TYT's Cenk Uygur said that Cuomo and Biden are more competent leaders during crisis than Donald Trump, which is why you should vote for them, which did not sit well with his fans.
Nicolle Wallace discussed the new ad that has Trump's GOP buddies
worried about his popularity and re-election. His own words write the
Democrats' ads for them.
Speaker Nancy Pelosi unleashed a devastating ad against Trump,
laying waste to any delusion his supporters might have that he is
handling this pandemic competently or with care. It runs clips of him
downplaying the danger posed by COVID-19, despite clear warnings from
people in his own administration as early as January.
TRUMP: Stay calm./We have it totally under control./We're in great
shape./One day it's like a miracle, it will disappear./This is their new
hoax.
It charts the rise of illness and death ravaging the nation, the toll
being taken on doctors, nurses, caregivers, while superimposing him
trumpeting his desire to eliminate the Affordable Care Act.
TRUMP: What we want to do is terminate it.
It shows our journalistic crown jewel, Rachel Maddow, making a dire prediction that has already come true:
MADDOW: This is the kind of useless national response that's going to result in the deaths of thousands and thousands.
Then it shows him uttering the words that should be the chyron of every network every time they air his repugnant presence live:
TRUMP: No, I don't take responsibility at all.
It ends with the words, "He fiddles while Americans die," and the haunting sound of a heart monitor's flat-lining beep.
Nicolle Wallace showed that ad today, then followed it up with this:
WALLACE: It's tape like that, those clips of Donald Trump in his own
words at official public events, that represent either Donald Trump
telling deliberate lies or showcasing a gross misunderstanding of what a
pandemic is, that have his allies people like Lindsey Graham very
worried today.
According to The New York Times, Graham says, quote, "I told him your opponent is no longer Joe Biden, it's the virus."
And Lindsey Graham is not alone. The Times
adds, Mr. Trump's re-election campaign, staff members have closely
monitored internal polling data that shows an erosion of the gains Mr.
Trump made immediately after he put social distancing guidelines in
place. Advisers are torn between knowing that a less abrasive approach
would help Mr. Trump, and their awareness that he can't tolerate
criticism, regardless of the setting.
His allies are worried? Good. Lindsey Graham is shitting
his pants? Excellent. I hope every single one of those enabling
Republican sons-of-bitches have to wear diapers 24/7 because they are
terrified of the next word that comes out of the monster they elevated
to destroy this government and the people who live in this nation.
Advisors are torn? They their boss doesn't like criticism?
Boo-fucking-hoo. How many of them voted to have him removed from office
when they had the chance?
Republican Senator Richard Burr has been hit with a securities fraud lawsuit, claiming that he engaged in fraud when he used his classified intelligence as grounds to sell off his stocks before they tanked.
The lawsuit says that the Senator used nonpublic information to make these decisions, and that this is an illegal practice.
Burr might be the first of many members of Congress to face such lawsuits, as Ring of Fire's Farron Cousins explains.
It's a sad day for those who enjoy watching flecks of spittle appear
on the mouth corners of bloviating news personalities. Chris Matthews
(74) has "retired" from MSNBC after over 20 salivary years as a hot take
opinion spewer and conductor of condescending interviews with women.
The straw that broke the blonde camel's back was likely to have been
this recent article in GQ
by Laura Bassett that describes a number of incidents highlighting
Matthews' sexist behavior, putting him in the league of misogynists like
Bill O'Reilly:
Matthews has a pattern of making comments about women’s
appearances in demeaning ways. The number of on-air incidents is long,
exhausting, and creepy, including commenting to Erin Burnett, for
example, “You’re a knockout...it’s all right getting bad news from you,”
while telling her to move closer to the camera. Behind the scenes, one
of Matthews’s former producers told The Daily Caller in 2017 that he
allegedly rated his female guests on a numerical scale and would name a
“hottest of the week,” like a “teenage boy.” In 1999, an assistant
producer accused Matthews of sexual harassment, which CNBC, the show's
network at the time, investigated. They concluded that the comments were
"inappropriate," and Matthews received a “stern reprimand,” according
to an MSNBC spokesperson.
