November 3rd, 2017 - November 7th, 2017. 354-358 days since the Nov 8, 2016, election of some rich asshole, no.45, and 286-290 days since the Jan 20th inauguration.
the rich asshole demanded bodyguard go get McDonald’s after White House chefs failed to recreate fast food
some rich asshole eating McDonald's fast food aboard his private jet (screengrab from the president's Instagram account)
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President some rich asshole loves his fast food so much he demanded the White House recreate some of his favorites. When they were unable to replicate it exactly, the rich asshole sent his bodyguard out to McDonald’s.
In a Politico profile on the rich asshole’s longtime bodyguard, Keith Schiller admitted he ran the fast food errands for the self-described billionaire. According to Schiller, the order was a quarter-pounder with cheese, no pickles and extra ketchup along with a fried apple pie for dessert.
Calling him the “the rich asshole whisperer,” Politico explained that this was not the first time he made a stealth drive-thru run for his boss. Rather it is merely the latest in a long line of similar requests.
some rich asshole eating McDonald's fast food aboard his private jet (screengrab from the president's Instagram account)
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President some rich asshole loves his fast food so much he demanded the White House recreate some of his favorites. When they were unable to replicate it exactly, the rich asshole sent his bodyguard out to McDonald’s.
In a Politico profile on the rich asshole’s longtime bodyguard, Keith Schiller admitted he ran the fast food errands for the self-described billionaire. According to Schiller, the order was a quarter-pounder with cheese, no pickles and extra ketchup along with a fried apple pie for dessert.
Calling him the “the rich asshole whisperer,” Politico explained that this was not the first time he made a stealth drive-thru run for his boss. Rather it is merely the latest in a long line of similar requests.
the rich asshole Just Openly Called For A Third World War (VIDEO)
You know all those fears conservatives dismiss that the rich asshole is going to get us into another world war? Well, those concerns are very real based on what he just said at a press conference in Seoul, South Korea.
“It’s time to act with urgency and with great determination,” the rich asshole said during the press conference. “North Korea is a worldwide threat that requires worldwide action.”
“We call on every responsible nation including China and Russia to demand that the North Korean regime end its nuclear weapons and its missile programs,” The rich asshole said.
“The United States stands prepared to defend itself and its allies using the full range of our unmatched military capabilities if need be,” the rich asshole said, desperately trying to “wag the dog” in an effort to distract from the mounting criminal indictments of his associates.
Is it any wonder that seemingly more South Koreans showed up to protest the rich asshole than Americans attended his inauguration?
the rich asshole is getting desperate, and it seems that he has decided a war is the way to go if he wants to escape from the situation he has put himself in unscathed.
Watch the rich asshole tell the world he’ll kill us all to distract from his bullsh*t below:
You know all those fears conservatives dismiss that the rich asshole is going to get us into another world war? Well, those concerns are very real based on what he just said at a press conference in Seoul, South Korea.
“It’s time to act with urgency and with great determination,” the rich asshole said during the press conference. “North Korea is a worldwide threat that requires worldwide action.”
“We call on every responsible nation including China and Russia to demand that the North Korean regime end its nuclear weapons and its missile programs,” The rich asshole said.
“The United States stands prepared to defend itself and its allies using the full range of our unmatched military capabilities if need be,” the rich asshole said, desperately trying to “wag the dog” in an effort to distract from the mounting criminal indictments of his associates.
Is it any wonder that seemingly more South Koreans showed up to protest the rich asshole than Americans attended his inauguration?
the rich asshole is getting desperate, and it seems that he has decided a war is the way to go if he wants to escape from the situation he has put himself in unscathed.
Watch the rich asshole tell the world he’ll kill us all to distract from his bullsh*t below:
OOPS: the rich asshole Agrees That People Like Him Should Be Treated ‘Harshly’ For Milking Their Country
Well, here’s a Twitter post that backfired on some rich asshole.
Over the weekend, billionaire Prince Alwaleed bin Talal, who owns a stake in Fox News, along with several other princes and former cabinet officials, were arrested for corruption by order of Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman.
Ironically, the rich asshole tweeted out his support of the sweeping arrests on Monday.
....Some of those they are harshly treating have been “milking” their country for years!
Let that sink in for a minute. some rich asshole, the man who has literally spent every moment of his adult life milking his own country and continues to do so now from the Oval Office, agrees that people who do what he does should be treated harshly.
the rich asshole and his administration are currently under investigation for colluding with a foreign state to undermine our democratic process. the rich asshole is also a tax evader and has made deals with some very shady people including people with mob and terrorist connections.
In fact, the rich asshole’s own tax plan would especially benefit him and his family. And he has placed his own family members in high White House positions, all while using the executive branch to promote his businesses, all of which violates ethics rules.
Some Twitter users pointed out the irony and hypocrisy of the rich asshole’s tweet.
RELEASE YOUR TAXES and we'll see who has been "milking" their country for years! #PutinsPuppet #FakePresident
That is a hilarious statement coming from you, that's exactly what you are doing to us.
Make no mistake, the rich asshole has milked the United States more than anyone and he intends to milk much more out of taxpayers unless he is removed from office and put in prison where he belongs.
Featured Image: Drew Angerer/Getty Images
Well, here’s a Twitter post that backfired on some rich asshole.
Over the weekend, billionaire Prince Alwaleed bin Talal, who owns a stake in Fox News, along with several other princes and former cabinet officials, were arrested for corruption by order of Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman.
Ironically, the rich asshole tweeted out his support of the sweeping arrests on Monday.
....Some of those they are harshly treating have been “milking” their country for years!
Let that sink in for a minute. some rich asshole, the man who has literally spent every moment of his adult life milking his own country and continues to do so now from the Oval Office, agrees that people who do what he does should be treated harshly.
the rich asshole and his administration are currently under investigation for colluding with a foreign state to undermine our democratic process. the rich asshole is also a tax evader and has made deals with some very shady people including people with mob and terrorist connections.
In fact, the rich asshole’s own tax plan would especially benefit him and his family. And he has placed his own family members in high White House positions, all while using the executive branch to promote his businesses, all of which violates ethics rules.
Some Twitter users pointed out the irony and hypocrisy of the rich asshole’s tweet.
RELEASE YOUR TAXES and we'll see who has been "milking" their country for years! #PutinsPuppet #FakePresident
That is a hilarious statement coming from you, that's exactly what you are doing to us.
Make no mistake, the rich asshole has milked the United States more than anyone and he intends to milk much more out of taxpayers unless he is removed from office and put in prison where he belongs.
Featured Image: Drew Angerer/Getty Images
Multiple Witnesses Confirm: The Pee Pee Tapes Are Real
Remember the fabled pee pee tapes? Well, it seems that we have a little bit more info on them — including that some rich asshole’s staff was seen arguing with hotel security about whether or not a couple of prostitutes would be allowed in his hotel room during a stay in Russia.
In his infamous dossier, former British spy Michael Steele alleged that the rich asshole had paid prostitutes to come up to his room and urinate on one another on a bed that Barack and Michelle Obama once shared. Steele claimed at the time that the incident was filmed and would be used by the Kremlin as “kompromat” (compromising material).
Award-winning British journalist Paul Wood reports for The Spectator that not only do multiple witnesses confirm the pee pee tape, but there are more extreme recordings of some rich asshole than just a couple of Russian girls urinating:
I heard of Russian kompromat — compromising material — on the rich asshole from two sources months before the Steele dossier came to light.
There are, though, reports of witnesses in the hotel who corroborate Steele’s reporting. These include an American who’s said to have seen a row with the hotel security over whether the hookers would be allowed up to the rich asshole’s suite. The dossier’s account of hookers in a Moscow hotel room was the subject of gossip among politicians and intelligence people for months before it was published.
“Now claims are circulating of more tapes showing more extreme behavior. Expect these allegations to emerge in due course,” Wood says cryptically.
Will the pee pee tapes finally surface? Who knows – but the rich asshole must be sweating his fake tanner off thinking about it.
Remember the fabled pee pee tapes? Well, it seems that we have a little bit more info on them — including that some rich asshole’s staff was seen arguing with hotel security about whether or not a couple of prostitutes would be allowed in his hotel room during a stay in Russia.
In his infamous dossier, former British spy Michael Steele alleged that the rich asshole had paid prostitutes to come up to his room and urinate on one another on a bed that Barack and Michelle Obama once shared. Steele claimed at the time that the incident was filmed and would be used by the Kremlin as “kompromat” (compromising material).
Award-winning British journalist Paul Wood reports for The Spectator that not only do multiple witnesses confirm the pee pee tape, but there are more extreme recordings of some rich asshole than just a couple of Russian girls urinating:
I heard of Russian kompromat — compromising material — on the rich asshole from two sources months before the Steele dossier came to light.There are, though, reports of witnesses in the hotel who corroborate Steele’s reporting. These include an American who’s said to have seen a row with the hotel security over whether the hookers would be allowed up to the rich asshole’s suite. The dossier’s account of hookers in a Moscow hotel room was the subject of gossip among politicians and intelligence people for months before it was published.
“Now claims are circulating of more tapes showing more extreme behavior. Expect these allegations to emerge in due course,” Wood says cryptically.
Will the pee pee tapes finally surface? Who knows – but the rich asshole must be sweating his fake tanner off thinking about it.
the rich asshole Is Trying To Make Facebook Give Him Personal Info Of People Who Criticize Him
Lawyers for the rich asshole administration have served Facebook with three separate search warrants, demanding the private account information of users who could be described in their words as “anti-administration activists who have spoken out at organized events, and who are generally very critical of this administration’s policies.” Read: the rich asshole critics, and this has the potential to affect thousands of Facebook users.
Fortunately, the American Civil Liberties Union filed a motion to quash the warrants on Thursday on behalf of three Facebook users. “What is particularly chilling about these warrants is that anti-administration political activists are going to have their political associations and views scrutinized by the very administration they are protesting,” said ACLU attorney Scott Michelman.
One such user is Emmelia Talarico. Talarico operated the disruptj20 page where other users could discuss and organize protests for the rich asshole’s Inauguration Day. If the search warrants are passed and Facebook is required to hand over the information, the government would have access to the identities of the estimated 6,000 users who visited the page. Talarico says if her account information were given to the government, officials would have access to her “personal passwords, security questions and answers, and credit card information,” plus “the private lists of invitees and attendees to multiple political events sponsored by the page.”
Facebook was first served the warrants back in February and they came with a gag order preventing the social media giant from alerting the three users in question about the government seeking their personal information. Michelman claims that government attorneys dropped the gag order earlier this month, allowing Facebook to expose the existence of the warrants, however, all court filings and any response from Facebook are still deemed confidential.
The warrants also seek the personal information from the accounts of Lacy MacAuley and Legba Carrefour. Carrefour, a self-described political activist, acknowledges that he has “participated in or helped to organize dozens of demonstrations and events of various types in service of political causes,” but is also concerned about the warrants because his Facebook account “contains a significant amount of private material concerning my personal life.”
Lawyers for the rich asshole administration have served Facebook with three separate search warrants, demanding the private account information of users who could be described in their words as “anti-administration activists who have spoken out at organized events, and who are generally very critical of this administration’s policies.” Read: the rich asshole critics, and this has the potential to affect thousands of Facebook users.
