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

[SimonNZ]

A Scottish lawmaker wants to force Trump to explain how he could afford 2 golf courses he owns in the country

"A Scottish lawmaker has called on the country's government to use new laws to force President Donald Trump to explain how he bought two golf courses in Scotland, the BBC reported Thursday.

Patrick Harvie, a coleader of the Scottish Greens in the Scottish Parliament, urged First Minister Nicola Sturgeon to employ so-called unexplained-wealth orders to find out more about Trump's finances.

Harvie said Sturgeon should issue the orders to demand that Trump explain how he was able to pay for the Menie Estate in Aberdeenshire and the Turnberry golf resort in Ayrshire.

Representatives for Trump denied that the golf courses were improperly acquired and said Harvie's call was motivated by bias.

Unexplained-wealth orders are a new investigative power in the UK. Introduced in 2018, they are deployed mostly to investigate assets authorities believe are linked to organised crime or corruption.

In most of the UK, they can be activated only by regulators or branches of the police, but in Scotland they can be ordered directly by government ministers.

The subject of an order has to provide authorities with an explanation of how he or she came to own an asset. If the authorities are not satisfied, they can attempt to have it frozen or seized by the courts.

The golf courses in question were purchased in 2012 and 2014. Harvie said Trump bought the properties "in the midst of a global financial crisis" and said it was still unclear how he was able to pay for them.

According to the BBC, Harvie argued that Trump's known sources of income "don't explain where the money came from for these huge cash transactions" and were therefore "reasonable grounds" for suspicion.

An unexplained-wealth order would make Trump reveal the source of the money spent on the properties.

The call for this investigation came after Harvie said the US Congress "had heard concerns about possible money laundering involving some of the president's business deals," the BBC said.

A spokewoman for Eric Trump said in a statment that the claims were untrue and argued that Harvie had long hated the Trump Organisation.

"Mr. Harvie's disgusting statements, made without any supporting evidence and having absolutely no basis in fact, are reckless, irresponsible and unbecoming for a member of the Scottish Parliament," the spokeswoman told Business Insider.

Eric Trump demanded that Harvie "immediately retract his libelous statements failing which we will hold him fully accountable," and claimed that the organisation "invested hundreds of millions of dollars in Scotland while creating thousands of jobs."

Sturgeon said that while she was not a "defender" of Trump or his policies, she needed more information before she could address Harvie's request."

[71 dB]

Trump's Response To Coronavirus: Tax Cuts???   

[SimonNZ]

Trump: Botched Coronavirus Response Is Obama's Fault

"In the world of Trumpian propaganda, any news event falls into one of three categories. The first, and most common, is We Are Winning. (Common examples: the stock market, economy, any diplomatic agreement or use of military force). If the event is undeniably negative, it is a Hoax, being perpetrated upon him by some combination of the Crooked Media, Deep State, or Do-Nothing Democrats.

Trump has attempted to wedge the novel coronavirus into both these frames, alternately assuring the public he has brilliantly contained the disease and complaining that his enemies are using the Hoax to discredit him. But when neither of these approaches fully resolves the problem, Trump resorts to the third category: Obama's Fault.

"The Obama administration made a decision on testing that turned out to be very detrimental to what we're doing & we undid that decision a few days ago so that testing can take place in a much more accurate & rapid fashion"

Trump is amplifying a message that has been circulating in right-wing media for a few days. One blogger has blamed decisions by an "Obama holdover." Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar appeared on Lou Dobbs's program and blamed "an Obama-era FDA requirement that required that any lab-developed test be approved by the FDA." At his remarks today, Mike Pence boasted that he had rescinded this regulation on Saturday. Even taken at face value, this raises the question why the administration didn't act earlier. After all, if there was an Obama decision that was hampering the government's response, and Trump had it in his power to rescind it all along, why wait until the virus has already started spreading domestically?

Obama of course did face a massive global outbreak in 2014, which his administration competently handled even as Republicans in general and Trump in particular spread hysteria. Then Trump took office and dismantled the scientific and public health team that had contained the outbreak.

At his same remarks, Trump boasted, "I haven't touched my face in weeks." He seemed not to realize that he has appeared on camera many times during that period, sometimes touching his face."

