playing the BIG boards. options included. making the profits with this volitality !
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ROTFLMAO,...
which means it is another Don the Con LIE !
Trump added that the deal with Mexico is also very special for farmers and manufacturers.
anytime the IMBECILE potus says something,... it's exactly opposite ! which means the farmers and manufacturers will be getting screwed.
hey,..maybe he'll throw them a roll of paper towels,..how special 8^)
haven't you learned yet ?
sheeesh,...
wake up,...sometime this year if possible.
Alan Dershowitz shares four tips for Trump to stay out of trouble
by Naomi Lim
August 26, 2018 01:31 PM
Lawyer Alan Dershowitz has tips for President Trump on how the weather special counsel Robert Mueller's federal Russia investigation and the ensuing legal drama involving his former associates.
"Look, my advice to the president — I never gave it to him privately because I’m not his lawyer, but on television — is don’t fire, don’t pardon, don’t tweet, and don’t testify,” Dershowitz said during a panel interview with ABC's "This Week." "And if he listened to those four things, he'd be in less trouble than he is today."
Dershowitz said Trump has the authority to dismiss Attorney General Jeff Sessions, with whom the president exchanged bards last week over the leadership of the Justice Department, but stressed that he would not recommend.
“He’s perfectly entitled to do so," Dershowitz said of Trump pushing out Sessions. "I think it would be a mistake to fire anybody."
Former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort last Tuesday was found guilty by a federal court in Virginia of eight out of 18 tax and bank fraud charges stemming from Mueller's investigation. On the same day, ex-Trump personal lawyer and fixer Michael Cohen pleaded guilty in front of a New York federal court to eight charges that emanated from a U.S. Attorney's Office in the Southern District of New York probe following a referral from Mueller.
In the days since, Trump has not ruled out pardoning Manafort, who faces yet another trial in September in Washington. He called Manafort "a good man" shortly after the jury returned the partial guilty verdict.
Trump has not displayed the same level of public support for Cohen. He took to Twitter Wednesday to poke fun at his former employee's legal prowess. "If anyone is looking for a good lawyer, I would strongly suggest that you don’t retain the services of Michael Cohen!" he tweeted.
Dershowitz's comments come as Trump's outside legal team continues to negotiate with Mueller's team regarding the possibility of the president sitting down with federal prosecutors for their investigation.
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/alan-dershowitz-shares-four-tips-for-trump-to-stay-out-of-trouble
Susie,...you shared the nicer female version of the Don/Con actions,...
What a petty little bitch he is!
male version,...Trump, what an absolute prick !
IF these allegations are factual and true then it is sickening what is being allowed and what is being protected.
i've said it before,..pope francis,...head pimp of the CC. and based on his non-actions,..he in fact is !
The former diplomat said he had an exchange with the pope in June 2013, three months after Francis was elected, in which he told him there was a thick dossier on McCarrick. According to Viganò, the pope did not respond, and McCarrick continued in his role as a public emissary for the church.
In a highly charged 11-page testament, Viganò – who is known for his conservative views – claimed Francis knew Theodore McCarrick, the former archbishop of Washington, “was a corrupt man, [but] he covered for him to the bitter end”.
Viganò named a string of cardinals and archbishops who he said also knew about the McCarrick claims. “Corruption has reached the very top of the church’s hierarchy,” he wrote.
,..pope francis,...head pimp of the CC.
fuagf,...i received your PM but can't respond. sorry i couldn't be of assistance.
CNBC talking heads explode over Sen. Warren’s Accountable Capitalism Act
BY Egberto Willies
August 17, 2018
The response was swift to Senator Elizabeth Warren's attempt to give workers some power in our corporations to prevent the complete decimation of the poor and middle-class. Fox News created a bold-faced lie that Progressives better answer quickly everywhere.
Senator Elizabeth Warren's new bill, the Accountable Capitalism Act., makes all PUBLIC corporations with over $1 Billion in sales register federally. Additionally, 40% of the board of directors would be appointed by employees. The bill restricts the shenanigans corporate executive play with paying themselves with shares to corruptly maximize their incomes.
There is no government ownership or involvement in these corporations. These are just common sense regulations. Corporations are public entities our Supreme Court defines as persons with rights of humans. Warren wants to give them some morals and prevent them from having an absolute reign over humanity. Fox News Lied and called that the "largest seizure of private property in human history."
While Fox News lies, CNBC is in panic mode. Their talking heads continue to bring in titans of finance whose heads are exploding about Warren's gall in real time. The following compilation of CNBC video snippets is probative.
(panic videos of Warrens proposal at this link)
https://egbertowillies.com/2018/08/17/cnbc-warren-accountable-capitalism-act/
US-UK Chemical Weapons Plot in Syria Exposed
by Kurt Nimmo
August 25, 2018
washingtonsblog.com
Russian Defense Ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov says the UK is plotting a chemical attack in Syria to be blamed on Bashar al-Assad and the Syrian Arab Army. He said this will be used as a pretext for a direct attack on the Syrian government by the United States.
TASS posted Konashenkov’s remarks on Saturday.
“According to the information confirmed simultaneously by several independent sources, the active terrorist grouping Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (formerly known as Jabhat al-Nusra) is plotting a new provocation with the alleged use of chemical weapons by the Syrian government forces against civilians in the Idlib province,” Konashenkov said.
Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) is but the latest al-Qaeda clone. It is holed up in Idlib to make a final stand in the long and disastrous war against the Islamic State, the most vicious to date of the al-Qaeda spinoffs.
HTS member groups include some of the most brutal human rights offenders in Syria: Jabhat Fateh al-Sham (formerly al-Nusra Front), the Ansar al-Din Front, Jaysh al-Sunna, Liwa al-Haqq, and the Nour al-Din al-Zenki Movement (DZM).
Nusra was particularly pathological in its approach to sectarian mass murder campaigns. It has murdered large numbers of Alawites, Druze, Christians, and Shiites. It also executes Syrian Army prisoners. Both are serious violations of international law.
DZM already had a solid relationship with the Pentagon. It was the recipient of BGM-71 TOW anti-tank missiles manufactured by Raytheon. The group is supported by the Muslim Brotherhood, the CIA, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Turkey. It worked with Nusra to abduct and torture journalists and humanitarian workers. It also beheads non-believers, including children.
All of these groups are either strict Wahhabi Sunnis or variants thereof and are fighting not only to overthrow the Shia Alawite Bashar al-Assad, but also establish a Salafist caliphate in Syria, as foretold by a declassified government document.
Considering the mutually beneficial relationship between the United States and Saudi Arabia—now more enthusiastic than ever under Trump—and its documented past supporting, training, and arming Salafist murderers in Syria, it is entirely possible the plot is authentic.
“A special group of terrorists who have been trained by specialists of the UK private military company Olive to handle chemical warfare agents has also arrived in the area of Jisr ash-Shugur,” Konashenkov said.
These militants have been tasked to simulate a rescue operation for locals allegedly hurt in the chemical attack and will be clad in the outfits of the notorious White Helmets group, the spokesman said.
The Olive Group is billed as “a leading provider of innovative risk management solutions.” It is headquartered in the United Arab Emirates with offices in the UK and the US. Previously known as Olive Security, the group adopted the “ethos of the UK’s Special Forces.” The company received a contract from Bechtel for work during the invasion and occupation of Iraq and also worked with USAID, the folks involved in the color revolution business.
It will now be impossible for the US and the UK to stage another chemical attack, at least in the short term. Trump’s neocon national security adviser John Bolton will have to devise another way to attack Syria. In the meantime, there is always Iran.
https://washingtonsblog.com/2018/08/us-uk-chemical-weapons-plot-in-syria-exposed.html
Over The Last 7 Days Our Planet Has Been Violently Shaken By 144 Major Earthquakes
Aug 24, 20183
(active embedded links at article link below)
It simply is not “normal” for 144 major earthquakes to happen in just one week. In addition, dozens of volcanoes are currently erupting all over the globe. We appear to have entered a time when the crust of our planet is going to become increasingly unstable, and it doesn’t take a genius to figure out that this is going to have very serious implications for the future of our society.
