a plan AGREED UPON by our own Republican Party in concert WITH the Russians.
This is the problem, not a few errant cyber-attacks on some servers.

Gen Michael Hayden was on Real Time Bill Maher last night, and he made an excellent point. The Russian Intel crew know American culture better than most Americans. They knew the hot button wedge issues, lying Hillary, anti-Obamacare ignoranuses, downwardly mobile working class white, etc, and played their disinformation perfuctly. But it wouldn't have worked without those inherent weaknesses of the low info voters. It is hard to protect ourselves from the effects of the truly ignorant, and proud of it, voters. We collectively deserve it, as somehow we let Rove, Rush et al immunize the population against intellectual arguments. "Yur not goin to fool me with one of them intellectual arguments, I know better than to listen to logic! La la la la la la I cant hear you!!!

Tat

Which is exactly why I advocated for political purity in this thread. Why should we constantly be banging our head against the wall because of them?

There would be plenty of disagreements amongst ourselves - without them putting their ignorant opinions in too.

Inside every good scam is a tiny bit of truth. Actual hacks did supply some of those bits. So they could leak Podesta's emails when they were anti-Bernie and the Bernie Bros lapped it up. Not "some established Democrats prefer the establishment Democrat instead of the Socialist" but rather "THE SYSTEM IS RIGGED", so some Bernie Bros stayed home on election day.

Hillary was accused of killing Vince Foster though that was pure right-wing fantasy. So they posted thousands of stories about "Killer Hillary". Hillary and Bill had a charitable foundation, so they posted stories about Hillary's quid-pro-quos, with zero evidence that ever happened. On and on.

The funny thing is I could see it happening on Slate's and other comment sections. I called out the posters as Russian agents often, to no avail. Turns out, I was right. You can fix ignorance, but you can't fix stupidity. Trump voters are probably the very people getting phished and phone scammed by con-men posing as IRS agents.

This Trump-Russia thing is about money-landering and the 2016 election was simply a foothold to get the investigations going. I think that intelligence community knew about the money-laundering and found out in a not-so-Kosher way and is using the 2016 election as a ruse to connect Trump to Russian money laundering from those who ripped Russia off in the 90s.

They'll say: We started off looking at election-collusion, but look at what we found, instead, (and/or) we found this (money-laundering) in the investigation also too.

Everything I'm reading now-a-days is about Russian Oligarchs and Mobsters buying condos in various Trump Towers across the globe for WAY OVER asking price and Trump pocketing money for his efforts in helping hide the Russian assets.

Oh yeah...this is BIG. Trump WILL BE going to jail. Google Felix Sater and Felix Satter.


I was also correct in hypothesizing how the Intel Community came to knowledge in a not-so-Kosher way: This is a Whitey Bulger-type fvck up that the FBI did, big time. Interestingly enough, both Whitey Bulgar and this one with Felix Sater / Satter come about the same time periods in American history too - at least in the Felix Sater / Satter case it starts in 1983 with Trump Tower - whereas White Bulgar started in the '70s.

How the Intel community allowed Donald J Trump to be sworn in as president is beyond me.

There is without a doubt that EVERYTHING that is happening legislatively and even in confirmations needs to be placed on hold.

Our country is in a real mess right now.

Trump is following the footsteps of other dictators: Installing family members and creating a bubble at the expense of putting government employees in place who know that they are doing.

and every Trump supporter will say ... so what

Which is exactly what the recent polls are showing. 90% of Trump voters are still supportive of him, in spite of hard evidence of all the goings on. These people are immunized from the truth and data, as is shown by their belief that their coal mining jobs will be back, and the hope of Trump saving their coal pensions from the big bad coal companies. Irrational hope has to be dashed, trashed, and immolated before thay will realize they have been played. Irrational hope is all they have left, except for opiates, that are even more effective on psychic pain than physical pain. Both will be difficult to escape from.

Tat

Sleepers... wake!!

There are some very heavy sleepers out there, contataed to just go baroque waiting for enlightenment.

Bach at the, better than, OK Chorale, the cornet and horn parts are straining the upper range of modern instruments. Many switch to antique piccolo cornets and short horns, though at that time valve horns were a thing of the future. Fortunately, I just got a new horn that has a key that takes it up to eleven, and can Handel the higher range.

Con-Tataed

From early February 2017:


Oh be still my heart!

And that Nigerian prince is going to transfer the millions into their bank account any day now...

I wonder if the fact that Donald J Trump knows the Feds are coming for him and that he will "die in jail" - is the reason why he wants to destroy America as we know it - because he's having a temper tantrum of what is future will be like and he wants to "get even" with the Country which "did this to him."

Rick .... how exactly will he be convicted of anything?

No agency in the IC can prefer charges, only the DoJ can .... ever notice who the USAG is? All he has to do is say, nothing to see, move along. Who can do anything about that? the UN???? The SuperBad ultra right?

o maybe you are thinking the House will prefer charges? Does the behavior of Rep Nunes ring a bell? and suppose they do, do you really believe the Senate would convict?

From a political perspective there is nothing anyone can do about Mr Trump except vote the bum out next election. From a legal perspective I am about 50-50 anyone would do anything if he shot someone in Times Square.

Can President Pardon Himself? Possibly Yes!

Money-laundering. The "Russian Collusion Election" thing is just get the public behind, and used to, Trump being investigated and when they turn up "something" on him.

Google Felix Sater/Satter - this thing is real and deep and Trump WILL BE GOING TO PRISON. I guarantee it.

Rape charges the are least of Trump's problems.

He could pardon himself from criminal charges but if he did he would surely face impeachment. The founding fathers knew High Officials in the government could abuse their power to pardon themselves so they created impeachment as an alternate route to justice.

Interestingly, he can't pardon himself from civil charges, so he can still be deposed, compelled to testify, lose, and face large fines and jury awards. EG. His $25 million settlement with Trump University fraud victims.

All he has to do is either wait for a conviction vote after impeachment, and pardon himself for everything even crimes yet to be discovered. Then just to make sure, he lines up Pence to redoo the pardons, just in case.

The pardon power is why I figure few of his crew will squeal on him, in exchange for immunity. They already have preemptive immunity, likely as part of their original employment contracts. If you rat on him, you can kiss your pardon good bye. On the other hand, how much do you trust him, who regularly stiffs contractors. Scooter Libby learned this the hard way, though it would have been done if Cheney had his way. Trump would not be embarrassed by ethically corrupt pardons.

I figure, along with Michael Steele, that T-rump will resign before the end of his term, but only after all the best lawyers have worked over his retirement/autopardon package.

His problem is that he may have screwed up and mistakenly retained some attorney, with long nascent ethics, that left open a backdoor that vacates his auto-pardon act on a technicality.

Strange times bring on strange discussions!

Tat

I think you guys are assuming a normal rational universe for Mr Trump. In case you have not noticed, he may actually be above the law. How is that for a concept.

While it has only been 10 years since Republicans/conservatives have controlled all of government, the difference is they have moved further to the right. They have an agenda and believe God has ordained them to change America before it slides off into the 9th circle of hell. One has to recognize when zealots have single vision and you are in their way.

Mr Trump fulfills a prophesy, there will be a savior from liberal dementia and a return to a land blessed by God. Now, does anyone believe Republicans/conservatives would compromise the opportunity to complete their mission? His supporters are virtually 100% behind him, and you really believe loyalist USAG Sessions will throw him under the bus????

Now it could be he resigns if his narcissism can not handle the tsunami of criticism ... the other .... well, stop making sense

Pardoning oneself does mean above the law, doesnt it?

I suspect that you are no longer the 3.14159, either irrational or transcendental, and have been invaded, colonized, and finally completely immortalized by transubstantiation by the almighty,(though Lutheran) omniscient, and omnipresent IRKED!


Your Humble Servant
Tat

Welp, I have high hopes.

Well, calm down on the enthusiasm there. Still at 80-90% approval amongst Republicans. Do not expect any real change there until you see Fox news turning on him bigly. They are pushing the Obama spying counter narrative at the moment.

No impeachment until and unless that changes.

You are confusing Republicans in The House with House Members. Republicans have 237 and Democrats have 193 members out of 430 current members. we need 216 votes to impeach him. Figure 193 Democrats vote to impeach and that leaves just 23 Republican votes needed.

Just less than 10% of the Republicans. If Trump is already under 90% approval among Republicans, he is in trouble. This a unique occurrence because every Democrat would vote to impeach, and Trump lost the popular vote so badly. Republicans also have Pence, a perfectly normal conservative Republican to step in.

2/3 majority in senate to convict? 23 house repubs are bit going to jump ship at this time. My reference to fox is that when they recognise that it is time to shift rhetoric to maontoan viewership, that gives the GOP cover to also do so.

the process is too complicated.

someone has to investigate to see if crimes have been committed. a committee has to request a committee hearing. it has to get out of committee. etc etc

does anyone believe Spkr Ryan will allow charges to be filed??

It doesn't happen right away. There has to be some major screw-up first, but this administration has done nothing but screw-ups. I have confidence in their ability to do that thing that turns enough people sick, so the Republican leadership decides to let him go.

Trump has committed far worse stuff than Nixon, and they dumped Nixon. Maybe they are waiting for their Supreme Court guy to get in, and then they'll do it before Trump can screw-up anything too important.

House intel chairman stepping aside from House Russia investigation. Nunes says this is temporary. We'll see.

Did you see the a-holes replacing him? The water carrying will continue. Roll on 2018.

Rep Nunes was replaced with Rep Conaway, who is incapable of leading a parade down a one-way street in a small Texas community.

,

Well, he could be too ineffective to impede the investigation. At least he probably knows he shouldn't run over to the White House to tell on the other kids.

Regarding Nunes: Sometimes your highest purpose in life is to serve as a bad example for others.

I thought this the other day .... could the ultimate distraction be Mr Trump going to war????

Who would investigate a war president? etc etc

It will be very interesting to see how Russia reacts. Assad is a Russian client and ally. I guess they tried to make sure there were no Russian planes where they sent those cruise missiles.

I think it would have been much more effective to just send one cruise missile to take out Assad.

1.5 million dollars * 59 cruise missiles = 88.5 million dollars

Is the plan to spend Russia into submission, ala Reagan?

Interesting:

In 2013 when a Sarin gas attack left over 1400 dead outside of Damascus, most Republicans did not approve of President Obama striking Syrian military forces, so he didn't.

In 2017 when a Sarin gas attack left at least 70 people dead, President Trump sends in 59 cruise missiles and Republicans say: "God Bless America."

If it was up to me, use of chemical weapons would get your head of state's location nuked immediately. If they missed, they would keep on doing that until he or she was dead. Use of banned weapons makes the entire regime war criminals subject to execution.

Yeah...no kidding! ,

People are saying™ the very same thing.

Can someone please explain the moral difference between killing with chemical weapons and "conventional weapons*"?


Not sure I really understand it. Are there nice ways of killing?

*including depleted uranium shells and white phosphorous.

This would take a very long time thoroughly. The short answer is, yes there is a moral difference, the most significant being the sheer illegality of chemical weapons (which CAN include white phosphorus). And, yes, there are "nicer" ways of killing. We have a number of treaties that cover these issues, the lead one being the "Geneva Conventions".

Believe it or not conventional weapons are not considered indiscriminate while Nuclear, Chemical and Biological weapons by their very nature are indiscriminate. An indiscriminate weapon not only takes out the target(s) but also kills, wounds, maims the general population and the flora and fauna around the target(s).

Moral difference? I do not think there is one. But it is more a matter of degrees, or the lessor of the evils. It is the choice of the user on which weapon to use and that choice is what makes the act and the chooser evil.


edited: This is a response to Schlack, not pdx rick.

Shooting at an enemy soldier who is shooting at you, certainly has different moral dimensions than dropping sarin gas on a village full of civilians. Somebody ends up dead, but you have to consider what they were doing when you killed them.

We (collectively) define what is and is not a war crime, but poison gas is one of the oldest banned weapons. I hope we have progressed a little over the last 100 years.

BTW: I think Hiroshima and Nagasaki were war crimes and terrorist acts in that they were attacks primarily on civilian populations in order to induce terror. Pearl Harbor, on the other hand was primarily an attack on military targets.

Beg to differ, both Hiroshima and Nagasaki were valid military targets. Now it is arguable that conventional bombing or fire bombing could have been used to the same effect over days as opposed to one bomb. Regardless, nukes are indiscriminate. If only we as a species could "forget" how they are made...

Hiroshima - "As a military target, Hiroshima was a major army base that housed the headquarters of the Japanese 5th Division and the 2nd Army Headquarters. It was also an important port in southern Japan and a communications center."

Nagasaki - "The city of Nagasaki was one of the most important sea ports in southern Japan. Although it was not among the list of potential targets selected by Oppenheimer's committee, it was added later due to its significance as a major war production center for warships, munitions, and other equipment."


Atomic Bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki

True, there were important military and manufacturing targets in both. We killed about a quarter of a million people. I'm not saying it wasn't right to end the war in days instead of months. But part of the reason for using the gadgets was to bluff the Japanese into believing we would just keep destroying one city after another until Japan was dead. If they would surrender, the country and people could survive.

It was terrorism by any definition because our intention was to terrorize them.

And it worked. They surrendered, we occupied very benevolently, and their country was saved. And we supplied military security for the next 70 years, so they barely had to spend a cent on it.

Manafort firm received Ukraine ledger payout

Drip

Cater Pages Fisa Warrant

Drip

Trump just made some very strange comments about Stephen K. Bannon

Drip

'It's not too late' to get rid of FBI Director James Comey, Trump says

Plop

Comey was appointed to his job in 2013 and confirmed by the Senate. His term is 10 years. It would look like Nixon all over again if Trump fired him in the middle of an investigation into Trump's team. Firing people who were investigating him would have led directly to impeachment if Nixon had not resigned.

From Comey's point of view, being fired by Trump would be the best way to repair his reputation! In a few years, he could run for the Senate, or something similar.

The Senate: with some nice robes, gilded laurel wreaths and empty talk - just right up the Boss' alley.

Key Official in Trump-Russia Investigation Will Step Down


Report: WH Directed Intel Agencies To Find Cover For Trump's Wiretap Claims

Erik Prince acted as Trump envoy in Russian meetings: report

Page's visits to moscow warranted FBI investigation

Add to that rumours of state investigations (Trump only has power of fed pardons), and Guiliani and flynn flirting with the FBI for immunity.

When does dripping become a flood.

Also:

Utah Congressman Jason Chaffetz Will Not Seek Re-Election

Chaffetz wants to be gone to avoid the stain of the collapse. Expect more exits.

