Mexican Lawyer Markets Trump Toilet Paper

Free advice to Trump

By Michael Smerconish, Inquirer Columnist

Welcome home, Mr. President.  Happy Memorial Day weekend, and congratulations on an international trip free of major faux pas. Almost forgotten is that within minutes of your wheels-up departure from the United States more than a week ago came yet another revelation pertaining to Russia and the election. It remains to be seen whether you can keep some positive momentum going from your recent voyage. Let me help by giving you some unsolicited advice, pro bono. I don’t know if you’re not getting good counsel, or are ignoring the good counsel you are receiving, but I’m going to assume it’s the former.

First, Robert Mueller’s appointment is the official statement of official Washington that if you broke the law, you’re out, one way or another: impeachment, indictment, or cabinet removal under the 25^th Amendment.

I don’t know if you have broken the law, meaning whether you have impeded official investigations, but I don’t agree with you that this is a “witch hunt.” Not when former CIA chief John Brennan last week testified to the House intelligence committee: “I encountered and am aware of information and intelligence that revealed contacts and interactions between Russian officials and U.S. persons involved in the Trump campaign that I was concerned about because of known Russian efforts to suborn such individuals. It raised questions in my mind about whether Russia was able to gain the cooperation of those individuals.”

Brennan aside, there was already enough evidence relating to Michael Flynn and the Russians to warrant the extraordinary act of the appointment of Mueller as special counsel. After all:

You fired the person who was investigating Flynn (and maybe yourself) after you allegedly first asked that investigator (former FBI Director James Comey) for a loyalty pledge over a Jan. 27 one-on-one dinner at the White House, according to the New York Times.

Then two weeks later, on Feb. 14, according to the Times, and allegedly supported by a contemporaneous memo Comey wrote, you dismissed Vice President Pence and Attorney General Jeff Sessions from the Oval Office before asking Comey to stop investigating Flynn by saying, “I hope you can let this go.”

And despite your initial contention that you’d relied on a May 9 memo from Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein that discussed Comey’s handling of the probe into Hillary Clinton, we know from your Comey termination letter of the same date that you very much had Russia on your mind (“While I greatly appreciate you informing me, on three separate occasions, that I am not under investigation…”).

Then in March, according to the Washington Post, you urged Adm. Michael Rogers, the director of the National Security Agency, and Daniel Coats, the director of National Intelligence, to “push back” against an FBI inquiry into possible coordination between Russia and your presidential campaign.

The Post said that both refused and at least one of them, Rogers, had his version recorded in a contemporaneous memo. Further, according to the Post, “…senior White House officials sounded out top intelligence officials about the possibility of intervening directly with Comey to encourage the FBI to drop its probe of Michael Flynn.”

That sounds awfully like President Richard Nixon conspiring with chief of staff H.R. Haldeman to get the CIA to persuade the FBI to stop its probe of Watergate.

And of course, just as you departed for Saudi Arabia, the New York Times reported that you told the Russian foreign minister and ambassador to the United States on May 10 in the Oval Office that Comey was a “nut job,” and that his termination would relieve “great pressure,” a revelation that your White House did not deny in its written response.

Taken together, that sounds like the behavior of someone impeding an official investigation. And you can’t make what has happened go away. Not by tweeting. Not by rallying the base or having your allies in Congress or the conservative media complain.

We’re beyond that now. You need to hire a criminal defense lawyer and follow that lawyer’s advice, which will no doubt include restraint. You also need to engage a political adviser who will stand up to you — and tell you when you are wrong — and you need to follow that advice.

The road ahead is pretty clear: It is nearly certain that the truth will come out. Mueller is a straight-shooter who will get to the bottom of this, and if you committed crimes, you will be removed. But I’m not prejudging you. It’s premature and inappropriate to talk about initiating impeachment.

Even if you get past your legal issues, the way — the only way — to save your presidency is to stop talking about this issue, stop being controlled by impulse and instead be governed by discretion and the law. Assuming you do not become legally entangled, your presidency can be rescued. After all, President Ronald Reagan faced many dark days in his second term in relation to the Iran-contra scandal, but he got through it by focusing on his work, not complaining, and maintaining discipline.

And pretty much the same thing happened with President Bill Clinton, though that scandal was different.

You can pull out of the downward spiral.  But only if you have it in you to stay focused, stay on message, and follow the rules, the law, and good advice.

Michael Smerconish can be heard 9 a.m. to noon on SiriusXM’s POTUS Channel 124. He hosts Smerconish at 9 a.m. Saturdays on CNN.

Government of the Sick Fucks, by the Sick Fucks, and for the Sick Fucks

Posted by Rude One

There is a genre of news story lately that has gotten old really damn fast. It's the "Hey, here's a fucking dumbass who voted for Trump and is now gonna be fucked by him" variety. Essentially, a diligent reporter goes to some shitty place, finds one or more of the aforementioned dumbasses, and gets them to say something along the lines of "Well, Trump's budget and health care plan will leave me dying of cancer in a ditch while my Congress member pisses on me, but I still support my president."

For instance, on CNN, we meet Barbara Puckett of Beattyville, Kentucky, which is the deepest shithole for white people in the nation. Puckett's got sclerosis and is on Social Security disability and food stamps, both of which are on the cutting board in Donald Trump's savage budget. But she's not abandoning her man: ""I am still happy with President Trump," she said.

