February 20th, 2017 continued. It's been 465 days since the Nov 8, 2016, election of some rich asshole, no. 45, and 393 days since the Jan 20th inauguration.
‘They can bring it on, it’s a joke’; Ex-FBI agent dad of Parkland survivor lashes out at conspiracy kooks attacking his son
David Hogg, Kevin Hogg -- CNN screenshot
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The ex-FBI agent father of one of the survivors of the high school shooting in Parkland, Florida, lashed out at conspiracy theorists who claim his son was not witness to the massacre but a “crisis actor” who shows up at shootings to draw media attention.
Appearing with AC360, Kevin Hogg, father of student David Hogg, was disgusted at the attacks on his son coming after the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School that resulted in 17 deaths.
Speaking with host Anderson Cooper, student David Hogg scoffed at the conspiracy mongers, including an aide to a Florida Republican lawmaker who made the accusation — only to be fired hours later.
“I want you to respond to part of another speech that some rich asshole Jr. likes,” Cooper asked. “Could it be that this student ran cover for his dad who works as an FBI agent.”
“The fact that these people are being critical of me as a witness and personally as a victim to this incident and having to witness this and live through it again and again, it is unbelievable,” David Hogg said. “We are trying to fix that [weapons laws] unlike those people who are tweeting that stuff about me and unlike the people that are tweeting stuff about my dad. I know the people working at the FBI are hard workers.”
Kevin Fogg jumped in to list his accomplishments and slap back at his critics.
“I don’t know how they believe that there is such a thing” he said about critics accusing him of using his son to defraud the public. “My career has been perfect. I was a Navy pilot before, an elementary school teacher. I moved on and got on with the FBI and I was proud of it and I still am.”
“We would teach other countries, all over Southeast Asia and the Philippines in Cambodia, these management courses,” he continued. “One of the tweets I saw claimed that I was involved with something — and there is no way. I don’t know why they would say that.”
As Cooper wrapped up the segment he apologized to the two, telling the father, “I wish you the best.,” with Kevin Hogg, firing back, ‘I’m not worried about it. They can bring it on. It’s a joke.”
You can watch the video below via CNN:
‘It would open people’s eyes’: CNN’s Cooper makes a bold proposal to bring home the savage reality of what an AR-15 can do
Anderson Cooper (Photo: Screen capture)
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Leading into a discussion on lawmakers refusing to do anything to curb the proliferation of assault weapons, CNN host Anderson Cooper suggested that the harsh reality of what a bullet from an AR-15 can do to a body has been withheld from Americans and that a wake-up call was needed.
The introduction turned into a monologue as an emotional Cooper proposed showing the carnage to “open people’s eyes.”
“One of the things General McChrystal said, I think he said this in the wake of one of the shootings,” Cooper began. “He said a .223-caliber round, when it hits the human body, the effects are just devastating – it’s designed for that. He talked about he didn’t think there was a need for that kind of weaponry on the streets. that was after Newtown.”
Turning to former Republican lawmaker Jack Kingston, Cooper continued, “I often think we don’t focus on the reality of what an AR-15 does to a child. If anyone has been on a battlefield and you see what a weapon like this does to a soldier, if people actually saw this and saw the saw the reality of this, it would open people’s eyes.”
“We all say, ‘oh, these children lost their lives,'” Cooper continued choking up a bit. “They didn’t lose their lives, their lives were ripped out of their bodies, their brains were splattered on the floor, their intestines were hanging out. It was sickening.”
“We’re talking about this in an ant antiseptic way, and we’re shocked that these kids are angry but these kids were hiding in the closets while their friends were dead,” he concluded.
“And that’s why the law enforcement people are standing by the young people saying, ‘we do need to do something different,'” CNN host Van Jones interjected. “Republicans are saying, ‘These Democrats, they’re emotional, they’re irrational, they’re exploiting kids because they want to grab all of our guns.’ They’re actually the ones who are rational and sane.”
