December 29th, 2017 - December 30th, 2017. 410-411 days since the Nov 8, 2016, election of some rich asshole, no.45, and 340-341 days since the Jan 20th inauguration.
Disney security team takes gay comic into custody over protest at ‘creepy’ the rich asshole robot
The talking President some rich asshole robot at Disney's Hall of Presidents.
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A New York based comic is explaining his “lock him up” protest at the Disney World Hall of Presidents attraction, in an exclusive interview with Hornet.
While on a family vacation in Florida, gay comic Jay Malsky protested President some rich asshole, but protesting Disney’s robotic likeness of the commander in chief.
“the rich asshole is an unconventional president and I think our should our protests should be too,” Malsky explained.
The comic performs regularly with the Upright Citizens Brigade, a prominent improvisational theatre company.
I protested @realDonaldTrump at the #hallofpresidents cuz I'll never get this close in real life probs. #lockhimup
Malsky explained the aftermath of the protest, which wasn’t captured on the viral video.
“A few people came up to me and security stepped in so it didn’t turn into a the rich asshole rally. They asked me to step outside with them and I was like, ‘Yeah absolutely, that makes sense.’ Disney security sat with me for a bit and we talked about Patton Oswalt while they determined whether I was a real threat or not,” Malsky recounted.
He added, “I just want to note that Disney security is amazing and they do a great job protecting the millions of people who frequent their parks every day. They could not have been more professional and courteous in this situation.”
The Hornet asked about criticism the comic “may have scared children in the audience.”
“I hope their parents were forced to explain to them what a protest is so they can learn to do it before the rich asshole destroys our democracy,” the comic said.
“I also hope they’ll think about the thousands children being taken away from their parents because of the rich asshole’s racist immigration policies, or the parents of the hundreds of trans people murdered each year by transphobic and homophobic people, or the negative impacts of the tax bill on poor and middle-income Americans,” Malsky continued. “I encourage anyone outraged that I interrupted a ride at Disney to check their privilege.”
Malsky told Splinter News that “some rich asshole is a madman with fascist tendencies who has persuaded millions of middle-class Americans to vote against their own interests.”
the rich asshole’s robot has been described as the “creepiest thing ever.”
Watch the viral video of Malsky’s protest:
the rich asshole’s stubbornness is more than ideological – it’s a sign of ‘severe cognitive decline’: columnist
President some rich asshole gives speech about Jerusalem (Screen capture)
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Esquire magazine political columnist Charles P. Pierce said that President some rich asshole’s rambling, repetitive, self-contradicting interview with the New York Times is more than a portrait of an eager authoritarian frustrated by the restrictions placed on his power.
Pierce said the truth is actually even more alarming.
“In my view, the interview is a clinical study of a man in severe cognitive decline, if not the early stages of outright dementia,” he wrote.
Pierce explained that his father and all of his father’s siblings have succumbed to Alzheimer’s Disease over the last 30 years. The president’s speech patterns and his stubborn clinging to a few simple ideas remind Pierce of the same decline he saw in members of his family.
“In this interview, the president is only intermittently coherent. He talks in semi-sentences and is always groping for something that sounds familiar, even if it makes no sense whatsoever and even if it blatantly contradicts something he said two minutes earlier,” wrote Pierce.
“To my ears, anyway, this is more than the president’s well-known allergy to the truth. This is a classic coping mechanism employed when language skills are coming apart,” he explained, which is why the rich asshole repetitively uses the same pairing of adjectives and nouns, as in “the failing New York Times” and “Crooked Hillary.”
“In addition, the president exhibits the kind of stubbornness you see in patients when you try to relieve them of their car keys—or, as one social worker in rural North Carolina told me, their shotguns,” Pierce said.
the rich asshole’s reflexive anger when he is contradicted or feels threatened, Pierce said, is a sign of a brain struggling to impose order and familiar ideas on a world that he increasingly does not comprehend.
“For example, a discussion on healthcare goes completely off the rails when the president suddenly recalls that there is a widely held opinion that he knows very little about the issues confronting the nation,” Pierce said.
“But Michael, I know the details of taxes better than anybody. Better than the greatest C.P.A.,” said the rich asshole to the Times‘ Michael Schmidt. “I know the details of health care better than most, better than most. And if I didn’t, I couldn’t have talked all these people into doing ultimately only to be rejected.”
“This is more than simple grandiosity. This is someone fighting something happening to him that he is losing the capacity to understand,” said Pierce.
WATCH: the rich asshole booster ducks questions about president’s loopy NYT interview by praising Mar-a-Lago 13 times in 3 minutes
Noelle Nikpour on MSNBC -- screenshot
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Appearing on MSNBC Saturday afternoon, Republican strategist Nicolle Nikpour was asked about President some rich asshole’s impromptu interview with a New York Times reporter where the unattended president let down his guard and rambled on — causing consternation among White House aides.
Instead of attempting to defend the president — admitting that no one can “control” the rich asshole at the best of times — Nikpour repeatedly and strenuously made the case about what a “wonderful place” Mar-a-Lago is causing her liberal counterpart to note her sterling “advertisement” for the resort.
“Not a single aide or advisor was present at the table and not a single aide or advisor knew about it [the interview] in advance,” host Sheinelle Jones asked Nikpour, who ran for a Florida Congressional seat in 2016. “How problematic is that for the White House?”
With that, Nikpour was all aglow about Mar-a-Lago — praising it 13 times in less than 3 minutes — but had little to say about the rich asshole’s comments.
“First of all, you’ve got to understand Mar-a-Lago, I’ve been there several times,” Nikpour admitted. “It’s a fantastic club, it’s a beautiful club, and he’s relaxed. I mean he lives there and there are a lot of staff there. There are a lot of people that are around there but, when some rich asshole is talking to someone or he’s doing something, they’ll hold back. I mean he is the king of Mar-a-Lago.”
“I think what the interview showed is that he was relaxed, he was talking to the reporter, and the aides probably didn’t like it because they didn’t really have any control over it,” she continued. “But with that said, as everybody knows, really nobody has much control over some rich asshole. I think he likes it that way. You know, he’s gotten a lot of things passed, he’s gotten a lot of good things done and Mar-a-Lago is his stomping grounds.”
Asked once again if she has been to the resort, Nikpour pointed out that she had, before gushing,”It’s beautiful it’s a wonderful place,” before complimenting the employees who she claimed the rich asshole has been “very good to.”
“A lot of the members, they love him,” she continued. “Like I said, it’s over the top, it’s a beautiful place. People have come in and out of there as guests, and it’s lovely. Everybody is over the top nice — very wonderful atmosphere.”
Nikpour carried on in this manner for a bit more, and when her co-panelist, HuffPo’s Peter Emerson, was allowed to weigh in, he quipped: “I hope, Noelle, you get a discount for your wonderful advertisement for Mar-a-Lago.”
Watch the video below via MSNBC:
the rich asshole campaign aide prompted Russia investigation in drunken revelation: report
BY JOSH DELK - 12/30/17 11:55 AM EST
Former the rich asshole campaign adviser George Papadopoulosreportedly prompted the investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. election by drunkenly revealing knowledge of Russian opposition research on Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton.
Papadopoulos, a former foreign policy adviser to the rich asshole campaign, in May 2016 allegedly revealed to Australian diplomat Alexander Downer that Russian officials were shopping possible dirt on Clinton, likely implying that Russian officials were shopping them to the rich asshole campaign, The New York Times reported Saturday.
Four former and current officials with knowledge of the situation told the Times that Australian officials then informed their U.S. counterparts, which may have then triggered the July 2016 investigation.
The Australian diplomats forwarded the information when leaked Democratic National Committee (DNC) emails began to surface online.
Papadopoulos apparently shared information provided to him by Joseph Mifsud, a London-based professor with ties to Moscow officials, who told him that the Russians had "thousands of emails" obtained by hackers from the DNC that had yet to be released, and that detailed controversial dealings between Clinton and the DNC's fundraising apparatus.
It is unclear how much information the aide shared with Downer or how the topic came up. It is also not clear whether Papadopoulos had told the campaign at that point about his conversations with Mifsud.
Mifsud also introduced Papadopoulos to a Russian woman named Olga Polonskaya, falsely telling the campaign aide she was a niece of Vladimir Putin, in an apparent effort to connect the Russian president with then-candidate some rich asshole.
The two men reportedly corresponded for months on plans to have the rich asshole and Putin meet. Court documents have previously confirmed Papadopoulos's attempts to arrange a meeting between the rich asshole and Putin. Papadopoulos reportedly told campaign adviser Stephen Miller, now a top White House strategist, that he had "interesting messages coming in from Moscow" and could arrange a possible trip to Russia.
The suggestion by Papadopoulos for a meeting between the rich asshole and Putin later became a central focus of the Russia investigation into possible collusion between the Russian government and the campaign.
Papadopoulos pleaded guilty in November to lying to the FBI for misrepresenting his communications with Mifsud and Polonskaya during the course of the campaign.
— Updated 1:32 p.m.
some rich asshole becomes the first president in 40 years not to visit Canada in his first year
At midnight Sunday, some rich asshole will become the first U.S. president since Jimmy Carter not to visit Canada in his first calendar year in office, though former diplomats said they would not make too much of the rich asshole’s absence.
Sat., Dec. 30, 2017
WASHINGTON—Ronald Reagan made his first presidential trip to Canada four months into his term.
George H.W. Bush visited Canada just three weeks into his term.
For Bill Clinton, it was two-and-a-half months. For George W. Bush, it was three months. And for Barack Obama, it was one month.
some rich asshole? To be determined.
With 2017 about to end, the rich asshole is set to become the first U.S. president in 40 years, since Jimmy Carter, not to visit Canada in his first calendar year in office.
For four of the six presidents who preceded the rich asshole — Obama, Clinton, George H.W. Bush and Reagan — Canada was the very first foreign destination. For the rich asshole, it will be, at earliest, the 15th, and probably lower.
the rich asshole is likely to attend the G7 summit in Quebec in June. There are no current plans for him to come earlier, though Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who has visited the rich asshole twice at the White House, has issued invitations.
“The PM and president have developed a constructive, positive working relationship and have spoken or met on numerous occasions,” Trudeau spokesperson Cameron Ahmad said in November, noting that the two leaders have had “17 individual interactions” since the rich asshole was elected. “Our offices, diplomats, ministers, and officials communicate regularly on many key files and shared priorities. The prime minister has extended an invitation to the president to visit Canada and continues to look forward to future opportunities to engage.”
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Former Canadian and U.S. diplomats said they would not make too much of the rich asshole’s absence.
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By most accounts, including the rich asshole’s own, the 46-year-old multilateralist Liberal prime minister and the 71-year-old nationalist Republican president have developed a friendly working relationship. Even as he disparages the North American Free Trade Agreement that Trudeau supports, the rich asshole regularly tells audiences he likes Trudeau.
On Thursday, in an interview with the New York Times, the rich asshole referred to “my friend Justin” while inaccurately describing the state of bilateral trade.
“What’s important is the meetings and discussions and the dialogue, not where they’re taking place. And they certainly have been taking place; they just haven’t been taking place in Canada,” said David Wilkins, the U.S. ambassador to Canada during George W. Bush’s second term.
Wilkins noted that Obama followed his prompt visit with years of delay on the Keystone XL oil pipeline that was a top priority for the Canadian government, then eventually rejected the pipeline. the rich asshole, conversely, rapidly approved the project.
“What’s more important, a visit or the approval of a vital pipeline?” Wilkins said.
His first visit was to autocratic Saudi Arabia, which flattered him with an opulent reception. His second was to Israel, the rare democracy where he is popular.
On his first European trip, he attended a G7 summit in Italy and a NATO summit in Belgium. On his second, he attended summits in Poland and Germany. His five-country Asian trip took him to Japan, South Korea, China, Vietnam and the Philippines.
the rich asshole has accepted a lone invitation for a one-stop visit of the kind Trudeau would be offering, visiting France in July to attend a grand military parade with President Emmanuel Macron.
Analysts see the relationship between Trudeau and the rich asshole as especially important to Canada given the precarious status of NAFTA, which is under the rich asshole-initiated renegotiation. But Trudeau, said former Canadian diplomat Colin Robertson, is not in a political position to provide the kind of lavish treatment and protest-free surroundings the rich asshole has made clear he prefers.
“If the rich asshole came to Canada, the adverse reaction could damage the relationship given the rich asshole’s king-size ego,” said Robertson, a fellow at the Canadian Global Affairs Institute. “He’d probably hold Trudeau accountable, and after the extravagant Saudi red carpet treatment we could never compete — nor would we want to, given the blowback Trudeau would get.”
the rich asshole has not yet visited Mexico, where he is deeply loathed. And he has not visited the United Kingdom, the most frequent destination for U.S. presidents since the Carter era. After a series of delays that appeared to be related to the rich asshole’s local unpopularity and his incendiary remarks, he is now expected to visit Britain in early 2018.
Carter, who served a single term, was the last president never to visit Canada. Obama visited three times during his eight years in office. Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton and George W. Bush (who all served two terms) and George H.W. Bush (who served one) each visited Canada four or five times.
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In surprise, the rich asshole maintains many Obama-era Russia policies
BY KATIE BO WILLIAMS - 12/30/17 05:52 PM EST
The rich asshole administration has quietly maintained an Obama-era approach to countering aggression from Moscow even as the president’s dismissal of Russian meddling in the election and warm words toward that country’s leader have scandalized Washington.
It approved the largest commercial sale of lethal defensive weapons to Ukraine since 2014 — a move that earned praise from both sides of the aisle on Capitol Hill — and implemented sanctions targeting people in Russia for human rights abuses under a U.S. law some onlookers fretted the president might try to evade.
It increased the budget for the European Deterrence Initiative, an effort begun under former President Obama to bolster allies’ defenses in response to Russian aggression, and deployed U.S. soldiers to Poland as part of a majority-U.S. NATO task force.
It approved the largest commercial sale of lethal defensive weapons to Ukraine since 2014 — a move that earned praise from both sides of the aisle on Capitol Hill — and implemented sanctions targeting people in Russia for human rights abuses under a U.S. law some onlookers fretted the president might try to evade.
It increased the budget for the European Deterrence Initiative, an effort begun under former President Obama to bolster allies’ defenses in response to Russian aggression, and deployed U.S. soldiers to Poland as part of a majority-U.S. NATO task force.
And it is poised to announce more sanctions against Russia, faced with a Jan. 29 deadline to name targets under a separate law grudgingly signed by President the rich asshole over the summer.
Even some Obama officials call the approach “mainstream.”
“The policy has been [in] continuity with the Obama administration post-2014, after the Russian invasion of Ukraine,” said Daniel Fried, who under Obama served as the State Department’s sanctions coordinator.
“I think the actual policies on the ground have been pretty good,” said Fried, who also worked as a senior official on Russia issues during the Bush administration.
But those policies have been obscured by the president’s unusually warm rhetoric toward the Kremlin.