AP reporters headed out across the country to talk to a spectrum of people, from white idiots in New York to white morons in Georgia to white dolts in Iowa. They all agree that they couldn't give a happy monkey fuck about the stories about Trump and Russia. It's all lies or bullshit, they say. Or you just ignore it, as one Staten Island hairdresser said, "I didn’t want to be depressed. I don’t want to feel that he’s not doing what he said, so I just choose to not listen." A college student there offered his support by saying, "If you’re wishing for him to fail, you’re basically wishing for the pilot of the plane to crash." To which one could point out that if the pilot doesn't know how to fly the plane, all the wishing in the world ain't gonna help you.

(To be vaguely fair, one of the Staten Islanders did get off a decent joke. When asked if anything could turn him against Trump, a man replied, "If he gases his own people, yeah, I would be against him," which, c'mon, is kind of funny. Well, until Trump starts gassing Brooklyn.)

Back in April, Nicholas Kristof wrote about a whole bunch of Americans who will suffer if even a fraction of Trump's budget were to be passed (which, let's face it, is the goal in putting out such a nut-punchingly vicious document). They include a 70-year-old woman in Tulsa, Oklahoma, who is dependent on a job from the Senior Community Service Employment Program, which Trump has proposed slashing. She voted for the president because "he was talking about getting rid of those illegals," of course. If the program is cut, she said, "I’ll sit home and die."

But like almost everyone in these stories, she says she would vote for Trump in 2020. That's just sick. These are sick fucks who don't care if the god they worship wants to kill them.

The best mark in a con is the kind who doesn't believe they've been conned, even when the con is revealed. Either they are so embarrassed that it's easier just to double down on the delusion or they're that fucking stupid. And, in the end, it doesn't matter because they'll line up to be fleeced again.

Another genre of news story is of the wishful thinking variety. They say things like "Trump's Budget Cuts Target His Voters" or "Wait Until Trump's Supporters See the Size of the Dildo He's Fucking Them With" or "Man, Grandpa's Gonna Be Mad When He Catches Trump Stabbing His Grandkids." And they all posit a fantasy that Trump will cross some line, be it with health care or other cuts, or even in his canoodling with Russia, that will make his followers turn against him.

It's the same sort of hoping without any evidence that got us Trump in the first place. I've said it before: Fuck the dumbasses. The hell with the sick fucks. Don't court them. Don't count on them. Build up the outreach to the people who didn't vote. And then get elected and pass programs that help the dumbasses and everyone else.

Great news for African American voters in North Carolina!

Supreme Court strikes down North Carolina congressional district maps

Defeated Pro-Trump Democratic Mayor Is Down In The Dumps

By Alex Seitz-Wald 

Last year, the mayor of a seen-better-days steel town in Western Pennsylvania became the poster child of President Donald Trump's appeal to white working-class Democrats. But he'll soon be out of work after a 26 year old assistant band director at the local high school beat him in a Democratic primary.

Monessen Mayor Louis Mavrakis' outspoken support for Trump turned him into a media sensation.

The 79 year old former union organizer helped decode Trump's appeal in the Rust Belt on Sunday political talk shows and for major newspapers, where he was quoted saying things like: "If ISIS was to come to Monessen, they'd keep on going. They'd say someone already bombed the goddamn place."

Trump himself made a high-profile visit to Monessen, a town of just 7,500, on Mavrakis' invitation.

Trump stood in front of a wall of recycled trash to slam free-trade policies and promised to bring back good-paying coal mining and steel-making jobs.

In this undated image, Lou Mavrakis is shown. Mavrakis recently lost his incumbent bid for the mayoral race of Monessen, PA. Courtesy Observer-Reporter

But Mavrakis' coup in getting Trump to town also helped lead to his downfall.

When a group of residents protested his visit, they were led by Matt Shorraw, a local community activist whose family has been in the town for generations.

"What bothered me the most was Trump's visit got our mayor a lot of press, but he basically used that press to say our city is a dump," Shorraw told NBC News.

Shorraw resolved to run for mayor, even though he had never held public office and was only in his mid-20's.

On Tuesday, he narrowly defeated Mavrakis in the Democratic primary. And with no Republican on the ballot in November, Shorraw is all but guaranteed to be the youngest mayor in the town's history.

In this undated image, Matthew Shorraw is shown. Shorraw recently won the mayoral race for town of Monessen, PA. Courtesy Observer-Reporter

"I think a bit of the Trump phenomenon was that people wanted something completely different. And I think that might have been the case in Monessen, too, with me," said Shorraw.

Biff Rendar, a local Democratic activist who supported Shorraw, said "you cannot find two more opposite people" than Shorraw and Mavrakis.

In photos and videos posted on his campaign's website, Shorraw looks more like the stereotype of a Brooklyn hipster than a Rust Belt worker. His announcement video features him wearing a plaid shirt and blazer with thick-rimmed plastic glasses.

But he got noticed for the community projects he has taken on since he was 18, such as revitalizing an amphitheater. It demonstrated an optimism for the town that voters found refreshing, said Rendar.

The Westmoreland Democratic Party broke its longstanding precedent of not endorsing in primaries in order to back Shorraw after Mavrakis brought Trump to town.

"Mavrakis was already lost to us," said Lorraine Petrosky, the party chairwoman.

‘People Here Think Trump Is A Laughingstock’

On Trump's ill-timed world tour.

By Susan B. Glasser

May 19, 2017

“Chaos.”
“Circus.”
“Laughingstock.”

Those were just a few of the comments I heard in Berlin this week from senior European officials trying to make sense of the meltdown in Washington at just the moment when a politically imploding President Trump embarks on what he called “my big foreign trip” in this morning’s kickoff tweet.

For months, the American president has raised unprecedented questions about the future of the American-led alliance that has persisted since the end of World War II. He has slagged off NATO, evinced skepticism about the European Union, cheered for like-minded right-wing populists, boosted antidemocratic strongmen like Russia’s Vladimir Putin and vowed to rip up free trade deals—and Europe’s political class has been outraged, confused and even terrified.

