welcome to trumpland
the face of the failed american state
august 21, 2018
"On some great and glorious day..."
"On some great and glorious day the plain folks of the land will reach their heart's desire at last, and the White House will be adorned by a downright moron."
HL Mencken July 1920
Reading Against Fascism by
Henry A. Giroux
Truthout
"Trump’s presidency may only be symptomatic of the long decline of liberal democracy in the United States, but its presence signifies one of the gravest challenges, if not dangers, the country has faced in over a century. A formative culture of lies, ignorance, corruption and violence is now fuelled by a range of orthodoxies shaping US life, including social conservatism, market fundamentalism, apocalyptic nationalism, religious extremism and white nationalism — all of which occupy the centers of power at the highest levels of government. Historical memory and moral witnessing have given way to a bankrupt nostalgia that celebrates the most regressive moments in US history."
the illegitimate president
the white house: family of liars, traitors and thieves!!!
8/21/2018
*Trump: James Clapper Is 'Being Nice to Me so He Doesn't Lose His Security Clearance'
Once again, Pr*sident Trump is making it obvious that the question of which former intelligence officials get to keep their security clearance has little to do with national security, but a lot to do with cri ... (Mediate)
*Trump warns 'blue wave' would bring 'crime and open borders'
Pr*sident Donald Trump warned Tuesday that the so-called "blue wave" of Democratic victories forecasted by many for November's midterm elections would portend "crime and open borders," ... (Politico)
*Trump Threatens to Pull Clearance For CNN's Phil Mudd After Seeing Him on TV: He's 'In No Mental Con
Trump Threatens to Pull Clearance For CNN's Phil Mudd After Seeing Him on TV: He's 'In No Mental Condition' President Donald Trump is adding CNN contributor Phil Mudd to the list of intelligence officials who might lose their security clearance for ... (Mediaite)
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*Trump Town Tracking White House staffers, Cabinet members and political appointees across the government
*COLLUSION IN PLAIN SIGHT ANALYZING RUSSIAN ATTACKS ON OUR DEMOCRACY – AND TRUMP'S INVOLVEMENT(HTTPS://THEMOSCOWPROJECT.ORG/)
*trump-russia scandal(ARCHIVES)
Pollsters: Trump and GOP are losing young, female voters permanently
the hill
8/20/2018
Pollsters Anna Greenberg and Dan Cox said on Monday that President Trump and Republicans are losing young women to Democrats permanently.
"When you ask millennial women who are likely voters, about 65, 68 percent would actually vote for a Democrat in the generic congressional race, so that puts them as base Democratic voters," Greenberg, a partner at Greenberg, Quinlan, Rosner, told Hill.TV's Krystal Ball on "What America's Thinking."
"What we know is that in your coming of age years, from sort of your teens into your early 20s, have a profound, long-term impact on what your partisanship and voting patterns are for the rest of your life," she continued.
"So, not only in this moment are these millennial women heavily, heavily Democratic and heavily hostile to Trump, but it's likely that they are going to sort of be the vanguard of, I think, the feminization of the Democratic Party," she said.
Cox, the research director at the Public Religion Research Institute, agreed with Greenberg, adding that young, millennial women do not believe Trump supports them on some of the issues they care about.
"I think we're seeing something pretty unique among young women here, separate from young men. We're seeing a growing gender divide among this age group, and I think a lot of this has to do with Trump, but not exclusively," he said.
"This is a generation and an age group that is not enamored with the president, but young women particularly when it comes to reproductive health issues, and other concerns, they think that Trump's just not on their side."
A Pew Research Center study released earlier this year found that the number of women who identify with the Democratic Party rose from 54 percent in 2016 to 56 percent in 2017.
Increased support among women could give Democrats the leverage they need to make gains in the November midterm elections.
"When you ask millennial women who are likely voters, about 65, 68 percent would actually vote for a Democrat in the generic congressional race, so that puts them as base Democratic voters," Greenberg, a partner at Greenberg, Quinlan, Rosner, told Hill.TV's Krystal Ball on "What America's Thinking."
"What we know is that in your coming of age years, from sort of your teens into your early 20s, have a profound, long-term impact on what your partisanship and voting patterns are for the rest of your life," she continued.
"So, not only in this moment are these millennial women heavily, heavily Democratic and heavily hostile to Trump, but it's likely that they are going to sort of be the vanguard of, I think, the feminization of the Democratic Party," she said.
Cox, the research director at the Public Religion Research Institute, agreed with Greenberg, adding that young, millennial women do not believe Trump supports them on some of the issues they care about.
"I think we're seeing something pretty unique among young women here, separate from young men. We're seeing a growing gender divide among this age group, and I think a lot of this has to do with Trump, but not exclusively," he said.
"This is a generation and an age group that is not enamored with the president, but young women particularly when it comes to reproductive health issues, and other concerns, they think that Trump's just not on their side."
A Pew Research Center study released earlier this year found that the number of women who identify with the Democratic Party rose from 54 percent in 2016 to 56 percent in 2017.
Increased support among women could give Democrats the leverage they need to make gains in the November midterm elections.
Here’s how the Russian mob used cash from a multi-billion dollar gas scam to get their hooks into Trump
Travis Gettys - raw story
16 AUG 2018 AT 08:55 ET
President Donald Trump got his start laundering money for the Russian mob more than 30 years ago as part of one of the biggest scams in U.S. history, according to a new book.
Investigative reporter Craig Unger has described Trump Tower as a “cathedral to money laundering,” and his new book — “House of Trump, House of Putin” — examines the depth of the president’s relationship with the Russian mafia, which he says has no meaningful distinction from the country’s intelligence agencies.
Unger traces the links between Trump and the Russian mob back to at least 1984, when a Soviet refugee David Bogatin was looking for a place to stash the millions he was raking in from a gasoline tax scam he was running with the Colombo crime family.
That scam, the largest of its kind in American history, was busted up by federal investigators as part of Operation Red Daisy, which resulted in the indictment of 15 Russian nationals and 10 others for evading more than $140 million in fuel excise taxes.
Bogatin and two associates, Michael Markowitz and Lev Persits, approached Michael Franzese, the son of a notorious underboss in the Colombo organization, in 1980 asking for protection for their own network of sketchy gas stations.
“These Russians were having trouble collecting money owed them,” Franzese later recalled. “They were also having problems obtaining and holding on to the licenses they needed to keep the gas tax scam going.”
Franzese, the son of mob enforcer John “Sonny” Franzese, was not initially impressed by the Russians — he mocked Markowitz’s disco-styled attire and thought Bogatin looked more like an accountant than a mafioso — but agreed to work for them in exchange for 75 percent of their take in the scheme, Unger wrote.
The lopsided deal proved spectacularly successful for both sides, as profits soared to $100 million a month and more than $1 billion a year — but the conspirators needed a place to launder their ill-gotten cash.
“After seven years in New York, Bogatin had stashed away enough money to buy real estate anywhere he wanted,” Unger wrote. “For roughly a decade, thousands of Russian Jews like him had been pouring into Brighton Beach, Brooklyn. But Bogatin had his eyes on something more prestigious.”
Bogatin became fixated on a “garish” 58-story building that had opened a year before — Trump Tower — and he paid $6 million in cash from his fuel tax scheme for five apartments there.
Unger tracked more than 1,300 similar cash transactions at Trump Tower over the next three decades involving mobsters that ensnared the future president in the closely tied web of Russian spies and mobsters.
“Russian Mafia and Russian intelligence operatives successfully targeted, compromised, and implanted either a willfully ignorant or an inexplicably unaware Russian asset in the White House as the most powerful man on earth,” Unger concludes.
“In doing so, without firing a shot, the Russians helped put in power a man who would immediately begin to undermine the Western Alliance,” he added, “which has been the foundation of American national security for more than 70 years; who would start massive trade wars with America’s longtime allies; fuel right‐wing anti‐immigrant populism; and assault the rule of law in the United States.”
Investigative reporter Craig Unger has described Trump Tower as a “cathedral to money laundering,” and his new book — “House of Trump, House of Putin” — examines the depth of the president’s relationship with the Russian mafia, which he says has no meaningful distinction from the country’s intelligence agencies.
Unger traces the links between Trump and the Russian mob back to at least 1984, when a Soviet refugee David Bogatin was looking for a place to stash the millions he was raking in from a gasoline tax scam he was running with the Colombo crime family.
That scam, the largest of its kind in American history, was busted up by federal investigators as part of Operation Red Daisy, which resulted in the indictment of 15 Russian nationals and 10 others for evading more than $140 million in fuel excise taxes.
Bogatin and two associates, Michael Markowitz and Lev Persits, approached Michael Franzese, the son of a notorious underboss in the Colombo organization, in 1980 asking for protection for their own network of sketchy gas stations.
“These Russians were having trouble collecting money owed them,” Franzese later recalled. “They were also having problems obtaining and holding on to the licenses they needed to keep the gas tax scam going.”
Franzese, the son of mob enforcer John “Sonny” Franzese, was not initially impressed by the Russians — he mocked Markowitz’s disco-styled attire and thought Bogatin looked more like an accountant than a mafioso — but agreed to work for them in exchange for 75 percent of their take in the scheme, Unger wrote.
The lopsided deal proved spectacularly successful for both sides, as profits soared to $100 million a month and more than $1 billion a year — but the conspirators needed a place to launder their ill-gotten cash.
“After seven years in New York, Bogatin had stashed away enough money to buy real estate anywhere he wanted,” Unger wrote. “For roughly a decade, thousands of Russian Jews like him had been pouring into Brighton Beach, Brooklyn. But Bogatin had his eyes on something more prestigious.”
Bogatin became fixated on a “garish” 58-story building that had opened a year before — Trump Tower — and he paid $6 million in cash from his fuel tax scheme for five apartments there.
Unger tracked more than 1,300 similar cash transactions at Trump Tower over the next three decades involving mobsters that ensnared the future president in the closely tied web of Russian spies and mobsters.
“Russian Mafia and Russian intelligence operatives successfully targeted, compromised, and implanted either a willfully ignorant or an inexplicably unaware Russian asset in the White House as the most powerful man on earth,” Unger concludes.
“In doing so, without firing a shot, the Russians helped put in power a man who would immediately begin to undermine the Western Alliance,” he added, “which has been the foundation of American national security for more than 70 years; who would start massive trade wars with America’s longtime allies; fuel right‐wing anti‐immigrant populism; and assault the rule of law in the United States.”
Trump Staffer Tried to Recruit Lobbyists for Russian Oligarch Roman Abramovich
Once he worked to get Donald Trump into the White House. Then he started doing favors on behalf of someone else—one of Russia’s richest men.
BETSY WOODRUFF - daily beast
08.15.18 9:00 PM ET
In the time since the election, a little-known Trump campaign staffer named Daniel Gelbinovich reached out to a number of Washington lobbyists with an eyebrow-raising ask: to shield a Putin ally from U.S. sanctions.
Two lobbyists—speaking anonymously because of the sensitivity of the matter—told The Daily Beast that Gelbinovich approached them and told them he was trying to help Roman Abramovich, a Russian oligarch worth more than $11 billion, find a lobbyist to help keep him from being added to the Treasury Department’s sanctions list.
Gelbinovich confirmed this reporting.
“I approached the lobbyists on behalf of a private equity firm that requested outreach for this type of work,” he said in an email to The Daily Beast. “The firm claimed that this outreach was on behalf of the individual you mentioned. I do not have a direct connection to Mr. Abramovich myself.”
Gelbinovich’s claims to have worked on behalf of Abramovich, if true, are another piece of the web of connections between Trump World and powerful Russians. And that web is already thick: Besides President Trump’s much-vaunted personal friendliness with Russian President Vladimir Putin himself, Trump and his allies have a long history of doing business with Russian power players. His daughter is longtime friends with Abramovich’s former partner; his commerce secretary, Wilbur Ross, invested in a shipping firm linked to Putin’s judo partner, who is under U.S. sanctions, according to The New York Times; and Trump himself teamed up with oligarch Aras Agalarov to put on the Miss Universe pageant in Moscow in 2013.
The revelation of Gelbinovich’s claim to have worked on behalf of Abramovich also comes as a jury begins deliberations on the fate of another Trump campaign alum, Paul Manafort—who faces criminal charges related to his work for a Putin ally in Ukraine.
Evelyn Farkas, an Atlantic Council senior fellow, said the Gelbinovich effort highlights the growing consternation in Moscow about U.S. sanctions.
“That just tells you how much nervousness there is in Russia about being put on the sanctions list,” said Farkas, who worked on Russia matters at the Pentagon during the Obama administration. “The thing is, if he’s put on the U.S. sanctions list, then he’s in effect—because we do everything still in close coordination with the EU—then he’ll be put on the EU sanctions list, which is the bigger impact on him because of the fact that he owns property in the U.K., which is still in the EU.”
Gelbinovich was a low-level staffer on the Trump campaign, according to campaign sources, frequently booking travel for senior staff. He was on the campaign in its very early days. A picture published by the Daily Mail on Aug. 27, 2015, shows him sitting alone at a long, bare table in Trump campaign headquarters, cradling a phone and flanked by “Trump Make America Great Again!” signs.
After the campaign, he did a stint at the lobbying firm Williams & Jensen, according to a public lobbying disclosure filing, working for Coca-Cola. Gelbinovich told The Daily Beast he is now self-employed and consulting, and that his work regarding Abramovich had nothing to do with Williams & Jensen.
Mikhail Khodorkovsky, a former Russian magnate who spent years in prison and is now a Kremlin critic, told Bloomberg that Abramovich is a close ally of Putin.
“There’s no oligarch among those still accepted in the West who’s closer and more trusted by Putin than Abramovich,” he said.
---
Gelbinovich, for his part, claimed hat none of the lobbyists he contacted agreed to represent Abramovich.
But Gelbinovich is not the only Trump associate to claim an affiliation with the Russian oligarch. Ivanka Trump has been friends with Dasha Zhukova, who has two children with Abramovich, for more than a decade, according to Bloomberg.
Zhukova and Abramovich announced they would split in August 2017. The president’s daughter has posted multiple pictures with Zhukova on her Instagram. Bloomberg also noted that Jared Kushner and Abramovich have had several social encounters, which the president’s son-in-law revealed when applying for a security clearance.
Despite his powerful social circle, Abramovich has faced legal challenges this past year. The BBC reported in June that he withdrew his application for a visa to the U.K. after his investor visa expired in May. The BBC pointed to exacerbated diplomatic tensions between the U.K. and Russia over the chemical weapon attack on retired Russian spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia as a possible explanation for Abramovich’s visa troubles. In the wake of his visa troubles, Abramovich took up Israeli citizenship, according to the Guardian.
Some of Putin’s oligarch allies have been iced out of the American financial system under the Trump administration as the Treasury Department has implemented sanctions retaliating against the Kremlin for meddling in the 2016 presidential election. In April of this year, Treasury announced a new round of sanctions targeting Russian entities and oligarchs, including Oleg Deripaska, the Putin ally who put millions into the pocket of former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort.
Pushing back against these sanctions has been a key focus of Russian foreign policy for years. When Kremlin-linked Russians met with Trump campaign bosses at Trump Tower in June 2016, participants claimed the group just discussed adoptions—likely Putin’s decision to bar Americans from adopting Russian children, a move retaliating against American sanctions.
And when alleged Russian operative Maria Butina questioned then-candidate Trump on July 22, 2015, she asked him about sanctions.
“I know Putin, and I’ll tell you what, we’ll get along with Putin,” Trump told her. “I would get along very nicely with Putin, I mean, where we have the strength. I don’t think you’d need the sanctions. I think we would get along very, very well.”
The sanctions list hasn’t just survived the Trump administration; it’s grown. And it’s generated plenty of potential leads for Trump allies like Gelbinovich looking to cash in on their influence in Washington.
Two lobbyists—speaking anonymously because of the sensitivity of the matter—told The Daily Beast that Gelbinovich approached them and told them he was trying to help Roman Abramovich, a Russian oligarch worth more than $11 billion, find a lobbyist to help keep him from being added to the Treasury Department’s sanctions list.
Gelbinovich confirmed this reporting.
“I approached the lobbyists on behalf of a private equity firm that requested outreach for this type of work,” he said in an email to The Daily Beast. “The firm claimed that this outreach was on behalf of the individual you mentioned. I do not have a direct connection to Mr. Abramovich myself.”
Gelbinovich’s claims to have worked on behalf of Abramovich, if true, are another piece of the web of connections between Trump World and powerful Russians. And that web is already thick: Besides President Trump’s much-vaunted personal friendliness with Russian President Vladimir Putin himself, Trump and his allies have a long history of doing business with Russian power players. His daughter is longtime friends with Abramovich’s former partner; his commerce secretary, Wilbur Ross, invested in a shipping firm linked to Putin’s judo partner, who is under U.S. sanctions, according to The New York Times; and Trump himself teamed up with oligarch Aras Agalarov to put on the Miss Universe pageant in Moscow in 2013.
The revelation of Gelbinovich’s claim to have worked on behalf of Abramovich also comes as a jury begins deliberations on the fate of another Trump campaign alum, Paul Manafort—who faces criminal charges related to his work for a Putin ally in Ukraine.
Evelyn Farkas, an Atlantic Council senior fellow, said the Gelbinovich effort highlights the growing consternation in Moscow about U.S. sanctions.
“That just tells you how much nervousness there is in Russia about being put on the sanctions list,” said Farkas, who worked on Russia matters at the Pentagon during the Obama administration. “The thing is, if he’s put on the U.S. sanctions list, then he’s in effect—because we do everything still in close coordination with the EU—then he’ll be put on the EU sanctions list, which is the bigger impact on him because of the fact that he owns property in the U.K., which is still in the EU.”
Gelbinovich was a low-level staffer on the Trump campaign, according to campaign sources, frequently booking travel for senior staff. He was on the campaign in its very early days. A picture published by the Daily Mail on Aug. 27, 2015, shows him sitting alone at a long, bare table in Trump campaign headquarters, cradling a phone and flanked by “Trump Make America Great Again!” signs.
After the campaign, he did a stint at the lobbying firm Williams & Jensen, according to a public lobbying disclosure filing, working for Coca-Cola. Gelbinovich told The Daily Beast he is now self-employed and consulting, and that his work regarding Abramovich had nothing to do with Williams & Jensen.
Mikhail Khodorkovsky, a former Russian magnate who spent years in prison and is now a Kremlin critic, told Bloomberg that Abramovich is a close ally of Putin.
“There’s no oligarch among those still accepted in the West who’s closer and more trusted by Putin than Abramovich,” he said.
---
Gelbinovich, for his part, claimed hat none of the lobbyists he contacted agreed to represent Abramovich.
But Gelbinovich is not the only Trump associate to claim an affiliation with the Russian oligarch. Ivanka Trump has been friends with Dasha Zhukova, who has two children with Abramovich, for more than a decade, according to Bloomberg.
Zhukova and Abramovich announced they would split in August 2017. The president’s daughter has posted multiple pictures with Zhukova on her Instagram. Bloomberg also noted that Jared Kushner and Abramovich have had several social encounters, which the president’s son-in-law revealed when applying for a security clearance.
Despite his powerful social circle, Abramovich has faced legal challenges this past year. The BBC reported in June that he withdrew his application for a visa to the U.K. after his investor visa expired in May. The BBC pointed to exacerbated diplomatic tensions between the U.K. and Russia over the chemical weapon attack on retired Russian spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia as a possible explanation for Abramovich’s visa troubles. In the wake of his visa troubles, Abramovich took up Israeli citizenship, according to the Guardian.
Some of Putin’s oligarch allies have been iced out of the American financial system under the Trump administration as the Treasury Department has implemented sanctions retaliating against the Kremlin for meddling in the 2016 presidential election. In April of this year, Treasury announced a new round of sanctions targeting Russian entities and oligarchs, including Oleg Deripaska, the Putin ally who put millions into the pocket of former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort.
Pushing back against these sanctions has been a key focus of Russian foreign policy for years. When Kremlin-linked Russians met with Trump campaign bosses at Trump Tower in June 2016, participants claimed the group just discussed adoptions—likely Putin’s decision to bar Americans from adopting Russian children, a move retaliating against American sanctions.
And when alleged Russian operative Maria Butina questioned then-candidate Trump on July 22, 2015, she asked him about sanctions.
“I know Putin, and I’ll tell you what, we’ll get along with Putin,” Trump told her. “I would get along very nicely with Putin, I mean, where we have the strength. I don’t think you’d need the sanctions. I think we would get along very, very well.”
The sanctions list hasn’t just survived the Trump administration; it’s grown. And it’s generated plenty of potential leads for Trump allies like Gelbinovich looking to cash in on their influence in Washington.
'A Racist Through And Through': Former Trump Associate Recounts the President Saying 'Laziness Is a Trait in Blacks'
Jack O'Donnell, previously an executive at the Trump Organization, has harsh words for his former employer.
By Matthew Chapman / AlterNet
August 14, 2018, 3:41 PM GMT
President Donald Trump's outburst calling former White House staffer Omarosa Manigault Newman a "dog" has once again sparked a flurry of condemnation.
This time, many are choosing to dispense entirely with beating about the bush and are simply calling out Trump as a racist. One such person: Jack O'Donnell, the former president and chief operating officer of the now-shuttered Trump Plaza Hotel and Casino in Atlantic City.
He was asked by CNN "OutFront" host Erin Burnett, "Do you think his attacks on Omarosa are racist?" O'Donnell's view was clear.
"Well, I absolutely do," he said. "I think that maybe people associate the negative connotation of a 'dog' with a woman when they say — when they use it that way. I think that's normal. But I think, combined with Omarosa being a woman and an African-American, I think he's used it very strategically."
"And listen, he does have a very long history," he said. "He is a racist through and through. He doesn't have to use the word N-word for it to become very clear what he is—"
"And you've never heard him use it explicitly, right?" asked Burnett. "The N-word itself, just to be clear."
"Erin, he — no," he said. "To be clear, he never used that word in front of me, and the multiple times that he talked negatively about blacks, Puerto Ricans in particular, and women, and also, by the way, people with lower economic capability — he talked very derogatively about all four of those groups of people, but he never did use that word."
"To your point though, I think what you're trying to say is, he didn't use that word, but he did express incredibly racist sentiments," Burnett said, "and I want to quote from your book. You say, and this is you quoting Trump, 'I've got black accountants at Trump Castle and at Trump Plaza. Black guys counting my money and I hate it! The only kind of people who I want counting my money are short guys that wear yarmulkes every day ... I think that the guy is lazy. And it's probably not his fault because laziness is a trait in blacks. It really is. I believe that. It's not anything they can control.'"
"I mean, just let that sink in to everybody, for a moment, Jack," she continued. "And let me ask you a very, just, important question, I think. Did you write this down right after — I mean, was that off a tape? Do you — you put it in quotes. Is that truly, in quotes, what he said?"
"Yeah," he said. "Yeah. I did write that down, Erin, right after it happened. And also when I came back from that meeting at Trump Tower in New York, this was prior to the accident, and I was the president and chief operating officer. I had a gentleman, Steve Hyde, that I reported to, and I told him about it. Because I was concerned.
"Because that was really the first time that it became crystal clear how Donald thought about black people," he added.
This time, many are choosing to dispense entirely with beating about the bush and are simply calling out Trump as a racist. One such person: Jack O'Donnell, the former president and chief operating officer of the now-shuttered Trump Plaza Hotel and Casino in Atlantic City.
He was asked by CNN "OutFront" host Erin Burnett, "Do you think his attacks on Omarosa are racist?" O'Donnell's view was clear.
"Well, I absolutely do," he said. "I think that maybe people associate the negative connotation of a 'dog' with a woman when they say — when they use it that way. I think that's normal. But I think, combined with Omarosa being a woman and an African-American, I think he's used it very strategically."
"And listen, he does have a very long history," he said. "He is a racist through and through. He doesn't have to use the word N-word for it to become very clear what he is—"
"And you've never heard him use it explicitly, right?" asked Burnett. "The N-word itself, just to be clear."
"Erin, he — no," he said. "To be clear, he never used that word in front of me, and the multiple times that he talked negatively about blacks, Puerto Ricans in particular, and women, and also, by the way, people with lower economic capability — he talked very derogatively about all four of those groups of people, but he never did use that word."
"To your point though, I think what you're trying to say is, he didn't use that word, but he did express incredibly racist sentiments," Burnett said, "and I want to quote from your book. You say, and this is you quoting Trump, 'I've got black accountants at Trump Castle and at Trump Plaza. Black guys counting my money and I hate it! The only kind of people who I want counting my money are short guys that wear yarmulkes every day ... I think that the guy is lazy. And it's probably not his fault because laziness is a trait in blacks. It really is. I believe that. It's not anything they can control.'"
"I mean, just let that sink in to everybody, for a moment, Jack," she continued. "And let me ask you a very, just, important question, I think. Did you write this down right after — I mean, was that off a tape? Do you — you put it in quotes. Is that truly, in quotes, what he said?"
"Yeah," he said. "Yeah. I did write that down, Erin, right after it happened. And also when I came back from that meeting at Trump Tower in New York, this was prior to the accident, and I was the president and chief operating officer. I had a gentleman, Steve Hyde, that I reported to, and I told him about it. Because I was concerned.
"Because that was really the first time that it became crystal clear how Donald thought about black people," he added.
a true idiot!!!
A fun list of all the times Trump made up, confused, or didn’t know of countries that actually exist
New to the list: Nepal and Bhutan.
ADRIENNE MAHSA VARKIANI - thinkprogress
AUG 13, 2018, 4:37 PM
Pr*sident Donald Trump didn’t know that Nepal and Bhutan were countries until an adviser told him, according to a new report from Politico.
Before Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi visited the White House last June, Trump met with national security aides and seemed confused by the two countries’ existence, according to two people briefed on the meeting who spoke to Politico:
“He didn’t know what those were. He thought it was all part of India,” said one person familiar with the meeting. “He was like, ‘What is this stuff in between and these other countries?'”
---
According to the Politico report, Trump mispronounced Nepal as “nipple” and Bhutan as “button.” He also suggested that he could set up Modi with someone, after learning Modi is estranged from his wife.
(As a depressing aside, less than a year after Trump apparently learned Nepal is its own country, his administration ended temporary protected status for 9,000 Nepalese immigrants living in the United States, giving them just one year to figure out another way to legally stay or pack up and leave.)
I personally cannot verify the Politico report, which cites two unnamed sources, but I can say with certainty that Trump has very little understanding of world geography. Trump has, on several occasions, made up countries, confused one country for another, and not known whether something is a country or a city.
Here are just a few examples.
1. Trump made up the country of “Nambia”Speaking before African leaders at the United Nations in September 2017, Trump twice referred to the made up country of “Nambia.”
“Nambia’s health system is increasingly self-sufficient,” he said at one point.
People wondered whether he meant to say Namibia, Zambia, or Gambia. “Nambia” is not a country.
A White House transcript later fixed Trump’s mistake, and made it clear that the president was trying to talk about Namibia, a country of about 2 million in southern Africa.
2. Trump confused Iraq and Syria, after bombing the latterIn April 2017, Trump authorized a missile strike in Syria, and 59 Tomahawk missiles hit an airbase controlled by the Syrian government. Just a few days later, he forgot which country the United States bombed.
In an interview with Fox Business Network, Trump retold the story of how he shared the news that night with Chinese President Xi Jinping, while the two were eating dessert.
“We had the most beautiful piece of chocolate cake that you’ve ever seen, and President Xi was enjoying it,” he said. “So what happens is I said, ‘We’ve just launched 59 missiles…heading to Iraq.'”
“Well, heading to Syria,” Fox Business Network editor Maria Bartiromo said, correcting him.
“Yes, heading toward Syria,” Trump said, after a brief pause.
Bartiromo did not ask Trump how he had confused the two countries.
3. Trump confused North and South KoreaIn March, Trump told journalists that North Korea called him and asked to meet for discussions.
“It was headed for disaster and now we’re talking,” he said. “They, by the way, called up a couple of days ago; they said, ‘We would like to talk.’ And I said, ‘So would we, but you have to denuke.'”