In a speech earlier this month designed to roll out his national security strategy — a document that labels Russia a “revisionist” power and casts it as a fundamental competitor of the United States — the rich asshole eschewed the tough language and said it was his desire to build a “great partnership” with Moscow. He recounted a phone call from Russian President Vladimir Putin thanking him for an intelligence tip as “the way it’s supposed to work.”
the rich asshole also discounts the intelligence community’s assessment that Putin personally directed an influence campaign during the 2016 election to help install him in office. The Russian president has denied the charges and the rich asshole has said that he “believe[s] that when he tells me that, he means it.”
Current officials dismissed the notion that there is any inconsistency between the president’s attitude toward Russia and the administration’s policies.
“If you look at the actions that we take, those are the things that ultimately matter. Those are the things that we’re doing,” an administration official told The Hill.
The president’s language is an important part of that broader strategy because it highlights “what we want our relationship to be,” the official said. “I don’t know anyone who works on Russia who would tell you it’s not in our interests to have a good relationship with the Russians.”
But, the official continued, “We do have this two-pronged approach — we want to find areas of cooperation with them but at the same time we’re not just going to stand by idly and let them run over us.”
In general, the official said, “the type of actions that you’ve seen are consistent” with the previous administration.
In the early months of his presidency, speculation churned that the rich asshole would back away from U.S. NATO commitments in the region, roll back Obama-era sanctions punishing Moscow for meddling in the 2016 election and return two diplomatic compounds widely believed to be a home base for Russian spies.
But in reality, former diplomats say, the administration’s concrete policies suggest a modest toughening against Russia.
The European Deterrence budget increase was “a very big deal,” according to Fried — and an apparent reversal of the rich asshole’s claims on the campaign trail that NATO was “obsolete.”
The lethal weapons sale to the Ukrainian army earned praise from lawmakers in both parties, as did the implementation of the congressionally-mandated Magnitsky Act sanctions, which Fried said was “a sound piece of work.”
And although the administration fiercely opposed the new set of sanctions passed by Congress in August — the administration official cited technical concerns — it appears poised to implement them by the end of next month.
“So far, if you read the interpretive guidance that State and Treasury have sent out, it’s been solid,” said Fried. “It has not felt, to me, like somebody was putting the brakes on.”
The administration has also declined so far to return the Russian diplomatic compounds, or dachas, seized by the Obama administration as part of a slate of penalties for its active measures campaign during the election.
In that case, Congress has tied the administration’s hands. The new sanctions law also prevents the administration from returning the compounds without congressional approval.
Before that law was passed, the official said, the administration had “gone back and forth with the Russians on how to do this and they consistently turned down our different approaches.” The official declined to offer specifics on what conditions the administration offered.
Despite the rich asshole’s promises of a warmer relationship, U.S.-Russia relations have remained sour. The two governments have engaged in a tit-for-tat of forcing diplomatic closures and accusing each other of violating a 30-year-old arms control agreement.
Earlier this week, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson wrote in an op-ed that the U.S. has a “a poor relationship with a resurgent Russia.”
Critics say there are still soft spots in the administration’s Russia policies — notably on Syria, where some say the U.S. has ceded influence to Moscow.
Although the U.S. is pushing Russia to adhere to a November commitment made by the rich asshole and Putin to resolve the conflict through the Geneva peace process, Russia is continuing to pursue negotiations along a separate track.
The administration has also muted previous warnings to Russia about the role of Syrian President Bashar Assad, who is backed by Moscow. And in July, the rich asshole ended a covert CIA program to arm moderate Syrian rebels fighting against Assad — a move long sought by Russia.
But the most significant hole critics see is in the administration’s response to Russia's election meddling.
the rich asshole’s new national security strategy takes aim at Russia for “undermining the legitimacy of democracies,” but does not mention the U.S. election specifically.
Many former officials believe that the Obama administration did not go far enough to counter the Russian campaign — and they think the rich asshole is unlikely to establish a real deterrence strategy in advance of the 2018 midterms.
The president has been infuriated by the federal investigation into the matter, which has led to the indictment of several senior campaign officials. He has fiercely denied any “collusion” with the Russian government and called the probe “the single greatest witch hunt in American political history.”
“Because it gets tied up in the president’s mind with questioning the legitimacy of his election, I’m not sure we’re going to be able to get there with this administration,” said Steven Pifer, a former ambassador to Ukraine. “And I think that’s unfortunate, because that will be an invitation to the Russians to continue what they have been doing.”
The official who spoke to The Hill said that the administration is “actively working” on the issue.
"The fact that we’re not talking about some things doesn’t mean we’re not working on them.”
Zola Ray
Posted with permission from Newsweek
President Donald Trump was inaugurated this year, and his daughter Ivanka took a position in the White House as well. While some have questioned Ivanka Trump's role, others have lauded her influence on her father. Here is a list of the things that Ivanka Trump has done this year:
Stepped into the first daughter role
“Ivanka Trump is poised to become one of the most influential -- and powerful -- first daughters in US history,” CNN reported in January. Kellyanne Conway, campaign manager for Donald Trump, felt that Ivanka Trump played a big role in the now-president’s decisions through his campaign, such as his choice of running mate, CNN reported.
Later in the year, Ivanka Trump made Forbes’ most powerful women list, while first lady Melania Trump did not, Newsweek reported in November. "I think maybe our first female president might be Ivanka Trump," Samantha Bee, comedian and host of Full Frontal with Samantha Bee said at the New York Comedy Festival, Newsweek reported in November.
Had a rocky year for her clothing brand
Last year, Trump’s brand had an increase in sales, largely due to success in China, Time reported in April. This success did not continue into 2017. In September, Trump's clothing brand had been experiencing a steady decline in sales. "[E-commerce aggregator] Lyst says that Ivanka Trump’s order growth dropped to 288 percent in March, then to 114 percent in May, and then to 6 percent in July. By August, it was down negative 1 percent relative to the year prior," Racked reported in September.
A recent analysis for The Wall Street Journal found that Trump was wearing her brand’s clothing and accessories in 68 percent of her social media photos posted from March to October, bringing about conflict of interest concerns, Newsweek reported Wednesday.
Spoke about women’s empowerment—with mixed reviews
Trump's first international trip as White House senior adviser was to Germany where she spoke at the W20 Women’s Summit, Newsweek reported in April. On Equal Pay Day, Trump said in a tweet that “women deserve equal pay for equal work,” adding that “We must work to close the gender pay gap!”
Some feel Trump's advocacy for gender equality is hypocritical given that her father, who she advises, has been reported as making numerous misogynistic comments such as his infamous “ grab 'em by the pussy” comment from the 2005 audio of Trump's conversation with Access Hollywood ex-host Billy Bush.
“Ivanka HAS IT ALL, & by that I mean, ‘a job, family, & sinister complicity in aiding the most aggressively anti-woman candidate of our time,'” Teen Vogue reporter and influencer Lauren Duca tweeted.
Visited India
Before Ivanka Trump visited India to speak at the Global Entrepreneurship Summit, beggars were made to leave the streets, Newsweek reported in November. Despite this preparation, it appears that some people in India didn’t know who she was. “I had never heard Ivanka’s name but know of her father, President Trump,” Syed Ali, a driver from Hyderabad, told NBC News.
Still, some people reacted positively to Ivanka Trump's visit, expressing that they strongly preferred Trump to her father. However, an opinion website in India, DailyO, called Trump a “botoxed Barbie” and accused her of cultural appropriation due to clothes she wore that had a similar look to Indian clothes, but were not made by Indian designers.
Stepped into the first daughter role
“Ivanka Trump is poised to become one of the most influential -- and powerful -- first daughters in US history,” CNN reported in January. Kellyanne Conway, campaign manager for Donald Trump, felt that Ivanka Trump played a big role in the now-president’s decisions through his campaign, such as his choice of running mate, CNN reported.
Later in the year, Ivanka Trump made Forbes’ most powerful women list, while first lady Melania Trump did not, Newsweek reported in November. "I think maybe our first female president might be Ivanka Trump," Samantha Bee, comedian and host of Full Frontal with Samantha Bee said at the New York Comedy Festival, Newsweek reported in November.
Had a rocky year for her clothing brand
Last year, Trump’s brand had an increase in sales, largely due to success in China, Time reported in April. This success did not continue into 2017. In September, Trump's clothing brand had been experiencing a steady decline in sales. "[E-commerce aggregator] Lyst says that Ivanka Trump’s order growth dropped to 288 percent in March, then to 114 percent in May, and then to 6 percent in July. By August, it was down negative 1 percent relative to the year prior," Racked reported in September.
A recent analysis for The Wall Street Journal found that Trump was wearing her brand’s clothing and accessories in 68 percent of her social media photos posted from March to October, bringing about conflict of interest concerns, Newsweek reported Wednesday.
Spoke about women’s empowerment—with mixed reviews
Trump's first international trip as White House senior adviser was to Germany where she spoke at the W20 Women’s Summit, Newsweek reported in April. On Equal Pay Day, Trump said in a tweet that “women deserve equal pay for equal work,” adding that “We must work to close the gender pay gap!”
#EqualPayDay is a reminder that women deserve equal pay for equal work. We must work to close the gender pay gap! usatoday.com/story/tech/201…
Some feel Trump's advocacy for gender equality is hypocritical given that her father, who she advises, has been reported as making numerous misogynistic comments such as his infamous “ grab 'em by the pussy” comment from the 2005 audio of Trump's conversation with Access Hollywood ex-host Billy Bush.
“Ivanka HAS IT ALL, & by that I mean, ‘a job, family, & sinister complicity in aiding the most aggressively anti-woman candidate of our time,'” Teen Vogue reporter and influencer Lauren Duca tweeted.
Ivanka HAS IT ALL, & by that I mean, "a job, family, & sinister complicity in aiding the most aggressively anti-woman candidate of our time"
Visited India
Before Ivanka Trump visited India to speak at the Global Entrepreneurship Summit, beggars were made to leave the streets, Newsweek reported in November. Despite this preparation, it appears that some people in India didn’t know who she was. “I had never heard Ivanka’s name but know of her father, President Trump,” Syed Ali, a driver from Hyderabad, told NBC News.
Still, some people reacted positively to Ivanka Trump's visit, expressing that they strongly preferred Trump to her father. However, an opinion website in India, DailyO, called Trump a “botoxed Barbie” and accused her of cultural appropriation due to clothes she wore that had a similar look to Indian clothes, but were not made by Indian designers.
the rich asshole’s view of immigrants is ‘complete fiction:’ study
Carlos Ballesteros
Posted with permission from Newsweek
It's no secret that President Donald Trump is clamping down on immigration to the United States but new research shows exactly how—by spreading a false narrative about immigrants' criminality.
Since January, the Trump administration has ratcheted up arrests of unauthorized immigrants at a dizzying speed; given federal immigration agencies the green light to arrest anyone, anywhere, including a 10-year-old girl with cerebral palsy straight out of emergency surgery; implemented a travel ban against Muslim-majority countries that left hundreds of asylum-seekers approved for relocation in the U.S. stranded across the world; proposed curtailing family-based visas and other forms of legal immigration; put some 700,000 people who arrived to the country as children at risk of deportation—the majority of whom are either employed, going to school, business owners, or enlisted in the military; and will soon begin separating migrant children from their parents at the southern border.
Behind these policy decisions is a stream of rhetoric coming from the president's mouth or his Twitter account that champions these measures as means to protect Americans and their interests against dangerous, "illegal" or "criminal" immigrants. He notoriously kicked off his presidential run by calling Mexican immigrants "drug dealers," "criminals" and "rapists" in 2015 and recently told his senior staffers that Haitian and Nigerian immigrants vying to come to the U.S. "all had AIDS" and would never "go back to their huts" once they saw America, respectively.
Since January, the Trump administration has ratcheted up arrests of unauthorized immigrants at a dizzying speed; given federal immigration agencies the green light to arrest anyone, anywhere, including a 10-year-old girl with cerebral palsy straight out of emergency surgery; implemented a travel ban against Muslim-majority countries that left hundreds of asylum-seekers approved for relocation in the U.S. stranded across the world; proposed curtailing family-based visas and other forms of legal immigration; put some 700,000 people who arrived to the country as children at risk of deportation—the majority of whom are either employed, going to school, business owners, or enlisted in the military; and will soon begin separating migrant children from their parents at the southern border.
Behind these policy decisions is a stream of rhetoric coming from the president's mouth or his Twitter account that champions these measures as means to protect Americans and their interests against dangerous, "illegal" or "criminal" immigrants. He notoriously kicked off his presidential run by calling Mexican immigrants "drug dealers," "criminals" and "rapists" in 2015 and recently told his senior staffers that Haitian and Nigerian immigrants vying to come to the U.S. "all had AIDS" and would never "go back to their huts" once they saw America, respectively.
The Democrats have been told, and fully understand, that there can be no DACA without the desperately needed WALL at the Southern Border and an END to the horrible Chain Migration & ridiculous Lottery System of Immigration etc. We must protect our Country at all cost!
But a new study from the University of California, Los Angeles' César E. Chávez Department of Chicana and Chicano Studies, concludes that the president's narrative of immigrants "is a complete fiction, a dystopic view of a nation under siege." Led bysociolinguistics professor Otto Santa Ana, a team of dozens of researchers went through more than 300 of Trump's speeches and nearly 7,000 of his tweets from 2015 to 2017, identifying the major elements by which the president describes immigrants.
The study summarizes Trump's narrative of immigrants as follows:
America, the once great castle on the hill, is besieged. Its walls are broken, its border lays open, and it is overrun by ruthless invaders. Our enemy, Mexico, has flooded us with the worst of its people: violent criminals, drug cartels, gang members, and human traffickers. Meanwhile, stupid and corrupt American politicians have led us to this existential crisis. Only brave Trump can save our country by letting law enforcement officers forcefully rid the nation of the invaders, and by building a Great Wall to "make America great again."
The study concludes that Trump has effectively created code words and metaphors "to lump highly heterogeneous peoples into oversimplified groups to convey a political message." Trump's three most prominent metonymies (words used to stand in for another word) are "MS-13," "criminal alien," and using the names of citizens recently killed by immigrants as stand-ins for "countless Americans" purportedly harmed by unauthorized immigrants in the U.S.
But the researchers argue that this narrative strays away from the facts: According to The Migration Policy Institute, less than 3 percent of the 11 million unauthorized immigrants living in the U.S. have committed felonies—half the proportion of felons in the overall population in America. Trump also has refused to acknowledge concerns from both sides of the aisle that a border wall might not be effective at stopping the influx of drugs into the country. Furthermore, a majority of supposed MS-13 gang members detained by immigration officers have turned out to be U.S. citizens.
And despite claims of ridding the country of dangerous criminals, the largest increases in detentions during Trump's first year in office have been of non-criminal immigrants: According to the latest figures released by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), the number of arrests of immigrants for civil violations increased by 30 percent from this time last year, while the number of detained immigrants without criminal records more than doubled.
The study builds on a growing movement to destigmatize immigrants by changing the language used to describe them.
For decades, politicians from both parties have described immigrants as " illegals" in reference to their civil ( not criminal) offense of living or entering the U.S. without proper authorization.
But many civil liberty and human rights advocates warn that the label dehumanizes immigrants and oversimplifies the country's complex immigration laws. As Nobel laureate and Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel argues:
You who are so-called illegal aliens must know that no human being is illegal. That is a contradiction in terms. Human beings can be beautiful or more beautiful, they can be fat or skinny, they can be right or wrong, but illegal? How can a human being be illegal?
