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I had no idea about the pedigree of the cartoon. Did you?
The Master Plan
https://www.democraticunderground.com/100212881745
The Master Plan
https://www.democraticunderground.com/100212881745
Pay attention, the notes ARE corroborated...... by the testimony in the House Impeachment hearings. Not a single contradiction of one by the others.
Any one of Trump's crack lawyers should be able to advise him that this is an oxymoron.... 'Constitutional Prayer'.
LOL! i wonder if the lawyers were underneath chairs?
Maybe the suitcoat-less asshole from Ohio can drop by for an 'I feel ya buddy' for Kenny?
Ken Starr—lost his job as Baylor president amid allegations the university mishandled cases of football players accused of sexual assaults
Those are undone by the bells you can't un-ring, the bat-shit crazy RW sources you MOSTLY post from.
In other words you can't inoculate yourself from the legitimate criticism you elicit for the conspiracy theory shit you mostly fall for by posting a few sober pieces.
I did, it is accurate in every respect.
This is called broaching the subject.
Trump Melted Down at a Meeting With Military Leaders and Called Them Dopes, Babies, and Losers
Can you be impeached for knowing nothing about anything and caring less?
By Jack Holmes
Jan 17, 2020
https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/a30563921/trump-military-leaders-babies-dopes-losers/?source=nl&utm_source=nl_esq&utm_medium=email&date=011720&utm_campaign=nl19162507
President Trump Announces Guidance On Constitutional Prayer In Public Schools
Win McNamee / Getty Images
While even his most prodigious spokespeople teeter under Fox News questioning (!) about his relationship to Rudy Giuliani's Ukraine henchman Lev Parnas, it's worth considering that the scheme that led to the president's impeachment is just one of his various foibles. He could have been impeached, after all, for relentlessly obstructing justice in the Mueller probe.
He could have been impeached for his blatant public corruption, which has reached the point where people have started renting large blocs of rooms in his hotels and not even bothering to stay in many of them. Gee, I wonder what they're getting out of it. Oh, and can you be impeached for knowing nothing about anything and caring less?
It's a question worth asking as a new book from Washington Post reporters Philip Rucker and Carol Leonnig, A Very Stable Genius, begins to trickle out via excerpts. A New York Times review calls it "a comic horror story." The latest section published in the Post details a meeting Trump had at the Pentagon where he unwittingly laid out his attitude towards, well, everything, but specifically American military power: We can make some money off this. That was the only through-line as his senior defense and diplomatic and national-security advisers tried to tutor him in basic geopolitics and American history. Money. They owe us. We can get them to pay us.
“We should charge them rent,” Trump said of South Korea. “We should make them pay for our soldiers. We should make money off of everything.”
Trump proceeded to explain that NATO, too, was worthless. U.S. generals were letting the allied member countries get away with murder, he said, and they owed the United States a lot of money after not living up to their promise of paying their dues.
“They’re in arrears,” Trump said, reverting to the language of real estate. He lifted both his arms at his sides in frustration. Then he scolded top officials for the untold millions of dollars he believed they had let slip through their fingers by allowing allies to avoid their obligations.
“We are owed money you haven’t been collecting!” Trump told them. “You would totally go bankrupt if you had to run your own business.”
The president appears to view American military alliances as some kind of protection racket. He has openly mused recently about having Saudi Arabia straight-up pay for American troops. This is not the vision of service to the American republic and its Constitution most people have in mind with respect to our military service members.
This is reportedly part of a general pattern in the book wherein Trump basically does not know anything about American history, the values and institutions of a democratic republic, or even geography.
In fairness, Trump offered some refreshing pushback against military brass who insist we must have bases everywhere, all over the world, always. The map of our installations abroad is mind-blowing. They're everywhere. Do we really have business deploying our troops and assets all over the place? Do we think there have been some negative consequences for our relentless meddling and interventionism?
The Adults in the Room in this scene talked a lot about The Post-War International Order, and that's been mostly good for us, but has it been good for everyone? Are their elements of it we might, uh, revisit? (Not that this president is the one to do it. That would require some capacity for strategic thinking.) We have Iran boxed in with bases all around and we wonder why they're getting twitchy, particularly after Trump shredded the Iran Deal because Obama—despite the fact they were complying—and re-instituted crushing sanctions on their economy.
Speaking of, that came up.
Trump then repeated a threat he’d made countless times before. He wanted out of the Iran nuclear deal that President Obama had struck in 2015, which called for Iran to eliminate its uranium stockpile and cut its nuclear weaponry.
“It’s the worst deal in history!” Trump declared.
“Well, actually .?.?.,” Tillerson interjected.
“I don’t want to hear it,” Trump said, cutting off the secretary of state before he could explain some of the benefits of the agreement. “They’re cheating. They’re building. We’re getting out of it. I keep telling you, I keep giving you time, and you keep delaying me. I want out of it.”
I don't want to hear it! the president said of dissenting information. And that right there, folks, is a nice microcosm of this presidency, which took the Bush-era disdain for inconvenient expertise and shifted it into overdrive. Who cares if they're abiding by the deal, reached in coordination with the other Western powers over many long years? I want it gone! The repercussions for this spasm of impulsive stubbornness was merely a war narrowly avoided, at least partly due to Iran's restraint.