Fortunately, the American Civil Liberties Union filed a motion to quash the warrants on Thursday on behalf of three Facebook users. “What is particularly chilling about these warrants is that anti-administration political activists are going to have their political associations and views scrutinized by the very administration they are protesting,” said ACLU attorney Scott Michelman.
One such user is Emmelia Talarico. Talarico operated the disruptj20 page where other users could discuss and organize protests for the rich asshole’s Inauguration Day. If the search warrants are passed and Facebook is required to hand over the information, the government would have access to the identities of the estimated 6,000 users who visited the page. Talarico says if her account information were given to the government, officials would have access to her “personal passwords, security questions and answers, and credit card information,” plus “the private lists of invitees and attendees to multiple political events sponsored by the page.”
Facebook was first served the warrants back in February and they came with a gag order preventing the social media giant from alerting the three users in question about the government seeking their personal information. Michelman claims that government attorneys dropped the gag order earlier this month, allowing Facebook to expose the existence of the warrants, however, all court filings and any response from Facebook are still deemed confidential.
The warrants also seek the personal information from the accounts of Lacy MacAuley and Legba Carrefour. Carrefour, a self-described political activist, acknowledges that he has “participated in or helped to organize dozens of demonstrations and events of various types in service of political causes,” but is also concerned about the warrants because his Facebook account “contains a significant amount of private material concerning my personal life.”
the rich asshole Tells Japanese Diplomats He Never Knew There Were So Many Countries In The World
Who knew that presidenting would be so hard, right? Conservatives voted a former reality show star into power with zero experience in politics and they thought that would be a good thing. some rich asshole has always claimed to have a high IQ, even going as far as to offer to compare IQ tests with Rex Tillerson after reports surfaced that the secretary of State had called him a “fucking moron.” But we’d really like that to happen because while the rich asshole is on his 13-day trip overseas, he revealed to Japanese dignitaries that he didn’t know how many countries there are in the world until he became the so-called president.
First, Japanese Prime Minister Abe gave his remarks in front of the crowded room, then the rich asshole got up to the mic to be sure to embarrass the U.S. – again.
“So my relationship with Shinzo got off to quite a rocky start because I never ran for office, and here I am,” the rich asshole told the room. “But I never ran, so I wasn’t very experienced. And after I had won, everybody was calling me from all over the world. I never knew we had so many countries.”
the rich asshole kicked off his remarks by calling Prime Minister Abe by his first name.
the rich asshole’s remarks start around the 14- minute mark:
It’s kind of an important thing to know, don’t you think? Especially if you’re supposed to be the leader of the free world.
For the record, there are 193 UN member states, plus the State of Palestine and the Holy See (Vatican), both of which are non-member observers of the UN. So really, there are 195 countries in the world. South Sudan was added to the list in 2011.
Hey, and I’m not even the president! But I do know how to Google. We’re sure Barron the rich asshole could do that for his father since he’s obviously not capable of looking up important information.
Who knew that presidenting would be so hard, right? Conservatives voted a former reality show star into power with zero experience in politics and they thought that would be a good thing. some rich asshole has always claimed to have a high IQ, even going as far as to offer to compare IQ tests with Rex Tillerson after reports surfaced that the secretary of State had called him a “fucking moron.” But we’d really like that to happen because while the rich asshole is on his 13-day trip overseas, he revealed to Japanese dignitaries that he didn’t know how many countries there are in the world until he became the so-called president.
First, Japanese Prime Minister Abe gave his remarks in front of the crowded room, then the rich asshole got up to the mic to be sure to embarrass the U.S. – again.
“So my relationship with Shinzo got off to quite a rocky start because I never ran for office, and here I am,” the rich asshole told the room. “But I never ran, so I wasn’t very experienced. And after I had won, everybody was calling me from all over the world. I never knew we had so many countries.”
the rich asshole kicked off his remarks by calling Prime Minister Abe by his first name.
the rich asshole’s remarks start around the 14- minute mark:
It’s kind of an important thing to know, don’t you think? Especially if you’re supposed to be the leader of the free world.
For the record, there are 193 UN member states, plus the State of Palestine and the Holy See (Vatican), both of which are non-member observers of the UN. So really, there are 195 countries in the world. South Sudan was added to the list in 2011.
Hey, and I’m not even the president! But I do know how to Google. We’re sure Barron the rich asshole could do that for his father since he’s obviously not capable of looking up important information.
Fox News Just Completed Transformation Into Safe Space For Fragile, Snowflakey some rich asshole
Fox News has decided to cancel certain ads on their network, completing their transition from a conservative network into a safe space for their fragile the rich asshole fans, and after the rich asshole himself threw a livid fit. A series of ads by political activist Tom Steyer, which call for the rich asshole’s impeachment, has been pulled because of the reaction to it from their viewers. Seriously:
“Due to the strong negative reaction to their ad by our viewers, we could not in good conscience take their money.”
Why, because their viewers will abandon the network if they show any signs of trying to be balanced? Of course, Fox News is a private entity and is allowed to do this, but the question remains: Is it censorship if they did so because of pressure from the rich asshole? The unhinged presidential impostor did go on Twitter to call Steyer “wacky & totally unhinged” when the “Impeach the rich asshole” campaign was first launched in late October. That may well have put pressure on Fox to pull it.
Fake President the rich asshole is known for his attacks on the “fake news” media, and it’s entirely possible that Fox News is terrified of him. Or, at the very least, terrified that he’ll stop coming for ridiculously easy and softball interviews from friendly neighborhood conspiracy theorists like Sean Hannity.
Steyer, for his part, is claiming that Fox is in breach of contract over this. His lawyer, Brad Deutsch, said that, on Oct. 27, Fox had agreed unconditionally to air the ads for one more week. Canceling the ads when they did “signaled a profound failure of journalistic integrity, a suppression of constitutionally protected speech, and likely a consequence of inexcusable political pressure.” Watch the ad below:
Featured image via Ethan Miller/Getty Images
Fox News has decided to cancel certain ads on their network, completing their transition from a conservative network into a safe space for their fragile the rich asshole fans, and after the rich asshole himself threw a livid fit. A series of ads by political activist Tom Steyer, which call for the rich asshole’s impeachment, has been pulled because of the reaction to it from their viewers. Seriously:
“Due to the strong negative reaction to their ad by our viewers, we could not in good conscience take their money.”
Why, because their viewers will abandon the network if they show any signs of trying to be balanced? Of course, Fox News is a private entity and is allowed to do this, but the question remains: Is it censorship if they did so because of pressure from the rich asshole? The unhinged presidential impostor did go on Twitter to call Steyer “wacky & totally unhinged” when the “Impeach the rich asshole” campaign was first launched in late October. That may well have put pressure on Fox to pull it.
Fake President the rich asshole is known for his attacks on the “fake news” media, and it’s entirely possible that Fox News is terrified of him. Or, at the very least, terrified that he’ll stop coming for ridiculously easy and softball interviews from friendly neighborhood conspiracy theorists like Sean Hannity.
Steyer, for his part, is claiming that Fox is in breach of contract over this. His lawyer, Brad Deutsch, said that, on Oct. 27, Fox had agreed unconditionally to air the ads for one more week. Canceling the ads when they did “signaled a profound failure of journalistic integrity, a suppression of constitutionally protected speech, and likely a consequence of inexcusable political pressure.” Watch the ad below:
Featured image via Ethan Miller/Getty Images
Russia almost certainly made some rich asshole president — and here’s how we know
some rich asshole during CNN debate (Photo: Screen capture via video)
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Many Americans are unhappy about President some rich asshole’s decisions, but defenders of his administration dismiss these criticisms as irrelevant. Elections have consequences, they argue. the rich asshole promised to change Washington when he was on the campaign trail. Voters liked what he said, and now the President is delivering on those promises. Get over it, critics. the rich asshole won. Clinton lost.
This argument in defense of the rich asshole’s leadership sounded more compelling immediately after the election than it does now. New evidence has surfaced in recent months that suggests the rich asshole may not have won the 2016 race primarily because he offered voters a more appealing message than the Democratic candidate. The Kremlin backed numerous communications on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and YouTube that boosted some rich asshole’s campaign with words and images that damaged Hillary Clinton’s candidacy. Russian agents appreciated a condition of modern-day electioneering that many politicians, journalists, and citizens in the United States fail to recognize adequately when assessing the results of presidential elections. Russia’s meddlers understood that voters are not simply influenced by the good works a candidate promises to perform. Voters’ decisions are influenced to a considerable degree by strongly negative impressions they have about an opposing candidate’s personality, behavior, and ideas.
In the light of newly released details about Russia’s manipulation of the Internet, pundits who seek “lessons” from the 2016 presidential election should question some of their favored interpretations. When trying to explain why the rich asshole won a very close election, they typically cite the Republican candidate’s promises to “Make America Great Again” and create “good jobs,” his nostalgic references to America’s past, his image as a successful businessman and Washington outsider, and his appeals to ordinary Americans, including white men. They point out, as well, that Hillary Clinton was not an ideal candidate. She lacked the political charisma of her husband. Mrs. Clinton also failed to heed the message that James Carville emphasized during her husband’s successful 1992 campaign – Americans care about “the economy, stupid.”
the rich asshole’s messaging and Clinton’s shortcomings were factors in the outcome, of course. Nevertheless, Mrs. Clinton attracted almost three million more votes than the rich asshole, and her loss can be traced largely to the rich asshole’s victories in Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin by a combined total of less than 80,000 votes. Absent Russia’s abundant messages spreading across the Internet, Hillary Clinton would likely be handling the nation’s affairs now in the Oval Office.
The reach of that foreign-based propaganda was impressive. The Internet Research Agency, an organization linked to the Kremlin, reached 126 million users of Facebook. Many of its communications aimed to undermine confidence in Hillary Clinton. Russian agents published more than 1.4 million election-related tweets. Those messages received 288 million views. Russia’s intervention resulted in the publication of more than 120,000 images on Instagram, the photo-sharing platform, and it produced more than 1000 ads on YouTube. Americans who liked these messages passed them on to friends. Agents associated with the Kremlin exploited Internet freedom brilliantly during America’s 2016 election campaign. The Internet remained a free-wheeling, largely unregulated communications network. It did not require sponsors of political messages to identify themselves, as television advertising required.
We should not be surprised that Russians sought to boost the rich asshole’s chances principally by circulating negative impressions of Hillary Clinton rather than positive judgments about some rich asshole. In recent decades, American campaign advertising has accentuated the negative rather than the positive. Strategists recognized that efforts to demonize the opposition can pay off handsomely. The negative approach has been especially evident since the 1988 presidential race. This was not a new trend, of course. The 1800 presidential campaigns involving Thomas Jefferson and John Adams featured plenty of nasty personal attacks, and similar practices affected later presidential contests. Since 1988, though, both major parties put this strategy on steroids.