Such a call would have been huge at the time, as it would have been the first direct outreach from North Korea. But in reality, Trump had had a conversation with South Korean President Moon Jae-in, who called to talk about developments regarding North Korea.
Since then, Trump has actually met with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, but left the meeting with very little to show for it.
4. Trump called Belgium “a beautiful city”While still a candidate, Trump described life in different places in Europe at a campaign stop in Atlanta, Georgia.
“Belgium is a beautiful city,” he boldly declared in June 2016. Just a few months earlier, he had called Brussels a “hellhole.”
Belgium is a country of about 11 million in western Europe. Brussels is the capital of Belgium.
5. “I never knew we had so many countries.”Trump said this during an official banquet in Tokyo, Japan in November 2017, shortly after being elected.
He made the comment while describing his relationship with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. He then referred to the calls he was getting from other world leaders.
“So my relationship with Shinzo got off to quite a rocky start because I never ran for office, and here I am. But I never ran, so I wasn’t very experienced,” he said. “And after I had won, everybody was calling me from all over the world. I never knew we had so many countries.”
Before Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi visited the White House last June, Trump met with national security aides and seemed confused by the two countries’ existence, according to two people briefed on the meeting who spoke to Politico:
“He didn’t know what those were. He thought it was all part of India,” said one person familiar with the meeting. “He was like, ‘What is this stuff in between and these other countries?'”
---
According to the Politico report, Trump mispronounced Nepal as “nipple” and Bhutan as “button.” He also suggested that he could set up Modi with someone, after learning Modi is estranged from his wife.
(As a depressing aside, less than a year after Trump apparently learned Nepal is its own country, his administration ended temporary protected status for 9,000 Nepalese immigrants living in the United States, giving them just one year to figure out another way to legally stay or pack up and leave.)
I personally cannot verify the Politico report, which cites two unnamed sources, but I can say with certainty that Trump has very little understanding of world geography. Trump has, on several occasions, made up countries, confused one country for another, and not known whether something is a country or a city.
Here are just a few examples.
1. Trump made up the country of “Nambia”Speaking before African leaders at the United Nations in September 2017, Trump twice referred to the made up country of “Nambia.”
“Nambia’s health system is increasingly self-sufficient,” he said at one point.
People wondered whether he meant to say Namibia, Zambia, or Gambia. “Nambia” is not a country.
A White House transcript later fixed Trump’s mistake, and made it clear that the president was trying to talk about Namibia, a country of about 2 million in southern Africa.
2. Trump confused Iraq and Syria, after bombing the latterIn April 2017, Trump authorized a missile strike in Syria, and 59 Tomahawk missiles hit an airbase controlled by the Syrian government. Just a few days later, he forgot which country the United States bombed.
In an interview with Fox Business Network, Trump retold the story of how he shared the news that night with Chinese President Xi Jinping, while the two were eating dessert.
“We had the most beautiful piece of chocolate cake that you’ve ever seen, and President Xi was enjoying it,” he said. “So what happens is I said, ‘We’ve just launched 59 missiles…heading to Iraq.'”
“Well, heading to Syria,” Fox Business Network editor Maria Bartiromo said, correcting him.
“Yes, heading toward Syria,” Trump said, after a brief pause.
Bartiromo did not ask Trump how he had confused the two countries.
3. Trump confused North and South KoreaIn March, Trump told journalists that North Korea called him and asked to meet for discussions.
“It was headed for disaster and now we’re talking,” he said. “They, by the way, called up a couple of days ago; they said, ‘We would like to talk.’ And I said, ‘So would we, but you have to denuke.'”
Such a call would have been huge at the time, as it would have been the first direct outreach from North Korea. But in reality, Trump had had a conversation with South Korean President Moon Jae-in, who called to talk about developments regarding North Korea.
Since then, Trump has actually met with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un, but left the meeting with very little to show for it.
4. Trump called Belgium “a beautiful city”While still a candidate, Trump described life in different places in Europe at a campaign stop in Atlanta, Georgia.
“Belgium is a beautiful city,” he boldly declared in June 2016. Just a few months earlier, he had called Brussels a “hellhole.”
Belgium is a country of about 11 million in western Europe. Brussels is the capital of Belgium.
5. “I never knew we had so many countries.”Trump said this during an official banquet in Tokyo, Japan in November 2017, shortly after being elected.
He made the comment while describing his relationship with Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe. He then referred to the calls he was getting from other world leaders.
“So my relationship with Shinzo got off to quite a rocky start because I never ran for office, and here I am. But I never ran, so I wasn’t very experienced,” he said. “And after I had won, everybody was calling me from all over the world. I never knew we had so many countries.”
Trump- Putin Summit
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Trump believed Nepal was part of India — and he thought it was pronounced ‘nipple’: report
Brad Reed - raw story
13 AUG 2018 AT 10:17 ET
Pr*sident Donald Trump has repeatedly displayed a stunning ignorance of world geography, according to a new report from Politico.
Sources tell the publication that, while preparing for a meeting with the prime minister of India, Trump had no idea how to pronounce the name of Asian nation Nepal, which he initially pronounced as “nipple.”
What’s more, Trump didn’t seem to understand that Nepal was its own separate country and instead assumed it was just part of India.
“He didn’t know what those were,” one source tells Politico. ” He thought it was all part of India. He was like, ‘What is this stuff in between and these other countries?'”
In addition to mangling the pronunciation of Nepal, Trump also reportedly bungled pronouncing the name of the nearby nation of Bhutan, which he believed was pronounced “button.”
Trump last year also infamously invented an African country he called “Nambia” during a United Nations lunch meeting with African leaders.
Sources tell the publication that, while preparing for a meeting with the prime minister of India, Trump had no idea how to pronounce the name of Asian nation Nepal, which he initially pronounced as “nipple.”
What’s more, Trump didn’t seem to understand that Nepal was its own separate country and instead assumed it was just part of India.
“He didn’t know what those were,” one source tells Politico. ” He thought it was all part of India. He was like, ‘What is this stuff in between and these other countries?'”
In addition to mangling the pronunciation of Nepal, Trump also reportedly bungled pronouncing the name of the nearby nation of Bhutan, which he believed was pronounced “button.”
Trump last year also infamously invented an African country he called “Nambia” during a United Nations lunch meeting with African leaders.
Trump’s Made-Up Problems
See Any Pattern Here?
By Terry H. Schwadron, DCReport New York Editor
8/4/18
As a Trump-watcher, what kept striking me this week was the president’s pattern in targeting issues as hot crises that he then almost ignores, while looking askance at actual problems, and just ignoring them.
That there are plenty of examples should give us pause about whether we are simply hurtling along as a country or actually aiming the country’s might toward some obtainable goals. Here’s what I see:
In each case, our TV-reality show president raises issues congruent with the television news cycle, and drops them as soon as any practical response is needed.
He is threatening this week to raise tariffs with China on a variety of product lines – apparently all as a goad to re-open negotiations with China about trade practices and how much more American goods he wants China to buy. There are no new reported negotiations being scheduled. Meanwhile, there is actual economic harm across the Midwest about planning among farmers and those dependent on affected supply lines. Trump’s answer is to offer $12 billion for farmers who lose sales, a concept that they broadly have rejected. Still, nothing seems to dissuade Trump from pursuing his gut need to punish the Chinese. Where is the thinking about solutions here?
Even in his tweets demeaning Special Counsel Robert S. Mueller’s investigations and calling on Atty. Gen. Jeff Sessions to end the probe today (which may prove an element in any obstruction of justice charge to follow), the president is speaking about perceived hurt to himself, not about being a leader who wants to get to the bottom of whatever Russia did to interfere with American elections. These are real problems turned into made-up “witch hunt” complaints. No wonder there is no resolution.
This is not leadership. This is adulation politics.
That there are plenty of examples should give us pause about whether we are simply hurtling along as a country or actually aiming the country’s might toward some obtainable goals. Here’s what I see:
- Iran and its nuclear program, a real problem, was a target, but only for a day for President Trump. Once he unloosed a tweet threatening the destruction of that nation, then offered to meet unconditionally with its elected president, then simply dropped the whole idea. Meanwhile, Iran is doing business with Russia and Europe. What’s our plan?
- Heath care. While continuing to attack Obamacare, another real problem, the president moved to allow companies to sell low-cost health care policies that don’t actually cover most health care, including maternity costs, treatments for pre-existing illnesses or prescriptions. It may look good, but really does this address the problem? The White House seems content to just leave it there.
- Election meddling. With reports of hacking that looks a lot like Russia’s effort (the incidents are under investigation) starting to flow from Missouri’s Sen. Claire McCaskill (D) and New Hampshire’s Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D), this real problem is drawing a most meandering reaction in the White House. There were more questions than answers about the White House trotting out intelligence agency heads yesterday meant to assure voters that voting systems are being properly protected this year, but unable to explain why Trump doesn’t seem to agree. After seemingly embracing Russian leader Vladimir V. Putin in Helsinki, the president has called a single meeting about election meddling for less than an hour, and generally, the issue that has prompted a year’s worth of special counsel investigation has drawn pretty much of a yawn from the president. Does this issue matter or not? Intelligence and Department of Homeland Security say yes; Congressional Republicans this week let a bill to provide more money for states to be ready in November to die on the floor. It doesn’t take much strategic head-scratching to recognize that cyberwar efforts ought to rank pretty high in America’s defense.
- There are real problems here and made-up problems. In pursuit of his fantasy southern border wall, for example, the president this week said he would shut down the government if Congress (which he identifies as the minority Democrats) don’t fully fund the construction of a 3,000 barrier and adopts rules to upset legal immigration. It is a major issue only for the president and a handful of very conservative advisers bent on American nationalism. Meanwhile, the idea that the government had to scramble to undo separations at the border of children from their migrant parents, especially those who had followed legal niceties in seeking asylum, escaped serious comment. The president dismissed those humanitarian concerns with a backhand slap at those who would seek to sneak into the country, saying essentially that losing their children is a price that they should expect to have to pay. Picking up on Trump themes, the Republican-majority Congress declined to pass any bill to address separation of children at the border or what happens to them. Meanwhile, with no significant congressional debate, the administration now is moving on the made-up problems of legal immigration with a proposal to cut in half the already reduced legal immigration limits. This is a response to a made-up problem.
- Republican Politics. That the otherwise politically conservative Koch brothers support policies for global trade while the president is putting tariffs in place to upset standing trade arrangements is cause for a split in the Republican Party is curious. This is a made-up problem over a difference of opinion not worth the president’s time and effort. But efforts to work with Congress to form practical coalitions, or to work to broaden the appeal of his government are not. Meanwhile, the president seems to be encouraging the appeal of the so-called Q faction among Republican voters, folks who are edging towards violence in their assertive attempts to drown out anyone perceived not to be a Trump supporter. It’s his choice, but I think we can all agree that Trump is putting his own standing before that of his party, to say nothing of the nation’s needs.
- 3-D Guns. This is a real problem, of course. What the president did was to tweet that the concept doesn’t make much sense. That’s it. Indeed, when he turned for advice, it was not to the Justice Department for how this home-made, non-traceable gun manufacturing might affect crime, or even to Homeland Security and the TSA to determine the effect on airport security, but to the National Rifle Association – lobbyist for more and more guns. But this time, the NRA is sitting out this issue because there is nothing to gain for the gun manufacturing industry that fuels the lobbying group. And that was it. So, once again, we have a real issue with no solution in sight, and dissension in Congress.
- Enemy of the People. The loudest non-issue the president raises regularly is his distaste for journalists, producers of “fake news” if any article or question seems critical to him or about him. Whatever he thinks about this made-up issue, the president is not about to take action, other than berating networks other than Fox News, because there is no real problem here. There seems little question that his followers take it all seriously enough to edge close to violence against journalists. Even his daughter, Ivanka, split with the president in an interview yesterday, saying she does not see the news media as the enemy.
In each case, our TV-reality show president raises issues congruent with the television news cycle, and drops them as soon as any practical response is needed.
He is threatening this week to raise tariffs with China on a variety of product lines – apparently all as a goad to re-open negotiations with China about trade practices and how much more American goods he wants China to buy. There are no new reported negotiations being scheduled. Meanwhile, there is actual economic harm across the Midwest about planning among farmers and those dependent on affected supply lines. Trump’s answer is to offer $12 billion for farmers who lose sales, a concept that they broadly have rejected. Still, nothing seems to dissuade Trump from pursuing his gut need to punish the Chinese. Where is the thinking about solutions here?
Even in his tweets demeaning Special Counsel Robert S. Mueller’s investigations and calling on Atty. Gen. Jeff Sessions to end the probe today (which may prove an element in any obstruction of justice charge to follow), the president is speaking about perceived hurt to himself, not about being a leader who wants to get to the bottom of whatever Russia did to interfere with American elections. These are real problems turned into made-up “witch hunt” complaints. No wonder there is no resolution.
This is not leadership. This is adulation politics.
Boy, What A Week It Was For Trump’s Lies
New steel plants! Savage gangs! Illegal voting! And other things that are not happening like the president says they are.
By Sara Boboltz - huff post
08/04/2018 12:00 am ET
It’s been a busy week for President Donald Trump. He hosted a rally Tuesday in Tampa, Florida, then another in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, on Thursday. (Some conspiracy theorists came, too!) He suggested the American Civil Liberties Union should do his administration’s work for him. He called on his deputy attorney general to stop the Russia investigation, but he also might really want to sit down and chat about that.
He also told a lot of untruths! Or falsehoods, fibs, fabrications ― lies, if you will. His bad habit is actually on the rise, according to The Washington Post, which reported this week that the president has told twice the number of false or misleading statements in the first half of this year as he did all of last year.
Strap in, folks. Here are 11 things the president of the United States said this week that are just not true.
There are people watching on giant TVs outside his Tampa rally because it’s so popular!
There were no TVs or large screens stationed outside, the Tampa Bay Times reported, although some people couldn’t get in.
He’s the most popular Republican president ever!
Trump repeated a favorite claim of his in a tweet and again at his Tampa rally, where he said he was “the most popular person in the history of the Republican Party,” including Abraham Lincoln.
According to multiple news outlets, Trump beats only Gerald Ford among modern Republican presidents. Polling didn’t exist in Lincoln’s time; Gallup began polling in 1935.
He arrived 15 minutes early to his meeting with Queen Elizabeth!
The president slammed the “fake, fake, disgusting news” media for accurately reporting the fact that he was more than 10 minutes late to the meeting with Britain’s reigning monarch, as video of the event showed and many news outlets reported. The world even saw the 92-year-old queen look at her watch as she stood waiting for Trump’s car to approach.
He chatted with The New York Times publisher about the paper’s fake news!
The president posted a tweet about the off-the-record meeting that suggested he and Publisher A.G. Sulzberger “spent much time talking about the vast amounts of Fake News being put out by the media & how that Fake News has morphed into phrase, ‘Enemy of the People.’”
Sulzberger wrote a statement describing a vastly different meeting, one in which he spent time explaining to the president how his divisive language might cause real harm to journalists around the world.
“I told him that although the phrase ‘fake news’ is untrue and harmful, I am far more concerned about his labeling journalists ‘the enemy of the people.’ I warned that this inflammatory language is contributing to a rise in threats against journalists and will lead to violence,” Sulzberger wrote.
U.S. Steel Corp. is opening seven new plants!
He told his audience Tuesday that six plants were coming and upped that number to seven on Thursday.
The company has made no such announcement. A spokeswoman told The Associated Press that any plans to open new plants would be announced on the company’s website.
The Russia investigation is a hoax!
OK, he says this a lot.
“We’re being hindered by the Russia hoax. It’s a hoax, OK?” Trump said in Pennsylvania.
But just hours earlier, top national security officials told reporters at a news conference that Russia’s U.S. election meddling is indeed real.
“Russia attempted to interfere with the last election,” FBI Director Christopher Wray said Thursday, stressing that it is a threat “we need to take extremely seriously and to tackle and respond to with fierce determination and focus.”
Russia is “very unhappy” that he is president!
The president once again made this untrue assertion at his Thursday rally. Russian President Vladimir Putin explicitly told reporters that he wanted Trump to win the 2016 election at a news conference the two leaders gave after their Helsinki summit last month.
“Savage gangs” are “occupying our country”!
“Every day, the brave men and women of ICE are liberating communities and towns from savage gangs, like MS-13, that are occupying our country like another nation would,” Trump said in defense of Immigration and Customs Enforcement at his Tampa rally.
Although MS-13 is extremely violent and has a presence in some coastal cities, there is no evidence to support that claim, despite how often the president makes it.
Democrats are trying to give illegal immigrants the right to vote!
This does not appear to be happening across the country, although non-citizens were recently approved to vote in San Francisco’s school board elections.
“In this country, the only time you don’t need [I.D], in many cases, is when you want to vote for a president, when you want to vote for a senator, when you want to vote for a governor or a congressman,” the president claimed at his rally in Tampa this week. “It’s crazy. It’s crazy. But we are turning it around.”
It is explicitly illegal for non-citizens to vote in federal elections.
The terrorist who killed several people in an October attack in Manhattan brought “22 relatives” into the country!
“He came in through chain [migration], and he has 22 relatives here. They came in because he was here,” Trump said Thursday of the truck driver who killed eight people in Lower Manhattan last October.
Trump has made this claim in the past. The New York Times explained it is not possible because, as a green card holder, the Uzbek truck driver would not have been allowed to sponsor any extended relatives ― just spouses and unmarried children. The man has one wife, and his three children were born in the United States.
His administration passed the biggest tax cuts in history!
“We passed the biggest tax cuts and reform in American history. Biggest cuts in history,” Trump said in Tampa. Experts say the bill was not the biggest in U.S. history, although he would be correct if he said it was “the biggest corporate tax cut.”
He also told a lot of untruths! Or falsehoods, fibs, fabrications ― lies, if you will. His bad habit is actually on the rise, according to The Washington Post, which reported this week that the president has told twice the number of false or misleading statements in the first half of this year as he did all of last year.
Strap in, folks. Here are 11 things the president of the United States said this week that are just not true.
There are people watching on giant TVs outside his Tampa rally because it’s so popular!
There were no TVs or large screens stationed outside, the Tampa Bay Times reported, although some people couldn’t get in.
He’s the most popular Republican president ever!
Trump repeated a favorite claim of his in a tweet and again at his Tampa rally, where he said he was “the most popular person in the history of the Republican Party,” including Abraham Lincoln.
According to multiple news outlets, Trump beats only Gerald Ford among modern Republican presidents. Polling didn’t exist in Lincoln’s time; Gallup began polling in 1935.
He arrived 15 minutes early to his meeting with Queen Elizabeth!
The president slammed the “fake, fake, disgusting news” media for accurately reporting the fact that he was more than 10 minutes late to the meeting with Britain’s reigning monarch, as video of the event showed and many news outlets reported. The world even saw the 92-year-old queen look at her watch as she stood waiting for Trump’s car to approach.
He chatted with The New York Times publisher about the paper’s fake news!
The president posted a tweet about the off-the-record meeting that suggested he and Publisher A.G. Sulzberger “spent much time talking about the vast amounts of Fake News being put out by the media & how that Fake News has morphed into phrase, ‘Enemy of the People.’”
Sulzberger wrote a statement describing a vastly different meeting, one in which he spent time explaining to the president how his divisive language might cause real harm to journalists around the world.
“I told him that although the phrase ‘fake news’ is untrue and harmful, I am far more concerned about his labeling journalists ‘the enemy of the people.’ I warned that this inflammatory language is contributing to a rise in threats against journalists and will lead to violence,” Sulzberger wrote.
U.S. Steel Corp. is opening seven new plants!
He told his audience Tuesday that six plants were coming and upped that number to seven on Thursday.
The company has made no such announcement. A spokeswoman told The Associated Press that any plans to open new plants would be announced on the company’s website.
The Russia investigation is a hoax!
OK, he says this a lot.
“We’re being hindered by the Russia hoax. It’s a hoax, OK?” Trump said in Pennsylvania.
But just hours earlier, top national security officials told reporters at a news conference that Russia’s U.S. election meddling is indeed real.
“Russia attempted to interfere with the last election,” FBI Director Christopher Wray said Thursday, stressing that it is a threat “we need to take extremely seriously and to tackle and respond to with fierce determination and focus.”
Russia is “very unhappy” that he is president!
The president once again made this untrue assertion at his Thursday rally. Russian President Vladimir Putin explicitly told reporters that he wanted Trump to win the 2016 election at a news conference the two leaders gave after their Helsinki summit last month.
“Savage gangs” are “occupying our country”!
“Every day, the brave men and women of ICE are liberating communities and towns from savage gangs, like MS-13, that are occupying our country like another nation would,” Trump said in defense of Immigration and Customs Enforcement at his Tampa rally.
Although MS-13 is extremely violent and has a presence in some coastal cities, there is no evidence to support that claim, despite how often the president makes it.
Democrats are trying to give illegal immigrants the right to vote!
This does not appear to be happening across the country, although non-citizens were recently approved to vote in San Francisco’s school board elections.
“In this country, the only time you don’t need [I.D], in many cases, is when you want to vote for a president, when you want to vote for a senator, when you want to vote for a governor or a congressman,” the president claimed at his rally in Tampa this week. “It’s crazy. It’s crazy. But we are turning it around.”
It is explicitly illegal for non-citizens to vote in federal elections.
The terrorist who killed several people in an October attack in Manhattan brought “22 relatives” into the country!
“He came in through chain [migration], and he has 22 relatives here. They came in because he was here,” Trump said Thursday of the truck driver who killed eight people in Lower Manhattan last October.
Trump has made this claim in the past. The New York Times explained it is not possible because, as a green card holder, the Uzbek truck driver would not have been allowed to sponsor any extended relatives ― just spouses and unmarried children. The man has one wife, and his three children were born in the United States.
His administration passed the biggest tax cuts in history!
“We passed the biggest tax cuts and reform in American history. Biggest cuts in history,” Trump said in Tampa. Experts say the bill was not the biggest in U.S. history, although he would be correct if he said it was “the biggest corporate tax cut.”
Trump calls on Sessions to end Russia probe ‘right now’
BY JORDAN FABIAN - the hill
08/01/18 09:31 AM EDT
Pr*sident Trump on Wednesday called on Attorney General Jeff Sessionsto stop the Russia investigation, a significant escalation of his attacks against the long-running probe that has dogged his presidency.
"Attorney General Jeff Sessions should stop this Rigged Witch Hunt right now, before it continues to stain our country any further," Trump tweeted.
The president also accused special counsel Robert Mueller of being "totally conflicted," adding that "his 17 Angry Democrats that are doing his dirty work are a disgrace to USA."
Sessions has long been the target of Trump's ire over his decision to recuse himself from the Russia investigation, but the president has seldom suggested publicly that his attorney general should halt the probe.
Trump's latest barb comes one day after his former campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, went on trial for alleged tax, financial and bank fraud crimes, the biggest test yet for the Mueller probe.
The president also sought to distance himself from Manafort early Wednesday, saying in another tweet that Manafort only "worked for me for a very short time" and suggested federal authorities should have informed him his campaign chief was under investigation during the 2016 presidential race.
"Paul Manafort worked for Ronald Reagan, Bob Dole and many other highly prominent and respected political leaders. He worked for me for a very short time. Why didn’t government tell me that he was under investigation. These old charges have nothing to do with Collusion — a Hoax!"
Mueller, a Republican, has indicted or secured guilty pleas from 32 individuals, including four former Trump aides, in the probe into ties between the Trump campaign and Russia’s efforts to influence the 2016 presidential election.
Trump has repeatedly denied that his campaign was involved in the effort and has also wavered on whether Russia interfered in the election, as U.S. intelligence agencies have unanimously concluded.
For months, the president has kept up a sustained attack on the Mueller investigation in an attempt to undermine it in the eyes of the public.
Multiple media reports have said Trump privately pressured Sessions several times to reverse his decision to recuse himself. Those comments, plus his tweets attacking Sessions and former FBI Director James Comey, are reportedly under investigation as Mueller looks into whether Trump has obstructed justice.
Sessions, the former Alabama senator who served as a top Trump campaign adviser, recused himself in March 2017 from the Russia probe after it was revealed he failed to disclose a conversation he had with Russia's U.S. ambassador during the 2016 race.
That decision left Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein to oversee the investigation. Rosenstein appointed Mueller as special counsel in May 2017, after Trump fired Comey as FBI director.
"Attorney General Jeff Sessions should stop this Rigged Witch Hunt right now, before it continues to stain our country any further," Trump tweeted.
The president also accused special counsel Robert Mueller of being "totally conflicted," adding that "his 17 Angry Democrats that are doing his dirty work are a disgrace to USA."
Sessions has long been the target of Trump's ire over his decision to recuse himself from the Russia investigation, but the president has seldom suggested publicly that his attorney general should halt the probe.
Trump's latest barb comes one day after his former campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, went on trial for alleged tax, financial and bank fraud crimes, the biggest test yet for the Mueller probe.
The president also sought to distance himself from Manafort early Wednesday, saying in another tweet that Manafort only "worked for me for a very short time" and suggested federal authorities should have informed him his campaign chief was under investigation during the 2016 presidential race.
"Paul Manafort worked for Ronald Reagan, Bob Dole and many other highly prominent and respected political leaders. He worked for me for a very short time. Why didn’t government tell me that he was under investigation. These old charges have nothing to do with Collusion — a Hoax!"
Mueller, a Republican, has indicted or secured guilty pleas from 32 individuals, including four former Trump aides, in the probe into ties between the Trump campaign and Russia’s efforts to influence the 2016 presidential election.
Trump has repeatedly denied that his campaign was involved in the effort and has also wavered on whether Russia interfered in the election, as U.S. intelligence agencies have unanimously concluded.
For months, the president has kept up a sustained attack on the Mueller investigation in an attempt to undermine it in the eyes of the public.
Multiple media reports have said Trump privately pressured Sessions several times to reverse his decision to recuse himself. Those comments, plus his tweets attacking Sessions and former FBI Director James Comey, are reportedly under investigation as Mueller looks into whether Trump has obstructed justice.
Sessions, the former Alabama senator who served as a top Trump campaign adviser, recused himself in March 2017 from the Russia probe after it was revealed he failed to disclose a conversation he had with Russia's U.S. ambassador during the 2016 race.
That decision left Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein to oversee the investigation. Rosenstein appointed Mueller as special counsel in May 2017, after Trump fired Comey as FBI director.
Ex-White House official claims Trump scheduled meetings based on what he watched on “Fox & Friends”
Known to be an avid viewer of “Fox and Friends,” Trump often tweets messages that correspond to the show’s segments
SHIRA TARLO - salon
JULY 31, 2018 8:00AM (UTC)
Pr*sident Donald Trump has allegedly scheduled daily meetings with his advisers based on "whatever he saw on 'Fox & Friends'" in the morning.
A former White House official told Politico that the the president has "lots of flexibility" to recalibrate his schedule to accommodate the topics that capture his attention — among them what is discussed on his favorite morning show or whispered into his ear by trusted advisers like Fox News star Sean Hannity.
“He comes down for the day, and whatever he saw on 'Fox and Friends,' he schedules meetings based on that,” the former White House employee said to the outlet. “If it’s Iran, it’s ‘Get John Bolton down here!’ . . . If he’s seen something on TV or [was] talking to Hannity the night before, he’s got lots of flexibility to do whatever he wants to do.”
This new reporting from Politico was packed inside a larger profile of White House Chief of Staff John Kelly, who is now one year into his West Wing tenure.
Inside 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, the arrival of White House communications chief Bill Shine has reportedly been viewed as a way to push Kelly out. "They've basically stopped telling Kelly when meetings are. People leave him off the calendar," an administration official told Vanity Fair. "When he finds out, he storms into the room and is like, 'What's going on?'"
Although he was originally seen as the individual who could act as a paternal figure to an executive branch seemingly at war with itself, according to Politico, Kelly has been largely unable to instill a stronger sense of order and structure inside the White House. The retired Marine general, who once referred to himself as the "adult in the room," has reportedly seen his role in the West Wing diminish as his alliance with the president has soured.
In fact, Kelly allegedly told at least one person close to him that "he may as well let the president do what he wants, even if it leads to impeachment – at least this chapter of American history would come to a close."