Trump is pictured with then-Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Joseph Dunford, with whom he shared some minor points of disagreement.
JIM WATSON / Getty Images
Later on, Trump circled another decent point, demanding to know why we are still in Afghanistan. But of course he had to call it a "loser war" and attribute the attrition to military incompetence, rather than, as an ex-Navy SEAL once said on Fox News: "If you remember what Osama bin Laden said, he's willing to fight this for generations.
Is the American people, and the western world, are we as committed as they are to this battle? I doubt that, highly." At some point, we will have to accept that the people who live there are more invested in the outcomes of our conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq than we are, not least because only a small slice of our population is truly fighting these wars.
Anyway, here's the president.
“You’re all losers,” Trump said. “You don’t know how to win anymore.”
Trump questioned why the United States couldn’t get some oil as payment for the troops stationed in the Persian Gulf. “We spent $7 trillion; they’re ripping us off,” Trump boomed. “Where is the f---ing oil?”
Even the Bush ghouls used to pretend this was about freedom and democracy.
Trump Ranted About Appliances During the Debate
It was at this point that the descriptions of the president went closer and closer to what you'd expect to hear about a large baby. This is a common trope in Presidential Coverage, wherein the president's staff and advisers talk bout him like he's a toddler and stories are framed around The Presidential Mood—as if he has no obligation to get his emotions in check and run the country. Surely, these outbursts of emotion would be similarly tolerated coming from a woman.
Trump by now was in one of his rages. He was so angry that he wasn’t taking many breaths. All morning, he had been coarse and cavalier, but the next several things he bellowed went beyond that description. They stunned nearly everyone in the room, and some vowed that they would never repeat them. Indeed, they have not been reported until now.
“I wouldn’t go to war with you people,” Trump told the assembled brass.
Addressing the room, the commander in chief barked, “You’re a bunch of dopes and babies.”
The emotional meltdowns and irrational spasms from the world's most powerful man are, according to the Times review, littered throughout the book. He reportedly considered awarding himself the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
He suggested staff secretary Rob Porter's ex-wife, who accused him of assaulting her, had given herself a black eye to shake Porter down for cash. Nothing sticks out more consistently than the venality. Everything is a transaction, everything is about leverage, everything is about getting ahead no matter what the cost or what the rules are.
“It’s just so unfair that American companies aren’t allowed to pay bribes to get business overseas,” the president once whined to a group of aides. All that matters is money and power.
How can I use one to get the other? But Times reviewer Dwight Garner really nailed the situation while bouncing off an incident at Pearl Harbor. Trump seemed to have no idea what'd happened in Honolulu. "Throughout," Garner says of the book, the president "is misinformed and confused while at the same time utterly certain of himself."
Trump Melted Down at a Meeting With Military Leaders and Called Them Dopes, Babies, and Losers
Can you be impeached for knowing nothing about anything and caring less?
https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/a30563921/trump-military-leaders-babies-dopes-losers/?source=nl&utm_source=nl_esq&utm_medium=email&date=011720&utm_campaign=nl19162507
By Jack Holmes
Jan 17, 2020
President Trump Announces Guidance On Constitutional Prayer In Public Schools
Win McNamee / Getty Images
While even his most prodigious spokespeople teeter under Fox News questioning (!) about his relationship to Rudy Giuliani's Ukraine henchman Lev Parnas, it's worth considering that the scheme that led to the president's impeachment is just one of his various foibles. He could have been impeached, after all, for relentlessly obstructing justice in the Mueller probe.
He could have been impeached for his blatant public corruption, which has reached the point where people have started renting large blocs of rooms in his hotels and not even bothering to stay in many of them. Gee, I wonder what they're getting out of it. Oh, and can you be impeached for knowing nothing about anything and caring less?
It's a question worth asking as a new book from Washington Post reporters Philip Rucker and Carol Leonnig, A Very Stable Genius, begins to trickle out via excerpts. A New York Times review calls it "a comic horror story." The latest section published in the Post details a meeting Trump had at the Pentagon where he unwittingly laid out his attitude towards, well, everything, but specifically American military power: We can make some money off this. That was the only through-line as his senior defense and diplomatic and national-security advisers tried to tutor him in basic geopolitics and American history. Money. They owe us. We can get them to pay us.
“We should charge them rent,” Trump said of South Korea. “We should make them pay for our soldiers. We should make money off of everything.”
Trump proceeded to explain that NATO, too, was worthless. U.S. generals were letting the allied member countries get away with murder, he said, and they owed the United States a lot of money after not living up to their promise of paying their dues.
“They’re in arrears,” Trump said, reverting to the language of real estate. He lifted both his arms at his sides in frustration. Then he scolded top officials for the untold millions of dollars he believed they had let slip through their fingers by allowing allies to avoid their obligations.
“We are owed money you haven’t been collecting!” Trump told them. “You would totally go bankrupt if you had to run your own business.”
The president appears to view American military alliances as some kind of protection racket. He has openly mused recently about having Saudi Arabia straight-up pay for American troops. This is not the vision of service to the American republic and its Constitution most people have in mind with respect to our military service members.