Trump’s tumultuous last two weeks—from firing his FBI director to allegedly sharing highly classified information with Russian officials even as a formidable special counsel was being named to investigate his campaign team’s possible collusion with the Kremlin—has them still confused about his foreign policy. But now they are more appalled than afraid of the man with whom they have no choice but to partner.
 

Many I spoke with said they had made a fundamental mistake of viewing Trump primarily as an ideologue with whom they disagreed rather than what he increasingly appears to be: an ill-prepared newcomer to the world stage, with uninformed views and a largely untested team that will now be sorely tried by a 9-day, 5-stop world tour that would be wildly ambitious even for a seasoned global leader.

“People are less worried than they were six weeks ago, less afraid,” a senior German government official with extensive experience in the United States told me. “Now they see the clownish nature.” Or, as another German said on the sidelines of a meeting here devoted to taking stock of 70 years of U.S.-German relations, “People here think Trump is a laughingstock.”
 

“The dominant reaction to Trump right now is mockery,” Jacob Heilbrunn, the editor of the conservative journal the National Interest, told the meeting at the German Foreign Office here while moderating a panel on Trump’s foreign policy that dealt heavily on the difficulty of divining an actual policy amid the spectacle. Heilbrunn, whose publication hosted Trump’s inaugural foreign policy speech in Washington during last year’s campaign, used the ‘L’ word too. “The Trump administration is becoming an international laughingstock.” Michael Werz, a German expert from the liberal U.S. think tank Center for American Progress, agreed, adding he was struck by “how rapidly the American brand is depreciating over the last 20 weeks.”

Of course, Americans have had presidential scandals before, and Europe has a long history of substantive clashes with U.S. presidents over everything from the Vietnam war and confronting the Soviets to the widely opposed 2003 invasion of Iraq.

Even Trump flying off on a poorly timed international tour isn’t entirely unfamiliar territory: Many embattled U.S. leaders have hit the road for a dose of statesman-like pageantry, red-carpet receptions and global superpower-style pomp to compensate for pressing investigations and congressional uproar back home. Bill Clinton toured Russia and Northern Ireland after testifying to the grand jury in the Monica Lewinsky affair and was in Israel when he learned the House of Representatives had the votes to impeach him. Ronald Reagan summited with Mikhail Gorbachev as the congressional Iran-Contra hearings threatened to derail his second-term agenda.

But Trump’s tribulations have confounded the world, and especially America’s closest allies here in Europe, in a whole different way. Never has a U.S. president flailed so early in his tenure at a time when he is still such an unknown quantity in the world. In Trump’s case, he will arrive in a skeptical Europe with an inexperienced or nonexistent staff appointed to deal with global problems and a record of wildly contradictory statements even on matters of core principle. Does he think NATO is still “obsolete” or not? Is he prepared to offer the Russians anything more than the symbolism of his recent, chummy Oval Office visit with its foreign minister? Want to blow up carefully negotiated agreements with Europe on climate change and trade?

No one knows.

***

 

When European diplomats meet these days, they often swap stories about Trump—and how to manage their volatile new ally. “The president of the United States has a 12-second attention span,” NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg told a former senior official in April after meeting Trump in the Oval Office. Not only that, this person told me, the president seemed unprepared and ill-informed, turning the conversation to North Korea and apparently unaware that NATO is not a part of the ongoing North Korea saga.

Such anecdotes have shaped how Europe’s anxious leaders are preparing for Trump’s trip this week – he will come to Brussels for a NATO session on Thursday—and for another one planned for early July, when he visits Germany for a G-20 summit at which he is expected to meet Putin face to face for the first time. 

Some of the reported preparations for the NATO session in Brussels this week suggest just how much the volatile-clown theory of the American president has now taken hold.

NATO has downgraded the May 25 session to a meeting from a summit and will hold only a dinner to minimize the chances of a Trump eruption. Leaders have been told to hold normally windy remarks to just two to four minutes to keep Trump’s attention. They are even preparing to consider a “deliverable” to Trump of having NATO officially join the U.S.-led coalition fighting the Islamic State in Syria, as Trump has said his priority is getting NATO to do more in combating terrorism. 

 

“It’s a phony deliverable to give to Trump, a Twitter deliverable,” said a former senior U.S. official, pointing out that the individual NATO member states are already members of that coalition.

A Trump photo-op with a chunk of the World Trade Center has been choreographed in hopes of convincing the president who called NATO “obsolete” to reaffirm the basic principles of an organization committed to the mutual security of its members. The World Trade Center wreckage is part of a memorial to the victims of the 9/11 attacks at NATO’s new headquarters that Trump is set to officially open (though the building is not in fact finished), and NATO observers hope he will use the occasion to finally endorse the principle in Article V of the NATO Treaty that requires countries to treat an attack on one NATO country as an attack on all – an article that has only been invoked once in the organization’s history: after 9/11. “The purpose of the 9/11 memorial opening is to try to get Trump to mention the Article V commitment, since how can he get around it? It’s the only time Article V was ever used,” the former official said.

This is viewed as an especially crucial moment for Trump to do so, given his stated goal of working more closely with Russia even as Russia threatens neighboring states like the three Baltic countries that are now NATO members. But Trump has resisted it, and as Thomas Wright of the Brookings Institution has reported, “Trump’s failure to endorse Article V is not an oversight. Members of his cabinet have unsuccessfully tried to insert this language into his remarks, including at his meeting with Stoltenberg.”

Now, they are finally hoping he will do so – but have no promise.