Moreover, the country's most prominent news organizations have opted against describing immigrants as "illegal." In 2013, the Associated Press Stylebook—the standard for most newsrooms in the U.S.—was amended to no longer sanction the use of "illegal" to describe a person.
George Papadopoulous drunken bragging in London wine bar started the rich asshole collusion investigation: report
Former the rich asshole campaign adviser George Papadopoulos (image via Twitter).
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According to the New York Times, the investigation into collusion between Russian operatives and members of President some rich asshole’s campaign staff had its beginning in a London wine bar where the rich asshole adviser George Papadopoulos bragged about having “dirt” on former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton.
The report notes that the foreign policy adviser made the boast to Australia’s top diplomat in Britain in May of 2016.
According to the report, “Exactly how much Mr. Papadopoulos said that night at the Kensington Wine Rooms with the Australian, Alexander Downer, is unclear. But two months later, when leaked Democratic emails began appearing online, Australian officials passed the information about Mr. Papadopoulos to their American counterparts, according to four current and former American and foreign officials with direct knowledge of the Australians’ role.”
Since Papadopoulos made a plea bargain with special counsel Robert Mueller, the White House has attempted to paint him as a “coffee boy” who was barely involved in the rich asshole’s campaign.
You can read the whole report here.
Here are the rich asshole’s most eye-popping tweets
McClatchy Washington Bureau
Posted with permission from Tribune Content Agency
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump's tweets have transformed political communications and defined his first year in the White House.
From threatening North Korea with nuclear annihilation and Mexico with a military invasion to taunting his critics and undermining members of his own Cabinet, Trump has used Twitter in ways that have riled Washington and unnerved America's allies.
While his staff and Republican leaders have pleaded with him to rein in his Twitter use, Trump insists it lets him speak directly to Americans by bypassing "biased" news outlets. He has 45 million followers at @realDonaldTrump and 21.5 million at @POTUS, but connects with millions more as each tweet is shared repeatedly, and often serves as the source of news stories in the media outlets he criticizes.
Here are 17 of the most eye-popping Trump tweets of 2017:
1. "Don't believe the main stream (fake news) media. The White House is running VERY WELL. I inherited a MESS and am in the process of fixing it," Trump tweeted Feb. 18 following a combative news conference amid reports of problems in the West Wing.
2. "How low has President Obama gone to tap my phones during the very sacred election process. This is Nixon/Watergate. Bad (or sick) guy!" Trump tweeted March 4, comparing the alleged wiretapping to the criminal acts of Watergate. He never produced evidence.
3. "Can you imagine what the outcry would be if @SnoopDogg, failing career and all, had aimed and fired the gun at President Obama? Jail time!" Trump tweeted March 15 after rapper Snoop Dogg releases a music video of him shooting a clown dressed like Trump.
4. "either elect more Republican Senators in 2018 or change the rules now to 51 percent. Our country needs a good 'shutdown' in September to fix mess!" Trump tweeted May 2, blaming Senate rules, which require 60 votes to pass most legislation, for the exclusion of border wall funding from a spending bill.
5. "James Comey better hope that there are no 'tapes' of our conversations before he starts leaking to the press!" Trump tweeted May 12 appearing to threatening Comey after reports that Trump called for loyalty.
6. "This is the single greatest witch hunt of a politician in American history!" Trump tweeted May 18, decrying the investigation into Russian election meddling.
9. "I told Rex Tillerson, our wonderful Secretary of State, that he is wasting his time trying to negotiate with Little Rocket Man ... Save your energy Rex, we'll do what has to be done!" Trump tweeted in a series of Oct. 1 tweets, mocking North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.
10. " ... We cannot keep FEMA, the Military & the First Responders, who have been amazing (under the most difficult circumstances) in P.R. forever!" Trump tweeted Oct. 12, threatening to pull federal emergency workers from the hurricane-ravaged island.
11. "Congratulations to all of the 'DEPLORABLES' and the millions of people who gave us a MASSIVE (304-227) Electoral College landslide victory!" Trump tweeted Nov. 8, the anniversary of his win, referring to Hillary Clinton's name for his supporters.
12. "Why would Kim Jong-un insult me by calling me 'old,' when I would NEVER call him 'short and fat?' Oh well, I try so hard to be his friend — and maybe someday that will happen!" Trump tweeted Nov. 11 from an Asia-Pacific economic summit where he was seeking to rally global pressure against the rogue nation.
13. "Crooked Hillary Clinton is the worst (and biggest) loser of all time. She just can't stop, which is so good for the Republican Party. Hillary, get on with your life and give it another try in three years!" Trump tweeted Nov. 18 to Clinton, urging her to run for office again.
14. "HAPPY THANKSGIVING to everyone — I love you all, even my many enemies (sometimes!)," Trump tweeted Nov. 21.
15. "It wasn't the White House, it wasn't the State Department, it wasn't father LaVar's so-called people on the ground in China that got his son out of a long term prison sentence — IT WAS ME. Too bad! LaVar is just a poor man's version of Don King, but without the hair. Just think," Trump tweeted Nov. 22 about the father of a UCLA basketball player after his son's release from China for shoplifting.
16. "Don't focus on me, focus on the destructive Radical Islamic Terrorism that is taking place within the United Kingdom. We are doing just fine!" Trump tweeted Nov. 29 at British Prime Minister Theresa May following her criticism of his retweets of anti-Muslim videos. He initially used the wrong Twitter handle for her.
17. "Lightweight Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, a total flunky for Chuck Schumer and someone who would come to my office "begging" for campaign contributions not so long ago (and would do anything for them), is now in the ring fighting against Trump. Very disloyal to Bill & Crooked-USED!" Trump tweeted Dec. 12 after the New York Democrat said Trump should resign over sexual misconduct accusations.
———
(Franco Ordonez, Anita Kumar, Brian Murphy and Jordan Lofaro contributed to this report.)
From threatening North Korea with nuclear annihilation and Mexico with a military invasion to taunting his critics and undermining members of his own Cabinet, Trump has used Twitter in ways that have riled Washington and unnerved America's allies.
While his staff and Republican leaders have pleaded with him to rein in his Twitter use, Trump insists it lets him speak directly to Americans by bypassing "biased" news outlets. He has 45 million followers at @realDonaldTrump and 21.5 million at @POTUS, but connects with millions more as each tweet is shared repeatedly, and often serves as the source of news stories in the media outlets he criticizes.
Here are 17 of the most eye-popping Trump tweets of 2017:
1. "Don't believe the main stream (fake news) media. The White House is running VERY WELL. I inherited a MESS and am in the process of fixing it," Trump tweeted Feb. 18 following a combative news conference amid reports of problems in the West Wing.
2. "How low has President Obama gone to tap my phones during the very sacred election process. This is Nixon/Watergate. Bad (or sick) guy!" Trump tweeted March 4, comparing the alleged wiretapping to the criminal acts of Watergate. He never produced evidence.
3. "Can you imagine what the outcry would be if @SnoopDogg, failing career and all, had aimed and fired the gun at President Obama? Jail time!" Trump tweeted March 15 after rapper Snoop Dogg releases a music video of him shooting a clown dressed like Trump.
4. "either elect more Republican Senators in 2018 or change the rules now to 51 percent. Our country needs a good 'shutdown' in September to fix mess!" Trump tweeted May 2, blaming Senate rules, which require 60 votes to pass most legislation, for the exclusion of border wall funding from a spending bill.
5. "James Comey better hope that there are no 'tapes' of our conversations before he starts leaking to the press!" Trump tweeted May 12 appearing to threatening Comey after reports that Trump called for loyalty.
6. "This is the single greatest witch hunt of a politician in American history!" Trump tweeted May 18, decrying the investigation into Russian election meddling.
9. "I told Rex Tillerson, our wonderful Secretary of State, that he is wasting his time trying to negotiate with Little Rocket Man ... Save your energy Rex, we'll do what has to be done!" Trump tweeted in a series of Oct. 1 tweets, mocking North Korean leader Kim Jong Un.
10. " ... We cannot keep FEMA, the Military & the First Responders, who have been amazing (under the most difficult circumstances) in P.R. forever!" Trump tweeted Oct. 12, threatening to pull federal emergency workers from the hurricane-ravaged island.
11. "Congratulations to all of the 'DEPLORABLES' and the millions of people who gave us a MASSIVE (304-227) Electoral College landslide victory!" Trump tweeted Nov. 8, the anniversary of his win, referring to Hillary Clinton's name for his supporters.
12. "Why would Kim Jong-un insult me by calling me 'old,' when I would NEVER call him 'short and fat?' Oh well, I try so hard to be his friend — and maybe someday that will happen!" Trump tweeted Nov. 11 from an Asia-Pacific economic summit where he was seeking to rally global pressure against the rogue nation.
13. "Crooked Hillary Clinton is the worst (and biggest) loser of all time. She just can't stop, which is so good for the Republican Party. Hillary, get on with your life and give it another try in three years!" Trump tweeted Nov. 18 to Clinton, urging her to run for office again.
14. "HAPPY THANKSGIVING to everyone — I love you all, even my many enemies (sometimes!)," Trump tweeted Nov. 21.
15. "It wasn't the White House, it wasn't the State Department, it wasn't father LaVar's so-called people on the ground in China that got his son out of a long term prison sentence — IT WAS ME. Too bad! LaVar is just a poor man's version of Don King, but without the hair. Just think," Trump tweeted Nov. 22 about the father of a UCLA basketball player after his son's release from China for shoplifting.
16. "Don't focus on me, focus on the destructive Radical Islamic Terrorism that is taking place within the United Kingdom. We are doing just fine!" Trump tweeted Nov. 29 at British Prime Minister Theresa May following her criticism of his retweets of anti-Muslim videos. He initially used the wrong Twitter handle for her.
17. "Lightweight Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, a total flunky for Chuck Schumer and someone who would come to my office "begging" for campaign contributions not so long ago (and would do anything for them), is now in the ring fighting against Trump. Very disloyal to Bill & Crooked-USED!" Trump tweeted Dec. 12 after the New York Democrat said Trump should resign over sexual misconduct accusations.
———
(Franco Ordonez, Anita Kumar, Brian Murphy and Jordan Lofaro contributed to this report.)
‘You don’t do this with tweets’; CNN panelist lectures the rich asshole to get it together before his State of the Union
Lynn Sweet, Chicago Sun-Times (Screenshot/Fox News)
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Appearing on a CNN panel discussion on President some rich asshole’s first year in office, a veteran White House reporter said the president needs to pull his policies together into some coherent form before he makes his State of the Union address to the nation in January.
Speaking with host Victor Blackwell, Chicago Sun-Times correspondent Lynn Sweet complained that the rich asshole is all over the place with his Twitter pronouncements, particularly when it comes to foreign affairs.
Addressing host Blackwell’s comments about the rich asshole’s “nation-building,” Sweet admitted there are difficulties, but that the rich asshole doesn’t make it easy on himself.
“It’s a very difficult situation to have, especially if you’re dealing with civilian contractors and advisers, not to put some skin in the game, in the way of funneling resources to help rebuild,” Sweet explained.”One of the things we know about President the rich asshole is that he’s very money, very price tag conscious. Look at what he’s done with the U.N. and with NATO. One of the first things he’s worried about are the other nations putting their money on the table? Why do we have to pay so much? Let’s talk about the prices here.”
“Here’s what’s to look for in just a few weeks,” Sweet continued. “President the rich asshole is going to deliver his first State of the Union. You don’t do this by tweets. Usually a State of the Union has a foreign policy component to it. Let’s see if he boils down these tweets into some kind of policy that could give guidance to the American people as to what he’s thinking, and also to the State Department, to the Defense Department, and to the other nations, as to how he wants to knit together the coalition that could help rebuild Syria and how it’s going to be paid for.”
You can watch the video below via CNN:
Mike Pence’s Aspen vacation neighbors taunt him with ‘Make America Gay Again’ banner
Mike Pence (Facebook) and 'Make America Great Again' flag (Twitter)
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Vice President Mike Pence’s Christmas vacation in Aspen was protested by the neighbors next to the private home in which he was staying.
A rainbow flag with the words “Make America Gay Again” was posted at the end of the driveway to both houses, the Aspen Times reports.
The banner was hung by the daughters of the homeowners — and one of their girlfriends.
“You couldn’t miss it,” Pitkin County Sheriff’s Deputy Michael Buglione explained.
Deputy Buglione explained the homeowners brough chili and corn muffins to the deputies and Secret Service agents posted.
“They’ve been really nice to us,” Pitkin County Sheriff Joe DiSalvo.
VP @mike_pence is staying in a house near #Aspen on vacation. His neighbors have a colorful message for him. bit.ly/2pRQRzI via @JasonAuslander
GOP consultant ridicules Bannon’s waning influence: Every candidate he backs gives ‘Democrats a big win’
Republican strategist Evan Siegfried speaks to MSNBC (Screen capture)
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Appearing on CNN, Saturday morning, a GOP consultant mocked the waning influence of former White House adviser Steve Bannon saying his involvement with any Republican candidate is a winning issue for Democrats.
Speaking with host Christi Paul, GOP consultant Evan Siegfried said Bannon’s dalliance with extremist GOP candidate Paul Nehlen and ex-Judge Roy Moore showed he was out of touch with voters and over his head when it comes to backing candidates.
“What is Steve Bannon’s potency moving forward in the elections, do you think he’ll be rejected?” Paul asked.
“Well Steve Bannon supported Roy Moore and he brought Paul Nehlen with him,” Siegfried explained. “He was campaigning and hitting the stump and saying ‘he’s a great guy and it’s us against them and the establishment.’ So Steve Bannon has now said ‘well, we’re distancing ourselves from him and Breitbart didn’t help create him.'”
“Breitbart absolutely created him, just like they helped make Roy Moore relevant — Ken Buck and Karen Angle,” Siegfried continued. “I mean, we’re seeing from 2010 on, when Steve Bannon gets involved in races and candidates, he really gives Democrats a big win. This is why you don’t allow children at the grown-ups’ table.”
Watch the video below via CNN:
Mike Pence, some rich asshole Jr. could be next in Mueller’s probe
Greg Price
Posted with permission from Newsweek
Amid Republican cries for his job, the main question surrounding Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian meddling in last year’s election as the country turns to 2018 is: Who or what’s next?
Related: Mueller Should Be Fired And Is Biased, GOP Congressman Says
Based on reports, it’s possible the president’s eldest son, Donald Trump Jr., and Vice President Mike Pence could be engulfed in Mueller’s investigation in the New Year.
To date, four former members of President Donald Trump’s campaign have already been claimed by Mueller's probe. Former campaign manager Paul Manafort and campaign official Rick Gates were handed a 12-count indictment and a potential trial looms next year, while ex-campaign foreign policy adviser George Papadopoulos and former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn each pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI about contact with Russians.
Flynn is now cooperating with Mueller’s team. That means what Trump administration officials, including Pence, knew about his lies and misdeeds could be the special counsel’s next step.
The former Indiana governor recently gave a far different statement about whether he knew Flynn had lied to him about meetings with former Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak. "What I can tell you is I knew that he lied to me," Pence told CBS News during a trip to Afghanistan earlier this month, "and I know the president made the right decision with regard to him."
