Roger Stone and ConFraudUs
CNN’s David Gelles has an instructive tweet this morning showing how the rate at which Trump tweets about the Mueller “witch hunt” is accelerating.
Assuming this includes this morning’s two “witch hunt” tweets, Trump is on pace to use the phrase 28 times by the end of the month, though I bet he’ll continue to accelerate the use of it in the week remaining in the month.
The Mueller investigation is, I suspect, coming to a head.
I don’t claim I know how it will turn out. The president has an enormous amount of power and his flunkies in Congress promise they’re about to end Rod Rosenstein’s bend-don’t-break defense by impeaching him (though Rosenstein and Chris Wray have just thrown more documents out to slow the Republicans). It’s certainly possible that Trump will make a last ditch effort to undercut the Mueller investigation and that effort will be competently executed and none of the secondary fall-back defenses Mueller has put into place will work. For now, though, the Trump team seems intent on a delay and discredit strategy, which won’t stave off any imminent steps.
So we shall see whether Trump succeeds in undercutting the investigation. I keep thinking, “that’s why they play the game,” but this is no game.
There are a number of reasons I think Mueller’s investigation is coming to a head. But consider one detail. I’ve long explained that Mueller seems to be building a series of Conspiracy to Defraud the United States indictments that will ultimately incorporate the entire Russian operation (and may integrate the Trumpsters’ international self-dealing as well). As Mueller’s team has itself pointed out, for heavily regulated areas like elections, ConFraudUs indictments don’t need to prove intent for the underlying crimes. They just need to prove,
(1) two or more persons formed an agreement to defraud the United States;
(2) [each] defendant knowingly participated in the conspiracy with the intent to defraud the United States; and
(3) at least one overt act was committed in furtherance of the common scheme.
Let’s see how evidence Mueller has recently shown might apply in the case of Roger Stone, Trump’s lifelong political advisor. We already knew that Stone had communications that he did not immediately disclose with Guccifer 2.0 and Wikileaks. With both, Stone has contributed to and reinforced claims the entities were not Russian operations, though his conversion about the source of the Hillary emails was pretty sudden and curiously timed.
Now we know that in May, Stone had lunch with someone calling himself Henry Greenberg offering dirt on Hillary. His explanation — based only on the texts that Michael Caputo was asked about in a Mueller interview — is not that he didn’t entertain the offer, but that he didn’t take Greenberg up on the offer as made in late May because Greenberg was asking for big money.
Both clearly recognized Greenberg as a Russian, therefore a foreigner offering something of value during an election.
Bizarrely, in trying to rebut the import of this exchange publicly, Caputo and Stone are doing nothing more than working the public refs, claiming to assume this was an FBI sting. Mueller knows whether it was an FBI sting, and there’s virtually no way he’d be asking questions about it if it were (particularly if Stone really didn’t take the bait). In short, Stone has no justification for this he’s willing to offer publicly; instead, he’s just adopting the SpyGate narrative in an attempt to discredit the investigation. And that’s assuming there were no follow-ups or other damning texts that didn’t involve someone willing to leak them to the press.
And all that happened before Peter Smith came on the scene, someone who, unlike Donald Trump, was willing to spend money for such things, an operation Stone is suspected of being involved in but which he studiously avoids mentioning when trying to explain himself. Smith did obtain emails from people Matt Tait advised him might be part of a Russian operation, and when he couldn’t validate them, sent them on to Wikileaks.
Which is to say Stone repeatedly entertained offers from foreigners illegally offering dirt that would benefit the Trump campaign — Greenberg, Guccifer 2.0, possibly Peter Smith’s Dark Web hackers. He may even have exhibited a belief that Australian Julian Assange had and could release the latter dirt, possibly with the knowledge they came from Russians.
So we’ve got Stone meeting with other people, repeatedly agreeing to bypass US election law to obtain a benefit for Trump, evidence (notwithstanding Stone’s post-hoc attempts to deny a Russian connection with Guccifer 2.0 and Wikileaks) that Stone had the intent of obtaining that benefit, and tons of overt acts committed in furtherance of the scheme.
And all that’s without leaning on the the other stuff Mueller found on Stone’s phone, which Stone is also trying to explain away by public conspiracies (in this case that the phone content was obtained with a FISA order rather than with a probable cause warrant obtained on March 9).
This is just one of the people Mueller has publicly focused on in recent days. We could lay out similar arguments for Michael Cohen, Paul Manafort, and Brad Parscale, at a minimum. Mueller had — and acted on — probable cause warrants covering five AT&T phones in March, all of which probably had close ties to Rick Gates. Assuming those targets are distributed proportionately with the US population, he’s likely to have obtained warrants for as many as 15 phones just in that go-around.
So if Roger Stone is any indication, the Mueller investigation may soon be moving into a new phase.
Definitely new phase. But months to go.
July, August, September are critical.
There is going to be a shit-tonne of money laundering happening next three months.
Extremely important that US citizens that will be eligible to vote 2018-11-06, actually do so.
‘It’s odd’: Colyer ran for Congress years ago. His campaign still owes him $240,000.
http://amp.kansascity.com/news/politics-government/article213601249.html?__twitter_impression=true
Long before Jeff Colyer became governor of Kansas, he tried to make it to Congress.