Within the past few days, we have seen an enormous magnitude 7.3 earthquake hit Venezuela and a giant magnitude 8.2 earthquake hit Fiji. Where will the next one strike?
To many of us, it is becoming exceedingly clear that something very unusual is happening to our planet. I went and looked it up, and I was astounded to learn that the crust of the Earth has been shaken by 144 major earthquakes over the last 7 days, and that includes more than 50 on Sunday alone.
And remember, these are not small earthquakes. The USGS considers any earthquake that is at least magnitude 4.5 to be “significant”, and they are happening so rapidly right now that it is difficult to keep up with them.
Source: USGS
Usually, only earthquakes that cause death and destruction get attention from the mainstream media, and that was definitely the case with the huge quake that hit the northern coast of Venezuela on Tuesday…
A major earthquake of magnitude 7.3 struck the northern coast of Venezuela on Tuesday and shook buildings as far away as the capital, Caracas, the U.S. Geological Survey said.
The quake was centered near the town of Carupano, an area of poor fishing communities and was felt as far away as neighboring Colombia to the east and nearby island nations like Trinidad and Tobago, and St. Lucia, to the west and north.
This is certainly the last thing that the people of Venezuela need at the moment. Their currency was just devalued again, and at this point it is so worthless that people are literally throwing it into dumpsters.
According to media reports, the quake lasted for approximately two minutes, and it really shook people up. The following comes from Reuters…
“I feel like I’m about to faint. I’m shaking. It was long,” said telemarketing worker Sheny Fuentes, 22, speaking outside her work building in eastern Caracas. “I’m relieved that it doesn’t seem like damage was that bad. We would have been even more affected (given Venezuela’s economic crisis) – there are already people eating from the garbage and buildings aren’t well made,” she told Reuters.
The other day I noted that the magnitude 8.2 quake that just hit Fiji was the second largest “deep focus” earthquake ever recorded, and this quake in Venezuela was highly unusual as well.
In fact, seismologist Stephen Hicks says that it was one of “the largest ever recorded” in that entire region…
“M7.3 earthquake today along the northern coast of Venezuela is one of the largest ever recorded earthquakes along the boundary between the Caribbean & South American plates. There was an M7.7 quake to the west in 1900 but this will have preceded detailed instrumental recordings”
And this earthquake came right on the heels of an extremely active 48 hours for global seismic activity.
According to the Daily Mail, the “Ring of Fire” was shaken by a total of 69 major earthquakes on Sunday and Monday…
“Sixty nine major earthquakes have hit Earth’s most active geological disaster zone in the space of just 48 hours.
Sixteen ‘significant’ tremors – those at magnitude 4.5 or above – shook the Pacific ‘Ring of Fire’ on Monday, following a spate of 53 that hit the region Sunday.”
The vast majority of the earthquakes that shake our planet take place along the Ring of Fire. It roughly encircles the Pacific Ocean, and it runs right up the west coast of the United States.
As the Ring of Fire has become more seismically active over the past several months, it has increased concerns that “the Big One” may soon be coming to California. Just check out this excerpt from a Daily Mail article that was just published…
“The tremors have raised concerns that California’s ‘Big One’ – a destructive earthquake of magnitude 8 or greater – may be looming.
Scientists have previously warned that Ring of Fire activity may trigger a domino effect that sets off earthquakes and volcanic eruptions elsewhere in the region.”
Scientists assure us that it is only a matter of time before the west coast is hit by major seismic events, and I even included a major seismic event on the west coast in my apocalyptic novel about the future of America. We are seeing earthquakes increase in frequency and intensity all over the planet, and they are starting to happen in places that we don’t normally expect. For instance, just check out what happened in Italy last week…
“A number of earthquakes struck the region of Molise on the nights of August 15th and August 16th and the morning of August 17th. An earthquake was also felt in Le Marche near the port city of Ancona.
A magnitude 5.2 earthquake struck four kilometres from the southeastern town of Montecilfone, a village of 1,348 people, in the region of Molise, on the night of August 16th just after 8pm, according to Italy’s National Institute for Geophysics and Vulcanology (INGV), which monitors seismic activity.”
But until major shaking starts happening in the continental United States, most Americans are not going to pay attention.
It simply is not “normal” for 144 major earthquakes to happen in just one week. In addition, dozens of volcanoes are currently erupting all over the globe. We appear to have entered a time when the crust of our planet is going to become increasingly unstable, and it doesn’t take a genius to figure out that this is going to have very serious implications for the future of our society.
https://themindunleashed.com/2018/08/over-the-last-7-days-our-planet-has-been-violently-shaken-by-144-major-earthquakes.html
Unions Just Scored a Win Against the Trump Administration
by Samantha Michaels
motherjones.com
Aug. 25, 2018
A federal judge struck down orders that made it easier for government agencies to fire workers.
Unions just scored a victory against the Trump administration, which has steadily been working to weaken the power of organized labor. A federal judge in Washington on Friday struck down most provisions of three executive orders that made it easier for government agencies to fire workers and restricted the ability of their unions to negotiate with managers.
US District Court Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson ruled that the executive orders, signed by President Donald Trump in May, conflicted with Congress’ opinion that good-faith union negotiations are vital to the public interest. While “the president has the authority to issue executive orders that carry the force of law with respect to federal labor relations, it is undisputed that no such orders can operate to eviscerate the right to bargain collectively as envisioned in the [statute],” Jackson wrote.
The executive orders told federal agencies to give underperforming employees less time to improve their work before firing them—just three months, as opposed to 120 days previously. The orders also made it more difficult for federal workers to appeal their performance evaluations; greatly reduced the amount of time federal employees could devote to union business during regular work hours; and told agencies not to negotiate over important workplace issues, including the number of employees assigned to particular projects.
More than a dozen federal employee unions sued to block the orders. “Employees are really frightened,” Loni Schultz, a union official representing employees in the Social Security Administration, told the New York Times. “They’re frightened about losing jobs. They have house payments, car payments, child care.”
Judge Jackson’s decision does leave a few provisions of the executive orders in place, including one that allows federal agencies to unilaterally implement changes to a union agreement if members are found to be bargaining in bad faith.
The Federal Workers Alliance, a coalition of 13 federal employee unions, applauded the judge’s ruling. “We are very pleased that the court agreed that the president far exceeded his authority, and that the apolitical career federal work force shall be protected from these illegal, politically motivated executive orders,” Sarah Suszczyk, co-chair of the group, said in a statement. “It is a wonderful day to be a federal employee and a union member!” the American Federation of Government Employees, the country’s largest federal employee union, tweeted.
Friday’s ruling comes just weeks after a Supreme Court decision weakened public-sector unions by barring them from requiring fees for representation from both union and non-union members, overturning years of precedent. (Federal employees were already exempt from paying dues or fees unless they wanted to.)
“[T]he entire labor movement will not be pushed around,” tweeted Richard Trumka, president of the AFL-CIO. “Together, we’re fighting back and winning.”
Richard L. Trumka
?
@RichardTrumka
Tremendous victory for the people who serve our nation every single day. @AFGENational and the entire labor movement will not be pushed around. Together, we’re fighting back and winning. #1u
AFGE
@AFGENational
Have you seen the news? The ruling is in and it is a wonderful day to be a federal employee and a union member! https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/25/business/trump-federal-workers-unions.html?action=click&module=Top%20Stories&pgtype=Homepage … #EOhellno
12:31 PM - Aug 25, 2018
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The Trump administration is expected to appeal the decision. Read the full ruling below:
(full ruling at this link)
https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2018/08/unions-just-scored-a-win-against-the-trump-administration/
the real affect of the Trumps administration tariffs on the American people,.,.a.k.a. consumers & buyers,...
