Tuesday, April 4, 2017

April 2, 2017

It was no secret during the campaign that Donald Trump was a narcissist and a demagogue who used fear and dishonesty to appeal to the worst in American voters. The Times called him unprepared and unsuited for the job he was seeking, and said his election would be a “catastrophe.”

Still, nothing prepared us for the magnitude of this train wreck. Like millions of other Americans, we clung to a slim hope that the new president would turn out to be all noise and bluster, or that the people around him in the White House would act as a check on his worst instincts, or that he would be sobered and transformed by the awesome responsibilities of office.

Instead, seventy-some days in — and with about 1,400 to go before his term is completed — it is increasingly clear that those hopes were misplaced.

In a matter of weeks, President Trump has taken dozens of real-life steps that, if they are not reversed, will rip families apart, foul rivers and pollute the air, intensify the calamitous effects of climate change and profoundly weaken the system of American public education for all.

His attempt to de-insure millions of people who had finally received healthcare coverage and, along the way, enact a massive transfer of wealth from the poor to the rich has been put on hold for the moment. But he is proceeding with his efforts to defang the government’s regulatory agencies and bloat the Pentagon’s budget even as he supposedly retreats from the global stage.

These are immensely dangerous developments which threaten to weaken this country’s moral standing in the world, imperil the planet and reverse years of slow but steady gains by marginalized or impoverished Americans. But, chilling as they are, these radically wrongheaded policy choices are not, in fact, the most frightening aspect of the Trump presidency.

What is most worrisome about Trump is Trump himself. He is a man so unpredictable, so reckless, so petulant, so full of blind self-regard, so untethered to reality that it is impossible to know where his presidency will lead or how much damage he will do to our nation. His obsession with his own fame, wealth and success, his determination to vanquish enemies real and imagined, his craving for adulation — these traits were, of course, at the very heart of his scorched-earth outsider campaign; indeed, some of them helped get him elected. But in a real presidency in which he wields unimaginable power, they are nothing short of disastrous.

Although his policies are, for the most part, variations on classic Republican positions (many of which would have been undertaken by a President Ted Cruz or a President Marco Rubio), they become far more dangerous in the hands of this imprudent and erratic man. Many Republicans, for instance, support tighter border security and a tougher response to illegal immigration, but Trump’s cockamamie border wall, his impracticable campaign promise to deport all 11 million people living in the country illegally and his blithe disregard for the effect of such proposals on the U.S. relationship with Mexico turn a very bad policy into an appalling one.

In the days ahead, The Times editorial board will look more closely at the new president, with a special attention to three troubling traits:

1 Trump’s shocking lack of respect for those fundamental rules and institutions on which our government is based. Since Jan. 20, he has repeatedly disparaged and challenged those entities that have threatened his agenda, stoking public distrust of essential institutions in a way that undermines faith in American democracy. He has questioned the qualifications of judges and the integrity of their decisions, rather than acknowledging that even the president must submit to the rule of law. He has clashed with his own intelligence agencies, demeaned government workers and questioned the credibility of the electoral system and the Federal Reserve. He has lashed out at journalists, declaring them “enemies of the people,” rather than defending the importance of a critical, independent free press. His contempt for the rule of law and the norms of government are palpable.

2 His utter lack of regard for truth. Whether it is the easily disprovable boasts about the size of his inauguration crowd or his unsubstantiated assertion that Barack Obama bugged Trump Tower, the new president regularly muddies the waters of fact and fiction. It’s difficult to know whether he actually can’t distinguish the real from the unreal — or whether he intentionally conflates the two to befuddle voters, deflect criticism and undermine the very idea of objective truth. Whatever the explanation, he is encouraging Americans to reject facts, to disrespect science, documents, nonpartisanship and the mainstream media — and instead to simply take positions on the basis of ideology and preconceived notions. This is a recipe for a divided country in which differences grow deeper and rational compromise becomes impossible.

3 His scary willingness to repeat alt-right conspiracy theories, racist memes and crackpot, out-of-the-mainstream ideas. Again, it is not clear whether he believes them or merely uses them. But to cling to disproven “alternative” facts; to retweet racists; to make unverifiable or false statements about rigged elections and fraudulent voters; to buy into discredited conspiracy theories first floated on fringe websites and in supermarket tabloids — these are all of a piece with the Barack Obama birther claptrap that Trump was peddling years ago and which brought him to political prominence. It is deeply alarming that a president would lend the credibility of his office to ideas that have been rightly rejected by politicians from both major political parties.

Where will this end? Will Trump moderate his crazier campaign positions as time passes? Or will he provoke confrontation with Iran, North Korea or China, or disobey a judge’s order or order a soldier to violate the Constitution? Or, alternately, will the system itself — the Constitution, the courts, the permanent bureaucracy, the Congress, the Democrats, the marchers in the streets — protect us from him as he alienates more and more allies at home and abroad, steps on his own message and creates chaos at the expense of his ability to accomplish his goals? Already, Trump’s job approval rating has been hovering in the mid-30s, according to Gallup, a shockingly low level of support for a new president. And that was before his former national security advisor, Michael Flynn, offered to cooperate last week with congressional investigators looking into the connection between the Russian government and the Trump campaign.

On Inauguration Day, we wrote on this page that it was not yet time to declare a state of “wholesale panic” or to call for blanket “non-cooperation” with the Trump administration. Despite plenty of dispiriting signals, that is still our view. The role of the rational opposition is to stand up for the rule of law, the electoral process, the peaceful transfer of power and the role of institutions; we should not underestimate the resiliency of a system in which laws are greater than individuals and voters are as powerful as presidents. This nation survived Andrew Jackson and Richard Nixon. It survived slavery. It survived devastating wars. Most likely, it will survive again.

But if it is to do so, those who oppose the new president’s reckless and heartless agenda must make their voices heard. Protesters must raise their banners. Voters must turn out for elections. Members of Congress — including and especially Republicans — must find the political courage to stand up to Trump. Courts must safeguard the Constitution. State legislators must pass laws to protect their citizens and their policies from federal meddling. All of us who are in the business of holding leaders accountable must redouble our efforts to defend the truth from his cynical assaults.

The United States is not a perfect country, and it has a great distance to go before it fully achieves its goals of liberty and equality. But preserving what works and defending the rules and values on which democracy depends are a shared responsibility. Everybody has a role to play in this drama.

This is the first in a series.

Yes, Paul Ryan Actually Did Bend The Knee.

The Washington Post detailed the House GOP’s fight over the ObamaCare repeal and replacement plan this week, rounding up the dramatic details of leadership’s fight to win support for the measure.

At one point, the paper said, House Speaker Paul Ryan (Wis.) got down on one knee to plead with Rep. Don Young of Alaska – the longest-serving Republican in Congress -- to support the bill. (He was unsuccessful.)

The moments highlighted by the Post during the Republican conference negotiations show what a tough battle Ryan and his deputies faced in whipping the vote.

But they also show the fierce support some offered to leadership - like freshman Rep. Brian Mast of Florida, who lost both legs in 2010 in Afghanistan and called on colleagues to unite behind the bill as he and his Army colleagues had done on the battlefield.