One White House aide told Politico that Kelly has "not been able to curb Trump's practice of adding and subtracting advisers to meetings throughout the day or of turning scheduled gatherings into freewheeling discussions of subjects that suit his interests — including those suggested to him by his coterie of outside advisers, including Fox News host Sean Hannity."
Trump is known to be a frequent viewer of "Fox & Friends," and he often tweets messages that correspond to the show's segments. The president once even praised the morning show for topping a list of the "most influential in media" – a title given to the show's co-hosts Steve Doocy, Brian Kilmeade and Ainsley Earhardt by Mediate, because they have captured the president's attention.
Last month, Trump even walked out of the White House for an impromptu interview on the show, during which time he offered chilling words of praise for North Korea's dictator, Kim Jong-un.
"I have a fantastic relationship now with North Korea. You know, there were missiles being thought about. People aren't thinking about it anymore," Trump said during his conversation with Doocy. "We get along very well. We had a good chemistry. I don't know if that’s supposed to be popular or politically correct to say, but we really did. We had good chemistry."
Recently, however, the co-hosts of "Fox & Friends" criticized Trump for cozying up to President Vladimir Putin of Russia during his joint press conference with his Russian counterpart in Helsinki, Finland, saying that the American president "fell short" of what was required of him.
The criticism followed Trump's assertion that he believed Putin's word over the findings of the U.S. intelligence community that Russians had interfered in the 2016 presidential election.
A former White House official told Politico that the the president has "lots of flexibility" to recalibrate his schedule to accommodate the topics that capture his attention — among them what is discussed on his favorite morning show or whispered into his ear by trusted advisers like Fox News star Sean Hannity.
“He comes down for the day, and whatever he saw on 'Fox and Friends,' he schedules meetings based on that,” the former White House employee said to the outlet. “If it’s Iran, it’s ‘Get John Bolton down here!’ . . . If he’s seen something on TV or [was] talking to Hannity the night before, he’s got lots of flexibility to do whatever he wants to do.”
This new reporting from Politico was packed inside a larger profile of White House Chief of Staff John Kelly, who is now one year into his West Wing tenure.
Inside 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, the arrival of White House communications chief Bill Shine has reportedly been viewed as a way to push Kelly out. "They've basically stopped telling Kelly when meetings are. People leave him off the calendar," an administration official told Vanity Fair. "When he finds out, he storms into the room and is like, 'What's going on?'"
Although he was originally seen as the individual who could act as a paternal figure to an executive branch seemingly at war with itself, according to Politico, Kelly has been largely unable to instill a stronger sense of order and structure inside the White House. The retired Marine general, who once referred to himself as the "adult in the room," has reportedly seen his role in the West Wing diminish as his alliance with the president has soured.
In fact, Kelly allegedly told at least one person close to him that "he may as well let the president do what he wants, even if it leads to impeachment – at least this chapter of American history would come to a close."
One White House aide told Politico that Kelly has "not been able to curb Trump's practice of adding and subtracting advisers to meetings throughout the day or of turning scheduled gatherings into freewheeling discussions of subjects that suit his interests — including those suggested to him by his coterie of outside advisers, including Fox News host Sean Hannity."
Trump is known to be a frequent viewer of "Fox & Friends," and he often tweets messages that correspond to the show's segments. The president once even praised the morning show for topping a list of the "most influential in media" – a title given to the show's co-hosts Steve Doocy, Brian Kilmeade and Ainsley Earhardt by Mediate, because they have captured the president's attention.
Last month, Trump even walked out of the White House for an impromptu interview on the show, during which time he offered chilling words of praise for North Korea's dictator, Kim Jong-un.
"I have a fantastic relationship now with North Korea. You know, there were missiles being thought about. People aren't thinking about it anymore," Trump said during his conversation with Doocy. "We get along very well. We had a good chemistry. I don't know if that’s supposed to be popular or politically correct to say, but we really did. We had good chemistry."
Recently, however, the co-hosts of "Fox & Friends" criticized Trump for cozying up to President Vladimir Putin of Russia during his joint press conference with his Russian counterpart in Helsinki, Finland, saying that the American president "fell short" of what was required of him.
The criticism followed Trump's assertion that he believed Putin's word over the findings of the U.S. intelligence community that Russians had interfered in the 2016 presidential election.
the idiot speaks!!!
'Basically, we opened up Europe,' Trump says — despite no final trade deal
BY JORDAN FABIAN - the hill
07/26/18 01:53 PM EDT
Pr*sident Trump on Thursday took a victory lap over his handshake agreement to avoid a trade war with the European Union, declaring "basically, we opened up Europe" to U.S. exports — even though no new deal is in place.
"We just opened up Europe for you farmers. You're not going to be too angry with Trump, I can tell you," Trump said at a jobs event in Peosta, Iowa.
Referring to the agreement struck Wednesday with European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker, Trump said, "you have just gotten yourself one big market."
As he spoke, Trump held up a green and yellow baseball cap with the phrase "Make Our Farmers Great Again!" emblazoned on the front.
The president is trying to assuage the fears of farmers who are worried about financial pain caused by the prospect of an escalating trade with with Europe and China, but he spoke as if discussing a finalized bargain.
Trump agreed to put off auto tariffs on Europe and the two leaders said they would begin broader talks over lowering other trade barriers on industrial products. The Europeans also agreed to import more U.S. soybeans, though they were already preparing to take that step before Wednesday's meeting.
The deal was otherwise vague and no tariffs have yet been lifted. The upcoming negotiations between the U.S. and Europe are not guaranteed to produce an agreement that significantly reduces trade barriers.
The U.S. also remains embroiled in a trade dispute with China, which has imposed retaliatory tariffs on corn and soybean producers that are raising fears in heartland states like Iowa.
The economic pressure on U.S. farmers could pose a political risk to the Republican Party in the November midterm elections, since many farmers live in states Trump won in 2016.
On Tuesday, the Department of Agriculture announced a plan to give $12 billion in aid to U.S. farmers hit by retaliatory international tariffs on American produce, grain and meat exports.
Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue called the assistance plan “a short-term solution to allow President Trump time to work on long-term trade deals to benefit agriculture and the entire U.S. economy.”
Republicans and Democrats both dismissed the idea as "welfare" for farms, calling on Trump to remove his original tariffs.
“They put in place a policy that requires our farmers to go on welfare and, you know, it’s a ridiculous policy that just needs to be reversed,” said Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Bob Corker (R-Tenn.).
"We just opened up Europe for you farmers. You're not going to be too angry with Trump, I can tell you," Trump said at a jobs event in Peosta, Iowa.
Referring to the agreement struck Wednesday with European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker, Trump said, "you have just gotten yourself one big market."
As he spoke, Trump held up a green and yellow baseball cap with the phrase "Make Our Farmers Great Again!" emblazoned on the front.
The president is trying to assuage the fears of farmers who are worried about financial pain caused by the prospect of an escalating trade with with Europe and China, but he spoke as if discussing a finalized bargain.
Trump agreed to put off auto tariffs on Europe and the two leaders said they would begin broader talks over lowering other trade barriers on industrial products. The Europeans also agreed to import more U.S. soybeans, though they were already preparing to take that step before Wednesday's meeting.
The deal was otherwise vague and no tariffs have yet been lifted. The upcoming negotiations between the U.S. and Europe are not guaranteed to produce an agreement that significantly reduces trade barriers.
The U.S. also remains embroiled in a trade dispute with China, which has imposed retaliatory tariffs on corn and soybean producers that are raising fears in heartland states like Iowa.
The economic pressure on U.S. farmers could pose a political risk to the Republican Party in the November midterm elections, since many farmers live in states Trump won in 2016.
On Tuesday, the Department of Agriculture announced a plan to give $12 billion in aid to U.S. farmers hit by retaliatory international tariffs on American produce, grain and meat exports.
Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue called the assistance plan “a short-term solution to allow President Trump time to work on long-term trade deals to benefit agriculture and the entire U.S. economy.”
Republicans and Democrats both dismissed the idea as "welfare" for farms, calling on Trump to remove his original tariffs.
“They put in place a policy that requires our farmers to go on welfare and, you know, it’s a ridiculous policy that just needs to be reversed,” said Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Bob Corker (R-Tenn.).
something the idiot might understand!!!
Wall Street Journal: EU official used colorful, simplified cue cards in trade meeting with Trump
BY JACQUELINE THOMSEN - the hill
07/26/18 02:49 PM EDT
European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker reportedly used colorful cards with simple explanations to discuss trade policies during his Wednesday meeting with President Trump.
The Wall Street Journal reported Thursday that Juncker relied on more than a dozen of the cards while explaining trade topics to Trump, including automotive trade, ahead of their Rose Garden announcement to hold formal trade talks.
“We knew this wasn’t an academic seminar. It had to be very simple,” a senior European Union official told The Journal.
Juncker and Trump emerged from the meeting with a handshake dealto avoid a trade war between the U.S. and the EU.
The leaders announced that they would work toward zero tariffs, and the EU agreed to increase U.S. soybean imports and decrease industrial tariffs.
Trump backed off from his threat to slap hefty tariffs on automotive imports as part of the agreement.
The president claimed on Wednesday that “basically, we opened up Europe” to U.S. imports, despite no formal agreement being reached.
“We just opened up Europe for you farmers. You're not going to be too angry with Trump, I can tell you," Trump said at a jobs event in Peosta, Iowa the day after the meeting.
The Wall Street Journal reported Thursday that Juncker relied on more than a dozen of the cards while explaining trade topics to Trump, including automotive trade, ahead of their Rose Garden announcement to hold formal trade talks.
“We knew this wasn’t an academic seminar. It had to be very simple,” a senior European Union official told The Journal.
Juncker and Trump emerged from the meeting with a handshake dealto avoid a trade war between the U.S. and the EU.
The leaders announced that they would work toward zero tariffs, and the EU agreed to increase U.S. soybean imports and decrease industrial tariffs.
Trump backed off from his threat to slap hefty tariffs on automotive imports as part of the agreement.
The president claimed on Wednesday that “basically, we opened up Europe” to U.S. imports, despite no formal agreement being reached.
“We just opened up Europe for you farmers. You're not going to be too angry with Trump, I can tell you," Trump said at a jobs event in Peosta, Iowa the day after the meeting.
putin's "useful idiot"
Trump accuses Obama of rigging Russia investigation
The president also praised Putin and told Hannity that the Mueller probe is hurting U.S.-Russia relations.
FRANK DALE - thinkprogress
JUL 16, 2018, 11:09 PM
President Trump accused his predecessor, President Obama, of rigging the ongoing Russia investigation against him and instructing an FBI agent to carry out the task, during an interview with Fox News’ Sean Hannity Monday night.
FBI agent Peter Strzok, a former member of Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation team, has long been a target of conservatives, who claim his previous anti-Trump texts to a colleague with whom he was having an affair prove the Russia investigation is nothing more than a political witch-hunt. Trump has repeatedly echoed those claims, suggesting Strzok wanted to prevent him from winning the presidency and that the investigation is baseless, despite the numerous indictments Mueller’s team has handed down over the past year.
On Monday night, following his diplomatic summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Helsinki, Finland, Trump took things a step further by implying his predecessor had directly ordered Strzok to rig the investigation against him.
After calling Strzok “a disgrace to our country,” Trump added, “You have to find out — who did Peter Strzok report to? Because it was James Comey and it was (former FBI Deputy Director Andrew) McCabe, but it was also probably Obama. If you think that Obama didn’t know what was going on….”
Trump offered no evidence to back that claim, appearing to make it up on the spot.
Trump previously accused Obama of spying on him, suggesting in March last year that the former president had wiretapped his offices in Trump Tower during the 2016 election — a claim that was later debunked by the Justice Department.
Trump had kinder words for Putin, who he praised as “very, very strong.” He then paraphrased Putin’s comments describing Mueller’s investigation as a “phony witch hunt,” saying the Russian president had told him it was preventing them from striking any deals, such as the “safety of nuclear.”
“President Putin said, one of the early things he said when we started, he said it’s really a shame because we could do so much good, whether it is humanitarian aid throughout the Middle East, whether it’s not just Syria, so many different things. The safety of nuclear, which ultimately, there is nothing bigger and more important,” he said. “And they drove a phony wedge, just a phony witch hunt, a rigged deal with guys like Peter Strzok and Comey and McCabe. The whole group. And you can imagine who else. It’s a real shame.”
Trump also said Putin was angry to hear about salacious allegations from the Steele dossier, which Russia’s president claimed were not true.
“It makes him angry when he sees it,” he said. “You know it’s very interesting — you look at what’s happening, you look at what — that whole thing. He understood it. And he was — I don’t know if you could see it — he was incensed even talking about it.”
Trump seized the moment to once again publicize Putin’s offer to help “analyze” U.S. intelligence on 12 GRU officers — Russian military intelligence — who Mueller indicted Friday for their alleged roles in hacking the DNC and DCCC servers, as well as the email accounts of Hillary Clinton campaign staffers.
“He’s willing to take those 12 people, there is no extradition,” Trump said. “But he is willing to let Robert Mueller’s people go over there and bring a big investigation of those people, working together with the Russian investigators.”
Monday’s interview was recorded shortly after Trump’s disastrous joint press conference with the Russian leader, who the U.S. intelligence community has “assessed with high confidence” directed a covert attack on the 2016 American election to help Trump.
Despite the intelligence community’s assessment, Trump has continued to downplay the threat Russia and Putin pose, choosing instead to paint his friendly relationship with the autocratic leader as diplomatic bridge-building.
FBI agent Peter Strzok, a former member of Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation team, has long been a target of conservatives, who claim his previous anti-Trump texts to a colleague with whom he was having an affair prove the Russia investigation is nothing more than a political witch-hunt. Trump has repeatedly echoed those claims, suggesting Strzok wanted to prevent him from winning the presidency and that the investigation is baseless, despite the numerous indictments Mueller’s team has handed down over the past year.
On Monday night, following his diplomatic summit with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Helsinki, Finland, Trump took things a step further by implying his predecessor had directly ordered Strzok to rig the investigation against him.
After calling Strzok “a disgrace to our country,” Trump added, “You have to find out — who did Peter Strzok report to? Because it was James Comey and it was (former FBI Deputy Director Andrew) McCabe, but it was also probably Obama. If you think that Obama didn’t know what was going on….”
Trump offered no evidence to back that claim, appearing to make it up on the spot.
Trump previously accused Obama of spying on him, suggesting in March last year that the former president had wiretapped his offices in Trump Tower during the 2016 election — a claim that was later debunked by the Justice Department.
Trump had kinder words for Putin, who he praised as “very, very strong.” He then paraphrased Putin’s comments describing Mueller’s investigation as a “phony witch hunt,” saying the Russian president had told him it was preventing them from striking any deals, such as the “safety of nuclear.”
“President Putin said, one of the early things he said when we started, he said it’s really a shame because we could do so much good, whether it is humanitarian aid throughout the Middle East, whether it’s not just Syria, so many different things. The safety of nuclear, which ultimately, there is nothing bigger and more important,” he said. “And they drove a phony wedge, just a phony witch hunt, a rigged deal with guys like Peter Strzok and Comey and McCabe. The whole group. And you can imagine who else. It’s a real shame.”
Trump also said Putin was angry to hear about salacious allegations from the Steele dossier, which Russia’s president claimed were not true.
“It makes him angry when he sees it,” he said. “You know it’s very interesting — you look at what’s happening, you look at what — that whole thing. He understood it. And he was — I don’t know if you could see it — he was incensed even talking about it.”
Trump seized the moment to once again publicize Putin’s offer to help “analyze” U.S. intelligence on 12 GRU officers — Russian military intelligence — who Mueller indicted Friday for their alleged roles in hacking the DNC and DCCC servers, as well as the email accounts of Hillary Clinton campaign staffers.
“He’s willing to take those 12 people, there is no extradition,” Trump said. “But he is willing to let Robert Mueller’s people go over there and bring a big investigation of those people, working together with the Russian investigators.”
Monday’s interview was recorded shortly after Trump’s disastrous joint press conference with the Russian leader, who the U.S. intelligence community has “assessed with high confidence” directed a covert attack on the 2016 American election to help Trump.
Despite the intelligence community’s assessment, Trump has continued to downplay the threat Russia and Putin pose, choosing instead to paint his friendly relationship with the autocratic leader as diplomatic bridge-building.
'Constitutionally Incapable': Trump Officials Reportedly Say 'His Brain Can't Process' the Facts of Russian Election Interference
Even the White House's attempt to spin the summit in a positive way makes the president look terrible.
By Cody Fenwick / AlterNet
July 16, 2018, 11:40 AM GMT
President Donald Trump is facing denunciations across the board after his supplicatory meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin, and even the spin coming from White House officials puts Trump in a terrible light.
Officials speaking off the record with Axios reporter Jonathan Swan tried to cast Trump's refusal to condemn Russian aggression or stand up to Putin's interference in the 2016 election as incompetence, rather than malicious and treacherous alignment with the foreign authoritarian.
"A number of people who’ve discussed election meddling with Trump, including current senior administration officials, say his brain can’t process that collusion and cyberattacks are two different things," Swan wrote. "Trump seems constitutionally incapable of taking anything Mueller finds seriously."
"The White House spin is that there's something constitutionally wrong with the president," tweeted Vox politics editor Laura McGann of the report.
On this account of events, Trump isn't necessarily covering up for Russia's crimes; rather, he's simply unable to comprehend them. While this is hardly a comforting picture, it's important to remember that even this narrative itself may be a self-serving account given by people who derive power from the Trump administration.
Swan also notes that several of the officials he's spoken to are not "proud" to work for Trump, but they are not prepared to resign.
"If the best defense that the aides closest to Trump can come up with for his open support for Putin as Putin stood their and lied is that he's delusional, they must either be delusional themselves or believe that we are delusional enough to buy it," McGann wrote.
RELATED: 'Putin Is the Puppet Master': British Reporter Says the Russian President Is Making Trump 'Dance'
RELATED: Director of National Intelligence Rebukes Trump on Russian Election Interference in Statement 'Not Cleared with the White House
Officials speaking off the record with Axios reporter Jonathan Swan tried to cast Trump's refusal to condemn Russian aggression or stand up to Putin's interference in the 2016 election as incompetence, rather than malicious and treacherous alignment with the foreign authoritarian.
"A number of people who’ve discussed election meddling with Trump, including current senior administration officials, say his brain can’t process that collusion and cyberattacks are two different things," Swan wrote. "Trump seems constitutionally incapable of taking anything Mueller finds seriously."
"The White House spin is that there's something constitutionally wrong with the president," tweeted Vox politics editor Laura McGann of the report.
On this account of events, Trump isn't necessarily covering up for Russia's crimes; rather, he's simply unable to comprehend them. While this is hardly a comforting picture, it's important to remember that even this narrative itself may be a self-serving account given by people who derive power from the Trump administration.
Swan also notes that several of the officials he's spoken to are not "proud" to work for Trump, but they are not prepared to resign.
"If the best defense that the aides closest to Trump can come up with for his open support for Putin as Putin stood their and lied is that he's delusional, they must either be delusional themselves or believe that we are delusional enough to buy it," McGann wrote.
RELATED: 'Putin Is the Puppet Master': British Reporter Says the Russian President Is Making Trump 'Dance'
RELATED: Director of National Intelligence Rebukes Trump on Russian Election Interference in Statement 'Not Cleared with the White House
Trump responds to Mueller indictments – by blaming Obama
Indictment of 12 Russian spies heaps pressure on Trump
Pr*sident preparing to meet Vladimir Putin in Helsinki
Sabrina Siddiqui in Washington and Martin Pengelly in New York
the guardian
Sat 14 Jul 2018 08.04 EDT
Donald Trump has commented for the first time on the indictment of 12 Russians by special counsel Robert Mueller, choosing to blame Barack Obama for not “doing something about” election interference including the hacking of Democratic party emails.
Trump will meet Russian president Vladimir Putin in Helsinki on Monday.
On Saturday, from Scotland, the US president tweeted: “The stories you heard about the 12 Russians yesterday took place during the Obama Administration, not the Trump Administration. Why didn’t they do something about it, especially when it was reported that President Obama was informed by the FBI in September, before the Election?”
According to widespread reporting and Obama aides including vice-president Joe Biden, chief of staff Denis McDonough and senior adviser Ben Rhodes, Obama attempted to formulate a bipartisan statement on Russian election interference in September 2016, two months before the election, but saw the effort “watered down” by Republican Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell.
In a memoir, Rhodes calledMcConnell’s action “staggeringly partisan and unpatriotic in its disregard for a foreign adversary undermining our democracy”.
After the election, Obama issued sanctions against Russia, expelled diplomats and closed Russian compounds in the US.
Mueller is investigating election interference and alleged collusion between Trump aides and Moscow. He has already indicted 13 other Russian individuals and three Russian entities. Four former Trump aides have been indicted, including former campaign manager Paul Manafort and former national security adviser Michael Flynn. Flynn is co-operating with the investigation; Manafort has pleaded not guilty to financial charges and is in jail awaiting trial.
Trump denies all collusion and has constantly called Mueller’s investigation a “rigged witch hunt”, as he did at Chequers during a press conference with British prime minister Theresa May on Friday. He had been informed earlier this week that the 12 new indictments were coming.
Mueller indicted the Russian military intelligence officials on Friday. The 29-page document contained details of email hacks, attacks on election infrastructure, the theft of large amounts of data and links to an unnamed associate of the Trump campaign. Sometime Trump adviser Roger Stone said on Friday night he was “probably” the unnamed associate.
The indictment said Russian hackers attempted “for the first time” to break into email accounts used in the personal office of Trump’s election opponent, Hillary Clinton, “after hours” on 27 July 2016. The same day, Trump said in a campaign speech: “Russia, if you’re listening, I hope you’re able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing. I think you will probably be rewarded mightily by our press. Let’s see if that happens, that’ll be next.”
The Mueller indictment does not suggest a direct link between Trump’s remarks and the attempted hacks.
On Friday, senior Democrats called for the Helsinki summit to be cancelled. The White House said it would go ahead and said the new charges contained “no allegations of knowing involvement by anyone on the campaign and no allegations that the alleged hacking affected the election result”.
Trump said he would raise with Putin the issue of election interference but also told reporters: “I don’t think you’ll have any, ‘Gee, I did it. I did it. You got me.’”
A Russian foreign ministry statement called the indictments “false information” and said “obviously, the purpose of this is to spoil the atmosphere”.
Trump was due to play golf on Saturday, at his own Turnberry course in Scotland. Using language familiar among conspiracy theorists on the US right, he also tweeted: “....Where is the DNC Server, and why didn’t the FBI take possession of it? Deep State?”
Earlier this year, the Trump administration implemented a new round of sanctions to punish Russia for its election meddling – after more than a month’s delay. Trump had sought to water down the sanctions, which were passed by Congress last year.
Warning that Moscow is attempting to meddle in future US elections, Trump’s own intelligence chiefs have testified that the administration is not doing enough to respond to Russian cyberattacks.
Trump will meet Russian president Vladimir Putin in Helsinki on Monday.
On Saturday, from Scotland, the US president tweeted: “The stories you heard about the 12 Russians yesterday took place during the Obama Administration, not the Trump Administration. Why didn’t they do something about it, especially when it was reported that President Obama was informed by the FBI in September, before the Election?”
According to widespread reporting and Obama aides including vice-president Joe Biden, chief of staff Denis McDonough and senior adviser Ben Rhodes, Obama attempted to formulate a bipartisan statement on Russian election interference in September 2016, two months before the election, but saw the effort “watered down” by Republican Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell.
In a memoir, Rhodes calledMcConnell’s action “staggeringly partisan and unpatriotic in its disregard for a foreign adversary undermining our democracy”.
After the election, Obama issued sanctions against Russia, expelled diplomats and closed Russian compounds in the US.
Mueller is investigating election interference and alleged collusion between Trump aides and Moscow. He has already indicted 13 other Russian individuals and three Russian entities. Four former Trump aides have been indicted, including former campaign manager Paul Manafort and former national security adviser Michael Flynn. Flynn is co-operating with the investigation; Manafort has pleaded not guilty to financial charges and is in jail awaiting trial.
Trump denies all collusion and has constantly called Mueller’s investigation a “rigged witch hunt”, as he did at Chequers during a press conference with British prime minister Theresa May on Friday. He had been informed earlier this week that the 12 new indictments were coming.
Mueller indicted the Russian military intelligence officials on Friday. The 29-page document contained details of email hacks, attacks on election infrastructure, the theft of large amounts of data and links to an unnamed associate of the Trump campaign. Sometime Trump adviser Roger Stone said on Friday night he was “probably” the unnamed associate.
The indictment said Russian hackers attempted “for the first time” to break into email accounts used in the personal office of Trump’s election opponent, Hillary Clinton, “after hours” on 27 July 2016. The same day, Trump said in a campaign speech: “Russia, if you’re listening, I hope you’re able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing. I think you will probably be rewarded mightily by our press. Let’s see if that happens, that’ll be next.”
The Mueller indictment does not suggest a direct link between Trump’s remarks and the attempted hacks.
On Friday, senior Democrats called for the Helsinki summit to be cancelled. The White House said it would go ahead and said the new charges contained “no allegations of knowing involvement by anyone on the campaign and no allegations that the alleged hacking affected the election result”.
Trump said he would raise with Putin the issue of election interference but also told reporters: “I don’t think you’ll have any, ‘Gee, I did it. I did it. You got me.’”
A Russian foreign ministry statement called the indictments “false information” and said “obviously, the purpose of this is to spoil the atmosphere”.
Trump was due to play golf on Saturday, at his own Turnberry course in Scotland. Using language familiar among conspiracy theorists on the US right, he also tweeted: “....Where is the DNC Server, and why didn’t the FBI take possession of it? Deep State?”
Earlier this year, the Trump administration implemented a new round of sanctions to punish Russia for its election meddling – after more than a month’s delay. Trump had sought to water down the sanctions, which were passed by Congress last year.
Warning that Moscow is attempting to meddle in future US elections, Trump’s own intelligence chiefs have testified that the administration is not doing enough to respond to Russian cyberattacks.
‘Tripling down on stupid’: Internet buries Trump in ridicule after he tweets a ‘very nice note’ from Kim Jong-un
Brad Reed - raw story
12 JUL 2018 AT 13:13 ET
The Washington Post on Thursday reported that North Korean officials had ditched a planned meeting with American officials to discuss returning the remains of U.S. soldiers killed during the Korean War.
Despite this, President Donald Trump is still trying to project confidence that things are going well with his efforts to get North Korea to dismantle its entire nuclear arsenal.
In a Thursday afternoon tweet, the president posted a copy of a “very nice note” that he had received from Kim, who praised Trump for his “strong will and sincere efforts” in improving relations between the U.S. and North Korea.
North Korea so far has not actually done anything to dismantle its nuclear weapons — and it has actually used increasingly hostile rhetoric to describe American officials in recent weeks, such as when it called out Secretary of State Mike Pompeo for employing “gangster-like” tactics during negotiations.
The most humiliating episode, however, came two days ago when Kim Jong-un reportedly skipped a meeting with Pompeo in order to go to a potato farm.
Given all this, Twitter users immediately buried Trump in ridicule for touting the supposed “progress” that he’s making in getting Kim to give up his nukes.
Pé Resists
@4everNeverTrump
Replying to @realDonaldTrump
You're just giddy he called you "Your Excellency" five times in a four paragraph letter which doesn't actually say anything of substance.
Pathetic.
9:34 AM - Jul 12, 2018
Cill
@justcill
Replying to @realDonaldTrump
Wow. Ok, how do I say this nicely?
Actions speak louder than words. Kim is expanding his research facilities. The only progress being made is in pulling the wool over your eyes and in Kim's nuclear program. #WakeUp #FactsMatter #FBR
9:36 AM - Jul 12, 2018
Despite this, President Donald Trump is still trying to project confidence that things are going well with his efforts to get North Korea to dismantle its entire nuclear arsenal.
In a Thursday afternoon tweet, the president posted a copy of a “very nice note” that he had received from Kim, who praised Trump for his “strong will and sincere efforts” in improving relations between the U.S. and North Korea.
