Sound The TRUMPets! A Thread for Presidential Pondering 2016-2020(?)

[drogulus]

     Russia Inquiry Review Is Said to Criticize F.B.I. but Rebuff Claims of Biased Acts

     I was nonexpertly expecting this. Someone working for the FBI changed information on an email used to prepare a FISA warrant on Carter Page, a Trump campaign advisor.

Additionally, Mr. Clinesmith worked on both the Hillary Clinton email investigation and the Russia investigation. He was among the F.B.I. officials removed by the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, after Mr. Horowitz found text messages expressing political animus against Mr. Trump.

Shortly after Mr. Trump's election victory, for example, Mr. Clinesmith texted another official that "the crazies won finally," disparaged Mr. Trump's health care and immigration agendas, and called Vice President Mike Pence "stupid." In another text, he wrote, in the context of a question about whether he intended to stay in government, "viva la resistance."

In a June 2018 report by Mr. Horowitz about that and other politically charged texts, which identified him as "F.B.I. Attorney 2," Mr. Clinesmith said he was expressing his personal views but did not let them affect his official actions.

The inspector general apparently did not assert in the draft report that any of the problems he found were so material that the court would have rejected the Justice Department's requests to continue surveilling Mr. Page. But the people familiar with the draft were uncertain about whether Mr. Horowitz said the problems were immaterial, or instead avoided taking a position on that question.

     

[SimonNZ]

I often wonder how many guys who have a strong opinion about abortion are themselves an Ob-Gyn.

Actually I don't, its just something I say whenever I'm told I can't speak about an issue (eg climate change) because I'm not an expert. (which 100% of the time comes from right-wingers who are bound to have a strong opinion about abortion without themselves being an Ob-Gyn)

[SimonNZ]

The 58 most bananas lines from Donald Trump's Friday 'Fox & Friends' interview

[...]

25. "Now, what he said also is, there was no quid pro quo. I want nothing. Remember it was trending number one."

"It was trending number one." -- The President of the United States.

26. "The most important phrase was, I want nothing, twice I said it, I want nothing, I want nothing, I want no quid pro quo. Have President Zelensky do whatever is right, something to that effect. And they didn't put that in. That was the end of him."

Trump said those words on a call with Sondland on September 9, more than a week after the White House counsel's office had been informed a whistleblower complaint had been filed in regard to Trump's action on the July 25 call with Zelensky. So. yeah.

[...]

[JBS]

Don't you realize how ludicrous is to label Trump authoritarian and dictatorial when so many people, men, women and children, risk their lives on a daily basis fleeing from genuinely authoritarian and dictatorial regimes and trying to get exactly in the country ruled by the "authoritarian and dictatorial" Trump regime?

I seem to remember lots of people decided the best way to get out of the Third Reich was to go to the Soviet Union...

[JBS]

I often wonder how many guys who have a strong opinion about abortion are themselves an Ob-Gyn.

Actually I don't, its just something I say whenever I'm told I can't speak about an issue (eg climate change) because I'm not an expert. (which 100% of the time comes from right-wingers who are bound to have a strong opinion about abortion without themselves being an Ob-Gyn)

Abortion is a moral issue, not a medical issue.
Either you think fetuses in the womb are human lives worth protecting like any other human life, or you don't. No knowledge of medicine is necessary, because the arguments on both sides of the issue are not medical but moral.

[BasilValentine]

Abortion is a moral issue, not a medical issue.
Either you think fetuses in the womb are human lives worth protecting like any other human life, or you don't. No knowledge of medicine is necessary, because the arguments on both sides of the issue are not medical but moral.

It's a bit more complicated than that and it's not just fetuses at issue. Every fundamentalist Christian I have talked to believes fertilized eggs are imbued with an immortal soul at the moment of conception. When confronted with the fact that the majority of fertilized eggs don't gain purchase in a womb, they tend not to engage with the idea that the human reproductive system was, presumably, designed by a divine power to spontaneously abort the vast majority of human lives, as they define them. And by this theory the use of IUDs or morning after pills is murder.