At another point, a Republican shouted, “Burn the ships” to Majority Whip Steve Scalise, invoking the command a 16th century Spanish conquistador gave his crew when they landed in Mexico.

The message was clear, the Post said –- the Republicans felt there was no turning back.

The GOP was ultimately unable to coalesce around the party’s plan and Ryan pulled the bill from the floor Friday, when it was clear it did not have the votes to pass.

Sunday, April 2, 2017

Mitch McConnell Goes Down In Flames Defending His Merrick Garland Hypocrisy

How the fuck does Kentucky keep re-electing this guy? dlevere.

By David

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) on Sunday blamed the American people for the decision of Senate Republicans not to grant President Barack Obama's Supreme Court pick, Judge Merrick Garland, a hearing.

"The tradition had been not to confirm vacancies in the middle of a presidential [election] year," McConnell told Meet the Press host Chuck Todd. "You'd have to go back 80 years to find the last time it happened... Everyone knew, including President Obama's former White House counsel, that if the shoe had been on the other foot, [Democrats] wouldn't have filled a Republican president's vacancy in the middle of a presidential election."

"That's a rationale to vote against his confirmation," Todd argued. "Why not put him up for a vote? Any senator can have a rationale to not to vote for a confirmation. Why not put Merrick Garland on the floor and if the rationale is, 'You know what? Too close to an election,' then vote no?"

McConnell laughed defensively.

"Look, we litigated that last year," the Majority Leader stuttered. "The American people decided that they wanted Donald Trump to make the nomination, not Hillary Clinton."

McConnell argued that Democrats should focus on the issue at hand, the confirmation of Neil Gorsuch, Trump's Supreme Court pick.

"There's no rational reason, no basis for voting against Neil Gorsuch," McConnell opined.

"You say it's been litigated, the Garland situation," Todd replied. "For a lot of Senate Democrats, they're not done litigating this... What was wrong with allowing Merrick Garland to have an up or down vote?"

"I already told you!" McConnell exclaimed. "You don't fill Supreme Court vacancies in the middle of a presidential election."

"Should that be the policy going forward?" Todd interrupted. "Are you prepared to pass a resolution that says in election years any Supreme Court vacancy [will not be filled] and let it be a sense of the Senate resolution, that says no Supreme Court nominations will be considered in any even numbered year? Is that where we're headed?"

"That's an absurd question," McConnell complained. "We were right in the middle of a presidential election year. Every body knew that either side -- had the shoe been on the other foot -- wouldn't have filled it. But that has nothing to do with what we're voting on this year."

White House Staff Turns On ‘Out Of His Depth’ Jared Kushner Amid Chaos And Turmoil

Kushner is arguably the president’s closest adviser.

By David Ferguson / Raw Story

April 2, 2017

Photo Credit: Ovidiu Hrubaru / Shutterstock.com

Thus far, in the scandal-plagued, chaotic presidency of Donald Trump, the chief executive’s son-in-law Jared Kushner has enjoyed a kind of unsinkable “privileged status.”

According to Politico, however, resentment is growing against Kushner in an already factionalized and strife-torn White House. Hardline conservatives see the moderate-minded, 36 year old Kushner as an obstacle to their agenda and worry that Kushner ally Gary Cohn — a Democrat — will pressure Kushner to steer the administration toward the middle.

Thus far, Pres. Trump has tasked his daughter’s husband — a government neophyte with no previous policy or legislative experience — with solving the crisis in the Middle East and overseeing the U.S. relationships with China, Canada and Mexico. On top of that ambitious portfolio, Kushner and Cohn this week established the White House Office of American Innovation, an initiative to modernize and streamline the operations of the federal government.

“But Kushner’s status as the big-issue guru has stoked resentment among his colleagues, who question whether Kushner is capable of following through on his various commitments,” wrote Politico’s Josh Dawsey, Kenneth P. Vogel and Alex Isenstadt. “And some colleagues complain that his dabbling in myriad issues and his tendency to walk in and out of meetings have complicated efforts to instill more order and organization into the chaotic administration. These people also say Kushner can be a shrewd self promoter, knowing how to take credit — and shirk blame — whenever it suits him.”

“He’s saving the government and the Middle East at the same time,” one administration official quipped to Politico.

Kushner is arguably the president’s closest adviser — the last person to speak to him each day and also the administration’s hatchet man. During the 2016 campaign, it fell to Kushner to fire campaign managers Corey Lewandowski and Paul Manafort. It was also Kushner who axed New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie (R) from the Trump transition team.

Lewandowski in particular is rumored to be pursuing a vendetta against Kushner, planting anonymous stories about the president’s son-in-law with conservative media outlets. Other campaign officials who didn’t get hired by the administration are reportedly aligned with Lewandowski and believe that Kushner is insufficiently conservative.

Far-right radio host Mark Levin has attacked Kushner before, calling him “some 32-year-old, liberal Democrat kid out of New York.” Other neoconservatives and Zionist Israel supporters said they had high hopes for Kushner because he is an Orthodox Jew and the grandson of Holocaust survivors, but thus far they say he has disappointed them.

A source told Politico that “those hopes mostly have been supplanted by ‘deep concern that Jared is not the person we thought he was — that this guy who is supposed to be good at everything is totally out of his depth.’”

Kushner himself remains breezily confident, telling associates not to fret over the Russia investigation because it “isn’t going anywhere” and assuring others that his father-in-law’s administration will get past its early stumbles.

“But if it doesn’t,” Politico said, “allies and aides say, one thing is clear: the president will surely find someone else to take the blame. And Kushner will likely be delivering the bad news.”

Kushner was the subject of Republican ire in the wake of the president’s failed healthcare bill after he and the president’s daughter Ivanka Trump left Washington for a ski-trip to Aspen, CO. This week it came out that the presidential son-in-law is wanted for testimony in connection to an FBI investigation of a bank implicated in Russian money laundering.

Saturday, April 1, 2017

The Republican Identity Crisis

A conservative by any other name would still be confused about where they fall on the ideological spectrum in the Trump era.

About the Author

McKay Coppins is a staff writer at The Atlantic, and author of The Wilderness, a book about the battle over the future of the Republican Party.
- Twitter
These are confusing times to be a Republican.

For the past several decades, members of the GOP have mapped the ideological range found within their party onto a fairly straightforward spectrum—one that runs from “moderate” to “conservative.” The formulation was simplistic, of course, but it provided a useful shorthand in assessing politicians, and in explaining one’s own political orientation.

A small-government culture warrior in Arizona would be situated on the far-right end of the spectrum; a pro-choice Chamber of Commerce type in Massachusetts might place himself on the other end. And across the country, there were millions of people—from officeholders to ordinary Republican voters—who identified somewhere between those two poles.

But with the rise of Donald Trump—and his spectrum-bending brand of populist nationalism—many longtime Republicans are now struggling to figure out where they fit in this fast-shifting philosophical landscape. In recent weeks, two prominent Republicans have told me they are sincerely struggling to explain where they fall on the ideological spectrum these days. It’s not that they’ve changed their beliefs; it’s that the old taxonomy has become incoherent.