Republican leaders were nervous in late May of 1988. Democrat Michael Dukakis was far ahead of the President George H. W. Bush in the polls. GOP strategists decided to respond with hard-hitting attack ads against the Democratic candidate. They branded Dukakis as a Massachusetts “liberal” and portrayed him as weak on national defense. “Willie Horton” ads also wrecked Dukakis’s image. They drew attention to a Massachusetts furlough program that allowed the temporary release of state prisoners. Horton, an African American and convicted murderer, committed assault, armed robbery and rape at the time of his furlough. Michael Dukakis made numerous mistakes, but the GOP’s powerful assault on his character and leadership hurt even more. George H. W. Bush overcame Dukakis’s initial advantages, winning the electoral college by a whopping count of 426 to 111. President Bush’s turnaround in the 1988 contest delivered a poignant message. Efforts to promote frightening characterizations of the opposing candidate can make an impact on voters’ opinions.
Negative advertising helped Republicans in the close presidential contest of 2004. Democrats seemed to have a good chance for victory when they nominated John Kerry, an articulate, rugged-looking, war veteran who received a Silver Star, a Bronze Star with Combat V and Three Purple Hearts for military service in Vietnam. But Kerry went down to defeat, in large part because of the way Republican strategists portrayed him – as a tax-raising, flip-flopping wimp. An attack group finished off the wounded Kerry by claiming that he lied about his achievements in Vietnam.
Democrats gained leverage in 1992 and 2012 by employing attack strategies. In 1992, Bill Clinton’s campaign suggested President George H. W. Bush was out of touch with ordinary people. Democrats blamed President Bush for the hard times Americans experienced during a recession. In 2012 Barack Obama’s team quickly defined the character of Mitt Romney for voters before Romney had a chance to make his case. Democrats portrayed Romney as an aloof millionaire who did not truly care about average people. Romney viewed corporations as “people,” Democrats stressed, and they drew attention to Romney’s video-recorded claim that 47% of American voters “are dependent on the government” and “believe the government has a responsibility to care for them.”
It is difficult for political analysts and citizens to revise their familiar narrative about lessons drawn from political campaigns, including their conclusions about the 2016 election. When discussing the reasons for victory or defeat, they give primary weight to the appeal of individual personalities and the candidates’ promises to improve voters’ lives. Commentators stress the importance of a candidate’s likeability and communication skills. But the latest evidence of extensive meddling through Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube suggests that analysts need to think differently when assessing election results in the years to come. The winning candidate’s personality and message do not always establish the winning margin. Quite often, negative characterizations serve as keys to victory.
Debates about the reasons for the rich asshole’s win and Clinton’s loss will continue to animate conversations for a long time, but new evidence supports an astonishing judgment. Hillary Clinton probably would have won – in fact, she might have won handily and benefited the candidacy of Democrats for the House and Senate – if Russian interference had not created strong doubts about her character and competence.
Robert Brent Toplin is Professor Emeritus at the University of North Carolina, Wilmington. Toplin was also professor at Denison University and recently has taught occasional courses at the University of Virginia. He is the author of several books about film, history, and politics and has commented on history in several nationally broadcast radio and television programs. Contact: Rt2b@virginia.edu.
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Many Americans are unhappy about President some rich asshole’s decisions, but defenders of his administration dismiss these criticisms as irrelevant. Elections have consequences, they argue. the rich asshole promised to change Washington when he was on the campaign trail. Voters liked what he said, and now the President is delivering on those promises. Get over it, critics. the rich asshole won. Clinton lost.
This argument in defense of the rich asshole’s leadership sounded more compelling immediately after the election than it does now. New evidence has surfaced in recent months that suggests the rich asshole may not have won the 2016 race primarily because he offered voters a more appealing message than the Democratic candidate. The Kremlin backed numerous communications on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and YouTube that boosted some rich asshole’s campaign with words and images that damaged Hillary Clinton’s candidacy. Russian agents appreciated a condition of modern-day electioneering that many politicians, journalists, and citizens in the United States fail to recognize adequately when assessing the results of presidential elections. Russia’s meddlers understood that voters are not simply influenced by the good works a candidate promises to perform. Voters’ decisions are influenced to a considerable degree by strongly negative impressions they have about an opposing candidate’s personality, behavior, and ideas.
In the light of newly released details about Russia’s manipulation of the Internet, pundits who seek “lessons” from the 2016 presidential election should question some of their favored interpretations. When trying to explain why the rich asshole won a very close election, they typically cite the Republican candidate’s promises to “Make America Great Again” and create “good jobs,” his nostalgic references to America’s past, his image as a successful businessman and Washington outsider, and his appeals to ordinary Americans, including white men. They point out, as well, that Hillary Clinton was not an ideal candidate. She lacked the political charisma of her husband. Mrs. Clinton also failed to heed the message that James Carville emphasized during her husband’s successful 1992 campaign – Americans care about “the economy, stupid.”
the rich asshole’s messaging and Clinton’s shortcomings were factors in the outcome, of course. Nevertheless, Mrs. Clinton attracted almost three million more votes than the rich asshole, and her loss can be traced largely to the rich asshole’s victories in Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin by a combined total of less than 80,000 votes. Absent Russia’s abundant messages spreading across the Internet, Hillary Clinton would likely be handling the nation’s affairs now in the Oval Office.
The reach of that foreign-based propaganda was impressive. The Internet Research Agency, an organization linked to the Kremlin, reached 126 million users of Facebook. Many of its communications aimed to undermine confidence in Hillary Clinton. Russian agents published more than 1.4 million election-related tweets. Those messages received 288 million views. Russia’s intervention resulted in the publication of more than 120,000 images on Instagram, the photo-sharing platform, and it produced more than 1000 ads on YouTube. Americans who liked these messages passed them on to friends. Agents associated with the Kremlin exploited Internet freedom brilliantly during America’s 2016 election campaign. The Internet remained a free-wheeling, largely unregulated communications network. It did not require sponsors of political messages to identify themselves, as television advertising required.
We should not be surprised that Russians sought to boost the rich asshole’s chances principally by circulating negative impressions of Hillary Clinton rather than positive judgments about some rich asshole. In recent decades, American campaign advertising has accentuated the negative rather than the positive. Strategists recognized that efforts to demonize the opposition can pay off handsomely. The negative approach has been especially evident since the 1988 presidential race. This was not a new trend, of course. The 1800 presidential campaigns involving Thomas Jefferson and John Adams featured plenty of nasty personal attacks, and similar practices affected later presidential contests. Since 1988, though, both major parties put this strategy on steroids.
Republican leaders were nervous in late May of 1988. Democrat Michael Dukakis was far ahead of the President George H. W. Bush in the polls. GOP strategists decided to respond with hard-hitting attack ads against the Democratic candidate. They branded Dukakis as a Massachusetts “liberal” and portrayed him as weak on national defense. “Willie Horton” ads also wrecked Dukakis’s image. They drew attention to a Massachusetts furlough program that allowed the temporary release of state prisoners. Horton, an African American and convicted murderer, committed assault, armed robbery and rape at the time of his furlough. Michael Dukakis made numerous mistakes, but the GOP’s powerful assault on his character and leadership hurt even more. George H. W. Bush overcame Dukakis’s initial advantages, winning the electoral college by a whopping count of 426 to 111. President Bush’s turnaround in the 1988 contest delivered a poignant message. Efforts to promote frightening characterizations of the opposing candidate can make an impact on voters’ opinions.
Negative advertising helped Republicans in the close presidential contest of 2004. Democrats seemed to have a good chance for victory when they nominated John Kerry, an articulate, rugged-looking, war veteran who received a Silver Star, a Bronze Star with Combat V and Three Purple Hearts for military service in Vietnam. But Kerry went down to defeat, in large part because of the way Republican strategists portrayed him – as a tax-raising, flip-flopping wimp. An attack group finished off the wounded Kerry by claiming that he lied about his achievements in Vietnam.
Democrats gained leverage in 1992 and 2012 by employing attack strategies. In 1992, Bill Clinton’s campaign suggested President George H. W. Bush was out of touch with ordinary people. Democrats blamed President Bush for the hard times Americans experienced during a recession. In 2012 Barack Obama’s team quickly defined the character of Mitt Romney for voters before Romney had a chance to make his case. Democrats portrayed Romney as an aloof millionaire who did not truly care about average people. Romney viewed corporations as “people,” Democrats stressed, and they drew attention to Romney’s video-recorded claim that 47% of American voters “are dependent on the government” and “believe the government has a responsibility to care for them.”
It is difficult for political analysts and citizens to revise their familiar narrative about lessons drawn from political campaigns, including their conclusions about the 2016 election. When discussing the reasons for victory or defeat, they give primary weight to the appeal of individual personalities and the candidates’ promises to improve voters’ lives. Commentators stress the importance of a candidate’s likeability and communication skills. But the latest evidence of extensive meddling through Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube suggests that analysts need to think differently when assessing election results in the years to come. The winning candidate’s personality and message do not always establish the winning margin. Quite often, negative characterizations serve as keys to victory.
Debates about the reasons for the rich asshole’s win and Clinton’s loss will continue to animate conversations for a long time, but new evidence supports an astonishing judgment. Hillary Clinton probably would have won – in fact, she might have won handily and benefited the candidacy of Democrats for the House and Senate – if Russian interference had not created strong doubts about her character and competence.
Robert Brent Toplin is Professor Emeritus at the University of North Carolina, Wilmington. Toplin was also professor at Denison University and recently has taught occasional courses at the University of Virginia. He is the author of several books about film, history, and politics and has commented on history in several nationally broadcast radio and television programs. Contact: Rt2b@virginia.edu.
WATCH: the rich asshole tells Japanese dignitaries he never knew there were ‘so many countries’ until he was elected
President some rich asshole -- Screenshot
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While giving a speech to Japanese dignitaries on the first leg his Asian tour, President some rich asshole admitted that he was unaware of how many countries there are in the world until he became president.
Addressing how he first became acquainted with Japanese Prime Minister Abe — who the rich asshole referred to by his first name, Shinzo — the rich asshole made the off-hand comment, appearing to go off-script from his prepared remarks.
“So my relationship with Shinzo got off to quite a rocky start because I never ran for office, and here I am,” the rich asshole remarked. “But I never ran, so I wasn’t very experienced. And after I had won, everybody was calling me from all over the world. I never knew we had so many countries.”
You can watch the president’s remarks in the video below. The countries comment comes at the 14 minute mark:
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While giving a speech to Japanese dignitaries on the first leg his Asian tour, President some rich asshole admitted that he was unaware of how many countries there are in the world until he became president.
Addressing how he first became acquainted with Japanese Prime Minister Abe — who the rich asshole referred to by his first name, Shinzo — the rich asshole made the off-hand comment, appearing to go off-script from his prepared remarks.
“So my relationship with Shinzo got off to quite a rocky start because I never ran for office, and here I am,” the rich asshole remarked. “But I never ran, so I wasn’t very experienced. And after I had won, everybody was calling me from all over the world. I never knew we had so many countries.”
You can watch the president’s remarks in the video below. The countries comment comes at the 14 minute mark:
Woman fired for flipping off the rich asshole motorcade
Marie Solis
Posted with permission from Newsweek
She gave the president the bird—then lost her job.
Juli Briskman, the Virginia cyclist who flipped off President Donald Trump's motorcade in October, says she was fired from her job because her employer found the gesture "lewd" and "obscene."
Briskman told HuffPost that she got sacked after she changed her Facebook profile photo to the suddenly viral photo of the supposedly offensive gesture.
"They said, 'We’re separating from you,'" said Briskman, 50. "Basically, you cannot have 'lewd' or 'obscene' things in your social media. So they were calling flipping him off 'obscene.'"