And even though he’s abandoned those efforts, the most recent federal campaign finance filings show Colyer still has nearly $240,000 of debt in his congressional campaign committee fund — outstanding loans that he made to his own campaign more than a decade ago that the campaign has never paid back.
“I think it looks terrible,” said Richard W. Painter, who served as chief ethics counsel for former President George W. Bush and is now running as a Democrat for a U.S. Senate seat. “Why not just close the books and write off the debt?”
…
’”it’s odd,” said Brendan Fischer, who is director of the federal reform program at the Campaign Legal Center and who focuses on campaign finance. “I don’t know why he wouldn’t have just forgiven his loans as opposed to continuing to file reports for years showing the same outstanding loans.”
…
On Dec. 31, 2013, Colyer lent the campaign $500,000. It was repaid two days later, after a campaign finance filing deadline. In July, Colyer again lent the campaign $500,000; again, it was repaid two days later. Democrats accused Colyer of artificially increasing Brownback’s finance totals with a floating loan.
Finally, in August that year, Colyer lent the campaign $500,000. That loan was not repaid until after the election. At the time, Brownback’s campaign called the movement of money “simply an issue of cash management.”
Yeah, I keep thinking that Трамп waited too long to fire Mueller… thinking that should he fire Mueller, the GOP might just lose both House and Senate.
That said, Трамп might not be capable of that level of (competent) strategic thinking. The family separation debacle is a wholly unnecessary self-own, and worse (for the GOP) a self-own only a little more than 3 months prior to the midterms; the Vichy Times reports that the day before the EO came out Трамп told advisers that “my people love it”.
The Republic is fortunate that the clowns trying to bring it down are so incompetent.
“Coincidence Number 395”: The N.R.A. Spent $30 Million to Elect Trump. Was It Russian Money?
https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2018/06/the-nra-spent-dollar30-million-to-elect-trump-was-it-russian-money/amp?__twitter_impression=true
The Russian wooing of N.R.A. executives goes back to at least 2011, when that same banker and politician, Alexander Torshin, befriended David Keene, who was then president of the gun-rights organization. Torshin soon became a “life member,” attending the N.R.A.’s annual conventions and introducing comrades to other gun-group officials. In 2015, Torshin welcomed an N.R.A. delegation to Moscow that included Keene and Joe Gregory, then head of the “Ring of Freedom” program, which is reserved for top donors to the N.R.A. Among the other hosts were Dmitry Rogozin, who until last month was the deputy prime minister overseeing Russia’s defense industry, and Sergei Rudov, head of the Saint Basil the Great Charitable Foundation, one of Russia’s wealthiest philanthropies.
…
“There are a lot of unanswered questions,” Senator Ron Wyden says. The Oregon Democrat has spent months pushing the N.R.A. to explain the sources of its foreign contributions. The gun group’s responses shifted from saying it had received only one contribution from a Russian person in six years; to acknowledging 23 Russian-related contributions since 2015 totaling a little more than $2,500; to shutting down communications with Wyden. “’Shifting’ is a diplomatic way to put it,” the senator says. “They have flipped more times than a kid on a summer diving board. . . . The notion that all of these important oligarchs who had involvement with the N.R.A. and were close to Putin were spending money on a few magazine subscriptions doesn’t strike me as very plausible.”
…
Ted Lieu wants to summon N.R.A. officials to testify before him and the rest of the House Judiciary Committee—but that depends on the Democrats regaining a congressional majority this fall. For now, the California Democrat and one of his New York colleagues, Kathleen Rice, have written to F.B.I. director Chris Wray calling for the bureau to probe whether Russian money was channeled through the N.R.A. and spent on 2016 House and Senate campaigns. “These meetings with Russians and the N.R.A.’s increased spending could be coincidence number 395,” Lieu says. “Or something extremely bad happened.”
https://www.citizensforethics.org/press-release/wilbur-ross/
CREW FILES CRIMINAL, ETHICS COMPLAINTS AGAINST WILBUR ROSS
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
June 22, 2018
CONTACT: Jordan Libowitz
202-408-5565 | [email protected]
CREW FILES CRIMINAL, ETHICS COMPLAINTS AGAINST WILBUR ROSS
Washington—Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross should be investigated for possible violations of the STOCK Act or other insider trading laws and false statements to the Office of Government Ethics (OGE), according to criminal and ethics complaints filed today by Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) with the Department of Justice (DOJ) and OGE.
Knowing that the New York Times was close to publishing a story about his dealings with Navigator Holdings and its ties to Putin’s closest allies, Ross appears to have engaged in a short sale of Navigator stock, in order to profit from a dropping stock price. The STOCK Act prohibits executive branch employees from using “nonpublic information derived from such person’s position as an executive branch employee or gained from the performance of such person’s official responsibilities as a means for making a private profit.” In addition, securities laws prohibit executing trades based on inside information, such as information obtained by virtue of one’s government position.
[https://www.theguardian.com/news/2017/nov/06/wilbur-ross-paradise-papers-leak]
One wonders why Wilburrrrr hasn’t been brought in to visit Mueller (please correct me on this if I’m wrong), because of his connections to the Bank of Cyprus alone (but see below about Navigator) to help Kaiser Quisling (квислинг in KQ’s preferred language) launder money all over the world. On a related note, for someone thinking he’s about to be arrested, Mikey’s incoherent interview with Tom Arnold of all people seems pretty unwise even if it’s a flare to get the palace’s attention. Avenatti noticed it and I’m sure Mueller has as well. I would suspect only one deal is open to Paulie and Mikey.
https://www.rawstory.com/2018/06/another-huge-trump-administration-corruption-scandal-no-one-talking/
Parscale is another interview witness that probably knows more than a few things, but he’s a true believer from what he has been up to since the campaign started to now. Maybe that is another reason for the 4 new additions requested by the OSC.