For example, does being an outspoken Trump critic make you a “moderate” RINO? Does it matter whether you’re criticizing him for an overly austere healthcare bill, or for reckless infrastructure spending plan? And who owns the “far right” now—is it “constitutional conservatives” like Ted Cruz, or “alt-right” white supremacists like Richard Spencer?

When I raised these questions on a Twitter earlier this week, I was swamped with hundreds of responses and dozens of emails from longtime Republicans who described feeling like they are lost inside their own homes.

Some, like Jordan Team from Washington, D.C., related how their attempts at explaining their personal politics have devolved into a kind of absurdist comedy:

I've always identified as a more moderate R - even "establishment Republican", if you will. I usually always use "moderate" or "Establishment" when saying I'm a Republican to separate myself from more hard-line Tea Party Freedom Caucus conservatives.

These days, however, I feel like it requires even further explanation to separate myself from the nationalism/populism that Trump & team espouse, since they're all now technically Republicans. Usually it's something super catchy & brief along the lines of: "I'm a moderate Republican - or at least, have been one, not really sure that that means anymore - but I don't support Trump or populism - I'm traditionally conservative" And even that doesn't always get the point across. I think the easiest when trying to have a conversation with someone is a two step process. Step 1: "I'm a Republican but don't like Trump," and then if the convo keeps going/they know politics/they're interested, there's step 2: "I'm more moderate/establishment than Tea Party/Freedom Caucus".

Other people, meanwhile, shared more tragic testimonials. “I feel honestly like a part of my identity was stolen,” wrote Alycia Kuehne, a conservative Christian from Dallas, Texas.
But virtually everyone who wrote to me shared a common complaint: The traditional “Left ↔ Right” spectrum used to describe and categorize Republicans has become obsolete in the age of Trump. The question now is what to replace it with.

To provoke interesting answers, I asked people who wrote to me to imagine the Republican voter who is furthest from themselves—be it ideologically, philosophically, or attitudinally—and then to answer the question: What is the most meaningful difference between you and that person?

The proposed spectrums that emerged from their responses—some of which I’ve included below—are not meant to be peer-reviewed by political scientists. But they offer new, and potentially more useful, ways to map the emerging fault lines that now divide the American right.

LIBERTARIAN ↔ AUTHORITARIAN: One of the most common responses I received from Republicans argued that the party could be divided between authoritarians (who tend to gravitate toward Trump) and libertarians (who are generally repelled by his strong-man instincts). In an email that was typical of several I received, Aaron L. M. Goodwin, from California, wrote:

I grew up in a pretty conservative household. We were home-schooled Mormons. We listened to conservative talk radio. I was the only 10 year old I knew of who loved to watch C-Span. These days I feel completely alienated from the GOP. But, I don't feel like I'm the one who sold out. So where does that leave me?

I believe the conservative/liberal spectrum has been overtaken by one for democratic/authoritarian ... Most of the Republicans I still feel some kinship with are from a multitude of ideologies, but they share an ideology based on classical liberal democracy. We all share a deep-seeded suspicion of rule by power, and I believe, are closer to the original intent of our founding documents.

GRIEVANCE-MOTIVATED ↔ PHILOSOPHICALLY MOTIVATED: Liz Mair, a libertarian-leaning GOP strategist, wrote that she’s been convinced after “300 gazillion conversations with all sorts of conservatives”—including a range of lawmakers, writers, pundits, candidates, and grassroots-level activists—that the biggest division within the party is one that separates Fox News-a-holics driven by tribal grievance from people who have some kind of philosophically rooted belief system:

I honestly think the split in conservatism comes more down to philosophy versus identity politics than anything. Are you opposed to things on philosophical or tribal grounds? Are you a believer of a member of our clan? (Said in the Scottish sense) ...

I bet if you polled Trump primary voters and asked them what was the bigger problem—insufficiently limited government or transgender Muslim feminists being celebrated at the Oscars, a big majority would say the latter.

ANTI-ESTABLISHMENT ↔ ESTABLISHMENT: The outsider/insider trope is well-worn in contemporary conservative politics—so much so that you could argue the terms have lost their meaning. But based on the emails I received, many Republicans (on both ends of the spectrum) still view the party through that lens. On one end are people who respect existing political institutions, and believe in conforming to their norms and using the system to advance their agenda. On other end of this spectrum are people who believe the establishment is hopelessly corrupt and ineffectual, and that it should be circumvented whenever possible.

The flaw in this formulation, it seems to me, is that virtually every Republican who has entered Congress over the past eight years started out on the anti-establishment end of the spectrum, and then slid—involuntarily, perhaps, but inevitably—toward the establishment end. That’s because, as Stephen Spiker from Virginia emailed, once you run for office and win, you necessarily become a part of the system, an insider:

I see many colleagues in the party taken in by the "establishment vs anti-establishment" spectrum. Essentially populism, as the anti-establishment folks are "burn it down" because they don't feel represented and want a fighter. That lead to Dave Brat winning in 2014, and Trump winning in 2016.

Now that its Trump vs Brat, you're going to see the inherent decay in this school of thought: the anti-establishment crowd turning on their former heroes like Dave Brat (as they turned on Cantor previously). He's in Congress, he's an insider, he's standing in the way, etc.

It will eventually turn on Trump as well, as he falls short on goal after goal. When it happens (as in, before or after Trump is out of office) is always dependent on having the right person run at the right time on the right message, but it will happen.

Most notable about the anti-establishment position is that there's no consistent end game or policy goal. It exists for the sake of itself. That's what frustrates folks who actually have firm ideological stances.

ABSOLUTISTS ↔ DEALMAKERS: Many of the most high-profile intra-party battles in recent years have been fought not over ideas, but tactics and a willingness to compromise. While Republicans in Washington were essentially unanimous in their opposition to President Obama’s agenda, they differed—at least at first—over whether they should cut deals at the legislative bargaining table, or, say, shut the government down until they got exactly what they wanted. The absolutists largely won out during the Obama presidency—but what about now?

On one end of this spectrum are people like the Freedom Caucus purists from whom it is all but impossible to extract concessions; on the other are the dealmakers who will compromise virtually anything to get some kind of legislation passed.

Several Republicans who wrote to me were, I think, circling this idea, which my colleague Conor Friedersdorf recently articulated:

Do populist Republicans want a federal government where politicians stand on principle and refuse to compromise? Or do they want a pragmatist to make fabulous deals?
… Is a GOP House member more likely to be punished in a primary for thwarting a Donald Trump deal … or compromising to make a deal happen? Were I the political consultant for an ambitious primary candidate in a safe Republican district, I can imagine a successful challenge regardless of what course the incumbent chose, voters having been primed to respond to either critique.

OPEN/TOLERANT ↔ NATIVIST/RACIST: This is the probably the most provocative construct that was proposed, but it was also a popular one. For many Trump-averse Republicans, one of the biggest perceived differences between themselves and hardcore Trump fans is attitudes toward racial minorities and foreign immigrants. The alt-right dominates one end of the spectrum—and they place themselves on the polar opposite end.