“The kids hiding under the desks and the cops going to save them are saying the same exact thing, that it makes no sense at all for this to be the reality in America,” Jones continued. “They have a thousand excuses. And, I have to say, whenever this thing happens, if it’s a Muslim, they want to politicize it within seconds. If it’s a Mexican — build the wall. If it’s a black person — more cops and prisons. If it’s a white person, it’s mental health.”
Watch the video below via CNN:
Watch Van Jones annihilate Jack Kingston for doubling down on his attacks on the Parkland survivors
Former Congressman Jack Kingston (R-GA) and political analyst Van Jones on AC 360
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Former Rep. Jack Kingston (R-GA) went on CNN’s “AC 360” Tuesday to double-down on the allegation he made earlier in the day that survivors of the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School school shooting massacre were left-wing pawns.
“It’s so tough to see the distinction between those young people who are so clear, so forthright. Disagree with them, don’t like their policies, if you feel that way, that’s fine,” CNN contributor Van Jones explained. “But if you look at the character of these young people, how clear they are, how forthright they are, how much integrity they have, and to have that — right up against these presidential tweets — you couldn’t imagine a more juvenile response to a mass killing of children than to use that opportunity to try to stick your finger in the eye of the people who you didn’t like before, anyway.”
“Those young people are better-spoken than most of us on television and they’ve never been on television before,” Jones observed. So if there’s any hope in the country, it’s in this generation that’s rising.”
Jones added, “to stand over the bodies of children and poke your finger in the eye of your add adversary is as low as you can possibly go in public life, and it’s a shame the president did that, but I’m proud of these young people.”
“You think they are being hijacked by left-wing groups?” host Anderson Cooper asked.
“I was referring to the national rally,” Kingston replied. “It would shock me, I hope I’m wrong, but it would shock me if 17-year-olds around the country — and I agree with you, Van, very articulate, very sincere — but it would shock me if they did a nationwide rally and the pro-gun control left kept their hands off.”
Groans could be heard as Kingston tried to validate his conspiracy theory, by stating, ” As Rahm Rahm Emanuel famously said, ‘don’t waste a good crisis.'”
CNN viewers demanded the network fire Kingston after his initial pushing of the conspiracy theory.
“When you say something like that, it’s so bad,” Jones blasted. “I’m going to tell you why it’s bad.”
“Here’s the thing, it’s not fair — you’re sprinkling out there, that maybe these kids are illegitimate and that’s wrong,” Jones concluded.
Watch:
Kushner fighting Kelly over losing his security clearance: report
Jared Kushner (Al Jazeera)
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According to a report in the New York Times, President some rich asshole’s son-in-law is resisting attempts to withdraw his provisional security clearance.
The report notes Jared Kushner is “prompting an internal struggle with John F. Kelly, the White House chief of staff, over who should be allowed to see some of the nation’s most sensitive secrets, according to White House officials and others briefed on the matter.”
Kelly has set a Friday deadline to clean up the security clearance mess that has embroiled the White House.
According to the report, “Mr. Kushner’s clearance has afforded him access to closely guarded information, including the presidential daily brief, the intelligence summary some rich asshole receives every day, but it has not been made permanent, and his background investigation is still pending after 13 months serving in some rich asshole’s inner circle.”
Kelly is making a hard push to revamp the security clearance process, with Kushner a focal point after the dismissal of White House aide Rob Porter who resigned over wife-beating allegation that help up his clearance.
You can read the whole report here.
Pulitzer-winner suggests White House trying to ease out Jared Kushner by the end of the week
President some rich asshole's son-in-law and adviser Jared Kushner (via Creative Commons).
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Pulitzer Price-winning journalist Carol Leonnig suggested that the White House may be attempting to force out senior advisor Jared Kushner before Friday’s deadline for him to receive permanent security clearance.
“I want to read you something Dan Pfeiffer, who worked in the Obama White House said,” Hayes noted, reading a tweet from the former White House aide.
