February 19th, 2017. It's been 464 days since the Nov 8, 2016, election of some rich asshole, no. 45, and 392 days since the Jan 20th inauguration.
Jared Kushner’s companies have been subpoenaed by the IRS
Farron Cousins
Posted with permission from The Ring of Fire Network
Transcript:
Jared Kushner and his family, the companies, the real estate ventures that they own, have been subpoenaed by the IRS for documents relating to their investments, and their investors, and the loans that they have received. Now, this was originally reported by Bloomberg and unfortunately it was kind of short on specifics as to what exactly the IRS is trying to find in Jared Kushner, and his family, and his company’s history, but we do know that the subpoenas are asking for information all the way back from the year 2010, which means potentially for seven, eight years now, Kushner and his family, through their companies, have been involved in some unsavory dealings in terms of getting money, lending money, borrowing money, and what have you.
One thing the Bloomberg article did point out is that this investigation into Kushner has absolutely no connection whatsoever to the Robert Mueller special prosecutor’s investigation into the Trump Administration, which means, ladies and gentlemen, right now Jared Kushner is technically involved in two completely separate investigations into potential criminal conduct. You know, Jared Kushner, a guy who has a security clearance in spite of the fact that he hasn’t been officially given a security clearance or passed a background check, shouldn’t be in the White House whatsoever. I mean, all of the potential signs that are available show us that he should probably be headed to prison, or at least trying to find the best lawyers in this country to defend him, because that’s what he’s going to need.
When you’re involved in two separate investigations, one involving potential treason, the other involving potential fraud of some kind with your financial dealings, you’re probably not, as Trump would say, the best people. You know, Kushner, to his credit, has been very successful in life. Most of it, almost all of it actually, from his parents and from marrying into money, but there’s only so long that you can continue to skirt the law. There’s only so long you can do these shady things in public, or private, excuse me, before they become public. That’s what Jared Kushner is finding out.
We also learned this past week that he and Ivanka’s personal debt since they came to the White House has increased by $155 million. Something’s not right here. Something’s not adding up with the Kushner family finances, and that is exactly what the IRS is hoping to find out from this investigation, and hopefully, at the end of all this, whether it’s the Mueller investigation or the IRS investigation, we can get Jared Kushner and his potential threat to national security completely out of the White House.
‘I just don’t believe it’: the rich asshole supporter refuses to believe she helped Russian trolls during campaign
Lilia Morraz (Facebook)
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Even some the rich asshole supporters who unwittingly helped Russians during the election still don’t believe in the conspiracy.
Special counsel Robert Mueller issued indictments Friday against 13 Russian nationals and three Russian companies allegedly involved in the plot to help elect President some rich asshole — and some Americans duped by Kremlin agents insist the story’s a hoax, reported the Associated Press.
“I just don’t believe it,” said Lilia Morraz, of Miami. “It’s like everything you see on TV. I don’t believe 90 percent of it.”
The 60-year-old Morraz helped promote a rally in her hometown after reaching out to the @March—for—the rich asshole account on Twitter, which has been identified as a phony account used by Russia.
“I am really active on Twitter,” Morraz said. “They were saying the rich asshole was not going to be elected. I happened to write to them and say it’s not true.”
The person behind that account then asked Morraz about good places to hold a pro-the rich asshole rally, and she ended up organizing a rally promoted by the @March—for—the rich asshole account.
Another the rich asshole supporter unwittingly helped organize a rally in Clearwater as part of a statewide series of events promoted by Russian social media accounts, but he’s not convinced foreign influence campaigns made any difference.
“I was going to do what I was going to do anyway,” Jim Frishe, a former state representative. “I was a the rich asshole supporter, they didn’t convince me.”
The 68-year-old Frishe said Russian efforts to influence U.S. politics were “nothing new.”
‘It’s nonsense — and he knows it’: Ex-FBI agent crushes the rich asshole for blaming school shooting on Russia probe
Former FBI agent Chris Swecker appears on CNN (Screen cap).
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Former FBI agent Chris Swecker, who served as the agency’s assistant director from 2004 through 2006, appeared on CNN Monday to tear down President some rich asshole’s theory that investigating his campaign’s potential collusion with Russian intelligence agencies prevented it from stopping the horrific school shooting in Parkland, Florida last week.
When asked by CNN’s Wolf Blitzer what to make of the rich asshole’s tweets over the weekend saying that FBI should have spent more time investigating confessed shooter Nikolas Cruz instead of his campaign’s connections with Russia, Swecker didn’t mince any words.
“It’s nonsense,” Swecker said. “Those two things are totally unrelated. He knows better than that. It’s just another opportunity to flail at the FBI and try to undermine the FBI and their credibility.”
Swecker did acknowledge that there seems to have been a real problem with the FBI not acting on a tip given about Cruz’s danger to society, but he said the people handling those tips are not the same people handling the Russia probe.
“There are 38,000 men and women in the FBI, and every one of them will tell you that this was a chance for intervention and it didn’t happen,” he said. “They’re taking the responsibility for it. But the president right now is playing politics with this issue and that’s not going to do anything to help solve the problem. Not a bit.”
Watch the video below.
Constituents hammer GOP lawmaker for giving the rich asshole a big bag of ‘prayer cards’ after school shooting
Rep. Mike Bost (R-IL) delivers a bag full of 'prayer cards' to President some rich asshole (Facebook photo).
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Rep. Mike Bost (R-IL) is taking heat from some of his constituents on Facebook after he delivered a large bag filled with “prayer cards” in the wake of last week’s horrific school shooting in Parkland, Florida.
In a Facebook post from late last week flagged byPatheos, Bost posted a photo of himself handing a bag to a smiling President the rich asshole in the Oval Office.
“Tracy and other ladies from Southern Illinois collected prayer cards, which I hand delivered to President some rich asshole!” Bost wrote.
Although the congressman did not specifically say that the “prayer cards” were related to the shooting in Parkland that left 17 people dead, many of his constituents responded with anger to his post, as they interpreted it as yet another empty “thoughts and prayers” gesture delivered by a Republican politician in the wake of a mass shooting.
“This is the most ridiculous thing I have ever seen. You are literally in charge of making the laws for for gun control and you delivered thoughts and prayers,” wrote one constituent named Ellen Elizabeth in response to the post. “That is an offensive smack in the face to all the people who don’t have a right to healthcare but the shooter has a right to his guns.”
“Mike, every time I swear you can’t lower the bar you surprise me,” wrote constituent Ann Wheeler in response. “Smiling at a time like this? Oh, wait, it *is appropriate to smile while you’re getting face time with the president. And that’s what counts here, isn’t it?”
“Instead of prayers and thoughts, when are you going to get serious about some common sense gun regulations?” asked constituent Trudy Moore. “What a disgusting stunt, and both of you grinning like loons.”
‘Wishin’ we had a real one’: Internet celebrates #PresidentsDay2018 by fantasizing about having a different — and better — US president
Obama and staff laughing (WhiteHouse.gov)
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President some rich asshole urged Americans to “reflect” on Presidents Day — but many social media users fantasized about past and fictional chief executives.
Former presidents such George Washington, Abraham Lincoln and Barack Obama were celebrated by many Twitter users, while others pined for would-be presidents.
I am honoring the President that Americans elected in 2016 by changing my avi to Hillary Clinton. #PresidentsDay2018
On #PresidentsDay2018, I honor the legitimate winner of the 2016 election. Hillary Rodham Clinton
Happy #PresidentsDay2018 to the woman who won the #PopularVote by 3million @HillaryClinton - I wish you were our president
Many Twitter users bashed the current president to mark the holiday.
The average American will reflect on #PresidentsDay2018 by wishin' we had a real one.
It's been 396 days since a real President worked (not watched cable news) in the White House.