OPPOSING PROPOSED AUTO TARIFFS
In May, the Trump Administration announced the Department of Commerce would begin what’s called a Section 232 investigation on imported automobiles and motor vehicle parts, which under the Trade Expansion Act of 1962, gives the administration broad legal authority to impose tariffs on goods in the interest of national security.
While we understand the president’s focus on protecting manufacturing and other jobs and ensuring a level playing field with our international trading partners, we believe these tariffs will do the opposite. A twenty five percent tariff would have a devastating impact on the automotive and parts industry, because the industry is truly global. Many international nameplate vehicles are built in the U.S. while a number of U.S. nameplates are assembled outside our borders. And both assembly and repair parts for cars come from all over the world.
By the numbers: A 25% tariff on imported automobiles and auto parts would result in:
- The loss of more than 700,000 jobs
- A nearly $60 billion decline in U.S. gross domestic product
- A rise in the price of an average vehicle by nearly $7,000
- A decline in annual sales of as many as 2 million vehicles
- Up to 10% increase in the cost of repairs and replacement parts
AMERICAN WORKER STORIES
The auto industry — suppliers, manufacturers, and dealers — supports millions of American jobs. Below are examples of the people and communities benefitting from an incredible manufacturing comeback.
DWAYNE MYERS, MANAGING PARTNER, DYNAMIC AUTOMOTIVE, FREDERICK, MD
"A 25 percent tariff on imported auto parts will have a ripple effect down the industry's global supply chain. Not only are thousands of jobs at risk, it is essentially a massive tax on U.S. consumers. Higher parts prices will lead to underperformed maintenance and to drivers delaying repairs, which puts the safety of pedestrians, passengers and other vehicles on the road at risk. Furthermore, there are so many different makes and models of vehicles on the roads today that I am simply not able to source many of the parts needed for repairs from only domestic producers."
MATTHEW VALBUENA, ENGINEER, MAZDA
As a young boy, Matthew acted as an interpreter to his deaf parents. He and his father bonded over listening to music in the car, his father hearing the music in his chest with every beat of the kick drum. Now, Matthew works as an engineer at Mazda helping with the “visual noise” as well as actual noise. The boy who had to learn how to enjoy music on his own terms is teaching others how to rediscover sound quality in an era of streaming at 128 kbps. “My childhood hobbies turned into my career path and led me to where I am today at Mazda,” he said. “I couldn’t have planned it any better than that.”
LAURI COX, EMPLOYEE AT JIM HUDSON LEXUS
"Starting in the early 90s in the male-dominated automotive industry was a challenge. I worked hard, long hours to overachieve because I was given a chance to be the very best I could be, and I wanted to live up to it. Now, 25 years later, I am part of a team who is achieving greatness not only in the success of the dealership, but also donating the land to build a woman & children’s shelter right here in Columbia. I never thought my original journey would have resulted in such a win/win, both personally and professionally."
MARK SCARPELLI OF RAYMOND CHEVROLET OF ANTIOCH, ILLINOIS
“As a dealer I have to meet payroll every month, and I cannot do that if sales fall dramatically. The last thing I want to do is layoff a valued employee. Many of my employees have been with our dealership for years. They are like family. But I might have to let some people go if a massive tariff hits my inventory of parts and new cars. If prices go up because of a tariff my customers will not buy as many cars. It’s that simple.”
https://www.drivingamericanjobs.com
now that's a statement coming only from a man who knows the quantum side of life !
you wrote;
as easy as it is, Trump is not nearly the whole story.
unless we figure out how we will move beyond this fractional shit, humanity is unlikely to survive in the near future. we have very big problems.
i love it ! what a great laugh !! ROTFLMAO !!!
Mueller plays chess - Trump plays checkers.
Peg, i think your perspective is right on target ! it's all about coordination of the facts on a timeline basis. and Mueller's team has been very effective discovering and connecting the dots. enough so that Michael Cohen confessed only hours after Manafort was sentenced.
I believe Mueller has had them for a while and needed a Trump Organization insider to corroborate what has been suspected for a long time - then along came Allen Weisselberg who was granted immunity for talking.
migo,..you make a great point ! Pence is scary with his white supremacist stance and his 'I'm on a mission from god' rhetoric. but,...
i'm thinking that Mueller will also grab Pence. there is noooooo way Pence did not know the illegal dealings going on in the Trump campaign. Mueller just has to prove it !
this is where the sickness unfolds,...
“This may not be our preferred candidate (Pence), but that doesn’t mean it may not be God’s candidate to do something that we don’t see,” said David Barton, a prominent Christian-right activist and president of Wall Builders, an organization dedicated to making the U.S. government enforce “biblical values."
"biblical values",...hey Dave, you mean biblical values like laying down with another woman sexually that is not your wife ?
bibilical values,...i call it Convenient Christianity. only do what works for them because they have a get out of jail card,..."I am forgiven."
these type of "we're special cause god is on our side' mentality is pure psycho-babble. total crap.
you are most likely correct Susie. it will be spun as much as possible to create distraction.
i'm guessing even Trump supporters are getting tired of the Hillary email excuse crap. it's the Don/Con version of 'the sky is falling'. no one believes it any longer. over-use. not a very creative legal team, LOL.
now with this new development with Avenatti going after Cohen and the Trump Foundation and its tax returns. this is going to get down to the brass tacks. this is Don/Con totally exposed if Mueller can get his tax returns (if he doesn't already have them).
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Michael Avenatti stated;
I absolutely believe that this conduct makes Donald Trump’s election in the White House illegitimate. Donald Trump and others around him believe that he is above the law, that he cannot be held accountable. Well, I have a message for Donald Trump this morning.
We are going to work morning, noon and night to make sure that he is held accountable. We are going to acquire the evidence and the facts. We’re going to present that to the American public. They’re going be the jury, Joy, that will ultimately decide what happens to Donald Trump.
And here’s another thing that I want to add this morning. I am highly confident that in the coming weeks we are going to negotiate a resolution with Michael Cohen relating to the civil litigation, the multiple cases that we have with him.
And I’m highly confident that, ultimately, he’s going to cooperate with me in connection with our attempts to get to the truth and to bring Donald Trump to justice.
(original content posting credit goes to BOREALIS)
I think with the fact that Manafort is in jail the other players in the Don/Con game of find the missing pieces...they are not willing to remain "loyal".LOL
Can you imagine Pecker in a jail cell with a name like that...it doesn't take much for other more hard core criminals that are bored to want to conduct some deep due diligence on the new guy ??
Susie...don't ya just love it when all the puzzle pieces come together. A thing of beauty.
I wonder how Faux News/Hannity will spin this. it can't be fake news....its a signed contract.
ROTFLMAO.
faugh ...the more that is revealed through the Mueller investigation the more it becomes so blatantly obvious this man has been involved in some form of illegal activity his entire business life.
Now that he has not kept his word and promises to his co-conspirators those same co-conspirators won't be keeping their promises not to give Don/Con up.
Rightfully so.
Its kind of hilarious...he is just so power hungry and financially greedy...he got caught by his little hands and huge ego.
fuagf,..it's looking to be pretty nasty for the Don/Con. i'm soooo looking forward for this prick to get what's coming to him and his criminal family.
great sound and production this LA band has.,...love their music.
i just went online and picked up 'Everything I Could Ever Say' and 'Finding It Hard To Smile' from their store. might as well make positive they get the fund$.
getting some great driving music for next weekend.
thanks again newmedman.
fantastic song !!!! i've not heard the song or the group before.
thanks for widening my listening pleasure newmedman !!!!
agree with you,...i didn't particularly like much of McCains rhetoric but he put his ass on the line for this country and i have total respect for that.
i'm so looking forward to the Pecker testimony. everyone is out to save their own asses. news flash Don/Con,...no pardon,...we talk,...and that doesn't appear to be fake news 8^)
it's amazing how this has moved from Trump/Russia to Trump/Trump Organization and business records. this is where the truth will hit the fan and it will be all over for Don/Con.