This is reportedly part of a general pattern in the book wherein Trump basically does not know anything about American history, the values and institutions of a democratic republic, or even geography.
In fairness, Trump offered some refreshing pushback against military brass who insist we must have bases everywhere, all over the world, always. The map of our installations abroad is mind-blowing. They're everywhere. Do we really have business deploying our troops and assets all over the place? Do we think there have been some negative consequences for our relentless meddling and interventionism?
The Adults in the Room in this scene talked a lot about The Post-War International Order, and that's been mostly good for us, but has it been good for everyone? Are their elements of it we might, uh, revisit? (Not that this president is the one to do it. That would require some capacity for strategic thinking.) We have Iran boxed in with bases all around and we wonder why they're getting twitchy, particularly after Trump shredded the Iran Deal because Obama—despite the fact they were complying—and re-instituted crushing sanctions on their economy.
Speaking of, that came up.
Trump then repeated a threat he’d made countless times before. He wanted out of the Iran nuclear deal that President Obama had struck in 2015, which called for Iran to eliminate its uranium stockpile and cut its nuclear weaponry.
“It’s the worst deal in history!” Trump declared.
“Well, actually .?.?.,” Tillerson interjected.
“I don’t want to hear it,” Trump said, cutting off the secretary of state before he could explain some of the benefits of the agreement. “They’re cheating. They’re building. We’re getting out of it. I keep telling you, I keep giving you time, and you keep delaying me. I want out of it.”
I don't want to hear it! the president said of dissenting information. And that right there, folks, is a nice microcosm of this presidency, which took the Bush-era disdain for inconvenient expertise and shifted it into overdrive. Who cares if they're abiding by the deal, reached in coordination with the other Western powers over many long years? I want it gone! The repercussions for this spasm of impulsive stubbornness was merely a war narrowly avoided, at least partly due to Iran's restraint.
Trump is pictured with then-Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Joseph Dunford, with whom he shared some minor points of disagreement.
JIM WATSON / Getty Images
Later on, Trump circled another decent point, demanding to know why we are still in Afghanistan. But of course he had to call it a "loser war" and attribute the attrition to military incompetence, rather than, as an ex-Navy SEAL once said on Fox News: "If you remember what Osama bin Laden said, he's willing to fight this for generations.
Is the American people, and the western world, are we as committed as they are to this battle? I doubt that, highly." At some point, we will have to accept that the people who live there are more invested in the outcomes of our conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq than we are, not least because only a small slice of our population is truly fighting these wars.
Anyway, here's the president.
“You’re all losers,” Trump said. “You don’t know how to win anymore.”
Trump questioned why the United States couldn’t get some oil as payment for the troops stationed in the Persian Gulf. “We spent $7 trillion; they’re ripping us off,” Trump boomed. “Where is the f---ing oil?”
Even the Bush ghouls used to pretend this was about freedom and democracy.
Trump Ranted About Appliances During the Debate
It was at this point that the descriptions of the president went closer and closer to what you'd expect to hear about a large baby. This is a common trope in Presidential Coverage, wherein the president's staff and advisers talk bout him like he's a toddler and stories are framed around The Presidential Mood—as if he has no obligation to get his emotions in check and run the country. Surely, these outbursts of emotion would be similarly tolerated coming from a woman.
Trump by now was in one of his rages. He was so angry that he wasn’t taking many breaths. All morning, he had been coarse and cavalier, but the next several things he bellowed went beyond that description. They stunned nearly everyone in the room, and some vowed that they would never repeat them. Indeed, they have not been reported until now.
“I wouldn’t go to war with you people,” Trump told the assembled brass.
Addressing the room, the commander in chief barked, “You’re a bunch of dopes and babies.”
The emotional meltdowns and irrational spasms from the world's most powerful man are, according to the Times review, littered throughout the book. He reportedly considered awarding himself the Presidential Medal of Freedom.
He suggested staff secretary Rob Porter's ex-wife, who accused him of assaulting her, had given herself a black eye to shake Porter down for cash. Nothing sticks out more consistently than the venality. Everything is a transaction, everything is about leverage, everything is about getting ahead no matter what the cost or what the rules are.
“It’s just so unfair that American companies aren’t allowed to pay bribes to get business overseas,” the president once whined to a group of aides. All that matters is money and power.
How can I use one to get the other? But Times reviewer Dwight Garner really nailed the situation while bouncing off an incident at Pearl Harbor. Trump seemed to have no idea what'd happened in Honolulu. "Throughout," Garner says of the book, the president "is misinformed and confused while at the same time utterly certain of himself."
YOU broached the subject.
Agreed, that's why a Senate trial with cross examination of witnesses is of the essence.
I'm for it. Want to join me on team 'fair trial'?
I would have no problem with Bloomberg. You know of course he has pledged to spend hundreds of millions to help to defeat Trump whether he secures the Dem nomination or not?
Same team? I think not. You're going to vote for Trump if you don't get the Dem nominee you want, despite the fact that no one left running is remotely as amoral, willfully ignorant, racist and just plain stupid as Trump.
No team Trump for me, no matter how badly I may become concussed from a stumble and fall.
From the Rucker/Leonnig book: The reason Tillerson called Trump "...a fucking moron."
