The president might have taped hiimself committig a crime..

By the time this mess with trump is over, I have a feeling that republicans will be wishing that Hillary had won the election.

Check out the latest from our tweeter in chief:

"Washington (CNN)Just 72 hours after his shocking decision to fire FBI Director James Comey, President Donald Trump took to Twitter to warn Comey not to share the contents of their private conversations.

 

"James Comey better hope that there are no 'tapes' of our conversations before he starts leaking to the press!," Trump tweeted at 8:26 a.m. ET, the final missive of an active morning for the president that included four other tweets in which he, among other things, said that it was unreasonable to expect his staff to be completely accurate and floated the idea of eliminating the daily press briefing altogether."

 

My goodness, Donald! First you fire the man and then you threaten him on twitter? Be careful hat you wish for there big guy. Word is that Comey is hoping that the conversation was taped as well.

 

A loyalty oath? Come on Donald, you are not the leader of a Third World country, and as much as it might pain you to admit it, you are not a dictator.

 

As someone wrote today (see link above) the president is actually telling someone else that they must be careful, because he (trump) might have recorded himself obstructing justice. 

 

“When I heard that exchange today between Jeff Mason, White House reporter, and Sean Spicer speaking from the podium in the briefing room for the President of the United States, it took my breath away,” Wallace said.

Wallace continued:

“That was what in Watergate they called a non-denial denial. He was asked specifically, is there a recording device in the Oval Office of the President of the United States? He said, ‘I have nothing for you on that.’ He could have said no. He could have said yes. He said I have nothing for you on that. That is a non-denial denial. Look, it may just be that the President is trolling the press corps and saying work yourself into a frenzy about this and turns out it nothing. But why would he do that? Why would he want to decrease the credibility which is already in question of this White House and comments made from that podium? It seems to me that you’re playing a very dangerous game with the currency of the credibility of the President of the United States.”

Wallace went on to blast President Donald Trump for the conflicting statements offered by him and his staff on the Comey firing.

“Every step he’s taken this week has cut into the credibility of this White House, the trust of the people inside the White House, and clearly I think the trust that the American people pay to this President and to his White House staff.” [Source]

That Wallace the article is talking about is Chris Wallace. As in FOX VIEWS, Chris Wallace.

Now if FOX is starting to turn on you Mr. President, you might want to start planning that farewell speech. And remember,  the "I am not a crook " line has already been taken  

 .  

 

 

 

"Trump fatigue" has already set in.

 “Our long national nightmare is over"

With all due respect to Gerald Ford, I honestly believe that our "national nightmare" has just began.

In case you have not been paying attention, the president confirmed today, in an interview with Lester Holt, that all of his minions were either being lied to by him, or just flat out lying to us. Either way it's not good, and the stench is just getting stronger.

Mr. trump declared that he alone decided to fire James Comey, even though all of his spokespeople were busy telling us that some Deputy AG  in the Attorney General's office was the one who pushed for, and was ultimately responsible for Comey getting the boot.  For the record, the fall guy is not pleased, and he apparently does not like the fact that he was used by trump and his people to try and play us.

The bookies in South Philly are already taking bets on the over and under for the amount of days trump will last in office before being impeached (I think that he will limp to the end of his term), and the under is raking in the most bucks right now, but we will see.

Among other things I learned today that Mr. trump asked the man charged with investigating him and his administration- on three different occasions- if he was under investigation. Imagine that for a minute. Remember how upset republicans got when Bill Clinton met Loretta Lynch on that airplane in Phoenix? I do. Regardless of what was said, they moaned, it was not a good look.  And I agree with them, it was not a good look.  But if true, this is far worse, and you won't hear a peep out of right-wingnuts about it.

Over in Washington, the republicans have circled the wagons, and at least publicly, they are standing by trump and his team. Not one republican has had the decency to come forward and tell the emperor that he has no clothes. Outside of the beltway we are all dying of trump fatigue after just over a hundred days. 