A classified briefing to lawmakers angered the resident, who complained that Democrats would “weaponize” the disclosure.
American
intelligence agencies concluded that Russia, on the orders of President
Vladimir V. Putin, interfered in the 2016 presidential election.Credit...Emmanuel Dunand/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
WASHINGTON
— Intelligence officials warned House lawmakers last week that Russia
was interfering in the 2020 campaign to try to get resident Trump
re-elected, five people familiar with the matter said, a disclosure to
Congress that angered Mr. Trump, who complained that Democrats would use
it against him.
The day after the
Feb. 13 briefing to lawmakers, Mr. Trump berated Joseph Maguire, the
outgoing acting director of national intelligence, for allowing it to
take place, people familiar with the exchange said. Mr. Trump cited the
presence in the briefing of Representative Adam B. Schiff, the
California Democrat who led the impeachment proceedings against him, as a
particular irritant.
During the
briefing to the House Intelligence Committee, Mr. Trump’s allies
challenged the conclusions, arguing that he has been tough on Russia and
strengthened European security. Some intelligence officials viewed the
briefing as a tactical error, saying that had the official who delivered
the conclusion spoken less pointedly or left it out, they would have
avoided angering the Republicans.
That
intelligence official, Shelby Pierson, is an aide to Mr. Maguire who
has a reputation of delivering intelligence in somewhat blunt terms. The resident announced on Wednesday that he was replacing Mr. Maguire with
Richard Grenell, the ambassador to Germany and long an aggressively
vocal Trump supporter.
Though
some current and former officials speculated that the briefing may have
played a role in the removal of Mr. Maguire, who had told people in
recent days that he believed he would remain in the job, two
administration officials said the timing was coincidental. Mr. Grenell
had been in discussions with the administration about taking on new
roles, they said, and Mr. Trump had never felt a kinship with Mr.
Maguire.
Spokeswomen for the Office of
the Director of National Intelligence and its election security office
declined to comment. A White House spokesman did not immediately respond
to requests for comment.
A Democratic
House intelligence committee official called the Feb. 13 briefing an
important update about “the integrity of our upcoming elections” and
said that members of both parties attended, including Representative
Devin Nunes of California, the top Republican on the committee.
Image
Joseph
Maguire, the acting director of national intelligence, is planning to
leave government, according to an American official.Credit...Erin Schaff/The New York Times
Mr.
Trump has long accused the intelligence community’s assessment of
Russia’s 2016 interference as the work of a “deep-state” conspiracy
intent on undermining the validity of his election. Intelligence
officials feel burned by their experience after the last election, where
their work became subject of intense political debate and is now a
focus of a Justice Department investigation.
Part
of the resident’s anger over the intelligence briefing stemmed from
the administration’s reluctance to provide sensitive information to Mr.
Schiff. He has been a leading critic of Mr. Trump since 2016, doggedly
investigating Russian election interference and later leading the
impeachment inquiry into the resident’s dealings with Ukraine.
After
asking about the briefing that the Office of the Director of National
Intelligence and other agencies gave to the House, Mr. Trump complained
that Mr. Schiff would “weaponize” the intelligence about Russia’s
support for him, according to a person familiar with the briefing. And
he was angry that no one had told him sooner about the briefing, the
person said.
Mr. Trump has fixated on
Mr. Schiff since the impeachment saga began, pummeling him publicly with
insults and unfounded accusations of corruption. At one point in
October, Mr. Trump refused to invite lawmakers from the congressional
intelligence committees to a White House briefing on Syria because he
did not want Mr. Schiff there, according to three people briefed on the
matter.
Mr. Trump did not erupt at Mr.
Maguire, and instead just asked pointed questions, according to the
person. But the message was unmistakable: He was displeased by what took
place.
Ms. Pierson, officials said,
was delivering the conclusion of multiple intelligence agencies, not her
own opinion. The Washington Post first reported the Oval Office confrontation between Mr. Trump and Mr. Maguire.
The intelligence community issued an assessment in early 2017 that President Vladimir V. Putin personally ordered
an influence campaign in the previous year’s election and developed “a
clear preference for resident-elect Trump.” But Republicans have long
argued that Moscow’s campaign was designed to sow chaos, not aid Mr.