“This is no game”! That’s for sure! Its war, and its headed to the street, hand to hand, no prisoners, no healing pardons. Ugly! Little Big Horn- with a lot of dead Indians! Be ready!
Leave Indians out of it. It’s a war on vulture capitalists, on financial conmen & racist bigots. NDNs have survived that and are trying to model proper community behavior for the rest of us. If the first Europeans had learned more from them we would’t be in this spot now.
If Tecumseh had had a little more force and pushed the white eyes off the continent into the ocean we wouldn’t be in this spot now either.
Is there anything Mueller could uncover that would cause Trump’s followers to abandon him? Or at least say “Well THAT is unacceptable, we’ve made a huge mistake and he has to go”? His poll numbers went up after the grab em’ by the pussy tape. The worse he is the more they love him. What would be too much for them?
Maybe I’m just having a bad day but I don’t think this current dynamic can be defused by anyone. It’s his followers that are the threat to the continued existence of the nation. Not even unanimous GOP House/Senate support for impeachment will sway the followers – in fact that would just make them even worse. Not even losing Fox Newz would do it. They’d just go burn down Fox Newz. Ultimately, the followers would have to be convinced and I don’t think that’s possible.
Here’s your answer: Pro-Life Leader Says She’d Still Support Donald Trump if He Paid for an Abortion
That’s probably because she’s certain that he has. Multiple times, most likely. Probably nothing short of a Lonesome Rhodes event would discourage a significant proportion of his supporters.
No doubt
I’ve been wrangling with MAGA cultists on another blog for almost a year now. I regret to report that they’ve been threatening armed rebellion against the United States for almost a year now and probably even before that. Dirty Russian money flowing to the NRA is especially alarming in that context. Maybe they’ll snap out of it. Maybe not.
If you have seen these threats, have you reported to FBI?
Yes, I realize that these people may be unhinged, and not really mean what they say, but if they could be read as a terrorist threat, they should be reported. Likely FBI on it anyway, but, you never know for sure.
No, I haven’t reported anybody to the FBI. I hadn’t even thought about that. Thinking about it now feels . . . weird–really weird.
It is not difficult. You will talk to someone that just enters your report into a computer.
You are done.
It’s whether the followup later, based on keywords, and/or an analyst having time to connect dots, leads to ‘stuff’.
You never know. It could be a dead lead. It may be treated as noise tip.
But, you never know, some dots may be connected.
This is why it is important that everyone pays attention.
One may spot a very important clue, and not realize it.
“I’ve been wrangling with MAGA cultists on another blog for almost a year now.”
I wonder how many of them are/are not actual human beings who are eligible to vote.
I’m not sure he’s ever paid for an abortion. He has very likely implied he would, but it’s a lot harder to see him actually coming up with the money.
Trump voters are pure Romantics – they vote from the gut and the heart. They make choices because it feels good and they choose leaders who tell them they are right and good to do so. Only more Enlightened-inclined types rely on evidence and logic. Very different thought processes go in on here.
Romantics HAVE to stick by their original choices. To accept any evidence that they may have chosen poorly would mean accepting that their gut had been wrong. And when your entire world view and sense of self is predicated upon maintaining this facade of self-righteousness, then admitting you were wrong is unthinkable.
That’s why Hilary HAS to be guilty. They know deep down in their gut without a shadow of a doubt that she is guilty of something (Anything!) They don’t need evidence or proof: they just/need want the satisfaction of being right.
Logic and facts that might lay bare the stupidity of their own choices are existential threats to the pure Romantic. Debating them is pointless.
People who support tRump are living in a “victim” paradigm. They were raised with power and control. They believe they have a hard life. They feel powerless in their own life and see tRump making things change. They need government, someone more powerful than themselves to make it better. They feel they will not get what they deserve because they are not good enough. They use the tools of power and control on themselves and their families. They see how tRump uses control and that feels like a glass of fresh water to their powerlessness. They have internalized Power and control and believe that hurting people is how you discipline and control. They admire it. And yet using it perpetuates it. This paradigm is powerful when shared. At the bottom or foundation is the belief that they are not good enough. These people will use others as objects of control as they have been used. They cannot see truth outside their paradigm because they have so internalized the template. Their perception is not tethered to facts but to fear. They believe fear is truth.
We need to understand more about the underpinnings of violence. It comes from fear and shame and invalidation. At the far end of the continuum are little hitlers running their families through this template. It’s not brown skin or white skin, it could be Israeli or Palestinian, French Canadian or English Canadian. American Indian, imperialistic Britain. American, African. It’s about power and control. When we live by (the sword) Power and control (the use and manufacturing of fear, guilt and shame), we die by (the sword) Power and control.
