83rd Weak of the Spinless Led by the Spiteful

[JackLuis]

Paul Krugman explains exactly why it’s hopeless to expect the ‘spineless’ GOP to ever stop Trump

If you’re still hoping moderate Republicans step up to stop Donald Trump’s worse impulses, it’s time to stop, according to New York Times columnist Paul Krugman.

In a new column, Krugman explains how deep the “rot” of the party has gotten, and why there’s no graceful way for people like Paul Ryan and Mitch Mcconnell to extricate themselves from the morass.

“Most Republican politicians are spineless rather than sinister — or, more accurately, sinister in their spinelessness,” he writes. “They’re not really ideologues so much as careerists, whose instinct is always to go along with the party line. And this instinct has drawn them ever deeper into complicity.”

Republicans who have stood by Trump until now don’t have an incentive to jump ship, he writes.

“Once you’ve made excuses for and come to the aid of a bad leader, it gets ever harder to say no to the next outrage. Republicans who defended Trump over the Muslim ban, his early attacks on the press, the initial evidence of collusion with Russia, have in effect burned their bridges,” Krugman writes. “It would be deeply embarrassing to admit that the elitist liberals they mocked were right when they were wrong; also, nobody who doesn’t support Trump will ever trust their judgment or patriotism again.”

"Blue Wave, Blue Wave!"

 

[JackLuis]

President Whiny Ass Taking His Invisible F-35's And Going To France

As Trump's White House dealt with the fallout of more self-inflicted scandals, CNBC reported that Trump's military parade had shot higher than the Space Force for an estimated cost of $92 million. Since nothing says "America" like a large pile of burning money and jet noise, Trump threw a Twitter tantrum, swore up and down that HE canceled the parade, blamed "local politicians," and declared he was going to France instead. You know, for the troops.

Initial estimates put the cost Trump's military parade (for the troops) at $12 million. This was based off the last military parade in DC, after Poppy Bush spent a long weekend storming the deserts of Kuwait. At the time, Trump's math magician, Mick Mulvaney, said he'd seen estimates as high as $30 million. After the number crunchers inside the Pentagon finished slamming heads against their desks at the logistical nightmare of a reallocating a YUGE amount of military personnel, equipment, and weapons systems, they realized it would cost at a minimum $80 million more than the initial projections.

Shortly after the report, some crusty old coots in goofy hats began blubbering about how inappropriate it would be to #SupportOurTroops with a massive parade while our troops were literally just redeployed to Afghanistan to fight the War on Terror, now in its 17th year.

Upon hearing Trump bitch and moan about how nobody wanted to let him play supreme leader and march a battalion down Pennsylvania Ave past his hotel, DC mayor Muriel Bowser tweeted that she was the "local politician" who shot Trump down Trump's dreams as it would cost the city $21.6 million dollars.

So much conservatism shown here by the Rethuglicans.

 

[sharingfantasies]

President Whiny Ass Taking His Invisible F-35's And Going To France



So much conservatism shown here by the Rethuglicans.

One of the better decisions made in Washington in the past 83 weeks.

 

[JackLuis]

CIA historian warns ‘terrified’ Trump is acting more like a Saudi king as ‘the walls are closing in on him’

FBI and CIA historian Tim Weiner blasted the Trump administration’s decision to revoke former CIA Director John Brennan’s security clearance, telling CNN “[M]onths and years from now, we may look back on the last few days as a turning point in the opposition to Trump. The resistance coming from the establishment, from the national security empire.”

Weiner, who called out the president on the pages of the New York Times this weekend in an editorial titled “Trump Is Not a King” went on to compare the administration’s actions to those Saudi regime, “where to criticize the crown is considered an act of terrorism” and suggested Trump’s actions are antithetical to the American experiment, saying “that’s why we fought a revolution against the mad king.”

Why is Trump pursuing these drastic attacks on the national security establishment? “He is terrified. He is terrified of the Russia investigation,” Weiner said. “He is terrified that the walls are closing in on him. A man like John Brennan who was part of the initial investigation in 2016 and the beginning of 2017, he knows things that we ordinary citizens don’t. This is part what have Trump fears.”

How about we build four smaller walls? Around Mar-a-Largo! It could be the New GItmo?

 

[JackLuis]

Soy farmers freak out as Trump’s tariffs prompt several countries to cancel their US trade missions

Who knew that pea farmers would bitch when their market was jiggered?

 

[KeithD]

Did the pea farmers vote for Trump? To any who did, tough shit. He make his desire for tariffs clear before the election.