WHAT a shit stain Cadet Bone Spur is.
Last edited Fri Jan 17, 2020, 09:23 AM - Edit history (1)
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/youre-a-bunch-of-dopes-and-babies-inside-trumps-stunning-tirade-against-generals/2020/01/16/d6dbb8a6-387e-11ea-bb7b-265f4554af6d_story.html
</snip>
Others at the table noticed Trump’s stream of venom had taken an emotional toll. So many people in that room had gone to war and risked their lives for their country, and now they were being dressed down by a president who had not. They felt sick to their stomachs. Tillerson told others he thought he saw a woman in the room silently crying. He was furious and decided he couldn’t stand it another minute. His voice broke into Trump’s tirade, this one about trying to make money off U.S. troops.
“No, that’s just wrong,” the secretary of state said. “Mr. President, you’re totally wrong. None of that is true.”
Tillerson’s father and uncle had both been combat veterans, and he was deeply proud of their service.
“The men and women who put on a uniform don’t do it to become soldiers of fortune,” Tillerson said. “That’s not why they put on a uniform and go out and die .?.?. They do it to protect our freedom.”
There was silence in the Tank. Several military officers in the room were grateful to the secretary of state for defending them when no one else would. The meeting soon ended and Trump walked out, saying goodbye to a group of servicemen lining the corridor as he made his way to his motorcade waiting outside. Mattis, Tillerson, and Cohn were deflated. Standing in the hall with a small cluster of people he trusted, Tillerson finally let down his guard.
“He’s a f---ing moron,” the secretary of state said of the president.
https://www.democraticunderground.com/100212879974
From the Rucker/Leonnig book: The reason Tillerson called Trump "...a fucking moron."
WHAT a shit stain Cadet Bone Spur is.
Last edited Fri Jan 17, 2020, 09:23 AM - Edit history (1)
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/youre-a-bunch-of-dopes-and-babies-inside-trumps-stunning-tirade-against-generals/2020/01/16/d6dbb8a6-387e-11ea-bb7b-265f4554af6d_story.html
</snip>
Others at the table noticed Trump’s stream of venom had taken an emotional toll. So many people in that room had gone to war and risked their lives for their country, and now they were being dressed down by a president who had not. They felt sick to their stomachs. Tillerson told others he thought he saw a woman in the room silently crying. He was furious and decided he couldn’t stand it another minute. His voice broke into Trump’s tirade, this one about trying to make money off U.S. troops.
“No, that’s just wrong,” the secretary of state said. “Mr. President, you’re totally wrong. None of that is true.”
Tillerson’s father and uncle had both been combat veterans, and he was deeply proud of their service.
“The men and women who put on a uniform don’t do it to become soldiers of fortune,” Tillerson said. “That’s not why they put on a uniform and go out and die .?.?. They do it to protect our freedom.”
There was silence in the Tank. Several military officers in the room were grateful to the secretary of state for defending them when no one else would. The meeting soon ended and Trump walked out, saying goodbye to a group of servicemen lining the corridor as he made his way to his motorcade waiting outside. Mattis, Tillerson, and Cohn were deflated. Standing in the hall with a small cluster of people he trusted, Tillerson finally let down his guard.
“He’s a f---ing moron,” the secretary of state said of the president.
https://www.democraticunderground.com/100212879974
Pic Of The Moment: I Think I See Where This Is Going
https://www.democraticunderground.com/1017564871
Doesn't come close to 'Russia, if you are listening', 'I don't know why they would' and yet another attempt to secure foreign help against a political opponent.
Because the dumb fuck is incapable of learning from his mistakes he's being impeached.
'It was a perfect call' is not evidence either. So far nothing that Parnas has said has contradicted any of the testimony heard in the House.
And please, just cut the shit huh? The tapes of the phone call, the direct witnesses that McConnell doesn't want to hear, ARE potential evidence. The unwillingness to provide any of it support the article 'obstruction of congress.
Why shouldn't all of the above be viewed as potentially exculpatory? Who's the only one afraid to see and hear any of it?
Lastly, if this were about a Dem president those scrawled Parnas notes would be described as a smoking gun by the RW press and of course by the Fox and Friends chimps jumping up and down on their couch.
Your inability to reflect on all of that before posting a link from a right leaning paper hampers your arguments in virtually all of your posts.
You pack more mischaracterizations and sweeping generalizations into your posts than anyone else who posts here. Lotta projection too....
'I did not have criminal relations with these men.'
4. It must be hard this morning waking up as a lifelong republican
To know that your entire political world view that you've held your entire life has all been devastatingly been proven to be a lie, a sham, anything but patriotic and nothing but that of a low-life grifter.
The Soullessness Of The Trump Supporter.....
Let's start at the beginning. In order to support Trump you had to ignore that he was a man married three times who cheated on each of his wives. That he went bankrupt four times. That he was a huckster and a scam artist who sold cheap wine and bad steaks, ran a phony "university", had a fake alter-ego named John Barron, couldn't borrow a dime from an American bank and raised money selling real estate to Russian oligarchs at inflated prices in what was likely a money-laundering scheme and failed at every business-other than selling his name-that he ever started.