North Korea so far has not actually done anything to dismantle its nuclear weapons — and it has actually used increasingly hostile rhetoric to describe American officials in recent weeks, such as when it called out Secretary of State Mike Pompeo for employing “gangster-like” tactics during negotiations.
The most humiliating episode, however, came two days ago when Kim Jong-un reportedly skipped a meeting with Pompeo in order to go to a potato farm.
Given all this, Twitter users immediately buried Trump in ridicule for touting the supposed “progress” that he’s making in getting Kim to give up his nukes.
Pé Resists
@4everNeverTrump
Replying to @realDonaldTrump
You're just giddy he called you "Your Excellency" five times in a four paragraph letter which doesn't actually say anything of substance.
Pathetic.
9:34 AM - Jul 12, 2018
Cill
@justcill
Replying to @realDonaldTrump
Wow. Ok, how do I say this nicely?
Actions speak louder than words. Kim is expanding his research facilities. The only progress being made is in pulling the wool over your eyes and in Kim's nuclear program. #WakeUp #FactsMatter #FBR
9:36 AM - Jul 12, 2018
HHS Plans to Delete 20 Years of Critical Medical Guidelines Next Week
Experts say the database of carefully curated medical guidelines is one of a kind, used constantly by medical professionals, and on July 16 will ‘go dark’ due to budget cuts.
JON CAMPBELL - daily beast
07.12.18 5:11 AM ET
The Trump Administration is planning to eliminate a vast trove of medical guidelines that for nearly 20 years has been a critical resource for doctors, researchers and others in the medical community.
Maintained by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality [AHRQ], part of the Department of Health and Human Services, the database is known as the National Guideline Clearinghouse [NGC], and it’s scheduled to “go dark,” in the words of an official there, on July 16.
Medical guidelines like those compiled by AHRQ aren’t something laypeople spend much time thinking about, but experts like Valerie King, a professor in the Department of Family Medicine and Director of Research at the Center for Evidence-based Policy at Oregon Health & Science University, said the NGC is perhaps the most important repository of evidence-based research available.
“Guideline.gov was our go-to source, and there is nothing else like it in the world,” King said, referring to the URL at which the database is hosted, which the agency says receives about 200,000 visitors per month. “It is a singular resource,” King added.
Medical guidelines are best thought of as cheatsheets for the medical field, compiling the latest research in an easy-to use format. When doctors want to know when they should start insulin treatments, or how best to manage an HIV patient in unstable housing — even something as mundane as when to start an older patient on a vitamin D supplement — they look for the relevant guidelines. The documents are published by a myriad of professional and other organizations, and NGC has long been considered among the most comprehensive and reliable repositories in the world.
AHRQ said it’s looking for a partner that can carry on the work of NGC, but that effort hasn’t panned out yet.
“AHRQ agrees that guidelines play an important role in clinical decision making, but hard decisions had to be made about how to use the resources at our disposal,” said AHRQ spokesperson Alison Hunt in an email. The operating budget for the NGC last year was $1.2 million, Hunt said, and reductions in funding forced the agency’s hand.
Not even an archived version of the site will remain, according to an official at AHRQ. A report from the Sunlight Foundation’s Web Integrity Project found the agency announced the site’s retirement, as well as that of a related but less trafficked “Quality Measures” site, this Spring. Some of the NGC’s pages are preserved in a third party archive, but no comprehensive backup of the site’s contents or search functions exists.
---
“Many guidelines are actually written mainly for commercial purposes or public relations purposes,” said Poses, and can be subtly shaped to promote a given course of treatment. A guideline written for the treatment of depression, for example, may emphasize pharmaceuticals over talk therapy.
“The organizations writing the guidelines may be getting millions of dollars from big drug companies that want to promote a product. The people writing them may have similar conflicts of interest,” Poses said. NGC’s process provided a resource comparatively free of that kind of influence.
Underscoring how medical research like that maintained by the NGC can be politicized, AHRQ drew the ire of then-congressmember Tom Price in 2016 when it published a study critical of a drug manufactured by one of his campaign donors. According to ProPublica, one of Price’s aides emailed “at least half a dozen times” asking the agency to pull the critical research down. Price was the first director of HHS, AHRQ’s parent agency, under the Trump Administration, before resigning under pressure last year over his spending on chartered flights.
The current director of AHRQ, Gopal Khanna — a Price appointee — is the first non-scientist to head the agency. His résumé includes mostly positions in information technology management, in state government in Minnesota and Illinois, and a brief stint in the George W. Bush White House. Shortly after he was hired in 2017, he announced that data dissemination as one of his central priorities at the agency.
Mary Nix, Deputy Director of the Division of Practice Improvement at the Center for Evidence and Practice Improvement within AHRQ, cited budget cuts as the driving force behind NGC’s retirement. The site was most recently supported by a fee on some health insurance plans, which was instituted as part of the Affordable Care Act but is set to sunset in 2019. Nix estimates that the site would cost a “few hundred thousand” dollars per year to maintain even as a static archive.
Nix has been helping coordinate an effort to get some outside stakeholder to take over the site’s operations. She said she’s still hopeful, and even days before the site’s scheduled demise, AHRQ spokesperson Hunt told the Daily Beast that the search continued.
“Losing [the NGC] is really losing a valuable resource,” said Ana Maria Lopez, President of the American College of Physicians. She said the NGC is a primary source for her organization’s research, and noted that digital repositories like the NGC are only more critical today. “We’ll be thinking through what role we might be able to play here in helping to protect access to scientific information.”
Maintained by the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality [AHRQ], part of the Department of Health and Human Services, the database is known as the National Guideline Clearinghouse [NGC], and it’s scheduled to “go dark,” in the words of an official there, on July 16.
Medical guidelines like those compiled by AHRQ aren’t something laypeople spend much time thinking about, but experts like Valerie King, a professor in the Department of Family Medicine and Director of Research at the Center for Evidence-based Policy at Oregon Health & Science University, said the NGC is perhaps the most important repository of evidence-based research available.
“Guideline.gov was our go-to source, and there is nothing else like it in the world,” King said, referring to the URL at which the database is hosted, which the agency says receives about 200,000 visitors per month. “It is a singular resource,” King added.
Medical guidelines are best thought of as cheatsheets for the medical field, compiling the latest research in an easy-to use format. When doctors want to know when they should start insulin treatments, or how best to manage an HIV patient in unstable housing — even something as mundane as when to start an older patient on a vitamin D supplement — they look for the relevant guidelines. The documents are published by a myriad of professional and other organizations, and NGC has long been considered among the most comprehensive and reliable repositories in the world.
AHRQ said it’s looking for a partner that can carry on the work of NGC, but that effort hasn’t panned out yet.
“AHRQ agrees that guidelines play an important role in clinical decision making, but hard decisions had to be made about how to use the resources at our disposal,” said AHRQ spokesperson Alison Hunt in an email. The operating budget for the NGC last year was $1.2 million, Hunt said, and reductions in funding forced the agency’s hand.
Not even an archived version of the site will remain, according to an official at AHRQ. A report from the Sunlight Foundation’s Web Integrity Project found the agency announced the site’s retirement, as well as that of a related but less trafficked “Quality Measures” site, this Spring. Some of the NGC’s pages are preserved in a third party archive, but no comprehensive backup of the site’s contents or search functions exists.
---
“Many guidelines are actually written mainly for commercial purposes or public relations purposes,” said Poses, and can be subtly shaped to promote a given course of treatment. A guideline written for the treatment of depression, for example, may emphasize pharmaceuticals over talk therapy.
“The organizations writing the guidelines may be getting millions of dollars from big drug companies that want to promote a product. The people writing them may have similar conflicts of interest,” Poses said. NGC’s process provided a resource comparatively free of that kind of influence.
Underscoring how medical research like that maintained by the NGC can be politicized, AHRQ drew the ire of then-congressmember Tom Price in 2016 when it published a study critical of a drug manufactured by one of his campaign donors. According to ProPublica, one of Price’s aides emailed “at least half a dozen times” asking the agency to pull the critical research down. Price was the first director of HHS, AHRQ’s parent agency, under the Trump Administration, before resigning under pressure last year over his spending on chartered flights.
The current director of AHRQ, Gopal Khanna — a Price appointee — is the first non-scientist to head the agency. His résumé includes mostly positions in information technology management, in state government in Minnesota and Illinois, and a brief stint in the George W. Bush White House. Shortly after he was hired in 2017, he announced that data dissemination as one of his central priorities at the agency.
Mary Nix, Deputy Director of the Division of Practice Improvement at the Center for Evidence and Practice Improvement within AHRQ, cited budget cuts as the driving force behind NGC’s retirement. The site was most recently supported by a fee on some health insurance plans, which was instituted as part of the Affordable Care Act but is set to sunset in 2019. Nix estimates that the site would cost a “few hundred thousand” dollars per year to maintain even as a static archive.
Nix has been helping coordinate an effort to get some outside stakeholder to take over the site’s operations. She said she’s still hopeful, and even days before the site’s scheduled demise, AHRQ spokesperson Hunt told the Daily Beast that the search continued.
“Losing [the NGC] is really losing a valuable resource,” said Ana Maria Lopez, President of the American College of Physicians. She said the NGC is a primary source for her organization’s research, and noted that digital repositories like the NGC are only more critical today. “We’ll be thinking through what role we might be able to play here in helping to protect access to scientific information.”
Donald Trump’s immigration policy: Define all Latino immigrants as “criminals,” then deport them
Trump administration wants to reclassify many immigrants as “criminals” to create reasons to deport them
AMANDA MARCOTTE
JULY 10, 2018 3:55PM (UTC)
A year and a half into Donald Trump's presidency, it's become quite clear that the anti-immigrant animus he exhibited on the campaign trail, and which compelled so much enthusiasm from white voters of all income levels, is also the guiding philosophy of his presidency. Kicking out or detaining as many immigrants as possible, or at least the ones perceived as nonwhite, has arguably been the top priority of the Trump White House. That has resulted in escalated deportation, the now-notorious family separation policy meant to intimidate people out of seeking legal asylum at, and the ending of legal status for hundreds of thousands of immigrants from what the president has called "shithole countries," such as Honduras or Haiti.
Now comes a troubling new development that threatens to get buried under all the Brett Kavanaugh pageantry: The Trump administration is reportedly shaking the branches to come up with a legal pretext to strip citizenship from people it perceives as not white enough to belong in the United States. This specific strategy relies on redefining certain immigrants as "criminals," but in reality this move is more about testing the boundaries to see how many people with current legal status can be deported without pushback. If it works, the administration will almost certainly start testing more boundaries and looking for other avenues to remove more people, conceivably including U.S. citizens.
On Monday, the Miami Herald reported on the case of Norma Borgono, a 63-year-old naturalized citizen who immigrated from Peru in 1989. Borgono got in legal trouble in the past because she had processed paperwork for an employer, who was orchestrating a white-collar fraud scheme. Borgono never profited from her role, cooperated with law enforcement to put her boss away, has completed her sentence and paid off her restitution. Now the Trump administration is using this incident to strip Borgono's citizenship and deport her to Peru, claiming she lied about criminal activity on her citizenship application, which was processed before the fraud case was discovered.
This is the shell game the administration intends to play in order to demonize immigrants from undesirable countries. Trump uses his public rallies and Twitter posts to push the idea that he's fighting violent gangsters, but in fact the specter of crime is being invoked as a way to target people like Borgono, who committed a minor, nonviolent offense and has fully paid her debt to society. Her case feels like a test: How far can they go in characterizing someone as a "criminal"? The almost certain end goal of this campaign is a broad enough definition that almost any immigrant will qualify.
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is using the excuse that Borgono didn't disclose criminal activity on her citizenship application -- criminal activity that had not been detected at the time, and that she quite plausibly did not know was illegal. No doubt the administration will assure the public argue that no one needs to worry, so long as they haven't committed any crimes. But people should worry, because the definition of "crime" being used by DHS is deliberately broad enough that it could, in theory, be used as cover to deport nearly everyone who has ever immigrated to the U.S.
After all, virtually everyone broken the law at some point in their lives. Speeding violations, marijuana possession, public intoxication, rolling through a stop sign: All of these are legal violations and could be used to characterize a person as a "criminal." If the administration manages to get Borgono denaturalized over a minor offense for which she has made full amends, it will continue twisting the definition to figure out how far they can go.
We already see how this works with border detentions, now that the "zero tolerance" policy is in place. Crossing the border at a place that's not an authorized port of entry is not any reasonable person's idea of a crime. It's a misdemeanor of the same level, legally speaking, as using Smokey the Bear's likeness without permission. It's considered less criminal than purchasing fireworks illegally or possessing a small amount of marijuana. It's something, by the way, that U.S. citizens do all the time, without getting in trouble. I've walked back and forth over the Rio Grande a number of times in my life; as with going 5 miles over the posted speed limit, it's something law enforcement usually ignores because it's not "criminal" by any normal or rational definition of the term.
Now everyone who crosses the border illegally is being locked up as a criminal suspect. Beyond that, Trump isn't just collapsing the distinction between minor crimes and major ones, or between people who have paid their debt to society and those who have not. He's also handing out pardons to unrepentant conservative icons who've broken the law, like Joe Arpaio, Scooter Libby and Dinesh D'Souza. Taken together, his actions send a strong message that being a "criminal" isn't about what you actually do, but who you are. Specifically, Trump is signaling that immigrants from south of the border are seen, categorically, as criminals by nature.
It's tempting to believe that there's a limit to how far Trump and his anti-immigrant allies can take this, and that they will be restrained by the law from deporting as many people as they like. But that's dangerous thinking. The constant boundary-testing from this administration shows that it has little interest in obeying existing law or conforming to existing norms, but wants to find out exactly what it can get away with. Every time Trump and his minions don't get significant pushback, they'll go a little further, expanding the circle of "criminals" subject to deportation.
Only one thing will bring an end to this pattern: Removing Donald Trump from power. Until then, the net will get wider and wider and the excuses for redefining legal immigrants as dangerous and undesirable criminals will get thinner and thinner, until they simply aren't necessary anymore.
Now comes a troubling new development that threatens to get buried under all the Brett Kavanaugh pageantry: The Trump administration is reportedly shaking the branches to come up with a legal pretext to strip citizenship from people it perceives as not white enough to belong in the United States. This specific strategy relies on redefining certain immigrants as "criminals," but in reality this move is more about testing the boundaries to see how many people with current legal status can be deported without pushback. If it works, the administration will almost certainly start testing more boundaries and looking for other avenues to remove more people, conceivably including U.S. citizens.
On Monday, the Miami Herald reported on the case of Norma Borgono, a 63-year-old naturalized citizen who immigrated from Peru in 1989. Borgono got in legal trouble in the past because she had processed paperwork for an employer, who was orchestrating a white-collar fraud scheme. Borgono never profited from her role, cooperated with law enforcement to put her boss away, has completed her sentence and paid off her restitution. Now the Trump administration is using this incident to strip Borgono's citizenship and deport her to Peru, claiming she lied about criminal activity on her citizenship application, which was processed before the fraud case was discovered.
This is the shell game the administration intends to play in order to demonize immigrants from undesirable countries. Trump uses his public rallies and Twitter posts to push the idea that he's fighting violent gangsters, but in fact the specter of crime is being invoked as a way to target people like Borgono, who committed a minor, nonviolent offense and has fully paid her debt to society. Her case feels like a test: How far can they go in characterizing someone as a "criminal"? The almost certain end goal of this campaign is a broad enough definition that almost any immigrant will qualify.
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is using the excuse that Borgono didn't disclose criminal activity on her citizenship application -- criminal activity that had not been detected at the time, and that she quite plausibly did not know was illegal. No doubt the administration will assure the public argue that no one needs to worry, so long as they haven't committed any crimes. But people should worry, because the definition of "crime" being used by DHS is deliberately broad enough that it could, in theory, be used as cover to deport nearly everyone who has ever immigrated to the U.S.
After all, virtually everyone broken the law at some point in their lives. Speeding violations, marijuana possession, public intoxication, rolling through a stop sign: All of these are legal violations and could be used to characterize a person as a "criminal." If the administration manages to get Borgono denaturalized over a minor offense for which she has made full amends, it will continue twisting the definition to figure out how far they can go.
We already see how this works with border detentions, now that the "zero tolerance" policy is in place. Crossing the border at a place that's not an authorized port of entry is not any reasonable person's idea of a crime. It's a misdemeanor of the same level, legally speaking, as using Smokey the Bear's likeness without permission. It's considered less criminal than purchasing fireworks illegally or possessing a small amount of marijuana. It's something, by the way, that U.S. citizens do all the time, without getting in trouble. I've walked back and forth over the Rio Grande a number of times in my life; as with going 5 miles over the posted speed limit, it's something law enforcement usually ignores because it's not "criminal" by any normal or rational definition of the term.
Now everyone who crosses the border illegally is being locked up as a criminal suspect. Beyond that, Trump isn't just collapsing the distinction between minor crimes and major ones, or between people who have paid their debt to society and those who have not. He's also handing out pardons to unrepentant conservative icons who've broken the law, like Joe Arpaio, Scooter Libby and Dinesh D'Souza. Taken together, his actions send a strong message that being a "criminal" isn't about what you actually do, but who you are. Specifically, Trump is signaling that immigrants from south of the border are seen, categorically, as criminals by nature.
It's tempting to believe that there's a limit to how far Trump and his anti-immigrant allies can take this, and that they will be restrained by the law from deporting as many people as they like. But that's dangerous thinking. The constant boundary-testing from this administration shows that it has little interest in obeying existing law or conforming to existing norms, but wants to find out exactly what it can get away with. Every time Trump and his minions don't get significant pushback, they'll go a little further, expanding the circle of "criminals" subject to deportation.
Only one thing will bring an end to this pattern: Removing Donald Trump from power. Until then, the net will get wider and wider and the excuses for redefining legal immigrants as dangerous and undesirable criminals will get thinner and thinner, until they simply aren't necessary anymore.
"predator" in chief!!!
Trump was like a “predator” toward teens at parties in ’80s and ’90s, says BBC report
By David Gilbert - vice news
Jul 9, 2018
A few days before President Trump heads to the U.K. to meet the queen and the prime minister, a BBC investigative program has revealed fresh allegations of sexually inappropriate actions by Trump during the 1980s and 1990s, comparing him to a “predator” at parties with girls as young as 14.
The report featured Monday on the BBC Panorama investigative documentary series, entitled “Trump: Is the president a sex pest?” included testimony from two women who said they encountered Trump at parties during his time as a real estate magnate and operator of beauty pageants.
Trump’s behavior toward younger women was described by a man who attended the same parties as like that of a “predator.”
One of the women, Barbara Pilling, said she met Trump at a party in New York in the late 1980s while she was a young model. She alleged that then-businessman Trump asked her how old she was and approved when she said she was 17, allegedly responding: “Oh, great. So you're not too old and not too young. That's just great.”
Pilling said she was not the youngest girl at the party, claiming there were girls as young as 14 attending. “I felt I was in the presence of a shark,” Pilling said, describing Trump.
Another woman, Heather Braden, told Panorama that she saw Trump at a party in Miami in the 1990s attended by only four men and 50 female models.
“I felt like a piece of meat in a market,” Braden said. “I could have been auctioned off in some sort of a sex slave ring.”
One anonymous male source speaking to the show claimed to have been at many of the same events as Trump during the same time frame and described drug- and alcohol-fueled parties attended by older men and younger women.
“These were guys who could easily be [the models'] fathers — two times over. [It was] kind of like a feeding frenzy,” he said.
Trump, in particular, was “notorious” for his behavior toward younger women, the man said.
“This guy was like a predator in action. The next day or days after we would hear about it, he would brag about it to his friends and it would get around that he scored. Maybe one or two girls at a time, which is what he loved to do.”
Neither Trump nor the White House has responded to the accusations in the report. In the past, Trump has said he has “no idea” of who any of his accusers are, saying the events never happened and said the women were politically motivated to come forward.
As well as the news accounts from Braden and Piling, Panorama spoke to a number of the other people who have previously accused Trump of inappropriate behavior toward them.
Trump is in for more controversy when he visits the U.K. to meet with under-fire Prime Minister Theresa May later this week, as up to 200,000 people are planning to protest his presence in the country in what activists are calling a “Carnival of Resistance” on Friday.
Accusations of inappropriate behavior are nothing new for Trump. An October 2016 BuzzFeed story said four young contestants in the 1997 Miss Teen USA beauty pageant said Trump walked into the dressing room while they were changing. And since the infamous "Access Hollywood" tape came out a few weeks before the 2016 election, with Trump bragging he could “grab ‘em by the pussy,” more than 20 women have come forward with allegations about interactions with the president. One of them, Summer Zervos, a former contestant on the Trump-hosted reality show “The Apprentice,” is suing Trump for defamation after he denied allegations he forced himself on her in the Beverly Hills Hotel in 2007.
The report featured Monday on the BBC Panorama investigative documentary series, entitled “Trump: Is the president a sex pest?” included testimony from two women who said they encountered Trump at parties during his time as a real estate magnate and operator of beauty pageants.
Trump’s behavior toward younger women was described by a man who attended the same parties as like that of a “predator.”
One of the women, Barbara Pilling, said she met Trump at a party in New York in the late 1980s while she was a young model. She alleged that then-businessman Trump asked her how old she was and approved when she said she was 17, allegedly responding: “Oh, great. So you're not too old and not too young. That's just great.”
Pilling said she was not the youngest girl at the party, claiming there were girls as young as 14 attending. “I felt I was in the presence of a shark,” Pilling said, describing Trump.
Another woman, Heather Braden, told Panorama that she saw Trump at a party in Miami in the 1990s attended by only four men and 50 female models.
“I felt like a piece of meat in a market,” Braden said. “I could have been auctioned off in some sort of a sex slave ring.”
One anonymous male source speaking to the show claimed to have been at many of the same events as Trump during the same time frame and described drug- and alcohol-fueled parties attended by older men and younger women.
“These were guys who could easily be [the models'] fathers — two times over. [It was] kind of like a feeding frenzy,” he said.
Trump, in particular, was “notorious” for his behavior toward younger women, the man said.
“This guy was like a predator in action. The next day or days after we would hear about it, he would brag about it to his friends and it would get around that he scored. Maybe one or two girls at a time, which is what he loved to do.”
Neither Trump nor the White House has responded to the accusations in the report. In the past, Trump has said he has “no idea” of who any of his accusers are, saying the events never happened and said the women were politically motivated to come forward.
As well as the news accounts from Braden and Piling, Panorama spoke to a number of the other people who have previously accused Trump of inappropriate behavior toward them.
Trump is in for more controversy when he visits the U.K. to meet with under-fire Prime Minister Theresa May later this week, as up to 200,000 people are planning to protest his presence in the country in what activists are calling a “Carnival of Resistance” on Friday.
Accusations of inappropriate behavior are nothing new for Trump. An October 2016 BuzzFeed story said four young contestants in the 1997 Miss Teen USA beauty pageant said Trump walked into the dressing room while they were changing. And since the infamous "Access Hollywood" tape came out a few weeks before the 2016 election, with Trump bragging he could “grab ‘em by the pussy,” more than 20 women have come forward with allegations about interactions with the president. One of them, Summer Zervos, a former contestant on the Trump-hosted reality show “The Apprentice,” is suing Trump for defamation after he denied allegations he forced himself on her in the Beverly Hills Hotel in 2007.
Trump’s Personal Driver for 25 Years Sues for Unpaid Overtime
By Christie Smythe
bloomberg
on July 9, 2018, 8:28 AM PDT
Donald Trump’s personal driver for more than 25 years says the billionaire real estate developer didn’t pay him overtime and raised his salary twice in 15 years, clawing back the second raise by cutting off his health benefits.
Noel Cintron, who is listed in public records as a registered Republican, sued the Trump Organization for about 3,300 hours of overtime that he says he worked in the past six years. He’s not allowed to sue for overtime prior to that due to the statute of limitations.
“In an utterly callous display of unwarranted privilege and entitlement and without even a minimal sense of noblesse oblige,” Trump and his businesses exploited the driver, Cintron says in the complaint.
Cintron says he was required to be on duty for Trump starting at 7 a.m. each day until whenever Trump, his family or business associates no longer required his services. He worked as long as 55 hours per week, but was paid a fixed salary of $62,700 in 2003, $68,000 in 2006, and $75,000 in 2010, according to the complaint.
The wage bump in 2010 came with a catch, Cintron said. He was induced to surrender his health insurance, saving Trump approximately $17,866 per year in premiums, according to the lawsuit.
"President Trump’s further callousness and cupidity is further demonstrated by the fact that while he is purportedly a billionaire, he has not given his personal driver a meaningful raise in over 12 years!" Cintron said.
Noel Cintron, who is listed in public records as a registered Republican, sued the Trump Organization for about 3,300 hours of overtime that he says he worked in the past six years. He’s not allowed to sue for overtime prior to that due to the statute of limitations.
“In an utterly callous display of unwarranted privilege and entitlement and without even a minimal sense of noblesse oblige,” Trump and his businesses exploited the driver, Cintron says in the complaint.
Cintron says he was required to be on duty for Trump starting at 7 a.m. each day until whenever Trump, his family or business associates no longer required his services. He worked as long as 55 hours per week, but was paid a fixed salary of $62,700 in 2003, $68,000 in 2006, and $75,000 in 2010, according to the complaint.
The wage bump in 2010 came with a catch, Cintron said. He was induced to surrender his health insurance, saving Trump approximately $17,866 per year in premiums, according to the lawsuit.
"President Trump’s further callousness and cupidity is further demonstrated by the fact that while he is purportedly a billionaire, he has not given his personal driver a meaningful raise in over 12 years!" Cintron said.
Trump is set to separate more than 200,000 U.S.-born children from their parents
DonViejo - demo underground
7/6/18
By Mark L. Schneider
July 6 at 12:08 PM
Mark L. Schneider is a senior adviser at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, former director of the U.S. Peace Corps, and former head of Latin America and the Caribbean at USAID.
If you think the last few weeks of separating 2,300 children from their migrant parents along the southern border were heart-wrenching, imagine if 273,000 American-born children are separated from parents whose temporary protected status (TPS) is terminated. That is what could happen if the Trump administration’s decision to revoke TPS for Haitians, Salvadorans and Hondurans is allowed to take effect.
Despite President Trump’s executive order reversing his policy of separating migrant families, most of those 2,300 children have not been returned to their parents. That is truly unconscionable.
More than 100 times that number of children — all U.S. citizens — will be placed in similar jeopardy if the Department of Homeland Security begins programs to deport more than 58,000 Haitians on July 22, 2019, more than 262,000 Salvadorans on Sept. 9, 2019, and 86,000 Hondurans on Jan. 5, 2020. Parents will be faced with the decision of whether to take their children — most of whom speak mainly English and know only life in this country — back to countries deemed by the State Department as not safe for travel, some with the highest homicide rates in the hemisphere.
Otherwise, parents will have to leave their children alone in the United States or, if they’re lucky, with relatives, or foster parents who they may or may not know, or some with “adult sponsors” chosen by federal agencies. The only other choice available to those parents would be to hide in the shadows as undocumented aliens. And that is what the ambassadors to the United States from El Salvador and Honduras, during an event at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), predicted that most families would attempt. And DHS would undoubtedly begin a massive hunt for them.
more https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/global-opinions/wp/2018/07/06/trump-is-set-to-separate-more-than-200000-u-s-born-children-from-their-parents/
July 6 at 12:08 PM
Mark L. Schneider is a senior adviser at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, former director of the U.S. Peace Corps, and former head of Latin America and the Caribbean at USAID.
If you think the last few weeks of separating 2,300 children from their migrant parents along the southern border were heart-wrenching, imagine if 273,000 American-born children are separated from parents whose temporary protected status (TPS) is terminated. That is what could happen if the Trump administration’s decision to revoke TPS for Haitians, Salvadorans and Hondurans is allowed to take effect.
Despite President Trump’s executive order reversing his policy of separating migrant families, most of those 2,300 children have not been returned to their parents. That is truly unconscionable.
