Friday, July 14, 2017

Random Thoughts on Trump(s) and Russia

Posted by Rude One

1. Let's do this one more time, President Pussygrabber McCrazy. Consider this a lesson in the law.

James Comey could have leaked all the classified information he could get his large hands on.

Hillary Clinton could have mishandled classified emails and done something something with uranium and Russia.

Bill Clinton could have told Loretta Lynch exactly what to say about Hillary.

Every news channel that isn't Fox could be totally fake.

Barack Obama could have done nothing about Russian interference in the 2016 election.

Democrats could have colluded with Russians or Ukrainians or another foreign country during the election.

All the intelligence agencies could be leaking to do damage to the administration.

All of those things can be true, but none of them change the fact that you can still be guilty of obstruction of justice.

A murderer cannot use as a defense that his neighbor is a murderer, too. But both Trump and his son constantly tweet out what they say others are guilty of, as if to say, "If you let them get away with it, you have to let us get away with it." It's like neither of them understand that Hillary Clinton isn't the president and that Barack Obama is out of office.

2. Speaking of Pussygrabber McCrazy, Jr., he is still insisting there was nothing untoward about his meeting, along with Paul "Eyes That Have Seen Trump Nude" Manafort and Jared "Would Gladly Fuck a Dead Raccoon If His Father-in-Law Told Him To" Kushner, with a Russian lawyer. His explanation for having giving two seemingly contradictory statements about the meeting is "No inconsistency in statements, meeting ended up being primarily about adoptions. In response to further Q's I simply provided more details." No, motherfucker, you lied and thought you could get away with it. It's just like the campaign lied from the start about hookups with Russians in general.

3. First off, this "adoption" thing is a bullshit excuse. It has to do with the Magnitsky Act, passed by Congress and signed by President Obama in 2012 in order to punish Russian government officials and oligarchs who are involved in human rights abuses and fraud. It froze the assets of some really rich Russian dicks, and Putin had a hissy, so he banned Americans from adopting Russian babies. Putin hates the Act and wants it repealed. The lawyer who Junior met with, Natalia Veselnitskaya, is involved in an effort to get it repealed. Adoption is part of it, but this is about cold fuckin' cash and power.

4. But the really fucked-up part of this is that when a Russian associated with the Kremlin wanted to get together at Trump fuckin' Plaza because she had dirt on Hillary Clinton, Junior's response was, "Well, sure" when it should have been "I better call the FBI." But he couldn't do that because Junior is cut from the same scuzzy cloth as his father and the Trumps likely owe the Russians a metric fuck-ton of money and jump when told to.

4a. One fun part that hasn't gotten much discussion: Veselnitskaya "recalled that after about 10 minutes, either Mr. Kushner or Mr. Manafort left the room." She makes it seem that it's because nothing significant was discussed. But it could have been that they thought, "Oh, crap, this is illegal" and got the fuck out of Dodge. (Or they were rushing to tell Daddy about what they learned. He was in the building that day, June 9, 2016.)

5. Look, I'm not running around with my hair on fire and game theorizing the shit out of all this on Twitter. I've been circumspect, definitely leaning towards the "this is hinky" side of things with Russia. But at some goddamned point, if you keep sucking dicks for money for meth, you're a meth whore. Sure, sure, you suck one or two dicks and get paid and then go buy meth, maybe we can let it slide as tweaker shit. But if you're doing it every day, then you, my friend, have a problem with meth. And handling your finances. But mostly meth.

It's becoming more difficult to deny that the Trump administration is a meth whore. And we know who the john is.

Why You Don't Get Too Close To Glaciers


73 percent of Democrats would give up drinking for Trump impeachment



Over 73 percent of Democrats would give up alcohol for the rest of their life if it meant President Trump would be impeached tomorrow, according to a survey released on Thursday by a drug and alcohol rehabilitation group.

Only 17 percent of Republicans would give up alcohol for Trump’s impeachment. The poll also found that nearly 31 percent of Republicans would give up drinking if it meant the media stopped writing negative things about President Trump.

