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.

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.

NATO Tries To Dumb-Down Upcoming Meeting To Better Suit Donald Trump

On May 25th, NATO will be holding a meeting with the heads of all 28 members countries, and they are trying their best to dumb-down the entire meeting so that Trump can keep up.  NATO is reportedly telling speakers and leaders that they need to keep their presentations short, only a few minutes, so that Trump can follow along and will stay focused. Ring of Fire’s Farron Cousins discusses this.



https://foreignpolicy.com/2017/05/15/nato-frantically-tries-to-trump-proof-presidents-first-visit-alliance-europe-brussels/

Tornado Tosses Baton Rouge Firefighter, Truck

BATON ROUGE, Louisiana - 

A Baton Rouge firefighter is counting his blessings after a tornado hit his pickup truck while he was in it Friday.

The whole thing was caught on surveillance video at a gas station. You can see the white pickup in the top right corner of the screen sitting in the parking lot before the wind slams a nearby tree to the ground, and a second later, the truck goes flying into the air.   

NewsOn6.com - Tulsa, OK - News, Weather, Video and Sports - KOTV.com |

"It picked up my truck like it was a toy and threw it," said Baton Rouge firefighter Dustin Spiess. "The back of my truck lifted up and I was looking straight at the ground through my windshield."

Spiess said his truck landed fender first on the pavement. He walked away with a few cuts and bruises.

http://www.newson6.com/story/35451939/tornado-tosses-baton-rouge-firefighter-truck

Turkish president’s bodyguards beat up US protestors after he met with Trump

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/watch-the-turkish-president%e2%80%99s-bodyguards-beat-up-us-protestors-after-he-met-with-trump/ar-BBBe0yv

Trump Asked Comey To End Flynn Inquiry

Comey Memo Says Trump Asked Him To End Flynn Investigation

Mick Mulvaney Mocks People With Diabetes, Says They Don't Deserve Health Care

The man-baby's very bad week

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!

Trump revealed highly classified information to Russian diplomats

During the May 10th meeting at the White House with Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Ambassador to the U.S. Sergey Kislyak, Trump began describing details about an Islamic State terror threat related to the use of laptop computers on aircraft, according to current and former U.S. officials.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/trump-revealed-highly-classified-information-to-russian-foreign-minister-and-ambassador/2017/05/15/530c172a-3960-11e7-9e48-c4f199710b69_story.html

Barack Obama Shits On American Voters While In Italy

Republicans plan massive cuts to programs for the poor

Under pressure to balance the budget and align with Trump, the House GOP has its eye on food stamps, welfare and perhaps even veterans’ benefits.

By Rachael Bade and Sarah Ferris

House Republicans just voted to slash hundreds of billions of dollars in health care for the poor as part of their Obamacare replacement. Now, they’re weighing a plan to take the scalpel to programs that provide meals to needy kids and housing and education assistance for low-income families.

Donald Trump’s refusal to overhaul Social Security and Medicare — and his pricey wish-list for infrastructure, a border wall and tax cuts — is sending House budget writers scouring for pennies in politically sensitive places: safety-net programs for the most vulnerable.

Under enormous internal pressure to quickly balance the budget, Republicans are considering slashing more than $400 billion in spending through a process to evade Democratic filibusters in the Senate, multiple sources told POLITICO.

The proposal, which would be part of the House Budget Committee's fiscal 2018 budget, won't specify which programs would get the ax; instead it will instruct committees to figure out what to cut to reach the savings. But among the programs most likely on the chopping block, the sources say, are food stamps, welfare, income assistance for the disabled and perhaps even veterans benefits.

If enacted, such a plan to curb safety-net programs — all while juicing the Pentagon’s budget and slicing corporate tax rates — would amount to the biggest shift in federal spending priorities in decades.

Atop that, GOP budget writers will also likely include Speaker Paul Ryan’s (R-Wis.) proposal to essentially privatize Medicare in their fiscal 2018 budget, despite Trump’s unwavering rejection of the idea. While that proposal is more symbolic and won’t become law under this budget, it’s just another thorny issue that will have Democrats again accusing Republicans of “pushing Granny off the cliff.”