Chavez more time with family


So after all that time away from family and the stress-free raising of teenagers, is it safe to return, now that the nest is emptying? Could be a real motive explaining the timing.

He has found it less fun to investigate his own party instead of the enemy Democrats. He used to be a field-goal and extra point kicker in college, so I bet he also could handle a punt.

Still, there sure is a lot of Russian money and rumors from unnamed sources about Kompromat. It would be safer to be outside of the kill radius when the Russian bomb explodes.

Tat

stain of collapse ... hmmmm

Rep Chaffetz was a one trick pony ... harass and demonize Sec Clinton while demonstrating he did not have a clue about IT ... maybe failure was too much for him or maybe he thought he succeeded when Mr Trump won the election and it was time to retire

I don't put too much into people quitting or retiring from government service unless we see 400 quit at one time (I am being hyperbolic) or don;t attach meaning where there is no meaning

i dunno

Chaffetz wants to run for Utah Governor in 2020. He needs time away to organize for that, and for the electorate to forget what he has NOT been doing in Congress.

I am not sure any state is deserving of these folks.

Russia tried to use Trump advisers to infiltrate campaign. Well, duh, CNN!

Sally Yates to testify on TU May 2nd 2017. Sally Yates is the one that first notified the Bannon Administration...erm, Trump Administration that Paul Manafort was a foreign agent.

Sally was to testify at the last hearing which Devin Nunes conveniently cancelled because Sally was going to testify at that meeting. Now that Devin Nunes is out of the way, Sally Yates is free to tell us what she knows.

US House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence

That's the most important goal for Chaffetz to accomplish.

Trump firing Comey because of the Russian Collusion investigation is like shooting a drug-sniffing dog for pointing out your suitcase at the airport.

Trump revealed highly classified information to Russian foreign minister and ambassador

One can only wonder when the Republicans will grow a pair and take care of business. Now that the jackass is revealing others secrets perhaps this is the straw that breaks but, on reflection the congressional jerks, with few exceptions, are determined to continue to sniff the jackass butt. If there was ever a great example of elected being willing to support, say, and lie to keep their jobs now is the time.

Now they are talking about the jackass apologizing - that, in itself, would be interesting as he does not apologize.

I think the President can choose to unclassify anything he wants, so there is no question of criminal charges. This is a classic example of a High Crime: He used his high office to do something anybody else would go to jail for, and is very harmful to the interests of the US. If he did it unintentionally, then he is just too stupid to trust with secret info.

Either way, yet another of the many impeachable offenses he has already committed. I'm thinking this is going to be really embarrassing for House Republicans when he actually is impeached and the list contains hundreds of charges. How much damage is he going to do before he is removed? Are they going to be held accountable for it because they failed to do their duty?

come on guys .... Mr Trump saw it on Fox so everything is OK

Once again the Trump lie-machine tries to say it was Hillary's fault...

for the narcissist, Mr Trump, another is always at fault

I think I asked the question long ago whether a narcissist could run government effectively and I believe my answer was possibly

I am now reconsidering both my naivete with regard to narcissists and my conclusion

you may now pull out the wet noodle ... I await the forums flogging

The big problem is that a President can't know everything. He can't be omniscient, but Trump's narcissism makes him think he is. He is spectacularly incompetent at doing the job, but lacks the ability to see that. A President who is incompetent and knows it can surround himself with experts and pay attention to them, so he can do a passable job. Somebody so screwed up he ignores his expert advisers, and indeed undermines them at every opportunity, is hopeless.

Trump is gone in a year or two. If Congressional Republicans fail to act, then they mostly lose their jobs at the next election. All those gerrymandered districts designed to give them 5% leads will backfire and result in a massive loss in Congress. Their districts mostly have no depth of support: Designing them for 5% leads will not be enough to save them.

Comey Memo Says Trump Asked Him to End Flynn Investigation

I'm not usually a meme person but this one got to me.

Drums keep pounding rhythm to the brain

Ladi dadi dee.........

Ladi dadi daaaa...............ohhh.....

Chit.....

Although---this is likely true---regarding most things a competent POTUS should know.....

Olbermann counted 17 new charges on the Impeachment Bill just last week.

Oldermann counts 17 new charges

This bill is going to be so long nobody in Congress will bother to read it.

Special counsel appointed in Russia probe

caution autoplay video


Not sure if this is still dripping or whether its beginning to stream like russian hooker pee

So what's President Trump up to today, FR May 19th 2017?

Donald J Trump is still lying that his Campaign had "zero, none" contact with Russia (besides Jeff Sessions’s two, and Mike Flynn’s four, Carter Page’s trip, Milwaukee Sheriff DAVID CLARKE’S TRIP, Paul Manafort’s entire adult life spent licking Vladimir Putin’s vag), there were oh, an extra EIGHTEEN MEETINGS WITH RUSSIA, many of which came before Trump was even the GOP nominee.

So glad that Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein has looked far and wide and collected the scattered remains of his reputation and appointed straight-arrow Robert Mueller as Special Counsel.


So what's Vice-President Pence up to today, FR May 19th 2017?

Mike Pence is lying too. How do we know that Mike Pence is lying? His lips are moving, and because Pence got a letter waaaaay back on November 18th 2016, from Rep. Elijah Cummings, the ranking member of the House Oversight Committee, and that letter said:

The boring official version here.

Get used to saying President Paul Ryan.

Has Fox turned on him yet?

At least it would get him out of the speaker position...

Yah, that will get us a president with no integrity, honor, principles or believability. Its hard to believe, but that would be several steps up from what we have right now.

But at least he would have a clear cut agenda....

I think it's a moot point though. On the off chance that, for one reason or another, Donald Trump does not finish his term we will get Mike Pence for the duration.

True, but Pence is just another Evangelical Republican as opposed to an insane child. I doubt he would drop the bomb just to hurry along the End Times. He's not an insane cult Christian. He's just a Christian, and a Republican to boot!

How Christian can a Republican be, after all? So many things in the Republican mainstream are the opposite of hard-core Christian beliefs. For example, for example "Give away all your money to feed the poor, and follow me." is a direct quote from Jesus. How about "Feed the poor, heal the sick, cloth the naked, visit prisoners in jail: When you do these things for the least these of our brothers, you do them for me."

You get my point: Pence is really just a social conservative with Christianity as cover. A true Christian movement would flummox him!

All these goddamned hippies wandering around without jobs, preaching the gospel. Let's have them beaten and jailed. Then we can put them to work in forced labor camps...

Trump will have an opportunity to resign for "health reasons" before his term is up.

Nope. Not at all. Elijah Cummings sent Pence a letter on November 18, 2016 stating that Mike Flynn was a foreign agent. Mike Pence lied about knowing that fact.

As I wrote above: Get used to saying President Paul Ryan.

Trump's father Fred died from Alzheimers - given Donald's behavior - it's not so much of a stretch to conclude that genetics has passed the disease along.

The depth of obstruction and desperation of President Trump are coming to the surface. Trump asked DNI, NSA to deny evidence of Russia collusion - CNN. The money quote has to be this: The irony is completely lost on these amateurs.

I think I met Anonymous in my youth. A fetching fellow, full of fire. He could tell stories for hours as his eyes twinkled impishly. I thought at the time, they were too outlandish to be true but as I aged I learned many of his stories were true. How was I to know? I doubt seriously he is still alive, unless one of his descendants has taken his mantle and continues to delight us with more outlandish stories.

Let’s Not Get Carried Away

David Brooks
The New York Times
June 20, 2017

Full article

Brooks is not a Trump fan.

Here is the fundamental problem with his analysis. He completely overlooks the obvious, the leaks.

What does that mean you ask? The leaks have only been about the events and not the substance. Thus we have facts such as Manafort having close ties to Yanukovych who had close ties to Putin, but we have no idea what their relationship entailed, because the leakers do not have that information. What of Kushner's meeting setup by Kislyak with Gorkov, both of whom are close associates of Putin. We have no substance of this meeting, only the leak. Or what of Erik Prince's secret Seychelles meeting with Russians close to Putin allegedly held to make back channel connections to Russia. We have the leak but not the substance. Should I continue?

The point is there are a bevy of connections with Russia none of which has the appearance of propriety ... back channels with sanctioned Russian bankers and assorted Russians known to be associates of Putin, talk of sanction relief outside the confines of Congress, not to mention one campaign associate and advisor who had contacts with Guccifer and Assange, both know to be implicated in the DNC hacking.

Mr Brooks has overlooked the lack of substance because the leakers do not know the substance. There are far too many questions for anyone to simply say there is nothing to report.

I would say, simply, "it's too early for a full report.

Exactly. Plus Mueller has 13 very seasoned special prosecutors working for him on this project including those specializing in internet espionage and money laundering.

Speaking of money laundering - just out today...

Trump, Russia and a Shadowy Business Partnership

Enjoy!

ps. I wrote about Felix Sater/Satter last April here on RR.

I'm encouraged that Mueller has hired such competent staff. Even if he were fired, the investigation would go on.

My predictions

Gen Flynn will be charged
Manafort did nothing illegal
Page & Stone are too delusional and flaky to prosecute
Kushner too ignorant to be charged
Mr Trump will escape (even the possible criminal ties to Russian mobsters will not stick)

and most importantly Republicans will not impeach a tool no matter what he has done

Fair predictions...I'd add to it that Flynn will be pardoned by Trump.

I too suspect that Trump will follow Steven Seagal.
Because, like Seagal, Trump may feel that Putin is “the greatest world leader alive today”.

I'd modify the predictions.... Jared and Trump are both vulnerable to financial crimes prosecutions unrelated to Russia. I submit that THAT is why Trump is in such a panic. Manafort and Flynn have clearly both violated lobbyist registration requirements. I don't think Trump will pardon either of them, because it will be too late.

I don't see any enthusiasm for filing charges against either Kushner or Mr Trump related to consorting with Russian mobsters (surrogates for Putin). He could shoot etc etc

Manafort is a civilian and may get a hickey

Gen Flynn, xmilitary, should have known better

I think you under-estimate Mr Trump ... I see pardons for everyone with a nice "I hope you go frak yourself" if you object .... what can I say .... he is a narcissist

but anyway it will be like France in 1917, slogging through the trenches to find any nuggets left behind

Pretty sure "they" are going to after Trump for money laundering. "They" don't want him going scott-free.

its political Rick

for example: emoluments clause ... one could argue he is in violation of the Constitution which is probably technically correct but the clause was written when people did not own huge chunks of wealth and could be possibly influenced from ordinary income made through ordinary business transactions. It was written for the case some government or individual made a personal gift to the president which could etc etc. I think his situation could rise to the level of a problem since the "income" is large.

but here is the problem for you ... I don't see any Republican making noise about this "problem" which is real, so why would you think any Republican would make waves over business dealings with mobsters?

He runs the presidency as if it were a reality show ... how demeaning can he get? obviously even more ... is that enough? nope

what about lying all the time? nope

what about giving away state secrets? nope

he is the president and unless it is a BJ in the oval and Sen Cruz objects you got nothing until and unless Republicans believe he will severely damage the party. and so far, even though some are making talk like that, they are not publicly jumping ship.

Bottom line ... watch the Republicans not the evidence

As long as they act before the 2018 elections, they should be okay. Several months to be safe. Then they can claim they were just trying to support the duly elected President but couldn't put up with all his crimes.

If they fail to impeach him, Democrats will make massive gains in Congress. Then THEY will impeach him. He's toast either way. Republican Congressmen will want to keep their jobs.

Deep in my heart I hope that this is true. But, barring some unforeseen major crisis, the practical side of me feels that Republicans will likely hang on to their majority by the skin of their teeth in the midterms.

I have come to believe that Trump's ties to Russia are deeper, and more nefarious, than I previously thought. I came to this conclusion based upon the timing of his "rigged election" tweets/statements. SOMEONE on the Trump team planted that thought/created that mantra. And it happened weeks BEFORE the hacks actually occurred. So, either Trump knew, or someone on his staff told him it was going to happen and he needed to be ahead of it.

but his comments implied the system was rigged against him i.e. the media was against him, the electoral system was against him, etc

i think that meme was to energize conservatives who have long been told everyone is against them (and they believe it)

here are some items which have some basis
Manafort did and continued to have close ties to Russians and in fact supported loosening sanctions to accepting Russian annexation of Ukrainian territories

Page was easily manipulated since he was a little flaky ... he still believes he is aware of Russian kompromat but was he aware of changing policy positions based on suggestions from Russians?

Stone is also delusional but he had contacts with both Guccifer and Assange ... this guy is a well known trickster and what could be more tricky than getting the Russians to help Mr Trump win an election they already wanted him to win .... is it a case of like minds or was he useful to the Russian effort?

Gen Flynn ... my God man ... are you frakking serious

Kushner and his secret meetings with Russian mobsters and spooks ... eyes wide open or is ignorance bliss?

I have to wonder if there was criminal collusion how did they communicate? Did they send smoke signals? The closest anyone has to campaign collusion is Stone and all his coms were tete de tete, so unless some intel group has access to Assange or Guccifer, there is not much going to happen.

It is possible Mr Trump has knowledge the Russians were working for him but it would have been 2nd hand and of course since no one was "tapping" American conversations, Mr Trump would have to give it up.

Maybe think Col Jessup ... is Mr Trump narcissism and ego so great he would blurt it out and dare anyone to frak with him?

Well he DID say on TV during the campaign that Russia should hack Hillary's emails. He may have just been lying as usual, but maybe not?

Stone probably told him all about Guccifer and Assange and what they were doing.

So really, if he knew about it and publicly encouraged it, what more do you need? Copies of checks from Trump to Guccifer? Signed letters thanking him? An invitation to spend Christmas with the Trump family?

He's guilty as hell, and if he wasn't President he would have been indicted long ago.

A curiosity is his tweet from the other day blaming Pres Obama for not doing anything. Many reporters have interpreted that to mean Mr Trump accepts Russian meddling but nothing can be further from an accurate interpretation. What Mr trump was saying is IF Pres Obama thought it to be important etc .... since we know Mr Trump does not think it important nor does he think it is true or valid, Mr Trump will do nothing.

Also note that by rejecting any truth or validity of the Russian statements by anyone, including the IC, he is in essence elevating his own stature as the winner of the election without any help from Russians i.e. it is about him and his narcissism.

That is exactly what caught my attention... Trump historically, and repeatedly, "projects" onto opponents exactly the fault he perceives in himself ("I'm not a puppet, you're a puppet"). His "crooked Hillary", "Lyin' Ted", etc, etc, ad nauseum. I could flesh that out, but it would take too long. The point is, he does that to blunt an attack he's either had, or knows is coming. In this case, what is telling is that he started it merely two weeks BEFORE the hacks started (July 2016). Roger Stone very well could be his source (given his Guccifer and Assange connections).

