27th Weak of the Trumpanzy!

[JackLuis]

Impeachment handbook gets first online publishing

What a way to start the seventh month!

With President Donald Trump besieged by allegations and revelations regarding his and his 2016 campaign’s links to Russia, the key chapter of the definitive volume on impeachment has been published online in its entirety for the first time.

Charles Black Jr.’s Impeachment: A Handbook was first published in 1974 during the Watergate crisis that would lead to the resignation of President Richard Nixon before his probable impeachment. In 1998 it was reissued, shortly before President Bill Clinton was impeached by the House of Representatives (only to be saved by the Senate, which acquitted him). Now, with impeachment talk once again swirling, the Lawfare blog has posted what Black termed the “heart of the matter.”

For those who have been rushing to break out the “I” word, including one Democrat who has already filed an article of impeachment in the House, Black’s words provide a note of caution and an instruction to use methodical reasoning rather than partisan passion.

“We may justifiably hope that those who have to make this political judgment will see it as high-political, and not as having any connection with partisan politics, or with views on policy,” Black writes.

Elsewhere, he states, “General lowness and shabbiness ought not to be enough. The people take some chances when they elect a man to the presidency, and I think this is one of them.”

 

[JackLuis]

Secret Clinton-era Ken Starr memo provides blueprint for indicting President Trump

A Pulitzer Prize New York Times journalist used the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) to obtain a 56-page legal memo which concludes a sitting President can be indicted.

The Times reports that the legal memo, “amounts to the most thorough government-commissioned analysis rejecting a generally held view that presidents are immune from prosecution while in office.”

Independent Counsel Ken Starr commissioned the 1998 memo, which was written by prominent conservative legal mind Ronald Rotunda.

“It is proper, constitutional, and legal for a federal grand jury to indict a sitting president for serious criminal acts that are not part of, and are contrary to, the president’s official duties,” the memo concludes. “In this country, no one, even President Clinton, is above the law.”

While this memo is said to be the most thorough government analysis of the constitutional question, Ken Starr was not the first special counsel to reach such a conclusion.

“In 1974, the Watergate special counsel, Leon Jaworski, had also received a memo from his staff saying he could indict the president, in that instance Richard M. Nixon, while he was in office, and later made that case in a court brief,” The Times reported.

 

[Hypoxia]

IMHO the most likely path to prosecution of Trompery is via state prosecutors. POTUS can't grant pardons for state or local offenses. Combine that with asset forfeiture and it could get interesting. If criminal activities are suspected to have occurred there, Tromp Tower could be confiscated, hey?

 

[JackLuis]

IMHO the most likely path to prosecution of Trompery is via state prosecutors. POTUS can't grant pardons for state or local offenses. Combine that with asset forfeiture and it could get interesting. If criminal activities are suspected to have occurred there, Tromp Tower could be confiscated, hey?

Yes indeed, Jeffy B is big on forfeiture too. Take his property and let him deal with paying the Russian and Germans off!

 

[sharingfantasies]

Who cares about Trump Tower? Take away his golf courses and hit him where it hurts.

 

[Hypoxia]

Who cares about Trump Tower? Take away his golf courses and hit him where it hurts.

Does he have golf courses in New York state? Prosecutors there don't much like him. The Florida AG he admitted bribing won't go after Mar-a-Lago. How many of his branded properties are located in states with honest prosecutors?

 

[phrodeau]

Does he have golf courses in New York state? Prosecutors there don't much like him. The Florida AG he admitted bribing won't go after Mar-a-Lago. How many of his branded properties are located in states with honest prosecutors?

There are 17 Trump courses. Five are overseas. Three are in New York. Three are in Florida. Two are in New Jersey. There's one in each of North Carolina, California, Pennsylvania and Washington DC.

 

[sr71plt]

Washington DC.

Virginia, not Washington, D.C. He's trying to build a second one in Virginia but the neighbors don't want it.

 

[sharingfantasies]

I read that his visits to the Virginia course are messing with the locals who use the river for rowing and kayaking and are now being told they can't use that part of the river. Apparently, there are some rapids along that area and people like to partake of that fun. A group of vets uses an area that is quieter and away from people as many of them don't deal well with crowded situations. They won't be able to access the area they use when Trump is around. He also is messing with the local airport just like he did in Florida.

It is a shame that he can't use the government places that are already set up with security, rather than going places that make trouble for everyone else, including his security. But if he went to the government places, he wouldn't be getting government money for the use of his golf courses.

sigh.. He really is impossible to like.

 

[JackLuis]

Maybe that's because he's been HexED!