 

[JackLuis]

Manifort GUILTY!, Cohen GUILTY!

What a bunch of WITCHES!

 

[KeithD]

Manifort GUILTY!, Cohen GUILTY!

What a bunch of WITCHES!

And Congressman Hunter (and wife) indicted on multiple felonies today. He was the second congressman to endorse Trump (the first one already has been indicted).

 

[JackLuis]

Just like Nixon: How Trump’s sordid past is finally catching up to him

Nobody who has followed Donald Trump’s career, dating back many years before he entered politics, should be surprised by these events. Nor should anyone be surprised that Trump would express “regret” over the fall of Manafort for his many crimes against the United States. As Craig Unger explains in his new book, House of Trump, House of Putin: The Untold Story of Donald Trump and the Russian Mafia, the developer/casino magnate/reality TV star has cultivated connections with the underworld for decades. He built Trump Tower with illegal immigrant labor and concrete supplied by the Mafia — and gave an apartment there to the girlfriend of a mobbed-up Teamster boss. Millions of dollars have been poured into Trump properties from gangsters around the world in massive money-laundering operations.

He has always felt most comfortable with unsavory figures like Manafort, who should have been indicted and sent to prison for blatant influence peddling during the Housing and Urban Development scandal back in the Ronald Reagan era, and Cohen, who has long done business with crooks in the taxi and real estate sectors in New York City. His infamous attorney Roy Cohn was a mob lawyer indicted three times, who was lucky to escape imprisonment for tax evasion and many other alleged crimes.

The Trump outfit is going down in the time-honored style that marked the decline of La Cosa Nostra. A tough guy like Michael Cohen folds up and squeals exactly the same as Sammy the Bull. And a smart guy like Manafort, who has gotten away with everything and thought he always would, is put away exactly the same as Al Capone, convicted of tax evasion on the testimony of an accountant.

How long did they get away with shit that only effected the little people? Why are they now prosecutable?

 

[JackLuis]

‘Fuming’ Trump has started referring to ex-attorney Michael Cohen as ‘The Rat’: CNN

President Donald Trump is reportedly very angry at his former “fixer” for implicating him for allegedly ordering him to make illegal campaign contributions.

During a Wednesday morning broadcast, CNN’s Erica Hill said that sources told her network that “the president was fuming over the news of Cohen’s plea deal” and has been “referring to his one-time fixer as ‘the rat.'”

Fox co-host drops truth bomb: Trump ‘would have been indicted yesterday’ if he wasn’t president

Harf told the group that Trump appears to be afraid about what Cohen knows. As a longtime Trump operative, he knows where the bodies are buried.

“The real question is, what else doesn’t Michael know? What has he told Mueller? What has he told prosecutors working on other cases? He’s been intimately involved with the Trump Organization and Donald Trump for a very, very long time and I think that’s why you saw last night Donald Trump being careful not going after him at that rally because I think the president might be a little nervous what Cohen knows.”

‘The American people are due the truth’

David Gergen, a former adviser to the late President Richard Nixon, told CNN’s John King on Wednesday that President Donald Trump can no longer refuse to testify under oath to special counsel Robert Mueller.

While breaking down the news that former campaign chairman Paul Manafort and former Trump attorney Michael Cohen will be going to prison, Gergen said that silence is simply not an option anymore.

“He has to go before Mueller now and testify,” Gergen said. “The American people are due the truth on this. We have, as Rudy Giuliani keeps pointing out, competing truths, competing narratives about what happened. We haven’t heard the president’s side of this story under oath.”

Yeah, lets get Trump under oath and on the stand!

 

[JackLuis]

Different Day.
From Circa 1855:

. Brigham Young echoed the opinion of many Latter-day Saints when he declared "I love the government and the Constitution of the United States, but I do not love the damned rascals that administer the government."[23]

Same old Shit!

 

[JackLuis]

Trump’s rabid base has become ‘the enemy of the Republic’: New York Times columnist Charles Blow

Speaking out “would require some sense of courage and patriotism among Republicans in Congress, and those qualities have been severely lacking,” Blow wrote. “They sat quiet for so long — refusing to stand up to this president — that they allowed his narrative to subsume their party. He unleashed among Republicans the ugliness that mainstream Republicans always knew was there — indeed, they exploited it — but always thought they were smart enough and strong enough to control.”

According to the columnist, fear of Trump’s base is at the heart of their cowardice.