“The Budget Committee is trying to force the entire conference and committees of jurisdiction to focus on ways to bring down this deficit,” said senior budget panel member Rep. Tom Cole.

Republicans have long sought to tackle the nearly $20 trillion debt, but Trump has tied their hands by ruling out cuts to Social Security and Medicare.

The Oklahoma Republican, however, acknowledged that mandatory spending reductions could become “very tough issues” — though he declined to name which programs would see major cuts:

“These are hard for anybody, no matter where you’re at on the political spectrum.”

While budget writers are well aware of the sensitive nature of their proposal, they feel they have no choice if they want to balance the budget in a decade, which they’ve proposed for years, and give Trump what he wants.

Enraged by Democrats claiming victory after last month’s government funding agreement, White House officials in recent weeks have pressed Hill Republicans to include more Trump priorities in the fiscal 2018 blueprint.

House Budget Republicans hope to incorporate those wishes and are expected, for example, to budget for Trump’s infrastructure plan. Tax reform instructions will also be included in the budget, paving the way for both chambers to use the powerful budget reconciliation process to push a partisan tax bill through Congress on simple majority votes, as well as the $400 billion in mandatory cuts.

“The critique last time was that we didn’t embed enough Trump agenda items into our budget,” said Rep. Dave Brat (R-Va.), a budget panel member. Trump has "made it clear it will be embedded in this budget. … And so people will see a process much more aligned with President Trump’s agenda in this forthcoming budget.”

New spending, however, makes already tough math even trickier for a party whose mantra is “balance the budget in 10 years.” Lawmakers need to cut roughly $8 trillion to meet that goal, budget experts say. And while a quarter of their savings in previous budgets came from repealing Obamacare and slicing $1 trillion from Medicaid, Republicans cannot count on those savings anymore because their health care bill sucked up all but $150 billion of that stash — relatively speaking, mere pocket change to play with.

Republicans’ first reflex would be to turn to entitlement reform to find savings. Medicare and Social Security, after all, account for the lion’s share of government spending and more than 70 percent of all mandatory spending.

But while former Freedom Caucus conservative-turned-White House budget director Mick Mulvaney has tried to convince the president of the merits of such reforms, Trump has refused to back down on his campaign pledge to leave Medicare and Social Security alone. (He’s reversed himself on a vow not to touch Medicaid, which would see $880 billion in cuts under the Obamacare repeal bill passed by the House.)

Mulvaney, sources say, has been huddling on a weekly basis with House Budget Chairwoman Diane Black (R-Tenn.) and Senate Budget Chairman Mike Enzi (R-Wyo.) to plot a path forward. There appears to be some common ground to consider cuts to other smaller entitlement programs: While the Office of Management and Budget would not respond to a request for comment, CQ reported Tuesday that the White House was also considering hundreds of billions in cuts to the same programs being eyed by House budget writers.

“I’ve already started to socialize the discussion around here in the West Wing about how important the mandatory spending is to the drivers of our debt,” Mulvaney told radio host Hugh Hewitt in March. “There are ways that we cannot only allow the president to keep his promise, but to help him keep his promise by fixing some of these mandatory programs.”

Final details of the GOP’s budget plan aren’t expected until June, and specific language mandating the mandatory cuts still hasn’t been written, according to one aide familiar with the process.

Committees would then have several months to put together the department-by-department details on what exactly to cut, proposals that probably won’t land until the fall at the earliest, given the legislative calendar.

The idea could run into problems: It is unclear whether such cuts would be acceptable in the more moderate Senate. In order for the proposal to actually move, Senate Republicans would need to include the same instructions in their own budget.

In the House, Republican leaders hope the moves toward deficit reduction will buy them some good will with conservatives going into September, when the party’s right flank will have to swallow difficult votes to raise the debt ceiling and fund the government.

Cole argued the deficit-trimming push will appeal to the House Freedom Caucus, which blocked the House GOP’s budget on the floor last year in protest of spending levels its members considered too high.

But pleasing conservatives this time around will fuel anxiety on the other end of the conference. Endorsing cuts to programs for the poor will certainly make centrist House Republicans — many of whom were uncomfortable voting to slice Medicaid just weeks ago in the Obamacare repeal bill — very uncomfortable.