Rep. Brad Sherman (D-Calif.) formally introduced an article of impeachment against President Trump on Wednesday, accusing the president of obstructing justice during the investigation of Russia’s 2016 election interference. It was the first time a lawmaker had offered an impeachment article against Trump.

Detox.net surveyed 1,013 active alcohol drinkers on March 14 and asked questions related to what they would be willing to sacrifice in exchange for alcohol. Forty-one percent of those surveyed identified as women, 58 percent as men and 1 percent identified as a gender not listed on the survey.

As for political affiliation, 21 percent identified as Republican, 43 percent as Democrat and 36 percent as other.

The minimum amount of money the Americans surveyed would accept to quit drinking for a year is at least $4,700 and to give up alcohol for life they would expect at least $365,458.

There was a 5 percentage point margin of error when asking about the average minimum amount of money respondents would be willing to give accept to give up alcohol.

Tuesday, July 11, 2017

Jimmy Kimmel Completely Dismantles Kellyanne Conway On Late Night Show

Jimmy Kimmel took White House counselor Kellyanne Conway to task on his Monday night show for her constant refusal to actually address the questions that the media asks her. 

According to the New York Times Donald Trump Jr., his brother in law Jared Kushner and Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort met with a Russian lawyer to hear what they thought would be information that could hurt Hillary Clinton.

It’s all very fishy, so we invited White House spokesperson Kellyanne Conway live via satellite to clear it all up.

Anderson Cooper Can't Contain His Laughter When Jason Miller Defends Trump


Look At The Timeline

‘She’d defend a steaming pile of shit’ Internet lambasts Kellyanne Conway for trying to rescue Trump Jr.

By

 

Kellyanne Conway doesn’t seem to be having a good day on the Monday morning talk shows. At least, that’s what the Internet thinks after a grueling conversation between Conway and CNN’s Chris Cuomo.

Conway alleged that the “New Day” co-host was attempting to go viral, but it was Conway that lit up the Internet with commentary.

The interviews caught her in a series of awkward pivots and obvious hypocrisy, namely that she mentioned a report about former FBI director James Comey that cited anonymous sources. Trump and his White House has notoriously criticized the media for using anonymous sources.

Twitter users weren’t having any of it. They attacked Conway for both interviews and heralded Cuomo’s dogged attempts to get Conway to understand Donald Trump Jr. accepting a meeting with a Russian lawyer is an admission of guilt.

See the best responses below:

Sunday, July 9, 2017

Trump’s Son Met With Russian Lawyer After Being Promised Damaging Information On Clinton

A meeting arranged by Donald Trump Jr. was held at Trump Tower in June 2016 with a Russian lawyer who has connections to the Kremlin. Credit Sam Hodgson for The New York Times
President Trump’s eldest son, Donald Trump Jr., was promised damaging information about Hillary Clinton before agreeing to meet with a Kremlin-connected Russian lawyer during the 2016 campaign, according to three advisers to the White House briefed on the meeting and two others with knowledge of it.

The meeting was also attended by his campaign chairman at the time, Paul J. Manafort, and his son-in-law, Jared Kushner. Mr. Manafort and Mr. Kushner only recently disclosed the meeting, though not its content, in confidential government documents described to The New York Times.

The Times reported the existence of the meeting on Saturday. But in subsequent interviews, the advisers and others revealed the motivation behind it.

The meeting — at Trump Tower on June 9, 2016, two weeks after Donald J. Trump clinched the Republican nomination — points to the central question in federal investigations of the Kremlin’s meddling in the presidential election: whether the Trump campaign colluded with the Russians. The accounts of the meeting represent the first public indication that at least some in the campaign were willing to accept Russian help.

And while Trump has been dogged by revelations of undisclosed meetings between his associates and the Russians, the episode at Trump Tower is the first such confirmed private meeting involving members of his inner circle during the campaign — as well as the first one known to have included his eldest son. It came at an inflection point in the campaign, when Donald Trump Jr., who served as an adviser and a surrogate, was ascendant and Mr. Manafort was consolidating power.