‘Yeah I did it’: Singer Lana Del Rey admits using witchcraft to place a hex on President Trump

Singer Lana Del Rey, best known for her hit songs “Video Games” and “Summertime Sadness,” has now admitted in an interview that she has used her knowledge of witchcraft to try to place a hex on President Donald Trump.

In an interview with British music publication NME, Del Rey admitted that a mysterious tweet that she sent out earlier this year that asked her followers to gather ingredients for a midnight ceremony was part of an attempt to place a hex on Trump.

“Yeah, I did it,” the singer told NME. “Why not? Look, I do a lot of sh*t.”

Expanding on her interest in the occult, Del Rey said she believed that “vibrations” created by thoughts were capable of manifesting themselves physically, presumably via occult rituals.

“I’m in line with Yoko [Ono]and John [Lennon] and the belief that there’s a power to the vibration of a thought,” she said. “Your thoughts are very powerful things and they become words, and words become actions, and actions lead to physical charges.”

 

[JackLuis]

Jeb Bush: Trump’s latest crazed tweet storm ‘jeopardizes his legal situation’

Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, whom President Donald Trump once infamously derided for being “low energy,” said on Saturday that the president is digging himself a major hole with his tweets about the Russia investigation.

Business Insider reports that Bush, while speaking at the OZY Fest in New York, took aim at Trump’s Saturday morning attacks on special counsel Robert Mueller and Attorney General Jeff Sessions, whom the president alleged were not doing enough to investigate former Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton.

“He unleashed five tweets today about stuff that jeopardizes his legal situation, insults somebody, goes back to the 2016 election, none of which is relevant to getting tax relief done, regulatory reform done,” Bush said. “This is going to be a long ride between 2018 in January, much less 2020.”

Bush also slammed Republicans in Congress for not doing anything to hold Trump accountable, as he noted there would be nonstop outrage from the GOP if former President Barack Obama’s campaign had had the sort of contacts with Russian officials that the Trump campaign did in 2016.

It's going to be a brutal summer for the Trumpster! He's losing the acquiescence of the R Establishment slowly but surely.

 

[Carnal_Flower]

Can't think of another example of a R owning their rotten stinkin' hypocrisy

Bush also slammed Republicans in Congress for not doing anything to hold Trump accountable, as he noted there would be nonstop outrage from the GOP if former President Barack Obama’s campaign had had the sort of contacts with Russian officials that the Trump campaign did in 2016.

 

[Hypoxia]

Maybe that's because he's been HexED!

‘Yeah I did it’: Singer Lana Del Rey admits using witchcraft to place a hex on President Trump

Yet he still lives. Pretty weak magic there, hey?

Jeb Bush: Trump’s latest crazed tweet storm ‘jeopardizes his legal situation’

It's going to be a brutal summer for the Trumpster! He's losing the acquiescence of the R Establishment slowly but surely.

Tromp was never a Guppy. The "R Establishment" is only a tool for him, nothing more. Anyone not kissing his ass is The Enemy. His quandary: how can he induce sufficient ass-kissing?

 

[JackLuis]

Jake Tapper rains hell on Scaramucci for denying Russian hacking: ‘Don’t you owe a duty to the truth?’

On Sunday’s State of the Union program, Tapper asked Scaramucci if President Donald Trump was prepared to sign a sanctions bill against Russia.

“There’s a lot of misinformation,” Scaramucci said, dismissing the conclusion of U.S. intelligence agencies. “Somebody said to me the other day — I don’t want to say who — if the Russian actually hacked the this situation and spilled out those emails, you would have never seen it. You would have never had any evidence of them. Meaning that they’re super confident in their deception skills and hacking.”

“Wait, wait, wait,” Tapper interrupted. “I don’t know who this anonymous person is.”

“How about it’s the president, Jake,” Scaramucci revealed. “He called me from Air Force One and basically said to me, ‘This is — maybe they did it, maybe they didn’t do it.'”

“This is exactly the issue!” Tapper noted. “We have experts, the U.S. intelligence agencies [are] unanimous, both Obama appointees and Trump appointees — the director of national intelligence, the head of the National Security Agency, the head of the FBI. I mean, all of these intelligence experts, saying, Russia hacked the election, they tried to interfere in the election.”

‘Mooch sucks at his job already’: Internet flays Scaramucci after flame-out Tapper interview

Al Franken laughs at Scaramucci’s ‘bizarre’ use of Trump as a source that Russians didn’t hack election

‘You know that’s not true’: ABC host nails Sanders for lying minutes after she vows to ‘absolutely’ never lie

I guess it's just Trumpanzy's Ministry of Lies and Bullshit now?

 

[Hypoxia]

Puzzlewits and Fatheads: This *Is* Normal. American Politics Have Always Been Terrible.

The more civil norms America that experienced in the latter half of the 20th century and in the beginning of the 21st were what was abnormal.