These behaviors are brain washing. They create codependency and addiction. It’s forces the brain to attune to power and control (fear, guilt and shame-depression/anxiety and addiction anyone??) instead of connection, intimacy and bonding. Power and control interferes with healthy bonding. Interferes with our ability to discern truth because when enough fear and shame are created the brain begins to operate and think through the emotions. The brain perpetuates the fear guilt and shame and the cognitive links fade because of chronic trauma. Soon the ability to access facts in the face of strong emotion diminishes. Trauma is brain damage. This brain damage perpetuates violence at its polar end, makes us blind to the paradigm, (due to invalidation, minimize, Deny, and Blame). This is where separation from truth occurs.
Power and control is the problem. Used primarily, fundamentally, it will destroy the human race because the tether is to fear instead of truth and knowledge.
We need to use democracy in its most powerful form. Educate. Speak out. Speak truth to Power. Do it together. Bond. Stop splitting. Stop judging. Let truth guide us together to destroy power and control. Power and control is never adaptive. Violence without power and control, when linked to the valid perception of threat is adaptive. Power and control exploits this mechanism in humans and instead manufactures the circumstances that rationalize the use of violence. Power and control includes a fundamental lie at its foundation. The lie at the base of this fallacy is that any human being knows the truth when they are alone. That one person can know truth without the influence of theirs. It’s the belief in being right instead of seeking truth. The fear and shame creates a perpetual need to be right. Right is a symbol a judgment. A label. When the brain uses emotions alone to discern truth, it is in grave danger. We as pack animals know the truth, through sharing, conversing and educating. When we interfere with those bonds, those channels of truth, that creation of majority, the truth we share together, we are in trouble. Money and power do not require a link to truth to persuade. Power and control goes around validity and moves majorities through the use and exploitation of fear, guilt and shame. And it leaves a brain that operates out of emotion mind in its wake. It’s not the degree of violence that determines the severity of mental illness but the invalidation, the variance from truth, the truth that is contained within a mentally healthy majority.
We need to be able to see that Power and control hides the truth, it distorts the truth. If we can calm the fear guilt and shame of that 30% we have a chance to move some of them. (But not all. Some brains have forever lost their capacity to discern truth from pure emotion. Humanity as pack animals have more knowledge that is valid when we use majority that is tethered to our most informed and motivated, dedicated paths to truth. Linus Pauling had a higher power. His higher power was scientific methodology. And finally, thats why sites like this are sacred. In my humble opinion.
Well said. Thank you for taking the time.
Beautifully stated, Peacerme. As a neuroscientist and someone who grew up in a violent household, this rings true to me. The science bears a lot of this out, as does my own subjective experience of anger and vindictiveness as a front for deep insecurities. And yes, violence only begets more of the same. Generational abuse is a real thing, and it takes a LOT of effort to stop those ingrained patterns. I think that a large portion of his base are people that are stuck in feelings of anger on a regular basis.
Slightly related- I’ve noticed (though my own experience is only n=1, this pattern seems to hold true) the odd time I have been on alt-right and heavily conservative website comments sections, rarely do you see anyone advocating for kindness, as you’ve written above. Hatred and divisiveness is amplified instead. Therefore, it seems to be a factor of those who take an analytical approach (who are willing to revise their conclusions when new evidence presents itself, unlike many of these people who could never be convinced that any evidence wasn’t just another fabricated conspiracy by the deep state) that the most pro-social response (that which is the greatest good for greatest amount of people) is considered. Interesting what suggestions people come up with when their attitude towards others is not a win-lose, zero-sum game.
Snore. 3/4 of the country has not had a raise since 1978. That’s coming up on 3 generations, grandparents, parents, grandchildren with no progress and the lifetime prospects for the grand kids getting worse. They’ve had the shits of being used by the Repubs, and exploited and abandoned by the Dems when they embraced neo-liberalism almost 50 years ago. No long intellectual masturbation needed to explain what’s up.
If the country does not get relief with Trump (and the odds are really high it will not) the swing in ’20 will be even wilder. Think it’s been a bumpy ride so far? We ain’t seen nuttin’ yet. Fasten your seat belts and hang onto your copies of the New Deal. Convincing the Dems to get a clue and re-embrace it could save us all.
“Is there anything Mueller could uncover that would cause Trump’s followers to abandon him?”
That is the $50k question. But no, nobody has advanced a likely idea. Such would have bubbled up by now and that has now happened.
“It’s his followers that are the threat to the continued existence of the nation.”
No, Trumpists are not The Threat. I think you have bought the narrative that Trumpists are omnipotent and legion; I don’t, “the polls” notwithstanding. Trumpists are cheerleaders and cheering squad (like you and me, but with opposing views). The “threat to the very existence of the nation” in this case is not the cheerers-on but rather the doers, the powers who craft and promote bad policies and enable and then enforce bad laws. The Doer-in-Chief is Trump.
“Not even unanimous GOP House/Senate support for impeachment will sway the followers […]”
See above.
“Not even losing Fox Newz would do it. They’d just go burn down Fox Newz.”
And that would be a bad thing??
“Ultimately, the followers would have to be convinced and I don’t think that’s possible.”
There will always grousers, both pro and con.
No. Trump’s base is motivated purely by white supremacy. Trump’s lawlessness is of a piece with his appeal. The law does not constrain the white herrenvolk. Impunity is a sign of racial power.
