Sunday, March 31, 2019
Friday, March 29, 2019
Mr. Schiff goes to Washington.
Look at this guy, does he look like someone who should be making fun of Adam Schiff's neck?
Anyway, speaking of Adam Schiff, his beat down of republicans in Washington yesterday was epic, and the transcript from it is worthy of an entire blog post.
"Adam Schiff, speaking before the House Intelligence Committee meeting on March 28, 2019:
My colleagues might think it’s okay that the Russians offered dirt on the Democratic candidate for president as part of what’s described as the Russian government’s effort to help the Trump campaign. You might think that’s okay. My colleagues might think it’s okay that when that was offered to the son of the president, who had a pivotal role in the campaign, that the president’s son did not call the FBI, he did not adamantly refuse that foreign help — no, instead that son said he would ‘love’ the help with the Russians.
You might think it was okay that he took that meeting. You might think it’s okay that Paul Manafort, the campaign chair, someone with great experience running campaigns, also took that meeting. You might think it’s okay that the president’s son-in-law also took that meeting. You might think it’s okay that they concealed it from the public. You might think it’s okay that their only disappointment after that meeting was that the dirt they received on Hillary Clinton wasn’t better. You might think it’s okay. I don’t.
You might think it’s okay that, when it was discovered a year later that they had lied about that meeting and said it was about adoptions, you might think it’s okay that the president is reported to have helped dictate that lie. You might think it’s okay. I don’t.
You might think it’s okay that the campaign chairman of a presidential campaign would offer information about that campaign to a Russian oligarch in exchange for money or debt forgiveness. You might think that’s okay. I don’t. You might think it’s okay that that campaign chairman offered polling data, campaign polling data, to someone linked to Russian intelligence. I don’t think that’s okay.
You might think it’s okay if that the president himself called on Russia to hack his opponent’s emails, if they were listening. You might think it’s okay that, later that day, the Russians in fact attempted to hack a server affiliated with that campaign. I don’t think that’s okay.
You might think that it’s okay that the president’s son-in-law sought to establish a secret back-channel of communication with Russians through a Russian diplomatic facility. I don’t think that’s okay.
You might think it’s okay that an associate of the president made direct contact with the GRU through Guccifer 2.0 and WikiLeaks, that is considered a hostile intelligence agency. You might think it’s okay that a senior campaign official was instructed to reach that associate and find out what that hostile intelligence agency had to say, in terms of dirt on his opponent.
You might think it’s okay that the national security adviser-designate secretly conferred with a Russian ambassador about undermining U.S. sanctions, and you might think it’s okay he lied about it to the FBI.
You might say that’s all okay. You might say that’s just what you need to do to win. But I don’t think it’s okay. I think it’s immoral, I think it’s unethical, I think it’s unpatriotic and, yes, I think it’s corrupt, and evidence of collusion.
Now, I have always said that whether this amounts to proof of conspiracy was another matter. Whether the special counsel could prove beyond a reasonable doubt the proof of that crime was up to the special counsel and that I would accept his decision, and I do. He is a good an honorable man and he is a good prosecutor.
But I do not think that conduct, criminal or not, is okay. And the day we do think that’s okay is the day we will look back and say, that is the day America lost its way.
And I’ll tell you one more thing that is a propos of the hearing today. I don’t think it’s okay that during a presidential campaign Mr. Trump sought the Kremin’s help to consummate a real estate deal in Moscow that would make him a fortune. According to the special counsel, hundreds of millions of dollars. I don’t think it’s okay that he concealed it from the public. don't think it's okay he advocated a new and more favorable policy towards the Russians, even as he was seeking the Russian's help, the Kremlin’s help, to make money.
I don't think it's okay that his attorney lied to our committee. There is a different word for that than collusion and it's called compromise. And that's the subject of our hearing today."
Mr. Schiff, you have my attention.
Wednesday, March 27, 2019
"Mueller Report Does Not Disprove that Trump Is a Crook The truth is less dramatic, but more sordid."