It is unclear whether the Russian lawyer, Natalia Veselnitskaya, actually produced the promised compromising information about Mrs. Clinton. But the people interviewed by The Times about the meeting said the expectation was that she would do so.

In a statement on Sunday, Donald Trump Jr. said he had met with the Russian lawyer at the request of an acquaintance. “After pleasantries were exchanged,” he said, “the woman stated that she had information that individuals connected to Russia were funding the Democratic National Committee and supporting Ms. Clinton. Her statements were vague, ambiguous and made no sense. No details or supporting information was provided or even offered. It quickly became clear that she had no meaningful information.”

He said she then turned the conversation to adoption of Russian children and the Magnitsky Act, an American law that blacklists suspected Russian human rights abusers. The law so enraged President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia that he retaliated by halting American adoptions of Russian children.

“It became clear to me that this was the true agenda all along and that the claims of potentially helpful information were a pretext for the meeting,” Mr. Trump said.

When he was first asked about the meeting on Saturday, he said only that it was primarily about adoptions and mentioned nothing about Mrs. Clinton.
President Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, also attended the meeting last year at Trump Tower. Credit Ruth Fremson/The New York Times
Mark Corallo, a spokesman for the president’s lawyer, said on Sunday that “Trump was not aware of and did not attend the meeting.”

Lawyers and spokesmen for Mr. Kushner and Mr. Manafort did not immediately respond to requests for comment. In his statement, Donald Trump Jr. said he asked Mr. Manafort and Mr. Kushner to attend, but did not tell them what the meeting was about.

American intelligence agencies have concluded that Russian hackers and propagandists worked to tip the election toward Donald J. Trump, in part by stealing and then providing to WikiLeaks internal Democratic Party and Clinton campaign emails that were embarrassing to Mrs. Clinton. WikiLeaks began releasing the material on July 22.

A special prosecutor and congressional committees are now investigating the Trump campaign’s possible collusion with the Russians. Mr. Trump has disputed that, but the investigation has cast a shadow over his administration.

Mr. Trump has also equivocated on whether the Russians were solely responsible for the hacking. On Sunday, two days after his first meeting as president with Mr. Putin, Mr. Trump said in a Twitter post: “I strongly pressed President Putin twice about Russian meddling in our election. He vehemently denied it. I’ve already given my opinion.....” He also tweeted that they had “discussed forming an impenetrable Cyber Security unit so that election hacking, & many other negative things, will be guarded...””

On Sunday morning on Fox News, the White House chief of staff, Reince Priebus, described the Trump Tower meeting as a “big nothing burger.”

“Talking about issues of foreign policy, issues related to our place in the world, issues important to the American people is not unusual,” he said.

But Representative Adam B. Schiff of California, the leading Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, one of the panels investigating Russian election interference, said he wanted to question “everyone that was at that meeting.”

“There’s no reason for this Russian government advocate to be meeting with Paul Manafort or with Mr. Kushner or the president’s son if it wasn’t about the campaign and Russia policy,” Mr. Schiff said after the initial Times report.

Ms. Veselnitskaya, the Russian lawyer invited to the Trump Tower meeting, is best known for mounting a multipronged attack against the Magnitsky Act.

The adoption impasse is a frequently used talking point for opponents of the act. Ms. Veselnitskaya’s campaign against the law has also included attempts to discredit the man after whom it was named, Sergei L. Magnitsky, a lawyer and auditor who died in 2009 in mysterious circumstances in a Russian prison after exposing one of the biggest corruption scandals during Mr. Putin’s rule.
Mr. Trump’s former campaign chairman, Paul J. Manafort, at the Republican National Convention in July 2016 in Cleveland. Credit Sam Hodgson for The New York Times
Ms. Veselnitskaya’s clients include state-owned businesses and a senior government official’s son, whose company was under investigation in the United States at the time of the meeting. Her activities and associations had previously drawn the attention of the F.B.I., according to a former senior law enforcement official.