Lone cyclist responds to @POTUS motorcade shortly after departing Trump National Golf Club in Sterling, Va. (Photo: @b_smialowski/@AFP)
Briskman had been working at Akima LLC, a construction company that often gets government contracts, for just over six months. The company declined to comment when contacted Monday by Newsweek.
Briskman said she had tried to plead her case, telling her employers that she hadn't been on the clock at the time of the gesture. And her Facebook page, which featured the photo from the October 28 event, didn't include any mention of her employment at Akima LLC. Still, Briskman says her bosses insisted the photo could hurt the company.
Briskman complained of an unfair standard: Akima did not fire a male coworker who, she said, called someone a "fucking Libtard asshole" on his Facebook page. He'd only received a warning after he deleted the post.
"How is that any less 'obscene' than me flipping off the president?" Briskman said. “How is that fair?"
Briskman did not set out to flip off the president. She had been biking along a Virginia road when President Trump's motorcade caught up to her after departing from his golf course in Sterling, Virginia, one of his 73 golfing visits since Trump took office. As the armored SUVs passed her, Briskman said she became angry thinking about how many other things the president could be doing, the other things he should be worried about, besides golf.
"He was passing by and my blood just started to boil," she told HuffPost. "I’m thinking, DACA recipients are getting kicked out. He pulled ads for open enrollment in Obamacare. Only one-third of Puerto Rico has power. I’m thinking, 'He’s at the damn golf course again.'"
Only afterwards, she was surprised to find a White House photographer had captured the moment. She was even more surprised when the photo became an instant viral success. When it did, Briskman made the photo her profile picture on Facebook and then decided to give her company's human resources department a heads up about her unexpected internet fame.
That's when she was fired.
It's not the first time an exercise of free speech related to President Trump has led to turmoil in the workplace. In September, Jemele Hill was suspended from her post at ESPN for calling Trump a "white supremacist" and "bigot" on Twitter. And, of course, former San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick has been out of work since March for taking a knee during the national anthem.
Marie Solis
Juli Briskman, the Virginia cyclist who flipped off President Donald Trump's motorcade in October, says she was fired from her job because her employer found the gesture "lewd" and "obscene."
Briskman told HuffPost that she got sacked after she changed her Facebook profile photo to the suddenly viral photo of the supposedly offensive gesture.
"They said, 'We’re separating from you,'" said Briskman, 50. "Basically, you cannot have 'lewd' or 'obscene' things in your social media. So they were calling flipping him off 'obscene.'"
Lone cyclist responds to @POTUS motorcade shortly after departing Trump National Golf Club in Sterling, Va. (Photo: @b_smialowski/@AFP)
REVEALED: At least 13 the rich asshole allies, donors and cabinet members busted in ‘Paradise Papers’ leak
Reactions To Paradise Papers Leak
Suman Varandani
Posted with permission from International Business Times
The U.S.-based International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ), the publishers of the high-profile Panama Papers leaks, published another database — The Paradise Papers — on Sunday revealing offshore of "some of the world’s most powerful people and companies."
The Paradise Papers include around 13.4 million leaked documents, including nearly 7 million loan agreements, financial statements, emails, trust deeds and other paperwork from the Bermuda law firm Appleby Group Services Ltd. Appleby was named offshore firm of the year by Legal 500 UK in 2015. The law firms branches are in Bermuda, Isle of Man, Jersey, Guernsey, British Virgin Islands, Cayman Islands, Mauritius and the Seychelles, and it has a presence in Hong Kong and Shanghai.
"The Paradise Papers reveal offshore interests and activities of more than 120 politicians and world leaders, including Queen Elizabeth II whose private estate indirectly invested in a rent-to-own loan company accused of predatory tactics. At least 13 allies, major donors and Cabinet members of U.S. President Donald Trump appear, including Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross’s interests in a shipping company that makes millions from an energy firm whose owners include Russian President Vladimir Putin’s son-in-law and a sanctioned Russian tycoon," the press release by ICIJ summarized.
Democrat Sen. Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut said Ross had misled Congress and the Americans by concealing his ongoing stake in the company, Navigator.
“Only after a thorough investigation can Americans be sure Secretary Ross really has their best interests at heart,” Blumenthal said.
The leaked files from Appleby, the offshore law firm, include details of tax planning by nearly 100 multinational corporations, including Apple, Nike and Uber.
The offshore industry makes “the poor poorer” and is “deepening wealth inequality,” Brooke Harrington, a certified wealth manager and Copenhagen Business School professor said, adding: “There is this small group of people who are not equally subject to the laws as the rest of us, and that’s on purpose.”
These people “live the dream” of enjoying “the benefits of society without being subject to any of its constraints,” he said.
The leak has prompted Canadian tax authorities to review reports linking a key fundraiser for Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to offshore trusts in the Caribbean.
The papers also revealed Queen Elizabeth II has invested millions of dollars in medical and consumer loan companies.
"The records show that as of 2007, the queen’s private estate invested in a Cayman Islands fund that in turn invested in a private equity company that controlled BrightHouse, a U.K. rent-to-own firm criticized by consumer watchdogs and members of Parliament for selling household goods to cash-strapped Britons on payment plans with interest rates as high as 99.9 percent," ICIJ said in a blog post.
U.K. politician John McDonnell called for a public inquiry into tax avoidance, saying people will be “outraged” to hear of its scale.
"I think we want openness and transparency overall... Of course it will [raise some eyebrows that the queen is involved] and the Duchy of Lancaster that manages those funds has to be held to account," he told Sky News, adding: “But it’s not just them. The [disclosures] just demonstrate the scale of tax avoidance that’s going on. That’s why we published a call 18 months ago for a proper openness and transparency programme so that people can know what’s going on."
"I think we need now a full public inquiry because we’ve heard from the government time and time again that they’re tackling this issue, we now know they’re not tackling it effectively. What we need is a public inquiry on tax avoidance overall. We also need full publication of registers of beneficiaries of these trusts," McDonnell said.
According to a database compiled by The Lawyer magazine, Appleby's corporate clients include Barclays Group, Citibank, Credit Suisse, Goldman Sachs, HSBC Bank, JPMorgan Chase, KPMG, Lloyds Banking Group, PwC, Royal Bank of Scotland Group, Santander UK and Standard Chartered.
Below are some other reactions to the Paradise Papers leak.
Lord Ashcroft when asked about tax avoidance revelations: "Dear dear dear dear dear dear dear dear dear dear dear dear..." #paradisepapers
#ParadisePapers again prove what I said at #PMQs: There's one rule for the super-rich and another for the rest when it comes to paying tax.
It's only "legal" because the law was created by the filthy rich for the filthy rich. #ParadisePapers #r4today
Every £ avoided in tax by the super rich is a £ needed by our NHS and our schools. Labour will end tax evasion & avoidance #ParadisePapers
Suman Varandani
Lord Ashcroft when asked about tax avoidance revelations: "Dear dear dear dear dear dear dear dear dear dear dear dear..." #paradisepapers
#ParadisePapers again prove what I said at #PMQs: There's one rule for the super-rich and another for the rest when it comes to paying tax.
It's only "legal" because the law was created by the filthy rich for the filthy rich. #ParadisePapers #r4today
Every £ avoided in tax by the super rich is a £ needed by our NHS and our schools. Labour will end tax evasion & avoidance #ParadisePapers
‘If we come to power’: some rich asshole Jr. suggested he would overturn anti-Russia law, Russian lawyer says
some rich asshole Jr. (Facebook)
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some rich asshole Jr. reportedly told Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya during the 2016 campaign that his family would consider overturning an anti-corruption law opposed by Russia “if we come to power.” And she said that he also asked her to provide damaging information about Hillary Clinton.
Bloomberg reported on Monday that Veselnitskaya made the remarks during a television interview in Moscow.
the rich asshole Jr.’s meeting with Veselnitskaya was first revealed by The New York Times in July. the rich asshole initially said that the meeting was to talk about Russian adoptions in the U.S., which had been halted by Russian President Vladimir Putin after the U.S. passed an anti-corruption law called the Magnitsky Act.
The president’s son later admitted that Veselnitskaya had promised to provide opposition research on then-Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton.
“Looking ahead, if we come to power, we can return to this issue and think what to do about it,” she recalled the rich asshole Jr. telling her at the 2016 meeting. “I understand our side may have messed up, but it’ll take a long time to get to the bottom of it.”
According to Veselnitskaya, the rich asshole Jr. also asked her to provide evidence that Clinton’s campaign accepted illegal donations connected to tax evasion. She said that she did not have the evidence he requested “and described the 20-minute meeting as a failure,” Bloomberg reported.
Veselnitskaya said that she would be willing testify before the U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee if they agreed to make the testimony public.
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some rich asshole Jr. reportedly told Russian lawyer Natalia Veselnitskaya during the 2016 campaign that his family would consider overturning an anti-corruption law opposed by Russia “if we come to power.” And she said that he also asked her to provide damaging information about Hillary Clinton.
Bloomberg reported on Monday that Veselnitskaya made the remarks during a television interview in Moscow.
the rich asshole Jr.’s meeting with Veselnitskaya was first revealed by The New York Times in July. the rich asshole initially said that the meeting was to talk about Russian adoptions in the U.S., which had been halted by Russian President Vladimir Putin after the U.S. passed an anti-corruption law called the Magnitsky Act.
The president’s son later admitted that Veselnitskaya had promised to provide opposition research on then-Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton.
“Looking ahead, if we come to power, we can return to this issue and think what to do about it,” she recalled the rich asshole Jr. telling her at the 2016 meeting. “I understand our side may have messed up, but it’ll take a long time to get to the bottom of it.”
According to Veselnitskaya, the rich asshole Jr. also asked her to provide evidence that Clinton’s campaign accepted illegal donations connected to tax evasion. She said that she did not have the evidence he requested “and described the 20-minute meeting as a failure,” Bloomberg reported.
Veselnitskaya said that she would be willing testify before the U.S. Senate Intelligence Committee if they agreed to make the testimony public.
the rich asshole Went To Japan And Immediately Proved He Knows Zilch About How Missiles Work
Who knew that some rich asshole would humiliate himself and us as soon as humanly possible with his trip to Asia? There was really no way to know that – this is one of the smartest men on the planet…oh wait. This is some rich asshole. And in discussing North Korea’s decision to fire ballistic missiles over Japan, he wondered why Japan didn’t just shoot those missiles down.
That, in turn, shows a complete and total lack of knowledge about how missiles work, about even our own military’s capabilities, and about the optics of such an endeavor on ours and Japan’s part. First off, it would have been extremely difficult for Japan to shoot them down due to their altitude and speed. Japan does have missile interceptors, but North Korea’s missiles were very likely out of range.
Then there are the optics: Japan would have been embarrassed alongside us. Our own capabilities to shoot down missiles are also limited, and tests on both systems have failed consistently. Watching us and Japan embarrass ourselves would have emboldened North Korea because it would have told them that we can’t stop their missiles. An emboldened North Korea is the last thing the world needs right now.