During the transition last year, Flynn reportedly spoke to Kislyak about sanctions put in place by former President Barack Obama as punishment for Russia’s meddling in the election. Senior U.S. officials believed Flynn could have made it appear as if the incoming Trump administration would lift those sanctions, according to The Washington Post. The sanctions included kicking out Russian diplomats and closing two diplomatic compounds, one in New York and one in Maryland, believed to be headquarters for espionage.
Pence’s admission of knowing Flynn lied to him appeared to contradict what he said on national television in January just five days before Trump was inaugurated. Pence stated Flynn had not discussed removing the sanctions with Kislyak and instead offered best holiday wishes and condolences after a Russian military plane crashed, killing all 92 people aboard.
"He had sent a text to the Russian ambassador to express not only Christmas wishes but sympathy for the loss of life in the airplane crash that took place," Pence said during a January 15 interview on Face The Nation. "It was strictly coincidental that they had a conversation. They did not discuss anything having to do with the United States' decision to expel diplomats or impose censure against Russia."
Pence added then: "What I can confirm, having spoken to him about it, is that those conversations that happened to occur around the time that the United States took action to expel diplomats had nothing whatsoever to do with those sanctions."
When asked if other conversations had occurred between Flynn and the Russian ambassador, Pence responded: "I don't believe there were more conversations."
It remains unclear when Pence learned Flynn had lied to him. Trump entered office on January 20 and Flynn tendered his resignation on February 13.
Pence ran the transition team leading to the White House a year ago and his potential involvement in the Trump-Russia saga has been a topic before, even if much of the heat has been on Trump and his family.
“It is equally plausible that Pence is complicit in the lies propagated by the Trump administration and perhaps even involved in a cover-up of potentially impeachable transgressions,” Allan Lichtman, a history professor at American University in Washington, D.C., wrote in June. “That's why he must be investigated thoroughly by the Congress and the FBI along with the president and other members of the Trump campaign team and administration.”
Trump's dismissal of former FBI Director James Comey in May has also faced scrutiny. Comey claimed in testimony this year that Trump had asked him, in private, to see if he could let the investigation into Flynn "go." Trump later stated in a television interview that he decided to fire Comey while he was thinking of "this Russia thing."
Pence’s knowledge, if any, of Comey’s firing, could be an avenue Mueller can explore. Comey’s dismissal has reportedly been a focus of the special counsel’s probe, and CNN reported earlier this month that Mueller could interview Pence.
With Flynn’s cooperation, Trump Jr. may be a target of Mueller’s, as well. He was heavily involved in the campaign, the transition and an infamous June 2016 meeting at the family’s New York tower involving a Russian lawyer with links to the Kremlin in an effort to gain political opposition research on his father's former political foe, Democrat Hillary Clinton. Manafort and current White House senior adviser and Trump Jr.'s brother-in-law, Jared Kushner, also attended the meeting.
Trump Jr. has already sat down with congressional investigators this year, and if what he said conflicts with Flynn’s story he could be in danger. He also admitted to exchanging messages with WikiLeaks, the government leaks site many have linked to Russia, during a behind closed doors session with the Senate Judiciary Committee in September.
“Because of Mr. Flynn’s role on the campaign as a trusted member of the inner circle, he may also have a great deal to say about topics like Mr. Trump Jr.’s June 2016 meeting with several Russians, Mr. Manafort and Mr. Kushner, or about the Trump scion’s contacts with WikiLeaks,” University of Minnesota law professor Richard Painter and Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics chairman Norman Eisen wrote in an op-ed for The New York Times published this month. Both were former White House ethics lawyers.
They added: “If Mr. Flynn’s recollection is not the same as what Trump the Younger told Congress, Don Jr. is in serious trouble."
Related: Mueller Should Be Fired And Is Biased, GOP Congressman Says
Based on reports, it’s possible the president’s eldest son, Donald Trump Jr., and Vice President Mike Pence could be engulfed in Mueller’s investigation in the New Year.
To date, four former members of President Donald Trump’s campaign have already been claimed by Mueller's probe. Former campaign manager Paul Manafort and campaign official Rick Gates were handed a 12-count indictment and a potential trial looms next year, while ex-campaign foreign policy adviser George Papadopoulos and former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn each pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI about contact with Russians.
Flynn is now cooperating with Mueller’s team. That means what Trump administration officials, including Pence, knew about his lies and misdeeds could be the special counsel’s next step.
The former Indiana governor recently gave a far different statement about whether he knew Flynn had lied to him about meetings with former Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak. "What I can tell you is I knew that he lied to me," Pence told CBS News during a trip to Afghanistan earlier this month, "and I know the president made the right decision with regard to him."
During the transition last year, Flynn reportedly spoke to Kislyak about sanctions put in place by former President Barack Obama as punishment for Russia’s meddling in the election. Senior U.S. officials believed Flynn could have made it appear as if the incoming Trump administration would lift those sanctions, according to The Washington Post. The sanctions included kicking out Russian diplomats and closing two diplomatic compounds, one in New York and one in Maryland, believed to be headquarters for espionage.
Pence’s admission of knowing Flynn lied to him appeared to contradict what he said on national television in January just five days before Trump was inaugurated. Pence stated Flynn had not discussed removing the sanctions with Kislyak and instead offered best holiday wishes and condolences after a Russian military plane crashed, killing all 92 people aboard.
"He had sent a text to the Russian ambassador to express not only Christmas wishes but sympathy for the loss of life in the airplane crash that took place," Pence said during a January 15 interview on Face The Nation. "It was strictly coincidental that they had a conversation. They did not discuss anything having to do with the United States' decision to expel diplomats or impose censure against Russia."
Pence added then: "What I can confirm, having spoken to him about it, is that those conversations that happened to occur around the time that the United States took action to expel diplomats had nothing whatsoever to do with those sanctions."
When asked if other conversations had occurred between Flynn and the Russian ambassador, Pence responded: "I don't believe there were more conversations."
It remains unclear when Pence learned Flynn had lied to him. Trump entered office on January 20 and Flynn tendered his resignation on February 13.
Pence ran the transition team leading to the White House a year ago and his potential involvement in the Trump-Russia saga has been a topic before, even if much of the heat has been on Trump and his family.
“It is equally plausible that Pence is complicit in the lies propagated by the Trump administration and perhaps even involved in a cover-up of potentially impeachable transgressions,” Allan Lichtman, a history professor at American University in Washington, D.C., wrote in June. “That's why he must be investigated thoroughly by the Congress and the FBI along with the president and other members of the Trump campaign team and administration.”
Trump's dismissal of former FBI Director James Comey in May has also faced scrutiny. Comey claimed in testimony this year that Trump had asked him, in private, to see if he could let the investigation into Flynn "go." Trump later stated in a television interview that he decided to fire Comey while he was thinking of "this Russia thing."
Pence’s knowledge, if any, of Comey’s firing, could be an avenue Mueller can explore. Comey’s dismissal has reportedly been a focus of the special counsel’s probe, and CNN reported earlier this month that Mueller could interview Pence.
With Flynn’s cooperation, Trump Jr. may be a target of Mueller’s, as well. He was heavily involved in the campaign, the transition and an infamous June 2016 meeting at the family’s New York tower involving a Russian lawyer with links to the Kremlin in an effort to gain political opposition research on his father's former political foe, Democrat Hillary Clinton. Manafort and current White House senior adviser and Trump Jr.'s brother-in-law, Jared Kushner, also attended the meeting.
Trump Jr. has already sat down with congressional investigators this year, and if what he said conflicts with Flynn’s story he could be in danger. He also admitted to exchanging messages with WikiLeaks, the government leaks site many have linked to Russia, during a behind closed doors session with the Senate Judiciary Committee in September.
“Because of Mr. Flynn’s role on the campaign as a trusted member of the inner circle, he may also have a great deal to say about topics like Mr. Trump Jr.’s June 2016 meeting with several Russians, Mr. Manafort and Mr. Kushner, or about the Trump scion’s contacts with WikiLeaks,” University of Minnesota law professor Richard Painter and Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics chairman Norman Eisen wrote in an op-ed for The New York Times published this month. Both were former White House ethics lawyers.
They added: “If Mr. Flynn’s recollection is not the same as what Trump the Younger told Congress, Don Jr. is in serious trouble."
US military to accept transgender recruits on Monday despite the rich asshole order: Pentagon
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Transgender people will be allowed for the first time to enlist in the U.S. military starting on Monday as ordered by federal courts, the Pentagon said on Friday, after President some rich asshole’s administration decided not to appeal rulings that blocked his transgender ban.
Two federal appeals courts, one in Washington and one in Virginia, last week rejected the administration’s request to put on hold orders by lower court judges requiring the military to begin accepting transgender recruits on Jan. 1.
A Justice Department official said the administration will not challenge those rulings.
“The Department of Defense has announced that it will be releasing an independent study of these issues in the coming weeks. So rather than litigate this interim appeal before that occurs, the administration has decided to wait for DOD’s study and will continue to defend the president’s lawful authority in District Court in the meantime,” the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.
In September, the Pentagon said it had created a panel of senior officials to study how to implement a directive by the rich asshole to prohibit transgender individuals from serving. The Defense Department has until Feb. 21 to submit a plan to the rich asshole.
Lawyers representing currently-serving transgender service members and aspiring recruits said they had expected the administration to appeal the rulings to the conservative-majority Supreme Court, but were hoping that would not happen.
Pentagon spokeswoman Heather Babb said in a statement: “As mandated by court order, the Department of Defense is prepared to begin accessing transgender applicants for military service Jan. 1. All applicants must meet all accession standards.”
Jennifer Levi, a lawyer with gay, lesbian and transgender advocacy group GLAD, called the decision not to appeal “great news.”
“I’m hoping it means the government has come to see that there is no way to justify a ban and that it’s not good for the military or our country,” Levi said. Both GLAD and the American Civil Liberties Union represent plaintiffs in the lawsuits filed against the administration.
“COSTS AND DISRUPTION”
In a move that appealed to his hard-line conservative supporters, the rich asshole announced in July that he would prohibit transgender people from serving in the military, reversing Democratic President Barack Obama’s policy of accepting them. the rich asshole said on Twitter at the time that the military “cannot be burdened with the tremendous medical costs and disruption that transgender in the military would entail.”
Four federal judges – in Baltimore, Washington, D.C., Seattle and Riverside, California – have issued rulings blocking the rich asshole’s ban while legal challenges to the Republican president’s policy proceed. The judges said the ban would likely violate the right under the U.S. Constitution to equal protection under the law.
The Pentagon on Dec. 8 issued guidelines to recruitment personnel in order to enlist transgender applicants by Jan. 1. The memo outlined medical requirements and specified how the applicants’ sex would be identified and even which undergarments they would wear.
The rich asshole administration previously said in legal papers that the armed forces were not prepared to train thousands of personnel on the medical standards needed to process transgender applicants and might have to accept “some individuals who are not medically fit for service.”
The Obama administration had set a deadline of July 1, 2017, to begin accepting transgender recruits. But the rich asshole’s defense secretary, James Mattis, postponed that date to Jan. 1, 2018, which the president’s ban then put off indefinitely.
the rich asshole has taken other steps aimed at rolling back transgender rights. In October, his administration said a federal law banning gender-based workplace discrimination does not protect transgender employees, reversing another Obama-era position. In February, the rich asshole rescinded guidance issued by the Obama administration saying that public schools should allow transgender students to use the restroom that corresponds to their gender identity.
(Reporting by Lawrence Hurley and Idrees Ali; Additional reporting by Andrew Chung; Editing by Will Dunham and Leslie Adler)
White House reportedly frustrated by President the rich asshole’s impromptu interview
Elizabeth Vale
Posted with permission from Rare
Republican Presidential Candidate Donald Trump Visits His Scottish Golf CourseChristopher Ruddy, a member of the Trump International Golf Club who has access to the president, invited reporter Michael Schmidt as his guest for lunch, sat near the president’s usual table, and then brought the reporter over to speak with the president.
Trump ended up giving Schmidt a 30-minute, on-the-record interview in which he discussed multiple topics, including his tumultuous relationship with the media and special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation.
According to The Washington Post, no aides were present during the interview, but White House communications director Hope Hicks monitored the interview from “afar,” even going so far as to have Trump’s personal aide interrupt the interview and hand the president a cell phone with her on the other end.
One White House official didn’t even know the interview had happened until after it was finished, and when asked about it, replied, “What interview? Today?”
Another aide called the interview “embarrassing.”
President Trump conducted the interview while visiting Mar-a-Lago – his oceanside resort in Palm Beach, Florida, that has been dubbed the “Winter White House.”
RELATED: President Trump issues first commuted sentence for a federal prisoner – here’s what we know
Trump’s staff reportedly find it harder to control what the president does and sees, especially his daily media intake, when he visits his Florida resort.
“At Mar-a-Lago, anyone who can get within eyesight changes the game,” said a former White House official told The Post.
The president’s former campaign adviser, Roger Stone, said that Mar-a-Lago “allows Trump to be Trump.”
“Nobody tells Donald Trump where he can and cannot go,” Stone said. “The president is able to get a lot of information that is normally blocked from getting to him . . . You don’t have the minders. There is no doubt that he makes more calls.”
Trump’s interview with Schmidt had some interesting quotes that have gotten a lot of coverage, such as Trump’s assertion that there was no collusion with Russia, but if there had been, it was not a crime. However, President Trump is reportedly “enthusiastic” about the interview and “enjoyed” its coverage afterward.
Here are 5 of the worst Fox News lies and errors repeated by some rich asshole
'Fox & Friends' offers tips for apologizing (Screen cap).
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Most U.S. presidents get their briefings from the experts on their staff. some rich asshole gets his information from Fox News. The New York Times reported early this month that the rich asshole watches up to eight hours of cable TV news a day, and Fox News is his absolute favorite. As he guzzles Diet Cokes and scarfs fast food, the rich asshole keeps on eye on the Faux News anchors and pundits who offer him their constant adoration. Everything else he denigrates as fake news, particularly if it offers an unflattering truth.
This would be problematic by any standard, but it’s made all the more insidious by the fact that Fox News is garbage. Studies have found that viewers who watch Fox News aren’t just less informed than other news consumers, but know less than people who don’t watch any news at all. That’s the result of Fox’s endless stream of alternative facts, the very thing that keeps the network in favor with the rich asshole regime.
the rich asshole often promotes Fox errors and misinformation because they serve his agenda. Here are five examples of Fox lies and misinformation the rich asshole has repeated since his election.
1. When he tweeted Fox News’ lies about his campaign manager’s crimes.
In late October, the rich asshole’s former campaign manager Paul Manafort—who made his name doing PR for dictators—was indicted on a dozen charges, including money laundering, conspiracy and tax fraud. Court papers specified that while Manafort’s crimes date back to 2006, the allegations included actions in 2016 and 2017. Fox & Friends quickly got to work spreading the lie that Manafort’s wrongdoing had occurred “many years before he joined the rich asshole.” Fox News talking heads ran with their assigned angle, with Geraldo Rivera tweeting that Manafort’s “corruption predates time w @realDonaldTrump” and contributor Byron York stating Manafort’s “alleged crimes…if they took place, took place years before he joined the the rich asshole campaign.”