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'You don't want to go to war with a president'
How Dr. Anthony Fauci is navigating the coronavirus outbreak in the Trump era.

[SimonNZ]

Trump calls WHO's global death rate from coronavirus 'a false number'
'This is just my hunch', president says on Fox News and then plucked his own surmising of a death rate out of the air

"Donald Trump declared live on television on Wednesday night that he did not believe the World Health Organization's assessment of the global death rate from coronavirus of 3.4%.

"I think the 3.4% is really a false number," he told Sean Hannity, one of his favorite conservative Fox News hosts, in a phone interview broadcast live.

"Now, this is just my hunch," Trump began, before continuing that "based on a lot of conversations with a lot of people that do this, because a lot of people will have this, and it's very mild – they'll get better very rapidly, they don't even see a doctor, they don't even call a doctor."

He went on: "You never hear about those people, so you can't put them down in the category of the overall population, in terms of this corona flu, and/or virus. So you just can't do that."

He then plucked his own surmising of a likely death rate out of the air.

"You know, all of a sudden it seems like 3 or 4%, which is a very high number, as opposed to a fraction of 1%," he said, perhaps referring to the typical death rate for influenza, which is well below 1%.

Trump said: "But again, they don't know about the easy cases because the easy cases don't go to the hospital. They don't report to doctors or the hospital in many cases. So I think that that number is very high. I think the number, personally, I would say the number is way under 1%."

Sources at the WHO pointed out to the Guardian that the 3.4% figure represented no more than a snapshot of the total number of reported deaths over the number of reported cases on the given day. "It's not a mortality rate. But it is the math. The calculation on the given day."

"Globally, about 3.4% of reported Covid-19 cases [the technical term for the novel coronavirus strain responsible for the outbreak] have died," WHO director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said at a press conference on Tuesday.

The previous death rate had been given as an estimated 2% after the initial explosion of cases begin in China. The new virus outbreak has been compared to the Spanish flu epidemic of 1918 – 1919 when mortality was between 2 and 3% of those infected.

The death rate of those contracting seasonal influenza is typically an estimated 0.1%."[...]

[SimonNZ]

Judge cites Barr's 'misleading' statements in ordering review of Mueller report redactions

"A federal judge in Washington sharply criticized Attorney General William P. Barr on Thursday for a "lack of candor," questioning the truthfulness of the nation's top law enforcement official in his handling of last year's report by special counsel Robert S. Mueller III.

U.S. District Judge Reggie Walton, overseeing a lawsuit brought by EPIC, a watchdog group, and BuzzFeed News, said he saw serious discrepancies between Barr's public statements about Mueller's findings and the public, partially redacted version of that report detailing the special counsel's investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 election.

Because of those discrepancies, Walton ruled, the judge would conduct an independent review of Mueller's full report to see whether the Justice Department's redactions were appropriate."[...]

[JBS]

Judge cites Barr's 'misleading' statements in ordering review of Mueller report redactions

"A federal judge in Washington sharply criticized Attorney General William P. Barr on Thursday for a "lack of candor," questioning the truthfulness of the nation's top law enforcement official in his handling of last year's report by special counsel Robert S. Mueller III.

U.S. District Judge Reggie Walton, overseeing a lawsuit brought by EPIC, a watchdog group, and BuzzFeed News, said he saw serious discrepancies between Barr's public statements about Mueller's findings and the public, partially redacted version of that report detailing the special counsel's investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 election.

Because of those discrepancies, Walton ruled, the judge would conduct an independent review of Mueller's full report to see whether the Justice Department's redactions were appropriate."[...]

I was about to post that myself.
About as close as a judge can get to calling Barr "liar, liar, pants on fire" without actually saying "liar, liar, pants on fire".

One detail the WaPo left out is that this judge was at one time the Presiding Judge of the FISC, the court which approves FISA warrants.

[SimonNZ]

Trump campaign sues CNN over 'false reporting' in op-ed
Campaign also filed lawsuits against the Washington Post and the New York Times recently over op-eds on Russian interference

"Donald Trump's re-election campaign is suing CNN for publishing an opinion piece that argued Trump did not stop Russia from helping the campaign during the presidential election.