But that’s not all. the rich asshole also insulted all of Japan by saying that he couldn’t understand why a country full of samurai warriors wouldn’t want to shoot down North Korea’s missiles. While the samurai are a part of Japan’s long and rich history, the rich asshole calling them “a nation of samurai warriors” just reinforces the rest of the world’s belief that Americans are too stupid and too arrogant to bother learning about anyone else, and would rather just fall back on ethnic stereotypes.
These remarks took place well before the rich asshole actually headed to Japan; however, the news of it came out as he was en route. So, just like every other international trip on which the walking racist presidential impostor has gone, we have been embarrassed on the world stage. Again.
Who knew that some rich asshole would humiliate himself and us as soon as humanly possible with his trip to Asia? There was really no way to know that – this is one of the smartest men on the planet…oh wait. This is some rich asshole. And in discussing North Korea’s decision to fire ballistic missiles over Japan, he wondered why Japan didn’t just shoot those missiles down.
That, in turn, shows a complete and total lack of knowledge about how missiles work, about even our own military’s capabilities, and about the optics of such an endeavor on ours and Japan’s part. First off, it would have been extremely difficult for Japan to shoot them down due to their altitude and speed. Japan does have missile interceptors, but North Korea’s missiles were very likely out of range.
Then there are the optics: Japan would have been embarrassed alongside us. Our own capabilities to shoot down missiles are also limited, and tests on both systems have failed consistently. Watching us and Japan embarrass ourselves would have emboldened North Korea because it would have told them that we can’t stop their missiles. An emboldened North Korea is the last thing the world needs right now.
But that’s not all. the rich asshole also insulted all of Japan by saying that he couldn’t understand why a country full of samurai warriors wouldn’t want to shoot down North Korea’s missiles. While the samurai are a part of Japan’s long and rich history, the rich asshole calling them “a nation of samurai warriors” just reinforces the rest of the world’s belief that Americans are too stupid and too arrogant to bother learning about anyone else, and would rather just fall back on ethnic stereotypes.
These remarks took place well before the rich asshole actually headed to Japan; however, the news of it came out as he was en route. So, just like every other international trip on which the walking racist presidential impostor has gone, we have been embarrassed on the world stage. Again.
27 People Murdered In Texas Mass Shooting, And the rich asshole’s Response Is Classic Racist
Every other day there seems to be a new mass shooting. It’s barely over a month since the massacre in Las Vegas and we now have the deadliest mass shooting to take place in a house of worship. A gunman opened fire on a church in the tiny town of Sutherland, Texas, and at least 27 people are dead, including children and including the shooter.
This is a developing story, but at the time of this posting law enforcement had not yet released information on the shooter other than the fact that he was killed. They also aren’t reporting a possible motive – they say right now the shooter’s motive is unclear. Regardless, some rich asshole has already responded to it on Twitter:
That response is that of a classic racist, and here’s why: As soon as we heard about the killing in New York City at the hands of someone shouting “Allahu Akbar,” the rich asshole’s first response was this:
THEN he sent his condolences to New York City, and after he did that he went on another rant about Islamic terrorism:
We are fighting hard for Merit Based immigration, no more Democrat Lottery Systems. We must get MUCH tougher (and smarter). @foxandfriends
We’ll wait with bated breath for him to demand reviews of all our gun laws in the wake of this shooting. If it turns out this was an angry white guy with a gun, like it was in Las Vegas and like it has been in multiple other mass shootings of this nature, we won’t hear anything else except more “thoughts and prayers.” That’s ironic considering these people were already in church and were presumably people of prayer.
Every other day there seems to be a new mass shooting. It’s barely over a month since the massacre in Las Vegas and we now have the deadliest mass shooting to take place in a house of worship. A gunman opened fire on a church in the tiny town of Sutherland, Texas, and at least 27 people are dead, including children and including the shooter.
This is a developing story, but at the time of this posting law enforcement had not yet released information on the shooter other than the fact that he was killed. They also aren’t reporting a possible motive – they say right now the shooter’s motive is unclear. Regardless, some rich asshole has already responded to it on Twitter:
That response is that of a classic racist, and here’s why: As soon as we heard about the killing in New York City at the hands of someone shouting “Allahu Akbar,” the rich asshole’s first response was this:
THEN he sent his condolences to New York City, and after he did that he went on another rant about Islamic terrorism:
We are fighting hard for Merit Based immigration, no more Democrat Lottery Systems. We must get MUCH tougher (and smarter). @foxandfriends
We’ll wait with bated breath for him to demand reviews of all our gun laws in the wake of this shooting. If it turns out this was an angry white guy with a gun, like it was in Las Vegas and like it has been in multiple other mass shootings of this nature, we won’t hear anything else except more “thoughts and prayers.” That’s ironic considering these people were already in church and were presumably people of prayer.
Report shuts down the rich asshole’s overseas bragging: He’s the least popular president since 1946
NOVEMBER 5, 2017
As some rich asshole travels across the continent of Asia, flattering and praising himself to an embarrassing degree, his poll numbers back at home tell a very different story.
the rich asshole's approval ratings are historically low, and sinking fast. Sad!
(AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais)
It’s probably best that some rich asshole is halfway across the world right now, because things aren’t looking so good for him back at home.
In fact, things are looking historically awful.
According to a new ABC News poll, the rich asshole’s approval rating just dipped to 37 percent, the lowest of any president at this point in office since 1946.
This means that no one under the age of 71 has ever seen a president this unpopular at just nine months into his first term.
New ABC/WaPo poll: 37% approve of Pres. Trump, the lowest approval of any postwar president at this point in office. abcn.ws/2zyvAiI
To put things in perspective, at the same time eight years ago, President Barack Obama’s net approval rating was 39 percentage points higher than the rich asshole’s.
Pres. Trump is the only president since Harry Truman whose first year approval rating is under water. abcn.ws/2zzno1K#ThisWeek
In a blistering paragraph, ABC News describes the many ways that the rich asshole is failing:
A year after his surprise election victory, President some rich asshole is underperforming expectations and lagging behind his predecessors, with the lowest job approval of any postwar president at this point in office, broad distrust across a range of issues and majority belief that he’s not delivering on his campaign promises.
Ouch.
And these historically awful approval ratings are slipping fast: A full two-thirds of Americans (65 percent) now say he’s accomplished “not much” to “little or nothing” as president, up from 56 percent at his 100th day in office.
The majority of Americans (55 percent) say the rich asshole is is not delivering on his major campaign promises, compared to 41 percent at the 100-day mark.
JUST IN: 55% say Pres. Trump is not delivering on major campaign promises, up sharply from 41% at his 100-day mark. abcn.ws/2ywEmO4
As ABC News points out, the rich asshole is even falling short of the low expectations people had for him when he took office. Across all major issues — including the economy, terrorism, health care, and race relations — Americans say the rich asshole is performing worse than they thought he would.
The new poll numbers come just a day after the rich asshole arrived in Asia, where he promptly humiliated himself before even getting off Air Force One.
When a reporter mentioned that China’s President Xi Jinping was “coming off a very successful run,” the rich asshole couldn’t let the moment go without puffing himself up in comparison.
“Excuse me, so am I,” he whined to the reporters, going on to lavish undue praise on himself.
Relevant to his Asia trip, “a remarkable 67 percent of Americans don’t trust him to act responsibly in handling the situation involving North Korea — up 5 points from September,” according to ABC News.
As the rich asshole meets with other world leaders, he’ll do so with the knowledge that 53 percent of Americans say the country’s leadership in the world has gotten weaker under the rich asshole.
There’s only one thing to say about that: SAD!
NOVEMBER 5, 2017
As some rich asshole travels across the continent of Asia, flattering and praising himself to an embarrassing degree, his poll numbers back at home tell a very different story.
the rich asshole's approval ratings are historically low, and sinking fast. Sad!
(AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais)
It’s probably best that some rich asshole is halfway across the world right now, because things aren’t looking so good for him back at home.
In fact, things are looking historically awful.
According to a new ABC News poll, the rich asshole’s approval rating just dipped to 37 percent, the lowest of any president at this point in office since 1946.
This means that no one under the age of 71 has ever seen a president this unpopular at just nine months into his first term.
New ABC/WaPo poll: 37% approve of Pres. Trump, the lowest approval of any postwar president at this point in office. abcn.ws/2zyvAiI
To put things in perspective, at the same time eight years ago, President Barack Obama’s net approval rating was 39 percentage points higher than the rich asshole’s.
Pres. Trump is the only president since Harry Truman whose first year approval rating is under water. abcn.ws/2zzno1K#ThisWeek
In a blistering paragraph, ABC News describes the many ways that the rich asshole is failing:
A year after his surprise election victory, President some rich asshole is underperforming expectations and lagging behind his predecessors, with the lowest job approval of any postwar president at this point in office, broad distrust across a range of issues and majority belief that he’s not delivering on his campaign promises.
Ouch.
And these historically awful approval ratings are slipping fast: A full two-thirds of Americans (65 percent) now say he’s accomplished “not much” to “little or nothing” as president, up from 56 percent at his 100th day in office.
The majority of Americans (55 percent) say the rich asshole is is not delivering on his major campaign promises, compared to 41 percent at the 100-day mark.
JUST IN: 55% say Pres. Trump is not delivering on major campaign promises, up sharply from 41% at his 100-day mark. abcn.ws/2ywEmO4
As ABC News points out, the rich asshole is even falling short of the low expectations people had for him when he took office. Across all major issues — including the economy, terrorism, health care, and race relations — Americans say the rich asshole is performing worse than they thought he would.
The new poll numbers come just a day after the rich asshole arrived in Asia, where he promptly humiliated himself before even getting off Air Force One.
When a reporter mentioned that China’s President Xi Jinping was “coming off a very successful run,” the rich asshole couldn’t let the moment go without puffing himself up in comparison.
“Excuse me, so am I,” he whined to the reporters, going on to lavish undue praise on himself.
Relevant to his Asia trip, “a remarkable 67 percent of Americans don’t trust him to act responsibly in handling the situation involving North Korea — up 5 points from September,” according to ABC News.
As the rich asshole meets with other world leaders, he’ll do so with the knowledge that 53 percent of Americans say the country’s leadership in the world has gotten weaker under the rich asshole.
There’s only one thing to say about that: SAD!
Insecure the rich asshole embarrasses himself on Asia trip by repeatedly demanding praise
NOVEMBER 5, 2017
It's unclear if some rich asshole realizes his Asia trip is not a traveling campaign rally.
NOVEMBER 5, 2017
It's unclear if some rich asshole realizes his Asia trip is not a traveling campaign rally.
This man is ridiculous.
(AP Photo/Eugene Hoshiko)
some rich asshole arrived in Japan on Saturday, his first stop on a tour of Asia, and promptly got to work embarrassing himself.
Speaking with reporters on Air Force One, the rich asshole was asked about China’s President Xi Jinping, who was described as “coming off a very successful run.”
Apparently, hearing another world leader depicted as powerful was too much for the rich asshole. Instead of answering the question, the rich asshole responded by praising himself.
“Excuse me, so am I,” the rich asshole told the reporter.
“Excuse me, so am I.”—President Trump, when told China’s president is enjoying major political success wsj.com/articles/donal…
the rich asshole proceeded to heap praise on himself for the next few minutes, taking credit for economic gains in the United States and bragging about the size of the military. At one point, the rich asshole even claimed he was solely responsible for the success of the U.S. stock market.