[SimonNZ]

Abortion is a moral issue, not a medical issue.
Either you think fetuses in the womb are human lives worth protecting like any other human life, or you don't. No knowledge of medicine is necessary, because the arguments on both sides of the issue are not medical but moral.

If you want to look at it that way then read the above as: you can't talk about morality without a doctorate in philosophy.

[dissily Mordentroge]

If you want to look at it that way then read the above as: you can't talk about morality without a doctorate in philosophy.

Regardless of the arguments as to abortion being immoral or moral in a range of cercumstances how is it those opposed to abortion continue to assert woman have no right to decisions regarding their own bodies even if a pregnancy was the result of rape?
I find it mind boggling members of any religious body so deeply enmeshed in child sex abuse have the gall to even comment upon the morality of abortion.

[drogulus]

     Charges of Ukrainian Meddling? A Russian Operation, U.S. Intelligence Says

In a briefing that closely aligned with Dr. Hill's testimony, American intelligence officials informed senators and their aides in recent weeks that Russia had engaged in a yearslong campaign to essentially frame Ukraine as responsible for Moscow's own hacking of the 2016 election, according to three American officials. The briefing came as Republicans stepped up their defenses of Mr. Trump in the Ukraine affair.

The revelations demonstrate Russia's persistence in trying to sow discord among its adversaries — and show that the Kremlin apparently succeeded, as unfounded claims about Ukrainian interference seeped into Republican talking points. American intelligence agencies believe Moscow is likely to redouble its efforts as the 2020 presidential campaign intensifies. The classified briefing for senators also focused on Russia's evolving influence tactics, including its growing ability to better disguise operations.

     

[Todd]

So, after two weeks of absolutely devastating public testimony, with powerful figures of unimpeachable moral standing and intellectual gravity delivering blow after blow after blow, is it case closed?  Will the Senate remove Trump?  What say the members of the GMG Big Brain Brigade?

[SimonNZ]

How would you vote?

[SimonNZ]

Ivanka Trump defends father with fake impeachment quote

"When is a quote from a historical figure not to be trusted? When it is tweeted by a Trump.

In truth, all historical quotes tweeted out by politicians should be treated with the caution of the most stringent factchecker – and regularly are, particularly when the words in question are supposedly by Winston Churchill.

Nonetheless, this week Ivanka Trump fell into a familiar trap, provoking widespread glee.

On Thursday evening, after a final (for now) dramatic day of public hearings in the impeachment inquiry against her father, the first daughter wrote: "'A decline of public morals in the United States will probably be marked by the abuse of the power of impeachment as a means of crushing political adversaries or ejecting them from office.'

"Alexis de Tocqueville, 1835."

[...]

As historians with Twitter accounts made clear, it was in fact a paraphrase drawn from the Frenchman's seminal work Democracy in America, which was published between 1835 and 1840 and is, according to the Guardian's Nicholas Lezard, "still relevant [as] everyone can find something in it that is recognisably correct".

The incorrect lines Ivanka found were from the 1889 book American Constitutional Law by John Innes Clark Hare.

It was also swiftly determined that Trump had most likely not found the 130-year-old lines on Google Books, or even while paging through a dusty tome ordered from the Library of Congress in order to mine the history of her father's predicament for aperçus fit to toss over canapés at some Kalorama or Georgetown salon.

Instead, Innes Clark Hare's words were published on the opinion pages of the Wall Street Journal on 25 October, under the headline "This impeachment subverts the constitution".

Trump was at least in good company: as a WSJ correction now makes clear, the two constitutional lawyers who wrote the piece in question also misattributed the quote, thanks in part to its appearance under De Tocqueville's name in Deschler's Precedents of the United States House of Representatives, a catchily titled leviathan by House parliamentarian Lewis Deschler published in 1977.

As of Saturday morning, the tweet remained on Ivanka's Twitter page. If she fancied any further reading, Twitter was of course happy to supply it.

Joshua D Rothman, a history professor at the University of Alabama, was among those who pointed out that Innes Clark Hare deployed the paraphrase of De Tocqueville in writing about the impeachment of Andrew Johnson. That process, in 1868, saw the venal and unpopular 17th president avoid removal from office by one vote in a Senate trial.

