Kushner's Charmed Life Comes To A Screeching Halt

By Taegan Goddard

Walter Shapiro: “Even under the benign theory that Kushner thought that a secret back channel was like a small boy’s tin-can telephone, his life in the coming months and maybe years will be a study in misery. He will probably spend more time with his personal lawyer, Clinton Justice Department veteran Jamie Gorelick, than with Ivanka or his children. Whether it is an appearance under oath on Capitol Hill or the inevitable FBI interview, every sentence Kushner utters will bring with it possible legal jeopardy.”

“Kushner may have once thought that he established his tough-guy credentials when he stared down angry creditors and impatient bankers over his ill-timed 2007 purchase of a $1.8bn Fifth Avenue office building. But the worst thing that can happen to an over-leveraged real estate investor (as Trump himself knows well) is bankruptcy. When the FBI and special prosecutor Robert Mueller get involved, the penalties can theoretically involve steel bars locking behind you.”

Mexican Lawyer Markets Trump Toilet Paper

Donny Goes To School

During a special trip to an elementary school, Trump reads an incredible book to the students and runs his immigration policy by his new pals.

 

Karma! Michael Flynn, Mister 'Lock Her Up,' Takes The Fifth

‘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.

Rep. Joe 'You Lie' Wilson (R-SC) Destroyed By CSPAN Caller

The 2009 State of the Union address by the newly inaugurated (and last duly elected) President, Barack Obama was rudely and historically interrupted by SC Republican Congressman Joe Wilson, something many of us will never forget. This same man has the nerve to insist that Democrats need to give Trump a chance, after months of horrifically…

Republicans Wanted To Impeach Obama Over Something, Anything, But Avoid It For Trump

Posted by Rude One

In 2013, then-Senator Tom Coburn mused at a town hall meeting, "I don’t have the legal background to know if that rises to ‘high crimes and misdemeanors,’ but I think you’re getting perilously close." Coburn, a Republican (obviously) brought up impeachment of President Obama as a possible response to unspecified things that Obama had done. Mostly, presidenting while black, but probably Coburn would have said, "Something, something, something, immigrants."

Around the same time, Republican Representative Blake Farenthold, 100 pounds of shit in a fifty pound bag from Fuck If I Care, Texas, told his constituents, who totally believed that Obama was born in Africa, "If we were to impeach the president tomorrow, we would probably get the votes in the House of Representatives to do it." Walking cold sore Ted Cruz bemoaned to a bunch of his drooling maniacs, "To successfully impeach a president you need the votes in the U.S. Senate." Neither Farenthold nor Cruz, in course of making Texas even dumber, gave any grounds for impeachment, just a general sense of something not right (see above, "presidenting while black").

In 2013 and 2014, the Tea Party plague rats kept demanding to know why that goddamn Muslim Kenyan who was making us all into healthy gay Communists wasn't being impeached. And their members of Congress were more than willing to indulge their idiot fantasy for a few whoops at rallies and a bunch of votes.

At least pubic hair-topped Rep. Jason Chaffetz wanted to impeach Obama for a reason: the attack on the American consulate in Benghazi, Libya (which, as you know, was worse than 100 9/11s times a dozen Pearl Harbors). And skeevy shitworm Steve King was hyped to impeach over Obama not being a complete dick to undocumented immigrant kids.

There's a fuckin' Wikipedia page devoted to all the reasons why Republicans talked about impeaching Obama, eight years worth. And not a goddamned one of them rises to the level of a single thing Donald Trump has done in the last four months.

A couple of Republicans are hinting at being open to impeachment. But the best representation of the cowardice and cravenness that is the GOP right now is that the Republicans in the House just blocked a vote on establishing an independent commission to investigate Russia's interference in the 2016 election.

It's not just hypocrisy by many of the same Republicans who wanted to lynch Obama for every fake scandal they could conjure. Now, with Trump, they are likely aiding and abetting a pile of high crimes and a shit load of misdemeanors.