Personally, I am already tired of the guy. And I wish that he would just go away, play golf, and drive around in his gold plated golf cart all day. He would be doing all of us a huge favor.

Not all of us can handle nightmares.

Open Thread Thursday.

 It's open thread Thursday field hands, and there is a lot going on in Washington and the world.

I would love to know your thoughts on the Education Sect. getting booed at an HBCU graduation ceremony today.

Paul Ryan standing by his man trump with this Comey fiasco.

If we are all Cory Booker tonight.

If tRump pulled a Russian move while meeting with the Russians.

And how long did Sean Spicer plan to stay in the bushes?







 

Tuesday Afternoon Massacre.

 "Life Comeys at you fast".

OK, that was kind of corny, I saw it on twitter, and I thought I would share it nevertheless.

So Mr. Orange Hair fired James Comey, the man who Hillary Clinton believes cost her the election, and the one who is possibly holding some pretty explosive stuff on the White House.

Now let's put this Archibald Cox moment into perspective: Donald trump just fired the man who is over the agency that is charged with investigating him and his Russian pals. You can't make this stuff up, folks; it is happening in real time.

Now, to be clear, I am no fan of James Comey, but if trump believes for a moment that this firing ---and the timing of it--- does not stink to high heaven, he has another thing coming. Why wasn't Comey fired after trump took office? Why wait until now? Trump himself said earlier that he had confidence in Comey. So what changed?  

We all know where this is heading of course. Donald trump will now put his political appointees who owe him their jobs (Think Chris Christie or Rudy) to investigate him, and it will be a joke.

The question is now, of course, will republicans get on board and call for an independent investigation and a special counsel to look into this mess? Or will they circle the wagons and play politics to protect their guy like they have been doing for the past 100 days.

Still, I tried to warn you folks, this will not end well for Mr. Orange Hair and you trumpbots. And I believe that as the fire gets hotter, and as we get closer and closer to the truth; we will see more desperation from team trump.

"Dear Director Comey,

I have received the attached letters from the Attorney General and Deputy Attorney General of the United States recommending your dismissal as Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. I have accepted their recommendation and you are hereby terminated and removed from office, effective immediately.

While I greatly appreciate you informing me, on three separate occasions, that I am not under investigation, I nevertheless concur with the judgement of the Department of Justice that you are not able to effectively lead the Bureau.

It is essential that we find new leadership for the FBI that restores public trust and confidence in its vital law enforcement mission.

I wish you the best of luck in your future endeavors.

Donald J. Trump"

Dear President trump:

I sincerely wish that you would fire yourself.

I think I speak for a lot of people when I say that it is long overdue. 



*Pic from huffingtonpost.com








 

When laws no longer matter.

 

Here in America journalists and serious writers seem to spending less time trying to tell us the truth about the newly elected president.

 

Fortunately there are still writers in the world who are not afraid to write the truth, and to bring light to serous issues impacting our executive branch.   

 

"The Trump and Kushner family's "brazen" exploitation of the US Presidency is "unlike anything we have ever seen before," Barack Obama's ethics lawyer has said.

 

Norm Eisen tweeted the remark as he shared a link to a story about Jared Kushner's sister highlighting her family ties as she wooed Chinese investors.

 

Mr Eisen is suing the President for allegedly violating the "domestic emoluments clause," which prohibits the President from receiving additional compensation besides his salary.

 

Mr Kushner said he stepped down as chief executive of Kushner Companies in January and sold stakes in several properties to allay concerns about conflicts of interest while he serves as senior adviser to his father-in-law, Donald Trump.

But his sister highlighted her ties to Mr Kushner as she made a pitch to raise funds from Chinese investors through the US government's controversial EB-5 visa programme, which gives permanent US residency to those who finance projects that create a certain amount of jobs.

The Kushner family's promotional efforts in China come amid widespread criticism of the EB-5 visa programme, which has grown popular among wealthy foreigners seeking to move to the US but faces allegations of fraud and misuse.

