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

[BasilValentine]

I guess that beats CNN providing all the questions for the presidential debate in 2016!!!  Impartial aye?  What a joke.  And not smart enough to realize they are the Frankensteins who created the Trump monster in the first place.

And the hooker with Trump is no different to Clinton and Kennedy - two Democrat philandering presidents who didn't have an ounce of respect for their wives.  When is somebody going to say that.  (Sound of crickets.)

It's about illegal campaign contributions and their coverup, not the amusing sex stuff.

The timely "What about Kennedy" move. Yeah, it's about time someone talked about that vital issue. 

[Turner]

US expelling 60 Russian diplomats due to the Skripal case, lots of European countries etc. doing the same. Acknowledged by Trump, there were rumours about it since yesterday.


https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-03-26/trump-is-said-to-expel-60-russian-diplomats-for-u-k-attack
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-43545565

Hopefully the proofs are there. Probably also a general fatigue with Russian attitudes.

[Karl Henning]

It's about illegal campaign contributions and their coverup, not the amusing sex stuff.

The timely "What about Kennedy" move. Yeah, it's about time someone talked about that vital issue. 

Maybe it means that even the die-hard Tuperos are tired of the pointless But Clinton! gambit 

[Karl Henning]

Why the Stormy Daniels scandal matters

The ultimate success or failure of Daniels's suit also has little bearing on the case's potential to damage [El Tupé's] presidency. No one really believes the $130,000 that Daniels received is Cohen's. The more interesting question is whether it came from [El Tupé's] existing campaign money. Hiding a major campaign expense could get the 2016 [El Tupé] campaign and its officials into major legal trouble.

And if it wasn't paid for by the [El Tupé] campaign, then it was likely, as Common Cause has contended, an illegal donation to the [El Tupé] campaign. The hush money payment was paid to prevent a damaging story about [El Tupé] from being released. It was thus, effectively, a donation to his campaign effort, and an illegally large one at that.

Furthermore, any lawsuit, particularly Daniels's, carries another danger for [El Tupé]: the discovery process. As part of preparing his case, Avenatti and the legal team representing Daniels will have the right to depose [El Tupé] and demand documents pertinent to the case. Famously, President Bill Clinton's deposition in the Paula Jones lawsuit led to the perjury and obstruction of justice charges under which the House of Representatives impeached him.

"A lawsuit opens the door, and judges almost always allow for a plaintiff to have a fishing expedition," Robert Bennett, who represented Clinton in that case, told the New York Times. He added that "Have you paid other people money?" is one such question they could ask and pursue answers to through document dives and testimony by [El Tupé].

Beyond the legal battles, though, there's the pure optics of this case. It's 2018: No one really cares if the president had an affair or not, certainly not when the president is [El Tupé].

But people might, perhaps, care that the president, himself worth hundreds of millions or billions of dollars, is trying to extract $20 million or more in damages out of a former lover in an attempt to silence her.

People might care that the president used hush money in such a flagrant way, violating campaign finance norms and perhaps laws as well.

People might care that multiple women appear to have been paid off to not talk about their relationships with [El Tupé]. In Michael Wolff's explosive book on the [El Tupé] White House, Fire and Fury, former campaign chair turned White House chief strategist Steve Bannon is quoted as saying of [El Tupé's] personal lawyer Marc Kasowitz, "Kasowitz on the campaign — what did we have, a hundred women? Kasowitz took care of all of them."

[Todd]

The timely "What about Kennedy" move.

Timely indeed!



A new movie about Teddy's glug-glug, vroom-vroom, splash-splash boo-boo comes out next month. 


The three big takeaways from the interview:

1.) Daniels' lawyer cut his teeth working for Rahm Emmanuel.  This is gonna be a brawl!

2.) There may or may not be campaign finance law violations involved.  That's kind of a feeble basis for taking down a President, and it's impossible to see Republican Senators voting out a Republican President for it, but Dems have to be allowed their dreams.  It's all they've got right now.

3.) Donny is a naughty, naughty boy.  He didn't use protection!  Gasp!!  (In his defense, he slept with a porn star.  Using protection would utterly defeat the whole point of such an encounter.)

[Karl Henning]

It isn't as if actual expertise in the relevant field makes any difference in El Tupé's appointing you to a post.