Weisselberg has to have split open like a pinata' when with Mueller.
Trump,...he did this to himself,..now it's payback time to everyone HE screwed.
KARMA's A BITCH !
it's sooooo obvious that we are on two different levels. you constantly turn it around and make it about some other subject, that in your mind, connects the dots.
i see what you are attempting to connect but it's a flaw in approach you are making.
as Einstein stated,...""We can't solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them."
whether you see it or not that is what you are doing. you are trapped in your own trap.
fuagf said it very clearly,... that if you don't choose another system you are doomed to be constantly frustrated. maybe it's nothing to do with you and has everything to do with the system. either way,...get out of it to create clarity.
the system (the way you are thinking) is what is confusing to me and others as you have already received feedback on.
have a nice life.
you totally miss the point...totally.
i'm not suggesting at all that you believe the same things i do. i did not ask that of you. that was not contained in any of the suggestion.
the suggestion was to become a scientist/detective and conduct due diligence on what you think you know to be correct. just try it. with no bias no way or the other. you're on a discovery.
and try not to rely on your own 'mind drivel' to rationalize your self through it all.
the sense i received is,... if a person believes in nothing it does not mean the person is not aware of their environment. actually not having any beliefs to identify with the person can see and observe reality unencumbered by their mind pre-sets.
it does mean the person is more living in the present moment trusting their observation of the present moment, there is then no need to believe anything,...the truth is in front of the person.
on a personal note,...any time i can free my mind from it's confusion or know-it-all perspectives and cognize that i'm in truth doing that, the free space opens and i have no master (thoughts, mindsets) to serve.
make it a great day Peg !
Fuck Belief ! Overcoming Narrow-Mindedness
Gary Z McGee
May 15, 201830
“Belief is when someone else does the thinking.” ~R. Buckminster Fuller
Fuck religion. Fuck dogma. Fuck trying to make yourself feel better by injecting an imaginary friend into the already confusing equation of existence. Focus instead on becoming a better person. Focus on thinking. Focus on action. It’s less about placation and more about taking things into deep consideration and then letting that shit go. Even then, it’s less about pigeonholing truth and more about self-discovery.
“At the core of all well-founded belief, lies belief that is unfounded.” ~Ludwig Wittgenstein
Don’t get me wrong. Spirituality is vital. Be spiritual. But spirituality doesn’t require anyone to “believe” in it. Religion does. Spirituality is flexible; religion is dogmatic. Spirituality is liberating (courage-based); religion is authoritative (fear-based). Spirituality is painful growth; religion is comfortable stagnation. Spirituality is open-minded; religion is close-minded. Spirituality is interdependent; religion is codependent. Spirituality speaks a language older than words; religion speaks a language limited by words. Spirituality allows the Great Mystery (God) to be truly infinite; religion attempts to pigeonhole it into a finite construct. Most important of all, spirituality is full of questions (thought); religion is full of so called answers (belief).
If this seems harsh. Tough shit! I’m not here to tell you what you want to hear. I’m here to tell you what you need to hear. As renown philosopher Daniel Dennett said, “There is no polite way to suggest to someone that they have devoted their life to a folly.” So buckle up, buttercup. Let your little snowflake heart melt all over the place. Make a goddamned mess. You’re in for a ride.
The dangers of belief:
“It is not disbelief that is dangerous to our society, it is belief.” –George Bernard Shaw
Think about it. When has disbelief ever hurt anyone? And I don’t mean feelings. Fuck feelings too. Now, ask yourself, when has belief hurt anyone? Take a moment. Think it through. Get the point?
Belief is dangerous precisely because if you believe in something completely, you’ll do anything, however irrational and however evil (ironic much?), to keep that belief in tact. You can’t be persuaded, because you believe.
Let’s say you believe in some arbitrary authority (God, queen, president, cop). You believe that they are righteous and good. You believe in their religion, politics, or laws. You believe in their infallibility. That belief is so deeply entrenched in you that nothing that authority could do would persuade you to believe otherwise.
Now, let’s say that authority convinced your pure “faithful” heart to do something that, had anyone else told you to do so, you would think it immoral. Like the Christian God telling Abraham to kill his oldest son to “test his faith” for example. What then? Careful, now. You’re on a slippery slope into Evil Town. Like Voltaire famously said, “Those who can make you believe absurdities, can make you commit atrocities.”
Don’t get me wrong. Be confident. Be cool. Be calm, collected and controlled. But you don’t need belief for that. You don’t need faith and certainty to have confidence and achieve self-improvement. If anything, belief will hold you back. It will keep you from questioning things. It will keep you from thinking. And that’s the crux. That’s the kick in the pants. That’s the brain-dead fly in the proverbial ointment. If you cannot think, then you cannot be free.
The freedom of letting go of belief:
“Don’t believe yourself, and don’t believe anyone else. If you don’t believe, what is not true will dissolve in front of your eyes. Only what is true will remain, because what is true doesn’t need anyone to believe it.” ~Don Miguel Ruiz
Now, I know you’re probably shitting cognitive dissonance all up inside your Mormon magical underwear at this point. But take a deep breath, pull your brain out of your forefather’s ass, and think about the big picture for a second. As Samuel Coleridge said, “You do not believe; you only believe that you believe.”
The truth is that reality is the way it is despite your beliefs. I’m not saying that I know the way reality is. I’m saying that it is most certainly the way it is (whatever that is) despite what you believe. It’s self-evident. When you let go of belief, you’re simply rolling with that fact. You’re allowing that to be the case, despite your indoctrination, conditioning, upbringing, or brainwashing.
When you let go of belief, you let go of expectation, and you allow yourself to simply be with the naked, harsh, unforgiving truth of reality. The cold and hard truth of “you don’t know.” The pulsing blister of “you are going to die!” The answers to which should be: “Okay, let’s figure it out by weighing the evidence and then using probability as a guide to see if our “answers” are valid according to universal laws, and then keep questioning,” and, “Okay, I’m going to die. Great! I better get busy living the healthiest life I can live because I simply don’t know if this is the only chance I get to live a life well-lived or not.” Neither of which require belief. Both of which require you to sacrifice belief.
Not believing in anything is absolute freedom precisely because neither our intellect nor our imagination can be diminished by the dogmatic assurance which closes the mind against speculation.
Not believing in anything frees us to take everything into consideration. We become logically liberated, scientifically set free, and our rationality is relieved. We’re free to dig deeper into reality without the shame and guilt of dogmatic belief hanging over our heads.
Healthy skepticism and an intimacy with probability become our shifting bedrock, our foundational quicksand, our liberated measuring tool. We’re free to swim in the waters of uncertainty rather than remain chained to the pillars of certitude.
When it comes down to it, letting go of belief allows us the freedom of being wrong. It’s finally admitting that we are a species that is profoundly fallible and prone to mistakes. We’re a barely evolved naked ape going through the awkward motions of its adolescent phase of existence. We’re a floundering and confused species.
Indeed. My believing in the Flying Spaghetti Monster gets me nowhere, except maybe entertained. Better to simply take it into consideration as a silly belief that some people might have, and then laugh at it. Laugh at myself. Poke holes in it. Question why I might believe that “his noodly appendage will save me from my sins.” Or why I insist on wearing a colander for a hat. As with all things, a good sense of humor will set you free.
The importance of reasoning rather than believing:
“Belief is when someone else does the thinking.” ~R. Buckminster Fuller
Caveat credentis: believer beware. Rather than believe in things, take things into consideration. It is simple to alter considerations, but it’s almost impossible to alter beliefs. And altering both considerations and beliefs are vital for the healthy, progressive evolution of our species.
Taking things into consideration is far superior to believing in them because we are a fallible, ever-changing, still-evolving species. We happen to be a species with a big brain, which gives us a false sense of security that we have discovered answers to complex questions. Along with the false sense of accomplishment that we’ve evolved to a peak state.
But when it really comes down to it we are merely big-brained mammals stumbling through a vast cosmos of which we have barely even scratched the surface.