More than 100 times that number of children — all U.S. citizens — will be placed in similar jeopardy if the Department of Homeland Security begins programs to deport more than 58,000 Haitians on July 22, 2019, more than 262,000 Salvadorans on Sept. 9, 2019, and 86,000 Hondurans on Jan. 5, 2020. Parents will be faced with the decision of whether to take their children — most of whom speak mainly English and know only life in this country — back to countries deemed by the State Department as not safe for travel, some with the highest homicide rates in the hemisphere.
Otherwise, parents will have to leave their children alone in the United States or, if they’re lucky, with relatives, or foster parents who they may or may not know, or some with “adult sponsors” chosen by federal agencies. The only other choice available to those parents would be to hide in the shadows as undocumented aliens. And that is what the ambassadors to the United States from El Salvador and Honduras, during an event at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), predicted that most families would attempt. And DHS would undoubtedly begin a massive hunt for them.
more https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/global-opinions/wp/2018/07/06/trump-is-set-to-separate-more-than-200000-u-s-born-children-from-their-parents/
hope you know no one this stupid!!!
Trump says coal is best because it can survive a bomb
"With coal, that stuff is indestructible," President Trump tells a veterans charity dinner in West Virginia.
KYLA MANDEL - thinkprogress
JUL 5, 2018, 12:42 PM
Speaking at a charity dinner for veterans in West Virginia Tuesday evening, President Trump said coal is the best source of energy for national security because it can survive a bomb.
“You know, you bomb a pipeline, that’s the end of the pipeline. With coal, that stuff is indestructible,” Trump said to applause and laughter.
“You can move it around on a truck, you can dump it at the plant, you can do whatever the hell — you can rain on top of it for a long time. Right Jim?,” Trump continued, addressing Gov. Jim Justice (WV-R), a coal mining tycoon. “It can rain like crazy. You can do whatever you want — snow, sleet, wind. You just dump it. It’s there. You hit those pipelines, they’re gone, and that’s the end of it.”
“So for national security purposes,” Trump said, “I don’t think people talk about it enough — coal.”
Not only would coal mines, coal plants, and coal trains, not survive a bomb, but all of these things are extremely damaging to human health — both for those who work with coal and live near coal. Burning coal also leads to more polluting emissions and dangerous climate change.
Ever since Trump started running for president he has touted his support for the coal industry. In his first State of the Union address, he proclaimed that his administration’s policies have “ended the war on clean coal.”
Then in June, the Department of Energy was directed to create a plan to force grid operators to buy electricity from coal and nuclear plants at risk of retirement, effectively keeping those failing power plants afloat. According to a leaked memoobtained by Bloomberg, the Energy Department should establish a “Strategic Electric Generation Reserve” with the goal of promoting national defense.
The move had been under consideration for months, with pro-coal politicians like Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) urging the president to use federal emergency powers to prevent the closure of coal and nuclear power plants. Some of Trump’s biggest donors — including coal executive and CEO of Murray Energy, Bob Murray — have also pushed for the move.
In March, utility company First Energy urged Energy Secretary Rick Perry to invoke a Cold War-era law in order to help revive its coal and nuclear plants, along with other companies’ plants located in the eastern United States, by declaring an “emergency” in the power industry.
As more power plants retire, regulators have been working to determine how best to ensure the country’s power system can withstand potential damages from extreme weather or cyber-attacks.
The Trump administration has long argued that coal and nuclear power plant retirements pose a threat to the stability of the U.S. electric grid; plants have been retiring in record numbers over the past few years.
But a leaked draft of a report commissioned by Perry last year found that these retirements were the result of a decline in electricity demand and cheaper natural gas. It also found that coal and nuclear power plants closing down did not pose a threat to the stability of the grid.
Despite Trump’s assertion Tuesday night that coal can withstand any kind of weather, Gov. Justice and two coal companies owned by his family are currently embroiled in a legal battle over alleged breaches of agreements with a Pennsylvania coal marketing and logistics company.
Among the allegations is that of one Justice’s companies wasn’t able to deliver on a coal contract due to “a force majeure event (heavy rainfall)” which caused an impoundment to shut down, “impacting the processing and loading of coal.”
“You know, you bomb a pipeline, that’s the end of the pipeline. With coal, that stuff is indestructible,” Trump said to applause and laughter.
“You can move it around on a truck, you can dump it at the plant, you can do whatever the hell — you can rain on top of it for a long time. Right Jim?,” Trump continued, addressing Gov. Jim Justice (WV-R), a coal mining tycoon. “It can rain like crazy. You can do whatever you want — snow, sleet, wind. You just dump it. It’s there. You hit those pipelines, they’re gone, and that’s the end of it.”
“So for national security purposes,” Trump said, “I don’t think people talk about it enough — coal.”
Not only would coal mines, coal plants, and coal trains, not survive a bomb, but all of these things are extremely damaging to human health — both for those who work with coal and live near coal. Burning coal also leads to more polluting emissions and dangerous climate change.
Ever since Trump started running for president he has touted his support for the coal industry. In his first State of the Union address, he proclaimed that his administration’s policies have “ended the war on clean coal.”
Then in June, the Department of Energy was directed to create a plan to force grid operators to buy electricity from coal and nuclear plants at risk of retirement, effectively keeping those failing power plants afloat. According to a leaked memoobtained by Bloomberg, the Energy Department should establish a “Strategic Electric Generation Reserve” with the goal of promoting national defense.
The move had been under consideration for months, with pro-coal politicians like Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) urging the president to use federal emergency powers to prevent the closure of coal and nuclear power plants. Some of Trump’s biggest donors — including coal executive and CEO of Murray Energy, Bob Murray — have also pushed for the move.
In March, utility company First Energy urged Energy Secretary Rick Perry to invoke a Cold War-era law in order to help revive its coal and nuclear plants, along with other companies’ plants located in the eastern United States, by declaring an “emergency” in the power industry.
As more power plants retire, regulators have been working to determine how best to ensure the country’s power system can withstand potential damages from extreme weather or cyber-attacks.
The Trump administration has long argued that coal and nuclear power plant retirements pose a threat to the stability of the U.S. electric grid; plants have been retiring in record numbers over the past few years.
But a leaked draft of a report commissioned by Perry last year found that these retirements were the result of a decline in electricity demand and cheaper natural gas. It also found that coal and nuclear power plants closing down did not pose a threat to the stability of the grid.
Despite Trump’s assertion Tuesday night that coal can withstand any kind of weather, Gov. Justice and two coal companies owned by his family are currently embroiled in a legal battle over alleged breaches of agreements with a Pennsylvania coal marketing and logistics company.
Among the allegations is that of one Justice’s companies wasn’t able to deliver on a coal contract due to “a force majeure event (heavy rainfall)” which caused an impoundment to shut down, “impacting the processing and loading of coal.”
When an Idiot is in charge!!!
Trump plans to expand immigrant detention boosts private prison companies: report
BY JACQUELINE THOMSEN - the hill
07/03/18 01:06 PM EDT
President Trump’s plan to establish more detention centers for undocumented immigrants will give a boost to private prison companies that backed Trump’s presidential campaign, The Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday.
oreCivic and Geo Group both saw their shares spike last month after Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) announced that it will likely add 15,000 new beds for families after Trump’s executive order to detain undocumented immigrant families together, according to the newspaper.
The Trump administration is also pushing to increase the number of beds for immigrants to 52,000 from 40,000, requesting $2.8 billion for the 2019 budget year to fund the effort.
Geo Group declined to comment to the Journal. The company’s CEO, George Zoley, said during an earnings call in April that he anticipated the possibility of new contracts “as the president will be asking for a significant increase in the detention bed capacity for ICE," the outlet reported.
A CoreCivic spokesman told the Journal that the company is ready to address the administration’s changing needs.
The corporation’s CEO, Damon Hininger, said last month that “this is probably the most robust kind of sales environment we’ve seen in probably 10 years,” according to the Journal.
Both companies have relied on ICE for a significant chuck of their revenue in recent years, according to the Journal, which reported that the agency made up a quarter of CoreCivic’s revenue last year, up from 13 percent a decade earlier.
Geo Group experienced a similar rise, with ICE making up 24 percent of its recent from 10 percent in 2007.
Each of the companies donated $250,000 to Trump’s inauguration, and Geo Group last year held a leadership conference at one of Trump’s golf resorts in Florida.
oreCivic and Geo Group both saw their shares spike last month after Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) announced that it will likely add 15,000 new beds for families after Trump’s executive order to detain undocumented immigrant families together, according to the newspaper.
The Trump administration is also pushing to increase the number of beds for immigrants to 52,000 from 40,000, requesting $2.8 billion for the 2019 budget year to fund the effort.
Geo Group declined to comment to the Journal. The company’s CEO, George Zoley, said during an earnings call in April that he anticipated the possibility of new contracts “as the president will be asking for a significant increase in the detention bed capacity for ICE," the outlet reported.
A CoreCivic spokesman told the Journal that the company is ready to address the administration’s changing needs.
The corporation’s CEO, Damon Hininger, said last month that “this is probably the most robust kind of sales environment we’ve seen in probably 10 years,” according to the Journal.
Both companies have relied on ICE for a significant chuck of their revenue in recent years, according to the Journal, which reported that the agency made up a quarter of CoreCivic’s revenue last year, up from 13 percent a decade earlier.
Geo Group experienced a similar rise, with ICE making up 24 percent of its recent from 10 percent in 2007.
Each of the companies donated $250,000 to Trump’s inauguration, and Geo Group last year held a leadership conference at one of Trump’s golf resorts in Florida.
Trump complains about Iranians getting citizenship by citing baseless stat he read on Fox News
The far-right always finds each other.
ADRIENNE MAHSA VARKIANI - thinkprogress
JUL 3, 2018, 2:47 PM
President Donald Trump woke up on Tuesday and decided to complain about the number of Iranians who received U.S. citizenship during the Iranian nuclear negotiations. Trump’s complaints appear to be based on an article he read, which was based on another article, which was based on another article on the views of an Iranian hardline politician.
“Just out that the Obama administration granted citizenship, during the terrible Iran Deal negotiation, to 2,500 Iranians – including to government officials,” Trump tweeted. “How big (and bad) is that?”
He didn’t clarify if he was complaining about 2,500 Iranians over the course of more than two years, which is how long it took to negotiate the nuclear agreement.
Donald J. Trump✔
@realDonaldTrump
Just out that the Obama Administration granted citizenship, during the terrible Iran Deal negotiation, to 2,500 Iranians - including to government officials. How big (and bad) is that?
5:03 AM - Jul 3, 2018
Let’s first start with the obvious issue in this tweet, which is that there is no context to explain why Iranians getting citizenship is “big (and bad).” Coming from the president of the United States, this could lead to real consequences for Iranians living in the United States or those perceived to be Iranian.
But another big problem is that Trump isn’t seeking immigration data from his own government — say, from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) or the State Department, for example.
Instead, Trump is likely referring to a Fox News article, based on another article, based on another interview with a hardline Iranian politician, who first mentioned the unconfirmed figure.
Mojtaba Zolnour, a hardline member of Iran’s parliament and a strong critic of Iran’s president, cited the figure in an interview with Iran’s reformist newspaper Etemadafter being asked whether the Iranian society can look domestically to fix its issues.
He took the opportunity to complain about Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, implying that his administration sacrificed Iranian national security interests during the Iranian nuclear negotiations to secure U.S. citizenship for themselves.
“When Mr. Obama, during the negotiations over the [Iran deal] decided to do a favor to these men, he granted citizenship to 2,500 Iranians and some men and officials started a competition over whose children could be part of these 2,500 individuals,” Zolnour said. “If today these Iranians get deported from America, it will become clear who is complicit and is selling the national interest like candy to America.”
Iran’s Fars News Agency, which is linked to the Revolutionary Guards, chose to circulate this one part of the interview in an article. On Monday, Fox News elevated the story, citing Fars. Fox News Host Sean Hannity also shared the story on his own website and on Twitter, claiming it was “developing,” even though the negotiations over the Iran deal ended almost three years ago.
As Radio Farda reported, Zolnour has been working with other MPs to “prove that dual nationals have infiltrated the Iranian government.”
Officials Fox News spoke to said that there is no basis for Zolnour’s claim.
“This sounds like totally made up BS,” Marie Harf, a senior adviser to former Secretary of State John Kerry, told Fox News.
A current State Department spokesperson also told Fox News that “We’re not going to comment on every statement by an Iranian official.”
Former Obama administration officials condemned the report and Trump’s tweet on Tuesday.
“This allegation is outlandish and entirely false,” Ned Price, who previously served on the National Security Council, said on Twitter. “What it lacks in truth, it makes up for in irony, as our ‘state media’ is seizing on Iranian state media, and both are giving an unchallenged platform to our countries’ respective extremists.”
“This an absurd and false allegation,” Jeffrey Prescott, the former senior director for Iran, Iraq, Syria, and the Persian Gulf states on the National Security Council, said on Twitter. “It shouldn’t be lost on anyone that this is a case of Donald Trump parroting Fox News, which is peddling the claims of an Iranian hardliner.”
“This is just a big lie. It’s not true,” tweeted Ben Rhodes, a former deputy national security adviser during the Obama administration. “Yet I’m guessing that this context will be missing from Trump’s propaganda media machine.”
Iranian journalists, for their part, were both shocked and amused by the tweet.
“Did Trump read the Etemad newspaper or the Fox News translation of Etemad’s interview with Mojtaba Zolnour?” asked Iranian journalist Sara Massoumi.
Jason Rezaian, a Washington Post reporter who previously served as the newspaper’s Tehran bureau chief and was imprisoned during the Iran nuclear negotiations, expressed disbelief that Trump would “quote propaganda.”
Zolnour might be interested to learn that Trump is now citing his views. After Trump withdrew from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), more commonly known as the Iran nuclear deal, in May, Zolnour responded by burning a U.S. flag in front of the parliament.
As Fox News acknowledged, DHS figures show that the number of people born in Iran who received U.S. citizenship actually decreased by about 8 percent from 2015 to 2016, when the Iran deal went into effect. In 2015, 10,344 Iranians became naturalized citizens, and only 9,507 in 2016.
“Just out that the Obama administration granted citizenship, during the terrible Iran Deal negotiation, to 2,500 Iranians – including to government officials,” Trump tweeted. “How big (and bad) is that?”
He didn’t clarify if he was complaining about 2,500 Iranians over the course of more than two years, which is how long it took to negotiate the nuclear agreement.
Donald J. Trump✔
@realDonaldTrump
Just out that the Obama Administration granted citizenship, during the terrible Iran Deal negotiation, to 2,500 Iranians - including to government officials. How big (and bad) is that?
5:03 AM - Jul 3, 2018
Let’s first start with the obvious issue in this tweet, which is that there is no context to explain why Iranians getting citizenship is “big (and bad).” Coming from the president of the United States, this could lead to real consequences for Iranians living in the United States or those perceived to be Iranian.
But another big problem is that Trump isn’t seeking immigration data from his own government — say, from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) or the State Department, for example.
Instead, Trump is likely referring to a Fox News article, based on another article, based on another interview with a hardline Iranian politician, who first mentioned the unconfirmed figure.
Mojtaba Zolnour, a hardline member of Iran’s parliament and a strong critic of Iran’s president, cited the figure in an interview with Iran’s reformist newspaper Etemadafter being asked whether the Iranian society can look domestically to fix its issues.
He took the opportunity to complain about Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, implying that his administration sacrificed Iranian national security interests during the Iranian nuclear negotiations to secure U.S. citizenship for themselves.
“When Mr. Obama, during the negotiations over the [Iran deal] decided to do a favor to these men, he granted citizenship to 2,500 Iranians and some men and officials started a competition over whose children could be part of these 2,500 individuals,” Zolnour said. “If today these Iranians get deported from America, it will become clear who is complicit and is selling the national interest like candy to America.”
Iran’s Fars News Agency, which is linked to the Revolutionary Guards, chose to circulate this one part of the interview in an article. On Monday, Fox News elevated the story, citing Fars. Fox News Host Sean Hannity also shared the story on his own website and on Twitter, claiming it was “developing,” even though the negotiations over the Iran deal ended almost three years ago.
As Radio Farda reported, Zolnour has been working with other MPs to “prove that dual nationals have infiltrated the Iranian government.”
Officials Fox News spoke to said that there is no basis for Zolnour’s claim.
“This sounds like totally made up BS,” Marie Harf, a senior adviser to former Secretary of State John Kerry, told Fox News.
A current State Department spokesperson also told Fox News that “We’re not going to comment on every statement by an Iranian official.”
Former Obama administration officials condemned the report and Trump’s tweet on Tuesday.
“This allegation is outlandish and entirely false,” Ned Price, who previously served on the National Security Council, said on Twitter. “What it lacks in truth, it makes up for in irony, as our ‘state media’ is seizing on Iranian state media, and both are giving an unchallenged platform to our countries’ respective extremists.”
“This an absurd and false allegation,” Jeffrey Prescott, the former senior director for Iran, Iraq, Syria, and the Persian Gulf states on the National Security Council, said on Twitter. “It shouldn’t be lost on anyone that this is a case of Donald Trump parroting Fox News, which is peddling the claims of an Iranian hardliner.”
“This is just a big lie. It’s not true,” tweeted Ben Rhodes, a former deputy national security adviser during the Obama administration. “Yet I’m guessing that this context will be missing from Trump’s propaganda media machine.”
Iranian journalists, for their part, were both shocked and amused by the tweet.
“Did Trump read the Etemad newspaper or the Fox News translation of Etemad’s interview with Mojtaba Zolnour?” asked Iranian journalist Sara Massoumi.
Jason Rezaian, a Washington Post reporter who previously served as the newspaper’s Tehran bureau chief and was imprisoned during the Iran nuclear negotiations, expressed disbelief that Trump would “quote propaganda.”
Zolnour might be interested to learn that Trump is now citing his views. After Trump withdrew from the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), more commonly known as the Iran nuclear deal, in May, Zolnour responded by burning a U.S. flag in front of the parliament.
As Fox News acknowledged, DHS figures show that the number of people born in Iran who received U.S. citizenship actually decreased by about 8 percent from 2015 to 2016, when the Iran deal went into effect. In 2015, 10,344 Iranians became naturalized citizens, and only 9,507 in 2016.
Trump saves the world from an imaginary war, while blaming Obama for imaginary Iranian invasion
Mark Sumner
Daily Kos Staff
Tuesday July 03, 2018 · 6:30 AM PDT
Donald Trump opened his morning with a series of claims so ludicrous, they seem more like the answer to a challenge than real statements. Can Donald Trump create a stone so big that even Donald Trump cannot lift it? Of course he can. And while he’s lifting it, he’ll tweet about it. Losers.
It’s a morning that plays like a Trump low-lights reel: personal insults, racism, sexism, false claims about the economy, lies about foreign policy, a swipe at President Obama. It’s all in there, as Trump uses his PJ-wearing executive time to explain how he saved the world for you ungrateful wretches.
Trump started out by pushing a series of insults and lies about Maxine Waters, with some Nancy Pelosi on the side. Because what could be more frightening than reminding his followers that Democrats not only believe in women in positions of power, but women of color in positions of power. But that was just the warm-up.
From there Trump moves on to ICE. ICE, baby. In a pair of tweets, Trump’s praises the agency that snatches children from school buses and wheels patients from hospital rooms as “tough” guys who are clearing out the “infestation” of MS-13. We’ve yet to hear anything from the towns that have been “liberated” from this infestation—a claim that Trump made last week—because they’re either too busy celebrating. Or entirely fictional. One or the other.
Trump gathers his breath with a post on global trade, providing the simple explainer that countries would have given the US a better trade deal, but we never asked. And other countries are happy to comply! Except that … none of them have. Trump has so far negotiated a grand total of zero trade deals. Where zero is the generous view of the multiple trade deals he’s attacked while driving up prices for US consumers through tariffs and negotiation tactics that have wrecked relationships around the globe.
All of which leads up to a tweet that is an absolute distillation of Trump. Essense of the Donald. Eau de Trump toilette. Or at least toilet.
It’s a morning that plays like a Trump low-lights reel: personal insults, racism, sexism, false claims about the economy, lies about foreign policy, a swipe at President Obama. It’s all in there, as Trump uses his PJ-wearing executive time to explain how he saved the world for you ungrateful wretches.
Trump started out by pushing a series of insults and lies about Maxine Waters, with some Nancy Pelosi on the side. Because what could be more frightening than reminding his followers that Democrats not only believe in women in positions of power, but women of color in positions of power. But that was just the warm-up.
From there Trump moves on to ICE. ICE, baby. In a pair of tweets, Trump’s praises the agency that snatches children from school buses and wheels patients from hospital rooms as “tough” guys who are clearing out the “infestation” of MS-13. We’ve yet to hear anything from the towns that have been “liberated” from this infestation—a claim that Trump made last week—because they’re either too busy celebrating. Or entirely fictional. One or the other.
Trump gathers his breath with a post on global trade, providing the simple explainer that countries would have given the US a better trade deal, but we never asked. And other countries are happy to comply! Except that … none of them have. Trump has so far negotiated a grand total of zero trade deals. Where zero is the generous view of the multiple trade deals he’s attacked while driving up prices for US consumers through tariffs and negotiation tactics that have wrecked relationships around the globe.
All of which leads up to a tweet that is an absolute distillation of Trump. Essense of the Donald. Eau de Trump toilette. Or at least toilet.
Trump Judicial Pick Who Blogged Favorably About the KKK Had to Withdraw. Now He’s at the Justice Department.
Brett Talley, who has also written horror novels and hunted ghosts, returned to a job overseeing other judicial nominations.
Stephanie Mencimer - mother jones
Jul. 2, 2018 6:00 AM
Brett Talley had already been voted out of the Senate Judiciary Committee and was on his way to a lifetime appointment to the federal bench when reporters discovered what he’d written about the Klan. Since 2005, Talley, a 36-year-old lawyer nominated for a seat on the US District Court for the Middle District of Alabama, appeared to have posted more than 16,000 comments on University of Alabama sports message board TideFans.com. Writing as BamainBoston, he commented on everything from race to abortion. He disparaged Muslims, joked about statutory rape, and, most notably, wrote approvingly about Nathan Bedford Forrest, the first Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan. He defended the “first KKK” as something entirely different than the racist, violent organization it’s known as today.
After outcry about the comments and his general lack of qualifications for the job—Talley had never tried a case—he withdrew from consideration for the judgeship in December. But the controversy didn’t send him packing to Alabama. Instead, he simply continued working as deputy associate attorney general at the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Policy, where he oversaw the judicial nominations unit that advises the president and attorney general on the selection and confirmation of federal judges and conducts the vetting, interviewing, and evaluating of nominees. This spring, he moved to a more junior position at the Justice Department, as an assistant US attorney.
President Donald Trump has submitted 95 judicial nominations since Talley withdrew his own; 22 of those nominees have been confirmed. Among the 95 nominees are controversial picks such as Wendy Vitter, wife of disgraced former Sen. David Vitter (R-La.) and a staunch anti-abortion activist, and Oregon prosecutor Ryan Bounds, who wrote a series of articles while at Stanford University mocking multiculturalism and advocating for leniency for alleged campus rapists. Talley headed the Justice Department unit that helped select and vet many of those nominees.
Liberal legal groups that monitor judicial nominations were surprised to hear that Talley continued working at the Justice Department after his confirmation debacle. “That Talley was in charge of picking nominees might explain why the quality has been so low and their views so extreme,” says Caroline Fredrickson, president of the nonprofit American Constitution Society. “He obviously thought of himself as a good candidate and helped pick others in the same mold.”
Even before Talley’s Klan defense posts became public, he had an unusual résumé for someone vying for a federal judgeship. Talley, who also writes horror novels, had been an amateur ghost hunter for a number of years in Alabama. After graduating from Harvard Law School in 2007, he practiced law for less than three years and never tried a case.
Talley has spent most of his career in politics as a speechwriter, first for Mitt Romney’s presidential campaign in 2012 and then for Sen. Rob Portman (R-Ohio). He was a prolific opinion writer for CNN and conservative media sites. He also wrote his own blog, Government in Exile, where he promoted the National Rifle Association in the wake of the Newtown school shooting that killed 26 elementary school children and teachers. About a month after the shooting, Talley predicted on his blog that former President Barack Obama and congressional Democrats were about to use the school shooting to “launch the greatest attack on our constitutional freedoms in our lifetime.” He continued, writing, “Today I pledge my support to the NRA; financially, politically, and intellectually. I ask you to do the same. Join the NRA. They stand for all of us now, and I pray that in the coming battle for our rights, they will be victorious.”
Talley joined the Trump administration in January 2017 as a member of one of Trump’s “beachhead teams” at the Justice Department. These teams consisted of Trump loyalists placed at federal agencies in positions that didn’t require Senate confirmation, where they were intended to be the “eyes and ears” of the White House.
His beachhead role was a high-level one: deputy assistant attorney general at the Office of Legal Policy, where he had worked as a student during the administration of former President George W. Bush. In that role, he vetted candidates for the federal bench—until he became one of them in September. (In written questions during his confirmation process, Sen. Christopher Coons (D-Del.) asked Talley the obvious question: “Did you have any role in selecting yourself for this seat?” Talley said no.)
Talley’s nomination was championed by Alabama’s two Republican senators—including Luther Strange, for whom Talley worked for nearly two years when Strange was Alabama attorney general—but it was opposed by just about everyone else. The American Bar Association reviewed his credentials and unanimously found him “not qualified,” its lowest possible rating and one it had given out only twice since 1989 and before Talley. “This administration has prioritized the selection of individuals with extremist ideas, and the vetting focuses much more on an individual’s ideology than it does even with basic qualifications for the office,” says Nan Aron, president of the liberal judicial watchdog group Alliance for Justice.
Indeed, in his prolific comments on TideFans.com, Talley had not just posted about the Klan: He expressed extreme views on a number of subjects. For instance, he claimed that the Supreme Court decision in Miranda v. Arizona, which requires the police to inform people they arrest of their rights to remain silent and be represented by a lawyer, was “made up” by the court and should be overturned by the Supreme Court. He declared the Miranda decision, as well as Roe v. Wade, “indefensible.” In another post, Talley wrote it would be “awesome” if Alabama brought back the electric chair.
Talley also wrote on the site, “There’s no comparison between Christians and Muslims when it comes to terrorism. There’s just not. There are terrorists who are Christians, but there is no organized Christian terrorist movement. Today, in countries around the world, the mainstream, dominant sect of Islam preaches the worldwide caliphate and the murder of nonbelievers.” During the Republican presidential primaries, Talley wrote that Trump was popular because he “says what everyone is thinking about Islam but doesn’t want to say.”
More than 40 Muslim civil rights and other faith-based groups wrote to the Senate Judiciary Committee to oppose his nomination.
Talley did not share his online comments with the committee as part of his required disclosures. The final nail in the coffin for his judicial aspirations, though, was his failure to apprise the committee of a potential conflict of interest: his wife.
Talley is married to Ann Donaldson, chief of staff to the White House counsel, Donald F. McGahn II, who has played a critical role in Trump’s judicial nominations. According to the New York Times, Donaldson is also a witness in special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into whether Trump obstructed justice by trying to prevent the Justice Department from investigating Russian meddling in the 2016 election. Federal courts frequently handle lawsuits against the White House, making Talley’s omission a fatal one.
A month later, Talley withdrew his nomination—and went right back to the Office of Legal Policy. He worked there until just a few weeks ago.
In May, Talley made an unusual career move. Though he had virtually no experience handling criminal cases, he is now working as an assistant US attorney in the Eastern District of Virginia, prosecuting low-level immigration and drug cases. It’s just the kind of entry-level federal position someone aspiring to be a judge someday might angle for. A Justice Department spokesperson wouldn’t say why he made the job change, and Talley didn’t respond to a request for comment.
“To think they wanted to make this guy a federal judge,” says Aron.
After outcry about the comments and his general lack of qualifications for the job—Talley had never tried a case—he withdrew from consideration for the judgeship in December. But the controversy didn’t send him packing to Alabama. Instead, he simply continued working as deputy associate attorney general at the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Policy, where he oversaw the judicial nominations unit that advises the president and attorney general on the selection and confirmation of federal judges and conducts the vetting, interviewing, and evaluating of nominees. This spring, he moved to a more junior position at the Justice Department, as an assistant US attorney.