I gotta give it to Adam Schiff, he is so all of us right now. Like most of us with common sense and a functioning brain, he is not letting trump off the hook. He understands that Mr. Mueller's investigation could not meet the tough criminal standard to prove collusion, but he also understands, like most of us, that Mr. trump and his cohorts did a lot of shady things in plain sight, and that a lot of them have been charged and convicted of their crimes. I just wonder how long Mr. Barr can keep the full report from the citizens of this country.Mr. trump might not have colluded with the Russian government, but he certainly colluded with RUSSIANS who might or might not been connected to the government.
In the meantime, I have an essay for you to read which you might find interesting.
"The report by Special Counsel Robert Mueller, which does not establish that Donald Trump or his campaign actively took part in a conspiracy with Russia to subvert the 2016 presidential election, is a major blow to Trump’s political opponents.
Critics on the left and the right have attacked news outlets that pumped up the Russia investigation, inflating hopes for defeating Trump based on the theory that he was a real-life Manchurian Candidate, elected by conspiring with Russia to subvert the outcome of the 2016 election.
The truth is less dramatic, but more sordid: It’s not that Trump engaged in secret dealings with the Russians in order to become President of the United States; it’s that Trump ran for President as a publicity stunt, figuring he would lose, all the while focusing on his real goal: a secret hotel deal he was working out with the Russians to build his Trump Tower Moscow.
We learned the details of that scheme from Michael Cohen, Trump’s personal attorney, who testified before the House Oversight Committee: “To be clear, Mr. Trump knew of and directed the Trump-Moscow negotiations throughout the campaign and lied about it. He lied about it, because he never expected to win.”
Cohen, who pleaded guilty to felony charges and was sentenced to prison after lying to Congress to protect Trump, is one of the many people with close ties to Trump who have been criminally charged as a result of the Mueller investigation. Others include Trump’s former campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, former deputy campaign chairman Rick Gates, former National Security Adviser, Michael Flynn, former campaign foreign policy adviser George Papadopoulos, and former campaign strategist Roger Stone.
The claim that the Mueller investigation was a big nothingburger flies in the face of all thirty-four indictments by the special counsel, as well as the facts that we know were uncovered—even without reading the full report.
In fact, Attorney General William Barr’s four-page summary disproves Trump’s claims that the investigation was simply a “witch hunt.”
Barr notes that Mueller found plenty of evidence of Russian hacking and a disinformation campaign aimed at tilting the outcome of the 2016 election in Trump’s favor. That alone is sufficient justification for the investigation.
Mueller also explicitly stated, according to Barr, that, on obstruction of justice, “while this report does not conclude that the President committed a crime, it also does not exonerate him.”
What the Mueller investigation did not find was an explicit agreement between the Trump campaign and the Russian government to subvert the election. Mueller left it to the Attorney General’s office to decide whether the investigation had uncovered conclusive proof of obstruction by the President. The Attorney General quickly decided to clear Trump on that charge. Members of Congress are demanding to see the evidence. And they should.
Meanwhile, thanks to Mueller, we have learned a lot more about the mobster-like behavior of the President of the United States. As Cohen explained to the House Oversight Committee: “Mr. Trump did not directly tell me to lie to Congress. That’s not how he operates.”
“Mr. Trump had made clear to me through his personal statements to me that we both knew to be false, and through his lies to the country, that he wanted me to lie,” Cohen continued. “And he made it clear to me because his personal attorneys reviewed my statement before I gave it to Congress.”
In other words, Trump is smart enough to hint about crimes he wants his aides to commit, without coming out and making an explicit agreement to that effect.
What is important here is not whether Trump directed the Russian government to interfere in the election. What’s important is that the Russian government meddled in our election to help him, and that we now have a President of the United States who lies continually, who puts his own financial interests ahead of the interests of the country, and who is stunningly unprepared and uninterested in his job, and was as shocked as anyone that he was elected in the first place.
Trump has used his time in office to stir up conflict and petty personality wars to serve his own ego, and to continue running his family business, Sopranos-style. Cohen is going to prison in part for a scheme to use campaign funds to make hush-money payments to a porn star for Trump.