The fact that he was deep in debt to Russians when he decided run for president wasn't really an issue for you. He's a guy who's entire life is a lie. There's more, but that should sufficiently illustrate what you had to look past.
So maybe you liked his policies (whatever they may be). He hates the same people you hate. He tells you what you want to hear. He's going to shake things up and change the status quo. He's for the working guy-even though he's spent his life screwing small contractors and has never put his fat ass to work doing anything remotely physical. He talks tough, America's going to be respected! Who cares about those bone spurs. So you vote for him. OK. Where do we go from there?
Mulsim ban? l'm cool with that, can't trust them. Put children in cages? Hey, their parents never should have tried to come into this country-it's their fault. Selling off the country's natural assets? We need to be energy independent! America first! You love the tax cut. Who cares if it really didn't benefit you. You like the sound of it. You don't mind bankers in charge of the banking system. Coal lobbyists in charge of the environment. His daughter and son-in-law in charge of who knows what. It's all okey doke with you. We got Supreme Court justices and Federal judges. He stands up for "religious freedom". Maybe you even think God sent Trump. No, that's not delusional at all.
So now, you start to hear about all kinds of illegal things. He's an unindicted co-conspirator in a criminal action that sent his personal attorney to jail. Won't show you his taxes. Strange deals with the Saudis. Fixing elections with the Russians. Takes Putin's side in nearly everything. Nothing to be concerned with,right? FBI? Liars! State Department officials? Liars! Alarmed members of the NSA? Liars! Anyone who says anything bad about Trump? Liars!
Face it. You have to accept that anyone and everyone who says something bad about Trump is lying. The only person telling the truth? Oh,yeah, the serial liar.
Now, he's back colluding with the Russians. Putting the screws to the Ukranians for his benefit with your tax dollars. Assassinating foreign generals. Threatening our own ambassadors. There's a parade of witnesses with impeccable credibility telling you all about his wrongdoing. Oh yeah, they're liars too. Everyone is lying. Only Trump tells the truth.
Yet you'll pound your chest about how great our country is. You'll tout your faith, your patriotism, your work ethic, all of which you find personified in the guy I just described. Surely at some point in time it must dawn on you that you have to accept a total fantasy about the entire world (except for Russia) conspiring to lie about Trump to keep up this bizarre construct, right. Maybe, just maybe, at least one of those people is telling the truth? Nah.
You go on living in la la land where Trump is our savior. Why? Some might call you stupid. Some might call you delusional. There are any of a hundred reasons why that is so. When it all comes out in the wash, it's because you are soulless. Devoid of principal. Devoid of morals. This isn't a simple policy disagreement. That I can deal with. I can accept that maybe you voted for him the first time around because you wanted to shake things up. Maybe you didn't understand just how bad he person he has always been. But now, I can't explain away your continued support as a policy disagreement. He's an awful person and now so are you.
Maybe you didn't have a soul to begin with, maybe you sold it for a tax cut and a Supreme Court appointee. But your soulless, just like Trump. And unless we get our country out of the hands of the soulless cretins running it now, it will all end badly.
https://www.democraticunderground.com/100212872523
The Soullessness Of The Trump Supporter.....
Let's start at the beginning. In order to support Trump you had to ignore that he was a man married three times who cheated on each of his wives. That he went bankrupt four times. That he was a huckster and a scam artist who sold cheap wine and bad steaks, ran a phony "university", had a fake alter-ego named John Barron, couldn't borrow a dime from an American bank and raised money selling real estate to Russian oligarchs at inflated prices in what was likely a money-laundering scheme and failed at every business-other than selling his name-that he ever started.
The fact that he was deep in debt to Russians when he decided run for president wasn't really an issue for you. He's a guy who's entire life is a lie. There's more, but that should sufficiently illustrate what you had to look past.
So maybe you liked his policies (whatever they may be). He hates the same people you hate. He tells you what you want to hear. He's going to shake things up and change the status quo. He's for the working guy-even though he's spent his life screwing small contractors and has never put his fat ass to work doing anything remotely physical. He talks tough, America's going to be respected! Who cares about those bone spurs. So you vote for him. OK. Where do we go from there?
Mulsim ban? l'm cool with that, can't trust them. Put children in cages? Hey, their parents never should have tried to come into this country-it's their fault. Selling off the country's natural assets? We need to be energy independent! America first! You love the tax cut. Who cares if it really didn't benefit you. You like the sound of it. You don't mind bankers in charge of the banking system. Coal lobbyists in charge of the environment. His daughter and son-in-law in charge of who knows what. It's all okey doke with you. We got Supreme Court justices and Federal judges. He stands up for "religious freedom". Maybe you even think God sent Trump. No, that's not delusional at all.
So now, you start to hear about all kinds of illegal things. He's an unindicted co-conspirator in a criminal action that sent his personal attorney to jail. Won't show you his taxes. Strange deals with the Saudis. Fixing elections with the Russians. Takes Putin's side in nearly everything. Nothing to be concerned with,right? FBI? Liars! State Department officials? Liars! Alarmed members of the NSA? Liars! Anyone who says anything bad about Trump? Liars!
Face it. You have to accept that anyone and everyone who says something bad about Trump is lying. The only person telling the truth? Oh,yeah, the serial liar.