President Donald Trump has submitted 95 judicial nominations since Talley withdrew his own; 22 of those nominees have been confirmed. Among the 95 nominees are controversial picks such as Wendy Vitter, wife of disgraced former Sen. David Vitter (R-La.) and a staunch anti-abortion activist, and Oregon prosecutor Ryan Bounds, who wrote a series of articles while at Stanford University mocking multiculturalism and advocating for leniency for alleged campus rapists. Talley headed the Justice Department unit that helped select and vet many of those nominees.
Liberal legal groups that monitor judicial nominations were surprised to hear that Talley continued working at the Justice Department after his confirmation debacle. “That Talley was in charge of picking nominees might explain why the quality has been so low and their views so extreme,” says Caroline Fredrickson, president of the nonprofit American Constitution Society. “He obviously thought of himself as a good candidate and helped pick others in the same mold.”
Even before Talley’s Klan defense posts became public, he had an unusual résumé for someone vying for a federal judgeship. Talley, who also writes horror novels, had been an amateur ghost hunter for a number of years in Alabama. After graduating from Harvard Law School in 2007, he practiced law for less than three years and never tried a case.
Talley has spent most of his career in politics as a speechwriter, first for Mitt Romney’s presidential campaign in 2012 and then for Sen. Rob Portman (R-Ohio). He was a prolific opinion writer for CNN and conservative media sites. He also wrote his own blog, Government in Exile, where he promoted the National Rifle Association in the wake of the Newtown school shooting that killed 26 elementary school children and teachers. About a month after the shooting, Talley predicted on his blog that former President Barack Obama and congressional Democrats were about to use the school shooting to “launch the greatest attack on our constitutional freedoms in our lifetime.” He continued, writing, “Today I pledge my support to the NRA; financially, politically, and intellectually. I ask you to do the same. Join the NRA. They stand for all of us now, and I pray that in the coming battle for our rights, they will be victorious.”
Talley joined the Trump administration in January 2017 as a member of one of Trump’s “beachhead teams” at the Justice Department. These teams consisted of Trump loyalists placed at federal agencies in positions that didn’t require Senate confirmation, where they were intended to be the “eyes and ears” of the White House.
His beachhead role was a high-level one: deputy assistant attorney general at the Office of Legal Policy, where he had worked as a student during the administration of former President George W. Bush. In that role, he vetted candidates for the federal bench—until he became one of them in September. (In written questions during his confirmation process, Sen. Christopher Coons (D-Del.) asked Talley the obvious question: “Did you have any role in selecting yourself for this seat?” Talley said no.)
Talley’s nomination was championed by Alabama’s two Republican senators—including Luther Strange, for whom Talley worked for nearly two years when Strange was Alabama attorney general—but it was opposed by just about everyone else. The American Bar Association reviewed his credentials and unanimously found him “not qualified,” its lowest possible rating and one it had given out only twice since 1989 and before Talley. “This administration has prioritized the selection of individuals with extremist ideas, and the vetting focuses much more on an individual’s ideology than it does even with basic qualifications for the office,” says Nan Aron, president of the liberal judicial watchdog group Alliance for Justice.
Indeed, in his prolific comments on TideFans.com, Talley had not just posted about the Klan: He expressed extreme views on a number of subjects. For instance, he claimed that the Supreme Court decision in Miranda v. Arizona, which requires the police to inform people they arrest of their rights to remain silent and be represented by a lawyer, was “made up” by the court and should be overturned by the Supreme Court. He declared the Miranda decision, as well as Roe v. Wade, “indefensible.” In another post, Talley wrote it would be “awesome” if Alabama brought back the electric chair.
Talley also wrote on the site, “There’s no comparison between Christians and Muslims when it comes to terrorism. There’s just not. There are terrorists who are Christians, but there is no organized Christian terrorist movement. Today, in countries around the world, the mainstream, dominant sect of Islam preaches the worldwide caliphate and the murder of nonbelievers.” During the Republican presidential primaries, Talley wrote that Trump was popular because he “says what everyone is thinking about Islam but doesn’t want to say.”
More than 40 Muslim civil rights and other faith-based groups wrote to the Senate Judiciary Committee to oppose his nomination.
Talley did not share his online comments with the committee as part of his required disclosures. The final nail in the coffin for his judicial aspirations, though, was his failure to apprise the committee of a potential conflict of interest: his wife.
Talley is married to Ann Donaldson, chief of staff to the White House counsel, Donald F. McGahn II, who has played a critical role in Trump’s judicial nominations. According to the New York Times, Donaldson is also a witness in special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into whether Trump obstructed justice by trying to prevent the Justice Department from investigating Russian meddling in the 2016 election. Federal courts frequently handle lawsuits against the White House, making Talley’s omission a fatal one.
A month later, Talley withdrew his nomination—and went right back to the Office of Legal Policy. He worked there until just a few weeks ago.
In May, Talley made an unusual career move. Though he had virtually no experience handling criminal cases, he is now working as an assistant US attorney in the Eastern District of Virginia, prosecuting low-level immigration and drug cases. It’s just the kind of entry-level federal position someone aspiring to be a judge someday might angle for. A Justice Department spokesperson wouldn’t say why he made the job change, and Talley didn’t respond to a request for comment.
“To think they wanted to make this guy a federal judge,” says Aron.
Steele Dossier Says Information Went Both Ways Between Trump and Russia
The information flow wasn't only to the president's campaign.
By Mark Sumner / Daily Kos - alternet
June 29, 2018, 6:01 AM GMT
The Associated Press has compiled a list of the information provided in the list of memos authored by former British intelligence officer Christopher Steele, and compared it with what has been revealed through court filings and public statements. And while the AP finds what they believe to be “snippets of fiction” in the pages, they also find that a great deal of what Steele produced is proving to have a basis in fact.
What has turned out to be true is the primary narrative thread that runs through all the memos — The Russian government set up an “elaborate operation” to damage Hillary Clinton in the 2016 election through social media, propaganda, and by stealing Democratic information and providing it to Trump. And the Russian government sought to aid Donald Trump, whose campaign responded eagerly to Russian offers of help.
The Kremlin set out to harm Clinton and help Trump. Trump jumped on the opportunity. That makes Trump a colluder, conspirator, and any other c-word that comes to mind.
Steele’s memos were also accurate in many details, such as laying out Carter Page’s meeting with Russian officials at a time when it wasn’t otherwise known, possibly even to the FBI who had been watching Page for years. But there’s another key area of the memos that often gets obscured by the focus on some of the more sensational … yellow elements.
One of the primary claims of the Steele memos is not just that Russia sought to help Trump, but that the flow of information went both ways. Part of the price for Putin’s help, according to Steele’s sources, was that Trump help Putin in ways that he could address even if he didn’t win—by providing the Kremlin with information on wealthy Russians in the United States. It’s not clear whether this information from Trump to Russia has been substantiated. Those portions of the investigations in the House and Senate that have been exposed to the public don’t even seem to have ventured into this territory,
The idea that Donald Trump was providing something to Vladimir Putin in exchange for his assistance months before the elections is certainly intriguing. Trump’s habit of selling property to Russians and other former Soviets would position him to provide this information if asked. So far there doesn’t seem to be anything to indicate that this part of the memos has been verified … but if it were, that would seem to put the final nail in any idea that Trump was not fully on board with efforts to cooperate with Russia.
The AP also notes that the memos have some critics who are not currently in the US House of Representatives — a group of Russian “businessmen” who have sued Christopher Steele, Fusion GPS who hired him to research Trump, and the news site BuzzFeed which first published some of Steele’s information, The Russians in question are owners of a Moscow holding company called Alfa Group, The four men involved are named in a pair of Steele’s memos that don’t seem to be very connected with other memos, and which are primarily focused on internal issues within Russia. Which brings up the possibility that one of Steele’s Russian sources was trying to use the opportunity to attack rivals.
However … the four men involved in these suits have definite Kremlin-connections. And the comments made in the memos seem a lot less ludicrous now than when Steele first handed them over in 2016.
The Gubarev memo said his business “had been using botnets and porn traffic to transmit viruses, plant bugs, steal data” in an operation against Democratic Party leaders.
It’s clear that Russian operatives in 2016 (and today) did use botnets. It’s clear they did use malware to gain entry into Democratic systems and steal data. The only question would be whether or not Steele’s sources fingered the right company when they pointed to Alfa Group.
And if that’s all that Steele got wrong … Donald Trump should be extremely worried about the possibility of other memos being confirmed. For all the attempts Republicans in the House have made to discredit Steele’s work, and to suggest that the whole Russia investigation was tainted by association with these memos, Steele seems to have been far more right than he was wrong.
As for nailing down Trump, forget the pee tape. Find the evidence that Donald Trump was feeding information back to Putin.
What has turned out to be true is the primary narrative thread that runs through all the memos — The Russian government set up an “elaborate operation” to damage Hillary Clinton in the 2016 election through social media, propaganda, and by stealing Democratic information and providing it to Trump. And the Russian government sought to aid Donald Trump, whose campaign responded eagerly to Russian offers of help.
The Kremlin set out to harm Clinton and help Trump. Trump jumped on the opportunity. That makes Trump a colluder, conspirator, and any other c-word that comes to mind.
Steele’s memos were also accurate in many details, such as laying out Carter Page’s meeting with Russian officials at a time when it wasn’t otherwise known, possibly even to the FBI who had been watching Page for years. But there’s another key area of the memos that often gets obscured by the focus on some of the more sensational … yellow elements.
One of the primary claims of the Steele memos is not just that Russia sought to help Trump, but that the flow of information went both ways. Part of the price for Putin’s help, according to Steele’s sources, was that Trump help Putin in ways that he could address even if he didn’t win—by providing the Kremlin with information on wealthy Russians in the United States. It’s not clear whether this information from Trump to Russia has been substantiated. Those portions of the investigations in the House and Senate that have been exposed to the public don’t even seem to have ventured into this territory,
The idea that Donald Trump was providing something to Vladimir Putin in exchange for his assistance months before the elections is certainly intriguing. Trump’s habit of selling property to Russians and other former Soviets would position him to provide this information if asked. So far there doesn’t seem to be anything to indicate that this part of the memos has been verified … but if it were, that would seem to put the final nail in any idea that Trump was not fully on board with efforts to cooperate with Russia.
The AP also notes that the memos have some critics who are not currently in the US House of Representatives — a group of Russian “businessmen” who have sued Christopher Steele, Fusion GPS who hired him to research Trump, and the news site BuzzFeed which first published some of Steele’s information, The Russians in question are owners of a Moscow holding company called Alfa Group, The four men involved are named in a pair of Steele’s memos that don’t seem to be very connected with other memos, and which are primarily focused on internal issues within Russia. Which brings up the possibility that one of Steele’s Russian sources was trying to use the opportunity to attack rivals.
However … the four men involved in these suits have definite Kremlin-connections. And the comments made in the memos seem a lot less ludicrous now than when Steele first handed them over in 2016.
The Gubarev memo said his business “had been using botnets and porn traffic to transmit viruses, plant bugs, steal data” in an operation against Democratic Party leaders.
It’s clear that Russian operatives in 2016 (and today) did use botnets. It’s clear they did use malware to gain entry into Democratic systems and steal data. The only question would be whether or not Steele’s sources fingered the right company when they pointed to Alfa Group.
And if that’s all that Steele got wrong … Donald Trump should be extremely worried about the possibility of other memos being confirmed. For all the attempts Republicans in the House have made to discredit Steele’s work, and to suggest that the whole Russia investigation was tainted by association with these memos, Steele seems to have been far more right than he was wrong.
As for nailing down Trump, forget the pee tape. Find the evidence that Donald Trump was feeding information back to Putin.
Here Are the Trump Properties Where $16.1 Million in Political and Taxpayer Money Have Gone
ProPublica tracks how the Grifter-In-Chief is pocketing from the presidency.
By Derek Kravitz, Alex Mierjeski, Gabriel Sandoval / ProPublica - alternet
June 27, 2018, 3:55 AM GMT
Since Donald Trump declared his candidacy for president in late 2015, at least $16.1 million has poured into Trump Organization-managed and branded hotels, golf courses and restaurants from his campaign, Republican organizations, and government agencies. Because Trump’s business empire is overseen by a trust of which he is the sole beneficiary, he profits from these hotel stays, banquet hall rentals and meals.
To arrive at the total, we compiled campaign finance reports from the Federal Election Commission; state government spending gleaned from dozens of state websites and portals; and federal agency expenditure records obtained by the Washington-based transparency organization Property of the People. For this project, Property of the People filed Freedom of Information Act requests with 15 federal agencies and sued four of them to obtain records. (The organization is also attempting to procure comparable records for the Obama era.)
The vast majority of the money — at least $13.5 million, or more than 84 percent of what we tracked — was spent by Trump’s presidential campaign (including on Tag Air, the entity that operates Trump’s personal airplane). Republican Senate and House political committees and campaigns have shelled out at least another $2.1 million at Trump properties. At least $400,000 has been spent by federal, state and local agencies. (For example, the Florida Police Chiefs Association held its summer conference last year at the Trump National Doral Miami.) The state and local tally appears to be a gross undercount because of the agencies’ spotty disclosures and reporting.
The use of taxpayer dollars at Trump hotels is under scrutiny in a closely watched lawsuit in Maryland federal court. The District of Columbia and the state of Maryland sued Trump, citing a venerable anti-corruption provision of the U.S. Constitution known as the Emoluments Clause. It prohibits any financial gift, or emolument, from benefiting a sitting public official, including the president.
Track the Money We’ve Tallied So Far
The judge in that case, Peter Messitte, is expected to make a final ruling by the end of July. Last month, he allowed the case to proceed, concluding in his opinion that a trip to the Trump International Hotel in Washington by Maine Gov. Paul LePage “rather clearly suggests that Maryland and the District of Columbia may very well feel themselves obliged, i.e., coerced, to patronize the Hotel in order to help them obtain federal favors.” The nonprofit group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, or CREW, which is co-counsel in the Maryland/D.C. case, is also the plaintiff in a separate emoluments suit, which was dismissed; an appeal of that decision is pending.
One of Trump’s lawyers, Sheri Dillon, has argued in the past that paying a hotel bill would never have qualified as an emolument when the Constitution was written; “instead, it would have been thought of as a value-for-value exchange.” (Countered Norman Eisen, chairman of CREW and a former ethics chief under President Obama, “all of these competing interests are openly and nakedly trying to buy off a president…. Obviously, the government spending, whether it’s federal, state, or local, is a domestic emolument.”)
The Trump Organization and the White House did not respond to requests for comment.
There are few ways to avoid the implication that the use of Trump properties is endorsed by the federal government, said Don Fox, the former acting director of the U.S. Office of Government Ethics, which oversees the government’s ethics rules. One way to avoid the problem, Fox suggested, would be a public statement by Trump along the following lines: “Stay where you need to stay. Basically, do what’s best for the taxpayer.”
But Trump has sent a very different signal with his actions. In his 18 months in office, he has stayed at his hotels or Mar-a-Lago, his Palm Beach, Fla., estate and club, nearly a third of the time: 161 days and counting.
“Trump appears to be commandeering federal resources in order to maximize revenues at Trump properties, and he does this by visiting properties close to the White House,” said Kathleen Clark, a law professor at Washington University in St. Louis and an expert in legal ethics. “And when he travels to the golf courses in Florida, Virginia and New Jersey, other agencies that are involved in supporting the president end up spending money.”
There are no rules barring federal employees from patronizing Trump properties. Employees can be reimbursed for expenditures according to federal travel regulations, including the cost of a hotel room or the price of a meal. There are limits to these per diems — employees cover any cost beyond the reimbursable amount — but rates at many Trump properties are within that range, reimbursement records show. (The General Services Administration provides a handy calculator to figure out what the per diems are depending on where an employee is traveling and when.)
But even if a stay at a Trump property falls within federal travel regulations, it’s hard to escape the fact that the president is personally benefiting from taxpayer dollars — and that federal employees have a potential incentive to curry favor with their ultimate boss.
Consider a trip last year by Matthew Snyder, who works for the Commerce Department’s National Institute of Standards and Technology, or NIST, in Colorado. Snyder traveled to Washington, D.C., for 11 days in April 2017 to attend managerial training. He stayed first at a Marriott in Gaithersburg, Md. (where NIST is headquartered), and then at the Trump International Hotel in Washington. Both rooms cost $242 per night, and both were covered by his per diem for lodging. (According to federal guidelines, $242 is the maximum nightly amount the government will reimburse for visits to the D.C. area in the spring season.)
The Trump International Hotel appeared to cultivate at least some federal business, offering a discounted rate for government employees at the time. (A hotel staffer told us that the Trump International no longer offers a government discount.) Snyder benefitted from such a lowered price. His receipt shows a “room type” code of SK1, which refers to a suite, and a rate plan listed as “DISGOV.” The typical suite at the hotel starts at $740, according to its website.
Matthew Snyder's Trump International Hotel Washington receipt
Snyder said in an interview that he chose to stay at the Trump hotel because it was within walking distance of a conference he attended, and that its proximity allowed him to save the cost of renting a car.
But several hotels in a six-block radius provide cheaper rates, including the Hotel Harrington, which sits only a block north of the Trump hotel and charges $175 for a single room. And receipts show that Snyder rented a car and racked up $336 in valet parking charges during his stay at the Trump International.
When asked about cheaper nearby hotels and the parking costs, Snyder wrote in an email: “I could offer clarity, but I choose not to.” In the end, Snyder charged about $2,740 to a government charge card at the Trump International over five days, including room service and valet parking.
In response to questions, the Commerce Department said that records it reviewed “appear to show that a handful of career employees at the Department of Commerce who patronized Trump-owned properties complied with federal travel regulations.” Other Commerce Department employees asked about their spending at Trump properties explained that it was the most affordable option (in one instance involving a hotel in Las Vegas) or that the visit was made while off-duty (in the case of a trip to Los Angeles).
Other federal agencies offered a variety of responses. A statement from the Defense Department, whose employees spent nearly $150,000 at Trump properties between January and June 2017, said its staff are “free to choose where they stay, with the understanding that the government will reimburse no more than the lodging portion of the established per diem limit for the place of temporary duty. There are no plans to change or create guidance at this time.”
The Secret Service also patronized Trump properties while agents were protecting the president or his family. In March 2017, for example, the agency paid $27,724.32 at the Trump golf course and resort in Doonbeg, Ireland. The stay was to “support E. Trump Visit,” receipts note, which took place in April, when Eric Trump went to the resort for two days of business meetings, the Irish press reported at the time.
The State Department, which is listed as the federal agency reimbursing the costs of the Ireland trip, said the Secret Service is in charge of its own travel expenses when it relates to presidential security. For other stays at Trump properties, the State Department said it does “not afford the Trump Organization preferential treatment,” adding that its employees are “routinely counseled on federal ethics law and on the importance of avoiding even the appearance that department resources are misused for the benefit of any outside organizations or private interests.”
The State Department doesn’t receive any preferential treatment when employees stay at Mar-a-Lago, receipts show. For an April 2017 trip by then-Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, his chief of staff and another aide for meetings with Chinese President Xi Jinping, each room cost $546 per night, which was described by the Trump Organization as a “rack rate,” or a non-discounted, standard room. The spending was approved by State Department officials, who noted that the trip was to “meet with POTUS for a high level meeting.”
To arrive at the total, we compiled campaign finance reports from the Federal Election Commission; state government spending gleaned from dozens of state websites and portals; and federal agency expenditure records obtained by the Washington-based transparency organization Property of the People. For this project, Property of the People filed Freedom of Information Act requests with 15 federal agencies and sued four of them to obtain records. (The organization is also attempting to procure comparable records for the Obama era.)
The vast majority of the money — at least $13.5 million, or more than 84 percent of what we tracked — was spent by Trump’s presidential campaign (including on Tag Air, the entity that operates Trump’s personal airplane). Republican Senate and House political committees and campaigns have shelled out at least another $2.1 million at Trump properties. At least $400,000 has been spent by federal, state and local agencies. (For example, the Florida Police Chiefs Association held its summer conference last year at the Trump National Doral Miami.) The state and local tally appears to be a gross undercount because of the agencies’ spotty disclosures and reporting.
The use of taxpayer dollars at Trump hotels is under scrutiny in a closely watched lawsuit in Maryland federal court. The District of Columbia and the state of Maryland sued Trump, citing a venerable anti-corruption provision of the U.S. Constitution known as the Emoluments Clause. It prohibits any financial gift, or emolument, from benefiting a sitting public official, including the president.
Track the Money We’ve Tallied So Far
The judge in that case, Peter Messitte, is expected to make a final ruling by the end of July. Last month, he allowed the case to proceed, concluding in his opinion that a trip to the Trump International Hotel in Washington by Maine Gov. Paul LePage “rather clearly suggests that Maryland and the District of Columbia may very well feel themselves obliged, i.e., coerced, to patronize the Hotel in order to help them obtain federal favors.” The nonprofit group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, or CREW, which is co-counsel in the Maryland/D.C. case, is also the plaintiff in a separate emoluments suit, which was dismissed; an appeal of that decision is pending.
One of Trump’s lawyers, Sheri Dillon, has argued in the past that paying a hotel bill would never have qualified as an emolument when the Constitution was written; “instead, it would have been thought of as a value-for-value exchange.” (Countered Norman Eisen, chairman of CREW and a former ethics chief under President Obama, “all of these competing interests are openly and nakedly trying to buy off a president…. Obviously, the government spending, whether it’s federal, state, or local, is a domestic emolument.”)
The Trump Organization and the White House did not respond to requests for comment.
There are few ways to avoid the implication that the use of Trump properties is endorsed by the federal government, said Don Fox, the former acting director of the U.S. Office of Government Ethics, which oversees the government’s ethics rules. One way to avoid the problem, Fox suggested, would be a public statement by Trump along the following lines: “Stay where you need to stay. Basically, do what’s best for the taxpayer.”
But Trump has sent a very different signal with his actions. In his 18 months in office, he has stayed at his hotels or Mar-a-Lago, his Palm Beach, Fla., estate and club, nearly a third of the time: 161 days and counting.
“Trump appears to be commandeering federal resources in order to maximize revenues at Trump properties, and he does this by visiting properties close to the White House,” said Kathleen Clark, a law professor at Washington University in St. Louis and an expert in legal ethics. “And when he travels to the golf courses in Florida, Virginia and New Jersey, other agencies that are involved in supporting the president end up spending money.”
There are no rules barring federal employees from patronizing Trump properties. Employees can be reimbursed for expenditures according to federal travel regulations, including the cost of a hotel room or the price of a meal. There are limits to these per diems — employees cover any cost beyond the reimbursable amount — but rates at many Trump properties are within that range, reimbursement records show. (The General Services Administration provides a handy calculator to figure out what the per diems are depending on where an employee is traveling and when.)
But even if a stay at a Trump property falls within federal travel regulations, it’s hard to escape the fact that the president is personally benefiting from taxpayer dollars — and that federal employees have a potential incentive to curry favor with their ultimate boss.
Consider a trip last year by Matthew Snyder, who works for the Commerce Department’s National Institute of Standards and Technology, or NIST, in Colorado. Snyder traveled to Washington, D.C., for 11 days in April 2017 to attend managerial training. He stayed first at a Marriott in Gaithersburg, Md. (where NIST is headquartered), and then at the Trump International Hotel in Washington. Both rooms cost $242 per night, and both were covered by his per diem for lodging. (According to federal guidelines, $242 is the maximum nightly amount the government will reimburse for visits to the D.C. area in the spring season.)
The Trump International Hotel appeared to cultivate at least some federal business, offering a discounted rate for government employees at the time. (A hotel staffer told us that the Trump International no longer offers a government discount.) Snyder benefitted from such a lowered price. His receipt shows a “room type” code of SK1, which refers to a suite, and a rate plan listed as “DISGOV.” The typical suite at the hotel starts at $740, according to its website.
Matthew Snyder's Trump International Hotel Washington receipt
Snyder said in an interview that he chose to stay at the Trump hotel because it was within walking distance of a conference he attended, and that its proximity allowed him to save the cost of renting a car.
But several hotels in a six-block radius provide cheaper rates, including the Hotel Harrington, which sits only a block north of the Trump hotel and charges $175 for a single room. And receipts show that Snyder rented a car and racked up $336 in valet parking charges during his stay at the Trump International.
When asked about cheaper nearby hotels and the parking costs, Snyder wrote in an email: “I could offer clarity, but I choose not to.” In the end, Snyder charged about $2,740 to a government charge card at the Trump International over five days, including room service and valet parking.
In response to questions, the Commerce Department said that records it reviewed “appear to show that a handful of career employees at the Department of Commerce who patronized Trump-owned properties complied with federal travel regulations.” Other Commerce Department employees asked about their spending at Trump properties explained that it was the most affordable option (in one instance involving a hotel in Las Vegas) or that the visit was made while off-duty (in the case of a trip to Los Angeles).
Other federal agencies offered a variety of responses. A statement from the Defense Department, whose employees spent nearly $150,000 at Trump properties between January and June 2017, said its staff are “free to choose where they stay, with the understanding that the government will reimburse no more than the lodging portion of the established per diem limit for the place of temporary duty. There are no plans to change or create guidance at this time.”
The Secret Service also patronized Trump properties while agents were protecting the president or his family. In March 2017, for example, the agency paid $27,724.32 at the Trump golf course and resort in Doonbeg, Ireland. The stay was to “support E. Trump Visit,” receipts note, which took place in April, when Eric Trump went to the resort for two days of business meetings, the Irish press reported at the time.
The State Department, which is listed as the federal agency reimbursing the costs of the Ireland trip, said the Secret Service is in charge of its own travel expenses when it relates to presidential security. For other stays at Trump properties, the State Department said it does “not afford the Trump Organization preferential treatment,” adding that its employees are “routinely counseled on federal ethics law and on the importance of avoiding even the appearance that department resources are misused for the benefit of any outside organizations or private interests.”
The State Department doesn’t receive any preferential treatment when employees stay at Mar-a-Lago, receipts show. For an April 2017 trip by then-Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, his chief of staff and another aide for meetings with Chinese President Xi Jinping, each room cost $546 per night, which was described by the Trump Organization as a “rack rate,” or a non-discounted, standard room. The spending was approved by State Department officials, who noted that the trip was to “meet with POTUS for a high level meeting.”
This is the shady Trump fundraiser that unleashed an avalanche of new legal trouble for his family
TRAVIS GETTYS - raw story
14 JUN 2018 AT 11:17 ET
President Donald Trump and his three eldest children broke the law by using their charitable foundation as a slush fund, according to a new lawsuit filed by the New York attorney general.
The investigation appears to have been prompted by reporting by the Washington Post‘s David Fahrenthold, who won a Pulitzer Prize for digging into alleged payouts by the Trump Organization.
Specifically, state attorney general Barbara Underwood identified a Jan. 28, 2016, fundraiser Trump held in Des Moines, Iowa, while skipping a Republican primary debate.
Trump promised to donate $1 million to veterans organizations after the fundraiser, and Fahrenthold began looking into the charity after finding no evidence to show the payment was ever made.
Emails show the Trump campaign dictated donations by the charity despite a ban on political activity by non-profit organizations.
Underwood’s suit also claims the Trump Foundation improperly directed donations to personal and business ventures by the president and his family.
“These include a $100K payment to settle legal claims against Mr. Trump’s Mar-A-Lago resort, $158K to settle legal claims against Trump National Golf Club, and $10K to purchase a painting of Mr. Trump displayed at the Trump National Doral,” the suit claims.
The attorney general has asked the IRS an FEC to open investigations into possible violations of federal law by the president and his family.
The investigation appears to have been prompted by reporting by the Washington Post‘s David Fahrenthold, who won a Pulitzer Prize for digging into alleged payouts by the Trump Organization.
Specifically, state attorney general Barbara Underwood identified a Jan. 28, 2016, fundraiser Trump held in Des Moines, Iowa, while skipping a Republican primary debate.
Trump promised to donate $1 million to veterans organizations after the fundraiser, and Fahrenthold began looking into the charity after finding no evidence to show the payment was ever made.