Granted, this spectrum was not proposed to me by any Trump supporters, and no doubt many of them would strongly disagree with this categorization. But there’s no question it’s one of the defining debates inside the party right now. Evan McMullin, a conservative who ran for president last year under the #NeverTrump banner, was quoted saying that racism is the single biggest problem with the party today.

* * *
This is, of course, by no means a comprehensive list of the divisions within the GOP. For example, one of the most talked-about conflicts to emerge in the past year has been between “nationalism” and “globalism.” But despite efforts by Steve Bannon and other Trump advisers to frame the ideological debate that way, very few GOP voters—at least none who wrote to me—identify as “globalists.” Instead, these new spectrums represent a few of the ways in which Republicans—eager to escape the disorder and confusion of the Trump era—are categorizing themselves and each other.

Thursday, March 30, 2017

Majority Want Trump To Resign If His Campaign Colluded With Russia

If the Trump campaign worked with Russia to sway the 2016 election, the American people want the president to start packing his bags.

By Sean Colarossi

If it turns out that Donald Trump’s campaign did, indeed, work with the Russians to defeat Hillary Clinton in last fall’s presidential election, a majority of the country – 53 percent – thinks the president should resign.

According to the explosive new poll from Public Policy Polling (PPP), which debuted Wednesday night on MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow Show, the American people said – by a 14-point margin – that Trump should step down if there was collusion.

Another result revealed on Maddow’s program found that a plurality of the country believes Trump’s campaign did, in fact, work with Russia to swing the 2016 election in his favor.

If you’re keeping score at home: The American people think both that Trump’s campaign colluded with Russia and that the president should resign as a result.

While there is endless political polling released on a weekly basis asking about hypothetical scenarios, what should be terrifying to the White House is that the explosive Russia scandal is just one more investigation or one more small piece of evidence away from making the questions posed in the PPP survey a reality.

At that point, the president will have to face a country that doesn’t just believe he isn’t doing a good job, as polls repeatedly suggest, but also that he should no longer have the job at all.

Wednesday, March 29, 2017

The Trump Diaries

DNC just asked all its staffers to resign

By Tyler Durden

Former Labor Secretary Tom Perez, who took over as the chair of the Democratic National Committee in late February following Hillary's stunning November defeat, has asked for his entire staff to submit their resignation letters by no later than April 15th.

Of course, the move comes after a series of scandals plagued the DNC throughout the 2016 election cycle, including rather undeniable evidence that former Chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz intentionally undermined the campaign of Bernie Sanders while her replacement, Donna Brazile, seemingly did the same by passing Hillary's team debate questions in advance of Town Hall discussions with Bernie.

According to NBC, Tom Perez decided to clean house at the DNC shortly after taking over the leadership role from Donna Brazile and will use the mass firing as an opportunity to restructure how the party will be run going forward.

Democratic National Committee Chairman Tom Perez has launched a major reshuffling of the party's organization that has been stung by recent crisis — and the DNC has requested the resignation letters of all current staffers be submitted by next month.

Party staff routinely see major turnover with a new boss and staffers were alerted earlier to expect such a move. However, the mass resignation letters will give Perez a chance to completely remake the DNC's headquarters from scratch. Staffing had already reached unusual lows following a round of layoffs in December.

Immediately after Perez' election in late February, an adviser to outgoing DNC Interim Chair Donna Brazile, Leah Daughtry, asked every employee to submit a letter of resignation dated April 15, according to multiple sources familiar with the party's internal working.

A committee advising Perez on his transition is now interviewing staff and others as part of a top-to-bottom review process to help decide not only who will stay and who will go, but how the party should be structured in the future.

Back in late February, Perez appeared on Meet the Press to tell Chuck Todd that he would look to implement a "culture change" at the DNC before comparing his own party to a busted plane traveling at 20,000 feet.

Perez has spent his first weeks on the job in "active listening mode," hearing from Democrats in Washington and in small group meetings across the country before making any big moves.

"What we're trying to do is culture change," he told NBC News between stops of a listening tour in Michigan Friday. "We're repairing a plane at 20,000 feet. You can't land the plane, shut it down, and close it until further notice."

"If your goal is you have to please everyone then you end up pleasing no one," he added.

We're still awaiting confirmation from Rachel Maddow that this mass firing came after the discovery that the DNC was infiltrated by Russian spies coordinating with the Trump campaign.

Bill O'Reilly: Black Congresswoman Has "James Brown Wig"

Conservative pundits have a history of racist disparagement of black women. Cenk Uygur, host of The Young Turks, breaks it down.

"Fox News host Bill O'Reilly said Tuesday he "didn't hear a word" Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) said during recent comments on the House floor because he was focused on "the James Brown wig."

"I love her. Maxine Waters should have her own sitcom," "The O'Reilly Factor" host joked on "Fox & Friends" when asked about the longtime congresswoman questioning the patriotism of President Trump's supporters in a speech on Monday.

"People get angry with Maxine Waters. I want more of it," he said.

O'Reilly was then shown a clip of Waters saying Trump supporters "turned a blind eye to the destruction" the president was "about to cause the country.””*

Read more here: http://thehill.com/homenews/media/326107-oreilly-mocks-maxine-waters-for-wearing-james-brown-wig

Hosts: Cenk Uygur
Cast: Cenk Uygur

Maxine Waters Delivers Epic Smackdown Of Fox News After Bill O’Reilly’s Racist Attack

By Sean Colarossi on Tue, Mar 28th, 2017 at 9:33 pm

"Don't allow these right-wing talking heads, these dishonorable people to intimidate you or scare you. Be who you are, do what you do."

Democratic Congresswoman Maxine Waters delivered an epic smackdown of Fox News and Bill O’Reilly on Tuesday night, following O’Reilly’s racist attack against the representative on Tuesday’s edition of Fox & Friends.

The controversy started this morning when O’Reilly was asked to respond to a clip of Waters speaking on the floor of the House of Representatives, and he said this: “I didn’t hear a word she said. I was looking at the James Brown wig.”

While O’Reilly faced bipartisan outrage after making the comments and eventually was forced to apologize, Waters seemed unfazed when she appeared on MSNBC’s All In with Chris Hayes and issued a brutal takedown of O’Reilly and Fox News as a whole.

Video:

Waters said to women everywhere:

Don’t allow these right-wing talking heads, these dishonorable people to intimidate you or scare you. Be who you are, do what you do. And let us get on with discussing the real issues of this country. Bill O’Reilly and Roger Ailes have no credibility. They have been sued by women. They have had to pay millions out in fines for harassment and other kinds of things, and so we know about that checkered past.

After that epic takedown of Fox, Waters showed that she had no intention of dwelling on it and said, “I’m not going to be put down, I’m not going to go anywhere – I’m going to stay on the issues.”

Waters said it’s more important to get to the bottom of Trump’s ties to Russia.

“We have a president of the United States who’s wrapped his arms around Putin and Russia and the Kremlin, and I believe that if we do credible investigations…that they will find that there was collusion,” she said.

The Democratic congresswoman went to lay out some of the ways the president is already damaging the United States’ reputation around the world and hurting the American people.