Ms. Veselnitskaya said in a statement on Saturday that “nothing at all about the presidential campaign” was discussed. She recalled that after about 10 minutes, either Mr. Kushner or Mr. Manafort walked out.

She said she had “never acted on behalf of the Russian government” and “never discussed any of these matters with any representative of the Russian government.”

The Trump Tower meeting was disclosed to government officials in recent days, when Mr. Kushner, who is also a senior White House aide, filed a revised version of a form required to obtain a security clearance.

The Times reported in April that he had failed to disclose any foreign contacts, including meetings with the Russian ambassador to the United States and the head of a Russian state bank. Failure to report such contacts can result in a loss of access to classified information and even, if information is knowingly falsified or concealed, in imprisonment.

Mr. Kushner’s advisers said at the time that the omissions were an error, and that he had immediately notified the F.B.I. that he would be revising the filing.

In a statement on Saturday, Mr. Kushner’s lawyer, Jamie Gorelick, said: “He has since submitted this information, including that during the campaign and transition, he had over 100 calls or meetings with representatives of more than 20 countries, most of which were during transition. Mr. Kushner has submitted additional updates and included, out of an abundance of caution, this meeting with a Russian person, which he briefly attended at the request of his brother-in-law Donald Trump Jr. As Mr. Kushner has consistently stated, he is eager to cooperate and share what he knows.”

Mr. Manafort, the former campaign chairman, also recently disclosed the meeting, and Donald Trump Jr.’s role in organizing it, to congressional investigators who had questions about his foreign contacts, according to people familiar with the events. Neither Mr. Manafort nor Mr. Kushner was required to disclose the content of the meeting.

A spokesman for Mr. Manafort declined to comment.

Since the president took office, Donald Trump Jr. and his brother Eric have assumed day-to-day control of their father’s real estate empire. Because he does not serve in the administration and does not have a security clearance, Donald Trump Jr. was not required to disclose his foreign contacts.

Federal and congressional investigators have not publicly asked for any records that would require his disclosure of Russian contacts.

Ms. Veselnitskaya is a formidable operator with a history of pushing the Kremlin’s agenda. Most notable is her campaign against the Magnitsky Act, which provoked a Cold War-style, tit-for-tat dispute with the Kremlin when President Barack Obama signed it into law in 2012.

Under the law, about 44 Russian citizens have been put on a list that allows the United States to seize their American assets and deny them visas. The United States asserts that many of them are connected to the fraud exposed by Mr. Magnitsky, who after being jailed for more than a year was found dead in his cell. A Russian human rights panel found that he had been assaulted. To critics of Mr. Putin, Mr. Magnitsky, in death, became a symbol of corruption and brutality in the Russian state.
An infuriated Mr. Putin has called the law an “outrageous act,” and, in addition to banning American adoptions, he compiled what became known as an “anti-Magnitsky” blacklist of United States citizens.

Among those blacklisted was Preet Bharara, then the United States attorney in Manhattan, who led notable convictions of Russian arms and drug dealers. Mr. Bharara was abruptly fired in March, after previously being asked to stay on by President Trump.

One of Ms. Veselnitskaya’s clients is Denis Katsyv, the Russian owner of Prevezon Holdings, an investment company based in Cyprus. He is the son of Petr Katsyv, the vice president of the state-owned Russian Railways and a former deputy governor of the Moscow region. In a civil forfeiture case prosecuted by Mr. Bharara’s office, the Justice Department alleged that Prevezon had helped launder money linked to the $230 million corruption scheme exposed by Mr. Magnitsky by putting it in New York real estate and bank accounts. Prevezon recently settled the case for $6 million without admitting wrongdoing.