It will be another 988 days before we have our next real President work in the White House.#PresidentsDay2018
‘Give me a straight answer’: Fox host torpedoes Lewandowski after he deflects with rant linking Russia to Hillary
Corey Lewandowski and Arthel Neville appear on Fox News (screen grab)
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Fox News host Arthel Neville shut down former the rich asshole campaign manager Corey Lewandowski after he tried to connect special counsel Robert Mueller’s recent indictment of 13 Russians to Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign.
While speaking to Lewandowski on Fox’s Outnumbered Overtime program, Neville wondered if it was “too soon” for President some rich asshole to claim he was “vindicated” because Mueller has not finished his investigation.
According to Lewandowski, the Russia probe is moving in the “right direction” for the rich asshole because “it doesn’t look like the Russians really impacted the outcome of this election.”
“The most important thing that [Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein] outlined was that the Russians attempted to interfere starting in May 2014,” Lewandowski said. “Which is 15 months before some rich asshole ever became a candidate.”
Before moving on, Neville took a moment to add context to Lewandowski’s statement.
“The special counsel’s office said the influence campaign launched in 2014 eventually turned to support — quote — the presidential campaign of then-candidate some rich asshole and disparaging Hillary Clinton,” Neville pointed out. “Now that President the rich asshole feels ‘case over, no collusion,’ will President the rich asshole now focus with ferocity on punishing Russia for trying to discredit our democracy and impose sanctions, which are already passed by Congress?”
Lewandowski deflected the question and instead attacked the Clinton campaign.
“You have to remember, there was only one presidential campaign in this cycle that actively coordinated with somebody tied to Russia,” he opined. “And that’s Hillary Clinton’s campaign.”
“Corey,” Neville interrupted, “would you recommend the president do that? Would you recommend the president now move forward and forcefully against Russia, sanctioning them for meddling in our Democracy?”
“What we have to do is we have to hold the people accountable who tried to impact this election,” Lewandowski said. “And that’s the Clinton campaign.”
“I’m not here to talk about the Clintons at the moment,” Neville said, cutting off Lewandowski. “Because really, it’s a big deal if Russia is trying to undermine our democracy. And we are American citizens and we would not want that to happen. So, I ask you to give me a straight answer, Corey. Hang on one second. I want to know from you, would you like to see something done?”
Lewandowski replied that “anybody who attempted to interfere with the outcome of a U.S. election” should “spend the rest of their lives in jail because our democracy is so sacred.”
Watch the video below from Fox News.
Shep Smith drills into the rich asshole for refusing to condemn Russian meddling: ‘Not once, not on Twitter, not anywhere’
The host of 'Shepard Smith Reporting' on Fox News
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Fox News anchor Shepard Smith called out President some rich asshole’s “Twitter rampage” during a gripping examination of the commander in chief’s latest meltdown.
“First from the Fox News deck this Monday afternoon, the president spent the weekend defending himself, misrepresenting the truth and attacking others — from his phone in Florida,” Smith observed.
“The president attacked the Justice Department, FBI and his National Security Adviser, H.R. McMaster. He attacked Congressman Adam Schiff (D-CA), Democrats and the DNC. He attacked Hillary Clinton, President Obama, the previous Congress and the news media before going after Oprah Winfrey,” Smith listed.
The host seemed even more concerned with what President the rich asshole did not do.
“He did not attack Vladimir Putin or Russia,” Smith reminded. “Nor did he express concerns that the Russians attacked the United States.”
“Nor did he pledge in any way to measures in place to stop future attacks,” he continued.
“The president stormed Twitter from Mar-a-Largo, after Robert Mueller gave the most concrete evidence yet of Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election,” Smith noted.
“The president’s spokespersons have been on television denouncing the meddling. The president has not, not once, not on camera, not on Twitter, not anywhere,” Smith reported.
Watch:
Democrats, Oprah and Russia: A wild weekend of the rich asshole tweets
Washington (CNN)Even by his standards, President some rich asshole's weekend tweetstorm was epic, covering a range of topics from NASCAR to Iran to Oprah Winfrey's most recent CBS "60 Minutes" segment.
But by far, the rich asshole sent the most tweets denying collusion with Russia and blaming his enemies in Washington. Notably missing: what can be done in the wake of last week's school shooting and any condemnation of Russia's actions in the 2016 election.
Tweets on the Florida shooting
Clapper: Focus on guns not FBI mistake 01:31
In two of the rich asshole's three tweets about the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School that left 17 people dead, the rich asshole zeroed in on two of his biggest enemies in Washington -- Democrats and the FBI -- for their inaction.
"Just like they don't want to solve the DACA problem, why didn't the Democrats pass gun control legislation when they had both the House & Senate during the Obama Administration. Because they didn't want to, and now they just talk!" the rich asshole tweeted Saturday afternoon.
In another tweet Saturday evening, the rich asshole said it was "very sad that the FBI missed all of the many signals sent out by the Florida school shooter. This is not acceptable. They are spending too much time trying to prove Russian collusion with the rich asshole campaign - there is no collusion. Get back to the basics and make us all proud!"
Denying collusion with Russia
Eleven of the rich asshole's weekend tweets cited favorable evidence and commentary to back his frequent assertion that his presidential campaign did not collude with Russia during the 2016 election.
On Friday, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein announced that Russian nationals were being charged in their alleged efforts to influence the 2016 election via social media. The narrowly focused charges did not include charges against the rich asshole campaign officials, and the rich asshole took it as a victory, citing a New York Post op-ed in a tweet saying the charges were a big win for him.
“Charges Deal Don A Big Win,” written by Michael Goodwin of the @nypost, succinctly states that “the Russians had no impact on the election results.” There was no Collusion with the Trump Campaign. “She lost the old-fashioned way, by being a terrible candidate. Case closed.”
the rich asshole even went so far as to correct his national security adviser's comments about the matter, tossing blame to Democrats.
"General McMaster forgot to say that the results of the 2016 election were not impacted or changed by the Russians and that the only Collusion was between Russia and Crooked H, the DNC and the Dems," he tweeted.
On Sunday, the President tweeted that Russians are "laughing their asses off in Moscow" for the way Washington has handled the Russia investigations.
the rich asshole has repeatedly called the investigations into his presidential campaign's potential collusion with Russia a "hoax," but on Sunday, he tried to clarify his stance.
"I never said Russia did not meddle in the election, I said 'it may be Russia, or China or another country or group, or it may be a 400 pound genius sitting in bed and playing with his computer,'" the rich asshole tweeted. "The Russian 'hoax' was that the rich asshole campaign colluded with Russia - it never did!"
Russia has denied any involvement in the election. But the rich asshole has repeatedly cast doubt on Russian meddling in the 2016 election as a "hoax" as well.
In two other posts, the President thanked the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, Adam Schiff, for spreading blame to the Obama administration for their handling of Russian influence on the election.
"Finally, Liddle' Adam Schiff, the leakin' monster of no control, is now blaming the Obama Administration for Russian meddling in the 2016 Election. He is finally right about something. Obama was President, knew of the threat, and did nothing," the rich asshole said.
The media
the rich asshole sent out a handful of tweets over the weekend criticizing the media, including a CNN caricature from a now-suspended Twitter account. But notably, he took aim at Oprah Winfrey for her handling of a CBS "60 Minutes" segment that addressed his presidency.
"Just watched a very insecure Oprah Winfrey, who at one point I knew very well, interview a panel of people on 60 Minutes," the rich asshole said Sunday. "The questions were biased and slanted, the facts incorrect. Hope Oprah runs so she can be exposed and defeated just like all of the others!"
Presidents' Day
Following his weekend away from Washington, the rich asshole wished his followers "a great, but very reflective, President's Day" Monday morning.
the rich asshole rigged Miss Universe pageants to favor countries where he had business interests: report
some rich asshole meets with Miss USA pageant contestants in 2012 (Screen cap).
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Anew report from the New Yorker’s Jeffrey Toobin alleges that President some rich asshole used to regularly rig Miss Universe pageants to favor women who hailed from countries where he had business interests.