“This president has come into this office, he’s disrespected our allies across the world. He has tried to dismantle comprehensive health care for everybody under Obamacare. This is a president who won’t even show his taxes,” she said.

The attacks on her, Waters concluded, are used by the president and his supporters to distract from the real issues.

“When you talk about them, when you pin them down, when you’re able to unveil all that they’re doing, they’ll try to shut you down. I am not going anywhere. I’m going to stay on message,” Waters said. “I’m going to fight for the people of this country. I’m going to fight for comprehensive health care. And I don’t care what Bill O’Reilly or Ailes or Trump or any of them, we have a responsibility as elected officials to do good public policy in the best interest of all the people.”

Instead of stooping to the level of those waging racist attacks against her, Waters handled the controversy with grace and urged the media and the American people to stay focused on the issues.

As former First Lady Michelle Obama famously said, “When they go low, we go high.”

In the face of despicable attacks on Tuesday, Maxine Waters went high.

Tuesday, March 28, 2017

Trump's Fool On The Hill: Devin Nunes Is Making A Mockery Of The Russia Investigation

The House Intelligence Committee Chairman has proven himself hapless or worse.

By Jefferson Morley / AlterNet March 28, 2017

Rep. Devin Nunes, California Republican chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, could not have been clearer in his questioning of FBI director James Comey last week.

NUNES: Director Comey, I remain extremely concerned about the widespread illegal leaks that you just referenced in your — in your testimony. Just for the record though, I wanna get this on the record.

Does the unauthorized disclosure of classified information to the press violate 18 USC 793, a section of the Espionage Act that criminalizes improperly accessing handling or transmitting national defense information?

COMEY: Yes

NUNES: Would an unauthorized disclosure of FISA-derived information to the press violate 18 USC 798, a section of the Espionage Act that criminalizes the disclosure of information concerning the communication and intelligence activities of the United States?

COMEY: Yes, in addition to being a breach of our trust with the FISA Court that oversees our use of those authorities.

NUNES: Thank you, Director

The next day, Nunes made an unannounced late-night visit to the White House and spoke with unidentified official (but possibly a former Nunes staffer) about FISA-derived information. Nunes then spoke to reporters and said that he had “confirmed that on numerous occasions, the intelligence community incidentally collected information about U.S. citizens involved in the Trump transition.

Nunes explained:

"Details about U.S. persons associated with the incoming administration, details with little or no apparent foreign intelligence value, were widely disseminated in intelligence community reporting.”

Trump proceeded to claim vindication for his baseless claim that President Obama wiretapped Trump Tower. Nunes’ statement most definitely did not confirm Trump’s claim, but that was hardly the biggest problem with Nunes' charge.

The Washington Postnoted that, "Nunes’s statements appear to center on surveillance approved by the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, a secretive panel that authorizes the interception of communications of known or suspected agents of foreign powers — such as ambassadors — or terrorism suspects."

In other words, if Nunes wasn’t making up the whole story, he made an unauthorized disclosure of FISA-derived classified information in violation of the Espionage Act—exactly what he criticized others for doing.

Nunes’ folly epitomizes the ongoing collapse of the Trump administration’s efforts to defend itself from the ongoing FBI investigation of possible collusion between Trump’s entourage and Russian government officials during the 2016 presidential campaign.

After Nunes sabotaged the strategy of House Republican to investigate the leaks, not the accumulating evidence, Trump was reduced to demanding that Congress investigate Hillary Clinton’s ties to a Russian uranium deal, which are not the subject of an FBI investigation.

That didn’t work either. When former Acting Attorney General Sally Yates indicated her desire to testify on Tuesday to the Intelligence Committee about how former NSC adviser Michael Flynn dissembled on his pre-inauguration meetings with Russian officials, Nunes abruptly canceled the previously scheduled hearing.

Nunes has disqualified himself as the leader of the Intelligence Committee’s investigation, said ranking minority member Rep. Adam Schiff. On Monday night, he called on Nunes to “recuse himself from any further involvement in the Russia investigation” and all “oversight matters pertaining to any incidental collection of the Trump transition."

Nunes dismissed Schiff’s call and House Speaker Paul Ryan said Nunes would continue as chairman, though its hard to see why the Republicans would want him to.

Nunes implicated himself in a possible violation of the law, destroyed the Republican’s preferred line of defense, and implicitly admitted that the administration has no rebuttal to Yates testimony.

As Colin Kahl, former national security adviser to Vice President Joe Biden, said on Twitter on Monday “There are a lot of things we still don’t know about Trump-Russia ties. But there are actually a lot of things we DO know.”

Kahl listed 36 points of fact, none of which Nunes seems prepared to respond to, much less rebut.
In the understatement of the week, thePost’sAaron Blake said “Nunes isn’t very good at this.”

Jefferson Morley is AlterNet's Washington correspondent. He is the author of Snow-Storm in August: Washington City, Francis Scott Key, and the Forgotten Race Riot of 1835 and Our Man in Mexico: Winston Scott and the Hidden History of the CIA.

Trump could learn a lot from his mistakes. He won’t.

By Eugene Robinson Opinion writer March 27 at 7:43 PM

Last week’s health-care fiasco could end up being a positive experience for President Trump if he learns a few obvious lessons. Spoiler alert: He won’t.

The first thing that should dawn on Trump is that the warring Republican factions in Congress have multiple agendas, none of which remotely resembles his own. This is why the bill that House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.) was forced to withdraw on Friday — the abominable American Health Care Act — made such a cruel mockery of Trump’s expansive campaign promises.

A “populist” president who promised health insurance “for everybody” ended up supporting legislation that would have taken away coverage from 24 million people. Many, if not most, of the victims would have been working-class voters — the “forgotten Americans” Trump claimed to champion. Now that he has time, maybe he will actually read the bill (or have someone summarize it for him) and realize how truly awful it was.

You don’t have to be a policy wonk to recognize that replacing income-based subsidies with less generous across-the-board tax credits would mean a net transfer of resources from poorer people to wealthier people. That’s just fine with Ryan and the “mainstream” House Republicans who hung in there with legislation that Ronald Reagan or even Barry Goldwater would have considered extreme.

For members of the Freedom Caucus, however, the bill didn’t go nearly far enough. They wanted to strip away the requirement that health insurance policies cover eventualities such as maternity, hospitalization, emergency care, mental illness — basically, all the reasons anyone would need insurance in the first place. These ultra-radicals believe health care is like any other product and the free market should be allowed to work its magic. To them, it’s irrelevant that the question is not who buys the latest flat-screen television and who doesn’t, but who lives and who dies.

As Trump lobbied House Republicans to support the AHCA, according to The Post, he kept asking aides, “Is this really a good bill?” They assured him it was, but on some level, he must have known the truth was an emphatic no. What happened to those fabled Trumpian instincts?

The president let himself be convinced by Ryan that health care would be an easy win. That should make him wary of going down another garden path with a speaker who can’t even marshal his own chamber, let alone produce important legislation with a chance of making it through the Senate. Yet Trump seems ready to make the same mistake with tax reform.