Kushner and I had the same title and he sits in my old office. There are only three options:
1. Sanders is lying
2. Kelly is lying and Kushner is keeping his interim clearance
3. Kushner’s new portfolio includes staring at the wall from 9-5 twitter.com/shaneharris/st…
“Well, it sounds pretty clever,” Washington Post reporter Carol Leonnig replied.
“I would say right now, Sarah Sanders’ comments are not dishonest, they are graceful,” Leonnig continued. “She’s allowing the opportunity — it seems to me — for the process to work out. For either the clearance to mysteriously be approved, which does not seem likely, or for Jared Kushner to decide to bow out.”
“Wait, you think — wait a second. You think the latter is a possibility?” Hayes interrupted.
“If you don’t have a security clearance and access to top secret information, how could you exactly broker Middle East peace?” Leonnig answered, referring to one item Kushner’s father-in-law has tasked him with solving.
Leonnig also noted Kushner as reportedly been reading the president’s daily brief, despite lacking security clearance.
“Keep in mind that this is a particularly bizarre scenario,” Leonnig explained. “You have an ongoing investigation, criminal and counter-intelligence investigation of many senior people in the rich asshole White House because they were, in fact, in the rich asshole campaign while Russia was meddling with our election.”
Watch:
the rich asshole launches frenzied Twitter attack on ‘low-ratings’ CNN and MSNBC for covering ‘anti-the rich asshole Russia rally’
President some rich asshole (AFP / MANDEL NGAN)
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Continuing his push-back at any coverage of the investigation into Russian meddling into the 2016 election, President some rich asshole once again attacked the media for reporting on the scandal in a Twitter tirade.
Tuesday night, as the rich asshole came under attack for saying he has been tougher on Russia than his predecessor, the rich asshole blasted out, “Bad ratings @CNN & @MSNBC got scammed when they covered the anti-the rich asshole Russia rally wall-to-wall. They probably knew it was Fake News but, because it was a rally against me, they pushed it hard anyway. Two really dishonest newscasters, but the public is wise!”
the rich asshole then followed up with an Internet meme also attacking the networks.
You can see the tweets below:
So true, thank you! twitter.com/stevehusker/st…
Whether we are Republican or Democrat, we must now focus on strengthening Background Checks!
As students watch, Florida GOP lawmakers debate porn but refuse to take up assault weapons ban
Sheryl Acquarola, a 16-year-old junior from Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, is overcome with emotion in the east gallery of the state House of Representatives after the representatives voted not to hear a bill banning assault rifles and large-capacity magazines at the Capitol in Tallahassee on Tuesday, Feb. 20, 2018. Mark Wallheiser AP
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February 20, 2018
Elizabeth Koh and Steve Bousquet
The Miami Herald
Posted with permission from Tribune Content Agency
TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — A move to push a bill banning assault weapons and high-capacity magazines directly to the Florida House floor Tuesday afternoon was rejected on mostly party lines, six days after a gunman killed 17 people and injured several more at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland.
Rep. Kionne McGhee, of Miami, the incoming House Democratic leader, called for the bill that had not received a committee hearing to be immediately considered by the full chamber at the start of Tuesday's House session. He invoked the shooting in Parkland, where 19-year-old Nikolas Cruz used a semiautomatic AR-15 rifle he had purchased legally in Wednesday's attack.
Some Marjory Stoneman Douglas students, who had met with lawmakers earlier in the day, were in the public gallery watching while the move was rejected.
HB 219, sponsored by Democratic state Rep. Carlos Guillermo Smith, of Orlando, prohibits the sale, transfer or possession of large-capacity magazines and assault weapons, including AR-15s. Though it has been referred to three subcommittee or committee stops, it has not received a hearing in the Criminal Justice Subcommittee, where it must first be considered.
"I ask that we keep this bill in the conversation about the solution to combat mass shootings alive," McGhee said. "While this is an extraordinary procedural move, the shooting at Parkland demands extraordinary action."