Now, he's back colluding with the Russians. Putting the screws to the Ukranians for his benefit with your tax dollars. Assassinating foreign generals. Threatening our own ambassadors. There's a parade of witnesses with impeccable credibility telling you all about his wrongdoing. Oh yeah, they're liars too. Everyone is lying. Only Trump tells the truth.
Yet you'll pound your chest about how great our country is. You'll tout your faith, your patriotism, your work ethic, all of which you find personified in the guy I just described. Surely at some point in time it must dawn on you that you have to accept a total fantasy about the entire world (except for Russia) conspiring to lie about Trump to keep up this bizarre construct, right. Maybe, just maybe, at least one of those people is telling the truth? Nah.
You go on living in la la land where Trump is our savior. Why? Some might call you stupid. Some might call you delusional. There are any of a hundred reasons why that is so. When it all comes out in the wash, it's because you are soulless. Devoid of principal. Devoid of morals. This isn't a simple policy disagreement. That I can deal with. I can accept that maybe you voted for him the first time around because you wanted to shake things up. Maybe you didn't understand just how bad he person he has always been. But now, I can't explain away your continued support as a policy disagreement. He's an awful person and now so are you.
Maybe you didn't have a soul to begin with, maybe you sold it for a tax cut and a Supreme Court appointee. But your soulless, just like Trump. And unless we get our country out of the hands of the soulless cretins running it now, it will all end badly.
https://www.democraticunderground.com/100212872523
Trump Stays Up All Night with Sharpie Crossing Out Lev Parnas in Photos with Him
By Andy Borowitz
1:57 P.M.
Photograph by Scott Heins / Getty
WASHINGTON (The Borowitz Report)—Donald J. Trump pulled an all-nighter on Wednesday, using a Sharpie to cross out Lev Parnas from photos taken with him at hundreds of events.
Trump, his hands blackened by ink, started working his way through a mountainous stack of photos of him and Parnas at approximately 10 P.M., a White House source confirmed.
After more than an hour of obliterating Parnas, Trump reportedly barked at his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, to fetch Vice-President Mike Pence and Attorney General William Barr to assist with the Parnas deletions.
“Get Pence and Barr in here!” Trump reportedly thundered. “If I’m going down, they’re going down!”
According to the White House source, Pence and Barr appeared within minutes but were not joined by Representative Devin Nunes, who had barricaded himself inside his congressional office with a Sharpie and his phone logs.
Rudy Giuliani's Ukraine Henchman Lev Parnas Roped in Everybody, But the Funniest Is Devin Nunes
The ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee is face planting all over the place.
By Jack Holmes
Jan 16, 2020
https://www.esquire.com/news-politics/a30546244/lev-parnas-interview-trump-ukraine-devin-nunes/?source=nl&utm_source=nl_esq&utm_medium=email&date=011620&utm_campaign=nl19162492
Let's get one thing out of the way: Lev Parnas might be making himself useful now, but he's got no business wearing that flag pin. It's almost like wearing a small metal figurine on your lapel doesn't actually say anything about your commitment to the American national interest.
These Trumpworld creatures who head for the ratlines are basically all the same: guys who would do anything for The Boss until they get caught, at which point they are Just Trying to Do the Right Thing and, perhaps, stay alive. You don't simply give two weeks notice when you're operating in the underworld.
Still, Parnas seemed fairly forthright in his interview Wednesday night with Rachel Maddow, and he made some logical points. Why, indeed, would the President of Ukraine's inner circle meet with him unless he represented the American president?
But there's no reason to take Parnas's word alone on anything. Luckily, for some of it, you don't need to just take his word: he supplied a ton of texts that show a deep and extensive relationship with Rudy Giuliani, Trump's point man on the Ukrainian ratfucking.
Other texts appear to point to a surveillance and intimidation campaign—to accompany the smear campaign—against former Ukraine Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch, who was an obstacle to the Trumpist ratfucking over there. Parnas threw cold water on the notion the erratic Trump ally texting him, Robert Hyde, was doing all he said he was with respect to Yovanovitch. Still, the Ukrainian government has announced it's opening an investigation. Meanwhile, Hyde is running for the United States Congress.
The real headline, however, was Parnas's claim that President Trump "knew exactly what was going on." Again, you can't just take his word for it, though he did offer an explanation—that Rudy Giuliani, frequent butt-dialer, would in Parnas's presence jump on the horn with Trump on speakerphone to tell him about the plot, or that Trump would yell-talk so loud Parnas could hear him—that dovetails with what we knew previously. Parnas also unequivocally sought to rope in Vice President Mike Pence, suggesting he canceled his Ukraine trip as part of the quid pro quo.
And then he really roped in Trump's pet toad, Attorney General William Barr: "Mr. Barr absolutely knew everything," Parnas said, before offering a caveat. “I mean, It’s impossible [that he didn’t]." But then he doubled down: "Attorney General Barr was basically on the team." Everyone knew about the Ukraine operation, and everyone—including the Ukrainians—knew it was about ratfucking Biden.
If you're keeping score at home, this henchman just roped in the President of the United States, the vice president, the attorney general, and of course, the president's personal lawyer.