The libel lawsuit, filed in the US district court for the northern district of Georgia, argues that CNN published the story on the campaign's Russia ties despite "an extensive record of statements from the campaign and the administration expressly disavowing any intention to seek Russian assistance".

Trump's campaign has also filed libel lawsuits against the Washington Post and the New York Times in the past few weeks. Those lawsuits, similarly, were over opinion articles about Russian interference in the 2016 election.

The CNN article was written by Larry Noble, a CNN contributor and former general counsel for the Federal Election Commission. It was published in the opinion section of CNN's website. It argued that Trump's campaign "assessed the potential risks and benefits of again seeking Russia's help in 2020 and has decided to leave that option on the table".

Fox News first reported the lawsuit on Friday. Trump's legal team demanded CNN retract the op-ed and issue a correction but the network declined. The article is still up on CNN's website. The Trump campaign is seeking millions of dollars in its lawsuit."[...]

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I don't get this (apart from it being mere petty habit for Trump). Isn't this just going to bring the contents and conclusions of the Meuller Report back into the public spotlight?

[71 dB]

Trump: "Uninsured Have a Big Problem."

Yep. Their big problem is they are uninsured. Corona virus pandemic is just the moment when the brown stuff hits the fan.

Trumps actions to repeal ObamaCare has resulted in million of people losing their healthcare coverage. Well here we are. Elections have consequencies.

[JBS]

Trump: "Uninsured Have a Big Problem."

Yep. Their big problem is they are uninsured. Corona virus pandemic is just the moment when the brown stuff hits the fan.

Trumps actions to repeal ObamaCare has resulted in million of people losing their healthcare coverage. Well here we are. Elections have consequencies.

Actually the big problem is people having to stay home from work for two weeks or more, or stores/offices/facilities being closed for more than a few days because of an outbreak, or cutting staff/closing down because customers are avoiding public places....

As far as I know  no one--Bernie, Biden, Trump, or any other major politician--has made any suggestions on how to deal with that.

[SimonNZ]

Erik Prince Recruits Ex-Spies to Help Infiltrate Liberal Groups
Mr. Prince, a contractor close to the Trump administration, contacted veteran spies for operations by Project Veritas, the conservative group known for conducting stings on news organizations and other groups.

"Erik Prince, the security contractor with close ties to the Trump administration, has in recent years helped recruit former American and British spies for secretive intelligence-gathering operations that included infiltrating Democratic congressional campaigns, labor organizations and other groups considered hostile to the Trump agenda, according to interviews and documents.

One of the former spies, an ex-MI6 officer named Richard Seddon, helped run a 2017 operation to copy files and record conversations in a Michigan office of the American Federation of Teachers, one of the largest teachers' unions in the nation. Mr. Seddon directed an undercover operative to secretly tape the union's local leaders and try to gather information that could be made public to damage the organization, documents show.

Using a different alias the next year, the same undercover operative infiltrated the congressional campaign of Abigail Spanberger, then a former C.I.A. officer who went on to win an important House seat in Virginia as a Democrat. The campaign discovered the operative and fired her.

Both operations were run by Project Veritas, a conservative group that has gained attention using hidden cameras and microphones for sting operations on news organizations, Democratic politicians and liberal advocacy groups. Mr. Seddon's role in the teachers' union operation — detailed in internal Project Veritas emails that have emerged from the discovery process of a court battle between the group and the union — has not previously been reported, nor has Mr. Prince's role in recruiting Mr. Seddon for the group's activities.

Both Project Veritas and Mr. Prince have ties to President Trump's aides and family. Whether any Trump administration officials or advisers to the president were involved in the operations, even tacitly, is unclear. But the effort is a glimpse of a vigorous private campaign to try to undermine political groups or individuals perceived to be in opposition to Mr. Trump's agenda.

Mr. Prince, the former head of Blackwater Worldwide and the brother of Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, has at times served as an informal adviser to Trump administration officials. He worked with the former national security adviser Michael T. Flynn during the presidential transition. In 2017, he met with White House and Pentagon officials to pitch a plan to privatize the Afghan war using contractors in lieu of American troops. Jim Mattis, then the defense secretary, rejected the idea.