McGhee's motion was rejected 71-36. It would have required a two-thirds vote to move directly to the House floor.
Smith told reporters afterward that he was infuriated at Rep. Ross Spano, a Dover Republican, who has refused to hold a hearing on the assault weapons ban.
Spano, however, has devoted extensive time to his own bill (HB 157), which declares pornography a public health risk. That bill was debated on the House floor Tuesday afternoon.
"He is saying pornography is more important than the epidemic of gun violence," Smith said.
Ben Carson is 6th member of the rich asshole’s Cabinet to face ethics investigation
By
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Ethics violations are a hallmark of the rich asshole administration.
the rich asshole administration officials just seem incapable of staying out of trouble.
On Tuesday evening, CNN reported that Housing and Urban Development Secretary Ben Carson is under investigation by the department’s Office of the Inspector General for improperly giving his family members roles in government work.
Carson himself “called earlier this month for the inspector general to ‘review’ the role his family has played at the department after The Washington Post reported that HUD officials expressed ethics concerns about their role,” CNN notes. Carson’s son and daughter-in-law had helped organize a “listening tour” for the department in 2017.
And in the rich asshole administration, Carson is far from alone in flouting ethical norms and standards. In fact, he’s the sixth Cabinet-level official to face an inspector general investigation.
Former Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price resigned amid an investigation into his use of private jets, at roughly $1 million in taxpayer expense.
Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke, who has also enjoyed questionable private jet travel, has been probed for possible illegal campaign activity.
Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin was investigated, and reimbursed taxpayers, after he used a military plane to get himself and his wife a good seat for the solar eclipse. He has also faced a separate investigation into whether he lied about a department study supporting the GOP tax scam.
EPA administrator Scott Pruitt has faced an inspector general inquiry into his travel expenses, including $90,000 in first class plane tickets, which he claims he needed because otherwise the liberals in economy would beat him up.
And Secretary of Veterans Affairs David Shulkin is the subject of a probe alleging that he improperly accepted tennis tickets and billed the government for his wife’s luxury travel, and that his chief of staff falsified documents to cover it up.
Two other cabinet members, Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross and Energy Secretary Rick Perry, have also been the subject of ethics complaints which did not lead to investigations.
And all of this is not to mention other the rich asshole officials who have left office under shady circumstances, including former CDC chief Brenda Fitzgerald, who was caught profiting off of tobacco securities while heading up federal anti-smoking efforts.
the rich asshole of course is no stranger to ethics violations, and he has apparently fostered a culture in which people are looting the taxpayer money and abusing government power as naturally as breathing.
Washington needs accountability, and the rich asshole and his circle resolutely refuse to provide any, no matter how many of them get taken to task for their transgressions.
Another seat bites the dust. I'm loving the fact the no45 is helping Dems win back seats they lost because racists won those seats because of the racist things they said about Obama to win them.
Former schoolteacher flips Kentucky GOP seat the rich asshole carried by 49 points
By
Matthew Chapman February 20, 2018
The saga of Kentucky's House District 49 shows anything is possible — even deep in the rich asshole country.
On Tuesday night, the latest in a long string of state legislative seats flipped from red to blue.
In 2016, Democrats lost Kentucky’s 49th State House District by just one percentage point, even as the rich asshole carried it by 49 points.
And this week, the original Democratic incumbent, former schoolteacher and principal Linda Belcher, won her old seat back in a landslide victory of 68 to 32.
This full-circle victory is the culmination of a series of stunning events.
The Republican who had most recently held the seat, Dan Johnson, was a rich asshole supporter and self-described “pope” who ran a half-biker bar, half-church complete with its own “gun choir.” He won office despite a series of racist Facebook posts advocating a ban on Islam and comparing President Obama to a chimpanzee, and one of his most prominent proposals in office was a bill to make miscarriages a felony.
But in December, following accusations he had molested a teenage girl, Johnson took his own life.
The special election was a showdown between Belcher, who threw her hat in the ring to win her seat back, and Rebecca Johnson, Dan Johnson’s widow.