Ms. Veselnitskaya and her client also hired a team of political and legal operatives to press the case for repeal. And they tried but failed to keep Mr. Magnitsky’s name off a new law that takes aim at human-rights abusers across the globe. The team included Rinat Akhmetshin, an émigré to the United States who once served as a Soviet military officer and who has been called a Russian political gun for hire. Fusion GPS, a consulting firm that produced an intelligence dossier that contained unverified allegations about Mr. Trump, was also hired to do research for Prevezon.

Ms. Veselnitskaya was also deeply involved in the making of a film that disputes the widely accepted version of Mr. Magnitsky’s life and death. In the film and in her statement, she said the true culprit of the fraud was William F. Browder, an American-born financier who hired Mr. Magnitsky to investigate the fraud after three of his investment funds companies in Russia were seized.

Mr. Browder called the film a state-sponsored smear campaign.

“She’s not just some private lawyer,” Mr. Browder said of Ms. Veselnitskaya. “She is a tool of the Russian government.”

John O. Brennan, a former C.I.A. director, testified in May that he had been concerned last year by Russian government efforts to contact and manipulate members of Mr. Trump’s campaign. “Russian intelligence agencies do not hesitate at all to use private companies and Russian persons who are unaffiliated with the Russian government to support their objectives,” he said.

The F.B.I. began a counterintelligence investigation last year into Russian contacts with any Trump associates. Agents focused on Mr. Manafort and a pair of advisers, Carter Page and Roger J. Stone Jr.

Among those now under investigation is Michael T. Flynn, who was forced to resign as Mr. Trump’s national security adviser after it became known that he had falsely denied speaking to the Russian ambassador about sanctions imposed by the Obama administration over the election hacking.

Congress later discovered that Mr. Flynn had been paid more than $65,000 by companies linked to Russia, and that he had failed to disclose those payments when he renewed his security clearance and underwent an additional background check to join the White House staff.

In May, the president fired the F.B.I. director, James B. Comey, who days later provided information about a meeting with Mr. Trump at the White House. According to Mr. Comey, the president asked him to end the bureau’s investigation into Mr. Flynn; Mr. Trump has repeatedly denied making such a request. Robert S. Mueller III, a former F.B.I. director, was then appointed as special counsel.

The status of Mr. Mueller’s investigation is not clear, but he has assembled a veteran team of prosecutors and agents to dig into any possible collusion.

Friday, July 7, 2017

Thursday, July 6, 2017

Dem challenging Paul Ryan raises $430K in campaign's first 12 days

By

Randy Bryce, a Democrat challenging House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) for his seat, raised more than $430,000 in the first 12 days of his campaign.


That money, according to Bryce's campaign, came from more than 16,000 donations, amounting to an average contribution of a little more than $25.

Bryce, a labor activist and iron worker who stumped for Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) during his 2016 presidential bid, launched his congressional campaign last month.

"Just a few weeks into this race, we have seen what can happen when you have the power of working people on your side, and I am excited to work with everyone as we continue this fight through next November," Bryce said in a statement.

Bryce's campaign pulled in more than $100,000 in just over 24 hours after declaring his candidacy.

Bryce will face off against two other Democrats, political activist David Yankovich and Janesville School Board member Cathy Myers, in the district's Democratic primary early next year.

Any Democrat challenging Ryan to represent Wisconsin's 1st District is likely to face a tough election battle. The House Speaker has held the seat for nearly 20 years and is among the most well-connected and influential Republicans in the country.

What's more, Speakers of the House are rarely voted out by their constituents. The last to be turned out was Tom Foley (D-Wash.), who lost his reelection bid in 1994.

Bryce and other Democrats are hoping to capitalize on President Trump's poor poll numbers to mount competitive races in Republican-held districts.

Got fed up. Wrote to NBC's Phil Griffin and Andy Lack about MSNBC grotesqueries

By calimary

Let me know what you think. Address included at the top here, in case you want to use it for your own letter.

Phil Griffin
NBCUniversal
30 Rockefeller Plaza
New York, NY 10112

Dear Mr. Griffin –

Longtime loyal MSNBC viewer here. Demographically: female, white, 64, college grad, wife/mother, news/politics junkie, retired news anchor/reporter, lifelong liberal Democrat, and I vote! Honored to be a member of your loyal viewership that’s lifted MSNBC to #1 in cable news in prime time, thanks to two true gems - Maddow and O’Donnell!