Rep. Charlie Dent, a centrist and senior Appropriations Committee member, said budget reconciliation instructions should center solely on tax reform, which “is complex enough on its own,” he said.

“All I can say is: Tax reform by itself is very complex and controversial,” Dent (R-Pa.) said. “Adding some of these other changes will only make the tax reform more difficult.”

Asked about mandatory programs that might be cut, he added: “This will create challenges, no question about it. When so many of the entitlement programs are taken off the table for discussion … that limits our ability to fund the non-defense discretionary programs and other mandatory programs that affect a lot of people.”

GOP backers of the idea will argue in the coming weeks and months that moderates have voted for GOP budgets that included similar cuts in the past — so they should be able to support them again.

But if House GOP leadership has learned anything from the Obamacare repeal debacle, it should be that voting for something that has no chance of becoming law and makes for great campaign fodder is much easier than backing a bill that could be enacted.

Mystery Behind Suicides And Jason Chaffetz Resignation

Why did four people raided by the agency Jason Cheffetz is trying to shut down kill themselves? Why is he suddenly stepping down?

It's Heartbreaking

By KentuckyWoman

I'm over 70 yrs old. Being a citizen of these United States has been my good fortune and privilege.

We've had our finer moments, and our embarrassments. I've spend my lifetime advocating for "the little guy" and for a government that exists for our collective good. I've had elected representatives that performed well and with honor, and reps who used the office for the sole purpose of enriching themselves and their rich friends. I thought I'd seen it all.

I was wrong. Lady Liberty is still holding her hand high but I don't see how. 30+ years ago we opened the doors to "conservative talk radio" and now we've progressed to open hatred in the streets.

We are a nation that elected a buffoon whose idea of political discourse is in sentences short enough to fit on a bumper sticker. Even if we drum them all out of public view, it will take generations of hard work to simply regain the little bit of ground we gained in my lifetime before everything started falling apart again.

We worked SO hard to turn our local police departments into a group of people who protect and serve rather than turn the fire hoses and attack dogs on citizens exercising their constitutional rights of free assembly. We made so little headway and now we are to a point where the police all over this country feel free to beat up women, shoot unarmed children with no consequence whatsoever.

Donald Trump embodies everything that was ever wrong in America - well with humanity in general. He is all 7 of the deadly sins. The sheer pettiness, greed, sloth, gluttony, wastefulness, frivolousness, disrespect. Just the fact our society gave such a person the limelight at all is an embarrassment. But to exalt him to the highest office in the land is beyond all understanding.

His presidency underscores the fact we, as a group, have had our priorities all wrong for decades. President Obama did his damnedest to try and pull us back to some sort of sanity, but we would have none of it. Pigs at the trough under Whistle ass got put on a diet, and now put a man in office that is literally the rich flipping us all the bird.

I really don't know where I'm going with all this....except to say that I'm heartbroken for America and what she's become.

Need A Pick Me Up In This Terrible Time? Here's Lynched Jefferson Davis

Posted by Rude One

That statue of a white man dangling from a crane is of Jefferson Davis, who was the president of the defeated nation of racist traitors known as the Confederate States of America. For all the world, it looks like a well-deserved lynching. 

 

His monument in New Orleans used to be on the median (or "neutral ground," in New Orleans parlance) where Canal Street meets the still-stupidly-named Jefferson Davis Parkway. New Orleans is in the midst of taking down four monuments to the Confederacy because, apparently, it only takes 150 years and a few massacres to realize that celebrating the legacy of the enemies of the United States is fucking ridiculous, especially when those enemies were fighting to keep slaves and the majority of the city's citizens are African Americans. Seem kind of fucking obvious, doesn't it? Would you want to walk by a statue of someone who wanted to keep the literal rape of your ancestors legal?

The slave rapist supporters turned out, too, flying their loser flag of rapists and slave owners and poor dumb asses who just went along with the rapists and slave owners. Or, you know, Trump voters. Because blah, blah, blah heritage, history, and who the fuck cares. Whatever their reasons are for keeping the monuments up, they're wrong.

As for what will be done with the statues and plaques and pedestals, for now, they will go into storage. After Davis, they'll be taking down General Beauregard and Robert E. Lee, both scum fucking pigs, no matter what "noble" justification Lee claimed to have. They might end up at a museum to contextualize them better than they are now.