"The actual quote in context claims Andrew Johnson was wronged," Rothman wrote. It was now being used, he added, by a woman he called "a beneficiary of nepotism in defense of a man who settled what is only his most recent fraud case less than two weeks ago".

De Tocqueville's masterwork, meanwhile, contains lines about another president which may seem quotable to readers consumed with the impeachment inquiry.

In volume one, the Frenchman quotes "the first newspaper over which I cast my eyes, upon my arrival in America", and its judgment of Andrew Jackson.

Students of the history of the Trump administration will recall that former White House strategist Steve Bannon encouraged Trump to see himself as a populist successor to Jackson; that Trump claimed both to have read a biography of Jackson and that Jackson would have prevented the civil war, which began 16 years after his death; that the 45th president visited the slave-owning seventh's home near Nashville, Tennessee; and that Trump keeps Jackson's portrait in the Oval Office.

The article quoted by De Tocqueville calls Jackson a "heartless despot solely occupied with the preservation of his own authority" and adds:

Ambition is his crime, and it will be his punishment too: intrigue is his native element, and intrigue will confound his tricks, and will deprive him of his power: he governs by means of corruption, and his immoral practices will redound to his shame and confusion. His conduct in the political arena has been that of a shameless and lawless gamester. He succeeded at the time, but the hour of retribution approaches, and he will be obliged to disgorge his winnings, to throw aside his false dice, and to end his days in some retirement, where he may curse his madness at his leisure; for repentance is a virtue with which his heart is likely to remain forever unacquainted."

-

"settled what is only his most recent fraud case less than two weeks ago".

...and almost totally forgotten in two weeks in the blizzard of Trump wrongdoing

[SimonNZ]

Trump Privately Frets 'What's Going on With Drudge?' During Impeachment, Asks Jared Kushner to 'Look Into It'
One of the most powerful media organs in the conservative movement hasn't been kind to the president during impeachment. He's noticed.


Trump's aides eye moving impeachment witnesses out of White House jobs

"President Donald Trump's aides have explored moving some impeachment witnesses on loan to the White House from other agencies, such as Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman, back to their home departments ahead of schedule, according to people familiar with the conversations.

As public hearings bring the officials' allegations to his television screen, Trump is asking anew how witnesses such as Vindman and Ambassador Bill Taylor came to work for him, people familiar with the matter said. He has suggested again they be dismissed, even as advisers warn him firing them could be viewed as retaliation.

The possible move of officials out of the White House could still be viewed by some as evidence of retribution for their testimony. Trump's frustration at his own officials comes as he attacks witnesses on Twitter, including during Friday's public hearing with the ousted ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch. Trump appears to have adopted a strategy of maligning the officials, despite some allies encouraging him not to."[...]


Trump Attacks Yovanovitch for Egregious Crime: "She Wouldn't Hang My Picture"

[...]"Except, according to Yovanovitch's legal team, the whole story is false. Photos of Trump and his staff were mounted at the Kiev embassy "as soon as they arrived from Washington, DC," a person connected to the team told NBC News. Indeed, if there was any delay, it appears not to have been on Yovanovitch's end, but on the White House's; according to Lewis Lukens, who ran the U.S. embassy in London for much of Trump's first year in office, it took the Trump administration almost 15 months to send official photos to U.S. embassies—and instructed them not to print substitutes"[...]

[SimonNZ]

How would you vote?

That wasn't a rhetorical question, Todd.

You've heard the charges and you've heard the evidence. Now imagine you're a senator. How would *you* vote?

[Todd]

That wasn't a rhetorical question, Todd.

You've heard the charges and you've heard the evidence. Now imagine you're a senator. How would *you* vote?

[SimonNZ]

"Use your words", baby.

In the meantime I'll take that to mean "If Mitch jumped off a bridge, I'd jump too".

[Todd]

"Use your words", baby.

In the meantime I'll take that to mean "If Mitch jumped off a bridge, I'd jump too".

You do not disappoint.