No promises might well be the theme of Trump’s trip. Consider Trump’s original campaign-trail threat to blow up NATO if member states don’t live up to their commitment to put 2 percent of the budget into defense; even that, it appears, might now might be back on the table. Trump has publicly claimed victory on that score, crowing that he had already forced allies to comply, but in fact, few countries have actually raised their spending – and an anonymous senior White House official told a reporter this week that “he is not going to stay in NATO if NATO does not make a lot more progress.”

No doubt jittery officials have reason to be nervous. In an interview as Trump departed, Stoltenberg told Bloomberg TV that “Trump has clearly stated to me in several conversations … that he’s strongly committed to NATO.” As for Thursday’s meeting in Brussels? “I hope and expect that he will reiterate his strong commitment to NATO.”

But will he? And what would it mean if he does?

The question of Donald Trump’s real views on NATO might not be as entertaining as the political spectacle unfolding in Washington, but the answer is just as uncertain.

***

 

On Tuesday night, Germany Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel opened the conference on U.S.-German relations, sponsored by the American Council on Germany and the Atlantik-Brucke think tank here, with a lengthy, serious speech on the Marshall Plan’s legacy, a paean to American leadership in Europe and a rebuttal to Trump’s “America First” mantra.

“We associate the United States with the idea of freedom and democracy,” he said, before warning of the erosion of the global order that America made. “A recalibration of the world is in full swing.”

An hour later, former Democratic National Committee chair Donna Brazile was taking questions over dinner from a largely German group of current and former government officials and international business leaders.

What did they want to know? 

How does impeachment work? Did James Comey’s last-minute reopening of the Clinton investigation swing the election to Trump? Did the Russians? Oh, and once again: Will Trump be impeached? 

“Well, people seem to think he’s just going to be removed. I don’t know,” Brazile said, after telling the Europeans that she thought Democrats, not Russians or the ousted FBI director, bore more blame for the Trump victory. “He’s the president, he was elected.” Brazile said she prayed for Trump in church. “I want my president to succeed,” she said, before adding, “But no one is above the law.”

A few minutes after she finished speaking, the New York Times posted the latest revelation of a week filled with them: that Comey had kept contemporaneous notes of his meetings with Trump, including the allegation that the president asked him to shut down the investigation of his first national security adviser, Michael Flynn.

The Europeans, just like their American counterparts, were glued to their phones.

Susan B. Glasser is POLITICO’s chief international affairs columnist. Her new podcast, The Global Politico, comes out Mondays. Subscribe here. Follow her on Twitter @sbg1.

If you work for Trump, it's time to quit

After the Comey firing and the Russia intel leak, the I’m-taking-one-for-the-team ship has sailed.

By Rick Wilson May 18 at 6:00 AM

 

Rick Wilson is a Republican consultant and a Daily Beast columnist.

 

I’ve been a Republican political consultant for almost 30 years, and I’ve dispensed a lot of private advice. But now it’s time for me to reach out publicly to my fellow Republicans working in the Trump administration.

We really need to talk.

Whether you’re a 20-something fresh off the campaign trail, or a seasoned Washington insider serving in the Cabinet, by now you’re painfully aware that you’re not making America great again; you’re barely making it to the end of the daily news cycle before your verbally incontinent boss, the putative leader of the free world, once again steers the proverbial car into a ditch. On every front, you’re faced with legal, political and moral hazards. The president’s job, and yours, is a lot harder than it looked, and you know the problem originates in the Oval Office.

[I was fired for criticizing Trump. Getting rid of people like me hurts his agenda.]

You hate that people are shying away from the administration jobs in droves: Just this week, in rapid succession, both Sen. John Cornyn and Rep. Trey Gowdy withdrew their names from consideration as replacements for former FBI Director James Comey, the guy your boss fired. Whatever department you’re in, it’s a safe bet that it’s a whispering graveyard of empty appointments and unfilled jobs.

I know: Many of you serving in Cabinet, sub-Cabinet and White House roles joined Team Trump in good faith, believing you could help steady the ship, smooth the rough edges and, just maybe, put some conservative policy wins up on the board. You could see that President Trump’s undisciplined style was risky, but you hoped the big show playing over at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. would provide you with cover to work steadily and enthusiastically on the administration’s legislative priorities.

Some of you even bought into the ‘Merica First new nationalism. Many of you quietly assured friends in the Washington ecosystem that Trump would settle into his job — after all, just a few days after taking office, he assured us, “I can be the most presidential person ever.”

You figured Trump would turn his political capital into big wins, and that his lack of interest in policy details would let you and your friends in Congress set the agenda. Sure, you knew you’d have to feed Trump’s ego and let him take a victory lap after every success, but you also thought you might claim a smidgen of credit for a popular infrastructure bill, a big tax cut, repeal of Obamacare or a host of other “easy” lifts. Because we’re all ambitious, right? It’s okay to admit it.

Instead, your president botched Trumpcare 1.0 and contributed little as House Speaker Paul Ryan managed to ram public-relations nightmare, Trumpcare 2.0, through the House at the cost of much political blood and treasure. Instead, Trump’s fumbles have left many members of Congress ducking town hall meetings like they’re in the Witness Protection Program. The DOA tax bill and the rest of Trump’s agenda are deader and more pungent than six-day-old fish. Maybe your particular bureau is still afloat, but you’re really not doing much except playing defense and wondering which of your colleagues is leaking to The Washington Post.

You learned quickly that your job isn’t actually to serve the nation, manage your agency or fulfill the role you ostensibly play according to the White House org chart. In reality, you spend most of your time fluffing Trump’s ego. Either that or you’re making excuses for not being a more aggressive suck-up. If you’ve been ordained to appear on television as an administration surrogate, you know by now that your task isn’t to advocate for your agency or issue, but to lavish the president with praise.