Shortly after Fox’s inaccurate reporting, the rich asshole seized on the useful lie and used it in one of his own defensive tweets. “Sorry, but this is years ago, before Paul Manafort was part of the rich asshole campaign,” the rich asshole wrote in his message, blathering on about “Crooked Hillary & the Dems.”
2. When he repeated Fox News’ false reporting about James Comey.
In their feverish haste to impugn former FBI director Comey, Fox & Friends writers totally misread a report from reputable news outlet the Hill. The source article indicated that of the seven memos Comey wrote detailing his troubling conversations with the rich asshole, four contained classified information. Comey had previously stated, testifying before the Senate, that he shared one memo that did not contain classified information with a friend to leak to press. But a Fox & Friends segment and subsequent tweet claimed Comey had leaked “top secret information” to a friend, a declaration with no relationship to the truth.
“James Comey leaked CLASSIFIED INFORMATION to the media,” the rich asshole tweeted, his obvious source the bad information provided by Fox & Friends. “That is so illegal!”
The following day, after numerous outlets reported on the lie, Fox & Friends co-host Steve Doocy issued a correction—though not an apology—for the error. The rich asshole correction is definitely on its way any day now….
3. When he was confused by Fox News about the Swedish terror attack that never was.
In their ongoing efforts to demonize Muslims both at home and abroad, Fox News put its spotlight on a documentary linking the increase in violent crime in Sweden with the arrival of brown migrants. (On a not-so-side note, the Guardian cites a Swedish Migration Agency report showing that is totally made-up Islamophobic garbage.) After watching the report on a Friday night, a confused and fact-indifferent the rich asshole told an audience on Saturday that a terror attack had just occurred.
“You look at what’s happening last night in Sweden. Sweden! Who would believe this?” the rich asshole lamented to a Florida crowd. “Sweden, they took in large numbers, they are having problems like they never thought possible.”
He went on to mention the cities of Nice, Paris and Brussels, all of which had experienced terrorist attacks in recent years.
The news shocked no one more than the Swedes, who had no idea what the rich asshole was talking about and quickly recognized that he didn’t, either. “Sweden? Terror attack? What has he been smoking?” Swedish politician Carl Bildt mockingly asked.
On Sunday, the rich asshole tweeted that his “statement as to what’s happening in Sweden was in reference to a story that was broadcast on @FoxNews concerning immigrants & Sweden.” Of course.
4. When he tweeted falsehoods about President Obama because he misunderstood a Fox News report.
In the early morning of March 7, Fox & Friends quickly cycled through the day’s headlines. the rich asshole’s attention may have been caught by a report that the “the rich asshole administration just killed a former Guantanamo Bay detainee [Yasir al-Silmi] released by Barack Obama…He had been released back in 2009 even though the Department of Defense recommended that he stay behind bars. One hundred twenty-two prisoners released from Gitmo have returned to the battlefield.”
Fox reiterated that announcement in a tweet that again stated “at least 122 former Gitmo detainees have re-engaged in terrorism.” the rich asshole could easily have asked any of the experts in his orbit about a numbers breakdown, but instead he decided to wing it, posting a tweet incorrectly blaming Obama. “122 vicious prisoners, released by the Obama Administration from Gitmo, have returned to the battlefield,” the rich asshole wrote in the Twitter missive. “Just another terrible decision!”
That’s a fairly funny claim from the king of terrible decisions. The Daily Banter gets to the heart of the problem here:
Naturally, the rich asshole leaped to the conclusion that all 122 detainees mentioned in the piece were released by President Obama. They weren’t. In fact, according to the Director of National Intelligence’s website, President Bush released 532 detainees from Guantanamo Bay, and 113 of those former detainees returned to “the battlefield.” Meanwhile, Obama released 161 detainees, with just nine returning to the battlefield. So, no, Obama didn’t release 122 “vicious prisoners” from Gitmo who returned to terrorism. He released 161, but only nine of them rejoined al-Qaeda.the rich asshole lied.
5. When he even retweeted a Fox spelling error of his own words.
While delivering a speech in Poland last summer, the rich asshole declared that “the West was saved with the blood of patriots.”
Fox News aired the speech, but instead of the rich asshole’s actual words, the chyron offered a misquote that read, “POTUS: WEST SAVED BY THE BLOOD OF PATRIARCHS.”
The error itself isn’t that extraordinary. Tickers, chyrons and other onscreen graphics are often written quickly, and mistakes are bound to happen. That, or Fox News believes the rich asshole truly meant to say that bloodthirsty dads, fighting to the death, are the real heroes. Both of these things seem equally likely.
In any case, the rich asshole tweeted the Fox News clip featuring the typo, despite the fact that it contained a total misstatement of his own words.
As another Twitter user noted, footage from just after the speech seemed to show the rich asshole aimlessly moving around the stage with no sense of where to go or what to do. I guess that fits well with not remembering his own speech.
NYT: Former the rich asshole campaign adviser told Australian diplomat Russia had dirt on Clinton
Washington (CNN) George Papadopoulos told an Australian diplomat that Russia had "political dirt" on Hillary Clinton in May of last year, a conversation that might have played a role in the FBI's decision to open an investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 election, according to a report published Saturday.
The New York Times reported that Papadopoulos, then a foreign policy adviser to some rich asshole's campaign, was drinking at an upscale London bar when he told Australia's top diplomat in Britain, Alexander Downer, that Russia had political information on Clinton.
A few weeks before their meeting, Papadopoulos was told Moscow had thousands of emails relating to Clinton, CNN has reported.
About two months after the meeting with Downer, after WikiLeaks posted hacked Democratic National Committee emails online, Australian officials passed Papadopoulos' information along to their US counterparts, the Times reported, citing four current and former American and foreign officials with direct knowledge of the Australians' role.
Lawyers for Papadopoulos and Australian officials did not immediately respond to CNN's request for comment Saturday. White House special counsel Ty Cobb declined to comment on the Times' report.
"Out of respect for the Special Counsel and his process, we are not commenting on matters such as this," Cobb said in a statement, referring to Department of Justice special counsel Robert Mueller's Russia probe. "We are continuing to fully cooperate with the Special Counsel in order to help complete their inquiry expeditiously."
The news appears to add to the number of pieces of intelligence, separate from a dossier compiled by a former British spy about the rich asshole-Russia ties, that raised concerns among US national security officials and propelled an investigation.
the rich asshole, the White House and the rich asshole campaign officials have downplayed Papadopoulos' role in the campaign, dismissing him as a "low-level volunteer" and just a "coffee boy." But Papadopoulos represented the rich asshole campaign at various meetings with foreign officials up until Inauguration Day.
Papadopoulos' fiancee, Simona Mangiante, told CNN in a recent interview that Papadopoulos was anything but a coffee boy. Mangiante, who explained she spoke out because Papadopoulos could not, said he worked with senior members of the rich asshole campaign. "He worked with Michael Flynn during the transition, and he was actively contributing to the foreign policy strategies for the campaign," she said. "He didn't take any initiative on his own without campaign approval."
In October, Papadopoulos pleaded guilty to making a false statement to the FBI "about the timing, extent and nature of his relationships and interactions with certain foreign nationals whom he understood to have close connections with senior Russian government officials," according to court filings.
Papadopoulos pushed to set up a meeting between Russian President Vladimir Putin and then-candidate the rich asshole, and had a meeting in April 2016 with a professor who told him that "the Russians" possessed "dirt" on Hillary Clinton in the form of "thousands of emails," according to court filings.
Ever since the charges were unsealed, the rich asshole's allies have dismissed the former campaign adviser's influence.
CNN's Evan Perez and Mary Kay Mallonee contributed to this report.
By Paul Callan
Updated 6:44 PM ET, Sat December 30, 2017
(CNN)The ferocity of President some rich asshole's recent attacks on the integrity of the FBI has sent shock waves through an agency accustomed to public adulation in recent years. Sadly, much of the presidential criticism of the bureau may be entirely legitimate.
The FBI has traditionally enjoyed a highly favorable reputation among a majority of the nation's citizens. Despite controversial programs that sometimes employed illegal forms of surveillance and enforcement methods -- such as those used on black citizens lawfully protesting racial segregation, individuals in the "red scare" of the 1950s and long-haired students and others protesting the war in Vietnam during the 1960s and '70s -- this reputation endured.
And American presidents continued to steadfastly defend the bureau -- that is, until now.
The tradition of presidential support was unquestionably grounded at least partially in the fear of J. Edgar Hoover's rumored 50-year political skeleton "dossier," which would undoubtedly make the controversial "Steele dossier" look like child's play.
But Hoover is gone now, and President the rich asshole's persistent attacks have the potential to inflict long-lasting reputational damage to the nation's preeminent law enforcement agency. These criticisms focus largely on FBI fumbles and missteps in the Hillary Clinton and the rich asshole/Russia investigations, which the President suggests were deliberate attempts to sabotage his election and administration. the rich asshole supporters and possibly the President himself say they see the workings of a conspiratorial "deep state" liberal-embedded bureaucracy fiercely resisting any conservative change.
Some of the rich asshole's recent criticisms of the agency relate to the alleged activities of FBI special agent Peter Strzok and FBI lawyer Lisa Page. An investigation by the Justice Department's inspector general revealed that the two exchanged text messages strongly indicative of anti-the rich asshole and pro-Clinton bias while Strzok played a critical role in the Clinton investigation and a subsequent lesser role in Mueller's the rich asshole/Russia probe. (A CNN reporter, in a news article after the text message controversy erupted, wrote that an attorney for Strzok did not respond to a request for comment, and Page could not be reached for comment.)
In addition, the President continues to call the Russia investigation a "witch hunt" and to castigate the agency's deputy director, Andrew McCabe, for alleged "bias" and incompetence.
Last Saturday, the President tweeted that former FBI Director James Comey, whom he fired, is a "liar" and called him "leakin' James Comey."
the rich asshole also issued a clearly derogatory "Wow" comment regarding the unexplained reassignment of the FBI's general counsel, James Baker, reportedly a close friend of Comey's.
The President may have been angered by reports that McCabe was backing Comey's claim that the President made a loyalty demand and requested leniency for his former national security adviser, Gen. Michael Flynn, who is now a convicted felon awaiting sentencing under federal indictment.
When news of the text messages between Strzok and Page came to light against the backdrop of claimed McCabe improprieties, it became harder to just dismiss all of the rich asshole's FBI conspiracy claims as delusional -- though many of his critics do.
Strzok was one of the FBI's top counterintelligence agents supervising the investigation of Clinton's controversial email problems. He subsequently joined Robert Mueller's the rich asshole/Russia investigation, and the question lingers as to why his obvious anti-the rich asshole prejudice was not uncovered in his job interview for the position with Mueller.
Why didn't McCabe warn Mueller of Strzok's likely bias, which he should have known from his own day-to-day conversations with Page and Strzok at FBI headquarters? Page reportedly worked for McCabe, who certainly also had frequent contact with Strzok -- again, the FBI's No. 2 counterintelligence agent.
This assessment is admittedly speculative, but it is speculation grounded in common sense.
Strzok was abruptly removed from the Mueller investigation in mid-summer of 2017. It seems that he had exchanged a series of 375 text messages with Page, clearly documenting their joint revulsion at all things the rich asshole. The President is variously described as a "loathsome human," an "idiot" and a "douche," while they describe the prospects of the President's election as "terrifying."
The shocking aspect of the Strzok/Page discussions about the "terrifying" possibility of the rich asshole's election is that some of those discussions may have taken place, according to one of Strzok's texts in "Andy's Office."
CNN has reported that the text was presumably referring to the office of FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe in August of 2016. Page had previously opined, according to the texts: "There's no way he gets elected." Strzok, however, texted that even if the rich asshole's election is a long shot, "I want to believe the path you threw out for consideration in Andy's office ...that there's no way he gets elected -- but I'm afraid we can't take that risk. It's like an insurance policy in the unlikely event you die before you're 40."
The most benevolent interpretation of this Strzok statement, as suggested by The Wall Street Journal, is that Strzok was advocating a fast and aggressive pursuit of the Russia investigation "because some of some rich asshole's associates could land administration jobs and it was important to know if they had colluded with Russia," according to the Journal's story.
But there is more. Strzok was the FBI agent who changed the language used by former Director Comey in his controversial July 5, 2016, public statement clearing Clinton of criminal charges regarding her handling of classified materials. Strzok changed the final draft wording of Comey's statement from "grossly negligent" (which is commonly used in criminal cases) to the softer, non-criminal "extremely careless" wording.
the rich asshole supporters would point to this as evidence that Strzok, the FBI's No. 2 counterintelligence agent, appears to be executing a plan within the FBI to clear Clinton and then destroy the rich asshole's candidacy with the Russia investigation.
Causing further headaches for FBI brass, we now know that Deputy Director McCabe's wife, Jill McCabe, an unsuccessful Democratic 2015 candidate for the state senate in Virginia, had received approximately $700,000 in campaign contributions from then-Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe's political action committee and the state's Democratic Party. While this didn't violate any laws or FBI protocols, the association looks unseemly for an agency conducting an investigation with potentially historic implications.
McAuliffe had been the campaign chairman of Clinton's 2008 presidential campaign and has been described by onlookers as being "as close as family" to the Clintons.
While McCabe's wife certainly has a right to run for office, her acceptance of hundreds of thousands of dollars in campaign contributions from sources with clear links to the Clintons was a red-flag warning that should have caused McCabe to recuse himself from any involvement in any the rich asshole/Hillary related investigations. He had no business calling any of the shots in these sensitive probes that would likely influence the outcome of the presidential election. The FBI has stated that McCabe acted in accordance with stated agency protocols while his wife was running for office.
McCabe remains a very important figure in the unfolding Mueller investigation; the latest reports are that McCabe may be a key witness backing Comey's claim that the President had improperly asked him to terminate the Flynn investigation. McCabe's credibility, however, may now be compromised by the facts and circumstances regarding Strzok's text messages, the meetings in "Andy's Office" and the political contributions given to McCabe's wife.
While I rarely agree with much of what the President does or says regarding legal issues, this time he's got it right. The FBI's reputation has been severely damaged not by the President's criticism but by a systematic failure of the bureau's leadership.
The field agents of the FBI should still retain the trust of the American people. Their honor and dignity has not been compromised; but the bureau's leadership ranks require a prompt and thorough house cleaning by the new director, Christopher Wray. The bureau's leadership has forfeited the reputation of a cherished American institution.
My personal hero
October 28–
A cyclist gives the middle finger to the motorcade of US President some rich asshole as it departs the rich asshole National Golf Course in Sterling, Virginia.
Brendan Smialowski/AFP/Getty Images
Suzanne Gamboa and Daniella Silva 12-30-17
HUMACAO, Puerto Rico — The world-renowned resort community here is a ghost town. No one sits by the three-tiered pool even though it's high tourist season. At the area's largest hospital, four of the five floors are closed. Long lines still form for ice and water. Livelihoods have disappeared. "No hay luz" (there is no power) is a repeated refrain from almost everyone.
It has been three months since Hurricane Maria entered Puerto Rico like a battering ram through Humacao, sweeping through this southeastern coastal city and into the island's history as its worst natural disaster.