[SimonNZ]

groan...you, however, do disappoint.

You know, if you want to be just a common garden-variety internet troll you need to respond to posts with laughing emojis and....wait, never mind.


meanwhile, from The Hill:

Why a second Trump term and a Democratic Congress could be a nightmare scenario for the GOP

"At this point in the impeachment inquiry, it appears unlikely President Trump will be removed from office, even though it is likely the House will impeach him. But the Republican Party's worst nightmare—a second term with a Democratic Congress—might yet happen.

But a Democratic Congress might just be the beginning. Given the president's reelection prospects, short political coattails, and malleable political beliefs, and huge ego this scenario may mean that Trump abandons the policies and style that has made him enduringly popular among those in his base.

The president's strong support from Republican senators, along with continued support from his Republican base, makes Trump's prospects for reelection in 2020 better than average. Recent results from the Meredith Poll show that Trump runs well against the top five Democratic challengers, despite his potential impeachment by the House.

But two recent elections in Kentucky and Louisiana in which Trump vigorously campaigned for the Republican candidate for governor—Matt Bevin in Kentucky and Eddie Rispone in Louisiana—continue to demonstrate that Trump's electoral coattails are short. In North Carolina, incumbent Republican Thom Tillis is vulnerable and consistently runs 6-8 percentage points behind Trump in state polls.

With 35 Senate seats up for election in 2020 and the Democrats needing to have a net gain of four seats to win a slight majority in the chamber, other Republicans are similarly vulnerable including Cory Gardner in Colorado, Martha McSally in Arizona, and Susan Collins in Maine. Even with the potential loss of Democratic Sen. Doug Jones' seat in Alabama, Democrats would need to win only one other Senate seat in addition to those mentioned above to take control of the Senate. This scenario is plausible given Trump's inability get other Republican candidates across the finish line in elections.

Although having both chambers of Congress controlled by Democrats is a bad situation for a party hoping to continue packing the federal courts with conservative justices and passing other Republican policy ideas into law, this pales in comparison to the likelihood that Trump, facing a Democratic Congress, may simply choose to pursue a Democratic policy agenda in his second term.

A registered Democrat, as recently as November 2011, Donald Trump's conversion to the Republican policy agenda has been both recent and inconsistent. Long a supporter of choice on abortion, Trump also advocated for the legalization of drugs in 1990 and he wrote in a 2000 book that he supported the assault weapon ban and a longer waiting period to purchase firearms. And, in a 2004 interview on CNN, he praised the economy under Democratic presidents.

As demonstrated repeatedly, Trump is not beholden to past positions or statements, nor does he have any strong belief in loyalty to people who have supported him, even through a crisis like impeachment.

Most two-term presidents start thinking about their legacies in their second terms. Trump, however, has and always will be consumed by the question of his presidential legacy. He wants to be remembered for dramatic accomplishments, not necessarily for Republican accomplishments. It is for this reason that a reelected Trump might gladly work with Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) and Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) on a major infrastructure bill, stop trying to kill the Affordable Care Act and, instead, make major improvements in it, and even drop the most draconian actions against asylum-seekers and immigrants in favor of a comprehensive immigration reform law."[...]

[Todd]

groan...you, however, do disappoint.

You know, if you want to be just a common garden-variety internet troll you need to respond to posts with laughing emojis and....wait, never mind.

A probing, thoughtful analysis.  I expect nothing less from you.

[SimonNZ]

[obligatory response]. Tag, you're it.

elsewhere:

Trump's EPA is checking off an anti-environment wish list. Here's who will suffer.
Every day that the EPA quietly ticks off another item, the social and financial consequences are being shifted from polluters to at-risk communities.


Trump's pick to be new NOAA environment chief pulls out

"Barry Myers, Donald Trump's controversial nominee to lead the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), has withdrawn from consideration due to health concerns, an administration official has confirmed.

Mr Myers' nomination had languished in the Senate since it was first announced in November 2017, due in part to conflict of interest concerns regarding his family's continued ownership stake in AccuWeather, the private weather forecasting company he led until stepping down on 1 January. "[...]