“I’m trying to subtly remind people every day that we’ve had tough times before,” says Carl Cannon, author of the new book On This Date: From the Pilgrims to Today, Discovering America One Day at a Time. “Our politics now is raw and the country is polarized. There’s no question about that. And all of the historic lessons aren’t good.”

Books like Cannon’s remind us that the norms America experienced in the latter half of the 20th century and in the beginning of the 21st (including expectations of an ostensibly unbiased press and the eschewing of ad hominem attacks) were what was abnormal.

USA politics have long been a filthy contact sport. We pretended otherwise lately. Now we know.

"PRESIDENCY: The greased pig in the field game of American politics."
--A.Bierce

 

[magicalmoments]

Impeachment handbook gets first online publishing

What a way to start the seventh month!

The man drove a golf cart on the green, FFS!

 

[JackLuis]

‘Sleazy’: Trump blows up at top Dem investigating Russia minutes before Kushner speaks to committee

President Donald Trump on Monday lashed out at Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA), the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, just minutes before his son-in-law Jared Kushner was expected to speak to a congressional committee about Trump campaign contacts with Russia.

In a series of tweets Monday morning, Trump labeled Schiff as “sleazy” and called on “beleaguered” Attorney General Jeff Sessions to investigate Hillary Clinton’s connections with Russia.

Jason Chaffetz: Why is Congress questioning Jared Kushner — and not Chelsea Clinton for Benghazi?

Jason Chaffetz, who recently stepped down from the House of Representatives and into a Fox News gig, wondered why congressional investigators are focusing on Jared Kushner instead of Chelsea Clinton.

Kushner, the president’s son-in-law and White House senior adviser, released an 11-page statement detailing his contacts with Russian officials during the campaign ahead of his closed-door hearing with congressional lawmakers — and Chaffetz echoed President Donald Trump’s recent Twitter complaints.

“Republicans need to get a backbone,” Chaffetz said. “Every time the Democrats say they need to call up Jared Kushner or Don Jr. — call up Chelsea Clinton, call up the Clintons.”

The president tweeted over the weekend that Republicans had not done enough to protect him from the Russia investigation, and suggested Hillary Clinton should instead be the target — which Chaffetz endorsed.

Deflection and misdirection?

 

[JackLuis]

CNN analyst rips Kushner’s statement to shreds: He’s going to solve the Middle East but can’t fill out forms

A legal analyst for CNN on Monday observed that Jared Kushner — Donald Trump’s son-in-law and senior advisor — had apparently had trouble with simple political activities even though he has been tasked with fixing everything from the Middle East to the federal government.

CNN host John Berman noted that in an 11-page statement released Monday, Kushner insisted he was not aware of communications between Russian operatives and the Trump campaign when he met with the Russian ambassador.

“The fact that I was asking about ways to start a dialogue after Election Day should of course be viewed as strong evidence that I was not aware of one that existed before Election Day,” the statement says.

“It’s interesting that this statement is sort of designed to exonerate Jared Kushner, it doesn’t say much about the rest of the campaign,” replied Susan Hennessey of Lawfare, a legal analyst for CNN. “It certainly is sort of notable he’s covering himself but isn’t really talking much about the rest of the campaign. That’s certainly significant.”

'Dimples' isn't going to take one for the team, that's what Don Jr is for.

 

[JackLuis]

Jared Kushner reveals how Russians may have attempted to blackmail Trump days before election

"Jared Kushner confirmed that President Donald Trump was the subject of at least one extortion attempt during the 2016 election campaign. The president’s son-in-law and White House senior adviser released an 11-page statement Monday morning ahead of his closed-door hearing with the Senate Intelligence Committee detailing his contacts with Russian officials during the campaign and transition. Kushner denied colluding with Russian officials, but he disclosed one contact with a possible Russian hacker threatening to blackmail Trump over his unreleased tax returns. “There was one more possible contact that I will note,” Kushner said. “On October 30, 2016, I received a random email from the screenname ‘Guccifer400.’ This email, which I interpreted as a hoax, was an extortion attempt and threatened to reveal candidate Trump’s tax returns and demanded that we send him 52 bitcoins in exchange for not publishing that information.”"

That Nigerian Prince isn't real either, Jared.

 

[JackLuis]

Rex Tillerson could quit Trump admin before year end

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson is growing increasingly frustrated with the Trump administration and could quit before the year is through, according to reports.

Two sources familiar with Tillerson’s conversations with friends told CNN over the weekend that he has grown so frustrated with President Donald Trump and the Trump administration that there may soon be a “Rexit.”