Emails show the Trump campaign dictated donations by the charity despite a ban on political activity by non-profit organizations.
Underwood’s suit also claims the Trump Foundation improperly directed donations to personal and business ventures by the president and his family.
“These include a $100K payment to settle legal claims against Mr. Trump’s Mar-A-Lago resort, $158K to settle legal claims against Trump National Golf Club, and $10K to purchase a painting of Mr. Trump displayed at the Trump National Doral,” the suit claims.
The attorney general has asked the IRS an FEC to open investigations into possible violations of federal law by the president and his family.
Trump claims parents of Korean War vets lobbied him during 2016 campaign. There’s just one problem.
"They said, 'when you can, president, we'd love our son to be brought back home' -- you know, the remains."
AARON RUPAR - thinkprogress
JUN 14, 2018, 9:14 AM
During a Fox News interview that ran on Wednesday evening, President Trump touted an aspect of his agreement with North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un that will allow for repatriation of the remains of American soldiers who died during the Korean War.
“One of the things that really I’m happy is that the soldiers that died in Korea, their remains are going to be coming back home,” Trump said. “And we have thousands of people that have asked for that — thousands and thousands of people.”
It’s true that there are families of veterans who fell in Korea who are still trying to recover remains. But Trump then told a story about parents of Korean War veterans who purportedly approached him during the 2016 presidential campaign.
“So many people asked when I was on the campaign,” Trump said. “I’d say, ‘wait a minute, I don’t have any relationship’ — but they said, ‘when you can, president, we’d love our son to be brought back home’ — you know, the remains.”
There’s just one problem — American involvement in the Korean War ended in 1953. If we most generously assume that the parent of a future solider was 18 when their child was born, and that their child was 18 when he was killed on the last day of the war, that means a parent would have been 99 in 2016.
While almost all parents of fallen Korean War veterans would’ve been much older than that in 2016, it’s not inconceivable that a 99-year-old parent of a fallen Korean War veteran might have approached Trump during the campaign. But note that Trump claimed multiple parents approached him to say, “we’d love our son to be brought back home.” That seems exceedingly unlikely, at best.
Not only does Trump’s story reveal how easily he lies, but the lack of follow up by host Bret Baier says something about how Fox News covers the president. Instead of trying to get the president to explain his implausible anecdote, the interview immediately moved on to other topics.
“One of the things that really I’m happy is that the soldiers that died in Korea, their remains are going to be coming back home,” Trump said. “And we have thousands of people that have asked for that — thousands and thousands of people.”
It’s true that there are families of veterans who fell in Korea who are still trying to recover remains. But Trump then told a story about parents of Korean War veterans who purportedly approached him during the 2016 presidential campaign.
“So many people asked when I was on the campaign,” Trump said. “I’d say, ‘wait a minute, I don’t have any relationship’ — but they said, ‘when you can, president, we’d love our son to be brought back home’ — you know, the remains.”
There’s just one problem — American involvement in the Korean War ended in 1953. If we most generously assume that the parent of a future solider was 18 when their child was born, and that their child was 18 when he was killed on the last day of the war, that means a parent would have been 99 in 2016.
While almost all parents of fallen Korean War veterans would’ve been much older than that in 2016, it’s not inconceivable that a 99-year-old parent of a fallen Korean War veteran might have approached Trump during the campaign. But note that Trump claimed multiple parents approached him to say, “we’d love our son to be brought back home.” That seems exceedingly unlikely, at best.
Not only does Trump’s story reveal how easily he lies, but the lack of follow up by host Bret Baier says something about how Fox News covers the president. Instead of trying to get the president to explain his implausible anecdote, the interview immediately moved on to other topics.
Trump: ‘There is no longer a nuclear threat from North Korea’
BY MAX GREENWOOD - the hill
06/13/18 07:13 AM EDT
Pr*sident Trump declared on Wednesday that North Korea no longer poses a nuclear threat to the world, offering an optimistic assessment of his summit talks with Kim Jong Un.
Trump made the declaration in a pair of tweets as he arrived back in Washington from Singapore, where he met with Kim for the first-ever talks between a sitting U.S. president and North Korean premier.
"Just landed - a long trip, but everybody can now feel much safer than the day I took office," Trump tweeted. "There is no longer a Nuclear Threat from North Korea. Meeting with Kim Jong Un was an interesting and very positive experience. North Korea has great potential for the future!"
"Before taking office people were assuming that we were going to War with North Korea," he wrote in a second tweet.
"President Obama said that North Korea was our biggest and most dangerous problem. No longer - sleep well tonight!"
The summit on Tuesday culminated in the signing of a brief document committing the U.S. to unspecified security guarantees for North Korea in exchange for the eventual denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.
While the exact terms of that agreement remain murky, Trump announced that the U.S. would suspend joint military exercises with South Korea that Pyongyang has long claimed are essentially rehearsals for an eventual invasion of the North.
But questions have been raised about how comprehensive the agreement is – and how much ground the U.S. may be ceding to the North.
The document signed on Tuesday gives virtually no details beyond a stated commitment to denuclearize. North Korea has made such a promise many times before, but has repeatedly failed to carry out.
RELATED: Trump’s Negotiating Style Is Pure Art of the Moron
Even by this blowhard’s YUGE standards, it’s been an exceptionally bad and destructive week of terrifying our allies and legitimizing our enemies. RICK WILSON
Trump made the declaration in a pair of tweets as he arrived back in Washington from Singapore, where he met with Kim for the first-ever talks between a sitting U.S. president and North Korean premier.
"Just landed - a long trip, but everybody can now feel much safer than the day I took office," Trump tweeted. "There is no longer a Nuclear Threat from North Korea. Meeting with Kim Jong Un was an interesting and very positive experience. North Korea has great potential for the future!"
"Before taking office people were assuming that we were going to War with North Korea," he wrote in a second tweet.
"President Obama said that North Korea was our biggest and most dangerous problem. No longer - sleep well tonight!"
The summit on Tuesday culminated in the signing of a brief document committing the U.S. to unspecified security guarantees for North Korea in exchange for the eventual denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula.
While the exact terms of that agreement remain murky, Trump announced that the U.S. would suspend joint military exercises with South Korea that Pyongyang has long claimed are essentially rehearsals for an eventual invasion of the North.
But questions have been raised about how comprehensive the agreement is – and how much ground the U.S. may be ceding to the North.
The document signed on Tuesday gives virtually no details beyond a stated commitment to denuclearize. North Korea has made such a promise many times before, but has repeatedly failed to carry out.
RELATED: Trump’s Negotiating Style Is Pure Art of the Moron
Even by this blowhard’s YUGE standards, it’s been an exceptionally bad and destructive week of terrifying our allies and legitimizing our enemies. RICK WILSON
trump family values
Donald Trump’s grandfather Friedrich Trump ran a restaurant, bar, and brothel in British Columbia.
IDIOT SPEAK!!!
Trump Defends Kim’s Brutal Regime: ‘He’s Doing What He’s Seen Done’
By Nicole Lafond | tpm
June 12, 2018 9:25 am
After enduring a full 25 hours without sleep, President Donald Trump continued to defend North Korean dictator Kim Jong-un and his well-documented history of human rights violations on Tuesday, telling VOA’s Greta Van Susteren that Kim’s just “doing what he’s seen done.”
“He’s a rough guy. He has to be a rough guy or he has been a rough person,” Trump told Van Susteren. “But we got along very well. He’s smart, loves his people, he loves his country.”
“But he’s starved them,” Van Susteren asserted, “He’s been brutal to them. He still loves his people?”
“Look, he’s doing what he’s seen done, if you look at it,” he said. “But, I really have to go by today and by yesterday and by a couple of weeks ago because that’s really when this whole thing started.”
During a press conference with reporters following the White House’s release of a joint-agreement between Kim and Trump committing to denuclearization of the Korean peninsula, Trump told reporters that he trusted Kim and said he was “talented” for running the country at such a young age.
“Anybody that takes over a situation like he did at 26 years of age and is able to run it and run it tough — I don’t say he was nice, or I don’t say anything about it,” he said.
“He’s a rough guy. He has to be a rough guy or he has been a rough person,” Trump told Van Susteren. “But we got along very well. He’s smart, loves his people, he loves his country.”
“But he’s starved them,” Van Susteren asserted, “He’s been brutal to them. He still loves his people?”
“Look, he’s doing what he’s seen done, if you look at it,” he said. “But, I really have to go by today and by yesterday and by a couple of weeks ago because that’s really when this whole thing started.”
During a press conference with reporters following the White House’s release of a joint-agreement between Kim and Trump committing to denuclearization of the Korean peninsula, Trump told reporters that he trusted Kim and said he was “talented” for running the country at such a young age.
“Anybody that takes over a situation like he did at 26 years of age and is able to run it and run it tough — I don’t say he was nice, or I don’t say anything about it,” he said.
trump funnies
America's Criminal-in-Chief
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trade fool!!!
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Trump Confirms His “Shithole” Racism By Saying He Wants Immigrants From Non-White Countries Out
By Jason Easley on Tue, Jan 16th, 2018 at 3:20 pm
politicus usa
Trump responded that he wanted immigrants from other non-white parts of the world out of the United States when he was asked about his immigration views in the White House.
Here is the transcript via the White House as provided to PoliticusUSA:
Q Mr. President, did you say that you want more people to come in from Norway? Did you say that you wanted more people coming in from Norway?
PRESIDENT TRUMP: Thank you very much. Thank you very much.
Q Is that true, Mr. President?
PRESIDENT TRUMP: I want them to come in from everywhere — everywhere. Thank you very much, everybody.
Q Just the Caucasian or white countries, sir? Or do you want people to come in from other parts of the world?
PRESIDENT TRUMP: Out.
Why would Trump answer out if that isn’t what he wants to see happen to immigrant who come to the United States from non-white majority countries? Trump’s entire immigration policy has been focused on deporting black and brown skinned people, so his one word answer was not a surprise.
Republicans and the administration have never denied that Trump wants non-white immigrants out of the country. They claim that he didn’t use the word “shithole,” but there has never been a firm denial that Trump holds a racist view of African countries.
Trump’s own answer confirmed that it doesn’t matter what Republicans pretend like they didn’t hear, this president is bigoted and intends to deport non-white immigrants.
Here is the transcript via the White House as provided to PoliticusUSA:
Q Mr. President, did you say that you want more people to come in from Norway? Did you say that you wanted more people coming in from Norway?
PRESIDENT TRUMP: Thank you very much. Thank you very much.
Q Is that true, Mr. President?
PRESIDENT TRUMP: I want them to come in from everywhere — everywhere. Thank you very much, everybody.
Q Just the Caucasian or white countries, sir? Or do you want people to come in from other parts of the world?
PRESIDENT TRUMP: Out.
Why would Trump answer out if that isn’t what he wants to see happen to immigrant who come to the United States from non-white majority countries? Trump’s entire immigration policy has been focused on deporting black and brown skinned people, so his one word answer was not a surprise.
Republicans and the administration have never denied that Trump wants non-white immigrants out of the country. They claim that he didn’t use the word “shithole,” but there has never been a firm denial that Trump holds a racist view of African countries.
Trump’s own answer confirmed that it doesn’t matter what Republicans pretend like they didn’t hear, this president is bigoted and intends to deport non-white immigrants.
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Trump getting up at the crack of 11 ... after spending the morning in bed watching TV
By Mark Sumner - daily kos
Monday Jan 08, 2018 · 7:30 AM PST
Over the past week, multiple stories have appeared about Trump’s mental decline. His evaporating vocabulary. His dwindling attention span. His shriveling comprehension.
But while those losses are hard to prove without Trump actually going through with his offer to take an IQ test—which seems extremely unlikely—Axois reports that there’s one other thing that Trump is doing … littlely.
President Trump is starting his official day much later than he did in the early days of his presidency, often around 11am, and holding far fewer meetings, according to copies of his private schedule shown to Axios. This is largely to meet Trump’s demands for more “Executive Time,” which almost always means TV and Twitter time alone in the residence, officials tell us.
This news of Trump’s extremely abbreviated morning session comes a week after we learned about Trump’s senior discount evening plans.
"If (Trump) was not having his 6:30 dinner with Steve Bannon, then, more to his liking, he was in bed by that time with a cheeseburger, watching his three screens and making phone calls -- the phone was his true contact point with the world -- to a small group of friends, who charted his rising and falling levels of agitation through the evening and then compared notes with one another."
So, Donald Trump spends at least 17 hours of each day in his PJs. His presidenting schedule has apparently been reduced to a 11-4 interval between parking himself back in front of the bedroom TV.
The schedule says Trump has "Executive Time" in the Oval Office every day from 8am to 11am, but the reality is he spends that time in his residence, watching TV, making phone calls and tweeting. Trump comes down for his first meeting of the day, which is often an intelligence briefing, at 11am.
Which means Trump has plenty of time for the Gorilla Channel (which is a joke) and Fox & Friends (which is a different kind of joke). Read More
But while those losses are hard to prove without Trump actually going through with his offer to take an IQ test—which seems extremely unlikely—Axois reports that there’s one other thing that Trump is doing … littlely.
President Trump is starting his official day much later than he did in the early days of his presidency, often around 11am, and holding far fewer meetings, according to copies of his private schedule shown to Axios. This is largely to meet Trump’s demands for more “Executive Time,” which almost always means TV and Twitter time alone in the residence, officials tell us.
This news of Trump’s extremely abbreviated morning session comes a week after we learned about Trump’s senior discount evening plans.
"If (Trump) was not having his 6:30 dinner with Steve Bannon, then, more to his liking, he was in bed by that time with a cheeseburger, watching his three screens and making phone calls -- the phone was his true contact point with the world -- to a small group of friends, who charted his rising and falling levels of agitation through the evening and then compared notes with one another."
So, Donald Trump spends at least 17 hours of each day in his PJs. His presidenting schedule has apparently been reduced to a 11-4 interval between parking himself back in front of the bedroom TV.
The schedule says Trump has "Executive Time" in the Oval Office every day from 8am to 11am, but the reality is he spends that time in his residence, watching TV, making phone calls and tweeting. Trump comes down for his first meeting of the day, which is often an intelligence briefing, at 11am.
Which means Trump has plenty of time for the Gorilla Channel (which is a joke) and Fox & Friends (which is a different kind of joke). Read More
NARCO-A-LAGO: MONEY LAUNDERING AT THE TRUMP OCEAN CLUB PANAMA
You can download the PDF version of this report here.
From Global Witness: EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
“Every other country goes into these places and they do what they have to do… It’s a horrible law and [the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act] should be changed.”
In the early 2000s, a series of bankruptcies meant Donald J. Trump was shunned by most lenders. Struggling for credit, he started selling his name to high-end real estate projects. This report examines in detail the criminal connections that propelled one such project – the Trump Ocean Club International Hotel and Tower in Panama – and how this case bears some of the same disturbing hallmarks as other Trump developments.
Since he became President of the United States, numerous investigations and articles have probed Trump’s business dealings and his alleged links to criminals and other shadowy characters. It is understood that Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation under the Department of Justice will also examine his real estate business. This is important because it seems likely that, following his various bankruptcies, at least a part of Trump’s business empire has been built on untraceable funds, some apparently linked to Russian criminal networks.
Trump may not have deliberately set out to facilitate criminal activity in his business dealings. But, as this Global Witness investigation shows, licensing his brand to the luxurious Trump Ocean Club International Hotel and Tower in Panama aligned Trump’s financial interests with those of crooks looking to launder ill-gotten gains. Trump seems to have done little to nothing to prevent this. What is clear is that proceeds from Colombian cartels’ narcotics trafficking were laundered through the Trump Ocean Club and that Donald Trump was one of the beneficiaries.
One key player in the laundering of drug money at the Trump Ocean Club was notorious fraudster David Eduardo Helmut Murcia Guzmán, whom a U.S. court subsequently sentenced to nine years for laundering millions of dollars' worth of illicit funds, including narcotics proceeds, through companies and real estate.
Another was Murcia Guzmán’s business associate, Alexandre Henrique Ventura Nogueira, who brokered nearly a third of the 666 pre-construction unit sales at the Trump Ocean Club and claims to have sold 350-400 units overall. Ventura Nogueira’s sales brokerage was critical to ensuring the project’s lift-off and Trump’s ability to earn tens of millions of dollars.
The warning signs were there from the outset. The Trump Ocean Club, one of Trump’s most lucrative licensing deals to date, was announced in 2006 and launched in 2011, a period when Panama was known as one of the best places in the world to launder money. Whole neighborhoods in Panama City were taken over by organized crime groups, and luxury developments were built with the purpose of serving as money laundering vehicles.
Moreover, investing in luxury properties is a tried and trusted way for criminals to move tainted cash into the legitimate financial system, where they can spend it freely. Once scrubbed clean in this way, vast profits from criminal activities like trafficking people and drugs, organized crime, and terrorism can find their way into the U.S. and elsewhere. In most countries, regulation is notoriously lax in the real estate sector. Cash payments are subject to hardly any scrutiny, giving opportunistic and unprincipled developers free rein to accept dirty money.
In the case of the Trump Ocean Club, accepting easy – and possibly dirty – money early on would have been in Trump’s interest; a certain volume of pre-construction sales was necessary to secure financing for the project, which stood to net him $75.4 million by the end of 2010. Trump received a percentage of the financing he helped secure, and a cut on the sale of every unit at the development.
He and his family have made millions of dollars more from management fees and likely continue to profit from the Trump Ocean Club. Eager for the project’s success, Trump and his children have participated directly in marketing, management, and even project design. According to broker Ventura Nogueira, Trump’s daughter Ivanka attended at least 10 meetings with him and project developer Roger Khafif.
A large number of those involved with the Trump Ocean Club in its early phase were Russian and Eastern European citizens or diaspora members. In an interview with NBC and Reuters, Ventura Nogueira said that 50 percent of his buyers were Russian, and that some had “questionable backgrounds.” He added that he found out later that some were part of the Russian Mafia.
Since the Russian government’s alleged interference in the 2016 election, a lot has been made of Trump’s heavy reliance on funds from Russia for his licensing deals. Trump relying on funds from Russia is not in itself a problem – some of these funds are no doubt from legitimate sources. What is deeply problematic, however, is the fact that some of this money appears to have come from criminal networks.
Donald Trump has incessantly promoted himself as a successful and viable businessman, and this was critical to his success in the 2016 presidential election. But this report presents evidence that this façade was built, at least in part, on ventures used to launder cash generated by criminal activities. Trump’s unscrupulous business dealings and blindness to potential illegality raise serious questions about his suitability to govern the most powerful country in the world.
The dubious dealings of Trump the businessman also raise questions about the commitment of Trump the President to tackling crime and corruption. Trump got elected by repeatedly pledging to “drain the swamp”, but in the nine months since his inauguration he has actually taken steps that could worsen corruption in the U.S. and internationally. Indeed, one of his administration’s few legislative successes to date has been to overturn the implementing regulation of a ground-breaking anti-corruption law.[...]
“Every other country goes into these places and they do what they have to do… It’s a horrible law and [the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act] should be changed.”
In the early 2000s, a series of bankruptcies meant Donald J. Trump was shunned by most lenders. Struggling for credit, he started selling his name to high-end real estate projects. This report examines in detail the criminal connections that propelled one such project – the Trump Ocean Club International Hotel and Tower in Panama – and how this case bears some of the same disturbing hallmarks as other Trump developments.
Since he became President of the United States, numerous investigations and articles have probed Trump’s business dealings and his alleged links to criminals and other shadowy characters. It is understood that Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation under the Department of Justice will also examine his real estate business. This is important because it seems likely that, following his various bankruptcies, at least a part of Trump’s business empire has been built on untraceable funds, some apparently linked to Russian criminal networks.
Trump may not have deliberately set out to facilitate criminal activity in his business dealings. But, as this Global Witness investigation shows, licensing his brand to the luxurious Trump Ocean Club International Hotel and Tower in Panama aligned Trump’s financial interests with those of crooks looking to launder ill-gotten gains. Trump seems to have done little to nothing to prevent this. What is clear is that proceeds from Colombian cartels’ narcotics trafficking were laundered through the Trump Ocean Club and that Donald Trump was one of the beneficiaries.
One key player in the laundering of drug money at the Trump Ocean Club was notorious fraudster David Eduardo Helmut Murcia Guzmán, whom a U.S. court subsequently sentenced to nine years for laundering millions of dollars' worth of illicit funds, including narcotics proceeds, through companies and real estate.
Another was Murcia Guzmán’s business associate, Alexandre Henrique Ventura Nogueira, who brokered nearly a third of the 666 pre-construction unit sales at the Trump Ocean Club and claims to have sold 350-400 units overall. Ventura Nogueira’s sales brokerage was critical to ensuring the project’s lift-off and Trump’s ability to earn tens of millions of dollars.
The warning signs were there from the outset. The Trump Ocean Club, one of Trump’s most lucrative licensing deals to date, was announced in 2006 and launched in 2011, a period when Panama was known as one of the best places in the world to launder money. Whole neighborhoods in Panama City were taken over by organized crime groups, and luxury developments were built with the purpose of serving as money laundering vehicles.
Moreover, investing in luxury properties is a tried and trusted way for criminals to move tainted cash into the legitimate financial system, where they can spend it freely. Once scrubbed clean in this way, vast profits from criminal activities like trafficking people and drugs, organized crime, and terrorism can find their way into the U.S. and elsewhere. In most countries, regulation is notoriously lax in the real estate sector. Cash payments are subject to hardly any scrutiny, giving opportunistic and unprincipled developers free rein to accept dirty money.
In the case of the Trump Ocean Club, accepting easy – and possibly dirty – money early on would have been in Trump’s interest; a certain volume of pre-construction sales was necessary to secure financing for the project, which stood to net him $75.4 million by the end of 2010. Trump received a percentage of the financing he helped secure, and a cut on the sale of every unit at the development.
He and his family have made millions of dollars more from management fees and likely continue to profit from the Trump Ocean Club. Eager for the project’s success, Trump and his children have participated directly in marketing, management, and even project design. According to broker Ventura Nogueira, Trump’s daughter Ivanka attended at least 10 meetings with him and project developer Roger Khafif.
A large number of those involved with the Trump Ocean Club in its early phase were Russian and Eastern European citizens or diaspora members. In an interview with NBC and Reuters, Ventura Nogueira said that 50 percent of his buyers were Russian, and that some had “questionable backgrounds.” He added that he found out later that some were part of the Russian Mafia.
Since the Russian government’s alleged interference in the 2016 election, a lot has been made of Trump’s heavy reliance on funds from Russia for his licensing deals. Trump relying on funds from Russia is not in itself a problem – some of these funds are no doubt from legitimate sources. What is deeply problematic, however, is the fact that some of this money appears to have come from criminal networks.
Donald Trump has incessantly promoted himself as a successful and viable businessman, and this was critical to his success in the 2016 presidential election. But this report presents evidence that this façade was built, at least in part, on ventures used to launder cash generated by criminal activities. Trump’s unscrupulous business dealings and blindness to potential illegality raise serious questions about his suitability to govern the most powerful country in the world.
The dubious dealings of Trump the businessman also raise questions about the commitment of Trump the President to tackling crime and corruption. Trump got elected by repeatedly pledging to “drain the swamp”, but in the nine months since his inauguration he has actually taken steps that could worsen corruption in the U.S. and internationally. Indeed, one of his administration’s few legislative successes to date has been to overturn the implementing regulation of a ground-breaking anti-corruption law.[...]
Trump’s appearance in Panama Papers revealed
International Business Times
25 NOV 2017 AT 08:12 ET
From Raw Story: The instance of President Donald Trump’s appearance in the Panama Papers – the massive trove of leaked documents, reveals in detail how the world’s richest people hide their business dealings from scrutiny and taxation.
A real estate deal from the early 1990s is the first instance of President Trump’s name being mentioned in the Panama Papers.
An investigative reporter, Jake Bernstein, Friday afternoon flagged the discovery that involves the purchase and subsequent sale of a unit at the newly constructed Trump Palace on the Upper East Side in the 1990s. This deal involved a Panamanian company named Process Consultants, Inc., that purchased a 16th floor condo at the Trump skyscraper in 1991.
Process Consultants was owned through bearer shares. These share certificates indicate that whoever physically possessed the papers owned the company. The bearer shares could be used to transfer assets completely anonymously and were favorite tools among money launderers.
Three year after the purchase in 1994, the Process Consultants decided to sell this condo at the Trump Palace. Trump Corporation was the exclusive broker for this. According to a contract document, which provided the details of an agreement, the apartment was sold for apartment for $395,000. However, later, the price appeared to have been cut down to $355,000. It is believed a woman from Hong Kong, whose name has appeared in other leaked documents had purchased the apartment, reported the New York daily News.
However, the New York City Department of Finance online database Automated City Registered Information System has information on the apartment only after 2005, which pointed out during this time, the condo was owned by a Brazilian from Sao Paolo. He sold the unit for $795,400, that year.
But with most Panama Papers revelations, there has been no indication of who is actually behind Process Consultants or from where that person’s money came. According to the New York Daily News, using bearer shares doesn’t prove that Process Consultants was involved in something dubious, the quick turnover seems to be a characteristic of money laundering.
The publication reported that if Trump’s company knowingly facilitated the condo sale for the purpose of laundering money then the president himself could land in difficulty.
As part of his investigation into Russian election meddling, special prosecutor Robert Mueller had been looking into Trump’s sprawling real estate empire. It's unclear if the Process Consultants deal is of interest in the probe.
The Trump condo contract is one among the thousands of documents that were leaked in 2015 from Mossack Fonseca, a Panamanian law firm that sold anonymous shell companies around the globe and had created more than 160,000 offshore entities by the year 2008. Some of the world’s richest people were able to conduct dubious business deals by hiding behind the law firm’s offshore companies.
The founders behind Mossack Fonseca were arrested after the massive leak. The firm is under investigation across the world.
Last month, the Paradise Papers leak revealed Trump’s Commerce Secretary Wibur Ross had been involved in doing million dollar business deals with Russian President Vladimir Putin’s son-in-law, Kirill Shamalov.
A real estate deal from the early 1990s is the first instance of President Trump’s name being mentioned in the Panama Papers.
An investigative reporter, Jake Bernstein, Friday afternoon flagged the discovery that involves the purchase and subsequent sale of a unit at the newly constructed Trump Palace on the Upper East Side in the 1990s. This deal involved a Panamanian company named Process Consultants, Inc., that purchased a 16th floor condo at the Trump skyscraper in 1991.
Process Consultants was owned through bearer shares. These share certificates indicate that whoever physically possessed the papers owned the company. The bearer shares could be used to transfer assets completely anonymously and were favorite tools among money launderers.
Three year after the purchase in 1994, the Process Consultants decided to sell this condo at the Trump Palace. Trump Corporation was the exclusive broker for this. According to a contract document, which provided the details of an agreement, the apartment was sold for apartment for $395,000. However, later, the price appeared to have been cut down to $355,000. It is believed a woman from Hong Kong, whose name has appeared in other leaked documents had purchased the apartment, reported the New York daily News.
However, the New York City Department of Finance online database Automated City Registered Information System has information on the apartment only after 2005, which pointed out during this time, the condo was owned by a Brazilian from Sao Paolo. He sold the unit for $795,400, that year.
But with most Panama Papers revelations, there has been no indication of who is actually behind Process Consultants or from where that person’s money came. According to the New York Daily News, using bearer shares doesn’t prove that Process Consultants was involved in something dubious, the quick turnover seems to be a characteristic of money laundering.
The publication reported that if Trump’s company knowingly facilitated the condo sale for the purpose of laundering money then the president himself could land in difficulty.
As part of his investigation into Russian election meddling, special prosecutor Robert Mueller had been looking into Trump’s sprawling real estate empire. It's unclear if the Process Consultants deal is of interest in the probe.
The Trump condo contract is one among the thousands of documents that were leaked in 2015 from Mossack Fonseca, a Panamanian law firm that sold anonymous shell companies around the globe and had created more than 160,000 offshore entities by the year 2008. Some of the world’s richest people were able to conduct dubious business deals by hiding behind the law firm’s offshore companies.