That’s why we must take things into consideration rather than believe in them. Belief is limiting. Taking things into consideration is limitless. Belief is mental slavery. Taking things into consideration is mental liberation.
The best way to maintain a healthy, reasonable skepticism, and not devolve into an ignorant, sycophantic, violent mess of a human, is to take things into deep consideration and then question them rather than believe in them. When you come up with what seems like a solid answer, simply take it into consideration rather than believe in it. In other words: entertain the answer without accepting it. Then use the “answer” as a tool so that it doesn’t turn you into a tool.
In the end, believing in nothing frees you up to rethink and re-imagine, regardless of the cultural, political, and religious boxes seeking to contain you. Believing in nothing frees you up to be truly alive, in the moment, rather than merely waiting to die. It opens something up for you to explore. It gives you something to question. It gives you something to have an adventure with.
Believing in nothing liberates you from the chains of dogma so that you can discover the courage of self-improvement. It releases you from the bondage of certitude so that you can gain the wherewithal of self-confidence in the face of uncertainty. It’s having the vulnerable mettle of courage despite the invulnerable metal of faith.
Believing in nothing is absolute freedom because you can finally see how everything is connected to everything else, and how attempting to stuff infinity into the finite nutshell of a belief is done in vain. It’s perhaps the vainest act of all. Better to not be vain in the first place. Better to remain in a state of constant awe, in love with the moment, bewildered and astonished by the grandeur of the unknown.
Imagination liberated. Intellect untethered. Love unmoored. Humor dethroning all gods. Unlimited by belief but limited by cosmic law. Allowing the universe to be the way it is despite our beliefs, because the universe is going to be that way anyway. So we might as well get better at living in accordance with it.
https://themindunleashed.com/2018/05/fuck-belief-overcoming-narrow-mindedness.html
newmedman,...excellent post !!!! thanks.
that IS the point that has been being made. you keep buying the rhetoric that we are overseas protecting borders of other countries,...
YES,....STRICTLY FOR OUR INTERESTS !!!!
do you really think this administration gives a shit about those countries they have deployed troops to ? not one iota do they care about any thing other than protecting our interests.
and when you/this country spend billions of dollars on deployment and billions of dollars of new weapons and billions of dollars to build military bases ,...
this country and it's investment wants an ROI. it's as simple as that.
you keep buying the BS Trump lies as if he's telling the truth. he's not. he just gave the MIC a budget of 54% of the entire US budget. in 2023 the percentage goes to 71%.
lies, lies and more lies.
just conduct a scientific experiment,...you are just collecting information and are not making any evaluations,..it's just science right now,...
if you cease believing what you want to believe and just look and see what is right in front of your eyes,...the truth will be revealed to those eyes.
it appears you have the malady of "them and us". that is a manufactured illusion. there is only us. start thinking differently and you will see. if you don't even bother to expand your intelligence how do you grow intellectually ?
it's obvious you see the dots,...but you are also not able to disassociate with your immature/childish view of this government and connect the dots. when you do you will plainly see you have been lied to. if you don't even bother to expand your intelligence how do you grow intellectually ?
yes,..exactly. it's as if they, the gullible people, keep repeating the lie as if it will change.
it won't.
but somewhere in their mind they begin to believe THE
LIE,... and all a sudden what was once rhetoric is now fact.
i've seen this over and over again. they hypnotize themselves into their own lie and project it out and think its true.
wetiko bee bop deluxe.
heavenly RECALL ALERT
https://www.american-buffoon.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/ESGFSDG-780x405.jpg
the small little man trump
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Dkq1Gv4U0AAtKx1.jpg
it's what everyone is thinking and finally someone put a pen to it !!!!
or how about a really, really, really long time out since we're talking about such a little immature man-child.
just the right size,...SMALL,...like his brain.
(an advertising image is below this pic for collected pets)
just the right size,...SMALL,...convenient for travel,...
How Michael Cohen's Guilty Plea Implicates Trump
axios.com
Aug. 21, 2018
Michael Cohen implicated President Trump yesterday in the practicalities of violating campaign finance law — but that doesn’t necessarily mean the president will face any legal ramifications.
The big picture: Cohen admitted to breaking the law and said he did it at Trump’s direction. But making that connection stick may require more evidence than what's been publicly released so far, even setting aside the fact that the Justice Department's internal policy is not to indict a sitting president.
The details: Cohen pleaded guilty yesterday to two specific charges:
1) Making an excessive campaign contribution (his own $130,000 payment to Stormy Daniels).
2) “Willfully causing” an illegal campaign contribution (arranging for the National Enquirer’s parent company to “catch and kill” Karen McDougal’s story about her alleged affair with Trump).
Although Trump wasn’t directly named, Cohen said he had acted “at the direction of” a presidential candidate. That candidate is Trump.
Campaign finance prosecutions are rare, and these are not the most common charges even within that context, said Rick Hasen, an election law specialist at the University of California, Irvine. But charges like these are not unprecedented.
The big question: Did Trump intend to break the law — and can prosecutors prove it?
“The big unanswered question is, what do they have besides Cohen’s word?” Hasen said.
Supporting evidence like text messages or (additional) audio recordings could help establish that Trump was looking after his political interests, rather than just his personal life.
The closest parallel is probably former Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards, who was prosecuted unsuccessfully in 2012 for allegedly using campaign money to cover up an extramarital affair and secret child.
One big difference, as former White House counsel Bob Bauer notes at Lawfare: The donors who contributed to Edwards were either dead or too old to testify. Cohen, on the other hand, is very much alive and able to appear in court.
Edwards’ lawyers argued that he wasn’t trying to conceal the affair to protect his political career, but rather to hide it from his wife. Trump could make similar arguments about the payments Cohen helped arrange, and proving his intent would be key to any prosecution.
“From everything I’ve seen, there are good defenses that the payments made by Mr. Cohen were made irrespective of Mr. Trump’s candidacy," Republican campaign attorney Charlie Spies told The Wall Street Journal.
What’s next: It’s not clear how we’ll find out whether prosecutors have any further evidence of Trump’s intent.
Because the payments to McDougal were routed through American Media Inc., that company or its leaders could be charged, and more information could come out that way, Hasen said.
The women’s civil suits could also dislodge additional information.
“Or we may never know — that seems unlikely,” Hasen said.
https://www.axios.com/michael-cohen-guilty-campaign-finance-trump-7d4d678c-f70d-49b2-929c-27ff2c44273b.html
Cohen Ready to Tell Mueller Potentially Explosive Info on Trump, Would Not Accept Pardon
by Inae Oh
Aug. 22, 2018 9:41 AM
“There is no dispute that Donald Trump committed a crime,” Cohen’s lawyer Lanny Davis said.
Lanny Davis, the lawyer representing Michael Cohen, said that his client would “never accept” a pardon from President Donald Trump, telling NPR in an interview Wednesday that Cohen considers the president to be “both corrupt and a dangerous person” in the White House.
“He has flatly authorized me to say under no circumstances would he accept a pardon from Mr. Trump, who uses the pardon power in a way that no president in American history has ever used a pardon,” Davis said before referencing the president’s controversial decision to pardon former Arizona sheriff Joe Arpaio last year.
Davis on Wednesday also repeated his claim that Cohen possesses information “of interest” to special counsel Robert Mueller and the ongoing Russia investigation. The remarks came hours after Davis told Rachel Maddow that Cohen is willing to provide investigators potentially explosive information regarding Trump’s knowledge of the infamous 2016 hacking of the Democratic National Committee, along with details on the June 2016 Trump Tower meeting.
https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2018/08/michael-cohen-lanny-davis-trump-pardon/
~~~~~~~~~~
Michael Cohen Admits He Violated Campaign Finance Laws at Direction of “Candidate”
A clear reference to then-presidential candidate Donald Trump.