Witting collusion does not require in depth knowledge. Trump is a very simple machine that is extremely easy to manipulate. His actions and reactions are very predictable - like a toddler. He has no "governor". He has a reputation for agreeing with the last person he had contact with. Simple. Be there last one in the room.

there may be another possibility .... he is so clueless someone like Stone could have said something vaguely resembling help and Mr Trump completely misunderstood what was said ... I mean beside being a narcissist he strikes me as not very bright in the sense he is slow on the uptake ... it seems like he misinterprets a lot .... probably a result of his narcissism

someone mentioned he has a size problem which seems to meld into what you may be saying ... all I can say is

GIGO

Yes, he's a narcissist, he's been one for decades. Probably was one in elementary school.

But there's something else going on. If you look at his old interviews and such, he was much more articulate, had a normal vocabulary, understood the questions, etc. Inventing new words like "bigly" is a sign that your brain is so damaged that you can't think of any word to express the concept of "large", That's pretty far gone. It's not going to get better. There are several degenerative disorders of the brain, and they are all progressive.

I agree that Trump shows increasing signs of mental decay. So do many neuro- professionals:
EXPERTS: TRUMP’S SPEAKING STYLE “RAISES QUESTIONS ABOUT HIS BRAIN HEALTH" - Vanity Fair. Given that, I think it is important to have an open, honest discussion about mental health - especially as it can have such a direct affect on all of us.

The larger political/existential problem is the lengths to which Trump's circle, the GOP, and the right wing press are willing to provide cover for him. The latest is the ridiculous FOX-promoted meme/talking point that Colluding with Russia isn't a 'crime'. Good God! It's a semantic s***-sandwich equivalent to excusing Al Capone because he was "generous". "It's technically not treason if we're not 'at war'" or "it's not sex of there's a condom in use".

As are his sycophants. Perfect matches.

Fred, the dad, couldn't stand Donald and sent him away to military school to keep him away from the family.

...and A LOT of indicators of cocaine use.

I think Trump's plan with his Putin tête–à–tête next week is to get pointers from a fellow autocrat. Trump is a rank amateur, but Putin is an old pro.

Trump has turned the presidency into a reality show. This week, Putin will meet Trump "for the very first time." (wink, wink)

Is it possible that Putin will play along with Trump turning the presidency into a reality show, by giving the Real Housewife of Pennsylvania Avenue a rose?

he he he

is Real Housewives high production?

Already a report of my first untyped prediction ... he won't bring up Russian involvement in campaign, which goes to a "high production" meeting

Crimea - nothing
Ukraine - nothing
Syria - nothing

Mr Trump will lay claims to a "highly productive" meeting and closer ties to and better relations with Russia leading to more better results to MAGA.

Now I could have packed more adjectives and adverbs in that to make it more appealing to Mr Trump base of support who will proclaim on Fox & Friends Mr Trump has brought peace to the world and cured cancer.

People used to talk about the fake moon landing but now .... well use your words

You get the picture ... I am embarrassed to be an American who had 13 ancestors who fought in the RW so we would have an opportunity to get Mr Trump as president

Goes to prove, once again, "anyone" can become president...

(that use to be an aspiration)

So Pooty and The Orange One™ had a first supervised date that was to last 30 mins. The date ended up lasting over two hours. Trump's handlers connived Melania Trump to walk-in on the two (obviously) love birds and break them up and to bring The Donald home.

Golly, I hope that Melania didn't walk in on Pooty and BLOTUS in a compromising position - say like two very randy dogs in heat - and have to tear the two off of each other and bring her man home.

Man o' man, these DJT stories are too much fun!

OK it took me a while to work this out, but I think I know what is going on

whether the Trump campaign was colluding or not doesn't matter at this point. Mr Trump as a narcissist believes he did it on his own without any help from anyone. But he also knows if the Russians were able to help in 2016 then they could also help in 2020.

Now does it make sense Mr Trump will not confront Putin? Now does it make sense Mr Trump will not do anything to endanger the relationship? Does it make sense Mr Trump would gladly use Russian help to win the 2020 election?

I believe Mr Trump has sold America out to the Russians.

Unless he is stopped, Pronto, he will be giving the keys to the kingdom to his bromance. Trump’s plan to work with Putin on cybersecurity makes no sense. Here’s why. - WaPo. When I saw this, I was genuinely appalled.

he has since .... maybe if the tweet is correct ... canceled the open collusion between the US and Russia on the very criminal activities of Russia.

Perhaps he will relegate this pursuit to meetings which haven't happened and won't be acknowledged until reporters find the trail

Still waiting to see something that looks like something. All I have seen so far is a bunch of nothing. I mean, it isn't like he was selling arms to Mexican drug gangs.

The question I have for you Tim is, if Sec Clinton had been elected and you found out her campaign advisors were meeting Russians and denying those meetings, you would be ok with that?

The bottom line is you would prefer to believe lies about the Clintons rather than the truth about Mr Trump.

Fast & Furious - the facts (something conservatives hate to see) .... a low level group of ATF hatched a plan approved by an USADA to allow the sale of guns to cartel straw buyers in order to catch cartel bosses. It is a movie styled premise but when reality slaps them in the face the USADA says he can't indict any buyer because the NRA lobbied Congress to allow all Americans the right to buy 1000 semi automatic rifles.

There was no evidence ever found that anyone outside the small conspiracy was involved in it.

So the question remains, why believe lies?

Because they are more convenient than the truth? Certainly easier to produce! After all, Trump does it daily, and clearly has passed that trait on to his son.

If there were recordings, they'd have been doctored; if there were video, it would be "actors"; if there were rubles with Trump fingerprints on them, they'd have been "planted"... The Republican party is nothing but Colonel Klinks and Sergeant Schultzes.

Now, that gun is smoking, there's blood on the floor, there are fingerprints on the gun, three witnesses pointing at him... but Donald Junior wants you to believe he is innocent of everything... even though he denied it three different ways before the cock crowed three times... oh wait, different story.

There is A CHANCE that the NYT story is a carefully crafted deception intended to discredit the NYT. The problem is, so much of it has been corroborated. Doesn't this all smell like a KGB operation?

Interesting that you write that NW_P. I'd like to direct you to this Tweet by Donald J Trump regarding Ivanka Trump taking a seat at the G20 the morning of July 10th 2017:



The matter that I would like to focus on in the Tweet is the line:


WTF?!? Why would he write that????

DJT wrote that, because as he has done all along - he accuses others of the very thing which he, himself, is doing at the time. Time after time, after time, DJT has done this - during the campaign and as President!!!

Even Miss Drudge is shaking her head:

'
http://www.alternet.org/election...d-out-bankruptcy-russia-crime-bosses

.

Matthew, I think you have identified the nub of the mystery. The corruption of the Trump family is broad and deep.

I belive the link should go here.

Trump sees himself as an oligarch who has come to power. He models himself after Putin, and is trying to install his oligarchs/supplicants into positions of authority. Like Russian oligarchs, he did not get into his position honestly, but by manipulation of laws, abuse of others, and by graft. Like his Russian counterparts, he is also, quite literally, beholden to Putin for his current status.

Trump has specific reasons for sucking up to Russia. First, he owes Russians a lot of money. Behind Trump’s Russia Romance, There’s a Tower Full of Oligarchs. Second, they have been pouring money into his coffers - and are doing so now. Third, the Magnitsky Act is preventing him from building Trump Tower, Moscow, with his friends who offered dirt on Hillary.

We really have pretty good proof Trump Senior knew about the collusion before it happened. Hours after Trump Junior setup the meeting, Trump Senior went public and announced he would very soon give a speech about all the Clinton wrongdoings.

Then when the meeting flopped, he skipped that speech. That on and then off behavior is proof that somebody (not necessarily Trump Junior) told him all about the meeting to receive opposition research from a foreign government, both before and after the meeting. Trump Senior did not attend, but he was definitely in the loop.

"What did the President know, and when did he know it?" Sound familiar?

A-yup.

LOCK HIM UP!!

DJT, Junior may be the Achilles heal to this organization.

I think this is a useful tool to understanding Trump's web of Russian ties. In my opinion, the business ties are most critical, but help explain some of the others (like Flynn and Manafort).
All of Trump’s Russia Ties, in 7 Charts (a little outdated).

...and "everyone" thought that Eric was the dumb one.

I think the whole Russia debacle can be explained in two thoughts: Trump is remarkably dumb and manipulable - he's instinctually corrupt, and so is his family; and Russian agents look for gullible folks like them to manipulate. Everything about this affair screams "KGB". It also serves Putin's interests that the Trumps get bogged down in scandal, because it keeps the US from being engaged in world affairs. How much better that Trump already agreed with him.

Speaking of manipulability, how deep does the putrescence run? It's not just the Russians who are using Trump for a stooge.

Hi-jacked democracy

In Shakespeare's Henry VI, the conspirators knew that to usurp the throne they had to get rid of the institutions that supported the government. Bannon took the wrong lesson from that play, and his take is, First thing we do, let's kill all the journalists!

KGB-type chess moves may even be to get Trump elected but much compromised, and THEN to announce it to the world to render him even more ineffective than he already was. All the revelations we are getting now are probably part of their plan.

Not to say they are not true: Trump is badly compromised, but it is even better for them if everybody knows that. Republican Congressmen's failure to impeach him is playing right into their plans, instead of quickly dumping him.

Which leads us to the question, which is better for Putin: America run by a competent but fairly friendly Democratic Party, or run by an incompetent but unfriendly Republican Party. (I'm thinking post Russian-operated Trump.)

Trump gets new instructions from his Russian handler... Trump, Putin had second, undisclosed talk at G-20.

Unfortunately we will never get the truth of the content of the meeting. Mr Trump will lie about it and Putin will lie about it and the translator .... well ... he died of polonium poisonings yesterday

Again I will auto flagellate. I never imagined a narcissist would believe he is superior to the devious expertise in manipulations of a trained KGB agent. I suspect believes he is so smart he can out maneuver Putin. He may have given away the keys to the backdoor and the password to the security vault.

Trump IS a Russian agent.

That he is, as well as many of his closest cohorts:

Foreign agent definition

Perhaps another reason Trump won't release his tax records...

After today, I'm pretty sure Mueller is closing in.

'
The real estate trickster goes bankrupt in 2008; No American banks will bail him out because they know from bitter experience that Trump is a cheat and a louse.

His only hope to survive is to get huge loans from shady Russian Mafiosi and their German go-fers.

Do you think they permitted Trump to survive out of the goodness of their hearts, without putting their talons into his flesh, and demanding that he toe the line?

Anyone who believes that has the mind of an imbecile and the naivete of a child !
.

I think that is the MAIN reason Trump won't release his tax records.

If Mueller can get his hands on those....
.

I'm sure he has subpoena power and the ability to ask a federal judge for a search warrant. That's all it takes.

Tax returns are not classified or anything. You show up at an IRA office with a search warrant signed by a judge and they give you what it specifies.

First... apologies for not going thru the thread, as I'm sure this has been discussed... But...
It's a subject that has suddenly brought all of the Russia/US politics into focus for me.

The Magnitsky Act

A close reading makes a lot of names and activities more meaningful. Why the media continues to use "adoption" as a theme for discussion is beyond me. Even Rachel hasn't dug into this to do it justice.

And it's not as simple as that. Magnitsky involved the repeal of the
Jackson-Vanik amendment... which had restricted man, many US moneyed-elite interests.

Small wonder that the breadth of the involvement of banks and great corporations hasn't risen to the surface. Money laundering and political influence extends so deeply into the business world and the power brokers that it's possible a full spilling of the details would devastate the world markets.

Try this: From Slate

My darkside conspiracy theory.

'
Good find, Cousin It !

But I am sure that at least as much money has been stolen and laundered by the American oligarchs as has been stolen by Putin and his oligarchs and hangers-on.
.

Sessions may just be toast: WaPo published a story about his MANY meetings with Russians, both before and after the election. Intelligence agencies intercepted communications from the Russians back to Moscow after the meetings and they are VERY incriminating. Specifically, what Trump could do re Russian sanctions if elected. Not at all what Sessions testified to various times under oath.

He recused himself because he knows he is right up to his neck in it. He's trying to save his ass from going to prison, but has already committed perjury several times. I think he hoped they might just forget about him when Trump goes down, if he gave the appearance of being uninvolved. Too late now!

I think we might be seeing the beginning of the end here. Trumps personal lawyer just quit, probably because he is seeing nothing but pain in the near future if he stays. Trump is talking about desperation moves like pardons. His legal team is trying to come up with justifications for firing Mueller. He's going after Jeff Sessions, which is the first step in firing Mueller. (Because Sessions is recused. so he can't fire Mueller.) The Mueller investigation is seeking to turn Manafort and get him to testify. And the Mueller investigation has broadened the scope to include all of Trump's business transactions. (Including foreign bank records, which has REALLY freaked Trump out.) They are even going back to look at all the fishy real estate deals with Russians that are probably money laundering attempts. And his "boys" are going to Congress to testify this week. (What are the odds one of them spills the beans?)

He's either going to have a heart attack or stroke, strike a resignation deal, or flee to Moscow. I suspect it's all over in the next two weeks. I bet he pardons his family members on the way out the door.

Manafort is an interesting case: He owed a Russian oligarch about 17 million dollars for several years, and the guy has been pursuing it. Right up until Manafort joined the Trump campaign. Then the Russian (a good buddy with Putin) suddenly stopped.

Mueller has taken over the long (several years) tax investigation and money laundering case against Manafort, so Mueller may just have him by the short hairs.

One can hope.

Only Mother Nature can decide that. I think he is more likely to resign and fight any charges, after all that has been his M.O. for decades. He would never run to Moscow, he would be clearly a traitor, he would have to leave his empire and it sure would be taken from him by the government.

I think you are being to optimistic here. I would speculate December at the earliest, next year the most likely.

Betting on a sure thing is always a safe bet, and I agree.

Even though either Mr Trump is or is not thinking, or has he mentioned to advisors or not, pardons, he has tweeted it.

It could be a message to Mueller. It doesn't matter what you find the president can pardon everyone (and I think he thinks he can pardon himself) involved.

If that should happen and no charges filed from DoJ, it would fall onto Spkr Ryan to decide whether impeachment charges should be filed.

Is anyone taking bets????