Seems bad! Or maybe, as Trump and his allies will soon suggest, he's just lying to avoid a lengthy prison sentence. It's unclear how lying publicly at length will do that, but maybe so! Those same folks will also say they don't know Parnas—he's a coffee boy! In fact, it's already begun with the president and with Kellyanne Conway. So here's a photo of Parnas with her. Here's one with Trump, Pence, and Giuliani. Here's one with Trump Junior and a major Republican fundraiser.
And then there's Devin Nunes. The California congressman kicked off the Trump Era by sneaking onto the White House grounds—after switching Ubers! spy shit!—to receive intel from an administration official geared towards propping up the president's spurious claim he was "spied" on during the campaign.
Nunes, then the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, was theoretically supposed to provide oversight of the administration—not run interference for them. By the time the Ukraine fiasco hit, the House Republicans were in the minority, so Nunes was the ranking member of the committee.
Still, it would have been nice for him to mention, while he sat next to Adam Schiff overseeing the hearings, that he had been in contact with a core operator in the scheme. No wonder Nunes spent the entire time reading off batshit conspiracy theories to create clips packaged for Facebook and Fox News.
Anyway, all this led to a hilarious public face plant from Nunes, who always looks like a cow stuck in the headlights anyway.
So now Devin Nunes is admitting he talked to Lev Parnas... He claims when he was asked a few months back, he didn’t recognize the name Parnas pic.twitter.com/3dgoGfsKFd
— Acyn Torabi (@Acyn) January 16, 2020
He didn't recognize the name! Could have been any Lev, any Parnas. His office gets a lot of phone calls! Suddenly he remembers talking to the guy he said he didn't talk to.
Contrast this rambling asshole with what Parnas had to say about him.
If Nunes had any shame, he would resign—but of course, he's only there because he doesn't. I think often about something historian Douglas Brinkley said to me for a piece on Trump's Great American Heist: "It's by nature almost impossible for Trump to build an administration of quality," he said. "It's not about good governance or ethics or even dead-rock patriotism. It's about full-bore allegiance to him, to Trump."
As this era has worn on, the president's allies in his administration and in Congress have steadily declined in quality, as anyone with even a modicum of competence or shame has jumped ship.
He lost the Adults in the Room in his Cabinet, not that they were doing much good anyway. Ex-Speaker Paul Ryan, an anti-government extremist with at least a modicum of primal cleverness, has quit and been replaced with the comically incompetent Kevin McCarthy. (The House Republican leader also has a photo with Parnas.)
The intelligence has steadily leaked out of the Republican side of government, and all that's left is Devin Nunes. Rudy Giuliani—a man who appears in similar cognitive decline to the president's—is running Stupid Black-Ops in the post-Soviet world. The only intelligent ally Trump has left is the megalomaniacal Mitch McConnell, who is ruthlessly effective in part because of his incredible shamelessness.
Time will tell if the latest Trumpian turncoat will make a lick of difference. History says no. Maybe the sheer stupidity and public shamelessness of all the corruption will anesthetize the American public once again—although support for removing the president from office was at 52 percent before his Ukraine henchman formally roped him into the plot on national TV.
Again, maybe Parnas is lying, but it's unlikely federal investigators will give him a sweetheart plea deal for spouting off false information about the president. Maybe, just maybe, Donald Trump has all these sketchballs in his orbit because he is a fucking mobster who operates on the principles of force, leverage, and the steadfast belief that the rules do not apply to him.
Labored attempt at humor that falls on the considerable weight of it's stupidity, biologic impossibility.
Indistinguishable from.
Well that's because, just like GOPER House and Senate members, Trump ball-washers all, you don't want to look, and therefore you don't know shit.
https://www.cnn.com/www.cnn.com › 2019/11/17 › politics › trump-soft-on-russia
25 times Trump was soft on Russia - CNNPolitics - CNN.com
https://www.cnn.com/
Nov 19, 2019 - President Donald Trump has an Achilles' heel when it comes to Russia.
https://www.cnn.com/www.cnn.com › 2019/10/22 › putin-trump-foreign-policy-ac360-bts-vpx
Ex-CIA official: Putin has benefited from Trump's foreign policy ...
https://www.cnn.com/
Oct 22, 2019 - Former CIA operative Steve Hall says that Russian President Vladimir Putin has benefited from President Donald Trump's decision-making and ...
https://www.foreignaffairs.com/www.foreignaffairs.com › articles › russian-federation › trumps-gift-putin
Trump's Privatized Foreign Policy Is a Boon for Russia
https://www.foreignaffairs.com/
Oct 23, 2019 - Trump has personalized and deinstitutionalized foreign policy to the ... played into Putin's hands: Moscow benefits from the tensions that the ...
https://www.newsweek.com/www.newsweek.com › ... › Vladimir Putin › Ukraine › Syria
Former CIA Official Says Russia Benefits Most From Trump ...
https://www.newsweek.com/
Oct 22, 2019 - A former CIA official who oversaw the agency's Russia operations has claimed Vladimir Putin benefits the most from Donald Trump's latest ...
https://www.ft.com/www.ft.com › content
Russia reaps windfalls of Trump's chaos | Financial Times
https://www.ft.com/
Oct 17, 2019 - In Roman times, judges would ask: cui bono — who benefits? When asked of Donald Trump's erratic foreign policy, the answer is troubling.
https://swalwell.house.gov/swalwell.house.gov › issues › russia-trump-his-administration-s-ties
Russia: Trump & His Team's Ties | Congressman Eric Swalwell
https://swalwell.house.gov/
Donald Trump: Not only does his past and current team have ties to Russia, but the ... business deals, and media inside the U.S. and Europe to benefit Putin.
http://nymag.com/nymag.com › trump-impeachment-ukraine-syria-turkey-russia-putin
Trump Is Being Impeached Because He Keeps Helping Russia
http://nymag.com/
Oct 15, 2019 - U-turn in American policy toward Syria to the direct benefit of Russia and its ... The mystery of Russia's influence over Trump has largely ...