“[T]he reason our stock market is so successful is because of men,” the rich asshole said, “I’ve always been great with money, I’ve always been great with jobs, that’s what I do. And I’ve done it well, I’ve done it really well, much better than people understand and they understand I’ve done well.”
This is actually not true at all — the rich asshole’s companies filed for bankruptcy at least four times and he managed to drive multiple casinos into the ground — but he wasn’t going to let the truth get in the way of an opportunity to flatter himself.
This is just day one of the rich asshole’s tour of Asia, but he’s already set the tone for the trip. Let the global embarrassment commence.
President the rich asshole has taken credit for the stock market’s eight-year-old bull market on Saturday, reports ABC News.
the rich asshole told reporters on Air Force One that “the reason our stock market is so successful is because of me,” according to a pool report.
“I’ve always been great with money, I’ve always been great with jobs, that’s what I do. And I’ve done it well, I’ve done it really well, much better than people understand and they understand I’ve done well,” he said.
“Unemployment is down to 4.1%, lowest in 17 years. 1.5 million new jobs created since I took office. Highest stock Market ever, up $5.4 trill,” the rich asshole tweeted Saturday.
the rich asshole made the remarks while answering a question about how he hopes China will view the U.S. after his 13-day trip to Asia.
“Well I think he’s viewing us very, very strong, and also very friendly. But we have to do better with trade with China, because it’s a one-way street right now and it has been for many years,” the rich asshole said. “And we will.”/theguardiansofdemocracy.com/
Conservatives introduce measure demanding Mueller’s resignation
Is the rich asshole losing the Rust Belt and the ‘Deplorables’?
Graham Lanktree
Posted with permission from Newsweek
Though President Donald Trump came to power on a wave of promises to keep jobs in the U.S., reinvigorate heavy industry and, of course, Make America Great Again, many in his core support group are yet to see the benefits. Plenty of people in manufacturing are turning their backs on Trump because he hasn’t followed through on what he said he'd do, says a General Motors union leader representing workers across the U.S.
The warning to the president comes almost exactly a year after Trump won the election with a pledge to improve the lives of American workers and the “forgotten men and women of our country.”
Independent polls released in early October show Trump is losing support in rural areas and post-industrial Rust Belt states—such as Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania—where he won by less than a percentage point.
However, despite this, the president may yet be able to leverage his bedrock support amongst white voters—and the group Hillary Clinton called the “deplorables”— by taking a more hardline stance on immigration and race, experts say.
In September, Trump boasted of creating job growth “the likes of which our country has not seen in a very long time.” Yet Cindy Estrada, the vice president of the General United Auto Workers union, says the jobs workers face offer “poverty level wages that force them to work 10, 12 hours a day and still end up in the food stamp line, while corporations are making outrageous profits.”
Manufacturing jobs in the U.S. peaked in the 1970s at 19.5 million. Out of the 12.4 million manufacturing jobs that remain today, 1.5 million make $11.91 per hour or less and 600,000 $9.60 or less, according to a 2014 study by the National Employment Law Project (NELP).
Read more: Trump approval rating plummeting even among white voters in Fox News poll
For decades Rust Belt states and their cities have seen their populations and investment by companies dwindle. In a study of future trends released October 24, the Bureau of Labor Statistics predicted low-wage job prospects in the area will continue to shrink for the foreseeable future.
After he was elected last November, Trump boasted on Thanksgiving weekend of striking a deal with air conditioner manufacturer Carrier to keep 1,100 jobs in the U.S. But by May Carrier said it would close its Indianapolis plant, cut more than 600 jobs, and move them to Mexico.
The flood of manufacturing jobs out of the Rust Belt is a familiar story that will continue unabated.
In NELP's study, it found nine out of 10 Americans believe that manufacturing is very important to building the country's standard of living and Estrada says, “I think it needs to be said more often, more loudly that not at $9, $10, or not even at $15 dollars an hour.” About 40 percent of the American workforce earn $16 per hour or less, according to a Government Accountability Office report. Over a year, that wage is at least 43 percent less than the median American income of $59,039 per year.
Estrada represents workers at GM plants in Michigan, Missouri, Texas, Ohio, Arizona, and Indiana. Some 30 percent of her members voted for Trump, she says. But she’s “definitely seeing a change” recently in those numbers.
Workers are changing their minds about Trump because they’re “seeing things that President Trump promised that he’s not following through with,” Estrada says. “He hasn’t followed through on bringing jobs back. He has not followed through on protecting workers' rights. He has not followed through on healthcare—he’s done the opposite.”
In the federal budget passed at the end of October, Trump included plans to cut away $150 billion from several poverty programs that help Rust Belt workers, including the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) known as food stamps.
In Michigan—a Rust Belt state where Trump’s approval rating has plummeted 22.6 percent since he took office— Phil Knight, executive director of the Food Bank Council of Michigan, is seeing more and more people on low-wages like manufacturing workers using foodbanks.
“We’re having more people come to us and asking for food than we ever have in our history,” Knight says. His organization operates seven food banks serving Michigan’s 83 counties.
Graham Lanktree
The warning to the president comes almost exactly a year after Trump won the election with a pledge to improve the lives of American workers and the “forgotten men and women of our country.”
Independent polls released in early October show Trump is losing support in rural areas and post-industrial Rust Belt states—such as Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania—where he won by less than a percentage point.
However, despite this, the president may yet be able to leverage his bedrock support amongst white voters—and the group Hillary Clinton called the “deplorables”— by taking a more hardline stance on immigration and race, experts say.
In September, Trump boasted of creating job growth “the likes of which our country has not seen in a very long time.” Yet Cindy Estrada, the vice president of the General United Auto Workers union, says the jobs workers face offer “poverty level wages that force them to work 10, 12 hours a day and still end up in the food stamp line, while corporations are making outrageous profits.”
Manufacturing jobs in the U.S. peaked in the 1970s at 19.5 million. Out of the 12.4 million manufacturing jobs that remain today, 1.5 million make $11.91 per hour or less and 600,000 $9.60 or less, according to a 2014 study by the National Employment Law Project (NELP).
Read more: Trump approval rating plummeting even among white voters in Fox News poll
For decades Rust Belt states and their cities have seen their populations and investment by companies dwindle. In a study of future trends released October 24, the Bureau of Labor Statistics predicted low-wage job prospects in the area will continue to shrink for the foreseeable future.
After he was elected last November, Trump boasted on Thanksgiving weekend of striking a deal with air conditioner manufacturer Carrier to keep 1,100 jobs in the U.S. But by May Carrier said it would close its Indianapolis plant, cut more than 600 jobs, and move them to Mexico.
The flood of manufacturing jobs out of the Rust Belt is a familiar story that will continue unabated.
In NELP's study, it found nine out of 10 Americans believe that manufacturing is very important to building the country's standard of living and Estrada says, “I think it needs to be said more often, more loudly that not at $9, $10, or not even at $15 dollars an hour.” About 40 percent of the American workforce earn $16 per hour or less, according to a Government Accountability Office report. Over a year, that wage is at least 43 percent less than the median American income of $59,039 per year.
Estrada represents workers at GM plants in Michigan, Missouri, Texas, Ohio, Arizona, and Indiana. Some 30 percent of her members voted for Trump, she says. But she’s “definitely seeing a change” recently in those numbers.
Workers are changing their minds about Trump because they’re “seeing things that President Trump promised that he’s not following through with,” Estrada says. “He hasn’t followed through on bringing jobs back. He has not followed through on protecting workers' rights. He has not followed through on healthcare—he’s done the opposite.”
In the federal budget passed at the end of October, Trump included plans to cut away $150 billion from several poverty programs that help Rust Belt workers, including the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) known as food stamps.
In Michigan—a Rust Belt state where Trump’s approval rating has plummeted 22.6 percent since he took office— Phil Knight, executive director of the Food Bank Council of Michigan, is seeing more and more people on low-wages like manufacturing workers using foodbanks.
“We’re having more people come to us and asking for food than we ever have in our history,” Knight says. His organization operates seven food banks serving Michigan’s 83 counties.
Trump's net approval rating has dropped dramatically in every state read.bi/2yeDGLr
Trump's net approval rating has dropped dramatically in every state read.bi/2yeDGLr
Knight points out that 48 percent of the people who eat up the 39 million pounds of food the Food Bank Council of Michigan gives out each year are employed. Driving this is the fact that “at $11.50 an hour you fall off the financial cliff and you’re ineligible” for any federal benefits, he says.
This is happening while Michigan sits at five percent unemployment. “Five percent unemployment is pretty good, right?” Knight asks. But it’s the kinds of low-wage jobs workers are getting, even when the U.S. economy continues to add jobs, that leave them making trade offs about whether they buy food, medicine they need, or pay their bills, he says.
The cuts to SNAP will be impossible for food banks like his to make up for, Knight adds. In Michigan “we only do about 10 percent of what SNAP can do,” he says. “There’s just no comparison. Any cut to SNAP will make it harder on the food bank network to create food security.”
“We’re not at a liveable wage, even though we have low unemployment,” Knight says.
When President Ronald Reagan took office in 1981 he said the “best possible social program is a job.” At the time, there was a direct correlation between food security and employment, Knight says. “That correlation doesn’t exist any more.”
Despite low unemployment, wages for manufacturing workers declined 4.4 percent between 2003 and 2013. Overall, workers wages have barely budged on trickle-down economics in the past 30 years.
Trump keeps pointing to the highs the U.S. stock market has achieved during his presidency as a way of showing how good workers have it. However, those numbers are disconnected from workers' wages and the reality on the ground, Knight says.
“We have not had an administration in my lifetime that’s willing to define the reality about poverty,” he continues. The official poverty measure is some 60 years old and only measures what a person needs for food—not housing, utilities, transportation or childcare.
“We would like to see this administration be the first to define reality and the number of people who are in need in this county,” he says, because “what we have in Michigan is a lot of families who are above the poverty line but they’re nowhere close to self-sufficient.”
Yet Trump may not need to make the lives of Rust Belt workers better to maintain the amount of support he would need to win the 2020 election. He has tapped into a solid core of supporters who will fervently continue to back him as long as he takes a hard line on issues like racial identity and immigration, says social psychologist Brenda Major, a professor at the University of California Santa Barbara.
During the 2016 election campaign Clinton referred to this group of Trump supporters as “deplorables”—a coalition of xenophobes and racists. Their public face was, in part, visible in the streets of Charlottesville, Virginia, during the violent “Unite the Right” rally in August.
From a social psychological point of view, however, “the issues and the concerns and the threat that white Americans are feeling are a bigger issue than just prejudice,” Major says. “It can’t just be boiled down to ‘oh, it’s racists.’”
Watching the whole runup to the election, “every time that Hillary would mention diversity and difference I would say to myself: ‘there go another 100 white voters,” Major says. “By emphasizing differences and diversity, what research in social psychology shows is that at an implicit, unconscious level whites, not just prejudiced whites, associate diversity with ‘not me.’”
In a study published in late October 2016, Major and her colleagues found that just by reminding white voters—be they Republican or Democrat—of changing demographics that show the U.S. won’t have a single racial or ethnic majority by 2055 was enough to tilt them toward voting Trump.
“People’s identity had to have been threatened for them to then become more pro-Trump,” Major says. “Research in social psychology shows that the more you emphasise intergroup distinctions, you can heighten inner-group identity,” she added.