I am of two minds here: although Trump is an unmitigated disaster, is as crooked as is humanly possible, and is undisciplined and uninformed, at least he is ineffectual. Pence is far more dangerous.
I want them both gone as soon as possible, but thing CAN (and will) get worse, first.

Trump will not resign. Not a chance. He will hold onto his perks until the cows come home and Rome burns. He cares not a whit about the country, only what is in it for him. What will be interesting is to see how loyal he is to his family.
I think he genuinely loves Ivanka and thinks of Jared as his mini-me. The question is, will he sacrifice them to save himself? THAT'S where the betting should be interesting.

My money is on an invocation the 25th amendment before impeachment, and here's why: if a cabinet coup occurs, Trump can't pardon himself or anyone else. He can't "muddy the waters". I'd also expect Congress to create a Commission to examine the issue rather than leave it to the cabinet. It would be cleaner, and there is already a bill to create one filed.

I just Kushner say "I am not a crook" .... o ... wait a sec .... that was someone else

consider
as long as Mr Trump has pardon power
as long as Mueller does not file charges
as long as DoJ will not file charges
as long as HoR will not file charges

what are the alternatives other than vote the bum out?

He thinks his pardon power is a way out, but it's really not. If he tries to use it and remain President, it just creates "unexceptional witnesses" who can be forced to testify against him with threats of jail time for contempt of court or congress.

He thinks he can fire Mueller, but doing so makes this the Trump version of The Saturday Night Massacre, and inevitably leads to impeachment. Besides, several Democratic state AGs could then hire Mueller and his team. The President has no control over them.

2018 is just 5 months away. Every Representative has to get reelected. Good Luck with that.

Three ugly Watergate lessons for President Trump enough said. Go ahead President Donald (Everybody is picking on me) Trump, wield your Pardon Power, one of your rats will, with Pardon in hand, turn on you.

you're still thinking as if Mr Trump is a rational logical person ... stop it.

He is a narcissist, so all those things a rational politician would or would not do do not apply to him. If he thinks at the moment it occurs to him he should fire AG Sessions or SC Mueller he will do it regardless of political consequences. His actions would be predicated on his belief they would enhance him personally.

Thus guy is so predictable you can close your eyes and know what he will do at some point in time not because of his political ideology but because of his personality.

If he ever says he was wrong on anything. you win

He counts all the people he might pardon as loyal, inside his personal bubble. He's going to be shocked to find out they would rather testify than go to jail for him. I bet they ALL testify! Including his daughter.

Here's something which crossed my mind

what if Mr Trump fires all his cabinet (or just some top positions) and took the job for himself. Why he would be so great that his greatest would transcend this universe.

I am brushing up on loyalty oaths .... it may come in handy if he sends the military out looking for disloyal Americans

He would also eliminate the "cabinet officers" section of the 25th Amendment. I think Congress would have to appoint a special committee to consider it instead.

I really think Kushner's attempt to establish a back channel via the Russian Embassy directly to Putin is an outright admission that at least he is a Russian agent. This channel would presumably be encrypted so American intelligence could never see what was in it, but Russian leadership and intelligence would.

They have a name for that. It's called spycraft, and it's not for American, it's for Russia. If Kushner thought it up and acted alone, then maybe he is the only Russian spy. Did others know about it before hand?

Maybe he's just an idiot and he didn't realize what he was doing. A lot of folks have forgotten all the KGB's nasty ways because there is no more cold war. But PUTIN WAS THE HEAD OF THE KGB! If you think the current embodiment of the KGB doesn't still do all the same stuff, then you are a fool.

I'd like to come back to "Magnitsky".

Seems like the media is beginning to dig into this a little bit. (Check out Bill Browder) Browder Testimony

I believe it's about money... laundering and misusing worldwide banks to cover tracks. yes.... generic... not just Russia, but virtually all countries where the top 1% has grown so rapidly over the past 10+ years.

It is said that Putin may be the richest man in the world. True or not, no way to know. We do know where much of the money came from, but it's impossible to know where it went. Other countries, including the US have multi-billionaires who have increased their fortunes exponentially over this short time.

I DO realize that this is a dark conspiracy theory, but bit by bit, more information is trickling out. ie. seven involved financial (bank) workers in Russia have been murdered or died from unexplained causes, just since Magnitsky was jailed.

As we become concerned about Sessions, Mueller, Rosenstein and the chain of command, it sounds like "politics"... We talk about Trump being fickle, or inconsistent, and like him to an ignorant angry bear. Maybe not. Maybe just muscle.... to put a stop to what could be the greatest scandal in history.

Trump stuff we forgot about... Oct. 2015

And somethings we never hear about...
Trump Tax Plan?

Possibly, what we consider as an "honor oath" could turn to lies... not just from the very top, but from those who have too much to lose.

We're more than a month into hearings. What you and I might think could be handled in a few days, shows no sign of what may be going on.

Many bits and pieces... Just one, here:
Trickle

...and one to watch "Dmitry Firtash"...

I kinda hope I'm all wrong about this but I really expect we're headed into unkNown waters.

A lot of people do, Cousin It. Here is an article from The New Republic which lays out a pretty good case of Russian Mobster Money-Laundering and our great and wonderful President.

yeah but .... and here is the but

the president is above the law .... he can pardon himself therefore etc and ergo qed

money laundering has nothing to do with Russia .... it is about gangsters

o did i mention he can pardon himself (and friends)

it has nothing to do with the election therefore etc ergo qed

i mean .... i didn't know he was the best president ever (except for that Lincoln character0 until he told me

yes heil ... ooops strike that hail Trump King of all lands from sea to shining sea

Aye, Captain IT, unknown waters ahead. And in a truly dramatic twist we aren't headed there in a slowly steaming ship of state but on a runaway train.

Thanks rick... that's quite a read.

I tend to believe that Trump and the Russians is a pretty easy one. His Russian partner, Aras Agalarov loaned Trump a pile of money and now they are asking Trump for 'little' favors in lieu of interest. This is why, for instance, when there are any meetings, Agalarov, or an Agalarov minion is not far away. I also think that the Mueller investigation is going to find this one. In that regard Mueller has hired a regular passel of forensic accountants and, I also think, they are hard at work on Trump. I wouldn't even be surprised that Mueller also has his tax reports.

All this is, incidentally, pure speculation (I get lots of training on speculation by watching the TV news, which seems to be approximately 98% speculation and very little else)

Good speculators make fortunes rise and fall.

Indeed. Just ask BillO, Milo Y. ,

The other shoe drops:

Bill Browder’s Senate Judiciary Committee Hearing

This is VERY important. Trump Jr. et al went to that meeting to talk about Russia forbidding adoption of Russian children, so they said it was nothing important. But that adoption freeze was Russia's response to the US Magnitsky Act, which sanctions and freezes assets of all human rights violators in Russia after they murdered Magnitsky because of a 200 million dollar corruption case that leads directly to Putin. Putin keeps his billions invested in the west, so he is subject to these sanctions!

The meeting wasn't about child adoption, it was about lifting those sanctions that threaten Putin's personal fortune and his protection of other cronies in Russia.


These are the people at that meeting...

So many shoes. Like nails in the Republican coffin there never seems to be enough.

I think this explains exactly why Putin wanted to get Trump elected so badly. He had run-ins with Clinton when she was Secretary of State and if she became President it could mean real trouble for him.

He and his buddies are heavily invested in US assets that could be seized and he remains in power because he protects so many Russian oligarchs from such seizures and sanctions. If some of these rich guys turn on him, he could wind up dead shortly. Along those lines, I won't be too surprised if Trump isn't assassinated now that he can't protect Putin. Or maybe Russia will just leak whatever it has on him.

This page 28 has lots of very informative information. Thanks guys for your contributions and insights.

I have been saying all along that you don't piss off Putin and stay alive very long. His body count is absurdly high, and he has the ways, means and resources to reach out to almost anyone on the planet, particularly a globe trotting billionaire who routinely tosses off standard operating procedure with regards to op sec and exec sec.
Almost all of his communications are unsecured, a twelve year old could track his physical location at any given time in ten minutes.

And our intel community is certain that the Kremlin has had eyes and ears in the White House since the Inauguration.

Donald Trump has "disappointed" the richest mobster on the planet, who just happens to also be a deadly former KGB agent and leader of the Russian Republic.

It might not be as easy for Putin to dispense with the orange "stone in his shoe" as it was for his other targets but believe me, now that it's clear that he will not be getting the BIG FAVORS from the President that he expected, his team is working on it.

I'm not advocating it, I am not going to cheer for it and I am not suggesting it, but I am predicting it, for the simple reason that our chief executive has his ass hanging way out in the breeze and doesn't seem the least bit concerned about how vulnerable he is.

He still thinks he is untouchable.
The whole scenario is playing out like the movie "Casino" only Trump thinks he's Ace Rothstein, when in reality he's acting like Nicky Santoro.

The best way to understand Trump's Russia/Putin behavior is applying Occam's razor. As has been observed by many, Trump's behavior regarding Putin has been unusual. Trump has demonstrated regularly that he holds no loyalty to anyone else when they are no longer useful to him, yet his loyalty to Putin persists. The consensus conclusion is that Putin has something on Trump.

The question then becomes, what? Again, Occam's razor provides a solution. Trump, in the 90's suffered financial disaster from his gross mismanagement. As a result, American banks wouldn't lend to him. At the same, Russian mobsters and oligarchs were looking for money laundering opportunities. Trump's organization got a remarkable infusion of unexplained cash-based purchases from Russian sources. In 2000 Putin gained control of the Russian government. By all accounts he has maintained control through bribing and rewarding oligarchs and eliminating enemies. He views the United States as his primary enemy.

My conclusion is that Trump is a useful idiot in Putin's plans. It is what makes the most sense (simplest solution). Trump's candidacy was a win-win for Putin. He damaged Clinton, even if Trump lost, and Trump winning causes more discord and hamstrings the government. Even if Trump is damaged because of his association with Putin, his ineffectiveness is beneficial. An ineffectual President means an ineffective adversary. As a bonus, both Trump and his brood are so manipulable, chaos is virtually guaranteed. He can (and has) compromised them at will. Don Junior and Jared Kushner were both easily baited into compromising meetings. Ditto Ivanka. The President's NATO hostility and overt sucking up are fringe benefits.

I agree for the most part of the analysis of Trump's finances. We know that every start-up Trump has even done has failed. We know that Russian Oligarchs paid way over asking price for units in Trump's real estate properties. We know that Trump doesn't own many of his properties and is merely a partner. We know that many buildings with the Trump name on them are not even owned by Trump, but by Russian "businessmen."

Ergo, President Donald (a Russian puppet) Trump is a puppet of the Russians.

Bob Mueller has a Grand Jury empanelled and is issuing subpoenas. You don't do that until you are pretty sure somebody is going to jail. Witness testimony is secret, but eventually you get to indictments and those are public.

As soon an indictment comes down for one of his sons President Donald (What can I do with Presidential Pardon Powers) Trump will give the indictee(s) a pardon. Nothing will be done about it, unless an indictment is returned to The House of Representatives on President Donald (I am not under investigation) Trump, we can only hope...

The trick is, we mustn't pin our hopes on any of these Mueller probes as being a quick fix for Trump being in office. Much as many would like for them to be that, the process will take as long as it takes, by necessity and by necessity it could take a very long time.
I've come to the conclusion that the single biggest motive force that would drive Trump, and even Pence, from office is RATINGS.
Yes, that's right...just like TV and radio, RATINGS is possibly the single biggest factor in removing the cancer, because if approval ratings for this administration, AND approval ratings for Republicans in general, dip to single digits or even close to it, Congress will abandon these two faster than The Plague, and they will lose both their power base IN Congress AND their mandate to lead the country.
So, an undeniable hemorrhage in approval will most likely be the one thing that might trigger possible impeachment and/or a 25th Amendment push to drive Trump from the Oval Office.

This very thing was foreseen by one of the founding fathers at the time the Constitution was written. He said that the President pardoning somebody would make that person an "unexceptional witness". He didn't mean "average". He meant that the pardoned person could be compelled to testify because he was in no jeopardy of incriminating himself. So he can't refuse to testify by claiming the Fifth Amendment.

In the case of Grand Jury witnesses, the pardoned person refusing to testify could be held in contempt and jailed as long as the Grand Jury exists. And that could be a VERY long time! Years even. And Presidential pardons have no effect on contempt charges.

So a President who pardons people who can testify against him is making a huge mistake. I'm sure Trump's lawyers have explained this to him. That's probably why he asked about pardoning himself. (Maybe he could, for actual crimes, but it says right in the Constitution you can't pardon impeachable High Crimes.)

The Presidential pardon is only useful to Trump on his way out the door. He can perhaps make a deal, so he resigns and pardons his immediate family members. Then he gets a pardon from President Pence, Nixon-style.

It's a LOT worse than you think:

HOW RUSSIA IS USING LINKEDIN AS A TOOL OF WAR AGAINST ITS U.S. ENEMIES

Fairly long NewsWeek story that is worth reading.

I bet you thought the Cold War was over and we could all be friends now. But Putin's KGB-equivalent is still up to it's old tricks. Still using compromat, still using blackmail, still paying people to act as agents, even still poisoning people with polonium or sticking them with umbrellas to silence critics. But now they also have the internet! I think maybe we need the House Unamerican Activities Committee back. It's really getting bad, and Trump is just one of many Russian irons in the fire.

Maybe it's time to bring up internet death again.

What we really have is a confluence of interests between the Kremlin and certain segments of the GOP. Both seek to cripple the American government. Trump is just the most obvious.

I was listening to a news outlet and the reporters were all essentially saying Mr Trump has some grand plan regarding Korea.

When will these folks get it. Mr Trump is a narcissist. When he says he will reign "fire and fury" on Korea he is simply exerting his belief he is all powerful, in charge of the largest arsenal on the planet, etc, and therefore making him appear to be greater than the crazy guy in Korea.

There is no grand plan to some how suggest China should do something by him using off the cuff remarks as military policy. It was nothing more than the usual narcissistic babble to make himself appear to be God-like.

Allow me the hannity .... geeeeez

No wonder Trump is so nervous...FBI raided Manafort home as part of Russia probe - CNN.

FBI to Manfort: Knock knock, Motherfvcker!!!

Oh!! CNN says it was a 'no-knock warrant.'


UPDATE: FBI to Manfort: Bam Bam, Motherfvcker!!!

Not that Manafort actually HAD anything incriminating left in his house: He was smart enough to know somebody was coming long ago, and dump it all.