FBI arrests alleged members of white supremacist group 'the Base'
AKA: FBI cracks down on many fine people.
Source: WaPo
By Shane Harris and Devlin Barrett
Jan. 16, 2020 at 10:55 a.m. EST
The FBI has arrested alleged members of a white supremacist group on federal gun charges and other alleged crimes, according to people familiar with the matter.
The charges, expected to be unsealed Thursday, grew from an investigation of a somewhat new effort among online extremists who refer to themselves as “the Base,” the English translation of “al Qaida.” According to experts who track hate groups, the Base promotes racist views and seeks to unite different hate groups in preparation for a “race war.”
At least one of the individuals was arrested in Maryland, these people said.
FBI Director Christopher A. Wray warned Congress in the fall that American neo-Nazis seem increasingly to be communicating with like-minded violent racists overseas, but he cautioned that those links so far appear more inspirational than organizational.
“We are starting to see racially motivated violent extremists connecting with like-minded individuals online certainly, and in some instances, we have seen people travel overseas to train,” Wray said.
Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/national-security/fbi-arrests-alleged-members-of-white-supremacist-group-the-base/2020/01/16/ae8c01d4-386b-11ea-bf30-ad313e4ec754_story.html
Richard Sherman Is Elite, But Is He The Best Pass Defender?
By Michael Salfino
Jan. 16, 2020,at 11:18 AM
https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/richard-sherman-is-elite-but-is-he-the-best-pass-defender/
It’s hard to assess Sherman — partly because he’s not always going up against the best wide receivers. He generally lines up on the same side of the defense no matter where the team’s top opposing wide receiver happens to be. And he’s been criticized for this by fellow players, including by arguably the greatest cover cornerback ever, Deion Sanders.
This could end up being a problem on Sunday in the NFC championship game. Green Bay’s top receiver by far, Davante Adams, is coming off a franchise record-setting 160-yard receiving postseason game. But he caught both touchdowns (and 71 of his yards) on the side of the field that Sherman doesn’t cover.
So it’s possible that Aaron Rodgers could pepper Adams with targets all game by just keeping him lined up away from Sherman. This would deprive fans of seeing an epic receiver vs. corner matchup and, perhaps, keep the 49ers from reaching the Super Bowl.
You poor credulous dumb bastard....
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2020/jan/15/pen-t-up-anger-republicans-pounce-on-pelosi-over-ceremonial-writing-tools
"In fact, as Guardian political reporter Lauren Gambino pointed out, commemorative pens were used in a very analogous situation in the late 1990s: the impeachment of Bill Clinton. In that case, senators who signed a pledge to be impartial received pens that accidentally dubbed them “Untied States senators”."
Pens with Pelosi’s signature are prepared for the engrossment ceremony of the articles of impeachment. Photograph: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images
That's not reality but rather denial of the reality that if a Dem president behaved exactly the same you would rip the shit out of him or her. You do remember the Obama derangement syndrome over his birth certificate, having no doubt suffered from it yourself, right?
Or would you claim it's not the Putin loving, the colonial airports, the sharpie altered weather maps, the cancer inducting windmills, the appliances being very strongly looked at and the withholding of aid to Ukraine to secure dirt on a GOP opponent; it's the liberal judges and the ballooning deficit, the self dealing and the trade war?
Hilarious coming from one who has never posted anything that exhibits an ability to distinguish shit from Shinola.
His exact words..."She's Going to Go Through Some Things" - Donald J. Trump
WTF do you think that meant, something good or appropriate?
This applies to you in spades...
Reminder: If You Defend Trump, You're Not Just Defending a Criminal. You're Enabling an Idiot.
1/15/2020
Reminder: If You Defend Trump, You're Not Just Defending a Criminal. You're Enabling an Idiot.
1/15/2020
Freddy, THIS is what a dumpster fire really looks like...…
"She's Going to Go Through Some Things" - Donald J. Trump
With that sentence, he admits that he knew about the stalking and plotting against the Ambassador to the Ukraine. Trump was part of the whole plan.
It. Is. That. Simple.
Removal from office by the Senate is the solution. That's the "thing" Trump is "going to go through."
https://www.democraticunderground.com/100212872388
I've had it with her bullshit too. Someone needs to ask her if she would be so concerned with process over content if a Dem president were in the crosshairs.
Also, is your chiropractor that good? 'What do you mean?', she would respond.
I mean straightening your ass up after bending over backwards to defend the indefensible as much as you do.