Obama Accepts Courage Award With Straight Face

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

How government works now

Jeffrey Lord Is A Village Idiot, But That’s Exactly How CNN Likes It

Jeffrey Lord has the distinct honor of being one of the dumbest people on cable news. Considering all of the simpletons currently soiling the media landscape with their stupidity, that’s no easy feat.

http://www.theroot.com/lord-sayeth-jeffrey-lord-is-a-village-idiot-but-that-1794434059

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 

Georgia voters in this reliably Republican district may be preparing to ‘stick it’ to Trump

April 17, 2017

Evan Halper
Tribune Washington Bureau
Displayed with permission from Tribune Content Agency

MARIETTA, Ga. — This orderly swath of Atlanta suburbs was never supposed to worry Republicans. They've had a lock on the congressional seat since 1979, with a string of rock-ribbed conservatives such as Newt Gingrich and Tom Price.

Then Donald Trump happened.

Now the GOP is in an unexpected scramble to prevent a politically inexperienced millennial Democrat — unknown months ago — from turning their longtime stronghold blue.

Party officials are filled with angst ahead of Tuesday's special election in Georgia's 6th Congressional District to replace Price, who vacated the seat to become Trump's Health and Human Services secretary.

After a scare for Republicans in Kansas last week, when a congressional race got uncomfortably close in a district Trump had dominated in the presidential election, the Georgia fight teeters on becoming a full-blown crisis for a party that should be relishing its recent success and consolidating power. A Democratic win here, unthinkable weeks ago, is now a very real possibility. It would be another indication that Democrats are not the only party hobbled by a national identity crisis in the age of Trump.

"Nothing like this has ever happened before in Georgia," Charles S. Bullock III, a University of Georgia political science professor, said of the expensive free-for-all the race has become.

With Democratic donors nationwide rallying around 30-year-old Jon Ossoff, the surprise front-runner has raised a staggering $8.3 million, dwarfing contributions to all 11 of his Republican rivals combined.

For Democrats, the allure of the district stems from voter uneasiness about Trump, who barely won here in November. By contrast, Mitt Romney, the last GOP nominee, crushed Barack Obama by double digits.

Ossoff is polling at about 40 percent, far beyond any of his contenders in the open primary. That's largely because the GOP candidates are splitting the vote.

But Ossoff is now within striking distance of winning the majority required to avoid a runoff in June, which may be his best hope, since many believe a two-candidate runoff would favor the Republican.

"Two or three months ago, nobody had a clue who this guy was," Bullock said.

As they lined up at polls last week for early voting, several residents made clear they were viewing the race as a referendum on Trump.

"The Trump administration is scary," said Jeffrey Chou, a 25 year old graduate student and Ossoff supporter voting for the first time. "I don't like what they are doing. I felt it was important to come out and send a message that we don't support it."

He was joined in line by a 60-year-old nurse who voted for Price in the past but said all the "insanity" at the White House had driven her to vote Democratic this time. Arriving soon after was a 38-year-old patent agent trainee who hadn't volunteered for a political campaign since college but said Trump's behavior pushed her to canvass for Ossoff. A physician in his 60s who said he had worked with Price professionally and voted for him declared he would cast a ballot for Ossoff to "stick it in the eyes of Trump."

"You are seeing the liberals demonstrating their total disgust for Donald Trump," said Max Wagerman, 52, a GOP loyalist who boasted of living in the same subdivision as Gingrich. "They've got all the juice now. They have the organization. Republicans here are just too lazy, and the liberals are going to get this one."
With momentum on his side, Ossoff is now everywhere: omnipresent in TV ads, his face plastered on lawn signs and car bumper stickers, talked up by the thousands of volunteers — many from out of state — knocking on doors and calling voters.

Desire by Democrats to land an electoral blow against Trump is so intense that the party is showing uncharacteristic discipline in a messy race with 18 candidates. It quickly rallied behind Ossoff, with liberal bloggers setting in motion a Bernie Sanders-style fundraising operation that has resulted in a frenzy of small-dollar donations, the largest number of which are coming not from Georgia but California.

Ossoff is no Bernie Sanders. He is a cautious, scripted moderate who spends much less time on the campaign trail whipping up rage against Trump than carefully calculating remarks that avoid offending the area's upscale suburban electorate.

"Folks here are excited now for fresh leadership presenting a substantive message about local economic development and talking about core values," he said at his Marietta campaign office, just before a crowded candidate forum where Ossoff was the only one who ended some of his answers without using the full minute allotted. "They are tired of partisan politics."