Mr. Prince appears to have become interested in using former spies to train Project Veritas operatives in espionage tactics sometime during the 2016 presidential campaign. Reaching out to several intelligence veterans — and occasionally using Mr. Seddon to make the pitch — Mr. Prince said he wanted the Project Veritas employees to learn skills like how to recruit sources and how to conduct clandestine recordings, among other surveillance techniques.

[...]

The group has also become intertwined with the political activities of Mr. Trump and his family. The Trump Foundation gave $20,000 to Project Veritas in 2015, the year that Mr. Trump began his bid for the presidency. The next year, during a presidential debate with Hillary Clinton, Mr. Trump claimed without substantiation that videos released by Mr. O'Keefe showed that Mrs. Clinton and President Barack Obama had paid people to incite violence at rallies for Mr. Trump.

In a book published in 2018, Mr. O'Keefe wrote that Mr. Trump years earlier had encouraged him to infiltrate Columbia University and obtain Mr. Obama's records.

Last month, Project Veritas made public secretly recorded video of a longtime ABC News correspondent who was critical of the network's political coverage and its emphasis on business considerations over journalism. Many conservatives have gleefully pounced on Project Veritas's disclosures, including one particularly influential voice: Donald Trump Jr., the president's eldest son."[...]

[SimonNZ]

Why Trump's new CDC director is an abysmal choice

[...]
"Redfield's early engagement with the AIDS epidemic in the US in the 1980s and 90s was controversial. As an Army major at Walter Reed Medical Institute, he designed policies for controlling the disease within the US military that involved placing infected personnel in quarantine and investigating their pasts to identify and track possible sexual partners. Soldiers were routinely discharged and left to die of AIDS, humiliated and jobless, often abandoned by their families.

In the 1980s Redfield worked closely with W. Shepherd Smith, Jr. and his Christian organization, Americans for a Sound AIDS/HIV Policy, or ASAP. The group maintained that AIDS was "God's judgment" against homosexuals, spread in an America weakened by single-parent households and loss of family values.

Redfield wrote the introduction to a 1990 book, "Christians in the Age of AIDS," co-written by Smith, in which he denounced distribution of sterile needles to drug users and condoms to sexually active adults, and described anti-discrimination programs as the efforts of "false prophets."

In the early 1990's, ASAP and Redfield also backed H.R. 2788, a House bill sponsored by deeply conservative Rep. William Dannemeyer (R-California). It would have subjected people with HIV to testing, loss of professional licenses and would have effectively quarantined them. (The bill died in Congress.) In the 2000s, Redfield was a top advocate for the so-called "ABCs of AIDS" in Africa, pressing to prevent HIV infection through sexual abstinence, monogamy and the use of condoms only as a last resort.

In 1992, Redfield, then a colonel, was part of a Walter Reed team backing an AIDS vaccine called VaxSyn, manufactured by a Connecticut company, MicroGeneSys. Redfield claimed that a small clinical trial had shown VaxSyn to protect the immune systems of infected soldiers, limiting the worst outcomes of AIDS.

Because this was a clear exaggeration, the Army investigated Redfield, eventually concluding he had made an innocent mistake. Redfield continued to strongly support VaxSyn, pushing Congress to fund a $20 million clinical trial on HIV-positive men. But VaxSyn never worked, and no fine-tuning in its biochemistry could have made a difference.

Independent scientists showed that the MicroGeneSys compound targeted a part of the HIV virus that mutates so frequently that infected individuals' bodies are filled with multiple forms, most of which VaxSyn could not affect.

The White House has had a hard time choosing, vetting and retaining top appointees. After 16 months in office the President has fired or accepted the resignations of 23 top officials, including Redfield's predecessors, Dr. Thomas Frieden and Dr. Brenda Fitzgerald. Frieden, who served as health commissioner for New York City and was appointed by President Barack Obama, made $219,700 in the position.