But the catastrophe continues. Still largely without electricity and clean water, people who withstood the hurricane's force feel abandoned and question whether the U.S. government cares about their survival.
Just about 45 minutes from the capital of San Juan — longer with the heavy traffic now on the main highway — Humacao used to draw tourists and Puerto Rican vacationers every year. Charter yachts took passengers through the warm waters to the smaller Puerto Rico island of Vieques. It is known for the world-class golf course at the Palmas del Mar resort and its pharmaceutical and medical supplies industry.
But as of mid-December, the U.S.-based pharmaceutical giant Bristol-Myers Squibb — which manufactures cardiovascular and anti-diabetes products and employs about 300 people — was still running on generators. More than half of the city's schools were closed, along with an untold number of businesses, including Humacao's major shopping center, which housed Walmart, J.C. Penney, Marshall's and the local Capri department store, among others.
"We are still in Maria. Maria has not left Humacao," said Jahaira Paris, owner of a local drugstore, Farmacia Central, in Humacao's city center. Although her business is operating on generators and seeing a spike in sales because the big shopping center is closed, she waits for electricity at home and only recently got running water.
This area has been the last to receive help, has been the area that help has come to the slowest, even though it's where Maria got its start, said Puerto Rico Sen. José Dalmau Santiago. Right after the hurricane, there were no images from Humacao of mudslides and bridge collapses and refugee camps as in other communities, so "they looked here too late," he said.
Dalmau, former president of the Senate Health Committee, worries about the effect of this limbo on the city's pharmaceutical industry and the jobs it provides.
"It is a profound problem and I'm not sure if the government knows the magnitude of it," Dalmau said.
The endless delay in providing power to the city is the result of several factors, including bureaucratic stumbling over the restoration to a long-outdated electrical grid run by a bankrupt power company that is $9 billion in debt. The Army Corps of Engineers considers Humacao "ground zero" for the force of the hurricane, which left the power grid destroyed and in need of a complete rebuild, according to Jay Field, public affairs officer for the Corps' power restoration task force.
Other cities that weren't as affected are in better shape than Humacao, where finding open gasoline stations is still a guessing game each day and the phone signal is erratic.
With factories and businesses not fully up and running because there is no electricity, workers' income and business and tax revenue are being lost. Buying staples like clothing requires going to San Juan or other towns.
"Humacao wasn't like that," Paris said. "Humacao had everything."
For many residents, life has been reduced to getting through each day, working to ensure there's enough water, ice, gasoline, oil and food. Without electricity, the pumping stations that clean the water don't work, and unrefrigerated food quickly spoils.
The stress of that daily scramble has sent hundreds of thousands fleeing the island, largely to Florida.
Puerto Ricans sticking it out wonder how long they can last, particularly given the predictions that it could be months, even a year, before Humacao is fully on the grid.
It's a prospect Paris doesn't want to endure.
"I'm desperate," she said. If it takes that long, "I think I'd also get on a plane."
'It's changed our lives radically'
The violent storm ripped the livelihoods from Jose Torres Torres and others who belong to the Asociación de Pescadores Unidos (the United Fishermen's Association) de Punta Santiago. The group of 16 plucked fish daily from the island's waters and sold them to local restaurants.
But Hurricane Maria destroyed some of their boats and the fish seem to have scattered.
"This is octopus season and I see none. They have left the area," Torres said, pointing to two small bags of lobsters caught that day. "Like all Puerto Ricans, it's changed our lives radically," he said. "The suffering, the pain, the loss of how to make a daily wage."
Torres knows it will take time for the sea to recover. With the rest of the city ailing, there are few jobs, so there is desperation, Torres said.
"This is so slow and the damage is great," Torres said. "In eight months, we'll be right back in hurricane season. It would be so sad for that time to come and for us to go through something like that again. This would practically turn into a deserted island."
'Everyone is traumatized'
On Sept. 20, when Maria pounded its way into Humacao, Torres awoke to the sound of screams from his daughter and granddaughter. They were clinging to a fence gate behind their home in rushing floodwaters. Torres managed to pull them inside to safety, but nearly being sucked into Maria's viciousness has left them shaken.
The memory of the disaster is impossible to ignore, particularly in areas of Punta Santiago, a community in the northeast corner of the Humacao municipality, where debris and destroyed belongings still sit in streets and many people, including Torres, line up to receive basic necessities at churches and a nonprofit.
"Many don't want to admit it, but you've lost everything in less than 12 hours. You can still see it with your own eyes, that you've lost everything," Torres said. "Everyone is traumatized."
The Federal Emergency Management Agency has distributed nearly 2,500 tarps in the Humacao municipality — the area that encompasses the city of Humacao and nine "wards" or communities. It's also given out about $15 million in grants that don't have to be repaid and $1.1 million to the city, according to FEMA spokesman Daniel Llargués.
But those are stopgap fixes. Humacao can't really get back on its feet until there is electricity.
Humacao's residents, and essentially everyone without power in Puerto Rico, are at the mercy of an electrical system that was known to be frail, decrepit, mismanaged and broke long before Hurricane Maria hit.
The island got a preview of things to come when Hurricane Irma sideswiped Puerto Rico on Sept. 6 and left 1 million without power. Even before Irma, island power outages were frequent.
Weeks before Hurricane Maria ravaged Puerto Rico, Ricardo Ramos, the former head of the Puerto Rico Electrical Authority, PREPA, doubted the electrical grid could withstand a major storm and told Caribbean Business that the lifespan of most of PREPA's equipment had expired.
If a large "atmospheric event" hit Puerto Rico, it would "wreak havoc because we are talking about a very vulnerable and fragile system at the moment," Ramos said. He predicted power would be out for weeks, underestimating the coming catastrophe.
Hurricane Maria has revealed that PREPA does not have the poles, wires and other equipment to repair its electrical grid. Brigades of electrical crews can be seen in Puerto Rico, but their work can't progress until they have the parts to put everything back together.
For example, as of Dec. 15, the island needed 52,480 poles. It had 6,228 as of that date with another 8,500 to arrive over two weeks, Caribbean Business reported. Also, 17 million conductors, which carry the electrical charge, are needed, but just 347,000 were on the island. Workers had 7,639 insulators of 184,750 needed, the news outlet reported.
"You can have all the brigades in the world, but if you don't have the equipment and material, nothing gets done," said Philipe Schoene Roura, executive editor of Caribbean Business.
There has been some movement in getting some power to the island. The Puerto Rico government jettisoned a highly controversial $300 million contract with Whitefish Energy, a company considered inadequate for the job. The island's governor, Ricardo Rosselló, has requested help from utilities in the U.S., which has brought in workers and crews. Mega-generators are powering some parts of the island.
Michael Hyland, vice president of the American Public Power Association, an industry group, said PREPA divided the country into seven regions. Teams under supervision of a "storm boss" hired by the utility industry are taking stock of what is needed by region and ordering supplies from the mainland.
"I think you are going to see a steady increase (of supplies) in the next three weeks," Hyland said.
Getting enough equipment is itself a dilemma. With Texas and Florida also recovering from hurricanes, and California still suffering from wildfires, there is a shortage of the poles, cable transformers, fuses, towers and insulators that are needed, Field said in an email.
Meanwhile, the Army Corps is installing "microgrids," which can operate without a connection to the main grid, in communities in the Humacao municipality. The microgrids are meant to provide power in areas where the grid is not expected to be energized in the near future, Field said.
Puerto Rico's flimsy electrical system is "the result of decades, decades, decades of mismanagement, of treating PREPA as a cash cow by whomever was ruling the roost at the time, making decisions that were practically criminal," said Mike Soto-Class, co-founder and president of the Center for a New Economy, a San Juan-based non-partisan think tank.
"Now we are caught face-to-face with the reality of what that meant," he said.
For Maria Martinez, 68, who lives in Punta Santiago, it has meant sleeping every night at her son's house, where she feels more secure even though there is no electricity and the water comes from a well that her son dug. She returns daily to her home, where she waits for FEMA officials to assess her losses.
"The rain came in. I lost my bed, another bed, everything in the living room," Martinez said, crying as she recalled seeing her home for the first time after the hurricane. "Now at night, with no lights, it is not secure for me. I feel sad. The depression is still hard."
A hospital's destruction
The hurricane came in with tornadoes and "whirlwinds" when it entered at Humacao and made landfall at nearby Yabucoa.
Its fierce torrent turned Hospital Ryder-Humacao's metal roof into a colander. There were 79 patients at the 173-bed hospital at the time, a lot during a hurricane, said José Feliciano Sepulveda, the hospital's executive director.
Then came several more days of rain. "We had to move patients from one floor to another as one floor would get filled with water and we couldn't control it," Feliciano said.
Then the only power source, an emergency generator, failed, forcing the hospital to evacuate patients, including six in intensive care. Five went by helicopter to the USNS Comfort, the Naval hospital ship that had arrived at San Juan that day. Until the start of December, the hospital was forced to operate on generator power and had to turn away non-emergency patients, including women who had gone into labor, but had time to get to another hospital.
Electricity returned to the hospital at the start of December, but was unstable in its first week, creating teeth-clenching days of hope that it stayed on in critical times.
Beyond the millions of dollars in damage, "many doctors have left because they don't have work now, especially surgeons," Feliciano said. Hospital officials hope to open a couple more floors by the end of the year, get working again and maybe lure back some doctors.
But many people need more help than doctors can provide, Feliciano said.
"I think the elderly are suffering a lot from this and maybe they'll last some time, but if things don't get solved immediately the depression can kill them," he said.
'People have died because we didn't have power'
The lack of power, especially at the hospital, "es lo que me quita el sueño" - it's what keeps me up at night, said Dalmau, before ticking off the deaths he attributes to hospitals being off the grid.
A woman in Caguas in frail health had a routine knee operation as Hurricane Maria was closing in, but died in recovery when the generators failed, he said.
The oxygen machine of the mother of a friend of Dalmau's failed when the electricity went out at the nursing home where she was staying and she died. A 70-year-old friend of his father, who had emphysema, decided not to go to the hospital when he had breathing problems because the hospital lacked power. That decision proved fatal, Dalmau said.
The official death toll from Hurricane Maria is 64, far more than the 16 cited by President some rich asshole, who said Puerto Rico should be proud the number was so low. But the toll of 64 deaths is itself believed to be far too low. A recent estimate by The New York Times suggested the real number may be more than 1,000.
On Dec. 18, Rosselló acknowledged for the first time that hurricane deaths may be higher than the official toll. He has ordered a review of all deaths since Maria.
As long as there is no power, the Puerto Rican death toll could continue to rise.
José Oquendo Cruz, executive director of the area's largest non-profit helping the disadvantaged, P.E.C.E.S., said a cousin rode his bike to his nephew's home to break the boredom of being in his home without power. Riding in the dark in Punta Santiago with no electricity to power streetlights, the cousin was hit and killed by a car whose driver fled.
"So the question is, is this a consequence of Maria?" Oquendo asked. "I would answer, obviously yes, because there's no power and without power, crime goes up and there's no civic responsibility. The number of deaths that the government is reporting is not (correct). There are many more."
A grasp at normalcy amid economic uncertainty
Along Humacao's roadways, there are signs that some city residents are finding a bit of firmer footing: Diners sit at stools on the patios of reopened chinchorros, the local roadside eateries where visitors and residents stop for beer, Puerto Rican frituras (fritters), music and camaraderie.
A few employees from the Bristol-Myers Squibb pharmaceutical plant were out at a local Chili's for lunch recently. There are shorter lines at bank ATM machines in a smaller shopping center and now and again some Christmas lights are glowing.
But the appearance of normalcy is an illusion, because many residents say parts of their lives still are in chaos.
At Humacao School Supply in the city center, a young girl in a plaid school uniform browses through the aisle. Store owner Wilfredo Rodriguez reopened a week after Maria, thanks to a large generator and a building reinforced after the island was hit in 1998 by Hurricane Georges.
But sales at his more than two-decades old business plummeted 50 percent in the first month and now are off 20 percent. At his home at the Palmas del Mar resort, he sees work crews, but not the usual tourists and vacationers.
"Humacao is in crisis," Rodriguez said. "The people are trying to get back up, but the crisis is still very much here."
Hurricane Maria's window of opportunity
In the neighborhood of Punta Santiago, one of the city's poorest areas, people line up in their cars or arrive on bicycle or foot for bags of ice handed out by P.E.C.E.S., the large Humacao non-profit.
Later, some may head a few blocks up the street to Nuestro Señora del Carmen Catholic Church for a free meal or to use the washers and dryers set up there for hurricane victims.
In the midst of the disaster, non-governmental organizations, known as NGOs, are taking on an outsized role that is a remarkable shift for Puerto Rico, considering such groups' usually subordinate role to government.
Before the hurricane, P.E.C.E.S. largely provided education and social services. After the hurricane, it became a distribution center, helping get donated and government-supplied goods to the community and continuing the work even when officials have said the worst is over.
"Every day we have more people coming because other (disaster) centers have closed" Oquendo said. On Dec. 5, P.E.C.E.S. had served 431 people, a day officials considered slow.
"The federal government, FEMA, finished and the U.S. Army that was here determined the emergency is over," Oquendo said. "I don't know what it means that the emergency is over ... What happens to the people?"
P.E.C.E.S. is now trying to find ways to use this period to make Punta Santiago self-reliant. With a $20,000 grant, it purchased a solar- and wind-powered water filtration system designed by Innovative Water Technologies that can clean 5-6,000 gallons of water daily.
In the future, the group wants to bottle and sell the water from the filtration system, create a solar power grid to provide the community with its own power source and overhaul the Punta Santiago drainage system that repeatedly floods.
"We have to build back better - in a stronger, more resilient way," said CNE's Soto-Class, whose group has been working with P.E.C.E.S. delivering water and supplies in Punta Santiago.
It's a tough road ahead.
Puerto Rico has been reeling from a decade-long economic crisis. Although Congress passed a law, known as PROMESA, to repay its more than $72 billion debt, it did little to reform the government, to start upgrading the electrical system or to stimulate economic growth for the island.
For now, like so many others in Humacao, Dalmau dreams of a "normal life." He said he looks forward to the day when the power returns, he can pour ice from his freezer, and sing the classic Rubén Blades song "Pedro Navaja" while standing under a hot shower for an hour.
Asked how he can be hopeful amid the despair, Dalmau recalled a period in the island's history when thousands died over two years from an epidemic that hit the island.
"If from an epidemic like that, where 100,000 Puerto Ricans died, we were able to rise up, why wouldn't we rise from Maria?" he asked. "Claro que nos vamos a levantar!" "Of course we will rise up."
Additional reporting by NBC contributor Istra Pacheco.
In holiday message to the rich asshole, Putin looks forward to ‘cooperation’ in 2018
In holiday message to the rich asshole, Putin looks forward to ‘cooperation’ in 2018
In a holiday greeting to President some rich asshole, Russian President Vladimir Putin said constructive dialogue between the two nations was key to addressing global threats.
Putin emphasized the importance of equality and mutual respect in bilateral relations, the Kremlin said in a statement Saturday.