[I support Trump, but firing Comey was wrong]

Now, you see the daily train wreck; you see a White House in turmoil and a president drawing an ever-tighter circle of family and corporate vassals around himself. You worry that the scandals and legal troubles, that have been rumbling on the horizon like a summer thunderstorm, are drawing nearer. You should worry.

Every day you get up, slide into the seat of your Prius or Tahoe (and if you’re senior enough, exchange a few polite words with your driver) and start checking Twitter. Whatever it is that you’re feeling, it doesn’t feel anything like Morning in America. It feels like some faraway kleptocracy where the center hasn’t held, the airfield and radio station have fallen to the rebels, and the Maximum Leader is holed up in his secret bunker waiting for the other shoe to drop.

Soon (and by soon, I mean now) you’ll have to make a choice. You’ll have to decide if I’m here to help has morphed into I’m helping this president dismantle the republic. In D.C., principle is as rare as hen’s teeth, but, GOP friends, I’m here to help you.

You already know you can’t save the president because he doesn’t want to be saved. You already know there’s not another, better version of Trump getting ready to show up. You’re smart. You’re loyal. You’re sniffing the wind like a gazelle, nose filled with the scents of predators. You don’t want to break from the pack too soon, but there’s greater risk in waiting too long.

When regimes collapse, dead-enders are the most fascinating to watch — the ones who end up with the profitable concessions and sought-after mistresses. You know already, though, that’s probably not you. So, when this regime falls, ask yourself, do you want to be among those who said not me, or do you want to go out like a Ba’ath Party generalissimo?

Sticking with Trump to the bitter end and pretending the unfolding chaos is just “fake news” won’t save your reputation as the walls close in. It won’t ease the judgment of history. It won’t do anything to polish up your future Wikipedia entry.

Cutting ties with a man who is destructive to our values, profoundly divisive, contemptuous of the rule of law and incontrovertibly unfit to serve in the highest office in the land just might. Do it now.

Stop giving Trump cover for leaking high level intel to the Russians!

By denbot

He has used subterfuge many times in the past, including the negotiations leading to his acquisition of Mar a Lago. He knows what a secret is, and the value of keeping them close to his vest.

He is not blathering out shit simply because he's a clueless asshole. Since almost to the moment the candidate Trump had access to classified briefings, the Russians have been privy to them. If you doubt me, ask the poor fuck who had a bag dropped over his head during an FSB meeting in Moscow right after Trump's very first intel briefing.

He is a fucking traitor and he knows exactly what he is doing!

To All Elected Republicans...

By NanceGreggs

Last year, you nominated, supported, and ultimately elected Donald Trump.

Throughout his campaign, Trump’s statements and behavior made it abundantly clear that he was unfit for the office of the presidency.

Had there been any doubt in your mind about his qualifications at that at the time, certainly you have come to know that now-president Trump is a liar, is ignorant of how the government operates, is using his office to enrich himself and his family, and whose incoherent “tweets” and public statements are demonstrative of mental instability.

Donald Trump’s closest advisors are under investigation for possible collusion with our enemy, Russia, in order to undermine our election process – an investigation that possibly could point to the involvement of Trump himself. And Trump’s response to these extremely serious allegations has been to call them a “hoax” based on “fake news”. He has done everything in his power to derail said investigations, and has fired those who have shown any determination to get to the facts of the matter.

Trump’s firing of James Comey – the man who was heading-up that investigation – is, for all intents and purposes, a de facto admission of guilt. Any president wrongly accused of colluding with our sworn enemy would be anxious to clear his name, and the names of his associates, by fully cooperating with any investigation into his and their behavior. Instead, this president has done everything possible to thwart any attempts to uncover the truth, and the underlying facts that support that truth.

The idea that Trump fired Comey due to the very things that Trump praised him for – i.e. the way Comey handled the HRC emails – is simply not credible. All politics aside, it defies common sense. It is an obvious attempt to waylay any investigation that would serve to prove the guilt of this president and his cohorts – which one could clearly interpret as an admission of guilt. And many of us see it as exactly that.

Now is the time for all good men to come to the aid – not of their party, but the aid of the democracy they have sworn to serve and protect. Now is the time for Republicans to stop defending “alternative facts”, and start acknowledging that the man they put in the Oval Office is deliberately shutting down any attempts to look into his and his colleagues’ ties to Russia, and their possible collusion with a foreign adversarial government to undermine our own government.

Now is the time for ALL citizens, regardless of party affiliation, to stand up for our country, for the rule of law that guides us, for the Constitution that defines us.

You are either on the side of what is morally and ethically right – or you are on the side of a man who is determined to abuse the power of his office in order to silence those who are raising legitimate questions about his involvement in collusion with our sworn enemy.

You are either on the side of your countrymen who want answers to that question, or you are on the side of a man who has repeatedly refused to answer that question.

You are either on the side of the citizens you have sworn to serve and protect, and whose interests you were elected to represent, or you are on the side of a man who is clearly determined to quash any facts that may point to his own guilt or that of his colleagues.

The ball is in your court – and it is a big fuckin’ ball. If you choose to defend your incompetent, proven liar of a president rather than stand up for your fellow citizens, that’s on you. If you persist in aiding and abetting a man who is taking every step possible to stop any investigations into his own actions and those of his colleagues, that’s on you.

The midterm elections will soon be upon us. Many of you will be out of office as a direct result of your defense of the Idiot-in-Chief, and your refusal to acknowledge his efforts to divert attention away from any facts that raise questions about his involvement in collusion with the Russians.