Critics say many of the investments purportedly aimed at assisting poor areas of the US have instead wound up going to projects in more affluent neighbourhoods, while many programmes have been badly hit by fraud scandals.

Now led by Mr Kushner's relatives, Kushner Companies had earlier been negotiating with China's Anbang Insurance Group to provide what could be hundreds of millions of dollars in equity for redevelopment of a Manhattan office building.

Critics saw it as a potential attempt by China to curry favour with the White House.
The Chinese company's advertisements for the One Journal Square development in Jersey City described the project as "Kushner 1," with punchy subtitles declaring that it has "government support" and is "founded by celebrity developers," without elaborating.

 

Bi Ting, a 34-year-old woman who attended the Shanghai event, told the Associated Press having the name of the US President's son-in-law associated with it was "a bonus for the project."

Ms Bi said Mr Kushner's sister Nicole Meyer spoke for more than be10 minutes, describing the history of the Kushner family and the highlights of the project." [Source]

This story is stunning. And I am pretty sure that there would be wall to wall news coverage if it was anyone other than Donald trump. But because it's trump, though, there is just the typical news coverage that we have come to expect with team trump.

 Nothing to see here, folks. Move along.

It's just par for the course on a very rough course.

*Pic from salon.com

 

CAPTION SATURDAY.

I need a caption for this pic.

Example: "I told you to delete your twitter account."


*Pic from people.com

Donald, we have a lot to lose.

 Remember when all those black college presidents played themselves by joining trump in the White House? I thought that they were being played then, and now I know for a fact that they were.

Just look at what president trump is doing to black colleges now.

"President Donald Trump signaled Friday that he may not implement a 25-year-old federal program that helps historically black colleges finance construction projects on their campuses, suggesting that it may run afoul of the Constitution.

In a signing statement on the $1.1 trillion omnibus government spending bill, Trump singled out the Historically Black College and University Capital Financing Program as an example of provisions in the funding bill “that allocate benefits on the basis of race, ethnicity, and gender.'

Trump said his administration would treat those programs “in a manner consistent with the requirement to afford equal protection of the law under the Due Process Clause of the Constitution’s Fifth Amendment.”’

Previous presidents, including Barack Obama and George W. Bush, often issued such statements when they signed legislation to signal they may ignore or disregard parts of laws passed by Congress." [Source]

Remember when trump asked you Negroes what you have to lose by voting for him? Well you are starting to find out. I knew he wouldn't disappoint.  .

Speaking of trump and Negroes.....

"The Trump administration has fired the White House chief usher — the first woman and second African-American to hold the nonpartisan position, according to a report.

The White House residence staff was told Friday morning that Angella Reid, appointed in 2011 by President Obama, had been canned, without offering an explanation, the Washington Post reported, citing a source.

“We are very grateful for her service and wish her the very best,” a White House official confirmed, declining to provide details.

Reid was only the third usher to be booted in more than a century — and the first since then-first lady Hillary Clinton canned an usher in 1994 for supposed disloyalty.

White House ushers are on duty 24/7, taking care of the first family’s needs and overseeing the staff, including chefs, florists, maids, butlers, chefs, carpenters and other workers who take care of the presidential residence.

The chief usher in particular works closely with the president and his family." [Source]

Wait, did the article say that the usher "works closely with the president and his family"?

Well that explains why she was fired. The only Negroes trump likes close to him are Omarosa and Ben Carson.

"What do you have to lose?"

In the case of Angella Reid it was her job.

 

Counting their chickens a little too soon.

One of my guilty pleasures  in life is EPL soccer. I spend too much time on Sunday mornings watching the match of the day from across the pond.

Anyway, I was just watching the Manchester City Middlesbrough match, and right before halftime Middlesbrough scored to take a one to nothing lead. They celebrated, to be sure, but they knew there was a half to go, so they couldn't rest on their laurels. Invariably, the better side ended up scoring to equalize things, and the match ended in a 2-2 draw.