“Traditional Republicans are now afraid to stand on principle because they do so at great peril of being drummed out of politics. The voters are now Trump’s noxious base, ergo Trump holds each of their fates in his hands,” he wrote “Viewed that way, Trump’s base itself becomes the enemy of the Republic. “

 

[JackLuis]

Trump ally stunned after ‘National Enquirer’ boss flips to implicate the president in crimes: report

According to a new report from Vanity Fair’s Gabriel Sherman, however, Pecker has now been granted legal immunity to spill dirt to investigators about allegedly illegal payments the president made to past mistresses during the 2016 presidential campaign.

According to Sherman’s sources, Pecker has essentially corroborated former Trump “fixer” Michael Cohen’s account that the president directed him to make illegal campaign contributions in 2016 to pay for the silence of adult film star Stormy Daniels and former Playboy model Karen McDougal, both of whom claim they had affairs with Trump.

One Trump ally who spoke with Sherman said he was shocked by Pecker’s decision to cooperate with investigators.

The Trump fortress is crumbling!

 

[Veroe]

Yeah, lets get Trump under oath and on the stand!

Can you say perjury in less than five words...I'm willing to bet Donald J. Trump can.

 

[JackLuis]

Sessions fires back at Trump — and says he won’t let president’s ‘political considerations’ affect his work

Attorney General Jeff Sessions on Thursday fired back at President Donald Trump, who once again publicly slammed him during an interview that aired earlier on Fox News.

Responding to the president’s latest attacks, Sessions insisted that he “took control of the Justice Department the day I was sworn in” and he said that he has “had unprecedented success at effectuating the president’s agenda.”

Sessions then said, however, that he would not be beholden to the president’s “political considerations” in doing his job.

“While I am Attorney General, the actions of the Department of Justice will not be improperly influenced by political considerations,” he said. “I demand the highest standards, and where they aren’t met, I take action. However, no nation has a more talented, more dedicated group of law enforcement investigators and prosecutors than the United States.”

What if Jeffy is tired of Trump's shit? Would the Congress act if Trump fired Jeff if Jeff turned on Trump?

Na, not a chance they could grow a spine that fast.

 

[JackLuis]

MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow breaks down how the ‘desperately unsubtle’ National Enquirer helped Trump win

Shortly after news about Pecker’s immunity deal broke, the Associated Press reported that the AMI-published National Enquirer kept a safe full of incriminating information on Trump – but as Maddow revealed through a series of covers of the magazine, the company’s association with the president seems to be on full display when viewed in hindsight.

“David Pecker is not a random or peripheral figure in the president’s life,” she said. “This is probably the president’s greatest ally in building his public image over the last couple of decades. This is the guy, the company that specifically has managed the president’s public image, in part by aggressively managing secrets that Trump believed would be most damaging to him if they were publicly exposed.”

“And now that is who is talking to federal prosecutors,” Maddow concluded.

Pecker Power!

 

[LincolnDuncan]

"I know all about flipping," Trump told "Fox & Friends," which taped the interview at the White House on Wednesday. "For 30, 40 years I've been watching flippers. Everything's wonderful and then they get 10 years in jail and they — they flip on whoever the next highest one is, or as high as you can go."

That tool "almost ought to be outlawed. It's not fair," Trump said, adding it creates an incentive to "say bad things about somebody ... just make up lies."

Law and order president Donald Trump

 

[KeithD]

Yep, Trump has every reason to know all about mobsters and mafia.

 

[LincolnDuncan]

I don't think it was an original thought from Trump. I think he heard John Gotti say it. He acts like a mobster but my sense is that he's a punk.

 

[LincolnDuncan]

MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow breaks down how the ‘desperately unsubtle’ National Enquirer helped Trump win



Pecker Power!

It sounds like they have Pecker by the balls

 

[JackLuis]

Hounds ‘closing in’ on Trump as chief financial officer Allen Weisselberg gets immunity deal

Following previous reports that Weisselberg had testified before a grand jury earlier this year, the Wall Street Journal broke the immunity revelation on Friday. Describing Weisselberg as “Trump’s longtime financial gatekeeper,” the Journal noted that he has been an executive at the Trump Organization for decades, and “after Mr. Trump was elected, he handed control of his financial assets and business interests to his two adult sons and Mr. Weisselberg.”

In the immediate wake of the news, legal analyst Harry Litman, a former U.S. attorney, told MSNBC there is now “a sense that the dam is breaking over the last week and people are rushing in from all sides.”

These 7 longtime Trump supporters have all flipped on the president and his allies