We are sure to learn more tawdry details about the Trump organization’s business practices and campaign finance violations from the investigation now underway in the Southern District of New York.
This much is clear: The case against Trump is not over with the Mueller report. Forget the spin about a report that did not find specific criminally indictable evidence of a conspiracy with Russia. Focus on the mountain of evidence that the President is unfit for office." [Story]
Monday, March 25, 2019
Disappointment and then anger.
A As a kid growing up in a Seventh Day Adventist home, I would hear talk about The Great Disappointment from time to time. Every Adventist knew about that day on October 22, 1844, when William Miller declared that the Lord would return to earth.People sold all their belongings, quit their jobs, and waited with their families for that great day. Sadly, it never happened. It turns out that poor William Miller got the book of Daniel out of the bible all wrong.
A lot of democrats and progressives are feeling like those Millerites felt back then. The Mueller Report was, to them, a modern day version of the Daniel 8 prophecy.
Bob Mueller decided that he did not find enough evidence to proclaim that the trump crime family colluded with the Russians to win the 2016 elections. Folks are upset, and they believe that the fix was in all along. How could he not? I mean what was that Trump Tower meeting with Russians all about? Why would everyone around trump lie about their contacts with the Russians? How do you explain trump's behavior towards Putin? A real punch in the gut. (Now a lot of you folks know how people of color feel about the justice system in this country.)
The truth is, it was always going to be hard for Mueller to prove collusion. The brilliance of trump's ploy was that he beat the word collusion into the national conversation, and as a result finding him guilty of anything less than collusion would vindicate him.
Now, as is to be expected, he and his minions are doing victory laps because the Mueller Report did not find that there was collusion between trump and the Russians. Poor Mr. Mueller was always going to have a hard time proving collusion, because when you are an expert at cheating and playing outside the lines like the president, you are not going to be dumb enough to get caught.
Of course, contrary to what you are hearing from from folks on the right and some cable talking heads, It was not a total vindication. Bob Mueller stated in no uncertain terms that he cannot say for sure that the sitting president of the United Sates did not obstruct justice. The very thing what we impeached Bill Clinton for, and what we started to impeach Tricky Dicky for before he walked away in shame.
What we are seeing now is the trump handpicked AG write a four page summary to congress of Mr. Mueller's report , and then declare that there was no obstruction. This of course is not what Mr. Mueller said. And we still have not seen the full report. Legal experts question William Barr's rationale for exonerating trump,but we don't need legal experts, our common sense tells us all exactly what is happening here. There was a reason that Mr. trump wanted this guy to be his AG.
So yes, the folks who are disappointed have every right to be. More importantly, though, given what William Barr did, they have a right to be angry as well.
Saturday, March 23, 2019
Friday, March 22, 2019
Mueller time!
So the Mueller Report is now in, and we will soon know what his office has put together for Congress as it relates to the trump crime syndicate. trump's AG will now decide what we can and can't see. I think every citizen of this country should demand to see every aspect of the report.
Having said that, I think that we can all agree that given the amount of indictments and convictions that Mueller was able to get, it has been a success.
In the meantime, read this essay to learn more about the leader of our country.
"Donald Trump is not well. Over the weekend, he continued his weird obsession with a dead war hero. This time, his attacks on John McCain came two days after the anniversary of McCain’s release from a North Vietnamese prison camp. He tweeted this:
Spreading the fake and totally discredited Dossier “is unfortunately a very dark stain against John McCain.” Ken Starr, Former Independent Counsel. He had far worse “stains” than this, including thumbs down on repeal and replace after years of campaigning to repeal and replace!
And this:
So it was indeed (just proven in court papers) “last in his class” (Annapolis) John McCain that sent the Fake Dossier to the FBI and Media hoping to have it printed BEFORE the Election. He & the Dems, working together, failed (as usual). Even the Fake News refused this garbage!
87.3K people are talking about this
And retweeted this:
Meghan MCCain took a swipe at Trump suggesting “no one will ever love you like they loved my father” WRONG Meghan!