[...] The president's track record of obviously incorrect statements is so long at this point that it would have been more surprising for him to acknowledge the Supreme Court's ruling than for him not to. After all, it seems [El Tupé] thinks the three branches of government are the presidency and the two houses of Congress, not the presidency, Congress and the Supreme Court. He also seems to be consistently surprised that the legislative branch of the government does not work for the executive branch. And given that he was under the gun to sign a spending bill he only recently decided that he opposed, a factually questionable outburst was in the cards.

That a member of his Cabinet made the same error two days later is far more disturbing. The Sunday talk shows may not be as important as they used to be, but White House officials do not usually go on them unprepared. For Mnuchin to make this mistake days later means two things: 1.) The treasury secretary, more than a year into his tenure, is not aware of basic budget-making procedure; 2.) Either no one else senior enough at the White House to prepare Mnuchin knew those basics, or no one was organized enough to prep the one Cabinet member to appear on any of the Sunday shows this weekend.

[Karl Henning]

I do know someone, and a genuinely intelligent fellow, who believes (no, I do not think this is an index of his intelligence, generally) that El Tupé is playing 3-D chess.  In this, clearly, delusional.

[El Tupé's] opinion on a matter at any given time seems to be derived from Fox Pretend News hosts and his "gut" — which has led him to two divorces, extramarital affairs, a dozen or so failed businesses, multiple bankruptcies and a series of policy and personnel debacles. He is informed by nothing more than his own narcissism, racist beliefs and  reality-TV existence. He is either so desperate or so out of touch with reality that he thinks what his presidency needs is more [El Tupé]. He is not going to bother paying attention to those with more knowledge, more sense and more experience than himself; instead, he'll be guided by flame-throwers on cable TV.

[Karl Henning]

STORMY DANIELS: I was in a parking lot, going to a fitness class with my infant daughter. T-taking, you know, the seats facing backward in the backseat, diaper bag, you know, gettin' all the stuff out. And a guy walked up on me and said to me, "Leave Trump alone. Forget the story." And then he leaned around and looked at my daughter and said, "That's a beautiful little girl. It'd be a shame if something happened to her mom." And then he was gone.

[...]

This is, in the purest of senses, privilege: the ability to avoid the consequences that most anyone else in the same situation would have to endure — and, along with that, the ability to walk all over less powerful people in order to avoid those consequences — due to one's own power and social position.

That privilege is also on display in the mere text of the hush agreement. Daniels is, under the terms of the deal, granted $130,000, but obligated to pay $1 million for every violation of the deal.

On its own, this makes no sense. If the privacy of all the information Daniels has about the affair is worth $130,000, then why should divulging only one portion of that information cost her $1 million? That asymmetry has no principled defense. It can only really be explained by [El Tupé's] immense power in his negotiations with Daniels, power which, according to her, was exercised in part through threats and intimations of possible violence.

[milk]

Timely indeed!



A new movie about Teddy's glug-glug, vroom-vroom, splash-splash boo-boo comes out next month. 


The three big takeaways from the interview:

1.) Daniels' lawyer cut his teeth working for Rahm Emmanuel.  This is gonna be a brawl!

2.) There may or may not be campaign finance law violations involved.  That's kind of a feeble basis for taking down a President, and it's impossible to see Republican Senators voting out a Republican President for it, but Dems have to be allowed their dreams.  It's all they've got right now.

3.) Donny is a naughty, naughty boy.  He didn't use protection!  Gasp!!  (In his defense, he slept with a porn star.  Using protection would utterly defeat the whole point of such an encounter.)

1&2 are pretty boring. #3 is fun because it's so humiliating to Tump and his family (as is the "playmate" who apologized to Melania on TV). None of it is very earthshaking but it does provide nice color to the Tump legacy. After all, this might be one of his greatest achievements: getting fundamentalist Christians to get into porn, bisexuality and orgies. I offer my lone, heartfelt, applause as a catalyst... 

[Karl Henning]

[...] this might be one of his greatest achievements: getting fundamentalist Christians to get into porn, bisexuality and orgies.

He's a thug, but he's the thug my pastor tells me Jesus wants me to vote for!

[kishnevi]

The Stormy Saga is actually a good illustration of Trump's bad judgement.  He paid her off and allegedly threatened her. But if the story had been known to the public before the election, no votes would have changed. All the people who voted for him would still have voted for him (except perhaps Melania). Everyone knew that he, with his amoral immorality, would do such things. So he wasted all that money..and it's the payoff which is now the center of attention, even if spanking jokes will abound on Twitter for the next few days.

[Todd]

So he wasted all that money

I doubt $130K means much to him, unless he's trying to squeeze a vendor or opposition attorneys. 

