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

[SimonNZ]

Dismas?

You can't mean Jesus - he was a socialist.

Actually all kidding aside the religious right should really be worshiping the thief. WWDD?

[arpeggio]

Dismas?

You can't mean Jesus - he was a socialist.

Actually all kidding aside the religious right should really be worshiping the thief. WWDD?

[SimonNZ]

Democrat Amy McGrath says she will take on Mitch McConnell in 2020 US Senate race

A Marine light colonel with 89 combat missions in an F18.


Her ad announcing her candidacy:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1d3skEMCIgU

[drogulus]

     Mueller Missed the Crime: Trump's Campaign Coordinated With Russia

     Unlike collusion, coordination has a legal meaning, the article states.

Robert Mueller made a significant legal error and, based on the facts he found, he should have identified Trump campaign felonies. Mueller's errors meant that, first, he failed to conclude that the Trump campaign criminally coordinated with Russia; second, he failed to indict campaign chairman Paul Manafort and his deputy Rick Gates for felony campaign coordination (see in a concise timeline below); third, the 10 acts of felony obstruction in Volume II fell flat among the general public because it lacked compelling context of these underlying crimes between the campaign and Russia. On top of these errors, the former special counsel said he deliberately wrote the report to be unclear because it would be unfair to make clear criminal accusations against a president.

Members of Congress should lay out this timeline clearly on July 17, and ask tough questions of Mueller: Why did you ignore the law of campaign coordination, which was clearly established by Congress and the FEC, and thoroughly upheld in broad terms by the Supreme Court? Did your failure to identify the correct legal standard limit your investigation of Manafort, Gates, Stone, and Trump? If you knew of these rules, why did you fail to identify this coordination as illegal once you found it?

[arpeggio]

I should stop reading about the election.  It just depresses me about the future of our great nation.

I am reading Charles Sykes' book How the Right Lost Its Mind.  Mr. Sykes is a conservative radio host from Wisconsin.  I just completed the chapter about all of the fake news that has been disseminated by the Alt-Right and how many of the Trump movement believed this nonsense.  If after reading the Mueller Report or this book one still thinks that Trump is a saint, they are a lost cause. 

All politicians lie.  But for every lie most politicians make that irritate me, Trump makes at least a dozen.

[drogulus]

Remember.  The last perfect person got nailed to a cross.

     How is that something you are supposed to remember?

     

[JBS]

     Mueller Missed the Crime: Trump's Campaign Coordinated With Russia

     Unlike collusion, coordination has a legal meaning, the article states.

Robert Mueller made a significant legal error and, based on the facts he found, he should have identified Trump campaign felonies. Mueller's errors meant that, first, he failed to conclude that the Trump campaign criminally coordinated with Russia; second, he failed to indict campaign chairman Paul Manafort and his deputy Rick Gates for felony campaign coordination (see in a concise timeline below); third, the 10 acts of felony obstruction in Volume II fell flat among the general public because it lacked compelling context of these underlying crimes between the campaign and Russia. On top of these errors, the former special counsel said he deliberately wrote the report to be unclear because it would be unfair to make clear criminal accusations against a president.

Members of Congress should lay out this timeline clearly on July 17, and ask tough questions of Mueller: Why did you ignore the law of campaign coordination, which was clearly established by Congress and the FEC, and thoroughly upheld in broad terms by the Supreme Court? Did your failure to identify the correct legal standard limit your investigation of Manafort, Gates, Stone, and Trump? If you knew of these rules, why did you fail to identify this coordination as illegal once you found it?

Actually, Mueller didn't charge any collusion related felonies because of such things as the colluders not realizing they were breaking the law (which vitiates intent in the legal sense).  IOW, Mueller concluded that collusion occurred, but couldn't be prosecuted on legal grounds.

[drogulus]

Actually, Mueller didn't charge any collusion related felonies because of such things as the colluders not realizing they were breaking the law (which vitiates intent in the legal sense).  IOW, Mueller concluded that collusion occurred, but couldn't be prosecuted on legal grounds.