Which brings me to my post.  Today I watched Donald trump and his band of merry -winngut- men declare victory because the house narrowly passed a bill to replace the ACA. Trump was chirping on the White House lawn about what a victory he had won, and he gloated, once again, that he is the president.

You read that right. There was a Rose Garden ceremony for a bill that passed only one chamber.  But that is so trump. Spiking the ball before he gets in the end zone.

The bill still has to pass the senate, and chances are zero to nothing that it will pass in its present form, if it passes at all. To stay with my soccer analogy, Mr. Orange Hair and his gang are celebrating as if they won the match and it's only halftime. They still have an entire half to go.

These clowns were so desperate for a political win that they rushed through the bill without some of their members reading it, and before it was scored and analyzed by the CBO.

But let's see where this goes from here, and what will happen to some of these GOP politricksters in swing districts when it's time to send them back to Washington.

If you listen to trump and his friends tell it, premiums will go down, coverage will go up, and all will be hunky dory in trumpland. We. Will. See.

"Appearing on The Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer Thursday, Congressman Chris Collins (R-NY) conceded that he hadn’t even examined the document.

“I will fully admit, Wolf, I did not,” Collins said, saying that he relied on his staff to read the bill and brief him.

Collins was not alone. In the very next segment, Congressman Elijah Cummings (D-MD) likewise said that he was briefed by his staff.

 

Blitzer was taken aback by this. He pressed Collins on whether he had a responsibility to actually read the legislation which stands to impact so many.

“This legislation affects a fifth of the U.S. economy and millions and millions of Americans,” Blitzer said. “Don’t you think it was important to actually sit down and read — read the language of this bill?”'

“You know, I have to rely on my staff,” Collins said. “And I can probably tell you that I read every word, and I wouldn’t be telling you the truth, nor would any other member. We rely on our staff, and we rely on our committees, and I’m comfortable that I understand this bill in its entirety, Wolf, without poring through every word.”'

   

Open thread Wednesday.

It's open thread Wednesday field hands, and I need to know what's on your mind.

I will tell you what's on mine.

Right-wingnuts doing whatever they can just to get a win. They don't care what's in their healthcare "bill" or how it will hurt the lives of millions of people, they just need to pass something, anything, to make Mr. Orange Hair look good.

 The cluelessness of Sean Spicer. Seriously, how does this man still have a job? 

How good the right-wingnuts  are in this country at manufacturing outrage.

And  how will trump's American Taliban move play with the American people?

Justice trump style.

We learned a lot today about where we will be going for the next four years.

Jeff Sessions is one of the most powerful men in America. He is the attorney general and he runs Donald trump's justice department.

 So let's take a look at what he has been up to since taking office. 

"It is hard to believe this is happening, but it’s real: The US Department of Justice is literally prosecuting a woman for laughing at now–Attorney General Jeff Sessions during his Senate confirmation hearing earlier this year.

According to Ryan Reilly at HuffPost, Code Pink activist Desiree Fairooz was arrested in January after she laughed at a claim from Sen. Richard Shelby (R-AL) that Sessions’s history of “treating all Americans equally under the law is clear and well-documented.”

Sessions, in fact, has a long history of opposing the equal treatment of all Americans under the law. He has repeatedly criticized the historic Voting Rights Act. He voted against hate crime legislation that protected LGBTQ people, arguing, “Today, I'm not sure women or people with different sexual orientations face that kind of discrimination. I just don't see it.” And his nomination for a position as a federal judge was rejected in the 1980s after he was accused of making racist remarks, including a supposed joke that he thought the Ku Klux Klan “was okay until I found out they smoked pot.”

Given this history, Fairooz laughed at Shelby’s claim.