But it's a very good chilling example for everybody else in the Trump administration. Make your deal NOW with Mueller and maybe you won't go to prison. Mueller and team have many years of expert prosecutor experience. Even an experienced lawyer-turned-politician would be very afraid of them. Trump is a poor babe in the woods, in this case. He has no idea just how screwed he is, or he would be vacationing in Argentina.

Or maybe Moscow. I hear Snowden's apartment building has a vacancy.

My thinking is that the raid occurred early morning the day ofter Manafort's July Congressional Hearing. Perhaps Mueller was looking for communications between Manafort and Trump from the time that Manafort got home to the time of the raid.

I think we are underestimating Manafort's hubris. He's been an untouchable Washington insider for decades. He assumes the "normal" process- some vague testimony, subpoenas for documents that he and his lawyers can partially and misleadingly respond to, and the short attention span of Congress... "this'll be over in months." He needed to "preserve" records... so that he could "respond" - and he didn't want them where he couldn't control them.

There are many reasons (tactical and legal) that a prosecutor would prefer a search warrant to a subpoena: no time to react, it doesn't "telegraph" what your legal theory is, it intimidates - and a big one here - it preserves records from claims of "taint". Since the records were obtained independent of Manafort's testimony it can't be claimed that they were "fruit of the poisonous tree" - learned about because of congressional testimony (remember Iran-contra and Oliver North's appeal). Moreover, it could be a precursor to a perjury charge.

I think the significance is that a warrant requires a higher burden - a probable-cause belief a specific crime has been committed, that evidence of the crime will be found at that location, and specificity about what they are looking for - all approved by an impartial judge. Manafort can now be squeezed hard.

A search warrant probably means they had his phones tapped as well during that post-testimony period. So anything he conveyed by phone to anybody is known and legal evidence.

It's rather fortunate that Congress did not want to hear too much from Manafort. They offered no immunity and now Mueller is free to use all his prosecutor tricks on Manafort. He's one of the most obviously guilty of the Trump team, so Mueller should be able to work him to full advantage. If he wants to stay out of prison for a good long time, he'll cooperate and testify about everything.

I assume Mueller knows about everything (and with Trump that's a lot of stuff). Now he's going to have a witness to corroborate it before the Grand Jury. Like I said, make your deal NOW before Mueller's dance card is full if you want to stay out of jail.

hmmm .all interesting but I suspect Mr Trump is not very detail oriented. He may have said things in broad strokes which his minions took to an extreme i.e. Mr Trump may not know anything or be aware of anything. Remember this guys has a 2 inch attention span.

In his narcissistic reverie, he may have been oblivious to a possible conspiracy of his underlings who would do anything including criminally colluding with the Russians to get Mr Trump elected. I can see it now ... a scene from the middle of the movie ... Mr Trump stepping onto the balcony of his penthouse in Trump Tower walking slowly to the rail, firmly grabbing it and looking intently over the city, firm in his mind that the conspiracy in the other room of which he has no knowledge will catapult him to the presidency ... <slow pan into smoke filled room with Stone, Manafort, Page Kushner Jr plotting how to use the Russian info ... slow fade with voices heard saying ....kompromat ... Clinton .... victory>

Trump attorney reached out to Kremlin to pursue Moscow Trump Tower project - CNN. Financed by the Russian Government. This gun is not just smoking... It's still loaded.

Yes but as long as Trump still has the support of the GOP-sturmers, you can keep dropping smoking guns all day long and Team Trump will just merrily file off the serial numbers and keep thumbing their noses.

Uh ohhhh, what a surprise...


Paul Manafort Teamed Up With Obama’s Lawyer to Help Putin Ally

it was a former attorney and there was no evidence presented which linked anyone in WH to former attorney's work, in fact State refuted the report. the best i could figure is some attorneys are slugs and would do anything for a buck.

never seen it but isn't this a case of call Saul

Yup. The New York Times published Felix Sater's emails:



I've written about Felix Sater many times here at Reader Rant.

The truly weird thing is that 150 years ago Americans by the millions went to war to kill Confederates. Seventy five years ago Americans by the millions went to war to kill Nazis. Seventy years ago until just a few years ago we spent countless lives and enormous treasures challenging Russians and their allies around the world.

Now we have a President who loves Confederates, Nazis, and Russians, and even more startling Conservatives who supposedly honor the past are fine with that! Have Conservatives finally all just gone insane?

The Confederacy IS the Conservative past. Is sure wasn't the progressives who owned other humans.

It isn't progressives who are shaking their tiny fists in fury shouting: Leave the Confederate moments and our history alone!

Mueller has taken a pardon-proof approach to squeezing Manafort, working with State authorities to ensure Trump can't provide a pardon to unpressure Manafort- Trump can only pardon federal charges. The same approach can work on Jared and Trump (Junior and senior) to the extent they have committed State crimes (like fraud).

Why would you think these people would allow themselves to be leveraged? Mr Trump "knows" he is above the law. Why wouldn't the rest of his coterie "know" the same thing?
Once Mr Trump starts throwing pardons out the window like a bunch of confetti, no one will talk.

Trump can't touch state convictions and state prisons work perfectly well. Last time I checked, almost all executions are carried out by states rather than the federal government.

As long as those convictions are state convictions and contempt charges are in state courts, Trump can do nothing. Pardoning people who can testify against you (IE. in the same conspiracy) is a huge tactical error: You just immunize them from federal prosecution which means they can't take the fifth amendment and refuse to testify. They will be required to testify or go the jail for contempt. If those are state courts, Trump can do nothing about those contempt charges.

North Korea appears to have a new Internet connection — (thanks to Russia)


Hate to say it but perhaps it IS time to rethink Russian access to the rest of the internet currently in Western hands, at least until they have a few months to think about the consequences of their actions.
If the Russians wish to enjoy a quarantined intranet between themselves and North Korea, they should go ahead and do so however if the West needs to take steps to protect themselves, it may have to start with the West dealing a death blow against Russia's own connectivity to the West. They're already implicated in espionage and cybercrime activity against Western democracies, including the United States. How much more should we tolerate before we hit back at the fifth column?
Okay all my fellow liberals, let's hear you pronounce judgment on this, my most conservative position ever in my adult life.
Yeah, sometimes I shock myself with how conservative some of my views can be.
But please, before you condemn my newly minted conservative position, try offering other solutions instead. How else can Western democracies protect themselves from Russian state sanctioned cybercrime activities AND North Korean intrusions into the open internet?
Any ideas? I'd love to hear them.

Seriously, maybe my addled old brain is out of fresh ideas on how to deal with this. So aside from just cutting as much Western connectivity to Russia as is possible, what else can we do?
The global internet is a robust architecture and it is probably impossible to completely isolate Russian connections to the West however Russian IP addresses are as unique as any other country's IP numbers, and it is possible to segregate blocks of IP addresses based on their national origin alone.

In addition, it is also possible to build software that can deep scan the origin of packets from that region and allow defensive measures to be engaged at the next level down. Knowledge of how that works exactly is beyond my ken and beyond my pay grade, I am not well enough trained to speak confidently on those ideas, so I am asking for help.

Is this a Quixotic stab at a moving target bound to end in failure?
Is it even possible to quarantine an entire segment of the internet effectively based on national origin for defensive purposes. Would any such effort in that direction achieve any measurable results?

It's not impossible at all, from the very beginning of the internet. It is called Internet Death and it was reserved for nodes with bad behavior. In the past, that was defined as things like a DDOS attack: A node can send millions of packets asking another node to respond and effectively shut down that other node because it is busy responding. What you do is to identify that sender's IP address and block it in every router. It can send it's millions of packets and as soon as they hit a router they get discarded. But that also kills all legitimate traffic from that node.

That's just one example and pretty simple. But what about more complex "bad behavior"? What about phishing attacks? What about perfectly normal postings to Slate or Capital Hill Blue that pretend to be a Trump fan making a fake news story about Clinton?

Because that the real "bad behavior" now. That's how the Kremlin got Trump elected, and it has been doing stuff like that for a very long time. Whatever disrupts American Democracy the most. I would not be surprised if Republicans announcing they were going to oppose everything Obama proposed in 2008, originated in the Kremlin. That's just what they do, they have been doing it in one form or another for more than 50 years, and they will do it in the future.

Russians are still Russians, and Putin is the former head of the KGB.

It is entirely possible to stop, but where do you cut the cables? Is China in the new internet? Wait, they are the main supporter of North Korea and cutting off connection to China is unthinkable because of all our business ties.

China hasn't gifted Kim Jong Un with a shiny new Internet Connectin Musheen.

But they could, very easily. I think we need something much more sophisticated than just cutting a connection. We need content-oriented packet inspection by AI. But you can't just inspect packets from North Korea. What about the Kremlin Troll Farm? What about ISIS and Al Queda? What about 20 or 30 other regimes that would like to harm us or steal from us, not to mention all the individual scam artists using the internet?

I think you need to inspect every packet that goes through every router on the backbone. And I think this is inevitable because all the nefarious stuff on the internet is making it more of a necessity.

I will agree that simple quarantine or wholesale death to entire blocks of IP nodes is the equivalent of killing a wasp nest with a howitzer gun. I am, despite my frustration, reluctant to use a blunt tool if a more precise one becomes available.
Precision however, costs money.
I smell disaster capitalism because today's social media is currently becoming a vast network of inundated Houston and Florida flood plains. The intellectual baseline is now fully infected with parasites and the host body is experiencing convulsions.

And just like the current health care situation, the free market gurus will attempt to make the case that a secure and more beneficial internet looks like a brand new cash cow, in need of a nice spanking new set of supportive fees and surcharges.
The Republicans will also, despite their protestations against "big government", insist on a whole new government agency to TSA the living Hell out of everything we see, hear and read on this new secure internet, and conservatives would love nothing better than to see that agency heavily politicized, backed by a privatized data mining firm that they own stock in, and funded by tolls, constant tolls everywhere.
That will fit in nicely with their fantasy of a multi-tiered internet where the big comm moguls enjoy faster speeds while the proles and sops are segregated to the slow lanes.

More or less, that is already here: My cable company offers several different connection speeds, and you pay for speed. So do telcos with DSL tiers, etc.

Maybe this could be voluntary? For $5 a month you get super-secure packet delivery? It could be done right at your ISP's router just before it gets to your computer. Your choice if you want to pay for it.

For five bucks a month? Of course I would subscribe, and I'd advise everyone else to do the same, if for that five bucks I can be sure I'll never see a post from Russian, Chinese or other paid bots again, in my email or on social media.
I suspect however, that such a feature would be about forty bucks a month extra within two years and it would also open several boxes of the Pandora variety.
Know what Facebook Jail is? It's where you get unceremoniously blocked from posting anywhere from 12 hours to 30 days, or even permanently if Facebook decides you posted something that violated community standards, which usually amounts to a person reporting your post because it hurt their feelings.
No appeals, no recourse, nothing.
Don't wanna pay the extra forty bucks? Well, you might find yourself scooped up into the jail bucket a lot more often.

For your own good, of course!

From Eric Swalwell (D-CA) U.S. Representative's government website:



_______________________________

Representative Swalwell is pretty bold putting this out there on his Representative site. I'm surprised that Rep Swelwell hasn't received an angry 4 am Tweet when Trump takes a dump from his porcelain throne.

Now Russia claims Browder killed Magnitsky and keeps putting him on the Interpol wanted list, and the State Department is cooperating by revoking Browder's visa!

United States Reportedly Revokes Visa of Putin Critic

I think Putin is getting desperate because the Act threatens his personal fortune and his ability to stay in power by protecting his fellow oligarchs. This is what that meeting with the Russians was all about.

Breaking News: CNN reports that Mueller's Grand Jury in Washington DC has returned the first indictment. It may be unsealed on Monday and they may arrest the person charged.

Right Now is the time, all you Trump administration folks: Call up Mueller's office and get in there to make a deal. If you sing the right song, you may avoid prison and personal disgrace. If you miss out, you go down for your crimes.

Remember: There were only 5 Watergate burglars, but 50 Nixon administration people were indicted.

Good times!!!

Hannity and Nunes may become subjects of the probe...

I understand why Nunes would be, but why Hannity?

Hannity has been a suspiciously loyal purveyor of Russian propaganda and stalwart of Trump and cronies.

If Hannity advised anyone to commit a crime, he's guilty of that crime as well as conspiracy. Apparently, he and Trump talk on the phone every night. Think nothing criminal ever came up? Remember, cover-up things like concealing evidence, lying to federal investigators, and obstruction of justice are actually crimes. Just warning Comey to be careful what he says about meetings with Trump because there might be tapes, might be witness intimidation.

In fact, a lot of Trump's standard MO might be crimes, or at least impeachable High Crimes. Lying, bluffing, using your high office to attack your enemies, etc.

HAR!!!! You think they're going to call and try to get a deal?
HAHAHAHAHAHA! You know there isn't a snowball's chance in Hell of that happening. President Trump? RULE OF THE OPPOSITE THANG!
He's going to try to intimidate Mueller and attempt to lay the ground work to try and get him fired instead.

He who ignores history is doomed to repeat it. I have no doubt Trump will make such a stupid blunder. That will make impeachment a certainty. If Republicans in Congress did not act, in 2018 there would be a massive sweep of them out of office. Then we have the impeachment. Think they won't get 2/3 of the Senate to agree? Not after they see what happened to all their Republican comrades in the House.

And Trump will have a very hard time killing the investigation, even if he fires Mueller. For one thing, New York state would immediately hire Mueller and make it a state investigation. That works fine, and there is nothing Trump can do about it. If he tries anything too crazy, his cabinet revolts and uses the 25th Amendment to say he has had a breakdown and is unfit for office.

Besides, it doesn't take all of the Trump folks to be prosecution witnesses. Mueller wouldn't want ALL of them. Prosecutors only want two or three witnesses so they can prosecute all the other people. We're talking about Trump appointees here: The only loyalty most of them have is to themselves. I can see Obama appointees and employees going to jail for Obama. I don't see Trump's.

If Trump was smart, he would make a state visit to Argentina or Moscow and never come back.

Just as I expected: Three down and one of them makes a deal. George Papadopoulos is going to walk or at least do minimal prison time. Get in there and make your own deal now, before it's too late, Trump people! If you make them actually go to trial and prove your case, they're going to throw the book at you. And DO NOT accept a pardon: You won't go to Federal prison which would be a walk in the park. You'll go to New York State prison, and you could easily die in there.

This is a big part of why hiring a bunch of white-collar crooks for your gang doesn't work out in the end: They have no loyalty to anyone but themselves, and will sell you out to save their ass in a minute.

That folks, IS the collusion.

We need to march and protest until Donald J effing Trump is removed from Office.