Note to the president: If Ryan is saying “trust me on this one,” don’t.

The same dynamic is shaping up. House Republicans will all agree on tax cuts, just as they all agreed that the Affordable Care Act should be repealed. The Freedom Caucus, which can only be emboldened by its recent triumph, will make extreme demands. Ryan will accommodate many of them. The end result will be legislation that is more about ideology than policy. The wealthy will benefit enormously, the middle class hardly at all, and the working class will suffer.

Such a bill could never win 60 votes in the Senate. Only more modest changes that don’t balloon the deficit qualify for the “reconciliation” process under which Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) can pass legislation by simple majority — and if just three Republicans balk, even such a limited bill would fail.

Trump should wonder why someone on his staff isn’t explaining all of this to him and trying to come up with an appropriate strategy. Chief of Staff Reince Priebus and budget director Mick Mulvaney were supposed to know how to get things done in Washington. White House chief strategist Stephen K. Bannon reportedly tried to bully Freedom Caucus members, who instead seem to have stiffened their resolve. Advisers Jared Kushner and his wife, Trump’s daughter Ivanka, went skiing.

Meanwhile, Trump’s approval, as measured by Gallup, stood Monday at 36 percent — a stunning new low. The financial markets seem a bit shaky as investors worry about the administration’s competence. If this were a business, the chief executive would be reading up on Chapter 11.

During the campaign, Trump was nothing if not headstrong. Yet in office he has let others lead — and is getting nowhere. He could still change course. He could get rid of the sycophantic aides who spend so much time blaming each other. He could focus on parts of his agenda, such as infrastructure, that have popular support, including among Democrats.

But that would mean acknowledging his mistakes thus far. Don’t hold your breath.

Read more from Eugene Robinson’s archive, follow him on Twitter or subscribe to his updates on Facebook. You can also join him Tuesdays at 1 p.m. for a live Q&A.

CNN panel erupts after Republican guest claims Russian interference is no big deal

By Erin Corbett

A Monday night Don Lemon panel got heated over the continued questions over whether or not Russia tampered with the US 2016 presidential election.

Republican Betsy McCaughey started by saying it is “shameful” that the Democratic party is attempting “to taint, to smear Devin Nunes … who has done something very import for this country, not just for the Trump administration or the Republican party,” in his push to apparently unmask the Washington establishment’s efforts to “undermine the effectiveness of the Trump administration.”

Lemon asked her, “You have no problem with him going to the White House first ahead of his committee?”

CNN Political Commentator, Alice Stewart pointed out that in his position, Nunes’ role “first and foremost is to notify your colleagues in your committee, Democrats and Republicans.” Lemon clarified this is “because the evidence doesn’t change no matter who you take it to.”

Ana Navarro noted that Nunes “actually apologized to his colleagues in the committee for having sidestepped them and gone instead to President Trump. Perception matters with this, and it matters because we’re talking about something that is the pillar of our democracy.”

She argued, “if I were a Trump supporter — which clearly I’m not, America, as you well know — I would want an investigation above the board in every aspect so they can finally get this monkey off their back.

Navarro explained that it’s time for Republicans to question whether Nunes’ is able to conduct “a full and fair investigation because Americans watching this are going to wonder if Republicans, who are in charge, are capable of doing this and if they’re not, they’re going to take it out in the ballot box.”

She added that Americans might not necessarily take it out on Nunes, “but certainly against some Republicans in very marginal, tight district races.”

She later went head to head with McCaughey, who claimed that foreign governments attempting to influence US public opinion in an election is nothing new, and that there’s a distinction between “tampering with an election” and “interfering with public opinion.”

The latter is fine, according to McCaughey and somehow is different than tampering with the results.

She argued that releasing the emails of the Clinton campaign was not tampering with the election results because it wasn’t messing directly with ballot boxes.

Lemon cut in, “How does that have nothing to do with tampering with the election?”

Watch the full clip below.

Monday, March 27, 2017

Dear Donald, you were just played for a sucker

Donald, This I Will Tell You

By Maureen Dowd MARCH 25, 2017

Donald, you said you could shake up Washington and make it work again. Instead, you’re the one who got worked over. Credit Al Drago/The New York Times

WASHINGTON — Dear Donald,

We’ve known each other a long time, so I think I can be blunt.

You know how you said at campaign rallies that you did not like being identified as a politician?

Don’t worry. No one will ever mistake you for a politician.

After this past week, they won’t even mistake you for a top-notch negotiator.

I was born here. The first image in my memory bank is the Capitol, all lit up at night. And my primary observation about Washington is this: Unless you’re careful, you end up turning into what you started out scorning.

And you, Donald, are getting a reputation as a sucker. And worse, a sucker who is a tool of the D.C. establishment.

Your whole campaign was mocking your rivals and the D.C. elite, jawing about how Americans had turned into losers, with our bad deals and open borders and the Obamacare “disaster.”

And you were going to fly in on your gilded plane and fix all that in a snap.

You mused that a good role model would be Ronald Reagan. As you saw it, Reagan was a big, good-looking guy with a famous pompadour; he had also been a Democrat and an entertainer. But Reagan had one key quality that you don’t have: He knew what he didn’t know.

You both resembled Macy’s Thanksgiving Day balloons, floating above the nitty-gritty and focusing on a few big thoughts. But President Reagan was confident enough to accept that he needed experts below, deftly maneuvering the strings.

You’re just careering around on your own, crashing into buildings and losing altitude, growling at the cameras and spewing nasty conspiracy theories, instead of offering a sunny smile, bipartisanship, optimism and professionalism.

You promised to get the best people around you in the White House, the best of the best. In fact, “best” is one of your favorite words.

Instead, you dragged that motley skeleton crew into the White House and let them create a feuding, leaking, belligerent, conspiratorial, sycophantic atmosphere. Instead of a smooth, classy operator like James Baker, you have a Manichean anarchist in Steve Bannon.

You knew the Republicans were full of hot air. They haven’t had to pass anything in a long time, and they have no aptitude for governing. To paraphrase an old Barney Frank line, asking the Republicans to govern is like asking Frank to judge the Miss America contest — “If your heart’s not in it, you don’t do a very good job.”

You knew that Paul Ryan’s vaunted reputation as a policy wonk was fake news. Republicans have been running on repealing and replacing Obamacare for years and they never even bothered to come up with a valid alternative.

And neither did you, despite all your promises to replace Obamacare with “something terrific” because you wanted everyone to be covered.

Instead, you sold the D.O.A. bill the Irish undertaker gave you as though it were a luxury condo, ignoring the fact that it was a cruel flimflam, a huge tax cut for the rich disguised as a health care bill.

You were so concerned with the “win” that you forgot your “forgotten” Americans, the older, poorer people in rural areas who would be hurt by the bill.

As The Times’s chief Washington correspondent Carl Hulse put it, the G.O.P. falls into clover with a lock on the White House and both houses of Congress, and what’s the first thing it does? Slip on a banana peel. Incompetence Inc.

“They tried to sweeten the deal at the end by offering a more expensive bill with fewer health benefits, but alas, it wasn’t enough!” former Obama speechwriter Jon Favreau slyly tweeted.