In the end, Belcher triumphed. Her win is a 36-point swing toward Democrats from her previous performance, and a 45-point swing from Hillary Clinton’s performance in 2016.
Kentucky became a GOP state government trifecta that year, and the governor has proceeded to demolish the safety net. Belcher’s victory is a first step toward reclaiming the state House majority for Democrats and undoing this damage.
“Flipping a seat that the rich asshole won by such a considerable margin in 2016 shows the sea change happening across America in 2018,” said Jessica Post of the Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee. “Voters are speaking up about what they want to see in their elected leaders and volunteering their time and money to change the election maps.”
The saga of Kentucky’s House District 49 shows anything is possible — even deep in the rich asshole country.
Florida lawmakers face horrified backlash for blocking vote on guns
By
Matthew Chapman February 20, 2018
"That's kind of like a big screw you."
As students all around Florida and throughout the country stand with the teenagers who survived the Parkland school shooting, the survivors themselves trekked hundreds of miles by bus to the state capitol in Tallahassee to lobby their legislators for change.
But no sooner had the students of Marjory Stoneman Douglas High arrived than the GOP-controlled Florida House of Representatives, by a vote of 71 to 36, blocked debate of a bill to prohibit assault weapons.
Photographs revealed several students looking on from the galleries in horror and disgust as their lawmakers failed them.
AP: Sheryl Acquarola, a 16 year-old junior from Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, is overcome with emotion in the east gallery of the Florida House after the representatives voted not to hear the assault rifles ban bill.
After the vote, some students took to social media to condemn their state officials for refusing to act.
“How could you do that to us ? Are you kidding me ??? #NeverAgain We are not forgetting this come Midterm Elections – the Anger that I feel right now is indescribable” tweeted Emma Gonzalez.
Another Stoneman Douglas High student had a blunter message:
to the 71 who voted against banning assault rifles, you’re a piece of garbage. twitter.com/ap/status/9660…
Another student, speaking to reporters on the bus, said, “Honestly I’m upset, but it’s just giving me even more drive to go up there and tell them how I feel, how outraged I am, how upset and heartbroken I feel.”
“That’s kind of like a big screw you,” he added.
Florida’s elected officials may have failed the Parkland survivors, but the public is not abandoning them.
A new Quinnipiac poll finds two-thirds of Americans believe it is too easy to obtain a gun, and even 97 percent of Republicans want to expand background checks.
Meanwhile, the rich asshole himself seems to be feeling the heat after being scorched for his insensitivity to the students’ plight, with a belated push for the Department of Justice to consider banning the “bump fire stock” attachment used in previous massacres like the Las Vegas shooting in October 2017.
Young people have historically played crucial roles in seemingly impossible social change in this country. The Parkland students are determined to be at the forefront of a movement, and they will not be ignored.
Gregory Korte,Nicole Gaudiano and David Jackson, USA TODAY Published 4:11 p.m. ET Feb. 20, 2018 | Updated 5:48 p.m. ET Feb. 20, 2018
WASHINGTON – President the rich asshole signed a memorandum instructing the attorney general to regulate the use of bump stocks, effectively banning the use of the devices that can allow rifles to mimic automatic weapons.
the rich asshole made the announcement at a Medal of Valor ceremony at the White House for firefighters and police officers — some of whom had intervened in shooting incidents.
the rich asshole told Attorney General Jeff Sessions, seated in the front row of the East Room, that he expects new federal guidelines to be finalized “very soon.”
He referred to the memorandum while detailing meetings he'll hold this week and next to discuss ways to keep students safe after a mass shooting at a Florida high school.
“We must do more to protect our children,” the rich asshole said, promising that school safety is a top priority of his administration.
Moments before, White House spokeswoman Sarah Sanders said the administration neared completion of a months-long study of the issue.