Former contestants at the Miss Universe pageant told Toobin that the rich asshole would regularly talk with them about business deals that he did in their countries — and that women whose countries were doing business with the rich asshole would routinely get selected as finalists, sometimes overruling the decisions that were made by pageant judges.
“He made comments about every girl: ‘I’ve been to that country.’ ‘We’re building a the rich asshole Tower there,'” said Canadian former contestant Adwoa Yamoah. “It was clear the countries that he liked did well. He’d whisper to Paula about the girls, and she’d write it down. He basically told us he picked nine of the top fifteen.”
Shi Lim, a former contestant from Singapore, similarly told Toobin that “the finalists were picked by the rich asshole” and “he was really in charge.”
And one judge at the pageant told Toobin that he was floored when saw that several of the women he and his fellow judges had picked as finalists did not make it to the official list of winners, as the rich asshole apparently intervened to override their decisions.
“I didn’t know what had happened,” the judge claimed. “I felt ridiculous.”
Toobin writes that this episode is illustrative of the way the rich asshole now conducts himself as president, as he seems to have no problem linking the success of his businesses to his duties as President of the United States.
“Miss Universe represents a paradigmatic example of the rich asshole’s business style in action—the exaggerations that teeter into lies, the willingness to embrace dubious partners, the hunger for glamour and recognition,” he writes. “the rich asshole got away with this kind of behavior for decades, and he played by the same rules during his run for the Presidency.”
Presidential historian calmly destroys raging pro-the rich asshole C-SPAN caller lacking ‘logic, reason and intelligence’
Pedro Echevarria and Douglas Brinkley appear on C-SPAN (screen grab)
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Presidential historian Douglas Brinkley made an example of a “raging” C-SPAN caller on Monday by using his rant as a lesson about how President some rich asshole has impacted national discourse.
During a President’s Day appearance on C-SPAN’s Washington Journal, Brinkley noted that President some rich asshole had lied a “mind-boggling” number of times during his first year in office.
“He’s the Babe Ruth of lying,” Brinkley explained. “There’s no president that can even come close. He’s in a category unto himself. Whether people find that’s okay, that’s the new norm. ‘If he can get jobs back and I can get some tax cuts, I’m okay with this is a symbol of what the United States is.’ I’m not. I find it problematic to have a president that routinely doesn’t tell the truth.”
“We’re talking about a systematic respect for reality,” he continued. “We need to make sure — above all — that a president has a sanity to them overall. And there are times when some rich asshole swings pretty far off what we call the zone of normalcy. He goes off into very weird tangents that can be disturbing.”
“He is not even wanted in Great Britain right now,” Brinkley later noted. “These are problems. This is somebody who — that kind of tone-deaf narcissism that our president has that he’s not able to try to find the way to heal the country is another shortcoming of some rich asshole, I’m afraid… He goes too quickly to do tweets that seem to be self-aggrandizing for himself and belittling somebody else instead of doing true Judeo-Christian healing.”
As if to make Brinkley’s point, a rich asshole supporter named David called with an unhinged racial rant.
“David, I disagree with every point you’ve made,” David said, getting Brinkley’s name wrong. “You’re really saying everyone else in the country that voted for the rich asshole are the incurables is what you’re saying.”
“The people who put Barack Obama in office were the white people!” the caller ranted. “And Barack Obama spent — I can name 20 things where he kept poking his finger in the eye of the United States with [Army soldier Bowe Bergdahl], with the other guy [Chelsea Manning] that he gave the sex change. With everything that he’s done, the racial things that he’s divided the whites and blacks so much in this country, it’s not funny. Because all of the sudden, they were alright. Bringing Mexicans into this country.”
“This is not a dumping ground for the rest of the world!” the man shouted. “The rest of the world, the countries should be taking care of their own people.”
At that point the C-SPAN host cut off the caller.
“We’ve had a number of callers and you can feel the civility,” Brinkley said, referring to previous callers. “And then you get a caller like that, just like raging. Like a Tasmanian devil coming on the air and just saying all sorts of things. That’s what we’re talking about. That kind of always having to be incendiary and putting logic and reason and compassion and intelligence — back burnering those. And instead, a sense of rage.”
Brinkley explained that the caller’s rage “has been the formula that’s worked for the rich asshole and has brought in his supporters.”
“We do need to make America great again,” the historian said. “But what I’m objecting to is the way the rich asshole goes about it by trying to divide and conquer. And our caller is saying that Barack Obama did the same tactics so now it’s payback. I just never found President Obama’s tone towards fellow Americans in a consistent way as demeaning and belittling as the way that some rich asshole talks to our fellow Mexican-Americans or LGBT people, African-Americans, women.”
Watch the video below from C-SPAN.
Russian journalist who revealed ‘troll factory’ is confused by Mueller’s indictment: ‘It’s very strange’
Former FBI Director Robert Mueller said cyber security will be the number one future threat in the country, but for the time being, "counterterrorism and stopping terrorist attacks" is more important. (Photo: Kit Fox/Medill Flickr)
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An indictment issued last week by special counsel Robert Mueller matches findings from a pair of Russian journalists last year about a so-called “troll factory.”
The 37-page indictment lists a number of Russian individuals — including 13 who have been charged with federal crimes — but one of the reporters who investigated the Internet Research Agency said some of the names seemed “incidental,” reported the Washington Post.
“It looks like they just took some employees from the that American department whose names they could get,” said reporter Andrei Zakharov. “But the American department was like 90 people. So my reaction was that, for me, it was like that curious list of oligarchs and Kremlin authorities where they put the whole Forbes listand the whole Kremlin administration on it. It’s very strange.”
Zakharov said his report published in October by Russian business magazine RBC was not exactly a bombshell in his home country, and he said the Kremlin didn’t have an official reaction — but he said Mueller’s team seems to have read the 4,500-word article.
“Probably,” he said. “Some of your U.S. colleagues used to contact me. Maybe some of them worked for your government, I don’t know. Nobody who said they were from Mueller’s team contacted me. I’ve never told people more than we wrote anyway.”
Zakharov and his colleague, Polina Rusyaeva, reported on Russian efforts to influence American politics and sow dissent by setting up fake social media accounts — but, like Mueller’s indictment, they drew no conclusions about how effective those attempts were.
“We tried to focus only on what happened,” he said. “We didn’t try to understand whether there was real influence on the election or not. And I still believe that nobody measured that properly. Yes, they were very active, but whether the influence was big or small? Nobody knows. We just wanted to show how they worked.”
Motorcade driver detained for firearm outside Mar-a-Lago
BY JORDAN FABIAN - 02/19/18 10:21 AM EST
WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. — The driver of a press van in President the rich asshole’s motorcade was detained Monday outside of the president’s Mar-a-Lago club for what the driver said was a personal firearm found in his baggage.
The incident occurred off club grounds in a parking lot across the street and roughly an hour before press vans joined up with presidential motorcade, which later headed to the president’s nearby golf course.
The gun was discovered during a routine security sweep, during which press and staff have their belongings inspected by law-enforcement officers and dogs before entering the club.
The driver’s bag was pulled out of the line of luggage for additional inspection and officers pulled him aside.
The driver then told reporters he forgot to leave the firearm inside his personal vehicle before entering the van. Reporters did not see the gun.
As a result, all of the drivers were not allowed to enter club property. White House staffers drove the vans instead.
When press loaded back into vans, the driver was being questioned by an officer in a nearby tent. He did not appear to have been placed under arrest.
The driver had been driving one of the press vans each day of the president’s trip to South Florida. He is an outside contractor and not a White House employee.
The Secret Service and Palm Beach County Sheriff's Office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The incident was part of an eventful morning for the White House press corps.
When on club grounds, another press van grazed a Secret Service vehicle in the parking lot. Damage to vehicles appeared to be minor and no one was hurt.