Despite the best efforts of Bannon to act as though the whole fiasco was a clever way to bury Ryan — a man he disdains as “the embodiment of the ‘globalist-corporatist’ Republican elite,” as Gabriel Sherman put it in New York magazine — it won’t work.

And you can jump on the phone with The Times’s Maggie Haberman and The Washington Post’s Robert Costa — ignoring that you’ve labeled them the “fake media” — and act like you’re in control.

You can say that people should have waited for “Phase 2” and “Phase 3” — whatever they would have been — and that Obamacare is going to explode and that the Democrats are going to get the blame. But it doesn’t work that way. You own it now.

You’re all about flashy marketing so you didn’t notice that the bill was junk, so lame that even Republicans skittered away.

You were humiliated right out of the chute by the establishment guys who hooked you into their agenda — a massive transfer of wealth to rich people — and drew you away from your own.

You sold yourself as the businessman who could shake things up and make Washington work again.

Instead, you got worked over by the Republican leadership and the business community, who set you up to do their bidding.

That’s why they’re putting up with all your craziness about Russia and wiretapping and unending lies and rattling our allies.

They’re counting on you being a delusional dupe who didn’t even know what was in the bill because you’re sitting around in a bathrobe getting your information from wackadoodles on Fox News and then, as The Post reported, peppering aides with the query, “Is this really a good bill?”

You got played.

It took W. years to smash everything. You’re way ahead of schedule.

And I can say you’re doing badly, because I’m a columnist, and you’re not. Say hello to everybody, O.K.?

Sincerely, Maureen

I invite you to follow me on Twitter (@MaureenDowd) and join me on Facebook.

Follow The New York Times Opinion section on Facebook and Twitter (@NYTopinion), and sign up for the Opinion Today newsletter.

A version of this op-ed appears in print on March 26, 2017, on Page SR9 of the New York edition with the headline: Donald, This I Will Tell You. Today's Paper|Subscribe

The Domestic Conspiracy That Gave Trump The Election Is In Plain Sight

By Seth Abramson

On November 4, Erik Prince used Breitbart to spread disinformation domestically. Mr. Trump rewarded him for it.

Information presently public and available confirms that Erik Prince, Rudy Giuliani, and Donald Trump conspired to intimidate FBI Director James Comey into interfering in, and thus directly affecting, the 2016 presidential election. This conspiracy was made possible with the assistance of officers in the New York Police Department and agents within the New York field office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. All of the major actors in the conspiracy have already confessed to its particulars either in word or in deed; moreover, all of the major actors have publicly exhibited consciousness of guilt after the fact. This assessment has already been the subject of articles in news outlets on both sides of the political spectrum, but has not yet received substantial investigation by major media.

While a full summary of the Prince-Giuliani-Trump conspiracy would require a longer discourse, the actions of these men, along with multiple still-anonymous actors, can be summarized in five paragraphs. It will be for journalists with more resources than this writer to follow up on these leads—and, moreover, to see how this domestic conspiracy dovetails with the Trump-Russia controversy, though this too is briefly addressed below.

In addition to the paragraphs here, this article incorporates its three predecessors (I, II, III).

1. As reported by the New York Times, FBI Director James Comey released his now-infamous October 27th letter in substantial part because he had determined that “word of the new emails [found on Anthony Weiner’s computer]...was sure to leak out.” Comey worried that if the leak occurred at a time when the nature and evidentiary value of the “new” emails was unknown, he “risked being accused of misleading Congress and the public ahead of an election.” By October 27th, the FBI had had access to Weiner’s computer—which it originally received from NYPD—since October 3rd, during which interval the Bureau had both the time and IT know-how to determine that the “new” emails in its possession were in fact duplicate emails from accounts already revealed to the Bureau by Clinton, her aide Huma Abedin, and the State Department. However, when Comey was briefed on the case by agents from the New York field office on October 26th, he discovered that not only had this IT work not been done, but in fact no warrant to seize the full emails had been sought, no permission to read the emails had been requested from cooperating witnesses Weiner and Abedin, and indeed nothing but a summary of the emails’ “meta-data” (non-content header information) had been prepared by his agents. The result of this investigative nonfeasance was that Comey feared he would not be able to get a warrant for the emails and confirm them as duplicates prior to Election Day—a fact that would allow anti-Clinton elements within NYPD and the FBI, and Trump surrogates and advisers with sources in these organizations, to mischaracterize the “new” emails in a way that would swing the election to Trump. As long as the Clinton investigation remained open, Comey would not be able to respond to such misinformation; his only hope of keeping public discussion of the “new” emails within the sphere of reality was to use the cover of a prior promise to Congress to speak publicly about an ongoing investigation—and then close that investigation in short order.

2. The effort to intimidate Comey into publicly commenting on the Clinton case—a win-win scenario for Trump, as either a comment from Comey or silence from Comey (the latter coupled with inaccurate, Hatch Act-violative leaks by the FBI, NYPD, and/or the Trump campaign) would sink Clinton—began concurrent to Comey’s October 26th briefing on the Clinton case. In an October 25th Fox & Friends appearance and an October 26th appearance on Fox News with Martha McCallum, Rudy Giuliani, one of Trump’s closest advisers, began teasing an October “surprise” which, Giuliani said, would turn the tide against Hillary Clinton. He refused to say what the forthcoming surprise would be, but he indicated that it would be coming in just a few days. Meanwhile, Erik Prince—the founder of Blackwater private security, one of Trump’s biggest donors, a conspiracy theorist who’d previously accused Huma Abedin of being a terrorist in the employ of the Muslim Brotherhood, and a man who blamed Clinton family friend and former Clinton Chief of Staff Leon Panetta for outing him as a CIA asset in 2009—was positioning himself to play an important role. Just as Giuliani had boasted on the Mark Larson radio program on October 28th that he had sources within the FBI—active agents—who had told him of virulent anti-Clinton sentiment in the New York field office and an internal rebellion against Comey’s July decision not to indict Clinton, Prince claimed to have sources within the Weiner investigation who were illegally leaking information to him. In Prince’s case, the sources were within NYPD, and the information he relayed from them to Breitbart News on November 4th—when it was not yet known that Comey, the next day, would reveal the “new” Clinton emails to be duplicates—turned out to be almost entirely false. The full extent of Prince’s lies on November 4th, all of which were Trump campaign disinformation delivered by an adviser and major donor to the campaign, are too numerous and spectacular to list here. Two brief quotes from Breitbart’s interview with Prince should suffice:

Prince claimed he had insider knowledge of the investigation that could help explain why FBI Director James Comey had to announce he was reopening the investigation into Clinton’s email server last week....”[NYPD] found a lot of other really damning criminal information [on Weiner’s computer], including money laundering, including the fact that Hillary went to this sex island with convicted pedophile Jeffrey Epstein. Bill Clinton went there more than twenty times. Hillary Clinton went there at least six times,” he said. “The amount of garbage that they found in these emails, of criminal activity by Hillary, by her immediate circle, and even by other Democratic members of Congress, was so disgusting they gave it to the FBI, and they said, ‘We’re going to go public with this if you don’t reopen the investigation and you don’t do the right thing with timely indictments,’” Prince explained. “I believe—I know, and this is from a very well-placed source of mine at One Police Plaza in New York—the NYPD wanted to do a press conference announcing the warrants and the additional arrests they were making in this investigation, and they’ve gotten huge pushback, to the point of coercion, from the Justice Department.”