First: THANK YOU for relieving us of Greta Van Susteren. I wrote you months ago to point out that such a signature Fox News name DOES NOT BELONG on a network like MSNBC. Her ratings failure proved my point. PLEASE understand your audience better. We’re home at MSNBC precisely BECAUSE it does not feature programming or on-air talent like what you’d find at Fox News. If we wanted that presentation, we’d already be watching over there.

2) WHY did you force Megyn Kelly on NBC? The ratings already prove that’s another fail. She reads ice-cold on camera. She does not, and will not, appeal at any network whose audience isn’t predominately male, old, white, conservative, and horny. Move her over to MSNBC at your peril. There are far better and smarter ways to spend $17+ million/year.

3) WHY is the #1 BEST interviewer in cable news being squandered on weekend mornings? Joy Reid deserves and has earned massively better exposure, like a Monday-through-Friday show.

4) WHY do Ali Velshi and Stephanie Ruhle deserve so much Monday-through-Friday exposure? There are THREE shows between those two people alone. You really don’t have any other available talent? Are you planning to change the name of MSNBC into the Velshi/Ruhle network?

5) WHY is MSNBC being turned into a whites-only club? You gave up a Tamron Hall for the Alpha blonde from Fox News??? While the excellent Craig Melvin is reduced to a mere fill-in, and the brilliant Joy Reid languishes on the weekends?

6) WHY would you even consider the smug, arrogant, and obnoxious Hugh Hewitt for ANY exposure on MSNBC??? WHY does ANY conservative merit a show on MSNBC in the first place??? Do you just have a thing for a bad fit? Do you buy your suits that way?

I represent your largest and most loyal constituency. WHY do you make programming choices like you have? Unless you’re a mole for CNN (or worse, Fox)?

PLEASE consider the constituency you have, which is THE reason why MSNBC now reigns in cable news. If you continue to alienate us with your bad hires and programming decisions, you can count on legions of us finding new homes for our loyalty.

I was right about Greta. I’m right about this, too.

Signed, and CC'd to Andrew Lack

Wednesday, July 5, 2017

Chris Christie’s Tutorial In Hubris

Declaration Of Disruption

Monday, July 3, 2017

Jill Stein's latest victory lap demonstrates she was in favor of Trump the entire time.

By DanTex

Apparently there are still some that don't understand what the Green Party's purpose is. So let me explain.

There are two reasons, only two, that people run for federal office under the Green Party. The first is personal ego and enrichment (and free trips to Russia). The second is to help Republicans defeat Democrats. That's it.

It never has anything to do with policy. Or with giving voters another "choice". The Green Party isn't a political choice any more than a lottery ticket is a retirement plan. And the people selling you the Green Party know that, just like the ones selling you lottery tickets do. Actually that's not fair to lottery tickets. Some people have won the lottery. But in 20+ years of trying, no Green has come anywhere close to winning a house or senate seat or a single electoral vote. Blowing your money on lottery tickets is more rational than blowing your vote on the Green Party.

With Jill Stein, if she actually believed any of her own bullshit, she would be utterly devastated by the election. First, she gets about 1% of the vote. Second, the guy who wins proceeds to do the opposite of everything in the Green Platform. The Greens like to bash Dems about how bad the Dems did, but the Dems got 40 times as many votes in November. Also the Dems hold infinitely more congressional seats than the Green party ever has and ever will.

But, facing this epic defeat and humiliating showing, Stein is (still) out bragging about the "critical role" she played. This is a straightforward admission that her objective all along was not President Stein, but President Trump, and that she feels her siphoning away votes from Dems and convincing gullible alt-leftists that Trump was the lesser evil was critical to Trump's victory.

She wanted Trump to win, she helped Trump win, and now she's happy about it. She's a Trump ally, period.