“This would allow us to make progress in promoting pragmatic cooperation designed for the long term,” the message said according to a summary posted on the Kremlin's website.
The optimistic New Year's greeting comes a day after Putin’s spokesman said that Moscow views the continued strain on Russian-U.S. relations as a major disappointment of the year.
Asked about the Kremlin’s biggest disappointments of 2017, Putin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters that worsening relations with the U.S. were “certainly” on the list.
Despite the rich asshole long expressing interest in working with Russia — both to defeat ISIS and to help broker peace in Syria — his first year in office has marked a turbulent period for Russian-American relations.
The Kremlin's hopes for a warmer rapport have withered amid allegations of Russian meddling in the U.S. presidential election and the subsequent Congressional and FBI investigations into alleged links between the rich asshole’s campaign and Russia.
The two countries introduced tit-for-tat measures to rebuke each other all year, ranging from restrictions on embassy staff to legislation targeting state-owned media.
Russia has denied any interference in the U.S. election, and Peskov noted that the Kremlin is watching the ongoing U.S. investigations with “bewilderment.”
“It’s the U.S. internal business, but it certainly hurts bilateral relations and we regret that,” he said.
Earlier this month Putin said allegations of collusion between Russia and the rich asshole's campaign were "invented" by the rich asshole's opponents, as he praised the rich asshole's "serious achievements" in office.
In the wide-ranging session, Putin also called for improved relations with the U.S., saying America and Russia should "go forward without trying to be at one another's throats like animals."
He also said he and the rich asshole call each other by their first names.
Putin sent holiday greetings to other world leaders, including Syrian President Basahr al-Assad, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and British Prime Minister Theresa May.
Details of Putin's holiday greetings were published as Russia’s highest court upheld election officials’ decision to bar opposition leader Alexei Navalny from running for president in March’s election.
The Supreme Court ruled that the electoral commission's decision to bar Navalny fully conformed to law.
Putin, whose approval ratings top 80 percent, is set to easily win a fourth term in the March 18 vote.
Tracking President the rich asshole’s Visits to the rich asshole Properties
by
President some rich asshole frequently uses his luxury properties for government business and leisure, prompting ethics concerns over a president appearing to promote his private enterprise at public cost.
On Friday, the president, who is spending the holiday at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach, Florida, hit the links at his nearby club for the sixth day — a golfing streak only interrupted by Christmas Day on Dec. 25.
NBCNews.com and the NBC News White House unit are tracking the rich asshole's visits to his properties and golf courses since his inauguration.
Where does the rich asshole go?
the rich asshole's trips have so far been concentrated in Palm Beach, Florida. He also took a 17-day "working vacation" in August, spending 15 days at his Bedminster, New Jersey, golf club and two days at the rich asshole Tower in Manhattan. He also frequents his golf course in Washington, D.C. — and sometimes will visit multiple properties on the same day.
How many times has the rich asshole gone golfing as president?
the rich asshole has visited his golf clubs nearly 90 times in his first year.
However, the precise number of times the rich asshole has actually played golf is difficult to track. His administration has tried to hide the rich asshole's activity, keeping his traveling press pool away and often refusing to confirm whether he has played golf. Instead, social media has become a source of crowd-sourced reporting into the president's whereabouts.
But more than four months into his term, the rich asshole has visited golf courses at a faster clip than his three most recent predecessors, according to The New York Times. Politifact reports that as of November 2017, the rich asshole is confirmed to have golfed 35 times, while at the same point in his presidency, Obama had golfed just 11 times.
During the campaign, the rich asshole argued that Americans should vote for him because he would rarely leave Washington. He promised that he wouldn't go golfing or take vacations because there was too much work to do.
And prior to his run for president, the rich asshole spent years attacking President Barack Obama for golfing and taking vacations while in office.
When does the rich asshole visit his properties?
With the exception of his 15-day stay at his golf resort in Bedminster, the rich asshole usually frequents his properties on weekends. the rich asshole has referred to his Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach, Florida, as the "Southern White House" — and that's where he's hosted foreign leaders like President Xi Jinping of China and directed the launch of a strike against a Syrian airbase. His most recent visit, however, was over the Christmas holiday, which featured near-daily jaunts to nearby the rich asshole International Golf Club in West Palm Beach.
How much does the rich asshole's travel cost?
The president's trips can cost taxpayers millions of dollars because of the use of Air Force One and the expenses of the Secret Service, the Air Force, local sheriff's departments, the Coast Guard and other agencies. However, a precise accounting can't be made because the expenses aren't required to be disclosed.
In response to a recent report in USA Today that Secret Service's funding problems were partly caused by the president's large family and their multiple, oft-visited the rich asshole properties both in the U.S. and overseas, agency director Randolph "Tex" Alles said it was not an issue "that can be attributed to the current Administration’s protection requirements alone."
Presidents other than the rich asshole incurred similar questions about travel costs. Much of what is known about Obama's travel costs was obtained by the conservative watchdog group Judicial Watch, which aggressively sought receipts through Freedom of Information Act requests. In October 2016, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) issued its own report breaking out the costs of one specific trip taken by Obama, finding that a trip to Chicago and Florida cost $3.6 million.
This tracker automatically counts the rich asshole's days in office. When the rich asshole arrives at one of his properties, the tracker updates accordingly.
And now, some good news
the rich asshole wants to use DACA to get his border wall By Alex Lubben Dec 29, 2017
White House officials reportedly did not know about the interview, which was unsupervised and on-the-record, and were caught off guard and frustrated after it was published.
MSNBC panel names James Comey’s firing the rich asshole’s biggest mistake of 2017: ‘It set in motion two Russiagate investigations’
Joy Reid and Jonathan Capehart (Photo: Screen capture)
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Of all of the mistakes by President some rich asshole, from hiring Steve Bannon, Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn and Anthony Scaramucci to gaffes like “both sides,” one of these stands out: The firing of James Comey and the subsequent interview that followed with NBC’s Lester Holt revealing why he was fired.
According to MSNBC’s Joy Reid and Jonathan Capehart, the rich asshole’s world began to unravel with the single decision to get rid of Comey, because there was a paper-trail revealing why the decision was made. However, the rich asshole tied his own noose, stepped off the platform and hanged himself with the Holt interview.
“He made a recommendation,” the rich asshole said of deputy attorney general Rod Rosenstein. “He is highly respected. Very good guy. Very smart guy. The Democrats like him. The Republicans like him. He made a recommendation, but regardless of recommendation I was going to fire Comey, knowing there was no good time to do it. And in fact, when I decided to just do it I said to myself, I said, you know, this Russia thing with the rich asshole and Russia is a made-up story. It’s an excuse by the Democrats having lost an election that they should have won. And the reason they should have won it is, the electoral college is almost impossible for a Republican to win. Very hard. Because you start off at such a disadvantage. So, everybody was thinking they should have won the election. This was an excuse for having lost an election.”
“That confession really does set in motion part two of the Russiagate investigation by [special counsel Robert] Mueller and track one is whether or not the rich asshole campaign colluded with Russia,” said Joy Reid, who said up until that moment the White House had a “cover story” for why Comey was fired. “Did some rich asshole, himself, obstruct justice? some rich asshole seems to think, yes, he did.”
Capehart agreed with Reid, noting it was “absolutely” the biggest mistake of the year.
“Just recently, the president even said what we just saw in the clip there which is a made-up story by the Democrats to explain why they lost the election,” he said. “He wouldn’t have to be saying those things had he not fired Comey. In a normal presidency, James Comey would be still the FBI director. A normal president would allow the FBI to conduct its investigation, would say the proper things to get to the bottom of this, means something for the democracy, whatever the Russians did and fully cooperate and leave it at that.”
Instead, according to Capehart, the rich asshole decided he wanted to fight with the FBI instead of the Justice Department.
“And then keep fighting with everybody who keeps getting closer and closer to him,” Capehart continued.
Obama’s good news tweets are the finish to 2017 we needed
Former President Barack Obama chose to end 2017 with a spark of optimism for the year ahead.
In his year-end tweet roundup, Obama shared three stories from 2017 that “remind us what’s best about America.”
Obama elaborated in his last Obama Foundation email of the year, writing that there is “something inherently optimistic” about year-end round ups.
“More than anything, that's what's needed now - the engagement of everyone who wants to see a better future for our children. The kind of collective action that has always driven human progress. And even in the face of cynicism and division, it's those kinds of stories from 2017 that I'll remember,” he wrote.
The first story was about Kat Creech, a wedding planner in Houston, who organized her clients and their wedding guests to help Houston victims in the wake of Hurricane Harvey in early September. Creech created Recovery Houston, a volunteer organization that helped clear more than 120 wrecked homes in a single week.
Kat Creech, a wedding planner in Houston, turned a postponed wedding into a volunteer opportunity for Hurricane Harvey victims. Thirty wedding guests became an organization of hundreds of volunteers. That’s a story from 2017. click2houston.com/news/couple-po…
The second story was of Philadelphia Eagles defensive back Chris Long, who donated his entire season salary to fund high school scholarships in his hometown of Charlottesville, Va., and Pledge 10 for tomorrow, an educational equity campaign.
Chris Long gave his paychecks from the first six games of the NFL season to fund scholarships in Charlottesville, VA. He wanted to do more, so he decided to give away an entire season’s salary. That’s a story from 2017. philly.com/philly/sports/…
The third story involved 10-year-old Jahkil Jackson, who gave away food and toiletry kits to the homeless in Chicago. Jackson donated his goal “blessing bags” Thursday, the former President said, through the help of his organization Project I Am and from his school and community.
Ten-year-old Jahkil Jackson is on a mission to help homeless people in Chicago. He created kits full of socks, toiletries, and food for those in need. Just this week, Jahkil reached his goal to give away 5,000 “blessing bags.” That’s a story from 2017. chicagotribune.com/lifestyles/ste…
“Kate, Chris, and Jahkil were all living in the same country, during the same time, as you and me. They chose not to be daunted by challenges, but to stand up and make their world better,” Obama wrote in the Foundation letter.
Optimism, Obama says, is the key.
“Relentless, infectious optimism,” that doesn’t ignore the problems and challenges, but roots itself in the stories of progress, like the three he shared, he wrote.Good News Stories of 2017
He ended the letter with a call to action for anyone who wants to affect change.
“All across America people chose to get involved, get engaged and stand up,” the former President tweeted. “Each of us can make a difference, and all of us ought to try. So go keep changing the world in 2018.”
the rich asshole wants to use DACA to get his border wall By Alex Lubben Dec 29, 2017
President some rich asshole says he’s open to a deal with Democrats on DACA, but only if it includes funding for his border wall.
In an interview with the New York Times, the rich asshole laid out the contours of the coming fight on immigration, one that could put the president at odds with some members of his own party. For Democrats, he’s dangling DACA, the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, which allows people who were brought to the U.S. illegally as children to stay in the country for renewable two-year periods.
In exchange, the rich asshole wants his vision of immigration reform. In addition to the border wall, estimated to cost anywhere from $21 billion (the Department of Homeland Security’s estimate) to $70 billion (Senate Democrats’ estimate), he wants an end to chain migration, which allows families to bring other members to the U.S., and moving to a merit-based immigration system instead of the current lottery.
the rich asshole told the Times his position on immigration is unchanged.
“I’m just being practical,” Trump said. “No, I don’t think I’m changing. Look, I wouldn’t do a DACA plan without a wall. Because we need it. We see the drugs pouring into the country, we need the wall.”
Democrats in Congress opted to avert a government shutdown rather than push for DACA at the end of the year. But given the rest of Trump’s immigration agenda will be unpalatable to most Democrats and some Republicans, it sets up a big immigration fight when Congress returns in January.
In September, only 25 percent of congressional Republicans said they would support the president's $1.6 billion initial funding request to begin construction of the wall, according to USA Today.
Supporters of DACA, meanwhile, have been calling for what they call a “clean DREAM Act,” a new version of DACA that doesn’t come bundled with additional border security or immigration enforcement.
Trump took to Twitter on Friday morning to reiterate his point, for an end to “horrible” chain migration and the “ridiculous” lottery-based immigration system.
The Democrats have been told, and fully understand, that there can be no DACA without the desperately needed WALL at the Southern Border and an END to the horrible Chain Migration & ridiculous Lottery System of Immigration etc. We must protect our Country at all cost!
By Paul Vale Dec 29, 2017
some rich asshole’s impromptu sit-down with the New York Times in Florida on Thursday offered a 30-minute jaunt into the mind of a man burdened by the Russia probe, frustrated by foreign policy, and unconcerned with (or unaware of) the limits of presidential power.
Amid repeated denials of collusion with Russia, the president freewheeled on his relationship with the media, trade with China, health care, still no collusion with Russia, the tax bill, North Korea, and how he definitely did not collude with Russia.
The interview, which took place spontaneously after dinner at the rich asshole’s West Palm Beach golf resort with no aides present, sent Twitter into a spin. Many users condemned the newspaper for letting the president ramble without properly holding him to account. Yet the rich asshole holds forth unfiltered, he tends to make news. Here are five striking notes from the opus:
· the rich asshole believes he has the authority to do whatever he wants with the Department of Justice. Speaking about special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation, the rich asshole said the sooner the inquiry is finished the “better it is for the country,” but added he thinks Mueller will treat him fairly. “I have absolute right to do what I want to do with the Justice Department,” he said. “But for purposes of hopefully thinking I’m going to be treated fairly, I’ve stayed uninvolved with this particular matter.”
· On the same investigation, the rich asshole said the probe into Russian meddling makes the U.S. "look very bad" and "puts the country in a very bad position.” Repeating the phrase “no collusion” 16 times, the rich asshole maintained the claims were cooked up by the Democrats as “a hoax, as a ruse, as an excuse for losing an election” and said he believes Vladimir Putin’s denials. “I think he is very insulted by it, which is not a good thing for our country,” the rich asshole said of the Russian leader.
· the rich asshole said he is going to win the 2020 election because the media can’t do without him. “Newspapers, television, all forms of media will tank if I’m not there, because without me, their ratings are going down the tubes,” he said. “Without me, The New York Times will indeed be not the failing New York Times, but the failed New York Times. So they basically have to let me win. And eventually, probably six months before the election, they’ll be loving me because they’re saying, ‘Please, please, don’t lose some rich asshole.’ OK.”
· the rich asshole believes he is an expert on legislation, with a granular understanding of tax and healthcare policy. “I know more about the big bills than any president that’s ever been in office,” he said. “Whether it’s healthcare and taxes. Especially taxes.” the rich asshole continued: “I know the details of taxes better than anybody. Better than the greatest C.P.A. I know the details of healthcare better than most, better than most.”
· the rich asshole railed against China following reports that Beijing has been flouting sanctions by illegally exporting oil to North Korea. He said his stance on trade with China had been “soft” hoping the country would rein in the “nuclear menace” of Pyongyang. “Oil is going into North Korea. That wasn’t my deal.” he said. “If they’re helping me with North Korea, I can look at trade a little bit differently, at least for a period of time. And that’s what I’ve been doing. But when oil is going in, I’m not happy about that.”
On Friday morning, President some rich asshole decided to take on the U.S. Postal Service.