“Is there anything Mueller could uncover that would cause Trump’s followers to abandon him? “
Perhaps a tape recording with T laughing about deceiving and conning his base, how stupid they are, how delightful it has been to dangle them like puppets from a string, how he couldn’t care less about whatever it is they feel strongly about, that it has all been an enormous CON from the get-go and he has had the time of his life carrying it out, and how much more he in truth respects and fears the people who were never taken in by his game – just perhaps such a tape might open a few eyes. But not all of them. I suspect, and fear, the brain damage is irreparable and that only death will finally limit the damage.
That’s one reason this whole thing is so sad to me — so many of the “marks” were honorable people in life. Many of them served in the armed forces and fought against the types of tyrannies they are now working so hard to bring about in the US.
I view what has happened as akin to an infectious pandemic, of the memetic kind, of course. There are theoretically possible courses of action to intervene and stop or minimize the damage of the disease, but in this case people have to understand that they and their loved ones are actually sick. That, and the fact that it would take government-level resources and coordination make these possibilities seem unlikely to be realized.
“Is there anything Mueller could uncover that would cause Trump’s followers to abandon him?”
Very unlikely. See:
1] 3/2/16 Donald Trump and Authoritarian Followers Bob Altemeyer
2] 7/7/17 Altemeyer on Trump’s Supporters John Dean
thanks, harpie. this is important information to consider.
there is a long-term study of party voters, the name/title/description. of which i can’t recall. the research setup is that the same questions have been asked of voters for several election cycles. further, questions are “disguised” so as to shield their intended measurement target from respondents and thus avoid socially correct answer bias. republican voters supporters of mitt romney in 2012 and republican supporters of donald trump in 2016 had similar scores on measures of “racism” and “immigrant dislike” (my terms). one can infer, as altmeyer does, that the candidate is not the difference. personality matters greatly. i think the understanding of the critical importance of voter personality has has too lityle attention paid to it. the vicious twitter houndings, like stonings, would seem a good place to go for more research on this.
I don’t know how the Mueller Investigation will turn out, either. But I know this: regardless of when Mueller ends his investigation (and gives his report), if the republicans are in control of Congress or the Senate, Trump will not be impeached (or, if impeached, convicted in the Senate), and he will not be indicted. Flood works in the background on this endgame. Key people have already been bought off, and it may be that, miraculously, no evidence of Russian interference in the election will be found. And evangelicals will cite that as evidence of God’s support of Trump.
Beyond that, I’m increasingly convinced that Trump will not willingly leave office after 4 or 8 years. We’ve got a long, hard fight on our hands.
Kaiser Quisling may not be personally indicted while in office (yet) but his palace minions do not have the same protection, especially with respect to state charges.
I would agree however that the idea that Trump won’t go willingly even when he loses an election is probably sound, remember the “rigged election” statements and refusal to accept the outcome if he had lost. Also note that if he does win in 2020 (God help us) it’s a cinch that he will make sure the 2024 election does not occur by any means necessary, with the full connivance of Putin and the GOP cabal (including the Kochs, Friess and the NRA, etc.)
wait until the russian troops start coming to “Murika” to help quell the uprising against trump….
Nah it’ll be DonJr’24 : the first pardoned person to get GOP nomination, after serving as VP following Pence unfortunate fall from grace/helicopter
Cat herder: for the Trumpies, the short answer is “no”. However, they are still only 35 % or so of the population so they cannot win elections on their own (allowing for gerrymandering may change some of this discussion). Name them and shame them to take the thrill of being on the “inside” out of it, like SHS getting shunned in Lexington VA. If the palace trope is “deeply held beliefs” supersede everything else, then we get ours too.
That is why all of this BS about Mueller’s investigation taking too long, the “fake news” and “deep state” sideshows, combined with the hot-button immigration issue has been flung out there like so much dreck to keep these people scared and stupid but happy they’re on the “better” side with “insider” knowledge. Kaiser Quisling (квислинг in his preferred language) has been doing this for years, and long before PT Barnum there were enough suckers to make it a good business model.
https://www.rawstory.com/2018/06/trump-supporters-expect-lie-makes-want-defend-hes-not-perfect-guy-stupid-stuff/
35% is more than enough for what the rabid crowds at those rallies want to do. They want mass executions, not elections or judicial rulings. I thought they would calm down after 2016 but instead they just keep getting exponentially worse.
They are followers. Followers need a leader. They want to be led, they don’t give a shit about any of the high ideals of democracy so many of us are counting on to save us from ourselves. Trump the person is irrelevant; when he’s gone the followers will need another leader. Who will they pick next?
The 35% will not have a say if every US citizen that is eligible to vote on 2018-11-06 gets off their ass and votes.
That 35% isn’t evenly distributed, though. Mississippi isn’t turning even the tiniest bit blue no matter what the turnout in November. These people are fully ’round the bend.
Electoral College can actually work.
No surprise that the fascists want to elininate it. Even though the media spin has said for years that it helps the gop, the gop knows that trend may not continue.
People can end that trend if they vote 2018-11-06.
What does the EC have to do with the midterms? Maybe I’ve misunderstood how this is supposed to work.
Metadata?
If people fail to vote 2018-11-06, then the fascists will be in position to kill Electoral College *BEFORE* 2020.
Yes, southern states likely will stay red this year.
Especially Mississippi.
Or twist it by state by state.
*Your* personal vote for President does *NOT* count.
Maybe in Maine and Nebraska it helps.