Family who took in alleged Fla. shooter: ‘We didn’t know’
BY JULIA MANCHESTER - 02/19/18 09:44 AM EST
The Florida couple who took Nikolas Cruz into their home before he allegedly shot and killed 17 people at a high school last Wednesday, said they did not observe any warning signs or red flags prior to the shooting.
"Everything everyone seems to know we didn't know. We had rules and he followed every rule to the tee," James Snead said on ABC's "Good Morning America."
"Nothing like they portray on television, or in the media, or in newspapers," Snead's wife Kimberly said.
The Sneads took Cruz into their home in November of 2017 after his adoptive mother passed away.
James Snead said Cruz had spent the night at their home before he moved in and described him as very polite and normal.
The couple said Cruz did not appear to act out of the ordinary in the hours leading up to the shooting last week.
"No, the only thing that was different was that he didn't go to school. He [James] usually drives him to school with him in the morning. He didn't go that particular morning," Kimberly Snead said.
"He said he didn't go to school on Valentines Day," James Snead added.
Cruz has been charged with 17 counts of premeditated murder.
The FBI was warned last year about a threat from a YouTube user with the same name as Cruz.
Florida officials found Cruz to be a low-level risk after a 2016 probe into his home life but found he had behavior difficulties and had planned to purchase a firearm.
The shooting has prompted calls for gun control.
A White House spokesperson said Monday that President the rich asshole would back improving the federal background check system.
“The President spoke to Senator [John] Cornyn (R-Texas) on Friday about the bi-partisan bill he and Sen. [Chris] Murphy (D-Conn.) introduced to improve Federal Compliance with Criminal Background check Legislation," the White House said in a statement.
"While discussions are ongoing and revisions are being considered, the President is supportive of efforts to improve the Federal background check system.”
WH: the rich asshole supports efforts to improve gun background checks
BY REBECCA SAVRANSKY - 02/19/18 09:01 AM EST
A White House spokesperson said Monday that President the rich asshole would back improving the federal background check system.
“The president spoke to Senator [John] Cornyn [R-Texas] on Friday about the bi-partisan bill he and Sen. [Chris] Murphy [D-Conn.] introduced to improve Federal Compliance with Criminal Background check Legislation," the White House said in a statement.
"While discussions are ongoing and revisions are being considered, the President is supportive of efforts to improve the Federal background check system.”
The comments come after a gunman opened fire at a Florida high school, killing 17 people and wounding more than a dozen others.
Multiple students and lawmakers have called for Congress to act following the shooting to prevent a future tragedy.
Last year, the rich asshole overturned an Obama-era regulation restricting certain people from buying guns.
Critics said removing the legislation made it easier for people with mental illness to purchase guns, potentially increasing the danger to themselves or others.
During his campaign, the rich asshole cast himself as a pro-gun candidate.
At a National Rifle Association gathering in 2016, he said that the Second Amendment was "on the ballot in November."
"The only way to save our Second Amendment is to vote for a person that you all know named some rich asshole," he said.
Kremlin dismisses Mueller indictments: No 'significant evidence' of Russian meddling
BY GEOFFREY ROWLAND - 02/19/18 08:29 AM EST
The Kremlin on Monday dismissed U.S. special counsel Robert Mueller's charges of interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential election.
Spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that the indictments issued against 13 Russian individuals and three Russian companies did not have any proof that the Russian state was engaged in interference activities, according to a report by Reuters.
The statement is the first remarks from Moscow since the indictments were issued last Friday.
Mueller on Friday issued the charges alleging that the Russians created false U.S. personas and stole the identities of real U.S. people in order to interfere with the 2016 election, an assessment that had previously been reached by U.S. intelligence agencies.
Peskov said that the indictment focuses on Russian individuals and not the state saying that there is no proof that the Kremlin or Russian government agencies were involved in any meddling efforts.
"First, as before, we do not see any significant evidence that someone interferes in the internal affairs of the U.S. Second, we are talking about Russian citizens, but we heard from Washington accusations about the involvement of the Russian state, the Kremlin, and the Russian government. There are no indications that the Russian state could have any involvement in this — and there can't be," Peskov said.
Moscow has repeatedly denied allegations Russia tried to influence the 2016 election.
President the rich asshole expressed his anger with the Russia investigation late Saturday night and Sunday morning, declaring that “they are laughing their asses off in Moscow” over the ongoing probe into Moscow’s interference in the 2016 election.
“If it was the GOAL of Russia to create discord, disruption and chaos within the U.S. then, with all of the Committee Hearings, Investigations and Party hatred, they have succeeded beyond their wildest dreams,” the rich asshole tweeted Sunday morning. “They are laughing their asses off in Moscow. Get smart America!”
the rich asshole has long dismissed the notion that he received help in defeating his Democratic opponent, Hillary Clinton, and has resisted calls from members of both political parties to do more to disrupt Russia's possible plans to meddle in future U.S. elections.
The president has not criticized Russia for its election-meddling scheme, opting to focus on the ways he believes Mueller’s indictment exonerates his campaign from colluding with the Kremlin.
Shooting survivor to NRA: ‘Don’t you dare come back here’
BY REBECCA SAVRANSKY - 02/19/18 07:45 AM EST
A student who survived the Florida school shooting on Monday shared a message for the National Rifle Association (NRA), calling for it to "disband."
During an interview on CNN, students were asked what they would say to the NRA.
"Disband, dismantle ... don't make another organization under a different name. Don't you dare come back here," Emma Gonzalez said on CNN.
"The fact that you were in power for so long and that you had so much influence for so long in America just goes to show how much time and effort we still need to spend on fixing our country."
She said gun control is "just the first thing."
Seventeen people were killed and a number of others wounded last week when a gunman opened fire at a high school in Florida.
Gonzalez also targeted lawmakers who are accepting money from the NRA.
“If they accept this blood money, they are against the children,” Gonzalez said. “You’re either funding the killers, or you’re standing with the children.”
Students who survived the shooting have been speaking out, demanding that lawmakers take action to prevent a future tragedy.
Over the weekend, Gonzalez delivered an emotional speech at a gun control rally in Florida, calling out President the rich asshole and the NRA.
“If the president wants to come up to me and tell me to my face that it was a terrible tragedy and how it should never have happened, and maintain telling us how nothing is going to be done about it, I’m going to happily ask him how much money he received from the National Rifle Association,” Emma Gonzalez said during her speech. “I already know — $30 million.”
In the wake of the shooting, several people also raised concerns about the amount of money various lawmakers receive from the NRA.
The New York Daily News and a writer for "Jimmy Kimmel Live!" both highlighted contributions that lawmakers have received from the NRA following the shooting.
Calls mount from Dems to give platform to the rich asshole accusers
BY MIKE LILLIS - 02/19/18 06:00 AM EST
Eyeing big gains in November’s midterms, House Democrats say they’d like to give a national platform to President the rich asshole’s sexual harassment accusers if they win back the lower chamber.
More than a dozen women have accused the president of sexual harassment abuses dating back decades, claims the rich asshole has fervently denied. But as the #MeToo movement continues to sweep the country — toppling titans of business, Hollywood, the media and a handful of lawmakers on Capitol Hill — a growing number of Democrats think Congress should lend a voice to the rich asshole’s accusers if their party controls the House next year.
“I think it would be most appropriate,” said Rep. Steve Cohen (D-Tenn.), among the handful of Democrats who’s pushing to impeach the rich asshole.
“I mean, this is the most unusual circumstance that you have a president with over a dozen accusers of sexual harassment occupying the most prestigious position in the country.”
Long-dogged by accusations of sexual misconduct, the rich asshole this month fueled the controversy surrounding his past when he suggested that two former senior aides, Rob Porter and David Sorensen, were unfairly treated after allegations surfaced that both men had abused their ex-wives. the rich asshole suggested the aides were convicted in the court of public opinion without the right to self-defense. Both were forced to resign.