Trump specifically.
And some
Republicans have accused the intelligence agencies of opposing Mr.
Trump, but intelligence officials reject those allegations. They
fiercely guard their work as nonpartisan, saying it is the only way to
ensure its validity.
At
the House briefing, Representative Chris Stewart, a Utah Republican who
has been considered for the director’s post, was among the Republicans
who challenged the conclusion about Russia’s support for the resident.
Mr. Stewart insisted that Mr. Trump has aggressively confronted Moscow,
providing anti-tank weapons to Ukraine for its war against
Russian-backed separatists and strengthening the NATO alliance with new
resources, according to two people briefed on the meeting.
Mr.
Stewart declined to discuss the briefing but said that Moscow had no
reason to support Mr. Trump. He pointed to the resident’s work to
confront Iran, a Russian ally, and encourage European energy
independence from Moscow. “I’d challenge anyone to give me a real-world
argument where Putin would rather have resident Trump and not Bernie
Sanders,” the nominal Democratic primary front-runner, Mr. Stewart said
in an interview.
Mr.
Trump believes that Russian efforts to get him elected in 2016 have
cast doubts about the legitimacy of his campaign victory. Credit...Doug Mills/The New York Times
Under
Mr. Putin, Russian intelligence has long sought broadly to sow chaos
among adversaries around the world. The United States and key allies on
Thursday accused Russian military intelligence, the group responsible
for much of the 2016 election interference in the United States, of a cyber-attack on neighboring Georgia that took out websites and television
broadcasts.
Though intelligence
officials have previously informed lawmakers that Russia’s interference
campaign was ongoing, last week’s briefing did contain what appeared to
be new information, including that Russia intends to interfere with the
ongoing Democratic primaries as well as the general election.
They
have made more creative use of Facebook and other social media. Rather
than impersonating Americans as they did in 2016, Russian operatives are
working to get Americans to repeat disinformation to get around social
media companies’ rules that prohibit “inauthentic speech.”
And
they are working from servers located in the United States, rather than
abroad, knowing that American intelligence agencies are prohibited from
operating inside the country. (The F.B.I. and the Department of
Homeland Security can, with aid from the intelligence agencies.)
Russian
hackers have also infiltrated Iran’s cyber-warfare unit, perhaps with
the intent of launching attacks that would look like they were coming
from Tehran, the National Security Agency has warned.
Some
officials believe that foreign powers, possibly including Russia, could
use ransomware attacks, like those that have debilitated some local
governments, to damage or interfere with voting systems or registration
databases.
Still, much of the Russian
aim is similar to its 2016 interference, officials said: Search for
issues that stir controversy in the United States and use various
methods to stoke division.
One of
Moscow’s main goals is undermining confidence in American election
systems, intelligence officials have told lawmakers, seeking to sow
doubts over close elections and recounts. Confronting those Russian
efforts is difficult, officials have said, because they want to maintain
American confidence in voting systems.
Both
Republicans and Democrats asked the intelligence agencies to hand over
the underlying material that prompted their conclusion that Russia again
is favoring Mr. Trump’s election.
How
soon the House committee might get that information is not clear. Since
the impeachment inquiry, tensions have risen between the Office of the
Director of National Intelligence and the committee. As officials
navigate the disputes, the intelligence agencies have slowed the amount
of material they provide to the House, officials said. The agencies are
required by law to regularly brief Congress on threats.
While
Republicans have long been critical of the Obama administration for not
doing enough to track and deter Russian interference in 2016, current
and former intelligence officials said the party is at risk of making a
similar mistake now. Mr. Trump has been reluctant to even hear about
election interference, and Republicans dislike discussing it publicly.
The
aftermath of last week’s briefing prompted some intelligence officials
to voice concerns that the White House will dismantle a key election
security effort by Dan Coats, the former director of national
intelligence: the establishment of an election interference czar. Ms. Pierson has held the post since last summer.
And
some current and former intelligence officials expressed fears that Mr.