'
Well, the Papadopoulos and Manafort are hitting the fan, and where they will spray, nobody knows.

We can be sure they will twist, slowly, in the wind until they name names, and so the tale will unfold. Much the same thing happened with John What's-His-Name when Nixon began to fall.

Everyone seems to have forgotten Wilbur Ross, Sec. of Commerce, and his money laundering with the Russian Oligarchs through the Bank of Cyprus.

I am reminded of Stalin's show trials in the 1930's, except in the USA the torture is less physical (at least, if you are a member of the upper classes), and as befits a "democratic" society, both Republicans and Democrats will have their "separate but equal" show trials --- the Repubs will do unto the Others as the Dems have done unto them --- I see it already forming in gossip about Fusion GPS and lawfirm Perkins-Coie doing the Democrat's dirty work with the Russians.

Get out your chemicalized popcorn and poisonous sugar-drinks, folks --- it should be very entertaining as these whiffs from the cesspool of Oligarch manipulation of American "democracy" turn into miasma when the cover of the cesspool is fully removed!
.

Let's see how low these indictments, and future indictments, can make Trump's number go.

I would like to know what the magic number is that makes even the most hardcore supporters in Congress call a special meeting where they all get together and decide that "it's him or them, and it's going to be HIM".

What was the approval number that Nixon hit?
I think it was 24%

Learned some very interesting stuff about Paul Manafort: He spent years in Ukraine working for the pro-Putin fellow to make him President using EXACTLY the same campaign tactics. President fled the country just ahead of the mob. When people in Ukraine heard that Manafort was working for Trump, they could see it all happening again, to their dismay.

Manafort has been a buddy of Trump for a very long time. He took the position with Trump without pay. (He already has millions from the Ukraine stuff.) When Trump made the announcement that Manafort was out, he really wasn't. That was just PR.

Manafort's daughter said in a lot of emails to friends that he took the job so he wouldn't be an employee, but rather a Trump equal partner. Looks like he was much more than "an adviser". She also said that Trump and Manafort are perfect partners. Trump sees himself as an American version of a Russian oligarch. It's all about money and power for both of them.

Paul Manafort also brought a lot of Russian Oligarchs to Donald Trump. These Oligarchs, whose ill-gotten wealth came from the break-up of the Soviet Union, purchased condos ( some Oligarchs more than one - several units ) in various Trump residential towers for WAY OVER ASKING PRICE. The Oligarchs got to tie their ill-gotten monies in real estate and Trump pocketed the extra money paid for the units.

Money laundering is a big part of Mueller's investigation.

The Manafort indictment has to have Trump pissing-his-pants nervous. It practically describes the Trump Organization.

I see Manafort has three passports and sometimes travels using fake names. Is Mueller exposing a global crime syndicate?

Well, yes. I think this line sums it up beautifully: The Papadopoulos Plea Deal and the Great Blowhard Convergence of the 2016 Election - the New Yorker. Have you ever seen as many "padded resumes" in any one place?

Sessions is going down. He lied to the Congressional committees and said that he was unaware of any connection between Russia and the Trump campaign, but Pappadapolous testified that Sessions was at the meeting where he brought up his Russia contact.

Partisan Senators and Reps in investigative hearings can go easy on you and accept your lies, but that is a trap: It's still perjury! And the Special Prosecutor will still indict you for it.

Trump lies so constantly that all his people have come to think they should lie as well. But if you lie to the FBI or Congress, that's Perjury. And here we have the ultimate fate of those who use "alternate facts".

From your lips to God's ears...

The Keebler Elf has baked his last batch of rotten cookies.

I was under the impression that Paul Manafort and Trump are almost sandbox buddies, with a friendship that goes back more than a decade.
Am I wrong?

Yep, and the Trump campaign was a duplicate of the campaign Manafort ran in Ukraine to get the Russian-puppet elected. That Presidency ended with the guy fleeing the country just ahead of a lynch mob. Hopefully, this happens in our case too.

Carter Page met with Russian officials during a July 2016 trip to Moscow

And he said he told Sessions about it, in direct conflict with Sessions sworn testimony before Congress. Is Sessions so senile he really does not remember? Or is he just a perjurer. Either way I don't think he can serve as AG.

And howzabout that Paul Manafort dude, bitching and moaning about having to be under house arrest?
What judge is crazy enough to let a confirmed (as in THREE PASSPORTS) flight risk like that bargain for his freedom?

Jeff asked me to drop this over here:

Putin actually answered, "Why, yes, I did, Donny, and now you are my slave for the rest of your term. Why? Because you cannot tell anyone the truth, since your administration would be gone by the time you got back to DC. All it takes is one nod from me and you are history. So let's talk about a unilateral reduction in America's nuclear arms and a complete removal of your military presence from anywhere that is not US territory. By the way, the borscht is terrific just after the beet harvest."

If Trump asked this question at all, he placed himself in a position of abject slavery to the Russian bear.

If you think about it for a minute you will see that Putin, a retired KGB colonel, would have had no choice except to say yes. There was never a greater opportunity for the Russians since 1917. Even if the true answer is no.

Ted, did you see this thread?

President Trump: John McCain:
Trump says he believes Putin's election meddling denials

Ted Remington:

Facebook post

Anyone doubt anymore that WikiLeaks is a Russian operation? The Secret Correspondence Between Donald Trump Jr. and WikiLeaks - CNN.

“I had no recollection of this meeting until I saw these news reports I got caught,” Mr. Sessions said.

I thought the same thing, how can AG Sessions remember only what has been reported and has no recollection of anything else. Seems odd, but then I have always thought AG Sessions was odd in a variety of ways

The Ronald Reagan defense.

Jefferson Beauregard's dotard bloated orange boss is no better!

Flynn has a deal with Mueller, and deals do not get made to implicate lower people in the organization. So who is higher than Flynn in the Trump administration? Who's ass is grass?

Obvious answer is Kushner, but Pence and Trump himself are also possible answers. Flynn supposedly was asked to resign because he lied about Russia contacts to Pence, but maybe he was doing exactly what he was told to do, and only these three would be in a position to tell him what to do.

Trump already said publicly that he didn't tell Flynn to make a deal with the Russians before the inauguration (which is a violation of The Logan Act), but that he would have if he thought Flynn was NOT doing that. Typical backhanded Trump confession! Since Trump has a very flexible memory and only a slight acquaintance with the truth, I think there is a very good chance Trump was one of those who told Flynn to break the law and undermine the Obama administration.

Anyway. Mueller knows all of Flynn's secrets now: You don't get such a plea deal without telling the whole truth to the prosecutor. And you don't get a such minor charge unless the prosecutor has a half dozen other charges he could make.

I think Trump should be thinking of an exit strategy. One he can claim as a "win".

Something to remember

Mr Trump is a narcissist. He has built an elaborate delusional world to insulate himself from reality in which he is the greatest etc. In is world he has done no wrong.

How would anyone convict someone who can not discern the difference between a delusional world and reality? If he were deposed I guarantee he will "lie", but in his world he will be telling the truth.

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAH!

The Trump people insist that this will be over by December. Frankly, I don't see how Mueller can prepare so many indictments by then. That's a lot of paperwork.

Maybe they are talking about Trump's 25th Amendment "victory retirement"?

I really think he should spend more time with his family for the short time he has left. At this rate, he won't know who they are pretty soon.

Trump boasts that he's very intelligent, but the reality is that Trump, is a simpleton. This whole Russia scandal is about Trump kissing Putin's butt so that Putin will approve a Trump Tower in Moscow - something that Trump has wanted since the early '90s.

Opportunists like Jared Kushner used his father-in-law to get in good with the Russians so that Jared could get Russian-backed money for his failing real estate business. The buiding that Jared owns at 666 Fifth Avenue was purchased at the height of the housing bubble, and a HUGE interest balloon payment is coming due in a few months. THAT is why Jared wanted "back-channels" to Russian oligarchs - so he could get funding for his real estate business.

Having said all of the above, Donald J Trump is involved in shady Russian oligarch money laundering which is a separate issue from his 2016 Election campaign issues - which was to get in good with Puty so that Trump Tower - Moscow could be built.

Robert Mueller is simply rolling all of these shenanigans into one giant criminal investigation.

There used to be a restaurant called "Top of the Sixes" on the top floor of that building. My folks used to take us all there whenever we came to NYC with them.
Food was so-so but the whole thrill of the place was the view, I guess.
They did have decent steaks but not much else.
By the time Jared purchased it, the Grand Havana Room, a cigar bar, had replaced TOT6's.

The UK Independent wrote in March 2017, that in April 2016 during the height of the GOP Presidential primary, Donald Trump met with Russia's US Ambassador, but that the Ambassador has since been recalled back to Moscow to get the Ambassador away from questioning him about the meeting with Donald J. Trump.

There is a REASON WHY Flynn was only charged with, and plead guilty to, a minor charge of lying to the FBI.
There is a REASON WHY Flynnn was able to get a plea deal like that from Mueller. Prosecutors NEVER EVER make a deal like that to get at LOWER people on the totem pole, they only make deals like that to get people HIGHER UP, and there are only a very few people higher up than Flynn.

I think we ALL KNOW who those higher-ups are, don't we?

Well yes, we do. But do we really think a handful of indictments will bring this administration down? With a congress like this even Richard Nixon would have remained in office.

2018 brother. That's our assignment, sweep both chambers in 2018.
Because even with all these indictments aside, if we do NOT sweep both chambers in 2018, we're toast anyway.

So all of this hinges on what kind of legislature we can give Mueller to work with in 2018.

Well it is time for this:

VOTE 2018

Never mind that we have a president that tweets every thought in his head.
Would be fine if they weren't the thoughts of a nine year old on CRACK COCAINE.
FDR used to have "fireside chats" on the radio. Well okay, a lot of people don't "listen to the radio" in the same way anymore, so okay...a prezzy could do a podcast.
Can you imagine what's going to happen to the American psyche if Trump discovers what podcasts are?

The smart people are not in charge anymore. The racist/bigot imbeciles have the floor now...until 2018.
If we don't take their lollipops away from them in 2018 then we are finished.

We now know WHY Republicans are going after Mueller's investigation NOW. Another shoe is about to drop: White House Counsel Knew in January Flynn Probably Violated the Law (Foreign Policy) - And he told the President. Actually, he told the President the day before Trump tried to strong arm FBI Director Comey to drop Flynn investigation.

The timeline fits perfectly. Slam dunk on the Obstruction Of Justice charge. Nobody can deny it.

A big part of the problem is that Trump is not a lawyer, so he has little idea of what is criminal and what is not. He's always done whatever he wanted and hired shyster lawyers to either get him out of it or in more cases, negotiate a settlement. He's still got the same caliber of lawyer and doesn't realize that Mueller and company are REAL lawyers and will eat Trump's lawyers for lunch.

Dont delude yourself. For proof watch the love fest at the WH. 11 Congressmen got up and praised Mr Trump and told him he was the greatest .... and you think these people will impeach him?

I for one am not one of those that think that impeachment of Trump AND Pence frees us from the core problem, but it certainly does terminate two of the worst current actors.
No one thought that killing Osama bin Laden would cause all of Al-Qaeda to lay down arms and run away, but the action still did considerable damage to their cause and their ability to conduct their craft.

Likewise, the killing of LaVoy Finnicum did similar damage to the Y'all-Qaeda paramilitary bunch.
Suddenly the Malheur Snack Brigade realizes that drawing a bead on law enforcement and hijacking a federal installation carries consequences.

Likewise, the impeachment of one, and possibly two sitting chief executives, preferably in a post 2018 victorious Congressional rout, signals that the Insane Clown Posse of the Elephant Party no longer owns the mandate to destroy the underpinnings of representative democracy like they thought.
So at best, "President" Paul Ryan would have to satisfy himself with jerking it to Ayn Rand books in the Executive Crapper and running out the clock until 2020 while we repair the damage and groom a sensible liberal candidate to lead us back to the United States of Sanity.

Minus a 2018 sweep of both chambers, impeachment is not going to happen.
I'm liberal, not stupid. I accept the fact that with Republicans owning the Trifecta plus the Golden Meatball, Trump could be caught fellating a nine year old while holding a crack pipe and his supporters in Congress would just say that we're "taking all of that out of context".

"President" Paul Ryan? If there was a 2018 Congressional rout, the Speaker could well be a Democrat.

It's really a gamble the Republicans have to think about. If they impeach Trump and optionally Pence, they end up with Republican control of the White house for three more years.

If they wait to be escorted out of the majority in Congress in 2018, the speaker could be a Democrat and impeachment of both Trump and Pence could put that Democrat in the Oval Office.

Representative Nadler from New York, the new senior member of the judiciary committee was on Chris Hayes' "All In" last night. He detests Trump, and the feeling is mutual. But he judiciously pointed out that impeachment is not going to happen - even if the House indicts, Trump will not be convicted in the Senate, which requires a 2/3 vote. There simply is no plausible scenario where a sufficient number (14-18 even if all Democrats vote to) of Republicans will vote to convict, ESPECIALLY if they are in the minority. They are power-mad and without principles. Is sad, but true.

What most of my liberal friends don't seem to understand is that the latter sounds like it is really well worth fighting for.

The first problem would be to find "crimes" worthy of actual of House charges being filed. Run of the mill emolument, 3rd party associations, etc, don't and would qualify for anyone but rabid partisans.

Channeling what Rep Nadler said, another Rep said essentially the same thing i.e. GOP control of House and Senate precludes almost every scenario one could devise based on currently known "facts".

So unless Mr Trump has committed a crime to heinous to even imagine what it would be, he will be free to do whatever he pleases. Remember it is Mr Trump who has control of the base, not the leaders of the GOP. It is purely political. And this gets even worse when one throws a little speculation in. Mr Trump "enjoys" about 35% approval rating. What if he went to war? Like a TV reality show cheerleader, Mr Trump has been campaigning for such a confrontation between the US and NK (or another country of your choice). The public would probably support a new war if properly provoked. Approval ratings high, statues to his greatness, and songs praising his greatness. Mueller? Who is that?



However, there is one scenario in which there may be a problem. Suppose he, in one of his narcissistic delusions believes he has now become emperor of America and can disband Congress as ineffective, etc etc. This may be the only scenario which would prompt the GOP into action.

Rambling so don't mind me

Maybe they could get him to lie about what the meaning of 'is' is, under oath? That's on the record as an impeachable offense, as I recollect...

LOL .... sure for Dems

just don't forget the administration lies with impunity .... so you want to charge someone with something which is "normal" for these folks (and it is not just the administration .... see Amb Hoekstra and his lies for textbook example)?