Millions of Americans truly LOVE President Trump, not McCain. I’m one!
We hated McCain for his ties to the Russian dossier & his vote against repealing Obamacare
29.8K people are talking about this
All this comes in the aftermath of Trump’s comments about McCain in 2015. “He’s not a war hero,” Trump said. “He was a war hero because he was captured. I like people who weren’t captured.”'
These grotesque attacks once again force us to grapple with a perennial question of the Trump era: How much attention should we pay to his tweets; and what exactly do they reveal about America’s 45th president?
I’m sympathetic to those who worry that too many Americans spend too much time paying too much attention to what Trump tweets. The danger is that we allow Trump to succeed in keeping us in a state of constant agitation and moral consternation, in ways that are unhealthy and even play to Trump’s advantage, allowing him to control the nation’s conversation.
But that view, which might apply in some circumstances, shouldn’t apply in all circumstances. The real danger in so desensitizing ourselves to Trump’s tweets is that we normalize deviant behavior and begin to accept what is unacceptable.
A culture lives or dies based on its allegiance to unwritten rules of conduct and unstated norms, on the signals sent about what kind of conduct constitutes good character and honor and what kind of conduct constitutes dishonor and corruption. Like each of us, our leaders are all too human, flawed and imperfect. But that reality can’t make us indifferent or cynical when it comes to holding those in authority to reasonable moral standards. After all, cultures are shaped by the words and deeds that leaders, including political leaders, validate or invalidate.
“To his equals he was condescending; to his inferiors kind; and to the dear object of his affections exemplarily tender,” Henry Lee said in his eulogy of George Washington. “Correct throughout, vice shuddered in his presence, and virtue always felt his fostering hand; the purity of his private character gave effulgence to his public virtues.”
But the other reason we should pay attention to the tweets and other comments by the president is that they are shafts of light that illuminate not only his damaged soul, but his disordered personality.
It doesn’t take a person with an advanced degree in psychology to see Trump’s narcissism and lack of empathy, his vindictiveness and pathological lying, his impulsivity and callousness, his inability to be guided by norms, or his shamelessness and dehumanization of those who do not abide his wishes. His condition is getting worse, not better—and there are now fewer people in the administration able to contain the president and act as a check on his worst impulses.
This constellation of characteristics would be worrisome in a banker or a high-school teacher, in an aircraft machinist or a warehouse manager, in a gas-station attendant or a truck driver. To have them define the personality of an American president is downright alarming.
Whether the worst scenarios come to pass or not is right now unknowable. But what we do know is that the president is a person who seems to draw energy and purpose from maliciousness and transgressive acts, from creating enmity among people of different races, religions, and backgrounds, and from attacking the weak, the honorable, and even the dead.
Donald Trump is not well, and as long as he is president, our nation is not safe." [Source]
No we are not, and if this report from Robert Mueller doesn't go the way that it should, we really should be worried for the next few years.
Wednesday, March 20, 2019
"Of the dead, speak no evil", and "Do not speak ill of the dead".
When are some people going to learn? Just because you live in the age of trump, that still doesn't give you the right to go around screaming vile racist s**t to strangers in public. (That kind of behavior is reserved for the president.) Now we have a racist woman in Connecticut who has been exposed and lost her job, because she felt it necessary to let her racism flag fly in a public space."A Connecticut’s woman’s racist rant caught in a grocery store has gone viral and the repercussions came quick. The incident at a ShopRite is shocking given the language used and the fact that the woman’s two small children were present.
At one point the insulted man charges towards Terrone and is stopped by another shopper. Karen Kaplan, a spokesperson for the school district stated that a meeting was scheduled to discuss the incident with Terrone and she submitted her resignation." [Source]
Don't worry Corrine, you will land on your feet. Maybe FOX NEWS or the trump administration will hire you.
Speaking of trump, he was at it again today bashing John McCain. I wish one of you trumpnuts would explain to me his sick need to speak ill of a dead person who can't speak for himself.