Six months later, Dr. Fitzgerald, then state health commissioner in Georgia, was appointed to lead the agency that protects Americans from epidemics, water contamination, cancer-causing compounds and hundreds of other health threats, at a salary of $197,000. Questions were immediately raised about her relationship with the Coca-Cola Corporation and their sponsorship, at her behest, of a Georgia anti-obesity campaign.

In September Fitzgerald made decisions in CDC's Atlanta headquarters involving $28.6 million worth of private contracts for electronic data-keeping relevant to opioid prescriptions. One of the companies receiving those grants was Greenway Health, in which Fitzgerald and her husband held stock worth $300,000. Senate queries led to a larger investigation and the discovery that she continued in December to hold stocks in pharmaceutical and medical management companies that posed clear conflict violations.

And on Jan. 30 she submitted her resignation, following a Politico disclosure that the Fitzgeralds owned tens of thousands of dollars' worth of tobacco stocks, some of which had been purchased after her CDC appointment.

Burned by the Fitzgerald mess, presumably the White House carefully vetted Redfield, a former Army colonel and a University of Maryland HIV clinician and virologist, before announcing his appointment in April.

It is very hard to understand what accomplishments prompted the University of Maryland to consider Redfield worth $827,000 for 15 months. But it is not hard to see why President Trump would see Redfield's hardcore, right-wing credentials as a good fit. Giving this doctor such a prominent job at such ridiculous pay -- even a lowered sum -- is another example of the Trump administration's willingness to place politics over sensible public policy."

[SimonNZ]

Civilian vacancies at Trump's Pentagon hit new high

"The number of high-level civilian vacancies at the Pentagon has hit a new high for the Trump administration as lawmakers raise concerns that the department doesn't have enough qualified people in place to tackle the nation's biggest national security problems.

More than a third of all Senate-confirmed civilian positions at the Department of Defense are now vacant or filled by temporary officials, a peak level for the administration outside of the transition period, according to information provided to POLITICO by a Defense Department spokesperson. Out of 60 senior positions, 21 lack permanent appointees. Thirteen of those positions have no nominee identified, including the slots for comptroller, space policy chief, and the head of international security affairs.

Lawmakers this week raised new questions about the state of civilian control of the military in the Trump era, as the administration faces decisions on winding down the war in Afghanistan, countering Iran's military moves and investing for competition with China and Russia.

Sen. Jack Reed (R.I.), the top Democrat on the Senate Armed Services Committee, on Wednesday upbraided Defense Secretary Mark Esper and Joint Chiefs Chairman Gen. Mark Milley about the imbalance.

"These vacancies continue to challenge the department's ability to effectively respond to national security challenges and undermine civilian input into the decision-making process with political appointees largely absent," Reed said.

Part of the challenge of filling senior positions is that the White House personnel office, which is led by a 29-year-old Trump loyalist, is now trying to exert more control over the Pentagon's nominating process. The two offices have not yet settled on a choice to replace John Rood, who served as the Pentagon's top policy official until he was forced out in February, four defense and administration officials tell POLITICO.

After Rood's ouster, Esper's staff suggested a handful of candidates to replace him, two of the people said. But the White House personnel office was not satisfied with those options and is pushing a fourth choice: Elbridge Colby, who served as a deputy assistant secretary of Defense under former Defense Secretary Jim Mattis and is one of the primary authors of Mattis' National Defense Strategy. He is a co-founder of the Marathon Initiative.

"DoD thinks White House is a rubber stamp, that it's Esper's position to fill and the White House is consulted as a courtesy. That may have been true in the previous PPO but that's not how John McEntee operates," said one administration official, referring to the head of the Presidential Personnel Office. "It will be a consultation, but the White House is going to play a major, major role in selecting the replacement."

"McEntee's going to win," the official said.

A person close to the Pentagon and Capitol Hill said the White House office "has taken total control over staffing at DoD and anything that they perceive as disloyalty is a disqualification."

"They want to make sure that there's no hint or indication of conflicting loyalties," the person said. "It's complete and total control. ... You have to be a 110 percent Trump supporter and they want nobody else. ... The problem is they're not going to identify, nominate and confirm enough people before November."[...]