Grenell may have been put in place explicitly to slow the pace of
information on election interference to Congress. The revelations about
Mr. Trump’s confrontation with Mr. Maguire raised new concerns about Mr.
Grenell’s appointment, said the Democratic House committee official,
who added that the upcoming election could be more vulnerable to foreign
interference.
Mr. Trump, former
officials have said, is typically uninterested in election interference
briefings, and Mr. Grenell might see it as unwise to emphasize such
intelligence with the resident.
“The
biggest concern I would have is if the intelligence community was not
forthcoming and not providing the analysis in the run-up to the next
election,” said Andrea Kendall-Taylor, a former intelligence official
now with the Center for New American Security. “It is really concerning
that this is happening in the run-up to an election.”
Mr.
Grenell’s unbridled loyalty is clearly important to Mr. Trump but may
not be ideally suited for an intelligence chief making difficult
decisions about what to brief to the resident and Congress, Ms.
Kendall-Taylor said.
“Trump is trying
to whitewash or rewrite the narrative about Russia’s involvement in the
election,” she said. “Grenell’s appointment suggests he is really
serious about that.”
The
acting deputy to Mr. Maguire, Andrew P. Hallman, will step down on
Friday, officials said, paving the way for Mr. Grenell to put in place
his own management team. Mr. Hallman was the intelligence office’s
principal executive, but since the resignation in August of the previous
deputy, Sue Gordon, he has been performing the duties of that post.
Mr. Maguire is planning to leave government, according to an American official.
Eric Schmitt and David E. Sanger contributed reporting.
Adam Goldman reports on the F.B.I. from Washington and is a two-time Pulitzer Prize winner. @adamgoldmanNYT
Julian
E. Barnes is a national security reporter based in Washington, covering
the intelligence agencies. Before joining The Times in 2018, he wrote
about security matters for The Wall Street Journal. @julianbarnes•Facebook
Maggie
Haberman is a White House correspondent. She joined The Times in 2015
as a campaign correspondent and was part of a team that won a Pulitzer
Prize in 2018 for reporting on resident Trump’s advisers and their
connections to Russia. @maggieNYT
Nicholas
Fandos is a national reporter based in the Washington bureau. He has
covered Congress since 2017 and is part of a team of reporters who have
chronicled investigations by the Justice Department and Congress into residentt Trump and his administration. @npfandos
In the latest installment of “Opening Arguments”, former Acting U.S. Solicitor General, Neal Katyal discusses Trump’s “lawless” and “unprecedented” pardon of his “friends” and “campaign contributors.” Katyal argues while Trump has “gotten away with so much” the “law is going to come after him,” adding America’s “courts will bring him to justice.”
Oh, fuck Lisa Murkowski. Yeah, yeah, we can thank her for doing the
right thing that one time with the Affordable Care Act and still say,
"Fuck Lisa Murkowski." The Alaska senator's statement on why she won't
vote to convict resident Donald Trump of the crimes that she admits he
committed is just the fucking worst because she thinks she's making some
grand statement about the state of partisan divisions in the Congress
and the country. Really, it's just ass-covering and bullshit
justification.
She said that
"The House rushed through what should be one of the most serious,
consequential undertakings of the legislative branch simply to meet an
artificial, self-imposed deadline." That "artificial, self-imposed
deadline" is the fucking 2020 election. The rush was to make sure that
Trump couldn't game it, corrupt it, or, you know, invite foreign
countries to get involved by digging up dirt on his rivals and using
U.S. foreign policy to get his way. If you know an arsonist is about to
set a fire, you stop the fucking arsonist before shit is burned to the
ground.
Continuing her speech to the Senate, after a bunch of both-sides
garbage, she offered, "The response to the resident’s behavior is not
to disenfranchise nearly 63 million Americans and remove him from the
ballot." Except no one is talking about the disenfranchisement of voters
(well, yeah, Republicans are, but not in this case). It's one of those
idiot arguments that get the rubes to think you're standing up for them
when you're really just not making any goddamn sense. They have the
right to vote. They just couldn't vote for one particular candidate.
Murkowski is also implying that Republicans have no one else to run for
president.