“Peoples lives are being shattered and destroyed by a mere allegation. Some are true and some are false. Some are old and some are new,” the rich asshole tweeted last weekend. “There is no recovery for someone falsely accused — life and career are gone. Is there no such thing any longer as Due Process?”
The comments were not overlooked by Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.), who called for immediate congressional hearings featuring similar due process for the rich asshole’s accusers, who number at least 19.
“The President has shown through words and actions that he doesn’t value women. It’s not surprising that he doesn’t believe survivors or understand the national conversation that is happening,” tweeted Gillibrand, a possible presidential candidate in 2020. “If he wants due process for the over dozen sexual assault allegations against him, let’s have Congressional hearings tomorrow.
“I would support that and my colleagues should too.”
Aside from Cohen, Gillibrand has found an early ally in Rep. Kathleen Rice, a fellow New York Democrat, who characterized the rich asshole’s comments as just the latest evidence that the president is “tone-deaf on any issue having to do with harassment or even domestic violence.”
“He just has a disturbing lack of appreciation for the seriousness of these cases, and a predilection to always believing the accused instead of these victims,” Rice said. “It’s probably hard for him to condemn other people who engage in behavior that’s similar to his own — I understand the potential hypocrisy there — but when you’re the president, you’re supposed to make people feel like you care about their issues.”
Rice emphasized that inviting the rich asshole’s accusers to testify on Capitol Hill is a call for party leaders, not her. And she stressed that the decision ultimately lies with the women themselves.
“It’s going to be up to each individual woman who’s had an incident with some rich asshole to decide how public they want to be now about it,” Rice said.
“But,” she added, “these are long overdue conversations having to do with sexual harassment and domestic violence.”
Amid mounting pressure, the rich asshole on Wednesday told reporters in the Oval Office that he’s “totally opposed to domestic violence of any kind.”
“Everybody here knows that,” he said.
The Democrats, though, are not convinced. Rep. Steny Hoyer (Md.), the minority whip, said that given the accusations facing the rich asshole, the president has no moral authority to attack those alleging domestic abuse.
“This empathy for battered women?” Hoyer said Thursday. “It’s pretty late in coming and pretty lame in articulation.”
Harassment claims have swirled around the rich asshole long before he arrived in Washington.
His first wife, Ivana the rich asshole, told a court in 1989 that her then-husband had “raped” her during an argument, though she later said she didn’t use the term in a “criminal sense.” A makeup artist filed a lawsuit against the rich asshole in 1997 alleging attempted rape. And in October of 2016, just a month before the rich asshole was elected, The Washington Post published the audio of a previously unreleased Access Hollywood interview, recorded in 2005, in which the rich asshole boasts that his celebrity has allowed him to “do anything” to women.
“You can grab them by the p---y,” he told host Billy Bush.
the rich asshole dismissed the remarks as “locker room talk,” but the story prompted a number of women to come forward with their own allegations against the then-candidate. the rich asshole has denied them all, and his White House team is pushing back hard against Gillibrand’s suggestion that his accusations should be given a voice on Capitol Hill.
White House counselor Kellyanne Conway said last Sunday that those alleging misconduct against the president have “had their day,” while accusing Gillibrand and the Democrats of hypocrisy for supporting former President Clinton amid his White House tryst with a young aide.
Cohen pointed to the rich asshole’s response to Wednesday’s shooting massacre in Florida — in which the rich asshole urged the public to “always report” instances of “bad and erratic behavior” — as a template for the Democrats to follow in investigating the sexual harassment charges against the president.
“The president basically called for it,” Cohen said. “He said when the public sees bad and erratic behavior, or actions by somebody that’s mentally disturbed, they should report it.
“Congress has that same responsibility.”
the rich asshole hits golf course 3 days after visiting shooting victims
BY JORDAN FABIAN - 02/19/18 09:29 AM EST
WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. — President the rich asshole hit the golf course on Monday, three days after visiting people affected by the deadly school shooting in nearby Parkland, Fla.
The president arrived at the rich asshole International Golf Club in West Palm Beach shortly after 9 a.m.
the rich asshole avoided golf over the weekend, a decision aides said was out of respect for the 17 people killed in a shooting last week at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School.
But the president returned to the course on Monday to cap off a holiday weekend at his Mar-a-Lago resort. the rich asshole is scheduled to return to Washington in the afternoon.
the rich asshole has not been seen publicly since Friday, when he met with injured victims and first responders from the school shooting.
The only other time the president ventured from Mar-a-Lago was Sunday night, when he dined with his family at his West Palm Beach golf club.
Aides said he met with Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) and phoned local officials who represent the school, but both took place behind closed doors.
the rich asshole spent some of his weekend reacting to television news programs.
The president lashed out in anger over the Russia investigation in an extraordinary burst of tweets late Saturday and early Sunday morning.
And he slammed Oprah Winfrey as “very insecure” after watching her appearance on CBS News’s “60 Minutes” on Sunday.
“Just watched a very insecure Oprah Winfrey, who at one point I knew very well, interview a panel of people on 60 Minutes,” the rich asshole tweeted late Sunday. “The questions were biased and slanted, the facts incorrect.”
Referring to speculation Winfrey might run against him in 2020, the rich asshole wrote, “hope Oprah runs so she can be exposed and defeated just like all of the others!”
Winfrey did not comment personally on the rich asshole but asked a panel of voters whether he is fit for office and if they believe he made his “shithole countries” comment about Haiti, El Salvador and African nations.
The White House made some news Monday morning when a White House spokesperson said that the rich asshole would back improving the federal background check system.
“The president spoke to Senator [John] Cornyn [R-Texas] on Friday about the bi-partisan bill he and Sen. [Chris] Murphy [D-Conn.] introduced to improve Federal Compliance with Criminal Background check Legislation," the White House said in a statement.
"While discussions are ongoing and revisions are being considered, the President is supportive of efforts to improve the Federal background check system.”
the rich asshole backs effort to improve gun background checks: White House
President some rich asshole (Screenshot)
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President some rich asshole spoke to Senator John Cornyn about gun legislation on Friday, two days after a shooting at a Florida school killed 17 people, and supports efforts to improve the federal background check system, the White House said on Monday.
the rich asshole spoke to Cornyn, a Republican, about the bi-partisan bill he and Democratic Senator Chris Murphy introduced to improve federal compliance with criminal background checks, White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders said in a statement.
“While discussions are ongoing and revisions are being considered, the President is supportive of efforts to improve the Federal background check system,” Sanders said.
the rich asshole loses his mind after ‘biased and slanted’ Oprah Winfrey ’60 Minutes’ interview with Michigan voters
Actress and TV talk show host Oprah Winfrey delivered a rousing, campaign-style speech as she accepted a Golden Globe for lifetime achievement. (GETTY IMAGES NORTH AMERICA/AFP/File / KEVIN WINTER)
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U.S. President some rich asshole blasted media mogul Oprah Winfrey on Twitter on Sunday night over a segment on CBS’s 60 Minutes program and again said he hoped she would face him as an opponent in the 2020 presidential race.
Actress and television host Winfrey, now a contributor to the CBS program, led a panel of 14 Republican, Democrat and Independent voters from Grand Rapids, Michigan in a wide ranging discussion about the rich asshole’s first year in office.
the rich asshole tweeted: “Just watched a very insecure Oprah Winfrey, who at one point I knew very well, interview a panel of people on 60 Minutes. The questions were biased and slanted, the facts incorrect. Hope Oprah runs so she can be exposed and defeated just like all of the others!”
Winfrey has told various media outlets, including Entertainment Weekly, that she is not running for president, but has considered it, after there was much recent media speculation.
The panelists ranged from voters who said “I love him more and more every day,” to others questioning the rich asshole’s stability, saying, “All he does is bully people.”
Winfrey made no declarative statements for or against the president in the program. But she did ask questions ranging from whether the country is better off economically to whether respect for the country is eroding around the world.