But partisan politics is what they are getting. First, there is his deluge of outside cash. Republican groups have countered by pouring millions of dollars into ads attacking Ossoff as a political neophyte aligned with rioting protesters. One even made ominous insinuations about Ossoff's past work as a filmmaker for cable channel Al-Jazeera.

Republicans are focusing their attacks on one another. They are slugging it out for what they hope will be a spot on the runoff ballot against Ossoff. The intensity of their attacks lay bare how much Trump has complicated Republican politics.

Establishment favorite Karen Handel, the former Georgia secretary of state, has watched her strong lead diminish amid an assault from the conservative anti-tax group Club for Growth and others who question her ideological purity. One ad depicts her as a stumbling elephant in pearls; others accuse the fiscal conservative of recklessly spending tax dollars.

"All you need to know about this district is Mitt Romney won it by 22 points and Trump won it by 1 { points," said GOP pollster Whit Ayres, who is working as a consultant for Handel. "This defines the kind of upscale suburban district where Trump struggled. Karen is the type of person this district has tended to support."

One Trump loyalist who threatens to overtake her is Bob Gray, a telecom executive backed by the Club for Growth. He dismissed as hype the chatter that the local electorate is so uneasy with Trump that it could go blue. "I don't think it's in the cards," Gray said. "This is a conservative seat. Let's be real: Newt Gingrich, Tom Price. The district hasn't changed that much."

Gray stars in his own not-so-subtle TV ad wearing a pair of vibrant camouflage waders and fueling a giant motorized pump, which he then uses to "drain the swamp" — a nod to Trump's catchphrase.


Many of the leading candidates chafed when asked whether the race had become a referendum on Trump.

Said Judson Hill, an anti-tax advocate and GOP candidate: "Donald Trump is not on the ballot here."

But as residents stood in line a few miles away to cast ballots in early voting, it was undeniable that Trump was on their minds.

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.

Angela Rye pounds Jeffrey Lord with common sense about Trump’s first 100 days

By David Edwards

CNN contributor Angela Rye on Tuesday pointed out that President Donald Trump had been plagued with “many epic fails” during his first 100 days in office.

During a discussion on CNN, ardent Trump backer Jeffrey Lord asserted that Trump’s critics could no longer suspect Donald Trump’s campaign of colluding with Russia after the president ordered an attack on Syria that reportedly angered Russian President Vladimir Putin.

“So much for the idea that Vladimir Putin was blamed to give Donald Trump the presidency,” Lord quipped. “It is not possible that Vladimir Putin preferred Donald Trump over Hillary Clinton.”

Reflecting on the president’s first 100 days in office, Rye argued that the White House had a misguided view of success.

“Wins are determined by how they impact the American people,” she explained, noting the disparity with President Barack Obama, who in his first 100 days signed an equal pay law and a law to create jobs and build infrastructure.

“And then I think you compare that to what I think I would characterize as many epic fails by the Trump administration,” she continued. “The Muslim ban and the various iterations of that. The [border] wall, the fact that he said to taxpayers, ‘Okay, I’m just kidding. Actually, you all will pay for the wall.’ The number of moments where they’ve had to pivot.”

“I think the only real thing where Donald Trump has won… is golfing. He is winning on golfing.

He’s 28 days out of 100 into golfing. And it’s so funny because he was the critic-in-chief about Barack Obama’s golf game.”

CNN host noted that Trump was on track to spend more on travel in his first year in office than Obama had spent during his entire eight years.

“Eh, I don’t think so,” Lord replied dismissively. “Did President Obama donate his first month’s salary to the National Parks Service? I don’t think so. Did he play golf on his own golf course? I don’t think so.”

“Three million dollars per golf trip!” Rye shot back. “Melania staying in New York City — a million dollars a day… I am so surprised that you won’t even agree with me on this point. You’re talking about wins for the American people. I would push back. Climate change is a real thing.”

“You talk about me and my friends, tell your friends that there are icebergs melting, okay! And your guy is dialing back regulations that are harmful, not just to the American people, but globally.”

Watch the video below from CNN, broadcast April 11, 2017.