"Why is the United States Post Office, which is losing many billions of dollars a year, while charging Amazon and others so little to deliver their packages, making Amazon richer and the Post Office dumber and poorer?" he wrote on Twitter. "Should be charging MUCH MORE!"
The tweet gave the rich asshole the opportunity to slam Amazon (AMZN), which has been a frequent target of his ire. But with the tweet, the president also waded into a long-running, Byzantine debate over how much the Postal Service should charge for its services.
In short: the rich asshole is likely right that the Postal Service charges less than it really costs to deliver packages, and Amazon is one of its biggest customers. But that's not the root of the agency's fiscal problems.
First of all, the U.S. Postal Service is unlike any other business. It has a government sanctioned monopoly over first-class mail, which it is obligated to send to every corner of the United States for the cost of a stamp.
At the same time, it competes with FedEx and UPS to deliver parcels — but its rates are approved by a board appointed by the president, and almost every aspect of its operations are governed by Congress.
With email replacing snail mail, that first-class mail business has declined dramatically — it's down by 40% since peaking in 2000. Meanwhile, the parcel delivery business has exploded. But the Postal Service hasn't been able to compensate for collapsing mail volumes due to a 2006 law that capped price increases at the rate of inflation and also limited the proportion of its budget that could be devoted to its parcel business.
Still, the Postal Service might be able to eke out a profit if it weren't for another way in which Congress has tied its hands: It requires the agency to pre-fund its retiree health benefits and count them as operating expenses. In fiscal 2016, the Postal Service brought in $69.4 billion in revenue, was liable for $5.8 billion in retiree health benefits and reported a $5.6 billion net loss.
It makes sense to look to package delivery as a way to turn those fortunes around.
An analyst note by Citigroup from April found that prices would have to go up by $1.41 per package in 2018 — or about 40% — to reflect the true cost of delivery. (Those calculations are based on an analysis by UPS (UPS), which along with FedEx (FDX) stands to gain enormously if the Postal Service raises its prices, so they should be taken with a grain of salt.)
That could be a big hit to Amazon, which is one of the largest users of that parcel delivery service. The Citigroup analysts estimate that would add $2.6 billion to its current shipping costs, an increase of about 28%. Amazon did not respond to a request for comment.
Perversely, that could end up benefiting the Seattle retail behemoth. According to Citigroup, Amazon already gets bulk pricing discounts because of its enormous volume, and is rapidly building out its own distribution network, which will give it more delivery options down the line. For that reason, the Citigroup analysts predict that a Postal Service price hike would hurt other retailers more than Amazon.
"Such a scenario should further increase Amazon's cost advantage to consumers," Citi's note reads. "While the higher shipping costs would likely hurt Amazon's margin in the short-term, increased purchase frequency and customer density should benefit margins over time."
So, is any of this going to happen?
In the short term, partially. The Postal Regulatory Commission just completed a year-long reviewof rate-setting policy, and recommended that the Postmaster General be given the authority to raise rates a couple percentage points above inflation, which could bring the agency closer to breakeven.
Meanwhile, the Postmaster General has urged passage of legislation pending in Congress that would give the agency more control over its operations and relieve it of the burden of pre-funding health benefits. Looking forward, a coalition of unions and public interest nonprofits have advocated for allowing the Postal Service to provide other services, such as banking, through its vast network of post offices.
the rich asshole has sway over the Postal Service. He's made three board nominations, who are currently awaiting Senate action. By law, it's supposed to have nine appointed members, and currently it has none.
Correction: An earlier version of this article incorrectly stated the number of nominations the president has made so far to the Postal Service board.
NYT reporter defends impromptu interview with the rich asshole
BY AVERY ANAPOL - 12/29/17 08:26 PM EST
New York Times reporter Michael Schmidt on Friday defended his impromptu interview with President the rich asshole against backlash from readers who said he should have pressed the president harder.
“Some readers criticized my approach, saying I should have asked more follow-up questions,” Schmidt wrote in the Times’ “Insider” section. “I believed it was more important to continue to allow the president to speak and let people make their own judgments about his statements.”
Schmidt’s interview with the rich asshole at his Florida golf course made headlines Friday, as it was unplanned and unsupervised.
In the interview, the rich asshole said he had the “absolute right” to do whatever he wants with the Justice Department, and also said that he thought Special Counsel Robert Mueller would be “fair” to him in the investigation into whether his campaign colluded with Russia.
He also repeated at least 15 times during the interview that there was “no collusion” between the campaign and Russia.
"It is unusual to land an interview with the president, but even more rare for a reporter to get him one-on-one,” Schmidt wrote. “I knew that what I was doing was not going to go over well with the White House press office, which hates being blindsided by the president making news. But for much of the next half-hour, some rich asshole and I sat alone.”
One fellow journalist raising doubts about Schmidt's approach was Nate Silver, editor of the blog FiveThirtyEight, which was previously under the Times' umbrella. He posted on Twitter that the "argument for asking follow-up questions when you actually get a chance to interview the rich asshole is that he reveals his inner monologue all the time on Twitter anyway."
One argument for asking follow-up questions when you actually get a chance to interview Trump is that he reveals his inner monologue all the time on Twitter anyway. The marginal value of publishing a one-way conversation would be higher if he were more reserved on this forum. twitter.com/realDonaldTrum…
Schmidt wrote in the piece that in a past interview with the rich asshole, he learned that the president can “jump” from issue to issue and go off on tangents, which is why he did not ask more follow-up questions.
“If you try to interrupt him, he often continues talking,” Schmidt wrote. “Given this, I employed a strategy in which I asked questions about the most pressing issues of his presidency and then allowed him to talk.”
Daniel Dale, the Washington correspondent for the Toronto Star, had also rejected Schmidt's argument that he needed to let the rich asshole talk without interruption.
"Interviewers can - and do all the time - politely challenge wildly false claims without derailing the whole interview," he wrote on Twitter.
Very respectfully, I don’t think it’s a choice between “let Trump say anything he wants” and “play prosecutor and interrupt constantly.” Interviewers can - and do all the time - politely challenge wildly false claims without derailing the whole interview. twitter.com/maggienyt/stat…
White House surprised, frustrated by the rich asshole's New York Times interview: report
BY JULIA MANCHESTER - 12/29/17 06:33 PM EST
Various White House officials were taken off guard and frustrated by President the rich asshole's impromptu Florida interview with The New York Times, according to Friday report from The Washington Post.
The Post said that Times reporter Michael Schmidt gained access to the president at Mar-a-Lago on Thursday after club member Christopher Ruddy introduced the president and the reporter. No aides were present during the on-the-record session.
The newspaper quoted one official who was not aware of the interview, which was posted on Thursday evening, as asking, “What interview? Today?"
Another official was reportedly irked the sit-down took place and referred to it as “embarrassing.”
The wide-ranging Times interview with the president covered various areas such as his strained relationship with the news media and special counsel Robert Mueller's Russia election meddling probe.
the rich asshole told The Times he had the "absolute right" to do whatever he wanted in regards to the Department of Justice and that he believed Mueller would be fair to him in the probe.
The president also denied collusion between his campaign and Russia but said even if there was collusion, it would not be a crime.
White House communications director Hope Hicks reportedly checked in on the interview "from afar" after word began to circulate that the president was speaking with the press.
The Post reported the president as being enthusiastic about the interview and that he was happy that it was largely covered on television Friday.
THE RICH ASSHOLE HAS PSYCHOTIC BREAKDOWN, CELEBRATES FAILING PRESIDENCY WITH ANTI-THE RICH ASSHOLE TWEET
some rich asshole has a serious ego problem, and we have all been horrified at one time or another at the ridiculous lengths he will go to earn some praise. Unfortunately at this time in the rich asshole’s failing presidency, praise and positive news coverage has been pretty hard to come by – especially as the undeserving POTUS just passed a highly unpopular health care bill and is ending his first year in the White House with only one major legislative accomplishment.
the rich asshole is now so desperate for attention and ego-stroking that he’s taken to praising himself on and off Twitter – but his self-gratification has just taken a very embarrassing, concerning turn for the worst. the rich asshole has gotten so desperate that he’s actually tweeting things that make him look BAD instead of good!
Yesterday, the rich asshole tweeted a right-leaning the rich asshole-friendly poll that bragged about how only 46 percent of the country approved of the job he’s doing as POTUS. That same Rasmussen poll also reported that the majority of the country (53 perfect) does NOT approve of the rich asshole’s job performance!
the rich asshole is literally celebrating the fact that even the most pro-the rich asshole polls are reporting that most of America hates his living guts. This is nothing to brag about at all – especially when more accurate polls, such as Gallup’s latest survey, show that the rich asshole’s approval rating is only 38 percent!
the rich asshole has seriously lost his mind and his constant need for praise is actually starting to work against him. If the rich asshole would only stop playing golf, tweeting, and watching television and actually do some work, his approval rating might actually be something to celebrate – but until then, the rich asshole is apparently fine with celebrating his failures. The only thing he has succeeded at throughout his entire first year, is lowering our expectations.
Fires All 16 Members Via FedEx
All sixteen members of the Presidential Advisory Council on HIV/AIDS (PACHA) have been fired without warning or explanation, and overnight the White House website, HIV.gov, has been scrubbed of their names.
"With no explanation, the White House has terminated members of the Presidential Advisory Council on HIV/AIDS amid widespread discontent with President the rich asshole’s approach to the epidemic," The Washington Blade's Chris Johnson reported late Thursday night.
"After six members of PACHA resigned in June, the White House on Wednesday terminated the remaining 16 members without explanation via a letter from FedEx."
This archived version of HIV.gov from November lists many of the sixteen members. But the current site lists just two staffers who also are employees of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. The site states it was updated December 28.
Just two days earlier, VICE news (video above) reported members of the Presidential Advisory Council on HIV/AIDS "say they feel abandoned by the the rich asshole administration."
The Blade also points to this tweet from Lambda Legal senior attorney Scott Schoettes:
Schoettes also posted this tweet, calling the firings a "purge":
.@realDonaldTrump executing a purge: remaking the courts; ppl who use “transgender” and “vulnerable” out at HHS; #PACHA(#HIV council) members gone; wants to eliminate ppl @ FBI who didn’t vote for him; attempts to undermine free press.#Fascist #TrumpRussia #WeObject #Resist
In June six other members of the Presidential Advisory Council on HIV/AIDS resigned amid concern over the rich asshole's lack of action on HIV/AIDS. the rich asshole has also sought massive funding cuts to HIV/AIDS programs, both in the U.S. and around the world.
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Source reveals Russian tankers fueled North Korea via transfers at sea — the rich asshole refrains from Twitter attack
US President some rich asshole (right) and Russia's President Vladimir Putin talk during the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) leaders' summit in the central Vietnamese city of Danang on November 11, 2017 (AFP Photo/JORGE SILVA)
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Russian tankers have supplied fuel to North Korea on at least three occasions in recent months by transferring cargoes at sea, according to two senior Western European security sources, providing an economic lifeline to the secretive Communist state.
The sales of oil or oil products from Russia, the world’s second biggest oil exporter and a veto-wielding member of the United Nations Security Council, breach U.N. sanctions, the security sources said.
The transfers in October and November indicate that smuggling from Russia to North Korea has evolved to loading cargoes at sea since Reuters reported in September that North Korean ships were sailing directly from Russia to their homeland.
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“Russian vessels have made ship-to-ship transfers of petrochemicals to North Korean vessels on several occasions this year in breach of sanctions,” the first security source, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told Reuters.
A second source, who independently confirmed the existence of the Russian ship-to-ship fuel trade with North Korea, said there was no evidence of Russian state involvement in the latest transfers.
“There is no evidence that this is backed by the Russian state but these Russian vessels are giving a lifeline to the North Koreans,” the second European security source said.
The two security sources cited naval intelligence and satellite imagery of the vessels operating out of Russian Far Eastern ports on the Pacific but declined to disclose further details to Reuters, saying it was classified.
Russia’s Foreign Ministry and the Russian Customs Service both declined to comment when asked on Wednesday if Russian ships had supplied fuel to North Korean vessels. The owner of one ship accused of smuggling oil to North Korea denied any such activity.
The latest report came as China, responding on Friday to criticism from U.S. President some rich asshole, denied it had illicitly shipped oil products to North Korea.
North Korea relies on imported fuel to keep its struggling economy functioning. It also requires oil for its intercontinental ballistic missile and nuclear program that the United States says threatens the peace in Asia.
“The vessels are smuggling Russian fuel from Russian Far Eastern ports to North Korea,” said the first security source, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
Reuters was unable to independently verify that the vessels had transferred fuel to North Korean vessels, whether the Russian state knew about the sales or how many Russian vessels were involved in the transfers. It was also unclear how much fuel may have been smuggled.
Ship satellite positioning data consulted by Reuters and available on Reuters Eikon shows unusual movements by some of the Russian vessels named by the security sources including switching off the transponders which give a precise location.
The security sources said the Russian-flagged tanker Vityaz was one vessel that had transferred fuel to North Korean vessels.
The Vityaz left the port of Slavyanka near Vladivostok in Russia on Oct. 15 with 1,600 tonnes of oil, according to Russian port control documents.
Documents submitted by the vessel’s agent to the Russian State Port Control authority showed its destination as a fishing fleet in the Japan Sea. Shipping data showed the vessel switched off its transponder for a few days as it sailed into open waters.
According to the European security sources, the Vityaz conducted a ship-to-ship transfer with the North Korean Flagged Sam Ma 2 tanker in open seas during October.
Reuters could not independently verify the transfer as ship tracking data showed that the Sam Ma 2 had turned off its transponder from the start of August.
The owner of the Russian vessel denied any contact with North Korean vessels but also said it was unaware that the vessel was fuelling fishing boats.
Yaroslav Guk, deputy director of the tanker’s owner, Vladivostok-based Alisa Ltd, said the vessel had no contacts with North Korean vessels.
“Absolutely no, this is very dangerous,” Guk told Reuters by telephone. “It would be complete madness.”
When contacted a second time, Guk said the vessel did not have any contacts with North Korean ships and that he would not answer further questions.
An official at East Coast Ltd, the vessel’s transport agent, declined to comment.
Two other Russian flagged tankers made similar journeys between the middle of October and November, leaving from the ports of Slavyanka and Nakhodka into open seas where they switched off their transponders, shipping data showed.
In September, Reuters reported that at least eight North Korean ships that left Russia loaded with fuel this year headed for their homeland despite declaring other destinations, a ploy that U.S. officials say is often used to undermine sanctions.
A Russian shipping source with knowledge of Far Eastern marine practices said North Korean vessels had stopped loading fuel in Russia’s Far Eastern ports but that fuel is delivered at sea by tankers using ship-to-ship transfers, or even by fishing vessels.
China on Friday denied reports it has been illicitly selling oil products to North Korea, after the rich asshole said he was not happy that China had allowed oil to reach the isolated nation.
The United States has proposed that the United Nations Security Council blacklist 10 ships for transporting banned items from North Korea, according to documents seen by Reuters this month.
The vessels are accused of “conducting illegal ship-to-ship transfers of refined petroleum products to North Korean vessels or illegally transporting North Korean coal to other countries for exports,” the United States said in its proposal.
(Writers: Guy Faulconbridge, Jonathan Saul, Polina Nikolskaya Editing by Giles Elgood)
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