Trump “had his fingers on the pulse of that sentiment,” Major says. “He still has it very well.”
Trump has attempted to institute a travel ban on Muslim-majority nations, cracked down on what he calls “sanctuary cities” where police don’t round up illegal immigrants for deportation, backed plans to cut legal immigration in half, and remained steadfast in his plans to build a longer, larger border wall between the U.S. and Mexico.
After Trump said in September that he wanted to preserve a program known as DACA allowing young illegal immigrants brought to the U.S. by their parents as children to work legally, former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon told the president “the guys in the far-right” are “not happy with this.” Trump soon tied preserving the DACA program to achieving his more extreme immigration policies.
Despite historically low approval ratings overall, Trump enjoys solid pockets of support in former Confederate states, according to a Morning Consult poll published in early October. Trump’s approval in Alabama is 59 percent, in Louisiana 57 percent; 54 percent in Arkansas; 53 percent in Tennessee; and 51 percent in South Carolina.
Trump has also launched repeated attacks on the NFL, insisting its black players are disrespecting the flag by taking a knee during the anthem as part of a protest movement against police discrimination against African Americans. The other week he spoke about preserving the “great heritage” of the Confederacy.
In 26 states he remains above the threshold of 50 percent approval, giving him enough electoral college votes to pull off a win in the 2020 election. A survey conducted by NPR late October showed that 55 percent of white Americans believe white people face discrimination.
If anything, some of the white voters who support Trump on immigration and racial issues think he doesn’t go far enough. For a poll tracking how Trump’s support is slipping in rural areas published in early October, Reuters spoke with John Wilson, a 70-year-old retired banker in Ohio who voted for Trump. One of his main worries was Trump might back down from his promise to force illegal immigrants out of the country.
These attitudes will remain long after Trump leaves the political stage, says Major. “I think that for people whose support for Trump is that they feel he [is] putting their concerns, as a person who is white, first, if he were to, in fact, stop doing that, that would erode their support for him in favor of some other candidate who might put their concerns first.”
House GOP’s wildly unpopular tax bill defines nation’s wealthiest 1 percent as ‘middle class’
Nicole Goodkind
Posted with permission from Newsweek
That's rich! Republicans suddenly believe that one percenters are barely struggling to be in the middle class, party officials revealed.
On Thursday, House Republicans issued a fact sheet about their new tax cut plan that referred to Americans earning $450,000 a year as “low- and middle-income” — even though that income level would put those taxpayers in the top 0.05% of all individual Americans.
The median household income in the United States is $59,039, after all.
The GOP made the announcement as part of the rollout of the tax cut plan, saying they would cut tax rates from 39.6 percent to 35 percent for those $450,000-earning middle class members — but the announcement was quickly overshadowed by the Republicans' bizarre understanding of wealth.
On Thursday, House Republicans issued a fact sheet about their new tax cut plan that referred to Americans earning $450,000 a year as “low- and middle-income” — even though that income level would put those taxpayers in the top 0.05% of all individual Americans.
The median household income in the United States is $59,039, after all.
The GOP made the announcement as part of the rollout of the tax cut plan, saying they would cut tax rates from 39.6 percent to 35 percent for those $450,000-earning middle class members — but the announcement was quickly overshadowed by the Republicans' bizarre understanding of wealth.
"Did somebody make a mistake?" laughed AFL-CIO Policy Director Damon Silvers when told of the income classifications by the GOP. "[Republicans] think that the income level of the top one percent is lower- and middle-class. This is a world where if you make less than $500,000, you don't exist."
There is no formal definition of the American middle class, but the Tax Policy Center puts its “middle quintile” between $48,300 and $85,600 a year.
For America’s middle class, this monstrously regressive Republican tax plan gives “mean” new meaning.
Sixty percent of Americans say that the tax plan favors the wealthy, according to a new poll. Democrats are calling the bill a “Trojan Horse,” that helps the rich under the guise of aiding the middle class.
“This is a middle-class con job,” said Senator Ron Wyden of Oregon, a democrat.
It’s a bill that will “benefit the wealthy and the powerful to the exclusion of the middle class,” according to Senator Chuck Schumer of New York.
GOP argues their plan gives the middle class a tax break. What they wont tell you is many middle class families will see their taxes go up.
Republicans are also concerned. 63 percent of Republicans believe that deficit reduction is more important than tax cuts for corporations, and 75 percent said it was more important than tax cuts for the wealthy, according to a survey.
“The optics don’t look very good...with 39.6 going to 35,” said GOP Senator David Perdue of Georgia.
Republican strategist John Weaver agreed. This “does not reflect the hopes and aspirations of Main Street Republicans around the country,” he said.
Some GOP Senators don’t mind the implications. Senator Richard Shelby of Alabama took a trickle-down approach. “People with money save money, create jobs, create risk," he said. "People with no money — I’ve been there — create nothing. You’re trying to live, to survive.”
It should be pointed out that Shelby, who has been in government since 1970 and has been a U.S. senator since 1986, has an estimated net worth of $4.2 million, according to data from Roll Call.
White House lashes out at both George Bush Senior and Junior for calling the rich asshole a ‘blowhard’
some rich asshole speaking with supporters at a campaign rally at Fountain Park in Fountain Hills, Arizona (Gage Skidmore/Flickr)
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The White House lashed out at Presidents George H. W. Bush and George W. Bush on Saturday after Bush the elder called President some rich asshole a “blowhard”in a new book and George W. Bush said that the rich asshole is well on his way to destroying the Republican Party.
The Washington Post said that the White House released an angry statement that said, in part, “If one Presidential candidate can disassemble a political party, it speaks volumes about how strong a legacy its past two presidents really had.”
The statement went on to say that George W. Bush’s decision to invade Iraq was “one of the greatest foreign policy mistakes in American history.”
The testy response came after author Mark K. Updegrove offered up a preview of his book about the Bush presidencies titled The Last Republicans.
Updegrove interviewed both former presidents before the rich asshole was even inaugurated. Both men expressed their disdain.
“I don’t like him,” said George H.W. Bush in the summer of 2016. “I don’t know much about him, but I know he’s a blowhard. And I’m not too excited about him being [our] leader.”
George W. Bush said that he worried in 2016 that he will be “the last Republican president” in U.S. history.
“And it wasn’t just about Hillary Clinton becoming president,” Updegrove said. “It was because some rich asshole represented everything that the Bushes abhorred.”
A Bush family spokesman replied, “No comment” when asked for a response to the White House’s outburst.
Manafort’s lawyers demand he be taken off house arrest: He’s not ‘Jason Bourne’
Former the rich asshole 2016 campaign CEO Paul Manafort and actor Matt Damon as super-spy Jason Bourne (Composite image)
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President some rich asshole’s former campaign manager Paul Manafort offered to post $12 million in real estate and life insurance assets and to limit his travel in a bid to avoid continued house arrest, according to court documents filed on Saturday.
Manafort, who ran the rich asshole’s presidential campaign for several months last year, and associate Richard Gates earlier this week pleaded not guilty to a 12-count indictment by a federal grand jury. The charges included conspiracy to launder money, conspiracy against the United States and failing to register as foreign agents of Ukraine’s former pro-Russia government.
In the Saturday court filing, Manafort offered to limit his travel to New York, Washington and Florida.
U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson had said on Thursday initial bail terms would remain in place and set a bail hearing for Monday to consider changes. On Friday, she suggested a potential May 7 trial date.
Manafort and Gates are under house arrest, under unsecured bonds of $10 million and $5 million, respectively, which means they do not have to post the bail unless they fail to show up for court or violate other conditions.
Prosecutors have argued there is a risk the men would flee and they are subject to electronic monitoring.
The charges include conspiracy to launder money, conspiracy against the United States and failing to register as foreign agents of Ukraine’s former pro-Russian government. They are part of Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation of alleged Russian efforts to tilt the 2016 election in the rich asshole’s favor and into potential collusion by the rich asshole associates.
Peter Carr, a spokesman for Mueller, declined to comment on Saturday.
Manafort in the filing also explained why he had three passports, a fact noted by prosecutors. Manafort’s lawyer, Kevin Downing, rejected suggestions that Manafort was a “Jason Bourne character” – referencing a fictitious, globe-trotting rogue covert agent.
“The facts are much more mundane,” Downing wrote.
Rather, Manafort had two passports, including one for submitting to foreign governments to receive visas while traveling on the other, his lawyers said. A third passport was issued because he had lost one and contacted passport services to advise them he had found it.
Downing also wrote that funds Manafort had deposited in Cyprus accounts were legal.
Federal prosecutors said in a court filing on Tuesday that Manafort’s financial assets were substantial, but difficult to quantify because he listed figures on loan applications and other financial documents since 2012 that ranged from $19 million to $136 million.
The investigation has cast a shadow over the first nine months of the the rich asshole presidency. For Manafort and Gates, a conviction on conspiracy to launder money alone could carry a sentence of up to 20 years in prison.
Former US Attorney reveals Papadopoulos gave Mueller four people to be investigated as part of his guilty plea
Barbara McQuade -- MSNBC screenshot
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Appearing on MSNBC, a former U.S. attorney said that it appears that former the rich asshole advisor George Papadopoulos gave special counsel Robert Mueller the names of four people who may now be under investigation — or cooperating with the FBI– as part of his guilty plea.
Speaking with host Alex Witt, ex-U.S. Attorney Barbara McQuade said the former the rich asshole advisor may be a “small fish” in the rich asshole’s world, but that he wouldn’t have received the plea deal his lawyers got from Mueller without giving up valuable information — including names linked to the rich asshole.
“He is now cooperating with Mueller’s probe,” Witt remarked. “It’s part of his plea deal. Is it likely at this point that Mueller has gathered a lot more information from Papadopoulos than we are aware of at this point?”
“I think that’s highly likely,” McQuade began. “I know that President the rich asshole and others want to minimize his role in the campaign, and no doubt he is a small fish — that’s how the strategy typically works. But what we can safely conclude is that Mueller’s team gave him a plea deal, and they would only do that because they believed they were receiving something of value that could be information about others.”
“If you look at that statement of the offense that was filed in connection with the plea agreement, he identifies four other officials with whom he communicated about this, but not by name but by title,” she highlighted. ” He, I’m sure, told the team who those people were, and those people are now either subjects of interview or subjects of the investigation.”
“In addition, I think it’s quite possible — and Robert Mueller said this in his motion to seal the documents — they wanted to explore proactive cooperation,” she continued. “That typically means that the person will wear a wire in conversations with other people in hopes of collecting information or recording phone calls. So it may be that any of those things have panned out and Robert Mueller has already gained that information.”
Watch the video below via MSNBC:
McConnell refuses Mueller protection from being fired by the rich asshole: No ‘pressure to pass anything’
some rich asshole and Mitch McConnell
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Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) shrugged off concerns that Congress should safeguard against a constitutional crisis by passing legislation to protect special counsel Robert Mueller from being fired by the White House he is tasked with investigating.
Sen. McConnell was asked about multiple bills that would protect the special counsel from interference from President some rich asshole during an interview with MSNBC anchor Hugh Hewitt that was broadcast Saturday.