Midterms can affect who the Electoral Representatives (the Electors) may end up being. And they could be corrupted.
https://www.archives.gov/federal-register/electoral-college/about.html
The U.S. Supreme Court has held that the Constitution does not require that Electors be completely free to act as they choose and therefore, political parties may extract pledges from electors to vote for the parties’ nominees. Some state laws provide that so-called “faithless Electors” may be subject to fines or may be disqualified for casting an invalid vote and be replaced by a substitute elector. The Supreme Court has not specifically ruled on the question of whether pledges and penalties for failure to vote as pledged may be enforced under the Constitution. No Elector has ever been prosecuted for failing to vote as pledged.
Today, it is rare for Electors to disregard the popular vote by casting their electoral vote for someone other than their party’s candidate. Electors generally hold a leadership position in their party or were chosen to recognize years of loyal service to the party. Throughout our history as a nation, more than 99 percent of Electors have voted as pledged.
[Hack vote in a couple of states, have corrupt Electors elsewhere. Fix in. But, midterms can change the calculus. If Electoral College can be eliminated, and it could become all due to result of popular vote, then election hacking would become standard]
[May not apply until 2032 or later. Want to avoid]
[Bottom line. Vote 2018-11-06 to minimize chance of corrupt Electors. Just because 99% of time they cast for President based on popular vote in their state, does not mean it will continue that way]
[Remember, *YOUR* vote for president does *NOT* count]
[But your vote in midterms definitely counts]
Recent polls have Trump at 90% approval among all Repubs. That’s a big number even if they’re not all hard core Trumpies. Repub enthusiasm is at levels close to Dems so it’s not going to be a Dem blowout. A few more restaurants and Maxine Waters and the Repubs will be out for blood, and the Indys will be so disgusted they won’t break Dem. Off years tend to be hard on those in office, but is offset this year by favorable economic conditions 6 months out. Plus, the Dems are making a mistake by running to the right. Sanders and Trump showed that is not where the hearts and minds are. Dunno who they think they’re going to pick off. It is going to be an interesting fall.
This is the racial trend that Trump is playing. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_by_non-Hispanic_white_population non Hispanic white minorities in California and Texas 6 years ago.
Over 10 point swings in 26 states. 59 million Hispanics, only 11 million illegals and not all them Hispanic, less than 50 percent Mexican. Just like DHS new policy of fingerprints of every household member before allowing a sponsor a UAC out of indefinite detention. The 2016 Trump poll watcher threat that was broadcast to the non white voters that was listened to by Blacks and Hispanics. Show up at the polls and get on a list. If you are US citizen, better not have a spouse or parents or children that aren’t because the GOP will be taking names and numbers. This will only be worse at Midterms and 2020. Blame some of it on Putin agitation but this is basically GOP operatives work. Just like holding a recount and counting how many GOP attorneys show up just to keep the fix and vote hack in. Watch those GOP crosscheck taking only Blacks or Hispanics off the voting rolls. Oh that is the same surname as a felon two states away…
Hope people come up with some solutions here. Said before it was odd there was talk of crosscheck in the DNC hacks that did not get broadcast across the GOP media spectrum as a Democratic crime. A little too close to home perhaps and perhaps something Mueller has found.
Reality has a nasty way of intruding on palace narratives (remember Darth Cheney’s “we make our own realities” gambit?), like a trade war with People’s Republic of China. Many of these landmines have due dates to address them or one will get blasted, and ignoring them (like the palace does on
child“unaccompanied minors” detention) doesn’t work when not holding all of the cards. The PRC has their hand to play too.https://www.rawstory.com/2018/06/looming-china-tariff-hikes-time-bomb-blow-trumps-face-july-report/
Insane, just insane. ice leak.
https://t.co/qK3XqStEtZ?amp=1
Red Hen at Red Hen
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2018/06/sarah-sanders-broke-the-law-with-tweet-on-restaurant-eviction-says-ex-white-house-ethics-chief.html
[Note the business did correct thing, told her to leave, and that it was ‘on the house’]
@Trip
Did you catch this? Note first point (lesson #1)
Notice anything different?
https://t.co/kqlbM42DLW?amp=1
Ties to point 7 in this thread
Thread by @TorEkelandPC: “My dad was tortured by the Gestapo for 4 days and thrown in a concentration camp for being in the Norwegian Resistance.
https://mobile.twitter.com/TorEkelandPC/status/1011002957406588928
Also can be found here
https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1011002957406588928.html
Just Bookmarked it. I haven’t read it.
Who built the Trump/IRA/operative fake media campaign, the one where bots flood thousands of replies, retweets and likes in seconds? Took the phrase 33,000 emails from less than once a day on twitter to bonanza on this trump tower meeting day tweet. Note the supersize reverberation count.
June 9, 2016, 156K retweets, 296k likes
… “where are your 33,000 emails that you deleted?”
https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/741007091947556864
Reference this EW post comments on Scavino/Parscale Trump tweeting.
https://www.emptywheel.net/2018/01/17/the-june-9-trump-tower-limited-hangout/
Coinky-Dink: 4 minutes later at 7:28, Trump persona tweets: “Former Attorney General Michael Mukasey said that President Trump is probably correct that there was surveillance on Trump Tower. Actually, far greater than would ever have been believed!” recalling a March 2017 storyboard.