And don’t believe for a second that voters are unaware of your own collusion with the Russians, by virtue of your insistence that any investigation into your boy’s ties thereto should be shut down.

This isn’t over. Not by a long-shot. Your boy will be brought down – and you will be brought down with him.

Now is your last chance to stand up for your country. And all of us - Democrats and Republicans alike - will be watching whether you do or you don’t.

Why The Sally Yates Hearing Was Very Bad News For The Trump White House

The president just lost his favorite piece of spin for countering the Russia scandal.

By David Corn May 8, 2017 5:39 PM

Carolyn Kaster/AP

The much-anticipated Senate hearing on Monday afternoon with former acting attorney general Sally Yates and former director of national intelligence James Clapper confirmed an important point: the Russia story still poses tremendous trouble for President Donald Trump and his crew.

Yates recounted a disturbing tale. She recalled that on January 26, she requested and received a meeting with Don McGahn, Trump's White House counsel. At the time, Vice President Mike Pence and other White House officials were saying that ret. Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, Trump's national security adviser, had not spoken the month before with the Russian ambassador to the United States, Sergey Kislyak, about the sanctions then-President Barack Obama had imposed on the Russians as punishment for Moscow's meddling in the 2016 presidential campaign. Yates' Justice Department had evidence—presumably intercepts of Flynn's communications with Kislyak—that showed this assertion was flat-out false.

At that meeting, Yates shared two pressing concerns with McGahn: that Flynn had lied to the vice president and that Flynn could now be blackmailed by the Russians because they knew he had lied about his conversations with Kislyak. As Yates told the members of the Senate subcommittee on crime and terrorism, "To state the obvious: you don't want your national security adviser compromised by the Russians." She and McGahn also discussed whether Flynn had violated any laws.

The next day, McGahn asked Yates to return to the White House, and they had another discussion. According to Yates, McGahn asked whether it would interfere with the FBI's ongoing investigation of Flynn if the White House took action regarding this matter. No, Yates said she told him. The FBI had already interviewed Flynn. And Yates explained to the senators that she had assumed that the White House would not sit on the information she presented McGahn and do nothing.

But that's what the White House did. McGahn in that second meeting did ask if the White House could review the evidence the Justice Department had. She agreed to make it available. (Yates testified that she did not know whether this material was ever reviewed by the White House. She was fired at that point because she would not support Trump's Muslim travel ban.) Whether McGahn examined that evidence about Flynn, the White House did not take action against him. It stood by Flynn. He remained in the job, hiring staff for the National Security Council and participating in key policy decision-making.

On February 9, the Washington Post revealed that Flynn had indeed spoken with Kislyak about the sanctions. And still the Trump White House backed him up. Four days later, Kellyanne Conway, a top Trump White House official, declared that Trump still had "full confidence" in Flynn. The next day—as a media firestorm continued—Trump fired him. Still, the day after he canned Flynn, Trump declared, "Gen. Flynn is a wonderful man. I think he has been treated very, very unfairly by the media, as I call it, the fake media in many cases. And I think it is really a sad thing that he was treated so badly." Trump displayed no concern about Flynn's misconduct.

The conclusion from Yates' testimony was clear: Trump didn't dump Flynn until the Kislyak matter became a public scandal and embarrassment. The Justice Department warning—hey, your national security adviser could be compromised by the foreign government that just intervened in the American presidential campaign—appeared to have had no impact on Trump's actions regarding Flynn. Imagine what Republicans would say if a President Hillary Clinton retained as national security adviser a person who could be blackmailed by Moscow.

The subcommittee's hearing was also inconvenient for Trump and his supporters on another key topic: it destroyed one of their favorite talking points.

On March 5, Clapper was interviewed by NBC News' Chuck Todd on Meet the Press and asked if there was any evidence of collusion between members of the Trump campaign and the Russians. "Not to my knowledge," Clapper replied. Since then, Trump and his champions have cited Clapper to say there is no there there with the Russia story. Trump on March 20 tweeted, "James Clapper and others stated that there is no evidence Potus colluded with Russia. The story is FAKE NEWS and everyone knows it!" White House press secretary Sean Spicer has repeatedly deployed this Clapper statement to insist there was no collusion.

At Monday's hearing, Clapper pulled this rug out from under the White House and its comrades. He noted that it was standard policy for the FBI not to share with him details about ongoing counterintelligence investigations. And he said he had not been aware of the FBI's investigation of contacts between Trump associates and Russia that FBI director James Comey revealed weeks ago at a House intelligence committee hearing. Consequently, when Clapper told Todd that he was not familiar with any evidence of Trump-Russia collusion, he was speaking accurately. But he essentially told the Senate subcommittee that he was not in a position to know for certain. This piece of spin should now be buried. Trump can no longer hide behind this one Clapper statement.

Clapper also dropped another piece of information disquieting for the Trump camp. Last month, the Guardian reported that British intelligence in late 2015 collected intelligence on suspicious interactions between Trump associates and known or suspected Russian agents and passed this information to to the United States "as part of a routine exchange of information." Asked about this report, Clapper said it was "accurate." He added, "The specifics are quite sensitive." This may well have been the first public confirmation from an intelligence community leader that US intelligence agencies have possessed secret information about ties between Trump's circle and Moscow. (Comey testified that the FBI's counterintelligence investigation of links between Trump associates and Russian began in late July 2016.)

So this hearing indicated that the Trump White House protected a national security adviser who lied and who could be compromised by Moscow, that Trump can no longer cite Clapper to claim there was no collusion, and that US intelligence had sensitive information on interactions between Trump associates and possible Russian agents as early as late 2015. Still, most of the Republicans on the panel focused on leaks and "unmasking"—not the main issues at hand. They collectively pounded more on Yates for her action regarding the Muslim travel ban than on Moscow for its covert operation to subvert the 2016 election to help Trump.