"I can tell you that the president supports not having the use of bump stocks," she said. "The president does not support the use of those accessories."
the rich asshole's memorandum to Sessions directs the Department of Justice to "dedicate all available resources" to completing a review of more than 100,000 comments it received from December through January on a notice of a proposed rulemaking. the rich asshole directed the department to, "as expeditiously as possible," propose for notice and comment "a rule banning all devices that turn legal weapons into machine guns."
"Although I desire swift and decisive action, I remain committed to the rule of law and to the procedures the law prescribes," he wrote. "Doing this the right way will ensure that the resulting regulation is workable and effective and leaves no loopholes for criminals to exploit. I would ask that you keep me regularly apprised of your progress."
Justice Department spokeswoman Sarah Isgur Flores said the department "understands this is a priority for the president and has acted quickly to move through the rulemaking process. We look forward to the results of that process as soon as it is duly completed.”
Bump stocks were found among the weapons used in the Las Vegas shooting that killed 58 people Oct. 1. Such bump-fire devices use the recoil of a semiautomatic firearm to rapidly pull the trigger, mimicking fully automatic firing.
Congress banned the sale and manufacture of machine guns for civilian use in 1986, and machine guns in circulation before then are tightly regulated, limited in number and expensive.
The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives issued a series of opinions on bump-fire devices — determining in most cases they were legal — over the past decade. In 2010, the ATF concluded that a bump-stock device submitted by Slide Fire was a firearm part with no automatic function, therefore not regulated as a firearm under gun laws.
Rick Vasquez, a former ATF official among those who approved the decision, told USA TODAY his staff knew the decision would be controversial and sought a determination from senior officials. After the Las Vegas shooting, he described the ATF’s thinking in a lengthy Facebook post.
"Whether the world likes it or whatever, we only have certain parameters to make a decision on," he said.
After the Las Vegas shooting, Republicans and the National Rifle Association called for the ATF to review the devices and highlighted the Obama administration’s approval of their sale.
Democrats have argued that legislation is needed to ban them, given the ATF's finding that it lacked the authority to ban the devices under current law.
Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California, who first proposed legislation to ban bump stocks in 2013, said the rich asshole should call on congressional Republicans to "stop blocking" legislation she introduced with fellow Democrats after the Las Vegas shooting. It would ban bump stocks, trigger cranks and similar accessories that accelerate a semi-automatic rifle’s rate of fire.
“If ATF tries to ban these devices after admitting repeatedly that it lacks the authority to do so, that process could be tied up in court for years, and that would mean bump stocks would continue to be sold," she said in a statement. "Legislation is the only answer."
Contributing: Kevin Johnson
Woman behind pro-the rich asshole Facebook page denies being influenced by Russians
BY BRANDON CARTER - 02/20/18 10:49 PM EST
A woman who ran a pro-some rich asshole Facebook group that promoted events during the 2016 election that have since been linked to Russia denied in a new interview that she was influenced by Russian trolls.
“I don't go with Russians, c'mon, give me a break," Florine Gruen Goldfarb told CNN when asked about her group amplifying events planned by Russians.
Goldfarb runs a Facebook page called “Team the rich asshole Broward County.” According to CNN, the page shared multiple events that were planned by Russians during the 2016 election, as well as posting photos and videos from one of the events after it concluded.
“Those people who were with me were all the rich asshole supporters,” she told CNN. “Very, very much so.”
When a CNN reporter told her the events were planned by Russians posing as Americans, Goldfarb responded “BS.”
“Please report that I don’t believe that. It’s bulls---,” she said. “I know all the people that were with me. They were at my meetings. They were all the rich asshole supporters.”
“Did you guys realize that you were in communication electronically with Russians?” the reporter asked.
“Not me,” Goldfarb replied. “Hillary Clinton was, and so were all her bandits.”
She further denied posting anything that was connected to Russians, before abruptly ending the interview.
Thirteen Russian nationals and three Russian groups were charged last week with multiple counts as part of their attempts to interfere in the 2016 election as part of special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation.