The former government employee is now a high-priced lawyer in private practice, who charges the high-even-for-Manhattan rate of $1500/hr. He seems to be either disclosing confidential data, some of it CI data, or he’s making shit up. The tradition of Trump lawyers is to make shit up.
Even if true, Mr. Mukasey does not mention why people living or working in TT might have been under surveillance. He implies for the Base that it is because of nefarious objectives of the deep state.
He omits to mention that it would have been more probably based on that so many people going to and fro had deep and worrying connections with the Russian state, and that surveillance, if any, followed due process. The same due process Mr. Trump disregards on a whim, rather like his Supreme Court appointee, Neil Gorsuch.
Trump calls Red Hen restaurant “filthy” and “dirty” for “refusing to serve a fine person” like Sarah Huckabee Sanders. That can only mean the Don has never sat through one of her press conferences.
My guess is that Mr. Trump’s new, trademarked escort services in China will do business with anyone regardless of how filthy or dirty their money, just as his other businesses make special efforts to market his condos to that same filthy, dirty global money.
Consistent business for a politician though, since they are usually the ones being paid. Perhaps that’s what Trump’s receiving dozens of those famously hard to get Chinese trademarks during his presidency is about.
Best response to Huckster-bee:
Marie Connor @thistallawkgirl
Calm down, Sarah. They probably just thought you were a lesbian.
Sarah SandersVerified account @PressSec
Last night I was told by the owner of Red Hen in Lexington, VA to leave because I work for @POTUS and I politely left. Her actions say far more about her than about me. I always do my best to treat people, including those I disagree with, respectfully and will continue to do so
_____
Because then it’s okay not to serve someone. Also, aside from Trump’s establishments being filthy and keeping meat way beyond the expiration date (and being shutdown), he didn’t want black people in his apartments. And he didn’t want Black and Latino people working in his casino. They had to be hidden from him.
So to recap, ugly asymmetrical contortionist white lying witch faces should always be served. And by that I mean Soylent Green.
These three were pretty good:
1] https://twitter.com/AshaRangappa_/status/1010519963948535808
2]https://twitter.com/RubenGallego/status/1010566588741791744 [Iraq War Veteran. USMC 0311/0341. Member of Congress for Arizona’s 7th Congressional District. Proud Democrat. Hispanic, Latino]
3] https://twitter.com/JohnDingell/status/1010600804024246275
The Dingle wins.
Or this guy, with gaslighting instead:
https://twitter.com/FlyingMezerkis/status/1010551289267318786
LOL!
Or [promise, this is the last…]
https://twitter.com/EricKleefeld/status/1010556838042103808
Irony.
When I mentioned ‘Red Hen at Red Hen’, I actually did not know about her profile.
I do not profile anyone. I hope the ‘person’ is an actual Homo Sapiens.
I just do not pay attention to Homo Sapiens that clearly are willing to lie to others for money.
“Red Hen at Red Hen’ was referring to a GOP Female.
But apparently, she is actually still a chick.
From @theanthonyking:
It’s encouraging that Sarah Huckabee Sanders was judged not by the color of her skin but by the content of her character.
equal time/balance . .
https://www.elitedaily.com/news/politics/trump-mar-a-lago-health-violation/1859699
Rolf Mowatt-Larssen is my new hero. I agree with his assessment 100%. Except I believe Trump has been a mark since the days of Czech intelligence, given his first wife and the story of their meeting.
Https://www.justsecurity.org/57914/trump-russian-target-eyes-american-intelligence-officer-cia-kompromat/
Good article. But it is not all Russia.
if Congress wants to revive its obligation to commit oversight of the executive branch after all this time, it will have to start playing hardball to get it. Hold hearings, withhold budgets, micromanage a few budget excesses. Target frivolous expenditures that Trump favors, for example, or Scott Pruitt’s absurd spending. Otherwise, its laments at not being allowed into a few concentration camps will be for nought.
Congress knows that politics is a contact sport, but it’s been sitting on the sidelines too long.
Michelle Wolf is a national treasure and hero:
Michelle Wolf calls out CNN as “complicit”: “You’re all getting paid and we’re all getting f**ked”
https://www.salon.com/2018/06/25/michelle-wolf-calls-out-cnn-as-complicit-youre-all-getting-paid-and-were-all-getting-fked/
The MSM is still pearl clutching and tut tutting over Maxine Walters’s impassioned plea for people to let themselves be heard. It prefers Sen. Cory Booker’s love thy neighbor plea and appeal to a mythologized Martin Luther King.
Which MLK I wonder? The reluctant neophyte, drawn into early bus protests, marches and sit-ins? Or the later King, who understood that civil rights were inexplicably tied up with confronting militarism and economic and social injustice? Even the crude LBJ was most effective when he was most passionate, whether it was putting weak politicians’ peckers in his pocket or passing Medicare legislation and the Voting Rights Act.
The latter King, like the later Bobby Kennedy, would have channeled public passion into practical outrage, both votes and continuing support for turning those votes into policy. Neither would have abandoned their progressive wing on winning an unprecedented election.
Nothing succeeds like passion and public acts, no progressive change succeeds without them. The right’s reaction is to hate empowered voices that act as well as speak. It responds by denying their opponents agency. It attempts to deprive them of the passionate organizing, networking and fundraising which drives its own success. It responds by criminalizing protest and the poor.