This Senate subcommittee, which is chaired by Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), is not mounting a full investigation comparable to the inquiry being conducted by the Senate intelligence committee (and presumably the hobbled House intelligence committee). It has far less staff, and its jurisdiction is limited. But this hearing demonstrated that serious inquiry can expand the public knowledge of the Trump-Russia scandal—and that there remains much more to examine and unearth.

This Monologue Goes Out To You, Mr. Trump

'Face the Nation's' 'John Dickerson had the willpower to ignore the Trump's insults during their conversation in the White House. Luckily, Stephen doesn't have that same constraint.

In Brief: Pricks and the Wall

Posted by Rude One

Even though President Donald Trump has rolled over on his back and surrendered on funding for the Great Wall of Stupid on the Mexican border for now, every day, he or his administration or some damn surrogate is out there telling us how that wall will end illegal drug importation, human trafficking, undocumented immigration, and, hell, psoriasis. And every day, I get some yutz emailing or messaging me to tell me how full of shit I am because I don't want a wall to end the crisis of opioid addiction. Putting aside that, except for heroin, most opioids are from prescription meds, every one of these people is lying and/or dumb.

For one thing, despite the fondest wishes of Rep. Steve King, drugs ain't getting into the United States strapped to the luscious cantaloupe calves of immigrants. Here's how it happens, according to a 2015 report from the DEA: "Mexican criminal networks 'transport the bulk of their goods over the Southwest Border through ports of entry (POEs) using passenger vehicles or tractor trailers.' In passenger vehicles, the drugs may be held in secret compartments; while in tractor trailers, the drugs are often comingled with other legitimate goods. Less commonly used methods to move drugs include smuggling them through crossborder underground tunnels and on commercial cargo trains, small boats, and ultralight aircraft."

You got it? The drugs come in by vehicles through the goddamn border wall that's already there. More wall ain't gonna stop that. Or drones. Or tunnels. Or boats. Walls don't work that way. Say it together: The wall won't do shit to stop drugs. It's not even worth a talking point.

And while a big wall might slow human trafficking for at least a brief period, one thing is for damn sure, and that's that Trump's deportation policies are hurting the effort to stop human trafficking. Yeah, if you might be deported for going to the cops to report on sex slaves in your neighborhood, you'll probably stay silent so you're not ripped away from your family with a hearty "thanks" from the United States government.

In his ad for Trump steaks, the future president promised, "Believe me, I understand steaks." The ad shows a number of the beef slabs, and, when they're cut open, they are inevitably medium rare. Not a single steak is shown well-done, which is how Trump is said to prefer his steak, because if he did show them that way, all grey and dry, no one would trust the person flogging the steaks.

Trump's dishonesty is part and parcel of his pitchman patter. If he's gonna build a wall, then that motherfucker is gonna be the wall of your dreams, man. Not a boondoggle of epic proportions. And Trump's gonna build it because he is one egotistical dickhead. About the Trump Taj Mahal, he said, "Nobody thought it could be built. That was the biggest risk - just getting it built. But I love proving people wrong." Yeah, he got to say it got off the ground, but so did the makers of the Hindenburg.

Obama Gives Finger To Country—Takes $400,000 From Wall Street

The Jimmy Dore Show is a hilarious and irreverent take on news, politics and culture featuring Jimmy Dore, a professional stand up comedian, author and podcaster.

With over 5 million downloads on iTunes, the show is also broadcast on KPFK stations throughout the country.

It is part of the Young Turks Network-- the largest online news show in the world.

Trump Son In Law Jared Kushner Was Just Told To Lawyer Up Because He Committed A Crime

Rep. Ted Lieu (D-CA) told Trump son in law Jared Kushner that he better hire a lawyer, because he committed a crime when he lied about having contacts with foreign governments on his security clearance form.

http://www.politicususa.com/2017/04/25/trump-son-law-jared-kushner-told-lawyer-committed-crime.html

Marijuana activists will pass out thousands of joints to members of Congress near Capitol Hill on 4/20

BY Chris Sommerfeldt

NEW YORK DAILY NEWS

Updated: Thursday, April 20, 2017, 4:56 AM

A volunteer takes a smoke break after he and friends rolled hundreds of marijuana joints last Thursday in preparation of the 4/20 Capitol Hill event. 

(PAUL J. RICHARDS/AFP/Getty Images)

Capitol Hill is about to get a bit hazy.

Congressional Democrats and Republicans will be given the opportunity to bake out a “Joint Session” of Congress on Thursday, as Americans across the nation celebrate the unofficial weed-smoking holiday known as 4/20.

Members of DCMJ, a pro-cannabis activist group, plans to camp out near Capitol Hill to puff-puff-pass out at least 1,000 free marijuana joints to members of Congress, congressional staffers, interns and credentialed members of the press. The group offers to give out two joints per person, as long as the tokers are older than 21.

Since state law allows D.C. residents to possess, grow and give away marijuana, the group will most likely be allowed to carry out the pot-smoking event without obstruction.

Sessions calls for return to 'just say no' policy, slams pot use

The 4/20 event will kick off at "high noon."

(DCMJ)

“Americans don’t want a crackdown on legal cannabis — they want Congress to end cannabis prohibition once and for all,” Adam Eidinger, a co-founder of DCMJ, said in a statement. “Giving adults access to cannabis and individuals and small business owners legal protection in all 50 states is what the American people have been asking for — just take one look at last year’s election.”