I was never a big fan of John McCain's politics, but I always respected the man for what he stood for and for what he has been through in his life. To say that trump is not half the man John McCain was in an understatement. But what's even worse than trump is the sad and pitiful way that some (not all) of these republican politicians have kept silent while trump insults and demeans their dead friend and former colleague. How people like Lindsey Graham live with themselves is a mystery to me.
"I have to be honest, I never liked him much," Trump said during a speech at a military tank plant in Lima, Ohio, that was focused on the economy. "I probably never will."
The crowd, which included members of the military, remained largely silent during the remarks. Trump has ratcheted up his criticism of the Republican Arizona senator and Vietnam veteran and POW several times this week, but his remarks in Ohio brought up a litany of grievances from Trump that included the ceremonies to honor McCain after he died last year at 81.
"I endorsed him at his request and I gave him the kind of funeral that he wanted, which as president I had to approve," Trump said. "I don't care about this, I didn’t get 'thank you.' That’s OK."
He gave him the kind of funeral he wanted. He wanted to be thanked.
It's a shame that Mr. tump won't be around to see the crowd size at his funeral. I am sure that it will be quite small. Just like his hands.
Monday, March 18, 2019
A friend in the White House.
The president of the United States has embraced white supremacist and Nazis from day one of his presidency, and it's safe to say that he doesn't plan on changing his tune anytime soon. I guess he feels that they are such a large part of his base that he cannot afford to alienate them. They can always count on their friend in the White House.
Sadly, he showed his true colors again after the slaughter of 50 Muslims while they prayed in church on Friday.
"Donald Trump had a chance to boldly condemn white supremacy and Islamophobia on Friday morning. Instead, after issuing a muffled statement of sympathy for the victims of murderous attacks on mosques in New Zealand, the president of the United States went back to complaining, in great and extended detail, that special counsel Robert Mueller “should never have been appointed and there should be no Mueller Report.”
On one of the darkest days in history for Muslims worldwide, the president’s initial response to the New Zealand killings failed to mention Muslims, Islam, Islamophobia, white supremacy, racism, bigotry or violent hatred that targets people based on their religion.
Trump will, hopefully, come around to more explicitly and effectively condemning the latest acts of mass violence directed at places of worship by white supremacists. But his every action reminds us that we have a president whose priorities are so warped that he cannot bring himself to lead in the moment when leadership is most needed.
Even the president’s supporters, who make excuses for what they tell us are his “lapses,” and who so ardently reject any suggestion that he encourages or tolerates bigotry, have to recognize that Trump is failing miserably as a leader. The United States is a powerful, influential country. But the measures of American leadership on the global stage are fluid. They depend on the quality of the individuals who occupy positions of public trust and authority.
Yet, whenever the moment demands more, Trump offers less. After the killing of at least 49 people in mass shootings at two mosques in the New Zealand city of Christchurch, it was immediately clear that this was what New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern identified it as: “a terrorist attack” committed by “people who I would describe as having extremist views that have absolutely no place in New Zealand and in fact have no place in the world.”
By Friday morning in the United States, Jonathan Greenblatt of the Anti-Defamation League was telling NPR that the Christchurch attack “clearly was motivated by white supremacy.”
“We’ve got a big problem on our hands and we need to recognize that social media allows white supremacy, much like other forms of hate, to travel across borders, and we’ve got to recognize it for the global terror threat that it really is,” warned Greenblatt, who noted that the killer in Christchurch had referenced white supremacists and white nationalists who had engaged in mass murder in the United States and other countries.
The right response to a big problem is to identify it, and bluntly call it out, as German Chancellor Angela Merkel did when she reacted with grief and horror to the fact that, once again, “citizens who were attacked and murdered out of racist hatred.” And as Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan did when he condemned those those who “collectively” and “deliberately” choose to demonize Muslims, and warned that “I blame these increasing terror attacks on the current Islamophobia.”
There is no point in mincing words about the threat posed by white supremacy and Islamophobia. Indeed, mincing words sends precisely the wrong signal.