Progressives can be inclusive, their success depends on it. But they should not be misdirected by the GOP’s and MSM’s pleas for false civility, especially when it drives their opponents success rather than their own.
There is a great example of why all of the hand wringing over alienating the right with incivility is nonsense.
There has never been a major public policy debate conducted with more dispassionate appeal to science, facts and reason on one side than the call to action on climate change. And yet the right has responded for decades to this well-reasoned, honest effort with unyielding, unthinking, malignant opposition.
There is no way to mince words – the right will find a reason to curdle any debate, and will not act in good faith. Until the media finally accepts this fact, they are going to see more uncivility, not less.
The media is in on the game. The “Be nice to Nazis” drive is fucking stupid. You can’t reason with the unreasonable. You can’t kill ’em with kindness when they thrive on sadism. This is a bit of the ol’ “Know your place” language. Don’t dare speak up or act against those who look down upon you, challenge your rights and seek to destroy them.
Fuck Sarah Huckster-bee Sanders. She is a huge problem, liar, heartless shell of a woman, evil-incarnate. She stands alone in her detestable-ness, aside from working for Trump.
The Democrats looking for deals with the devil deserve the same scorn.
digby @digby56
I want to thank CNN for masterfully drawing a moral equivalence between poor Sarah Sanders not being welcome to finish her cheese plate and Trump ripping babies from their mother’s arms. Good work. Excellent.
Trump has just threatened Maxine Waters by Tweet:
RVAWonk has a related thread:
And Brad Parscal, with no sense of irony, chimes in with
No one has to imagine that, Brad. Happened every day during Mr. Obama’s presidency. Do your homework, Brad, because you’re not as good at faking ignorance as the Don is at being ignorant.
Trump’s obsession with claiming that his opponents have low IQs is his tell that he’s obsessed with his own limited intelligence and more limited curiosity. He’s a superb marketer, but in the ways that count for most people, the Don is as dumb as a post.
Daniel Dale comes with the facts:
Steve Vladeck: https://twitter.com/steve_vladeck/status/1011251664928608256
When Vladeck was keeping score yesterday, NYC Southpaw responded:
Also 1] this from DHBerman on 5:49 AM – 22 Jun 2018:
And 2] from Trump, on 10:12 AM – 23 Jun 2018
From Ric Hasen, today: Suppression of Minority Voting Rights Is About to Get Way Worse
NYC Southpaw, again:
[I think a comment got lost in the ether…if not, please disregard this]
Steve Vladeck: https://twitter.com/steve_vladeck/status/1011251664928608256
When Vladeck was keeping score yesterday, NYC Southpaw responded: https://twitter.com/nycsouthpaw/status/1010163058910662657
Also 1] this from DHBerman on 5:49 AM – 22 Jun 2018: https://twitter.com/DHBerman/status/1010142775478833154
And 2] from Trump, on 10:12 AM – 23 Jun 2018 https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1010571197271011328
From Ric Hasen, today:
Suppression of Minority Voting Rights Is About to Get Way Worse
NYC Southpaw, again:
the argument that trump or his retinue are entitled to civility is a one sentence argument:
donald trump is the most uncivil, rude, boorish candidate or president this country has ever had; he was rude and demeaning to his own party fellow candidates; rude and demeaning to his opposition, clinton; rude and demeaning to foreign leaders, allies and enemies; and rude and demeaning to any american who critized him or threatened his freedom with investigation of his official conduct (james comey).
what kind of media moron would ever assert that this coarse, vulgur president was entitled to civility under any circumstances?
Civility as used by the administration, GOP and their pet media is a cloak of invisibility that preserves the status quo. It has nothing to do with real civility or the mutuality that makes it civil. It is about protecting the powers that be from strident criticism, or even having their gross hypocrisy and massively uncivil governance pointed out to the electorate.
indeed! mutuality, aka, reciprocity, has been mia.
Amen @earl.
Carole Cadwalladr, a reporter for the Guardian and its sister publication, the Observer, wins the Orwell Prize in journalism for her stories about Cambridge Analytica.
https://www.theguardian.com/media/2018/jun/25/observer-guardian-carole-cadwalladr-wins-orwell-journalism-prize
well deserved, welldone, cadwalladr.
welldone observer (and guardian).
very important reporting done with persistence under tremendous legal pressure intended to stifle and smother.
David Bossie
@David_Bossie
During a heated segment on Fox & Friends today, I should have chosen my words more carefully and never used the offensive phrase that I did. I apologize to Joel Payne, Fox News and its viewers.
3:01 AM – Jun 25, 2018
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Twitter Ads info and privacy
Not mentioned in tweet:
Concurrently President Trump has awarded to me the “friend of America” medal for patriotism(s).
OT but germane to going forward, it seems our latest Manafort Hail Mary came to grief in Judge Elllis’ court, but like a good rethuglican, it appears that the 31-page opinion has plenty of stuff that Kaiser Quisling (предатель in his preferred language, I’m using the betrayer / Judas version here since I would guess that’s how a Russian would use it) and his minionms can now use as “justifications” to shut Mueller down. The TPM link has the order embedded in it, and the question I would like our lawyers to cover is whether these footnotes and assorted marginalia will get any legal traction. After all, we had those SCOTUS decisions today that clearly spelled out two standards of justice for the RW palace allies and the rest of us (the proles).
https://talkingpointsmemo.com/muckraker/ellis-swipes-at-mueller