Even worse is Maine's own anthropomorphic bowl of Jello, Sen. Susan Collins. Her reasoning
for not voting to remove Trump from office is as delusional as someone
investing in a Trump University education: "I believe the resident has
learned from this case...The resident has been impeached. That's a
pretty big lesson...I believe he will be much more cautious in the
future." I'm cynical enough to think that Collins knows this is
unrepentant bullshit, but if she really believes this, then, seriously,
someone should introduce her to Donald Trump because that asshole has
never felt chastened and the only "lesson" he's learned is "Say you're
right loud enough and often enough and everyone will agree just to make
you shut the fuck up about it."
Tennessee's Lamar Alexander, one of those fake moderates you
occasionally hear about but only see as unreal Bigfoot-like blurs
running past the Capitol, tried to sound rational in his declaration of
Trumpian exoneration. Look at this bastard
try to thread a rusty needle: "It was inappropriate for the resident
to ask a foreign leader to investigate his political opponent and to
withhold United States aid to encourage that investigation. When elected
officials inappropriately interfere with such investigations, it
undermines the principle of equal justice under the law. But the
Constitution does not give the Senate the power to remove the president
from office and ban him from this year’s ballot simply for actions that
are inappropriate."
Actually, the Constitution gives the Senate the power to remove a
president if it agrees with the House and convicts that president, even
for, you know, "misdemeanors." But look at that shit. Alexander says
that Trump was undermining "the principle of equal justice under the
law." That's pretty fucking significant. And he added, just to sound
like he's a thoughtful, dignified statesman instead of the elderly
errand boy for a bloated, mad, ignorant dictator-in-waiting, "The
framers believed that there should never, ever be a partisan
impeachment." There were no goddamn political parties when the
Constitution was written. Fucking hell.
Alexander bemoans the "partisan" nature of the House vote for the
articles of impeachment, yet, weirdly, doesn't seem to have any problem
with witnesses being blocked from testifying by a vote of just
Republicans. Apparently, "partisan" only means "Democrats."
We are moving into a degradation of this country's checks and balances
the likes of which we haven't seen. Sometimes I think it's more
important for Democrats to take back the Senate than it is to win the
presidency. That way, Democrats can assert the power of the Legislative
Branch in full and restore some kind of fuckin' balance.
A lawsuit filed against the Office Of Special Counsel seeks the removal
of Kellyanne Conway from the Trump administration.
According to the
lawsuit, Conway has repeatedly broken several laws while in office, and
most of these instances have been confirmed by the OSC, with the OSC
going as far as recommending her expulsion from the administration.
Ring
of Fire’s Farron Cousins explains the lawsuit and reminds everyone
about Conway’s nonstop
rule breaking.
The House of Representatives impeached residentDonald Trump on Wednesday. He is the third resident in history to be impeached.
The
chamber is voting on two articles of impeachment against Trump. The
first article, charging Trump with abuse of power, passed the House with
a vote of 230-197.
House lawmakers also voted to pass the
second article of impeachment, which charges Trump with obstruction of
Congress, with a vote of 229-198.
Both articles relate to
Trump's efforts to solicit Ukraine's interference in the 2020 election
while withholding vital military aid and a White House meeting that
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky desperately sought.
Next, the impeachment proceedings will go to the Republican controlled Senate, which is widely expected to acquit the resident.
At a youth summit for opioid awareness in Baltimore, Maryland, First
Lady Melania Trump took the stage to a chorus of some applause — but
mostly loud boos. Aired on 11/26/19.
Cenk Uygur and Ana Kasparian, hosts of The Young Turks, break it down.
“Leon Cooperman has been one of several billionaires who has been
vocally critical of Elizabeth Warren and concerned at the prospect of
her becoming president.
Warren has a new campaign ad set to air on CNBC tomorrow which swipes at
Cooperman at others.
The ad plays Cooperman railing against her
“vilification” of the wealthy before featuring a CHARGED WITH INSIDER
TRADING graphic. (He ultimately settled with the SEC.)
The ad brings up criticism from others like Lloyd Blankfein and Peter
Thiel.
CNBC reported on the ad today, and received a pretty angry response from
Cooperman:”