      The illegal campaign coordination discussed in the article does not depend on intent to break the law. Intentions are either irrelevant or are assumed from actions. There is no inquiry into the perps state of mind. What was Trump really thinking when he said "Russia, if you're listening..."? It does not matter.

Outside spending for coordinated communications is an in-kind contribution, and foreign contributions are completely prohibited. And Congress made the criminal penalties unmistakably clear: "Any person who knowingly and willfully commits a violation of any provision of this Act" commits a crime. The Supreme Court upheld these limits in McConnell v. FEC with crucial observations about the functional role of suggestions, rather than agreements: "[E]xpenditures made after a wink or nod often will be as useful to the candidate as cash." This timeline is full of suggestions far more explicit than winks and nods.

     There it is, the contributions are completely prohibited. Though it's unstated in the article, political campaigns can't claim ignorance of the law any more than I can kidnap someone and then claim I didn't know it was illegal.

[JBS]

      The illegal campaign coordination discussed in the article does not depend on intent to break the law. Intentions are either irrelevant or are assumed from actions. There is no inquiry into the perps state of mind. What was Trump really thinking when he said "Russia, if you're listening..."? It does not matter.

Outside spending for coordinated communications is an in-kind contribution, and foreign contributions are completely prohibited. And Congress made the criminal penalties unmistakably clear: "Any person who knowingly and willfully commits a violation of any provision of this Act" commits a crime. The Supreme Court upheld these limits in McConnell v. FEC with crucial observations about the functional role of suggestions, rather than agreements: "[E]xpenditures made after a wink or nod often will be as useful to the candidate as cash." This timeline is full of suggestions far more explicit than winks and nods.

     There it is, the contributions are completely prohibited. Though it's unstated in the article, political campaigns can't claim ignorance of the law any more than I can kidnap someone and then claim I didn't know it was illegal.

For benefit of you and other readers, I bolded the phrase which renders Don Jr et al unprosecutable.

[drogulus]

For benefit of you and other readers, I bolded the phrase which renders Don Jr et al unprosecutable.

     Don Jr was a higher up in the campaign. He knew what the campaign knew, what the lawyers campaigns have knew, which is everything concerning campaign finance. Everything he did was knowing and witting. "Don't tell me" is knowing and witting. If campaign officials can plead ignorance of campaign law the law is meaningless. Their job is knowing and witting. Ignorance might apply to a low level functionary, not to a Trump.

[JBS]

     Don Jr was a higher up in the campaign. He knew what the campaign knew, what the lawyers campaigns have knew, which is everything concerning campaign finance. Everything he did was knowing and witting. "Don't tell me" is knowing and witting. If campaign officials can plead ignorance of campaign law the law is meaningless. Their job is knowing and witting. Ignorance might apply to a low level functionary, not to a Trump.

Mueller's lawyers say you are wrong.

[drogulus]

Mueller's lawyers say you are wrong.

     That's what the article is about, they got it wrong. My view is that Mueller committed himself to the idea that he could not indict Trump, so he thought he couldn't say that prosecutable crimes occurred without an accusation to that effect. Almost any prosecutor with a pulse says this is literally false, that the crimes the article references are super-prosecutable and Mueller has mislead by trying to thread the needle between an accusation he felt he couldn't make and a strict assessment of whether crimes were committed. They were, it's clear they were.

[Karl Henning]

Cop-mala Harris.  She wanted to jail parents for truancy a decade ago... ...you want a police state? Vote for Cop-malignant Harris! 

So, to be clear, you prefer a second Trump term to "President Kamala Harris"?

[SimonNZ]

Trump's Fourth of July event and weekend protests bankrupted D.C. security fund, mayor says

"President Trump's overhauled Fourth of July celebration cost the D.C. government about $1.7 million, an amount that — combined with police expenses for demonstrations through the weekend — has bankrupted a special fund used to protect the nation's capital from terrorist threats and provide security at events such as rallies and state funerals.