[Marc]

He's a thug, but he's the thug my pastor tells me Jesus wants me to vote for!

Laß ihn kreuzigen!

[BasilValentine]

Timely indeed!

A new movie about Teddy's glug-glug, vroom-vroom, splash-splash boo-boo comes out next month. 


The three big takeaways from the interview:

1.) Daniels' lawyer cut his teeth working for Rahm Emmanuel.  This is gonna be a brawl!

2.) There may or may not be campaign finance law violations involved.  That's kind of a feeble basis for taking down a President, and it's impossible to see Republican Senators voting out a Republican President for it, but Dems have to be allowed their dreams.  It's all they've got right now.

3.) Donny is a naughty, naughty boy.  He didn't use protection!  Gasp!!  (In his defense, he slept with a porn star.  Using protection would utterly defeat the whole point of such an encounter.)

If paid by Cohen it is a violation. If paid by the Trump Organization, whose imprint is all over the paperwork, it is an illegal contribution. Do you know of any scenario on offer that is not a violation?

Okay, turning from the serious to the funny: The failure to use protection is interesting given that Trump claims the pee tape can't exist because he is a germophobe. 

My favorite memory of the Chappaquiddick affair is the fake Volkswagen ad published in the National Lampoon showing a Bug floating on a pond and reading: "If Ted Kennedy drove a Volkswagen, he'd be president today."

[Karl Henning]

My favorite memory of the Chappaquiddick affair is the fake Volkswagen ad published in the National Lampoon(?) showing a Bug floating on a pond and reading: If Tedd Kennedy drove a Volkswagen he'd be president now.

Harsh.  But fair.

[drogulus]

     The rules for politicians and their sex habits changed with the Gary Hart saga, and in part JFK and Chappaquiddick played a big part in that. Clinton got caught in the switch, but we're on the other side of that now. Minor violators like Franken go down like the Violator In Chief is going down. Trump will not be impeached short of strong evidence of treason. Just acting traitorous won't be enough.

[Karl Henning]

Trump will not be impeached short of strong evidence of treason.

Given the present sycophantic G.O.P. Congress, even if you rub their vile noses in strong evidence, they may not see it.

[Todd]

If paid by Cohen it is a violation. If paid by the Trump Organization, whose imprint is all over the paperwork, it is an illegal contribution. Do you know of any scenario on offer that is not a violation?

Out of curiosity, in what state do you practice law, and how long has campaign finance law been your specialty?  I just want to know the degree of your expertise rather than your hope that the popular press articles you've read are correct.

Given the present sycophantic G.O.P. Congress, even if you rub their vile noses in strong evidence, they may not see it.

Not one Dem has ever provided a meaningful case for why Republicans should support Dem efforts to remove Trump.  Perhaps you can take a shot at it.

[Karl Henning]

There is no need to act as if Stormy is the only burr up the presidential fundament:

"Summer Zervos is one of many women who has been subjected to unwanted sexual touching by Donald J. Trump."

So begins the defamation lawsuit filed by Zervos, a restaurant owner and former contestant on The Apprentice, who says Trump sexually assaulted her in 2007 and then called her a liar when she spoke out about it in 2016.

Zervos's case centers on a disturbing account of sexual assault, an important distinction from two other high-profile legal cases involving women and Trump. Adult film actress Stormy Daniels and former Playboy model Karen McDougal (who is suing the company that publishes the National Enquirer) say they had consensual affairs with Trump.

Zervos scored a victory recently when a New York Supreme Court judge ruled that her suit could go forward, rejecting the Trump team's argument that a sitting president can't be sued in state court. "No one is above the law," the judge responded. Trump's lawyers have announced they will appeal the decision.

The potential implications of the Zervos case are huge. When Paula Jones sued Bill Clinton for sexual harassment 20 years ago, the Supreme Court set the precedent that a sitting president can't push off a federal case until after he leaves office. Clinton's perjury in a deposition in that case ultimately led to his impeachment [....]

[BasilValentine]

Out of curiosity, in what state do you practice law, and how long has campaign finance law been your specialty?  I just want to know the degree of your expertise rather than your hope that the popular press articles you've read are correct.

So you don't have a scenario that is not a campaign violation. Noted. And because you don't, you resort to ad hominem statements. Quote any authority you like to refute the claim that unreported donations of $130K by private citizens or corporations are illegal. Or argue that the payoff was not an attempt to influence the election.