Inae Oh
Aug. 21, 2018 2:29 PM
Michael Cohen, President Donald Trump’s former personal lawyer and longtime fixer, has pleaded guilty to eight federal charges related to tax and bank fraud and campaign finance laws. Appearing before a federal court in Manhattan Tuesday, Cohen said he was directed to violate campaign law at the direction of a candidate for federal office, a clear reference to then-candidate Trump.
https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2018/08/michael-cohen-pleads-guilty-trump-1/
yea,...Shut The Fuck Up !!!! you have no idea what you are talking about,..and it has been proved numerous times. but,...you are too fucking stupid to discern when to stop.
you are one of the most irresponsible ,immature, petty, filled with hate, with inaccurate biased information, imbalanced psychologically asshole on this forum.
your arrogance is the only item larger than your ignorance to the facts and real truth.
if you are so fucking incapable to comprehend this then there is NO hope for you. if you can't cognize and say to your self,...'ger gosh, maybe i saw it wrong !' ,..then you are not human.
hey i’m a member of mollie’s family and we are not so fucking small-minded that we generalize a whole population based on some bad individuals. now stop being a fucking snake and using my cousins death as political propaganda. take her name out of your mouth.
he's talking about YOU,.."small minded people who generalize",...that's what you do asshole because you don't know how to conduct critical thinking.
see he's a mature adult that can separate and discern between matters. take a hint from this mature adult.
got it ? ,..good. now Shut The Fuck Up asshole
Cohen Pleads Guilty and Manafort Is Convicted. Is Impeachment Next?
BY Amy Goodman
Democracy Now!
August 22, 2018
Talk of the possible impeachment of President Trump is growing in Washington after Tuesday’s stunning legal developments.
In New York, Trump’s longtime personal lawyer and fixer, Michael Cohen, pleaded guilty to eight criminal charges, including tax evasion, bank fraud and campaign finance violations. Two hundred miles away, in Virginia, Trump’s former campaign manager Paul Manafort was found guilty of eight charges related to tax fraud and bank fraud.
The Cohen case is likely to put the president in the most legal jeopardy. Cohen, who worked for Trump from 2006 until this year, admitted in court that he arranged to illegally pay out money to two women—an adult film star and a Playboy model—to keep them from speaking during the 2016 campaign about their affairs with Donald Trump. Cohen said the payments were made “in coordination with and at the direction of a candidate for federal office” and that they were made “for the principal purpose of influencing the election.”
Cohen’s lawyer Lanny Davis wrote on Twitter, “If those payments were a crime for Michael Cohen, then why wouldn’t they be a crime for Donald Trump?” We speak with Marcy Wheeler, an independent journalist who covers national security and civil liberties. She runs the website EmptyWheel.net.
Transcript
AMY GOODMAN: Talk of the possible impeachment of President Trump is growing in Washington after Tuesday’s stunning legal developments. In New York, Trump’s longtime personal lawyer and fixer, Michael Cohen, pleaded guilty to eight criminal charges, including tax evasion, bank fraud and campaign finance violations. Two hundred miles away in Virginia, Trump’s former campaign chair Paul Manafort was found guilty of eight charges related to tax and bank fraud, as well as hiding a foreign account.
The Cohen case is likely to put the president in the most legal jeopardy. Michael Cohen worked for Trump from 2006 until this year. He admitted in court he arranged to illegally pay out money to two women—an adult film star and a Playboy model—to keep them from speaking during the 2016 campaign about their affairs with Donald Trump. Cohen said the payments were made, quote, “in coordination with and at the direction of a candidate for federal office” and that they were made, quote, “for the principal purpose of influencing the election,” unquote.
Cohen’s lawyer, Lanny Davis, wrote on Twitter, “If those payments were a crime for Michael Cohen, then why wouldn’t they be a crime for Donald Trump?” Davis later appeared on MSNBC and said Cohen is willing to speak with special counsel Robert Mueller about, quote, “a conspiracy to collude” with Russia during the 2016 presidential campaign. Davis also told The Washington Post Cohen knows about Trump’s participation in a criminal conspiracy to hack into Democratic Party officials’ emails during the 2016 election.
Michael Cohen becomes the fourth former Trump official to plead guilty to criminal charges. He joins former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn, Trump’s former campaign—deputy campaign manager Rick Gates and former Trump foreign policy adviser George Papadopoulos. Michael Cohen will be sentenced on December 12th. He’ll likely be sentenced to four to five years in prison.
Meanwhile, in Virginia, a jury convicted Paul Manafort on eight of 18 charges, but the jury could not reach a verdict on the other counts. Sentencing experts expect him to receive a prison term of about 10 years. The Manafort charges stem from special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 election, but the case against Manafort focused on the work he did before he became President Trump’s campaign manager. Manafort was accused of hiding millions of dollars earned in Ukraine in overseas bank accounts and failing to pay taxes on the money. On Tuesday, President Trump briefly spoke with reporters about the Manafort verdict.
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP: I feel badly for both. I must tell you that Paul Manafort is a good man. He was with Ronald Reagan. He was with a lot of different people over the years. And I feel very sad about that. It doesn’t involve me, but I still feel—you know, it’s a very sad thing that happened. This has nothing to do with Russian collusion. This started as Russian collusion. This has absolutely nothing to do—this is a witch hunt, and it’s a disgrace.
AMY GOODMAN: The question now is whether Michael Cohen and Paul Manafort will cooperate with Mueller’s investigation in exchange for lesser sentences. Or will President Trump pardon one or both men? To help answer these questions and more, we’re joined by investigative journalist Marcy Wheeler. She runs the website EmptyWheel.net, joining us from Michigan.
Marcy, welcome to Democracy Now! An epic day yesterday, when two of President Trump’s—well, his closest adviser, fixer, his personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, and his former campaign chair, Paul Manafort, both guilty. Talk about the verdicts yesterday.
MARCY WHEELER: Yeah, it’s not often we need a split screen for guilty verdicts. Usually that’s reserved for sporting events. But the Manafort guilty verdicts were pretty much expected, because the case against him was a slam dunk. It was tax fraud. It was some bank fraud.
The charges that the jury was not able to reach a verdict on involved charges where Rick Gates’s testimony was central, so it seems like some people on the jury may not have found him all that credible, and also one charge where—Trump says it didn’t involve him. That’s not actually true. There was one charge where Manafort was trying to get a loan in 2016 from a banker in Chicago and promising him positions once Trump took the White House. And the impression is the jury decided that he was going to get that—Manafort was going to get that loan regardless of what kind of claims he made to the banker. And so, those are the charges that he wasn’t found guilty on.
But they’re both tax cheats. They’re both involved in other crimes. As you emphasized, the very interesting thing for Trump are the two hush money payments involved with the Cohen crime, because, there, he quite clearly said, and the criminal information said—I think it was the 46th word in the criminal information, named—named Trump, basically—didn’t name him by name, but said, you know, the person went on to become president of the United States—
AMY GOODMAN: Well, let’s go—
MARCY WHEELER: —and named him as—
AMY GOODMAN: Go ahead.
MARCY WHEELER: Go ahead. And named him as being part of the conspiracy to pay off these women so as to hide these affairs for the election.
AMY GOODMAN: Let’s go to U.S. Deputy Attorney Robert Khuzami announcing the felony charges that Michael Cohen pled guilty to yesterday.
ROBERT KHUZAMI: Today, as you heard, Michael Cohen pled guilty to eight felony charges. Five of those dealt with tax evasion for the years 2012 through 2016, in which he failed to report approximately $4.1 million in reported income. … In addition, Mr. Cohen pled guilty to two campaign finance charges, one for causing an unlawful corporate contribution and a second one for personally making an excessive personal contribution, both for the purpose of influencing the 2016 election. In addition, what he did was he worked to pay money to silence two women who had information that he believed would be detrimental to the 2016 campaign and to the candidate and the campaign. In addition, Mr. Cohen sought reimbursement for that money by submitting invoices to the candidate’s company which were untrue and false.