Virtually all of this is untrue. Prince continued:

“So NYPD first gets that computer. They see how disgusting it is. They keep a copy of everything, and they pass a copy on to the FBI, which finally pushes the FBI off their chairs, making Comey reopen that investigation, which was indicated in the letter last week. The point being, NYPD has all the information, and they will pursue justice within their rights if the FBI doesn’t. There is all kinds of criminal culpability through all the emails they’ve seen of that 650,000, including money laundering, underage sex, pay-for-play, and, of course, plenty of proof of inappropriate handling, sending/receiving of classified information, up to Special Access Programs....The point being, fortunately, it’s not just the FBI; five different offices are in the hunt for justice, but the NYPD has it as well....From what I understand, up to the commissioner or at least the chief level in NYPD, they wanted to have a press conference, and DOJ, Washington people, political appointees have been exerting all kinds of undue pressure on them to back down....This kind of evil, this kind of true dirt on Hillary Clinton—look, you don’t have to make any judgments. Just release the emails. Just dump them. Let them out there. Let people see the light of truth.”

Prince’s statements of November 4th—whether given with the knowledge that they were untrue or without any knowledge of their accuracy whatsoever—underscore the sort of disinformation Comey feared would be given to voters, and, more importantly, believed by voters, if he did not complete his investigation into the duplicate emails and announce his findings before Election Day. This alone explains his deviation from FBI protocol prohibiting discussion of open cases (and announcements regarding major investigations within two months of a general election).

3. It seems clear that Giuliani, who was the top surrogate for the Trump campaign and in near-daily contact with the candidate, acted under orders from Trump, and that Prince either acted under orders from Trump or Steve Bannon—well-known to Prince from their mutual association with, and financial investment in, Breitbart and its ownership, including Robert Mercer—and, moreover, that all those associated with the conspiracy were subsequently rewarded. Erik Prince’s sister, Betsy DeVos, was named Education Secretary by Trump, despite having no experience for the job other than advocating sporadically for charter schools in Michigan. Prince himself was named a shadow adviser to Trump, even though, by November 8th, the fact that his statements to Breitbart had been part of a domestic disinformation campaign was clear. Prince is so close to Trump that he appears to have been present at the election-night returns-watching party to which Trump invited only close friends and associates; Prince’s wife posted pictures of the event. Giuliani, originally assured a Cabinet position and then separated from the Trump team entirely—perhaps as punishment for his carelessness on Fox News—was then given a highly lucrative but substance-free position within the administration on the same day, January 12th, that the DOJ announced that the Inspector General would be investigating the sequence of events comprising the Prince-Giuliani-Trump conspiracy. Inspector General Horowitz noted that within his brief was investigation of the series of leaks that occurred between the NYPD, the FBI, and outside entities—including, we can surmise based on context, the Trump campaign.

4. Both polling, poll analysis, and internet meta-data (see below) confirm that the Comey Letter was sufficient to hand Trump the 77,143 combined votes in Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania that won him the election. We know from the statements made by Giuliani, and from numerous statements made by Trump on the campaign trail, that both men believed the Clinton email server case could be leveraged to ensure Clinton’s defeat in November. It turns out they were correct.

5. By the time Christopher Steele, the former head of MI6’s Russia desk, disseminated his research into Donald Trump’s ties with Russia to American journalists and the American intelligence community—something he did, tellingly, when he was no longer being paid for the work—he had come to believe, per The Independent, that “there was a cover-up, that a cabal within the Bureau blocked a thorough inquiry into Mr. Trump, focusing instead on the investigation into Hillary Clinton’s emails.” Evidence substantiating this concern is legion: that the FBI had Steele’s memos as early as mid-summer of 2016, after the Clinton investigation was closed, but appeared to do no work on the case (which involved alleged treasonous conduct by the Republican nominee in collusion with a hostile foreign actor) between that time and Election Day; that FBI Director Comey was intimidated into revealing the status of the Clinton case on October 27th but would not, even in the face of numerous allegations of federal crimes against the president-elect, reveal anything about the Bureau’s investigation into that matter; or that the Clinton and Weiner investigators at NYPD and the FBI appear to have leaked repeatedly to the Trump campaign, yet there have been no leaks whatsoever regarding the FBI and CIA’s ongoing investigation into Trump’s ties with Russia. It is thus clear that better understanding the scope, purpose, and players of the domestic conspiracy to elect Donald Trump will also shed light on how the FBI and CIA managed to conduct little or no investigation of criminal allegations exponentially more serious than any of those leveled against Hillary Clinton.

Seth Abramson is an assistant professor at University of New Hampshire, a former public defender, and the author of six books, most recently Golden Age (BlazeVOX, 2017).

Friday, March 24, 2017

Rep. Mark Pocan (D-WI) Has Seen 'Damning Evidence' Of Trump-Russia Collusion In Classified Reports

By ericlewis0

From Raw Story:

Democratic U.S. Rep. Mark Pocan (WI) told LGBTQ activist and Sirius XM radio host Michelangelo Signorile that he has seen “damning evidence” that shows collusion between Pres. Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign and the Russian government in an effort to turn the election in Trump’s favor.

“There are things that I know,” Pocan said, according to Towleroad.com, “just that I’ve read in classified reports that I’m sure will still come out that will continue to be damning evidence when it comes to this relationship between the Russians trying to influence our elections and ultimately I think the Trump campaign’s potential coordination on it.”

Some of it is in the classified version of the report,” he said, “and some of that hasn’t come out yet.”

We’re almost hearing a chorus at this point, as Pocan’s words echo recent statements from both Rep. Adam Schiff and Clinton Press Secretary Brian Fallon.

It’s time to release the evidence to the public. Every hour that Trump remains President is a grave threat to our national security and to the planet.

https://www.rawstory.com/2017/03/congressman-classified-reports-have-damning-evidence-of-trump-campaigns-coordination-with-russia/

Trump: Trump Care Failed Because Of Democrats!

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/trump-blames-failure-republican-healthcare-bill-democrats

Let's just take a moment to appreciate just how impressively epic this fail is

By unblock

republicans control the white house and both houses of congress.

they essentially campaigned on repeal of obamacare for eight solid years and claimed their victory was a mandate to do just that.

obamacare includes some taxes (on high earners), so repeal by definition includes a tax cut.

and they're in a new president's first 100 days, historically the ideal time for passing new legislation.

... and they couldn't even get it though the house, where democrats have effectively zero power, not even the filibuster power we have in the senate.

this is truly an impressively epic demonstration of incompetence, not only on donnie's part, but also on ryan and mcconnel and the entire republican (non-)leadership.

FAIL

FAIL

FAIL!!!!

dlevere's blog