In a letter to the president Tuesday, D.C. Mayor Muriel E. Bowser (D) warned that the fund has been depleted and is estimated to be running a $6 million deficit when the current fiscal year ends Sept. 30. The mayor also noted that the account was never reimbursed for $7.3 million in expenses from Trump's 2017 inauguration.

Bowser requested that the White House fully reimburse the fund. Without that money, city officials say, Washingtonians will be put in the unprecedented position of funding federal security needs with local tax dollars."

[SimonNZ]

seen elsewhere:

"Remember, the Secretary of Labor who's currently under fire for cutting a deal with an alleged pedophile and serial rapist is only the Secretary of Labor because Trump's *original* nominee for Secretary of Labor had to withdraw over allegations that he had abused his ex-wife
.
Also, remember that the 2016 RNC Finance Chairman who's been accused of multiple counts of rape is different from the 2016 RNC Deputy Finance Chairman who paid for a Playmate's abortion and different from the *other* 2016 RNC Deputy Finance Chairman who is now in prison.

Also, the state chairman of Trump's 2016 campaign in Kentucky who later pleaded guilty to child sex trafficking is different from the state chairman of Trump's 2016 campaign in Oklahoma who also later pleaded guilty to child sex trafficking."

[SimonNZ]

Appeals court dismisses emoluments lawsuit involving President Trump's D.C. hotel

"A federal appeals court Wednesday sided with President Trump, dismissing a lawsuit claiming the president is illegally profiting from foreign and state government visitors at his luxury hotel in downtown Washington.

The unanimous ruling from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit is a victory for the president in a novel case brought by the attorneys general of Maryland and the District of Columbia involving anti-corruption provisions in the emoluments clauses of the U.S. Constitution.

In its ruling, the three-judge panel said the attorneys general lacked legal standing to bring the lawsuit alleging the president is violating the Constitution when his business accepts payments from state and foreign governments. The decision — from Judges Paul V. Niemeyer, Dennis W. Shedd and A. Marvin Quattlebaum Jr. — also stops dozens of subpoenas to federal government agencies and Trump's private business entities for financial records related to the D.C. hotel.

"The District and Maryland's interest in enforcing the Emoluments Clauses is so attenuated and abstract that their prosecution of this case readily provokes the question of whether this action against the President is an appropriate use of the courts, which were created to resolve real cases and controversies between the parties," Niemeyer wrote in the 36-page opinion."


Kentucky Senate hopeful Amy McGrath says she raised $2.5 million in 24 hours for race against Mitch McConnell

Kentucky Democratic Senate hopeful Amy McGrath raised more than $2.5 million online in the first 24 hours after she announced her bid to topple Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), her campaign said Wednesday.
The figure exceeds those announced by some of the top-tier Democratic presidential candidates for their first 24 hours and is a record for a Democratic Senate candidate, according to the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee.

The next closest was former NASA astronaut Mark Kelly, whose campaign said he raised $1 million on the first day of his campaign in Arizona in February.
[...]

McGrath launched her Senate campaign with a video Tuesday that drew national attention. In it, she cast McConnell as out of touch with his Kentucky constituents and blamed him for dysfunction in Washington.

McConnell's campaign countered by seeking to portray McGrath as too liberal for Kentucky, citing her support for a single-payer health-care system and abortion rights, among other things. And McConnell's campaign also seized on past comments in which McGrath compared the way she felt after Donald Trump's election in 2016 to the way she felt after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks."

[Muzio]

They say that good humor always contains a grain of truth...

[drogulus]

     Golf event hosted by strip club at Trump's Doral course canceled after charity pulls out

President Donald Trump's National Doral Golf Club in Miami was scheduled to host a tournament Saturday organized by a strip club complete with "caddy girls" donning miniskirts who would escort players to a "very tasteful burlesque show" off site.

     Now it's not going to happen. Even Predator Island, D.C. is spooked.