AMY GOODMAN: So, Marcy Wheeler, this the—really the biggest news. While Paul Manafort was the campaign chair for President Trump, you have Michael Cohen not only saying he committed a crime—he wasn’t even indicted, he just pled guilty yesterday, in a kind of unusual move where this happened all very fast. He not only said he was guilty, but he said that the president was guilty of ordering him to do this.
MARCY WHEELER: Right. In his statement in the courtroom—we don’t get cameras there, so we can’t play it. But in his statement in the courtroom, he was very clear that he did this with the involvement, at the behest of Donald Trump. So, while the Russian investigation is going to name Trump, and technically sort of did in the GRUindictment, it made it clear that he asked for Russia to hack Hillary, and they immediately did. But here, he is named explicitly, so it’s the first time in these wide-ranging legal investigations that he is being named and being accused of committing a crime—to cheat to get elected, basically.
AMY GOODMAN: Let’s go to Michael Cohen’s attorney, Lanny Davis, speaking Tuesday night on MSNBC.
LANNY DAVIS: Mr. Cohen has knowledge on certain subjects that should be of interest to the special counsel, and is more than happy to tell the special counsel all that he knows, not just about the obvious possibility of a conspiracy to collude and corrupt the American democracy system in the 2016 election—which the Trump Tower meeting was all about—but also knowledge about the computer crime of hacking and whether or not Mr. Trump knew ahead of time about that crime and even cheered it on. And we know he publicly cheered it on. But did he also have private information?
AMY GOODMAN: Now, that’s Michael Cohen’s attorney, Lanny Davis. Talk about the significance of what he’s saying, and what kind of information he’s offering to Robert Mueller, to Mueller.
MARCY WHEELER: Well, it’s not actually clear. Cohen has been pursuing a cooperation agreement for well over a month, probably a couple of months, and Mueller did not take him up on that, at least as far as has been made public. Clearly, Cohen implicated Trump in the hush payments, but he has not—as part of yesterday’s plea agreement, he has not publicly implicated Trump in any of the Russia-related crimes. So I’m not convinced that this guilty plea is more important than Manafort’s guilty verdicts yesterday, because Trump a long time ago said, “I think I’m OK, so long as Paul Manafort doesn’t flip on me. Paul Manafort is the only one who can really bring me down,” because it is true, or Cohen claims that he knows information about when Trump knew certain things about the hack and leak. But even Omarosa says that she already talked to Mueller’s people about that.
So, it’s possible—I mean, several things are possible, Amy. One is that Cohen’s right, and he will go talk to Mueller, and he will get some lesser sentence because he does it. It’s possible that Mueller doesn’t need Cohen’s cooperation, and Mueller wants to indict Cohen for part of the conspiracy, as well. And it’s possible that Mueller just doesn’t want to cooperate with Cohen because he’s been spending so much time talking to the press. We know that he—with George Papadopoulos, for example, as soon as Papadopoulos went to the press, he stopped trying to cooperate with Papadopoulos entirely. So, we don’t actually know.
What we do know is that, according to Trump’s own understanding of the circumstance, for whatever that’s worth, Paul Manafort is the one person who can bring him down. Now, Rick Gates has been cooperating since February, and Rick Gates knew most of what Paul Manafort knew, and Rick Gates is the only one of the many people that you said, that you described as who had already plead, who got a very sweet plea deal. I mean, he got excused from all of the financial crimes that Paul Manafort was found guilty of yesterday, some other ones in D.C. He was excused from some of his own role in the conspiracy with Russia. So, Rick Gates, as far as we know, is the one who’s offering the big cooperation. And that puts both Cohen and Paul Manafort on much shakier grounds if they believe they’re going to get a lesser sentence by cooperating with Mueller.
AMY GOODMAN: And who exactly is Lanny Davis? Which is very interesting. Michael Cohen has chosen him as his lawyer, the former Clinton legal adviser. That’s President Clinton in the 1990s, when he was president.
MARCY WHEELER: Right. But Lanny’s function here is not to be a lawyer. Cohen’s got a different lawyer, who used to work in Southern District of New York. That lawyer was picked because he knows the people who were prosecuting him in New York, and he has the ability, to the extent that it’s possible, to negotiate a plea deal. Lanny Davis’s job is to go on TV and make statements like he did yesterday. That’s really been his function for a long time now. He’s in some ways the Democratic equivalent of Paul Manafort. He’s about press these days, more than he is about lawyering.
But again, I’m not sure that working the press is going to get you a plea deal with Robert Mueller. He has made it very clear he doesn’t want any of this in the press. He doesn’t want to work via the press. He’s been unbelievably good at not leaking anything. And so, hiring a Democratic lawyer to go and appear on TV and make allegations about the president isn’t necessarily going to help Cohen’s legal plight at all.
AMY GOODMAN: And what about Burr and Warner, who are heading up the Senate committee that is investigating Russian interference, saying that this might influence, what Michael Cohen has said, might want to question him? And what this means, Michael Cohen going before Congress?
MARCY WHEELER: Right. So, Cohen already testified to the Senate Intelligence Committee. And there, he said he didn’t know of any prior knowledge of the June 9th meeting. And some of the public statements that he and Lanny Davis have made seem to contradict that. And so, yesterday, the Senate Intelligence Committee, in the wake of this plea deal, basically contacted his lawyers and said, “Does his prior testimony before the committee—does it still hold?” And they’ve threatened to call him back to test the claims that he’s made before.
You know, yeah, I’m a little bit jaded about what Richard Burr is doing here. The investigation, yes, it is credible. Yes, it is bipartisan. There are only seven people investigating it, according to public reports. They’re still working on reviewing what the Intelligence Committee knew by January 2017. So they’re not getting to the guts of whether there really was collusion. So it’s sort of Richard Burr’s job to go and test these claims, and go on TV and claim that there was no collusion, rather than to really get to the core of whether there was or not. And I think that’s more of what’s going on here than really trying to get to the bottom of things. But we will—because the Senate Intelligence Committee already got testimony from Michael Cohen, we will learn quickly whether he’s backing off his prior testimony because of yesterday’s move.
AMY GOODMAN: Right, and might want to get more testimony from him. But I’d like to turn to Democratic Senator Richard Blumenthal, who said in a statement on Tuesday that the White House is looking increasingly like a criminal enterprise. This is Blumenthal speaking on CNN with Wolf Blitzer last night.
SEN. RICHARD BLUMENTHAL: We’re in a Watergate moment, where the two parties have to come together. We need bipartisanship now more than ever, to protect the special counsel and to stop—and I must underscore stop—any consideration of pardons, which undoubtedly will be another—
WOLF BLITZER: President has a right to pardon Paul Manafort, for example, if he wanted to.
SEN. RICHARD BLUMENTHAL: He has the power to pardon Paul Manafort, but he would be screaming to the world, “I am guilty.” And he would so undermine the credibility of his office that it would be a disaster for the nation. And it would very possibly be an obstruction of justice, because he would be misusing that power to protect himself as a target of that investigation.
AMY GOODMAN: So, that’s Senator Blumenthal speaking on CNN. Marcy Wheeler, the possibility of pardoning Manafort and Michael Cohen—and/or Michael Cohen?
MARCY WHEELER: Right, and Cohen, this morning, is already out saying he won’t take a pardon, which I doubt, but that’s what he’s saying, or Lanny Davis is saying on TV. Back in January or February, The New York Times actually reported that Trump had preemptively offered both Mike Flynn and Paul Manafort pardons. And a lot of what has happened in the Manafort case, you sort of have to believe that, because yesterday’s verdicts were not a surprise. The case was overwhelming against him. And so it was sort of suicidal for him to go through trial, because his sentence will be much stiffer—I mean, just as a comparison, as you said, he is expected to get at least 10 years, whereas Cohen is going to get five or fewer. Similar kinds of crimes, right? So, for having gone to trial, Manafort is going to get twice the sentence. And so, one of the most logical explanations for that is he’s expecting a pardon.