The founders behind Mossack Fonseca were arrested after the massive leak. The firm is under investigation across the world.
Last month, the Paradise Papers leak revealed Trump’s Commerce Secretary Wibur Ross had been involved in doing million dollar business deals with Russian President Vladimir Putin’s son-in-law, Kirill Shamalov.
The Trump Family Made Millions from Drug Cartels and the Russian Mafia in Panama City: Report
Maybe we should start calling the president's Florida estate "Mar-a-Narco."
By Liz Posner / AlterNet November 17, 2017, 9:04 AM GMT
Robert Mueller has some new material to work with as he continues his investigation of the Trump administration's ties to Russia. A new report shows that for 10 years, a Trump property in Panama City collected millions of dollars from the Russian mafia and Colombian drug cartels. An investigation from Global Witness, an international NGO that probes corruption and money laundering, reveals how the Trump Ocean Club International Hotel and Tower turned a blind eye to crime lords looking for a safe haven to stash their blood money.
The property, which the lead broker Alexandre Ventura Nogueira describes as “Ivanka Trump’s baby,” listed units for three times the going rate in Panama City, thanks to the Trump name. Nogueira worked closely with the Trump family; he claims he attended at least 10 meetings with Ivanka Trump, who challenged him to sell 100 units in the building.
“The agreement was, I had a week to sell 100 units,” Nogueira told Reuters. “I said, ‘I’m going to do better, I’m going to sell without telling (the buyers) the price.'”
Nogueira later fled Panama after he was arrested for unrelated charges of real estate fraud. From his European asylum, he told NBC that at least half of his Trump Ocean Club customers were Russians, including some with “questionable backgrounds." Only later did he learn of their ties to Russian organized crime circles.
NBC reports that Mauricio Ceballos, a former prosecutor in Panama who investigated Trump’s business associates for financial crimes, called the Trump Ocean Club “a vehicle for money laundering.”
Among the shady buyers are:
By 2010, Donald Trump had made approximately $74.2 million through his association with the hotel. From 2014-2017, he was paid as much as $13.9 million.
As Global Witness explains:
“The warning signs were there from the outset. The Trump Ocean Club, one of Trump’s most lucrative licensing deals to date, was announced in 2006 and launched in 2011, a period when Panama was known as one of the best places in the world to launder money. Whole neighborhoods in Panama City were taken over by organized crime groups, and luxury developments were built with the purpose of serving as money laundering vehicles.
“Moreover, investing in luxury properties is a tried and trusted way for criminals to move tainted cash into the legitimate financial system, where they can spend it freely. Once scrubbed clean in this way, vast profits from criminal activities like trafficking people and drugs, organized crime, and terrorism can find their way into the U.S. and elsewhere.”
The Trump Organization has shrugged off responsibility in a statement following the news, but legal experts say it should have done its due diligence into the backgrounds of buyers. Arthur Middlemiss, a former Manhattan assistant district attorney and a former head of the global anti-corruption program at JPMorgan, blames the Trumps directly:
“Those who do business there should perform due diligence on others involved in their ventures. If they fail to do so, they risk being liable under U.S. law of turning a blind eye to wrongdoing.”
The property, which the lead broker Alexandre Ventura Nogueira describes as “Ivanka Trump’s baby,” listed units for three times the going rate in Panama City, thanks to the Trump name. Nogueira worked closely with the Trump family; he claims he attended at least 10 meetings with Ivanka Trump, who challenged him to sell 100 units in the building.
“The agreement was, I had a week to sell 100 units,” Nogueira told Reuters. “I said, ‘I’m going to do better, I’m going to sell without telling (the buyers) the price.'”
Nogueira later fled Panama after he was arrested for unrelated charges of real estate fraud. From his European asylum, he told NBC that at least half of his Trump Ocean Club customers were Russians, including some with “questionable backgrounds." Only later did he learn of their ties to Russian organized crime circles.
NBC reports that Mauricio Ceballos, a former prosecutor in Panama who investigated Trump’s business associates for financial crimes, called the Trump Ocean Club “a vehicle for money laundering.”
Among the shady buyers are:
- David Murcia Guzmán, founder of a large Colombian marketing company, who purchased 10 units in the Trump Ocean Club. Guzmán is now in U.S. custody, convicted of laundering money on behalf of drug cartels, and will be extradited to Colombia. Guzmán also has financial ties to the terrorist organization FARC.
- Louis Pargiolas, who pleaded guilty in 2009 in Miami to conspiracy to import cocaine.
- Stanislav Kavalenka, a Russian national charged in Canada for compelling women into prostitution.
- Arkady Vodovozov, convicted in Israel of kidnapping, according to Reuters.
By 2010, Donald Trump had made approximately $74.2 million through his association with the hotel. From 2014-2017, he was paid as much as $13.9 million.
As Global Witness explains:
“The warning signs were there from the outset. The Trump Ocean Club, one of Trump’s most lucrative licensing deals to date, was announced in 2006 and launched in 2011, a period when Panama was known as one of the best places in the world to launder money. Whole neighborhoods in Panama City were taken over by organized crime groups, and luxury developments were built with the purpose of serving as money laundering vehicles.
“Moreover, investing in luxury properties is a tried and trusted way for criminals to move tainted cash into the legitimate financial system, where they can spend it freely. Once scrubbed clean in this way, vast profits from criminal activities like trafficking people and drugs, organized crime, and terrorism can find their way into the U.S. and elsewhere.”
The Trump Organization has shrugged off responsibility in a statement following the news, but legal experts say it should have done its due diligence into the backgrounds of buyers. Arthur Middlemiss, a former Manhattan assistant district attorney and a former head of the global anti-corruption program at JPMorgan, blames the Trumps directly:
“Those who do business there should perform due diligence on others involved in their ventures. If they fail to do so, they risk being liable under U.S. law of turning a blind eye to wrongdoing.”
the criminal administration!!!
The wealthy men in Trump's inner circle with links to tax havens
The president promised to bring trillions of dollars back to the US, but many around him are no strangers to the offshore world
Jon Swaine and Ed Pilkington in New York
Sunday 5 November 2017 13.00 EST
From The Guardian: On the election trail in 2016, Donald Trump promised tax reforms to tempt major US companies back onshore and “bring back trillions of dollars from American businesses that is now parked overseas”.
As the first anniversary of his election victory looms this week, Trump and fellow Republicans are trying to drive those tax reforms through Congress.
On 1 November, Trump reiterated his commitment.
“Finally, our plan will bring back trillions of dollars from offshore … that will come pouring back into our country that will be put to work and will be spent by our companies that could never get the money back for many years. Bring the money back. We’re rebuilding America.”
But Trump is surrounded by wealthy individuals who have legally either sheltered their own investments or presided over policies to keep company profits or clients’ funds out of reach in tax havens.
Gary Cohn
Trump’s chief economic adviser, who is the driving force behind the White House tax reform effort, is no stranger to offshore finance. The leaked documents reveal that for various periods between 2002 and 2006, Cohn was president or vice-president of 22 separate entities in Bermuda for Goldman Sachs....
Rex Tillerson
The US secretary of state is named in the leaked files as a director of an offshore firm used in a multibillion-dollar oil and gas venture in the Middle East that became embroiled in controversy.
Tillerson was a director of Marib Upstream Services Company, incorporated in Bermuda in 1997. The company was tied to ExxonMobil, the American oil and gas corporation that Tillerson later led as chief executive. At the time, Tillerson was president of ExxonMobil’s Yemen division....
Steven Mnuchin
The US Treasury secretary’s former bank financed offshore private jets for wealthy clients, including a billionaire Yemeni businessman whose son is wanted for rape and murder in the UK.
CIT Bank, where Mnuchin was deputy chairman, provided customers with financing structures for personal aircraft priced at tens of millions of dollars, which customers used to legally avoid sales taxes and other charges....
Randal Quarles
The Trump administration’s most senior banking watchdog appears in the Paradise Papers in connection with an offshore bank that is under investigation by US authorities for possible tax evasion.
Quarles, Trump’s vice-chairman for supervision at the Federal Reserve, is named in the files as an officer of two firms incorporated in the Cayman Islands by the Carlyle Group, the private equity giant where Quarles was a partner until 2013.
The files detail transactions between one of Quarles’s offshore vehicles and Butterfield, a Bermuda-based bank in which Carlyle had led a $550m investment in 2010. That stake was one of several in distressed banks bought up by a new specialist team at Carlyle, including Quarles, following the 2008 financial crisis...
Jon Huntsman
Trump’s new US ambassador to Russia helped lead a previously undisclosed offshore company, according to the leaked files.
Huntsman, the former Utah governor, was listed as a director of HICI International Sales Corporation in a confidential filing to authorities in Barbados, where the company was formed in 1999. The offshore vehicle was set up to carry out overseas sales for Huntsman ICI, an industrial chemicals branch of Huntsman Corporation.
The filing said HICI was owned by Huntsman ICI Holdings LLC in the US, where Huntsman was vice-chairman and manager. In 2000, Huntsman ICI reported making a $151m profit on revenues of $4.4bn....
Kenneth Juster
Trump’s ambassador to India benefited from the offshore business of his former investment company and its billion-dollar purchase of a shipping corporation.
Juster is named in the Paradise Papers as a beneficial owner of a Bermuda-based branch of Warburg Pincus, a private equity firm where he was a partner before joining the Trump administration...
Carl Icahn
Icahn, a friend and former adviser to Trump, owns a $250m mining company spread across three tax havens and structured in a way that limits the information it must disclose to US authorities.
The leaks detail how Icahn holds a controlling stake in Ferrous Resources, a Brazilian mining company officially based on the Isle of Man. It in turn owns a pair of holding companies in Luxembourg and Malta, which operate iron mines in Brazil.
All three jurisdictions offer low- or zero-tax regimes for corporations, making them destinations of choice for foreign businesses seeking to legally lower their tax bills. A report in 2015 by Citizens for Tax Justice said Icahn operated 20 subsidiaries in offshore tax havens....
Tom Barrack
The chairman of Trump’s inaugural committee leads a $58bn real estate investment trust that channels some of its profits to the low- or no-tax jurisdictions of Luxembourg, the Cayman Islands and Lebanon.
Barrack, who has described himself as one of the president’s “closest friends for 40 years”, appears in the Paradise Papers through offshore subsidiaries of Colony NorthStar, of which he is CEO...
Jay Clayton
Trump’s SEC chairman received income from a hedge fund based in the Cayman Islands.
Clayton disclosed to the government ethics office before taking up the SEC job that he received income from Mount Kellett Capital Partners (Cayman) LP, the offshore subsidiary of a US hedge fund. A proposed structure chart in the leaked Appleby files shows a complex web of ties that were created between the Cayman Islands offshoot, its head company, and other offshore subsidiaries....
Ben Carson
A biotechnology company headed by Carson, Trump’s housing and urban development (HUD) secretary, set up offshore firms that could have reduced its tax bill.
The Paradise Papers contain files on two subsidiaries of Vaccinogen in Bermuda that date from Carson’s time as chairman of the Baltimore-based biotechnology company. The offshore vehicles were established as holding companies for “intellectual property related to the treatment of cancer and other diseases”, according to the files...
(complete article)
As the first anniversary of his election victory looms this week, Trump and fellow Republicans are trying to drive those tax reforms through Congress.
On 1 November, Trump reiterated his commitment.
“Finally, our plan will bring back trillions of dollars from offshore … that will come pouring back into our country that will be put to work and will be spent by our companies that could never get the money back for many years. Bring the money back. We’re rebuilding America.”
But Trump is surrounded by wealthy individuals who have legally either sheltered their own investments or presided over policies to keep company profits or clients’ funds out of reach in tax havens.
Gary Cohn
Trump’s chief economic adviser, who is the driving force behind the White House tax reform effort, is no stranger to offshore finance. The leaked documents reveal that for various periods between 2002 and 2006, Cohn was president or vice-president of 22 separate entities in Bermuda for Goldman Sachs....
Rex Tillerson
The US secretary of state is named in the leaked files as a director of an offshore firm used in a multibillion-dollar oil and gas venture in the Middle East that became embroiled in controversy.
Tillerson was a director of Marib Upstream Services Company, incorporated in Bermuda in 1997. The company was tied to ExxonMobil, the American oil and gas corporation that Tillerson later led as chief executive. At the time, Tillerson was president of ExxonMobil’s Yemen division....
Steven Mnuchin
The US Treasury secretary’s former bank financed offshore private jets for wealthy clients, including a billionaire Yemeni businessman whose son is wanted for rape and murder in the UK.
CIT Bank, where Mnuchin was deputy chairman, provided customers with financing structures for personal aircraft priced at tens of millions of dollars, which customers used to legally avoid sales taxes and other charges....
Randal Quarles
The Trump administration’s most senior banking watchdog appears in the Paradise Papers in connection with an offshore bank that is under investigation by US authorities for possible tax evasion.
Quarles, Trump’s vice-chairman for supervision at the Federal Reserve, is named in the files as an officer of two firms incorporated in the Cayman Islands by the Carlyle Group, the private equity giant where Quarles was a partner until 2013.
The files detail transactions between one of Quarles’s offshore vehicles and Butterfield, a Bermuda-based bank in which Carlyle had led a $550m investment in 2010. That stake was one of several in distressed banks bought up by a new specialist team at Carlyle, including Quarles, following the 2008 financial crisis...
Jon Huntsman
Trump’s new US ambassador to Russia helped lead a previously undisclosed offshore company, according to the leaked files.
Huntsman, the former Utah governor, was listed as a director of HICI International Sales Corporation in a confidential filing to authorities in Barbados, where the company was formed in 1999. The offshore vehicle was set up to carry out overseas sales for Huntsman ICI, an industrial chemicals branch of Huntsman Corporation.
The filing said HICI was owned by Huntsman ICI Holdings LLC in the US, where Huntsman was vice-chairman and manager. In 2000, Huntsman ICI reported making a $151m profit on revenues of $4.4bn....
Kenneth Juster
Trump’s ambassador to India benefited from the offshore business of his former investment company and its billion-dollar purchase of a shipping corporation.
Juster is named in the Paradise Papers as a beneficial owner of a Bermuda-based branch of Warburg Pincus, a private equity firm where he was a partner before joining the Trump administration...
Carl Icahn
Icahn, a friend and former adviser to Trump, owns a $250m mining company spread across three tax havens and structured in a way that limits the information it must disclose to US authorities.
The leaks detail how Icahn holds a controlling stake in Ferrous Resources, a Brazilian mining company officially based on the Isle of Man. It in turn owns a pair of holding companies in Luxembourg and Malta, which operate iron mines in Brazil.
All three jurisdictions offer low- or zero-tax regimes for corporations, making them destinations of choice for foreign businesses seeking to legally lower their tax bills. A report in 2015 by Citizens for Tax Justice said Icahn operated 20 subsidiaries in offshore tax havens....
Tom Barrack
The chairman of Trump’s inaugural committee leads a $58bn real estate investment trust that channels some of its profits to the low- or no-tax jurisdictions of Luxembourg, the Cayman Islands and Lebanon.
Barrack, who has described himself as one of the president’s “closest friends for 40 years”, appears in the Paradise Papers through offshore subsidiaries of Colony NorthStar, of which he is CEO...
Jay Clayton
Trump’s SEC chairman received income from a hedge fund based in the Cayman Islands.
Clayton disclosed to the government ethics office before taking up the SEC job that he received income from Mount Kellett Capital Partners (Cayman) LP, the offshore subsidiary of a US hedge fund. A proposed structure chart in the leaked Appleby files shows a complex web of ties that were created between the Cayman Islands offshoot, its head company, and other offshore subsidiaries....
Ben Carson
A biotechnology company headed by Carson, Trump’s housing and urban development (HUD) secretary, set up offshore firms that could have reduced its tax bill.
The Paradise Papers contain files on two subsidiaries of Vaccinogen in Bermuda that date from Carson’s time as chairman of the Baltimore-based biotechnology company. The offshore vehicles were established as holding companies for “intellectual property related to the treatment of cancer and other diseases”, according to the files...
(complete article)
Here are the 5 biggest links connecting Trump to Manafort and Russian money laundering
Brad Reed
30 OCT 2017 AT 11:51 ET
From Raw Story: The Trump White House is claiming victory in the wake of former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort’s indictment on money laundering charges on the grounds that the indictment did not specifically mention Manafort’s work in the Trump campaign in 2016.
However, the nature of the charges against Manafort serves as a basis for establishing links between President Donald Trump and the Russian mob.
Here are the five biggest links that connect Trump, Manafort and Russian organized crime operations.
However, the nature of the charges against Manafort serves as a basis for establishing links between President Donald Trump and the Russian mob.
Here are the five biggest links that connect Trump, Manafort and Russian organized crime operations.
- The indictment against Manafort alleges he was laundering money he earned from his work for a pro-Russian political party in Ukraine. Specifically, the indictment states that, “in order to hide Ukraine payments from United States authorities, from approximately 2006 through at least 2016, Manafort and Gates laundered money through scores of United States and foreign corporations, partnerships and bank accounts.”
- Long before he ran Trump’s campaign, Manafort lived in an apartment in Trump Tower. Manafort first purchased an apartment in Trump Tower in 2006, which WNYC notes was right around the time that his lobbying firm signed a $10 million contract with a Kremlin-linked Russian oligarch named Oleg Deripaska — the same man whom Manafort agreed to give personal briefings about the state of Trump’s presidential campaign to in 2016.
- In 2013, the FBI obtained a search warrant to eavesdrop on what it believed to be a massive Russian money laundering operation — and which also happened to be running out of Trump Tower. As ABC News reported earlier this year, the investigation into the operation led “to a federal grand jury indictment of more than 30 people, including one of the world’s most notorious Russian mafia bosses, Alimzhan Tokhtakhounov.”
- Another figure allegedly involved in the Russian money laundering business is Felix Sater — a longtime Trump associate. Sater’s financial relationship with Trump dates back to at least 2003, when the Trump Organization rented out office space to Sater’s former company. Even though Trump initially tried to distance himself from Sater after news of his criminal past came to light in 2007, he subsequently tapped Sater in 2010 to scout out real estate. This is notable because Sater is reportedly cooperating with an investigation into money laundering that used American properties to help hide money.
- Sater’s company, Bayrock Capital, also operated out of Trump Tower — and may have used Trump properties to launder Russian money. A Bloomberg report from earlier this year reveals that a former Bayrock insider, Jody Kriss, now claims that Sater’s firm was all an elaborate money laundering operation. In 2007, Trump teamed with Bayrock to secure funding for the Trump Soho hotel via FL Group, an Icelandic bank that was regularly used by Russians to launder money.
*IN 1927, 1,000 WHITE-ROBED KLANSMEN RIOTED IN QUEENS. TRUMP'S FATHER WAS ARRESTED IN THAT INCIDENT.
bigtree
From Demo. Underground: Joy Reid @JoyAnnReid 3h3 hours ago
...this story creeps out of the memory hole, and gains new and chilling resonance.
Donald Trump's father was arrested at Ku Klux Klan riot in New York in 1927, records reveal
_____The predication for the Klan to march, according to a flier passed around Jamaica beforehand, was that “Native-born Protestant Americans” were being “assaulted by Roman Catholic police of New York City.” “Liberty and Democracy have been trampled upon,” it continued, “when native-born Protestant Americans dare to organise to protect one flag, the American flag; one school, the public school; and one language, the English language.”
It's not clear from the context what role Fred Trump played in the brawl. The news article simply notes that seven men were arrested in the “near-riot of the parade,” all of whom were represented by the same lawyers. Update: A contemporaneous article from the Daily Star notes that Trump was detained “on a charge of refusing to disperse from a parade when ordered to do so.”
When news of the old report surfaced last year, Donald Trump vehemently denied his father's arrest. “He was never arrested. He has nothing to do with this. This never happened. This is nonsense and it never happened,” he said to the Daily Mail. “This never happened. Never took place. He was never arrested, never convicted, never even charged. It's a completely false, ridiculous story. He was never there! It never happened. Never took place.”
...It's worth noting that Trump's comments came one day after another Klan brawl, this time in Anaheim, Calif. Thirteen people were arrested and three were stabbed after a Klan rally turned violent. And it's worth noting, too, as did Jonathan Chait at New York magazine, that Trump's claim to “know nothing” about white supremacists echoes the language of the 19th-century “Know Nothing” party — a nativist group that supported only Protestants for public office...
read: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/charlottesville-latest-donald-trump-father-fred-arrested-ku-klux-klan-kkk-rally-riot-queens-new-york-a7891701.html
...this story creeps out of the memory hole, and gains new and chilling resonance.
Donald Trump's father was arrested at Ku Klux Klan riot in New York in 1927, records reveal
_____The predication for the Klan to march, according to a flier passed around Jamaica beforehand, was that “Native-born Protestant Americans” were being “assaulted by Roman Catholic police of New York City.” “Liberty and Democracy have been trampled upon,” it continued, “when native-born Protestant Americans dare to organise to protect one flag, the American flag; one school, the public school; and one language, the English language.”
It's not clear from the context what role Fred Trump played in the brawl. The news article simply notes that seven men were arrested in the “near-riot of the parade,” all of whom were represented by the same lawyers. Update: A contemporaneous article from the Daily Star notes that Trump was detained “on a charge of refusing to disperse from a parade when ordered to do so.”
When news of the old report surfaced last year, Donald Trump vehemently denied his father's arrest. “He was never arrested. He has nothing to do with this. This never happened. This is nonsense and it never happened,” he said to the Daily Mail. “This never happened. Never took place. He was never arrested, never convicted, never even charged. It's a completely false, ridiculous story. He was never there! It never happened. Never took place.”
...It's worth noting that Trump's comments came one day after another Klan brawl, this time in Anaheim, Calif. Thirteen people were arrested and three were stabbed after a Klan rally turned violent. And it's worth noting, too, as did Jonathan Chait at New York magazine, that Trump's claim to “know nothing” about white supremacists echoes the language of the 19th-century “Know Nothing” party — a nativist group that supported only Protestants for public office...
read: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/charlottesville-latest-donald-trump-father-fred-arrested-ku-klux-klan-kkk-rally-riot-queens-new-york-a7891701.html
no shit
pbmus -demo. underground
Donald Trump admitted in 2007 that he had invested in Russia
In a deposition in 2007, Trump said something he and his family would later deny repeatedly
MATTHEW ROZSA
From Salon: Pr*sident Donald Trump may want the headaches associated with the Russia scandal to go away, but a new report has drawn attention to yet another controversial aspect of Trump’s relationship with that country’s financial elite.
Although Trump told NBC in May, “I am not involved in Russia,” he admitted in a 2007 deposition that a real estate development firm known as the Bayrock Group had brought Russian investors to Trump Tower to discuss investing in Moscow, according to a report by Bloomberg.
“It’s ridiculous that I wouldn’t be investing in Russia,” Trump said. “Russia is one of the hottest places in the world for investment.”
Bloomberg also reported that one of the principals at Bayrock is businessman Felix Sater, who reportedly has ties to organized crime in both the United States and Russia. Although Trump has repeatedly insisted that he is only passingly acquainted with Sater, former Bayrock employees insist that Sater often met with Trump at his business empire’s New York City headquarters and guided Trump’s children around Moscow.
They also report that Sater is still in contact with the president and some of his advisers. It is worth noting that the Bayrock Group itself also had an office located in Trump Tower.
While the president likes to downplay his business ties to Russia, his son Donald Trump Jr. once admitted to a real estate conference in 2008 that Trump built a tower in Panama for wealthy Russian clients, according to a report by Time.
“Russians make up a pretty disproportionate cross-section of a lot of our assets. We see a lot of money pouring in from Russia,” Trump told the crowd.
Although Trump told NBC in May, “I am not involved in Russia,” he admitted in a 2007 deposition that a real estate development firm known as the Bayrock Group had brought Russian investors to Trump Tower to discuss investing in Moscow, according to a report by Bloomberg.
“It’s ridiculous that I wouldn’t be investing in Russia,” Trump said. “Russia is one of the hottest places in the world for investment.”
Bloomberg also reported that one of the principals at Bayrock is businessman Felix Sater, who reportedly has ties to organized crime in both the United States and Russia. Although Trump has repeatedly insisted that he is only passingly acquainted with Sater, former Bayrock employees insist that Sater often met with Trump at his business empire’s New York City headquarters and guided Trump’s children around Moscow.
They also report that Sater is still in contact with the president and some of his advisers. It is worth noting that the Bayrock Group itself also had an office located in Trump Tower.
While the president likes to downplay his business ties to Russia, his son Donald Trump Jr. once admitted to a real estate conference in 2008 that Trump built a tower in Panama for wealthy Russian clients, according to a report by Time.
“Russians make up a pretty disproportionate cross-section of a lot of our assets. We see a lot of money pouring in from Russia,” Trump told the crowd.
taking the former leader of the free world for a stroll!!
charlyvi - from Demo Underground
On this President's Day, congratulations to James Buchanan on finally moving out of the bottom spot in the presidential rankings.
Thanks to Ignorant Americans, this Loser is now "President"
America's Next GOP Presidential Traitor joining Nixon, Reagan, Bush 1 & 2
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Trump's Cabinet, etc
the trailer trash adminstration
(archives - for description & news of swamp members)
Puerto Rico salutes Trump...
DonViejo
From Demo Underground: Pendejo =
adjective
stupid
estúpido, pendejo, bruto, atontado, estulto, bozal
noun
motherfucker
hijo de puta, pendejo, coño
coward
cobarde, gallina, temeroso, pendejo, asqueroso, rajado
berk
imbécil, idiota, pendejo
Word Origin and History for berk. n. "fool," 1936, abbreviation of Berkshire Hunt (or Berkeley Hunt), rhyming slang for cunt but typically applied only to contemptible persons, not to the body part. This is not an objective, anatomical term, neither does it imply coitus.
adjective
stupid
estúpido, pendejo, bruto, atontado, estulto, bozal
noun
motherfucker
hijo de puta, pendejo, coño
coward
cobarde, gallina, temeroso, pendejo, asqueroso, rajado
berk
imbécil, idiota, pendejo
Word Origin and History for berk. n. "fool," 1936, abbreviation of Berkshire Hunt (or Berkeley Hunt), rhyming slang for cunt but typically applied only to contemptible persons, not to the body part. This is not an objective, anatomical term, neither does it imply coitus.
white house concerns
trump: the "escape from la" pr*sident
PRESIDENT TRUMP:
CHILD MOLESTER, RACIST, SEXIST, CRIMINAL, KLAN SYMPATHIZER, MAFIA ASSOCIATE, TAX FRAUD, FASCIST, RUSSIAN MOLE
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Trump exhibits the same level of gravitas as, say, a spoiled child wearing a cardboard crown from Burger King. His tacky, garish displays of wealth, his clownish stab at a normal head of hair, and his ridiculously ill-fitting suits utterly fail to convey a basic sense of taste, much less gravitas. The other day, for example, Trump referred to third-party candidate Evan McMullin as “Evan McMuffin.” Petty insults like this one (along with “Crooked Hillary,” “Crazy Bernie,” “Lyin’ Ted,” etc.) convey a level of gravitas equal to purple-nurples during recess. And while Trump insists that he’ll be a very, very terrific president and, literally, the greatest jobs president God ever created, no one with a sense of history who believes he’s going to be any of those things.
tough guy!!!
Hillary Weighs In
Demo Underground
John Adams: “Obsta principiis, nip the shoots of arbitrary power in the bud, is the only maxim which can ever preserve the liberties of any people. When the people give way, their deceivers, betrayers, and destroyers press upon them so fast, that there is no resisting afterwards. The nature of the encroachment upon the American constitution is such, as to grow every day more and more encroaching. Like a cancer, it eats faster and faster every hour. The revenue creates pensioners, and the pensioners urge for more revenue. The people grow less steady, spirited, and virtuous, the seekers more numerous and more corrupt, and every day increases the circles of their dependents and expectants, until virtue, integrity, public spirit, simplicity, and frugality, become the objects of ridicule and scorn, and vanity, luxury, foppery, selfishness, meanness, and downright venality swallow up the whole society.”
trump - i never did it