“This is also a week of indictments,” Hewitt noted. “There are two views about Mr. Mueller. Some want legislation to restrain his power and limit his reach. Others want legislation to keep him safe from being fired.”
“Do you think Congress has any role in legislating about the special counsel right now?” Hewitt asked.
“I don’t think so,” McConnell answered.
Multiple Republican leaders have urged President the rich asshole to fire the special counsel. Ousted the rich asshole strategist Steve Bannon has urged a scorched earth approach to the investigation and Pat Robertson demanded the rich asshole fire Mueller and pardon everyone to “shut down” the investigation.
As the chorus of far-right voices against the special counsel grows, the appetite for congressional action to protect Mueller has waned.
That perspective has now trickled up to Majority Leader McConnell.
“I don’t hear much pressure to pass anything,” McConnell claimed. “There’s been no indication that the president or the White House are not cooperating with the special counsel.”
“I think the view up here is let him do his job,” McConnell suggested.
Watch Part I:
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Conservatives introduce measure demanding Mueller’s resignation
It’s the latest sign of GOP resistance to the special counsel’s Russia probe.
Three House Republicans on Friday moved to pressure special counsel Robert Mueller to resign over what they contend are “obvious conflicts of interest,” the latest instance of rising GOP resistance to his Russia probe.
Reps. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.), Andy Biggs (R-Ariz.) and Louie Gohmert (R-Texas), introduced a measure that, while nonbinding, would put the House on record describing Mueller, a former FBI director, as unfit to lead the probe because of his relationship with James Comey, his successor at the bureau.
“[B]e it Resolved, That House of Representatives expresses its sense that Robert Mueller is compromised and should resign from his special counsel position immediately,” the resolution states.
Mueller is investigating whether any Americans aided Russia’s interference in the 2016 presidential election as well as whether figures in the rich asshole administration may have obstructed justice in part by moving to oust Comey in May, when the FBI’s Russia investigation was picking up steam. Mueller was appointed by deputy attorney general Rod Rosenstein after an uproar following President some rich asshole’s decision to fire Comey.
The move by the three lawmakers to seek Mueller’s resignation is a sign of intensifying frustration among the rich asshole’s allies during the same week Mueller issued his first indictments in the probe: money laundering charges against former the rich asshole campaign chairman Paul Manafort and his deputy Rick Gates. Mueller also secured a guilty plea from George Papadopoulos, a low-level campaign foreign policy adviser, who lied to the FBI about his attempts to arrange a meeting between Russian officials and the rich asshole campaign.
The anger from Republicans appears to mirror the feelings of the rich asshole, who on Friday unloaded in a series of tweets urging his own Justice Department to investigate Democrats — not him — for transgressions he says occurred during the 2016 election.
"This is real collusion and dishonesty. Major violation of Campaign Finance Laws and Money Laundering," he said, accusing Democrats of the same charges that Manafort was hit with. "[W]here is our Justice Department?”
Most Republicans, including those in GOP leadership, are not on board with dismissing Mueller.
But the conservative push has worried some on the left, who are urging Democratic lawmakers to step up their defense of Mueller.
“While it might be ideal to wait to speak out until Mueller finishes his investigation, the rich asshole’s defenders in Congress are not waiting to defend the President’s actions or to pass judgment on the investigation,” CAP Action Fund wrote in a memo being prepared for lawmakers and obtained by POLITICO. “The heightened risk to the rich asshole from Mueller’s investigation also means there is a heightened risk to the Mueller investigation from the rich asshole.”
Other conservatives, like Reps. Trent Franks (R-Ariz.) and Ron DeSantis (R-Fla.), have already called for Mueller’s departure.
DeSantis, too, has ramped up his efforts to hinder Mueller’s investigation. He recently pushed an amendment, which failed to gain traction, that would have curtailed Mueller’s probe within six months and limited its scope.
And in a Thursday interview with Breitbart Radio, DeSantis blamed Rosenstein for a “clumsy” decision to appoint Mueller without putting strict limits on his scope.
“Rosenstein really muffed this,” he said.
Breitbart News Editor Alex Marlow, who interviewed DeSantis, promised to give his proposal a lot of airtime and ink.
“We’re going to be pushing it heavily or at least content on it heavily,” he said.
In his interview, DeSantis also foreshadowed the end of the House Intelligence Committee’s separate investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election.
“The good news on the congressional side, at least in the House, is from what I understand, they’ve really increased the frequency of the interviews of the people and I think on the House side this Russia-the rich asshole [probe] is going to come to an end soon,” he said.
DeSantis isn’t on the intelligence panel but said talking to committee members, he’s convinced it’ll be done “certainly before the end of the year.”
He also said he’s been urging Speaker Paul Ryan to curtail the House investigation.
“I said, ‘Mr. Speaker, we’ve been spinning these wheels. There’s no evidence. If there is, produce it. I think we’d all like to see it. But if not, then we’ve got to get on with our business,’” adding, “I think that message has been received.”
While the new resolution faults Mueller for leading the probe despite his professional relationship with Comey, it also includes a broader broadside against the FBI.
The three lawmakers say the agency should be investigated for “willful blindness” over a seven-year-old sale of uranium production facilities to Russian interests, which conservatives have argued was approved in part by the Hillary Clinton-led State Department at the same time a party to the deal was making donations to the Clinton Foundation.
Mueller, they note, was presiding over the FBI at the time the agency was investigating a Russian bribery and extortion scheme connected to the uranium deal, but the agency declined to notify Congress of its investigation and prevented a confidential informant from notifying lawmakers.
“Any thorough and honest investigation into the corruption of American-uranium related business must include investigating the willful blindness of the FBI and its leaders,” according to the resolution.
Dem lawmaker mocks the rich asshole’s claim that Russia probe is a witch hunt: ‘The first witches got bagged this week’
Rep. Mike Quigley (D-IL) talks with CNN (Screen cap).
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President some rich asshole has repeatedly attacked special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian interference into the 2016 presidential election as both “phony” and a “witch hunt.”
However, Rep. Mike Quigley (D-IL) went on CNN Friday to mock the rich asshole for continuing to insist that the probe is a “witch hunt” despite the fact that two indictments and one guilty plea were announced for three former members of his campaign staff.
Quigley also pointed out that we keep learning about new contacts between the rich asshole campaign and Russia every day, and he went down a list of all the people who have had contact with Russian officials during the 2016 presidential election.
“We’re now talking about six different people who are the rich asshole associates,” Quigley said. “Just remember that the president’s son acknowledged that he wanted to meet with the Russians… we just talked about Cambridge Analytica, Mr. Kushner, after the election, trying to set up a back-channel meeting.”
Given this — and given the fact that former the rich asshole campaign chairman Paul Manafort was indicted this week for Russia-related money-laundering charges — Quigley said that the time for the rich asshole to pretend this investigation isn’t serious is over.
“The the rich asshole administration should stop calling this a witch hunt,” he said. “After all, the first witches were bagged earlier this week.”
Watch the video below.
‘It’s every man for himself’: Targets of Mueller probe try to distance themselves from the rich asshole’s inner circle
Robert Mueller in the Oval Office on July 20, 2012. (Photo by Pete Souza.)
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A source who is currently being questioned as part of special counsel Robert Mueller’s ongoing investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election and collusion with the rich asshole campaign said “it’s every man for himself” when it comes to the probe, CBS reports.
According to CBS, the particular source once steadfastly dismissed any coordination between the rich asshole’s campaign and Russia. Now, he appears to have changed that tune.
“I do believe the Russians interfered or tried to interfere,” the source—who maintains his innocence—admitted. But he added when it comes to other people in the rich asshole campaign, he doesn’t “know what they were doing” and “whatever those people did, that’s on them.”
The source’s change of heart came less than a week after Mueller’s office unsealed indictments against the rich asshole’s former campaign chairman Paul Manafort and his deputy Rick Gates. Monday, it was also revealed former the rich asshole aide George Papadopoulos has been working as a “proactive cooperator” with the FBI since his arrest in July.
A separate source told CBS the whole the rich asshole White House and business empire are under Mueller’s microscope. “I think everyone in the entire circle is potentially a target,” the source said, listing former national security adviser Michael Flynn, his son Michael Flynn Jr., former the rich asshole aide Carter Page, longtime the rich asshole lawyer Michael Cohen and the rich asshole’s son-in-law and top adviser Jared Kushner as among those the special counsel is likely targeting.
Primary Error: Donna Brazile Mixed Up Two Different Clinton-DNC Agreements
the rich asshole winds down Russia indictment week by running to talk radio, where he lamented that he's limited by the rules of democracy.
(AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
Moving hard to maintain the support of his most loyal fans during the week his former campaign deputies were indicted and his current attorney general was yet again caught up in the sprawling Russia investigation, some rich asshole sprinted to right-wing media outlets for interviews that seemed to double as weird therapy sessions.
Desperate for praise and media platforms to air his endless grievances, the rich asshole fantasized about being able to unleash the power of the federal government to prosecute his political enemies.
He also tweeted more on Friday about his obsession over Hillary Clinton and his manic desire to see her behind bars.
Taken as a whole, the outbursts confirm a panicked president who seems furious with the constraints of a democracy and furious that he can’t simply jail his foes. This, while nearly half of all Americans believe he committed a crime in connection to Russia collusion, and while damaging revelations on the Russia front now unfolds on a daily basis.
A glimpse, from CNN.com:
Not surprisingly, the rich asshole’s daylong meltdown began on talk radio, where he feels free to let his freak flag fly, knowing his most ardent and radical fans are listening in.
Upset he can’t use the federal government to prosecute his political opponents, the rich asshole lamented to one radio host, “The saddest thing is that because I’m the President of the United States, I am not supposed to be involved with the Justice Department. I am not supposed to be involved with the FBI.”
He added, “I look at what’s happening with the Justice Department. Well, why aren’t they going after Hillary Clinton with her emails and with her, the dossier?”
Note: Following the criminal abuses of Richard Nixon’s reign, guidelines were established to make sure presidents don’t insert themselves into Department of Justice prosecutions.
the rich asshole is still pushing the deflated GOP talking point that Democrats should be indicted for doing opposition research against him during the last campaign. (the rich asshole’s also still lying about how Democrats spent $12 million on the research; the firm hired claims it was paid $168,000.)
On another right-wing radio talk show, the rich asshole called continued congressional probes into Russia’s election meddling a “disgrace.”
“In fact, even in all fairness with all of these investigations going on in the Senate and the House — they walk out, even the Democrats — ‘There’s no collusion but we’ll continue to look, there’s smoke, there’s no collusion but there’s — and the Republicans are coming out just saying, ‘There’s just no collusion,'” the rich asshole complained.
“And it’s a disgrace that it can go on,” he added. “To be honest it’s a disgrace and it’s bad for our country.”
Earlier in the week, the rich asshole dialed up a New York Times reporter, unprompted, to insists how wonderful everything was going during the week when the Russia investigation began closing in with indictments and an announced guilty plea. He stressed that he’s “not angry at anybody.”
Nobody believed him, in part because he keeps advertising his insecurities and uncontrollable sense of self-pity.
10 conspiracy theories that turned Fox News into the some rich asshole Channel (commentary)
John were you sober when you said this? That conversation never happened. I’m sorry you are bitter and u failed! mediaite.com/online/john-bo…
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