The smoking stunt is meant to highlight the Rohrabacher-Farr amendment, which prohibits federal authorities from interfering with D.C. cannabis laws. The amendment is set to expire on April 28, and DCMJ hopes that its joint-giveaway will compel members of Congress to consider renewing the amendment.

The group also hopes that the “Joint Session” will butter up members of Congress enough for them to pass a full-on federal legalization of recreational cannabis.

DCMJ volounteers rolled hundreds of joints last Thursday.

(PAUL J. RICHARDS/AFP/Getty Images)

But, considering recent statements by Trump administration officials, DCMJ might be out of luck.

AG Jeff Sessions believes violence surrounds marijuana
 
“Let me be clear about marijuana,” Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly said during a speech at George Washington University on Tuesday. “It is a potentially dangerous gateway drug that frequently leads to the use of harder drugs…Its use and possession is against federal law and until the law is changed by the U.S. Congress we in DHS are sworn to uphold all the laws on the books.”

Yet, Kelly’s comments come off as relatively lenient once contrasted against ones made by attorney general Jeff Sessions.

Some of the joints rolled by DCMJ volounteers. 

(PAUL J. RICHARDS/AFP/Getty Images)

The 70 year old head of the Justice Department has spoken favorably of bringing back the controversial Reagan-era war on drugs, and has also suggested that he wants to roll back medical marijuana legislation.

While serving as a senator of Alabama, Sessions infamously said that he was "OK" with the Ku Klux Klan

Bill O'Reilly Has A Lot Of Time To Visit Sylvia's Restaurant Now...

Bill O'Reilly Is Out at Fox - African Americans Should Watch For Who is Next 

Trump is starting to show his true colors on why he ran for President.

By shockey80

From the very beginning many of us saw right through this SOB. Trump made a big pivot last week. Trump is not extremely smart , but he is sly as a fox.

Trump pushed Bannon to the side. Why? He got what he wanted from him. Bannon can't help trump with his main goal. To enrich himself and people like him. He wants giant tax cuts for the rich and he wants to deregulate business. Deregulate the banks, the real estate market. Trump wants to build towers and resorts with his name on it around the world. I don't think trump will get rid of Bannon completely, because he made need him again to keep their dumb ass base happy.

Goldman Sachs is now in the Whitehouse helping trump. Trump made his move. He is now doing what he always wanted to do. They are going to rig the game. Legalized corruption. Trickle down. Screw the working man.

Trump never cared about the working man. He never cared about healthcare. Sometimes when trump lies the truth slips out. He told us why he wanted to pass a so called healthcare bill. He said it would make tax reform easier. He wants to save money by throwing millions of Americans off of medicaid and by taking away their Obamacare.

Trump has already started to deregulate everything he can by executive order. There is a lot more to come.

Trump is a very evil person. He uses people to get what he wants and then tosses them away. He turns on people if he feels they are not completely loyal. He is driven by greed. He ran for president to enrich himself. He is now putting in a system that will help him do just that.

There is a reason trump did not show his taxes. Trump must of took a big hit in 2008 when the real estate market crashed. He must of hated Obama for putting in tough regulations that made it harder for corrupt people like trump to do business. There may be another reason trump ran for president. Revenge. Narcissists blame people for there failures.

So, while everyone is watching trump drop bombs, having fake meetings with labor, listening to his tweets. He and his Goldman Sachs buddies are rigging the game and they are going to bleed us dry.

Ex-MI6 Chief: Trump Borrowed Money from Russia

The former head of MI6 has said Donald Trump borrowed money from Russia for his business during the 2008 financial crisis.

Richard Dearlove told Prospect Magazine that "what lingers for Trump may be what deals - on what terms - he did after the financial crisis of 2008 to borrow Russian money" when other banks and lenders would not risk the money, given Trump's history of bankruptcy.

Dearlove alleged the money was used by Trump to prop up his real estate empire, which was hit hard by the financial crisis.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics/richard-dearlove-mi6-trump-russia-money-2008-financial-crisis-us-election-a7684341.html

Democrats Abandon Winnable Seat In Kansas

The Jimmy Dore Show is a hilarious and irreverent take on news, politics and culture featuring Jimmy Dore, a professional stand up comedian, author and podcaster.

With over 5 million downloads on iTunes, the show is also broadcast on KPFK stations throughout the country. It is part of the Young Turks Network-- the largest online news show in the world.

Chris Christie is most unpopular governor in US

By Mallory Shelbourne

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R) is the most unpopular governor in the U.S., a new poll finds.

71 percent of New Jersey votes disapprove of Christie while just 25 percent approve, according to the Morning Consult poll released Tuesday.

Christie edged out Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback (R) as the nation's least popular. Brownback had a 66 percent disapproval to 27 percent approval, the poll found.

Christie's numbers decreased after he dropped out of last year's GOP presidential primary and became a surrogate for then-candidate Donald Trump, the poll said.

On the flip side, Massachusetts Gov. Charlie Baker (R) was rated the most popular governor, with 75 percent approval to 17 percent disapproval. Following Baker on the list were Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan (R) and North Dakota Gov. Doug Burgum (R).

Morning Consult surveyed 85,000 registered voters across the country from January 2017 through March 2017. The poll asked voters about the job performance of their local politicians, including the governor, two senators, and representative.

The results are emblematic of Christie's poor numbers in the last year.

A December poll found that 71 percent of New Jerseyans thought Christie should be a defendant in the "Bridgegate" scandal that has plagued his governorship. Two of the governor's aides were sentenced last month for arranging the 2013 lane closure on the George Washington Bridge as political payback for a New Jersey mayor who didn't endorse Christie in his re-election bid.

Christie's approval rating has continued to drop in various polls over the last year, reaching record lows.