In addition don't forget Mr Trump suffers from a personality disorder, narcissism, which means he lies all the time. Even if under oath, he believes what he says is true. How do you convince someone who resides in an alternate reality they are lying and then how can you charge someone with a crime in this reality with something from that reality?

Ordinary "crimes" (lying, cheating, fraud, murder, etc) do not apply to Mr Trump. Like he said and like everyone who looks at this objectively says, a Republican Congress will not file charges.

So what would induce Congress into action? I am thinking stepping across Constitutional boundaries. Think .... "I do not work for you Mr President". Dissolution of courts. Pre-emptorily rounding up dissidents. .... If there is one thing which motivates at least Congress, it is power.

I don;t hold much hope with this bunch of Republicans who have apparently been to the crossroads.

They've chosen sides already. If there is a putsch, it will be "Republican."

Nonsense: They will impeach or Amendment 25 him the minute support for him threatens to lose them their jobs. Pence may be an idiot and a toady, but at least he's not a loose cannon.

i think almost all Republican strategists have offered the notion they will be drowned in 2018 to the point they may lose one or both houses of Congress. No one is suggesting they file charges.

Perhaps they believe their big beautiful tax cut for the wealthy and businesses will save them?

Now is the time to save their jobs ... their party. They all went home to unwrap Christmas presents. No one took a pen home.

It's nice to see that Russian corruption has a cost:

Goodbye Russia: A generation packs its bags

Magnitsky is not an isolated case at all. Thousands of young educated Russians are deciding they don't want to live in Putin's Paradise.

Impeachment takes time. They don't have that time. Interestingly, Rhona Graff was interviewed this week. What I wonder is: were they trying to get information from her, or to close down the Mueller investigation by souring the process and "warning" her about how the inquiry might go...
Too many Congressmen and Senators are working to protect Trump from his own failures.

what surprises me is the GROWING number who are starting to defend him. Had there been any real interest we should have seen perfunctory endorsements, instead we are seeing full throated defense (Spkr Ryan, Sen Graham as examples).

I am not in law enforcement but based on the "shows" I watch, I would think cleaver investigators would ask questions which provide no clues what the intent or direction of the interview was.

Now based on my educated analysis of Mr Trump's mental state, there are a couple of things which bother me. A narcissist by the very nature of the disorder lies, so nothing he says is of any value, unless the investigator knows how to ask questions which are invariant to Trump's alternate world and reality. Any one who has been around Mr Trump has to know he demands large amounts of praise and adulation (because he is a narcissist). What value is their testimony if they have been trained to lie? and what if they are willing to protect Mr Trump (a la loyalty). Would Mss Graff lie for him?

So even if they get everyone for perjury, we are no closer to the truth of what happened than when they started investigating, unless of course they have the hard copy for everything.

Roger Stone, the delusional Clinton demonizer, says the cabinet has considered the 25th but from an establishment Republican perspective. Even though he has no credibility, in my opinion, he may be right but not about why they would consider it.

I am about 85-95% sure Spkr Ryan will not allow charges to be filed regardless of what Mueller finds out about Mr Trump.

Politifact's "Lie of the Year":

Russia did not mess with U.S. elections

Mr Trump denies Russian interference in election

This works from 2 different perspectives both of which support his narcissism

1. The Russians interference, with or without his knowledge, simply means they were supporting Trump's greatness as a powerful individual.

2. Any criticism which mentions Russian interference undermines Trump's greatness.

Mr Trump, as a narcissist would see Russian help in a different light than someone without a personality disorder. Thus while you may see it as criminal, he would see it as praise and adulation which would not be criminal.

The 25th would be the way to go, if there are enough honest men left in the administration.

Actually, one of the main reasons I believe there was collusion is that Trump insists there wasn't. I have not heard a lot of truth come out of that mouth, so I assume he's lying. Probably most of his supporters have figured out by now that almost everything he says is a lie. They just don't care.

for the most part I think that is true and valid.

Almost everything of a personal nature which depicts him as great is probably a lie. Largest crowds, biggest hands, greatest negotiator, etc. He is however a fast food junkie. It will depend on as an example food. For instance, the tacos (or whatever it was) are the greatest tacos made, which by happenstance are made at his hotel therefore making him great.

and, as you say, as the music plays on, with a resounding cacophony of dissonance, his supporters think it is the sweetest music ever played by any mortal or immortal human.

I think that was a typo, you meant "immoral", right?

LOL

from Mr Trump's perspective it would be a 20 foot tall statue ... ahhh ... correction ... 30 foot tall .... but today only ... tomorrow he may be greater than great ... you know its gotta be taller than "THE WALL"

and even if you think he is "immoral" his supporters still love him

sometimes i can see a couple of the dimensions moving in and out of my reality and I can see Mr Trump's alternate reality clearly ... now i have to wonder if the forces of nature will impose a new and different reality on all of us ... there are no facts but the ones Mr Trump says are true whether valid or not

The alternate reality dimensions of this situation remind me of so many dystopian/alternate reality fantasies like the Matrix, Inception, Dr. Strange... am i just not seeing reality?

Well it is very difficult to ignore the fact that Trump and today's Republicans are transforming America into "The Hunger Games", aka "one of the great modern dystopian stories of the decade".

I think you're wrong.

If Republicans remain in power, eliminate the voices of Democrats, load the judicial system with partisan judges, continue the willy nilly deregulation of environmental and labor laws, and pretty much get everything they want, this will be the greatest dystopian story of the century.

We're both saying the same thing, actually.
I was saying Hunger Games was a STORY, you're saying Trump's America will be a REALITY.

Trump was recently saying his approval ratings are about the same as President Obama's in his first year in spite of “massive negative Trump coverage & Russia hoax!”

Yeah, the only thing Obama had dragging him down was Trump flapping his gums about sending mythical investigators to Hawaii to investigate his birth certificate and the (literally) unbelievable things they were finding out down there.

P.S. The only polls that show Trump even close to Obama are obvious outliers.

Trump can't wait to do revisionist history, he's into revisionist present.

Trump is nearly as popular as Vladimir Putin - In Russia. Some people have selective hearing, and selective memory. Trump has selective reality.

It's just like a white supremacist like Donald J Trump to want to discount accomplishments of America's first black president.

did you take the red pill or the blue pill?

you're treating Mr Trump as a rational player. He has a personality disorder which precludes him seeing any reality but his own delusion.

For him if it elevates him, praises him, loves him, etc it is true. If it is negative, it is false.

He lives in an alternate universe in real time. From his perspective what he says is true and valid.

The problem is you are not a part of his universe.

reminds me of this

There must be consequences in the partisan crusade against Mueller- The Hill (David Brooks) And, it appears, a number of Republicans agree: Republican Attacks on Mueller and F.B.I. Open New Rift in G.O.P. - NYT. "Now some Republican lawmakers are speaking out, worried that Trump loyalists, hoping for short-term gain, could wind up staining the party, dampening morale at the F.B.I. and Justice Department, and potentially recasting Democrats as the true friends of law enforcement for years to come."

And don't forget: We have internet now. Everything any of these Trump supporters say will be recorded and available to their opponents in every election for the rest of their lives. When this is all over and Trump is gone and pretty universally despised, they are going to have to see themselves attacking the forces of the rule of law over and over again. Their political lives will be over. The history books will label them all traitors.

Yup. My hope is that the Dems smarten-up and quit bringing compostable "faux-plastic" knives to street-fights. And, instead, bring solid stainless steel, serrated-edged knives to these media campaign ad street-fights.

Heh, heh, heh: Trump had his lawyer sent Bannon a Cease and Desist letter claiming he violated a confidentiality agreement, and to stop libeling him. But this is a trap for Trump! If there ever WAS a court action, Bannon would testify under oath and prove everything he claims. Then Trump would have to testify under oath and he would perjure himself. He just can't help it. His brain has obviously deteriorated enough that he can't remember what he said the day or hour before.

His lawyers will NEVER let him take the stand.

In the words of Don Trump Jr: "I love it."

This Bannon v Trump in-fighting is so awesome. I'll have to buy a Costco-sized carton of microwave popcorn and just sit-back and do some reading.

Steve Bannon said that Donald J Trump is a money launderer (quelle surprise! ) and that Robert Mueller is on the right track.

That's been so obvious ever since all the US banks figured out Trump would always rip them off.

Deputy AG, FBI director make unannounced visit to Paul Ryan's office. "Muzzle your dog," they said, "and you'll be the next President."

Can Mueller file charges against sitting members of Congress who are patently trying to obstruct an investigation?

Why would any sane rational person want to do that if they were innocent?

Inquiring minds want to know.

I think we know now that the FBI investigations started long before the Steele dossier was published, because George Papadopoulos made a drunken confession to Australia's top diplomat in England that the Russians had hacked Democratic emails. Australia contacted the FBI. The stuff in the Steele dossier just confirmed some of their info.

So Nunes' entire theory is blown all to hell. He's barking up the wrong tree and instead of changing trees, he's just barking louder. He's going to be disgraced and then out of office after November.

The recent revelations from Fusion just make these Republican committee members look like gangsters instead of Congressmen.

That's a good question. Probably not, although... I was going to post a lengthy response when I came across this article while researching. It does a better job than I could, anyway. Why It is Pointless to Sue a Member of Congress for Defamation - Point of Order. Although the issues are different, the concept is the same.

One person's "obstruction" is another's "constituent service".

perhaps constituent nullification ... o thats right ... they voted for Mr Trump

This is so much like Watergate, it is stunning: If they just acknowledged the original crime, sent a few people to jail, and then moved on, it would not have been a big deal. Instead it is all the things they do right up to the highest levels to cover up the crime, that get them in deeper and deeper. Covering up a crime IS Obstruction of Justice! It is much more serious than even the original crime, unless somebody was killed. And it is certainly a High Crime when the President does it.

If Trump was not such a basic crook, at the first mention of Russian dirt they would have called in the FBI. Maybe NOBODY would have gone to jail at all!

There were five Watergate burglars, but 40 government officials were indicted or jailed in the end.

considering the "fact" or belief these people are incompetent, they may be trying to coverup something which was not a crime, which would be fitting.

Then of course, once a SP came into the picture, it would only be a matter of time before the SP uncovered problems with the money.

Yeah, it's interesting that there are so many entirely different people with different piles of illegal money! It's not just one person with one money laundering event. It's as if Trump couldn't find people who had not ever done it.

Is there some kind of money launderers club we don't know about?

yes!!!

It is the Trump Train .... get on board ... Moscow bound ....

Micheal Wolff's book Fire and Fury is causing the Trump WH and the RNC into full-on meltdown/panic mode. I love it!!

Wolff must be VERY happy now. I don't see how any book could have a better release. He's going to make a butt-load of money! But it brings up a very interesting question: Why would the Trump administration let somebody have such access when they know the day-to-day operations are in shambles? Was that just a case of the shambles being non-functional to that extent? Nobody noticed a reporter sitting there on the couch, talking to everyone, and taking notes on everything?

Or did Donald approve it, assuming anyone must be a sycophant, and then nobody questioned it. That seems quite likely. The fact that Donald denies knowing the guy makes me believe he did that. Just like he didn't know Flynn or Manafort.

Because Donald J Failure is such a narcissist that he probably thought the book would be a glowing affirmation of what an awesome human being he is...

Michael Wolff is a smooth operator. He did the same thing to Murdoch. He wrote a number of seemingly positive articles to get in the door... Then...

Har!!! You'd think Rupert would have given Donald Trump a heads up, an advance warning!

I wrote this at dead Andrew's blog for aggrieved and angry white supremacists, and it was removed.



Whiny, crybaby beta cucks...

"You can't stop what's coming..."
---Anton Chigurh - "No Country For Old Men"



Mueller indicates he is likely to seek interview with Trump

7 eye-opening revelations from the Fusion GPS testimony - The Week. Mark your calendars. This is big.

VERY interesting developments in the Russia collusion investigation today. I'm sure some bloated orange turd is sweating like a whore in church right about now.

After sending Pee-Wee Herman out to defend him on Sunday, Donnie Dementia must be freaking out right now.

Clearly Mueller's probe is winding down: Mueller adds veteran cyber prosecutor to special-counsel team - WaPo (subscription).

Honestly, there is a chance that Mueller will find insufficient evidence against Trump. I would not be shocked (although disappointed). I think, though, what he wants to do is lock Trump into testimony, now, so that he can focus on discrediting it later.

A year after Buzzfeed published the Steele dossier, and just a day after the Fusion GPS transcript was produced, is a good time to take A Second Look at the Steele Dossier.

New York Times: Russia’s interference in the 2016 presidential election fits into a nearly two-decade pattern of meddling with governments around the world, and the United States’ response to its brazen attack is being hindered by President Trump, a new report prepared by Senate Democrats concludes.


PDF file

Well, well, well, apparently when Trump whispered to his Don, "Will no one rid me of this meddlesome Special Counsel?" No one answered.

What is the deal with Nunes? He has written a memo that we aren't allowed to read, but we are to believe that it proves beyond a doubt malfeasance by the Obama administration. Apparently this memo was not written to be read, it is to be waved in the air while foaming at the mouth.

It is The ConROT Way. They think of it as 'manu-fact-uring'.

Nunes is actually under investigation by the Ethics Committee for leaking secret documents to make his phony case against Fusion. This guy has no sense of shame.

Interesting article about all the administration figures willing to commit perjury. Looks quite like "somebody" asked them all to do that, which is the crime of Suborning Perjury. This is very similar to Watergate. Almost all the 40 people indicted were for the cover-up, not the original crime.

It’s Beginning to Look a Lot Like Conspiracy


With Mueller looking at people's tax returns, it looks like Trump and Kushner families have all engaged in massive money laundering schemes for years. Ivanka's going to look cute in an orange jumpsuit! Lots of companies are going to change hands because felons are not allowed by the states to serve as officers. Trump supporters are going to be overwhelmed by the sheer criminality. The hard core is going to be reduced to people similar to Charles Manson fans.

I predict DoJ will not file charges. The several States may, but not AG Sessions.

Likewise I predict no level of "treason, bribery, or other high crimes and misdemeanors" will be enough for Republicans in the House to file charges.

Resist

Let's see what we wind up with in November.

" Ivanka's going to look cute in an orange jumpsuit!"

Well PIA, some say that Orange is the new Black...

Well, Agent Orange is certainly not the new Barack!

Your prediction is already proved wrong as soon as you made it! Charges and indeed convictions have already been made by the Special Prosecutor. Sessions has nothing to do with it. In fact, he's probably hoping he doesn't get indicted for lying to Congress! Meanwhile Mueller just keeps on interviewing and charging people in Trump's administration.