‘This guy says we’re not going to be a laughing stock?’: John Oliver’s perfect the rich asshole smackdown in epic return
John Oliver (Photo: Screen capture)
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Comedian John Oliver made an epic return to late-night Sunday after several months on hiatus.
After being off since before the holidays, Oliver and his team had to choose which issues were the most important to recap. They opted to discuss the United States’ reputation on the global stage.
President some rich asshole campaigned on the idea that the United States wasn’t respected. It’s unclear where he gathered the information, since polls have shown opinion of the U.S. has fallen since he was elected. Regardless, the rich asshole calling places “sh*thole countries” likely didn’t help.
Oliver noted that the rich asshole’s attacks have now caused the U.S. global median approval to sink so low it’s equal to “replacing Gal Gadot in the Wonder Woman franchise with Matt Lauer.” He explained that the U.S. is slowly losing what he called “soft power,” that is derived from a country’s personal brand. It’s built up using everything from diplomatic gestures to pop culture. the rich asshole, however, has done little to fix it. Instead, he doesn’t seem to even know or care.
“I’m the only one that matters,” Oliver said the rich asshole thinks. His “America First” obsession, ultimately is creating a leadership vacuum that is being filled by other allies.
To maintain it’s reputation, Oliver took the role of an ambassador to promise the world that “some rich asshole does not reflect America.”
He tried to prove “the rich asshole is the worst of us, but he’s not all of us,” and to illustrate it, he held a parade displaying the best and worst of what America has to offer. It included everything from the T-Rex costume to Star Wars and Scientology. He showcased New York’s Gay Men’s Chorus singing Smashmouth’s “All Star,” all while Oliver slipped into a bed shaped like the Batmobile.
Watch the video below:
Students who survived massacre refuse to pose for photo op with the rich asshole
The students of Parkland, Florida, aren't letting anyone tell their stories for them — not even the president of the United States.
The students of Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, refuse to be props for the rich asshole’s agenda.
On Monday, survivors of last week’s deadly shooting Emma Gonzalez and David Hogg told CNN’s “New Day” they will not be attending the rich asshole’s “listening session” this week.
“I believe we’ve been invited, but neither of us are going,” Gonzalez said.
Gonzalez, who made national news for her barn burner of a speech at a gun control rally this weekend, said they have a prior town hall meeting with Jake Tapper.
But the refusal is also a rebuke to the rich asshole, who conducted himself with shocking insensitivity in the wake of the shooting. He tried to blame the massacre on the students and the Russia investigation, and posed for a beaming thumbs-up with the first responders and nurses who tried to save mortally wounded children, as if expecting adulation for being on the scene of a national tragedy. Gonzalez clearly does not want to afford the rich asshole another opportunity for ghoulish self-promotion at her classmates’ expense.
As Gonzalez and Hogg noted, the rich asshole is only part of the problem. The entire NRA political machine is culpable in their friends’ deaths.
Asked if she had any words for the NRA, Gonzalez said, “Disband, dismantle … don’t make another organization under a different name. Don’t you dare come back here.”
In response to the point that the NRA gives millions to politicians to vote their way, Gonzalez had a blunt response.
“If they accept this blood money, they are against the children. They are against the people who are dying,” she said. “There’s no other way to put it at this point. You’re either funding the killers, or you’re standing with the children. The children who have no money. We don’t have jobs. So we can’t pay for your campaign. We would hope that you have the decent morality to support us at this point.”
“If you can’t get elected without taking money from child murderers,” added Hogg, “why are you running?”
Many in America are coming to the same conclusion, with one wealthy Florida Republican megadonor refusing to fund another campaign until his party restricts assault weapons.
But old habits die hard. House Speaker Paul Ryan was caught living it up at a GOP fundraiser in Key Biscayne, Florida, immediately after the shooting, and had a teacher ejected from the event after she asked him what he was going to do about guns.
Meanwhile, students like Gonzalez and Hogg are organizing and refusing to allow politicians to shape the narrative of the tragedy they survived. And that includes the president.
Right-wingers are egging on the rich asshole to pardon every person Mueller indicts — including himself
Robert Mueller, some rich asshole -- screenshots
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President some rich asshole’s conservative allies are encouraging him to fight special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia probe by issuing pardons to every single person he indicts.
Politico reports that conservatives are calling on the rich asshole to pardon suspects indicted by Mueller as a way of lowering their willingness to cooperate with the probe.
“I think he should be pardoning anybody who’s been indicted and make it clear that anybody else who gets indicted would be pardoned immediately,” Frederick Fleitz, a former CIA analyst and senior vice president at the conservative Center for Security Policy, told Politico.
“It’s kind of cruel what’s going on right now and the president should put these defendants out of their misery,” right-wing activist Larry Klayman told the publication. “I think he should pardon everybody — and pardon himself.”
The family of Michael Flynn in particular has been lobbying the rich asshole to pardon his former national security adviser, who last year pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI and who is now cooperating with Mueller’s probe.
However, alt-right activist Mike Cernovich told Politico that the rich asshole needs to be cautious with his pardons — and that he should only issue blanket pardons if Democrats retake Congress this fall.
Andrew Johnson’s failed presidency echoes in the rich asshole’s White House
Andrew Johnson
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The two have much in common. Like the rich asshole, Johnson followed an unconventional path to the presidency.
A Tennessean and lifelong Democrat, Johnson was a defender of slavery and white supremacy but also an uncompromising Unionist. He was the only U.S. senator from the South who opposed his state’s move to secede in 1861. That made him an unconventional yet attractive choice as Abraham Lincoln’s running mate in 1864 when Republicans took on the mantle of the “Union Party” to win support from Democrats alienated by their own party’s anti-war stance.
Six weeks after becoming vice president, an assassin’s bullet killed Lincoln and catapulted Johnson to the presidency.
Republican reception mixed for Johnson
Like the rich asshole, Johnson entered the White House with a mixture of skepticism and support among Republicans who controlled Congress. He was a Southerner and a Democrat, which concerned them. But his courageous Unionism and blunt criticism of rebels – “Treason must be made infamous and traitors punished,” he proclaimed – impressed congressional leaders, who believed that he would take a firm approach to the South.
The Republicans soon learned that they were mistaken.
Through bold assertion of executive authority, Johnson quickly reconstructed state and local governments in the South. Because African-Americans were excluded from the process, these regimes were controlled by Southern whites, most of whom had been loyal Confederates. Predictably, they adopted laws designed to keep African-Americans in a servile position.
Southern officials also stood by and even abetted whites who unleashed a wave of violence against former slaves. For example, in July 1866, New Orleans police participated in a massacre that left 37 African-Americans and white Unionists dead and more than 100 wounded.
Unlike today’s Republicans, most of whom have become more loyal to the rich asshole, Reconstruction-era Republicans pushed back against Johnson. They viewed emancipation as a crowning achievement of Union victory and were determined to ensure that former slaves enjoyed the fruits of freedom. Although they hoped to avoid conflict with the president, in early 1866, they adopted measures designed to establish color-blind citizenship and protect former slaves from injustice.
No fan of negotiation
Like the rich asshole, Johnson’s instinct was to attack rather than negotiate. A states’ rights Democrat and proponent of white supremacy, Johnson rebuffed Republicans’ efforts at compromise. He responded to Republican civil rights legislation with scathing veto messages. In September 1866, he toured the North, leveling personal attacks against congressional leaders and seeking to rally voters against them in the midterm elections.
Growing up poor and illiterate, Johnson had developed a deep hostility for African-Americans, believing that they looked down on people like him. His private conversations were laced with racist invective. After meeting with a delegation led by the black leader, Frederick Douglass, for example, he exclaimed to his secretary, “I know that damned Douglass; he’s just like any n—-r, and he would just as likely cut a white man’s throat as not.”
In speeches on the campaign trail and in Washington, Johnson cast his opposition to Republican civil rights policy in language that today appears clearly racist. He sought to appeal to voters — North as well as South – who felt threatened by African-American gains.