The indictment alleges the goal of the Russians was to support then-candidate some rich asshole and hurt Democratic opponent Hillary Clinton.
Some of the Russians allegedly communicated with “unwitting individuals associated with the rich asshole Campaign and with other political activists to seek to coordinate political activities.”
The indictment also alleges that the Russians staged political rallies and posed as U.S. grassroots entities to compensate “real U.S. persons to promote or disparage candidates.”
In a tweet following the release of the indictments, the rich asshole claimed the indictment showed his campaign “did nothing wrong” and that there was “no collusion” with Russia.
It’s not true that everyone in prison claims to be innocent. Most inmates I’ve known have been approximately as honest as people on the outside. Take that as you will.
What is true, in my experience, is that a guilty person and a not-guilty person sound alike when protesting their innocence. Sorting one from the other requires expertise, a lesson I learned as a young reporter when I accompanied a legendary lie-detector operator to interview a witness in a murder case.
Warren Holmes was a former Miami police detective turned independent consultant; investigative agencies around the world sought his advice. He performed polygraphs in connection with the John F. Kennedy assassination, the Watergate investigation and multiple high-profile wrongful convictions. His frequent collaborator, Gene Miller of the Miami Herald, won two Pulitzer Prizes for work done with Holmes — and now Gene was an editor sending me to collaborate.
My job was to persuade our squirrelly witness to submit to Holmes’s polygraph machine. But while Elmer Carroll was certainly dumb, he was not — despite my wheedling efforts — dumb enough. He eagerly and vehemently repeated his claim to have seen another man commit the murder for which two half brothers were doomed to Florida’s death row. However, he could not be coaxed into taking the test.
As we left the medium-security prison where our witness was locked up for an unrelated offense, I dejectedly confessed to Holmes that I didn’t know what to believe. He answered confidently: “He’s telling the truth when he says he was there, but he’s lying when he says he wasn’t involved.” I asked how he could be so sure without the use of his machine.ery Russia story the rich asshole said was ‘fake news’ or a ‘witch hunt’
“That’s just a cigar box with wires,” Holmes replied with a snort. “The value of a polygraph is the operator, not the machine.”
Well, subsequent events convinced me that Holmes was exactly right. Considerable evidence emerged to exonerate the half brothers; meanwhile, Carroll revealed himself to be a killer. He landed on death row for a subsequent murder and was executed in 2013. The story Carroll told so fervently was almost certainly half-true, half-false. Many of the most convincing lies come smothered in a sauce of verity.
Which brings me to the present day. I wish I could put Holmes, who died in 2013, to work on the case of some rich asshole. The president protests his innocence with intensity worthy of Capt. Dreyfus himself. He’s the victim of a “hoax,” a “fraud,” a “witch hunt.” After the Justice Department announced the indictment of 13 Russians, including an oligarch close to Vladimir Putin, for meddling in the rich asshole’s favor during the 2016 election, he nearly melted his phone as he furiously published an epic of self-exonerating tweets.
You or I might do exactly the same thing if we found ourselves targets of an unjust investigation. Few experiences are more maddening than to be wrongfully accused, whether the alleged offense is taking money from your brother’s sock drawer, flirting with a stranger at the Christmas party, cheating on a test or cooperating with foreign agents to improve your chances of winning the White House.
In other words, the rich asshole’s furious claims of spotless innocence could be entirely consistent with the truth. But as Queen Gertrude observed to Hamlet, “the lady doth protest too much, methinks.” Surprising as this is in a veteran of showbiz, the rich asshole seems not to understand how a close-up magnifies every gesture. His jumpiness around the subject of Russia; his hand-wringing over ways to end the investigation; his rhetorical flop-sweat at the mention of the letters F, B and I — all these and more have his audience thinking: Gee, for an innocent man he sure does act guilty.
In the classic film “Rope,” Alfred Hitchcock has a pair of clever young men serve drinks to their professor over a trunk stuffed with their murder victim’s corpse. The tension comes from the professor’s slow discovery of their crime. A remake with the rich asshole in the leading role would open with him tweeting: “There’s NOTHING in the TRUNK!”