As for charges for Trump, those have no effect on a sitting President. The Special Prosecutor will report High Crimes to Congress. It's up to them to impeach and convict Trump. After he's removed from office, THEN there can be criminal charges. I predict a very great many. If there is a Blue Wave (as special elections have predicted), then there will be a Democratic majority in Congress and Ryan will not be Speaker. I think Mueller might just wait for this to bring his charges to Congress.

Then if they impeach and convict Trump and Pence together, we could end up with President Pelosi. Or they could make Hillary Speaker just before they convict them...

I was of course only referring to Mr Trump while as a sitting president. No one else is signing into law any bill from Congress. No one else is implementing policies aimed at supporting the fundamentalist Christian agenda. etc

Getting ahead of yourself with a speculative scenario. First it is not clear that even if the Democrats win the House leadership would submit Congress to proceedings which only superficially are appealing to many. Consider secondly, that even if charges are filed in the House, Mr Trump would have to be tried in the Senate. Unless you can guarantee 67 senators would vote for conviction (and then only if the charges are serious ... remember Pres Clinton committed perjury and suborned perjury and was not convicted). Your dream of a Clinton presidency ... well ... probably just a dream.

All based on what I currently know. If Mueller should find really damning evidence, my opinion would probably change.

The only real solution is 2020 and hope the ignorance of American voters does not increase between now and then.

I think there is strong evidence for a Blue Wave. We've seen special elections with Democratic wins in deeply Republican places. Was Alabama a special case because Moore was a child predator? Maybe, but it shows that Democrats CAN win anywhere if Republicans are disgusting enough. With enough evidence of Republican dereliction of duty, they could have a real problem in November, and if they keep shielding Trump that will be enough.

So given a Democratic Congress, does Trump even stay in office? Or does he just resign in a temper tantrum? He can't get anything he wants: Congress can pass actual laws that overcome his executive orders, and the courts have never done much to support him. I'm thinking with just a slim Democratic majority in Congress he resigns. He just does not have the skills or patience to be President with the opposition running Congress.

that may be true, however, i think one should analyze the situation from the narcissists perspective.

Would a narcissist cut and run? I think in this case he can smell delusions which no one has ever seen. Already he not only believes but has his supporters convinced, he can shoot people in broad daylight on tv and they would still support him. what if his delusion becomes one of sympathy. The Democrats are so mean he can't get his MAWhateverAgain agenda passed. His supporters would idolize him. He would be proclaimed a martyr of populist causes. Can one imagine what that would do for his needy narcissistic ego?

I think there will be a wave, but whether it will be a tsunami or a gentle ripple I don't know. In either case and supposing the Dems win the House, remember how Rep Pelosi immediately called for an investigation into members of the former administration? You don't remember because they did not investigate.

BTW, have you noticed Mr Trump (really VP Pence) has packed the federal courts with ultra right wing nuts, and more importantly the SC has an inherent conservative advantage now. Think about this, should there be any legal (read that as Constitutional) matter tied to the SP and the president, do you really believe the court would not side with the president?

More ignorant "conservatives" will be pushing-up daisies between today and election 2020.

Respectfully disagree.
A Democrat sweep of both chambers in Congress would accomplish several very therapeutic things:

1. It would put a muzzle on Mitch McConnell and Paul Ryan.
2. It would also put the members of the Free Dumb ! Caucus on a short leash.
3. It would give us enough breathing room and a fighting chance to start fixing some of the damage. Maybe not all but some is better than nothing. Perfect must not be allowed to once AGAIN become the enemy of GOOD.
4. It would put Mr. Trump on a very short leash as well, and the extra bonus in that is, he may very well chafe SO HARD at such a prospect that he might martyr himself. After all, he does know that he is not going to walk out of this term, whether abbreviated or full, with any prospects of a 2020 win if the Dems can do a decent job of restoring sanity. He also knows that, whenever he does leave the White House, several Swords of Damocles await, not to mention one of these:



He's unstable enough right now that he may just QUIT...it is NOT out of the realm of possibility. Nixon used the EXCUSE that he had "lost his power base in Congress". Never mind what the reality is, this is Donald Trump, and that might sound like a good enough line that he can craft his own paraphrase and pretend he is leaving "honorably", even while he plots one last scorched earth F-U salute.
We just have to prevent him from starting a WAR, which is the ultimate last hurrah for a guy like him.

I said it before, and I honestly don't think it is impossible, I'd even be willing to make book on it:

Trump leaves, flees to Russia, is awarded Russian citizenship by Vlad, and, together with Steven Seagal, becomes the latest James Bond villain.

suppose the Dems take both houses. My analysis is the best that can occur is they stop the bleeding.

The problem facing the Dems is Mr Trump will not sign any bill. How does the Senate override a veto with only 52 Democrat senators?

Actually, the SC has exactly the same conservative and liberal makeup it had when Scalia was on it. Roberts is actually a bit of a pragmatist (look at his ACA vote) and Kennedy is often a swing vote. Just because Gorsuch is a turd, versus Scalia's great writing ability, doesn't change anything. If anything, the other Justices are less likely to concur with Gorsuch than they were with Scalia.

And almost all of the SC Justices care a heck of a lot more about the integrity of the Judicial System than they do about a President. He only serves 4 or 8 years (or in Trump's case even less!). They are there for life. This is why Supreme Court appointees constantly disappoint their nominators. Presidents think they are nominating someone who will be their bitch. Almost never works out that way.

Ryan will not be Speaker if Democrats take the House. (He may even lose his seat.) The turtle is out if Democrats can just take a few Senate seats. Zero Republican bills ever get considered again. Trump can't get anything passed and nothing but insults and threats non-stop from Congress. All his people get indicted and lose their jobs and he can't get any of his pet sociopath replacements confirmed. Just competent, experienced people who actually do things well and legal and mostly ignore him..

He might as well just take his football and go home.

He also can't create much of anything except sound and fury.
He won't have the choir behind him anymore and he won't be getting his daily folder of "nice things about Donald Trump".
Stopping the bleeding is a good place to start.
Who said that the best we can hope for is 52?

Stop thinking SMALL.

well ... for an ordinary person with a weak ego, they may fold under that kind of pressure, but Mr Trump is a narcissist, which comes with an inflated sense of Godliness etc. He can easily mold his delusional world to make room for the adoration of his supporters and "Fox & Friends" while biding his time flaunting his immaculate, greatest ever win as the greatest ever candidate, etc

It is not about politics, or the country. It is all about Mr Trump. Imagine ... long weekends at M-a-L ... bashing Dems and Reps and world leaders ... singing praises of Putin, Erodogan, Duarte, etc

TrumpWorld is not a part of your reality

thinking realistically ... saves on the heartaches

I'm, personally, at a pretty low point over developments. The TrumPublican corruption machine is grinding on. The Justice Department and FBI are being warped out of recognition. Crony politics are destroying government institutions. They might succeed in undermining the Mueller investigation. What really gets me is how brazen it is and how deeply immoral and unpatriotic they are about it. And they're getting away with it!.

I'll be honest. I really thought the country had turned a corner after the disaster of George W. Bush with the election of Barack Obama. I'm not naive enough to overlook the faults, but government was being led with vision and an attempt at decency. The 2016 election showed me just how foolish that thought really was. It hurts to be shown a fool.

There are still good, decent, and honorable people out there really trying to make things better for everyone, but they've been out manuveured by brazen crooks. Yes, I think 2018, and hopefully 2020 can reverse some of the worst predations - but that's less certain than I'd hope and the tornado of destruction is daunting. Every major institution of the country I love is under sustained attack, every principle undergirding our country is being deliberately undermined. And for what? I really think it's evil. Just pure malice. It really hurts.

So thinking realistically, what do you suppose happens in 2020 if the economy is still chugging along, unemployment is still down, NAFTA becomes more US friendly, illegal immigration is slowed to a stand still, the DACA kids are taken care of and the Russia circus is proven to be a Hillary campaign smear?

My guess is that 2020 is far less a sure thing than it was last week.

Tim

LOL ... so you are optimistically speculating and believe that is realistic ... I think you should take a long hard look in the mirror

reality bites:
1. if conservatives insist on "the Wall" there will be no DACA solution. conservatives and Mr Trump are holding the DACA folks hostage so they can say they solved a problem. Conservatives rely on perspectives which incite their ignorant base ... "they're coming across the border and Dems want them to" ... really?
2. illegal immigration is on the uptick .... wait for it ... during the Trump presidency
3. why would any country agree to any trade agreement which puts them at a disadvantage? You really believe Mr Trump can bully countries to do what he wants them to do?
4. facts matter ... the global GDP is running about 3.4% ... the US GDP is about 2.6% ... what you won't recognize is the GDP has been going up every year since 2010 and yet it is lower than the global GDP and BRIC is rising faster than the US rate ... so GDP is simply a continuation of the previous inertia and is being pulled up by global demands. I hope you didn't think Mr Trump did that all on his own?

unemployment is a continuation of the previous direction of work but the jobs creation number is lower than Pres Obama's last year.

I rather suspect you have been seduced by Trump propaganda and so ignore the facts. Here is an example of that propaganda: several companies are giving employees bonuses, raises, etc, the Trump administration is claiming that proves their tax bill is working. No it actually does not prove anything, but that will not stop you from believing it does. Consider the projection of one company is a 3% rise in wages. Sounds good, but when adjusted for inflation of 2%, we have a real wage increase of only 1% down from last years 1.9%.

Reality is a bitch.

It is NOT JUST pure malice.
In order to install authoritarian theocratic fascism, which IS the ACTUAL admitted default of the Christian Taliban, AND the most convenient COVER FOR the billionaire elites, the institutions of democratic civil society must be softened up, corrupted, weakened, and finally, destroyed.
The final step after the daunting tornado of destruction is a global crisis, one which grips this nation in a desperate panic, one in which the American people will literally BEG for a strongman to rescue them.

That is indeed when you shall see PURE EVIL and MALICE, wrapped in the flag and carrying a cross, my friend.

Sea changes like this are never ever just about the baser instincts of ordinary greed. They are always about greed, and CONQUEST.
Add in the Messianic vision of the Christian Right and you have people who see themselves as gods walking the Earth.

History shows a very clear lesson on where this sort of thing always leads. It's now been a generation or more since the last time, and in the intervening years a new generation has been shielded from the horrors their parents knew, and they've begun to embrace an evil which was once thought wiped out for eternity.

Slouching toward the New Kristallnacht...

Three years out the scenario is just as realistic as any other one. Also, Trump has offered to legalize 1.8 million people, it is the Dems who are stopping it from happening. Do I believe it is a ploy, probably, but they knew that the Dems were lying through their teeth. The Dems don't care about the DACA kids, they only care about scoring political points.

I still believe that Donald Trump is a moron, somebody who shouldn't be President. He is, however, President and therefore has the bully pulpit. He beat Hillary and he will probably beat he detractors in Congress. His style isn't something I enjoy, but if he continues to succeed, I will reassess his fitness for the office. The only qualifications for the office is age, US citizenship and the number of votes in the Electoral College. Maybe has us all fooled, and this is just an act? Either way, he is on a winning streak and the longer you guys try to put him into a political box, the more likely it is that his efforts will succeed.

It has actually been kind of fun, as long as I can ignore the fact that he is a moron.

Tim

But we'll just pretend that being unable to bring a bill to the floor, or even initiate discussion, is also part of "the Democratic Party ploy"?
Honestly Tim, your pretense that the Dems, who have absolutely ZERO power, are going to then ignore the one thing they have left at their disposal, is thick and absurdly partisan.

I'm sure you won't believe THIS lib-tard, but I am actually okay with us transitioning to a merit based immigration system and imposing quotas on how many legal immigrants come in, but here's the catch, one which I suspect future administrations on both sides will chafe at:

It must be independent, stable, and be run with a long-term view and not subject to every little blip in the economy, every little pet peeve of some poobah, petty or grand.
It must be apolitical in the general sense, and it must be presented as the de facto long term blueprint that prospective immigrants can count on.
Choosing to leave one's homeland is a huge undertaking, and most immigrants would prefer to find an honorable excuse to "fall in love", at least a little bit, with their new home, to whatever extent is possible.

No more recruiting braceros by Del Monte buses when we're at war, then turning around and calling them "wetbacks" when the GI's come home, and busing them BACK by the millions to the middle of the desert with no water.

No more embracing them in order to displace American born Chicanos and desperate Okies fleeing the Dust Bowl, then subjecting their kids to raids just as they are wrapping up their college education.
No more deporting productive and honorable 30-40 year green card holders who are guilty of the equivalent of an unpaid parking ticket.

No more splitting apart families, no more profiting off their misery in for profit private detention facilities.

We're either welcoming them in as per The Statue of Liberty or we're saying that we're full up for the year, try again next year.

And no more classifying valid refugees as criminal border jumpers.
When the citizens of the world acknowledge that a land is gripped by terror, or when the evidence proves that our actions contributed to current events which promulgated that flow of refugees, we are to do the right and honorable thing by them.
We are AMERICANS.

When right, to be kept right, and when wrong, to be made right.

That above phrase is the SECOND half of the famous:
"My country, right or wrong" meme.

Lets start with the DACA kids. These are people who had no choice and didn't really do anything wrong. Trump offered to allow 1.8 million apply for citizenship, implement that.

I have to admit that the current immigration system is so deeply flawed that the only solution that I can come up with is a mote with alligators and machine gun armed guard towers, but that is me. You underestimate the amount of power that the minority actually has under the current rules. As was shown with the shutdown, the Dems can easily apply pressure, they just chose the wrong issue to use.

Look, this is an easy issue. They came in illegally, they shouldn't be allowed to stay. Most immigrants today add nothing to the modern society. They do not learn the language, they do not integrate into society and they tend to segregate themselves. This behavior leads to no go zones, gangs and violence. Don't believe me? Try walking around at night in little Havana in Miami and see how you fare.

I really do sympathize, but they have overrun the country to the point where they have to be forced out. If it is a hardship to them, just think of the hardship it is for the US. My children are the lucky ones, they actually found jobs as teens. The jobs that you and I had when we were 14 and 15 are now being manned by illegal aliens. The inner city jobs, also being manned by illegal aliens. What happens when kids have too much time on their hands? They do stupid things, they get involved in stupid things and they get in trouble. Hell, in my little town of 17,000 we have had multiple ICE raids on Dunkin Donuts and gas stations. Suddenly, these establishments are putting out help wanted signs and demanding proof of citizenship.

Time for them to leave, let them straighten out their own country, instead of infecting the US.

Tim