In vetoing the Civil Rights Act of 1866, Johnson argued that African-Americans, who had “just emerged from slavery,” lacked “the requisite qualifications to entitle them to the privileges and immunities of citizens of the United States.” Indeed, he asserted, the law discriminated “against large numbers of intelligent, worthy, and patriotic foreigners [who had to reside in the U.S. for five years to qualify for citizenship] in favor of the negro.”
Made excuses for Southern racism
Johnson excused racist violence in the South. Ignoring facts that had been widely reported in the press, Johnson held Republicans in Congress responsible for encouraging black political activism during the New Orleans massacre. That was the July 1866 riot where a white mob – aided by police – set upon African-American marchers and their white Unionist sympathizers, leaving 37 African-Americans and white Unionists dead and more than 100 wounded.
“Every drop of blood that was shed is upon their skirts,” Johnson charged, “and they are responsible for it.” Whites who encouraged blacks to demand the right to vote, not the white mobs and police who attacked them, bore responsibility, Johnson implied.
Like the rich asshole, Johnson fancied himself a populist. He saw himself as a principled defender of the people against Washington insiders bent on destroying the republic. By refusing to seat senators and representatives from the reconstructed states of the former Confederacy, he charged in 1866, congressional leaders were riding roughshod over the Constitution.
“There are individuals in the Government,” Johnson told an audience in Washington, D.C., “who want to destroy our institutions.”
Later, when confronted by catcalls from Republican partisans, Johnson fired back.
“Congress is trying to break up the Government,” he said, casting congressional leaders as enemies of the Union in the mold of secessionist heroes Jefferson Davis and Robert E. Lee.
Combining egotism, victimhood and paranoia in a manner similar to the rich asshole, Johnson portrayed himself as the nation’s much maligned savior.
“I am your instrument,” he told one audience. “I stand for the country, I stand for the Constitution.”
Cornell University Collection of Political Americana, Cornell University Library
Johnson saw his opponents as enemies bent not just on impugning the legitimacy of his presidency but whose “intention … [is] to incite assassination.” In a melodramatic and revealing pledge, he proclaimed, “If my blood is to be shed because I vindicate the Union … then let it be shed.”
Perhaps unsurprisingly, Johnson’s presidency ended badly.
Reviled by African-Americans
While lauded by white Southerners, he was reviled by African-Americans and most Northerners for disgracing the office of the presidency. Thomas Nast, the popular political cartoonist, lampooned him, the press chastised him and private citizens expressed their disgust.
Commenting on Johnson’s electioneering tour of the North, Mary Todd Lincoln said acidly that his conduct “would humiliate any other than himself.”
Congressional Republicans overrode Johnson’s vetoes and tied his hands on matters of policy. In 1868, the House of Representatives voted to impeach him but the Senate fell one vote shy of the two-thirds majority necessary to remove him from office.
As his term came to an end in 1869, his successor, Ulysses Grant, refused to ride to the inauguration in the same carriage as the disgraced Johnson, who then declined to attend the ceremony. Instead, he remained at the White House, leaving it for the last time to go to his Tennessee home — and perhaps a more receptive audience of like-minded Southerners — after the inauguration was over.
Presidents succeed by appealing to shared values, uniting rather than dividing, making strategic use of the respect Americans have for the office, and avoiding the gutter. Andrew Johnson failed on all counts, destroying his presidency and bringing himself into contempt.
The Washington Post’s Senior Editor Marc Fisher writes that some rich asshole learned as a real estate developer and entertainer “that what humiliates, damages, even destroys others can actually strengthen his image and therefore his bottom line.”
Will those lessons serve the rich asshole well as president? Or will they condemn him to Johnson’s ignominious fate?
Donald Nieman, Executive Vice President for Academic Affairs and Provost, Binghamton University, State University of New York
This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article
Mueller could investigate the rich asshole’s porn star payoffs as campaign finance violations: legal expert
President some rich asshole and adult actress Stephanie Clifford, whose stage name was Stormy Daniels, in a 2006 Myspace photo.
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Special counsel Robert Mueller could investigate whether President some rich asshole’s payments to his alleged mistresses broke campaign laws, according MSNBC legal analyst Jonathan Turley.
The president’s longtime attorney, Michael Cohen, says he “facilitated a payment” to porn actress Stormy Daniels shortly before the 2016 election, and the National Enquirer publisher reportedly paid $150,000 to a Playboy model who said she had an affair with the rich asshole.
Those payments may have violated campaign finance laws, Turley said.
“The question is whether (Mueller) has the intestinal fortitude to want to get into this type of issue with a former Playboy bunny and a porn star,” Turley said. “Mueller is a tied-down type of guy. I don’t know if he wants to go in that direction, (but) he could.”
Turley said there was precedent for a case like that, with the prosecution of former senator and Democratic presidential candidate John Edwards.
“There is case precedent there,” he said. “I actually disagree with the interpretation of campaign financing that came out of this last indictment. I think there’s a free speech issue that has to be addressed, it goes way too far on that. This would not be as much of a stretch, there’s precedent here for that type of allegation.”
Pentagon worries the rich asshole’s military parade will be a national security catastrophe: report
some rich asshole during CNN debate (Photo: Screen capture via video)
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CNN’s Pentagon correspondent Barbara Starr reported Monday that the military is growing increasingly concerned about President Donald the rich asshole’s demand for a military parade.
While the military is accustomed to developing options to go to war, Starr noted that lately they’ve been developing options for the rich asshole.
“The problem is this,” Starr began. “What they have discovered is if President the rich asshole wants a full-blown military parade, thousands of active duty troops, their weapons, tanks, missiles, aircraft, you know, in Washington marching down Pennsylvania Avenue, flying overhead, it is going to interrupt training schedules.”
She quoted one official, who said “we don’t have units just sitting around waiting to go on parade.”
They’re planning to present options to the rich asshole and let him decide, but one thought they included as a kind of multimedia parade that could allow for massive video screens on the National Mall people could watch with videos of a display of some sort.
The solution in that case would not allow the rich asshole to ride in a tank.
Watch the full report from Starr below:
the rich asshole’s fast-food engorged world is petty, small, miserable, anxious and angry
President some rich asshole (AFP / MANDEL NGAN)
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Many academic disciplines can be consulted to explain the on-going tragedy of the rich asshole administration. History can give us a sense of the precedents, the shameful nativist tradition in groups like the Know Nothings and the John Birch Society. One could use the language of sociology to explain how the white working and middle classes enthusiastically supported a candidate manifestly not in their interests. An economist could model how stagnant wages and the increasing financial gulf resulted in an anti-status quo vote with disastrous consequences while ironically bolstering the elite. A foreign policy analyst could examine the ways in which the rich asshole embodies a revanchist anti-liberalism, a nascent internationalist fascism which serves as a worrying harbinger of future reaction. Rhetoricians could analyze how the rich asshole’s oratory, often maligned as a jumble of word salad, was carefully calibrated with social media to market the politician. So many hot-takes and columns have been devoted to a man who is so obviously odious that you’d avoid sitting next to him on the subway; so much of our mental energy has been consumed with this self-evidently damaged soul. As Katy Waldman wittily asked in an insightful column for Slate last month: “What’s left to discuss when you’ve discussed everything, and nothing has changed?” So, from my perspective, one of the most insightful methods of approaching the rich asshole is theology.
I speak not just of the ways in which a profoundly irreligious man is able to conveniently don the minister’s figurative frock when it serves his purposes, mouthing spiritual inanities and corrupted civil religion as he did at the State of the Unio. All empty faith, dog whistles, and red meat to his base. Rather, I write of the actual metaphysical qualities which define a man so rapacious, lustful, gluttonous, lazy, entitled, wrathful, and most of all vainglorious. Theology is capable of explaining a man who has so emboldened evil, as philosopher Susan Neiman has argued. And if the rich asshole’s soul is so diseased, what does it imply about our nation that he’s been empowered to lead it?