But federal prosecutors have pushed forward with the case against Fairooz. As Reilly reported, prosecutors argue that “the laugh amounted to willful ‘disorderly and disruptive conduct’ intended to ‘impede, disrupt, and disturb the orderly conduct’ of congressional proceedings.” In court, they have tried to emphasize that the laugh was extraordinarily disruptive, with a US Capitol Police officer claiming that Fairooz laughed “very loudly” and people in the hearings turned around when they heard it.

Fairooz’s defense, meanwhile, has argued that her laughter was a reflex and not meant to disrupt the hearings. Fairooz was also in the back of the room, and her laughter had no noticeable impact, based on video of the hearings, on Shelby’s introductory speech for Sessions.

The trial will continue at the Superior Court in DC this week. If convicted, Fairooz faces a fine up to $500 and up to six months’ imprisonment for the laugh-related charge. She is also charged with another misdemeanor for “allegedly parading, demonstrating or picketing within a Capitol, evidently for her actions after she was being escorted from the room,” Reilly reported.

Fairooz has a history of disruptive protests. During protests over the Iraq War, she put fake blood on her hands and confronted then–Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.

This time, however, Fairooz claims she was not trying to be disruptive — but merely laughing. " [Source]

So she will be prosecuted for laughing, but.......

"The Justice Department has decided not to bring charges against the officers involved in the death of Alton Sterling, whose videotaped shooting by police in Baton Rouge last summer prompted unrest across the city, and is planning to reveal in the next 24 hours that it has closed the probe, according to four people familiar with the matter.

As of Tuesday afternoon, the Sterling family had yet to be informed by the Justice Department of the decision, and it is unclear how and when the department will announce its findings.

“We have not heard nor received an update and are unaware of any charges that may or may not be filed,” said Ryan Julison, a spokesman for the Sterling family’s attorneys. “We have not received word, nor has the family been given any notice of upcoming updates regarding this case.”

The case will be the first time under Attorney General Jeff Sessions that the department has publicly declined to prosecute officers investigated for possible wrongdoing in a high-profile case, and officials in Baton Rouge have been girding for a possible reaction there." [Source]

I bet former President Obama did not know that Beauregard Sessions would be running the justice department.

So to recap: laugh during Mr. Session's  confirmation and you get prosecuted. Shoot an unarmed man to death, and you are not. Got it.

What a country.

If only he had lived a little longer.

If Donald trump's old history teachers were alive they would be begging to go into witness protection right about now.

When I first heard about Donald trump's take on his hero, Andrew Jackson, and how he (Jackson) could have prevented the Civil War, I must admit that I thought that it was a fake headline from The Onion. Silly me. I forgot just how clueless and intellectually lazy the man who 40% of you decided to go out and elect as your president can be.

Here is the president's take on Andrew Jackson and the civil war:

"President Trump mused in an interview that the Civil War could have been avoided if only Andrew Jackson had been around to stop it. Jackson had been dead 16 years and long out of office when the war started in 1861.

 

Mr. Trump’s comments, among several he made about Jackson in an interview broadcast Monday on satellite radio, quickly drew condemnation from his critics and from historians who said they appeared to show the president profoundly misunderstanding American history.

 

“People don’t realize, you know, the Civil War, if you think about it, why?” he told his interviewer, Salena Zito, a host on SiriusXM’s P.O.T.U.S. channel, who spoke to Mr. Trump for an article that was published on Sunday in The Washington Examiner.

 

Mr. Trump has often professed admiration for the seventh president’s populism and visited his tomb in March. {Source} 

 

Trump went on to say that his hero had a "big heart".  Really?!

 

Anyway, the president wanted to know why there was a Civil War. Well Donald, there is this thing called slavery, and your hero, that guy with the "big heart", actually owned slaves himself.  In fact, he built his fortune on the backs of slaves, and he hated abolitionists.  Oh, and let's just throw in for good measure, the fact that he authorized the ethnic cleansing of Native Americans by signing the Indian Removal Act into law in 1830.

 

Still,  I see why Donald trump is such an admirer of Andrew Jackson; they have so much in common.