Last month President Trump’s son-in-law and senior advisor Jared Kushner was the one calling Tillerson “unprofessional.” The Secretary of State reportedly blew up at top Trump administration staffers during a meeting in White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus’s office.

Four people familiar with the details of the meeting described the heated exchange to Politico. During his tirade, Tillerson quarreled with the director of presidential personnel, Johnny DeStefano and made clear he didn’t want the White House to “have any role in staffing.”

 

[sharingfantasies]

Every four years the Boy Scouts have a huge jamboree and invite the President to speak. Although he was not a scout, unlike previous presidents, Trump chose to speak to the scouts and their leaders. Apparently he thought they were of voting age as his speech constantly revolved around him and his politics. He did say a few relevant things, but some how managed to wander into his favorite topics despite the fact that none of these boys can vote. He had them boo when he mentioned Obama and chant USA when he said he would get rid of Obamacare.

It makes the mind boggle.

http://www.latimes.com/politics/was...nators-trumpets-his-1500937520-htmlstory.html

 

[sr71plt]

Just another "I am an ass" day for The Donald.

 

[Hypoxia]

Trump's Mistake at the Boy Scout Jamboree

The president addressed the quadrennial gathering like a campaign rally—talking to a group devoted to service as if it valued self interest.

Donald Trump continued his ongoing tour of cherished American institutions on Monday night, delivering yet another jarringly partisan speech to an apolitical audience—this one, comprised of tens of thousands still too young to vote.

During the campaign, his performance at the Al Smith dinner—where presidential candidates roast their rivals and themselves every four years—devolved into overt attacks on his opponent. Shortly after his election, he stunned CIA employees by delivering a campaign-style stump speech before the agency’s Memorial Wall. On Saturday, he surprised the crowd of uniformed personnel at the commissioning of the USS Gerald R. Ford by imploring them to lobby Congress in support of his agenda.

So his speech on Monday night to the 2017 Boy Scout Jamboree ought to have been unsurprising. Trump, after all, seems to have only one mode, irrespective of the setting, or the nature of the audience he’s addressing; one familiar litany of triumphs and grievances to which he constantly returns, delighting his fans and galling his critics.

But he retains the capacity to surprise.

“As the Scout Law says: ‘A Scout is trustworthy, loyal’—we could use some more loyalty, I will tell you that,” Trump said, and paused there.

This is the guy who demanded loyalty from an FBI director. He's big on loyalty to himself. The Scout Code is about loyalty to others, a foreign concept to POTUS. Well-trained scouts would make excellent minions if they only had that "service to others" crap wiped from their malleable brains. Oh, the Scouts won't go along with him? Time to establish Tromper Youth. Teach them the basics -- and sell them nice uniforms (made in China).
___________

President Trump Urges ‘Loyalty’ as Boy Scouts Boo Barack Obama at Jamboree

President Trump asked more than 35,000 Scouts celebrating the organization’s Jamboree to uphold just a single Scout Law value: loyalty. Specifically, to him.

Over the course of a freewheeling 40-minute speech, the president complained numerous times about “fake news,” bragged about his Electoral College victory nine months ago, threatened to fire Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price, and encouraged the assembled teens and pre-teens to boo President Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton.

Real classy there, Don. Hey, just wait till you get to address the Girl Scouts. Lots of pussy to grab there.

 

[JackLuis]

Internet blisters Trump for regaling Boy Scouts with ‘unspeakably inappropriate’ tales of playboys and cocktail parties

President Donald Trump gave what can only be described as a memorable speech at the 2017 Boy Scout Jamboree, regaling the youngsters with tales of attending cocktail get-togethers with “hot” guests and playboy industrialists.

When he wasn’t sharing nightlife tips, he bragged about his election win and encouraged the Boy Scouts to boo ex-President Barack Obama.

Twitter users were not amused, with one commenter simply calling the whole exhibition “disgusting.”

Along the way, some commenters turned their ire on the Boy Scouts, demanding they apologize for the president’s remarks.

Disgusting, Deplorable Donald, sounds right.

 

[JackLuis]

Trump call for Clinton investigation ‘highly inappropriate’: top senator

President Donald Trump’s call for Attorney General Jeff Sessions to investigate former Democratic rival Hillary Clinton is “highly inappropriate” and threatens to erode the separation between law and politics, a leading Republican senator said on Tuesday.

“Prosecutorial decisions should be based on applying facts to the law without hint of political motivation. To do otherwise is to run away from the long-standing American tradition of separating the law from politics,” Senator Lindsey Graham said in a series of posts on Twitter.

“President Trump’s tweet today suggesting Attorney General Sessions pursue prosecution of a former political rival is highly inappropriate,” said Graham, who defended Sessions from criticism by the president.

Eroding Trumpanzy's GOP support? Yep!