I’ve already written about the rich asshole’s unholy alliance with conservative white evangelicals before; in a manner far more effective than myself, religion writer Jeff Sharlet has considered the same question. Sharlet points out that it does no good to only observe that there is a hypocrisy about the rich asshole’s religious supporters, since the rich asshole’s religion is its own kind of twisted faith. Sharlet writes that “no other major modern figure has channeled the tension that makes Scripture endure, the desire, the wanting that gives rise to the closest analogue to Trumpism… the American religion of winning.” There is much that can be said about this particular strain of reactionary, jingoistic fundamentalist Protestantism, and the actual role it has played in right-wing politics from antebellum justifications for slavery through the latest incarnation of fascism that is Trumpism. But when I say that theology can be used to explicate the rich asshole’s spiritual malignancy and the unfortunately outsize role that he plays in our national consciousness, I mean not simply tracing policy connections between various religious interest groups, but considering the metaphysics of the man’s soul itself – and the disastrous effect such a sadly shriveled thing has on the rest of us.
the rich asshole’s is the sort of personality which John the Revelator would have been able to insightfully parse, while meditating in ecstasy on some Patmos grove. The president’s very personality can seem Caligulan, a type of Nero for an American colosseum who rather than giving us bread-and-circuses bestows on us never-ending tweets. As that biblical author was able to (albeit in allegorical form) critique the tyranny of the most powerful rulers of his world, so too can theology illuminate the diseased consciousness of the most powerful man in our world.
Historians like Timothy Snyder and Masha Gessen have deftly charted the similarities and connections between both past and present authoritarianisms around the world with the rich asshole’s current manifestation of that odious political methodology. And yet, the rich asshole’s embodiment of authoritarianism seems so finely calibrated to the American psyche, combining as it does those myths of the boot-strapping rugged individualist, the revival preacher, and the snake-oil salesman, that it’s important to consider not just what’s sui generis about the rich asshole, but indeed what’s particularly American about him. Writing in The Atlantic, historian Julian E. Zelizer astutely observes that it feels difficult to consider the rich asshole because “Americans see too much of themselves in him. He is the mirror that exposes the nation’s contradictions.”
the rich asshole’s performance of a certain type of fast-food engorged, porn-obsessed, corpulent, digital depravity is so manifestly an incarnation of our worst national ideals, that the closest parallels to the rich asshole as an authoritarian seem not to be a Viktor Orban or even a Vladimir Putin, but rather the Roman emperors. That is to say that more than any other aspiring dictator, the rich asshole most reminds me of the sovereigns who presided over a similarly decadent empire in decline, this one some two millennia ago; which is why the vocabulary of Patmos might be that which is adequate for this particular moment.
Elizabeth Bruenig at The Washington Post channels the analytical acumen of an Augustin or an Aquinas when she observes that the rich asshole is “insulated from consequence by power, money and fame in a way not imaginable to the ordinary person. He is the freest man alive.” She recounts all of the strange, childish, abusive, and petty actions of the rich asshole, from spying on dressing beauty queens to demanding two-scoops of ice-cream at White House dinners while everyone else is only allowed one. the rich asshole exemplifies a nihilistic, selfish freedom, one where there are no consequences. But there is also a sense, as Bruenig perhaps implies, that the rich asshole is ironically the least free of men as well. Quoting Aristotle, she observes that “where absolute freedom is allowed, there is nothing to restrain the evil which is inherent in every man.”
the rich asshole’s world, as deftly if salaciously recounted in Michael Wolff’s Fire and Fury, is a petty, small, miserable, anxious, angry one. Images of the bathrobe clad leader of the free world madly pawing at his phone with KFC greased fingers. Who among you would actually want to be some rich asshole? What emerges is a portrait of one who has accumulated everything he wants, even the presidency, and yet who does nothing to enrich or empower the citizens whom he ostensibly governs on the behalf of, preferring to enact revenge on his perceived enemies. Of a man so limited and incurious, so incapable of any fraternal, romantic, or loving connection with another human being (seeing all relationships as simply transactional) that he is seemingly incapable of genuine laughter, being only partial to the sneer. Laughter, such a basic human response, which the Chilean poet Pablo Neruda said was the “language of the soul.” What Charles Dickens or even Christopher Marlowe could have made of a spirit as ugly as the rich asshole’s!
Or C.S. Lewis, who so effectively married the imagination to the theological. As clear-headed an observer of both human goodness and fallenness as any author, there is a passage in his classic of Christian apologetics, 1945’s The Great Divorce, which seems to presciently describe our current president. Structured as a dream vision, Lewis describes the psychology of figures in both heaven and hell, including a character led about on a chain by a demonic dwarf who represents his myriad appetites, and who has been spirited to a heaven he cannot experience from a hell which he cannot escape. Lewis writes that he never “saw anything more terrible than the struggle of that Dwarf Ghost against joy. For he had almost been overcome. Somewhere, incalculable ages ago, there must have been gleams of humour and reason in him.” So it is with a creature like the rich asshole, for whom whatever has happened to him in the past has resulted in this joyless and unempathetic man, a being who told a group of evangelical voters “I’m not sure I have ever asked God’s forgiveness” (and yet so many still support him). Lewis understood that sophisticated theology teaches that hell isn’t some geographical location reached by drilling into the earth (or fracking?), but rather that hell is a perspective, a mindset, a distance from man and from God. The 17th century poet John Milton described it as such in his epic Paradise Lost, when his Lucifer exclaims “Myself am Hell;/And, in the lowest deep, a lower deep,/Still threat’ning to devour me, opens wide;/To which the hell I suffer seems a heaven.” A Trumpian image, isn’t it? The fallen demon so divorced from any connection and so deep in his own perdition that he mistakes his excess and his power as a type of happiness.
In suggesting that there must be something hellish about the experience of being the rich asshole, I am not trying to engender any sort of sympathy for the man. Questions of his redemption are between him and those he harms, and then to whatever God he directs his prayers. Instead, I worry about what the implications are that such a man occupies so much of our attention, colonizing our very consciousness, dominating not just our livelihood but our inner lives.
Does such a small, angry, cruel man not risk making all of us small, angry and cruel? Does the bully pulpit threaten to turn us all into bullies? That is not to minimize the very real material repercussions of his policies, or the callousness and cruelty of his administration. The assaults on immigrants and workers, women and LGBTQ individuals, Muslims and African-Americans are sadly very real. But I also fear the intangible results of his rhetoric, of his perspective, and his emboldening of hate. If the rich asshole is in his own hell, I worry that every day he threatens to pull us into it with him. Mephistopheles’ said in Marlowe’s 16th century play Dr. Faustus that “Why this is hell, nor am I out of it,” something I understand every time I receive a new push notification. This is the peculiar logic of the autocrat – he demands attention and you no longer have the option to direct your interests outward, to be free of him. His ultimate ideology is narcissism, and his only faith is himself.
But if Trumpism is just a new manifestation of that particular type of dark religion, we can answer its machinations with our own faith. For though the means of resistance must always be directed outward, we also cannot neglect the inward. Necessity compels us to march, organize, protest, and most of all vote, but it also compels us to reflect, meditate, and pray. We need not regain the system for the price of our souls, for to carve out a place of identity independent of the rich asshole is not that narcotic of ignorance, but rather the building of our own personal independence from the authoritarian, who will one day thankfully be gone (as all authoritarians ultimately are). Where his life is empty, ours must be full; as he is incurious, we must be alive to wonder; where he is brimming with hate, we must at least try to embrace love. For ultimately, that is not only the most effective rebuke, but also simply that which we are fighting for.
Ed Simon is the Editor-at-Large for The Marginalia Review of Books, a channel of The Los Angeles Review of Books. A frequent contributor at several sites, his collection America and Other Fictions: On Radical Faith and Post Religion will be released by Zero Books in November of 2018. He can be followed at his website or on Twitter @WithEdSimon.
This article was originally published at History News Network
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