But I've got an idea. Get a giant furnace on site. Melt down the statues right in front of the protesters. Then pour the liquid into cock-shaped molds. When they cool and harden, hand them out to the white supremacists, neo-Confederates, and one-toothed yahoos there and tell 'em to shove it up their assholes and go fuck themselves with it.

Unbelievably brazen dirty trick: WH working on sabotaging the 2018 election...

By Judy

Donald Trump made good on a promise to investigate alleged vote fraud with an executive order on Tuesday, White House officials told NBC News.

The order will establish a commission to review alleged voter fraud and voter suppression throughout the American election system. Vice President Mike Pence will head the group, called the "Presidential Commission on Election Integrity." Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach will serve as vice chair.

The panel will be tasked with studying "vulnerabilities" in the voting system, as well as potential impacts on "improper voting, fraudulent voter registrations, and fraudulent voting."

http://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/trump-to-establish-vote-fraud-commission/ar-BBB0RhB?OCID=ansmsnnews11

As maybe a lot of you know, Kris Kobach is the infamous Trump adviser behind "Interstate Crosscheck", which helped take many minority voters of the rolls to ensure a Trump victory.

For more info about Crosscheck:
http://www.gregpalast.com

Edited to add this article:
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/features/the-gops-stealth-war-against-voters-w435890

This "commission" is just a trick to worsen the integrity of the voting system and making sure that Republicans are elected in spite of their recent fall from grace...

I will write my senators and rep about this, but this doesn't bode well at all...who can stop this??! I have no idea... 

The Dark Timeline Gets Darker: Brief Thoughts On The Comey Firing

Posted by Rude One

Let's lay out some brief thoughts here on the fuckery that's occurred today in the firing of FBI Director James Comey by President Donald Trump.

1. Comey should have been fired by President Obama for his interference in the 2016 election. He was a completely vindictive bastard to Hillary Clinton in his letter about...oh, fuck you know all this shit. Fuck that guy. Hard.

2. The Deputy Attorney General said that Comey's dismissal was recommended because of his handling of the Clinton investigation, including his press conference announcing no charges and his statements close to the election about the emails on Huma Abedin's computer. Comey has lied his ass off since about that latter action.

3. But there is no fucking way that that is the reason that Trump fired Comey. The FBI is anal-probing the connections between the Trump campaign/administration and Russia. And if Trump gave a happy monkey fuck about Comey's handling of the Clinton email case, well, who the fuck keeps such an incompetent prick on the payroll, running a giant intelligence-gathering and law enforcement agency, for months?

4. No, fuck that. The Clinton shit is an obvious cover story. Comey was fired because he's dangerous. He's fired because Trump wants heads to put on the White House fence to threaten others. He can line up Comey's next to the noggins of Sally Yates and Preet Bharara. Trump's letter of dismissal said, in part, "I greatly appreciate you informing me, on three separate occasions, that I am not under investigation." Jesus, how pathetic to shiv a man while you talk about how awesome you are. How frightening that Trump seems to be discrediting anything that comes out of the FBI against him now that Comey is gone.

4a. And Trump had been ordering Jeff Sessions to find a reason to fire Comey since at least last week. These fuckin' fascists.

5. Not scared yet? We no longer have a functioning Justice Department. We don't have a Congress that will check or balance the president in even the smallest ways. We have a president who doesn't care about anything other than protecting his orange ass and centralizing all power within him and his small cadres of hellspawn and spunk monkeys. And he's gonna appoint someone from that cadre to erase the investigations so he can gallivant on with his awful presidency.

6. Yeah, fuck Comey for what he did. But fuck anyone who thinks this is okay, that it's all cool just because Trump can fire the people he's fired. And fuck us, again and again, for allowing this mongrel age to happen.

6a. Fuck us even harder if an independent investigation isn't launched on this and everything else.

7. Somewhere, the corpse of Niccolo Machiavelli is laughing its bony ass off.

8. In Hell, Richard Nixon rolled his eyes and wondered where the fuck this GOP was back in the 1970's. And then he was dipped back into the shit pit.

Obama Accepts Courage Award With Straight Face

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.