[SimonNZ]

$3,355,970,000,000: Federal Spending Sets Record Through June; Deficit Hits $747,115,000,000

"The federal government spent a record $3,355,970,000,000 in the first nine months of fiscal 2019 (October through June), according to the Monthly Treasury Statement released today.

Prior to this fiscal year, the most the federal government had ever spent in the October-through-June period was in fiscal 2018, when the Treasury doled out $3,199,795,700,000 in constant June 2019 dollars. Before last year, the most the federal government had ever spent in the first nine months of the fiscal year was in fiscal 2009, when it spent $3,176,577,910,000.

Fiscal 2009 was the year that President George W. Bush signed the Troubled Asset Relief Program legislation to bailout failing banks and President Barack Obama signed the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, his economic stimulus plan.

Total federal tax revenues in the first nine months of fiscal 2019 hit $2,608,855,000,000. That was more than the $2,582,688,760,000 in total tax revenue (in constant June 2019 dollars) that the Treasury collected in the first nine months of fiscal 2018, but less than the record $2,626,410,840,000 (in constant June 2019 dollars) that the Treasury collected in total tax revenues in the first nine months of fiscal 2015.

The difference between the $2,608,855,000,000 in total taxes collected in the first nine months of this fiscal year and the record spending of $3,355,970,000,000 left the government with a deficit of $747,115,000,000."

[SimonNZ]

'The crisis is real': Mike Pence sees 'tough stuff' and 'compassionate work' at Texas border facilities

"With television cameras in tow, Vice President Mike Pence toured a pair of Border Patrol facilities in Texas on Friday as Republicans pushed back on reports that migrants detained in such centers are being held in deplorable and dangerous conditions.

On his first stop, at a processing center for migrants just outside McAllen,Texas, Pence said he "couldn't be more impressed" by what he described as "the compassionate work" by Border Patrol agents.

"Every family that I spoke with told me they were being well cared for," he said.

The other stop, at an outdoor portal at the McAllen Border Station, offered a starkly different picture.

A reporter traveling with Pence described a horrendous stench in the facility and said that nearly 400 men were housed in sweltering cages so crowded it would have been impossible for all of them to lie down. Some of the detainees shouted to reporters that they had been held 40 days or longer and complained that they were hungry.

"This is tough stuff," Pence said at a news conference later.

"I was not surprised by what I saw," he said. "I knew we'd see a system that was overwhelmed."

The trip to the Texas border by Pence and a group of Republican senators comes amid reports of dangerously overcrowded conditions at some facilities detaining migrants who cross the border illegally. At least six migrant children in border facilities have died since December.

As Pence was touring the facilitids, House Democrats back in Washington were holding a hearing on what they said were inhumane conditions they found when they toured another detention facility in Clint, Texas.

Independent investigators for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security visited Border Patrol facilities in western Texas in May and found dozens of migrants packed into spaces so tight that some had to stand on toilets.

After visiting five facilities in June, the inspector general released a report describing dangerously overcrowded conditions.

But the Trump administration and other Republicans have questioned such findings. President Donald Trump said last week that the facilities are "beautifully run."

Pence said Trump asked him to go to the border – and bring along cameras – so Americans can see for themselves what the facilities are like.

Pence's first stop was the processing center, an air-conditioned tent complex that opened in early May on the border about 20 miles from McAllen and just yards from an international bridge connecting the United States to Mexico.

The facility is not one of those cited as being chronically overcrowded, but it is where the Homeland Security's inspector general has said migrants are receiving substandard care. About 800 people were being held Friday in the facility, which officials said had a capacity of 1,000.

Inside, Pence approached a woman bouncing a young boy on her lap and asked where she's from.

"El Salvador," she said through an interpreter.

"Are you and your children being taken care of here?" Pence asked. "Are they treating you well here? Do you have food?"

The woman nodded her head yes."


(to the parts I bolded: that's called fear, you lying liar. Fear of retribution once the cameras leave. Fear of the person who holds their life in their hands, and their childrens - wherever they are. Fucking right-wing moral cripples.)