But because Mueller already knows—in fact, this is one of the questions that he wants to ask Trump, apparently—Mueller already knows that this pardon has been offered preemptively, I think that that would count as obstruction of justice. It’s also not that easy to do well. The last time we were in this kind of situation, George Bush commuted Scooter Libby’s sentence right when he was about to go to prison. And that meant that Libby wasn’t going to prison, but also still retained his Fifth Amendment privilege against testimony. That’s the kind of thing he would have to do with Manafort. And it’s not clear that that would be enough to silence Manafort going forward, because if he pardons Manafort today, then Manafort—depending on how broad the pardon is, then Manafort can be asked to testify, without incriminating himself, on the Russia stuff, which is what Trump has already said is what Manafort is most threatening to him for. So, it’s sort of hard to do. It’s unclear whether he will do—I mean, he’s pardoning everyone anyway, but it’s not clear that that’s going to achieve the objectives that he really wants, which is to skate free of what he himself has done with the conspiracy to win the election—
AMY GOODMAN: Well, Marcy—
MARCY WHEELER: —with multiple, now, we can say—
AMY GOODMAN: Go ahead. “We can say”?
MARCY WHEELER: Sorry—with multiple conspiracies. I mean, there’s the conspiracy to silence the women and the conspiracy to work with Russia to win the election. So now we can speak in multiple terms.
AMY GOODMAN: Trump’s current personal attorney, Rudy Giuliani, said in a statement, “There is no allegation of any wrongdoing against the President in the government’s charges against Mr. Cohen. It is clear that as the prosecutor noted Mr. Cohen’s actions reflect a pattern of lies and dishonesty over a significant period of time.” On Sunday, Giuliani appeared on Meet the Press with Chuck Todd to defend President Trump.
RUDY GIULIANI: What I have to tell you is, look, I’m not going to be rushed into having him testify so that he gets trapped into perjury. And when you tell me that, you know, he should testify because he’s going to tell the truth and he shouldn’t worry, well, that’s so silly, because it’s somebody’s version of the truth, not the truth. He didn’t have a conversation about—
CHUCK TODD: Truth is truth. I don’t mean to go like—
RUDY GIULIANI: No, it isn’t truth. Truth isn’t truth. The president of the United States says, “I didn’t”—
CHUCK TODD: “Truth isn’t truth”? Mr. Mayor, do you realize what—I mean—
RUDY GIULIANI: No, no, no. What—
CHUCK TODD: This is going to become a bad meme.
RUDY GIULIANI: Don’t—don’t do—don’t do—don’t do this to me.
CHUCK TODD: Don’t do “Truth isn’t truth” to me.
RUDY GIULIANI: Donald Trump—Donald Trump says, “I didn’t talk about Flynn with Comey.” Comey says, “You did talk about it.” So tell me what the truth is.
AMY GOODMAN: Rudy Giuliani saying, “Truth is not truth.” But, Marcy Wheeler, I want to go a step further, to this issue of impeachment and what can happen here. We are so close, 11 weeks away from the midterm elections. Also, you know, Brett Kavanaugh, they’re trying to push him through before the election, the possibility of a flipping of the House or the Senate or the House and the Senate. But what about this possibility of impeachment?
MARCY WHEELER: Well, we don’t know. I mean, Rudy Giuliani, both of those clips are him playing games. Neither of those are credible. It’s not clear he even understands the legal risk that the president is under. He really should stop being invited on TV to go and just play with the press, because he’s not providing any news or anything credible. But Mueller knows that. Mueller knows that Rudy is playing games. Mueller knows that Rudy is trying to stall. Mueller knows that Rudy is trying to stall long enough to get Kavanaugh confirmed. And so we don’t know, and Mueller is not telling, what he plans to do in response.
One of the things that was interesting and less newsworthy yesterday is he extended the cooperation, the continuation of Mike Flynn’s sentencing, but only until September 17th, which is shorter than any of the other extensions, continuations. And so that suggests that Mueller has got some things up his sleeve in the next 24 days. And I wouldn’t be so surprised to expect some major moves from Mueller, while Rudy is on TV kind of playing with the press and uttering nonsense. So, we don’t know what’s going to happen. I’m sure Mueller recognizes the risk of the stall games that Rudy and Trump are trying to play. I guess we just wait to see how Mueller is going to respond to that.
AMY GOODMAN: Marcy, before we end, I wanted to ask you about your personal connection to the Mueller probe. Last month, you wrote, quote, “Sometime last year, I went to the FBI and provided information on a person whom I had come to believe had played a significant role in the Russian election attack on the US.” This led you to being a witness in special counsel Mueller’s investigation. Explain.
MARCY WHEELER: Sort of. I went to the FBI about something that was not part of the Mueller investigation. And as I understand it, it subsequently got moved under the Mueller investigation. So, yeah, I’ve got a little bit of insight into things that are not yet public about people unrelated to Trump. I did, in that post, note that the person in question knew what Trump was doing within 15 hours of the polls closing last year—or, in 2016, after the election. But beyond that, I can’t really explain what the person that I went to the FBI about did. It just—it does lead me to believe that there are a lot of things about the Mueller inquiry, or the things that are now under Mueller’s investigation, that people just aren’t aware of in public and that I think will surprise people.
AMY GOODMAN: And did you reveal your sources to him? Explain further what you did explain publicly.
MARCY WHEELER: I went and talked to the FBI about something that I believed this source had done, roles that I believed he had played in the election. And I did that—the way I did it was, in part, an effort to protect my other sources and to protect my readers, because I believed if I had not done that, the FBI would come and start getting call records for everyone who goes to my site. I went to them, and I said, “You can have this, but you can’t—you know, I’m not going to talk to you about any of my other sources or any other journalists or what have you.” So, it was sort of a preemptive effort to stop what I viewed as somebody doing ongoing damage, without impacting my other equities, I guess. So, we’ll see whether I made the right decision, but I—
AMY GOODMAN: So, originally, he was a source, and then you came to be—
MARCY WHEELER: Yeah.
AMY GOODMAN: —very concerned about him, and so told the FBI who he was.
MARCY WHEELER: Correct.
AMY GOODMAN: And he, you believe—what was it that he did, that you felt needed to be exposed?
MARCY WHEELER: Yeah, I’m not going to say that. I think it’ll—you know, it’ll become clear in the future. But it was just—it was clear at the time I made the decision to go to the FBI that he was engaged in ongoing serious damage and hurting other people, and hurting innocent people. So I felt like I could not stay silent about that any longer. But I also felt like I couldn’t go to the press. I couldn’t just publish it, because, in my understanding, that would probably exacerbate things. It would lead him to do something unreasonable, and it might lead to increasing the damage rather than decreasing it.
AMY GOODMAN: Well, Marcy Wheeler, I want to thank you for being with us, independent journalist who covers national security and civil liberties, runs the website EmptyWheel.net, speaking to us from Michigan.
This is Democracy Now! President Trump, as all of this was unfolding—his former campaign chair, his longtime lawyer and fixer, guilty—he went to West Virginia to hold a rally and make an announcement about the rollback of coal emissions regulations, that will lead to, it’s believed, well over a thousand people dying prematurely in the years to come per year. Stay with us.
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Amy Goodman is the host and executive producer of Democracy Now!, a national, daily, independent, award-winning news program airing on more than 1,100 public television and radio stations worldwide. Time Magazine named Democracy Now! its "Pick of the Podcasts," along with NBC's "Meet the Press."
oh the irony...and it's on the GOP's hands. an Iowa GOP big donor as i understand correctly. hmmm,...
ForReal said that the responsible party should be dealt with legally and punished for harboring an illegal immigrant and because of that irresponsible action a murder was committed. i agree. let's dole out the equitable punishment.
of course they(ForReal) was confused b/c they thought it was the left wing liberal that was "the cause" of this murder.
imagine ForReals shock when they realized their own party committed this irresponsible actions(s).
oh the irony.