Yet President Trump’s response on Friday morning, delivered long after details of the killer’s white supremacist and Islamophobic sentiments were broadcast around the world, was a muted tweet that read: “My warmest sympathy and best wishes goes out to the people of New Zealand after the horrible massacre in the Mosques. 49 innocent people have so senselessly died, with so many more seriously injured. The U.S. stands by New Zealand for anything we can do. God bless all!”
“Warm sympathy” is all fine and good. But, according to news reports, the Australian-born suspect in the mass shooting wrote a 87-page manifesto that described the American president as “a symbol of renewed white identity and common purpose.” Trump, who invited an international outcry with his suggestion that there were “very fine people” among white supremacists and white nationalists who mounted violent protests in Charlottesville, Virginia, in 2017, should have recognized the need to respond in a dramatically better way this time.
This was an opportunity for the president to lead. He refused to take it Friday morning, and he explicitly rejected it Friday afternoon—when asked if he saw white nationalism as a mounting global threat, Trump’s reply was dismissive: “I don’t really. I think it’s a small group of people that have very, very serious problems.”
So what did concern Trump on this awful day? Instead of condemning white supremacy, he erupted in an extended Twitter tantrum about the Mueller inquiry, which concluded with an all-caps declaration that “THIS SHOULD NEVER HAPPEN TO A PRESIDENT AGAIN!”
The language of “Never Again!” should have been employed on Friday. But not with regard to a legitimate investigation into political and presidential wrongdoing. It should have been employed to condemn racist hatred and violence that has targeted churches, synagogues, and mosques. But Trump could not get there. Instead, he literally repeating his attacks on the woman who won 2.9 million more votes than he did in the 2016 presidential election. Yes, Trump found time on Friday morning to attack “Crooked Hillary,” but no time to attack white supremacy or Islamophobia.
And what was former secretary of state Hillary Clinton saying at roughly the same time?
“My heart breaks for New Zealand & the global Muslim community. We must continue to fight the perpetuation and normalization of Islamophobia and racism in all its forms,” wrote Clinton. “White supremacist terrorists must be condemned by leaders everywhere. Their murderous hatred must be stopped.”
That is how a president of the United States is supposed to respond in a moment of horror that demands clarity—and leadership." [Source]
*Pic from pbs.org
Sunday, March 17, 2019
*Friday, March 15, 2019
Words matter.
“You know, the left plays a tougher game, it’s very funny," Trump said in the interview with Breitbart published on Wednesday. "I actually think that the people on the right are tougher, but they don’t play it tougher.""I can tell you I have the support of the police, the support of the military, the support of the Bikers for Trump – I have the tough people, but they don’t play it tough — until they go to a certain point, and then it would be very bad, very bad," Trump said."'
Wait...what??!!
Is the president threatening the rest of us who don't support him? Dude isn't even hiding the fact that he wants to be a tyrannical despot anymore. Threatening people who don't support you with violence is how guys like Vladimir Putin get down. Not surprising that Mr. trump is adopting his tactics given the fact that the man is one of his heroes.
Someone should send Mr. trump the memo that words from someone in his position matters. We were reminded of that today when a white nationalist terrorist slaughtered 49 (as of me writing this) innocent Muslims as they prayed in their Mosque on a Friday morning. (What's with these white supremacist killing people while they are in church?) The animal gave a shout out to Mr. trump in his manifesto, and it's not a stretch to say that he was inspired by the words of folks like Mr. trump.
The guy even posted his dastardly deeds on social media for crying out old.
"A mass shooting at two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand, on Friday has left multiple people dead, according to The Guardian. The shooting was carried out by at least one gunman who posted on online “manifesto” stating white supremacist viewpoints and naming prominent Donald Trump supporter and right-wing American media personality Candace Owens as the person who most inspired him to commit acts of violence."
So Candace Owens, the black woman who the black race traded away months ago, got a shout out from a white nationalist who slaughtered women and children while they prayed in church.
Hey Candace, I hope that your 15 minutes and your FOX NEWS checks were worth it.