[SimonNZ]

Trump claims campaign rallies are 'very safe' as the coronavirus spreads, even as some European countries ban large gatherings


CPAC attendee tests positive for coronavirus


Trump's Coronavirus Press Event Was Even Worse Than It Looked

[Daverz]

Trump claims campaign rallies are 'very safe' as the coronavirus spreads, even as some European countries ban large gatherings

I'd fully approve if we could be sure the virus will only spread to MAGAts.  Unfortunately, it would also affect innocents in their communities, so I'll have to give this my liberal frowny face.

[SimonNZ]

meanwhile at Fox...

KT McFarland: Trump's coronavirus response could be his finest hour

[LKB]

meanwhile at Fox...

KT McFarland: Trump's coronavirus response could be his finest hour

Perhaps, if Trump were a mature adult possessing a functional intellect. Such an individual might find within this crisis the opportunity to put his stamp on American history.

But since he has very much established himself as Moron-in-Chief, it seems highly unlikely that history will regard any period of his presidency as his finest hour.

The best we can probably hope for is the current economic instability scaring him into inaction, which would minimize his blundering. But, as l have previously posted, he may not be smart enough to be scared...

[Herman]

Perhaps, if Trump were a mature adult possessing a functional intellect. Such an individual might find within this crisis the opportunity to put his stamp on American history.

But since he has very much established himself as Moron-in-Chief, it seems highly unlikely that history will regard any period of his presidency as his finest hour.

The best we can probably hope for is the current economic instability scaring him into inaction, which would minimize his blundering. But, as l have previously posted, he may not be smart enough to be scared...

Oh, scared he is, as one can tell by his increasing twittering.

However, what is rather puzzling is these center-left pundits who are again writing pieces to the effect that corona plus the market slump will do Trump in at the voting booth.
Je ne pense ça.

Starting with the "grab 'em by the pussy" tape three years ago, we have heard this "this is it" so many times, and it never happened.

The Trump electorate is completely indifferent to his bad handling of the epidemic, even if their neighbour will die because of it. People die, but at least they enjoyed the spectacle of Trump humping the flag.
Hannity and Tucker will hand them some rationalization why the economy is going to tank. Prepare for something along the lines that the liberals actually applaud the Trump Slump and enjoy poor old people dying so Trumpites need to fight them all the way, etc ad inf, and they need to purge the USA of libruls, and try to vote twice, just for once.

[Karl Henning]

Starting with the "grab 'em by the pussy" tape three years ago, we have heard this "this is it" so many times, and it never happened.

The Trump electorate is completely indifferent to his bad handling of the epidemic, even if their neighbour will die because of it. People die, but at least they enjoyed the spectacle of Trump humping the flag.

This is so.

[JBS]

Oh, scared he is, as one can tell by his increasing twittering.

However, what is rather puzzling is these center-left pundits who are again writing pieces to the effect that corona plus the market slump will do Trump in at the voting booth.
Je ne pense ça.

Starting with the "grab 'em by the pussy" tape three years ago, we have heard this "this is it" so many times, and it never happened.

The Trump electorate is completely indifferent to his bad handling of the epidemic, even if their neighbour will die because of it. People die, but at least they enjoyed the spectacle of Trump humping the flag.
Hannity and Tucker will hand them some rationalization why the economy is going to tank. Prepare for something along the lines that the liberals actually applaud the Trump Slump and enjoy poor old people dying so Trumpites need to fight them all the way, etc ad inf, and they need to purge the USA of libruls, and try to vote twice, just for once.

They're already saying the part I bolded on Fox and other portions of the Trump.

But bear in mind there are two kinds of Trump voters: the ones who actually think Trump is good, and who would never abandon that belief even if Jesus and all the apostles made a special appearance to tell them he's not; and the ones who support him because they hate the Democrats, or they think he's good for their bank accounts.  They might be persuaded to stay home in November if the Democratic candidate is at least superficially centrist. Biden is, Sanders is not.

[SimonNZ]

They're already saying the part I bolded on Fox and other portions of the Trump.

FOX: CORONAVIRUS IS A LIBERAL "SCAM" TO HURT TRUMP


are Fox viewers aware this is playing out globally?