Channeling Holmes, I would venture that the rich asshole is telling some of the truth but not all of it. He’s a businessman whose serial bankruptcies made it hard to find U.S. banks willing to extend further credit. His search for capital took him to Russia, where it is very difficult to do deals without getting your shoes muddy. the rich asshole may be sincere when he says his campaign did not knowingly collude with Moscow — yet may know, at the same time, that he has skeletons in Russian closets that the special counsel, left unchecked, may find.
But this is speculation, and the great polygraph operator is not available to offer his expert opinion. We must continue to be patient as Robert S. Mueller III carefully loosens the straps to reveal whether the trunk is empty or full.
Read more from David Von Drehle’s archive.
the rich asshole accuser says she's 'not surprised' he called her a liar
(CNN)Rachel Crooks says she is "not surprised" that President some rich asshole called her a liar.
"I mean, that's not the first time," Crooks said in an interview that aired Tuesday on "CNN Tonight."
Crooks says the rich asshole kissed her without her consent when she was working as a receptionist in the rich asshole Tower. Now, more than a decade later, she has decided to run for state office in Ohio.
the rich asshole denied Crooks' accusation in a tweet on Tuesday, following a story in The Washington Post that detailed her account.
"A woman I don't know and, to the best of my knowledge, never met, is on the FRONT PAGE of the Fake News Washington Post saying I kissed her (for two minutes yet) in the lobby of the rich asshole Tower 12 years ago. Never happened! Who would do this in a public space with live security ... cameras running. Another False Accusation. Why doesn't @washingtonpost report the story of the women taking money to make up stories about me? One had her home mortgage paid off. Only @FoxNews so reported...doesn't fit the Mainstream Media narrative," he tweeted.
At least 15 women have come forward with a wide range of accusations against the rich asshole, ranging from sexual harassment and sexual assault to lewd behavior around women. Of the women, 13 say the rich asshole attacked them directly and two others say they witnessed behavior that made them uncomfortable. All the alleged incidents took place prior to his assuming the presidency. the rich asshole has repeatedly denied the allegations.
"It is the first time, I guess, he's attacked me personally on Twitter, but his whole approach to this has been to deny the allegation of myself and, like you said, almost 20 women who have come forward. So it's not surprising," Crooks told CNN's Don Lemon. "But I would think as our President he would have more important things to do than tweet at me and try to discredit my story. I know what's true, he knows what's true and I think he should be afraid of that."
Watch MSNBC’s Matthews make a pro-gun lawmaker squirm by asking him to get behind limiting assault weapon sales
Ohio Congressman Tim Ryan (D-Youngstown)
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MSNBC “Hardball” anchor Chris Matthews needed multiple angles of questioning while trying to pin down a gun-owning Democratic Party congressman about the age that should be required to purchase an AR-style semi-automatic rifle.
“Let me ask you, where are you on the AR-15, which is the gun of choice of these school shootings?” Matthews asked Congressman Tim Ryan (D-OH) on Tuesday.
“At the very least, they need to be limited. You can’t let 18-year-old kids go out there and get these kind of guns and I think that should be the first step as we start limiting the ability of certain people to get these things,” Rep. Ryan replied.
“You would put a national age requirement, of what? To get an AR-15?” Matthews followed-up.
“You got to figure it out like these kids in Florida were so articulate about. You can’t buy a beer but you can go out and buy one you have these, you know, assault weapons. To me, that doesn’t make any sense,” Ryan replied.
“Beer is 21. Ar-15s is 18. What do you think of those numbers?” Matthews said, rephrasing his question yet again. “I mean you’re a legislator, I’m asking you to legislate. What do you think we should have as a number? I know it’s tough — this is “Hardball” — that’s what I do here.”
Congressman Ryan once had an “A” rating from the National Rifle Association, but donated money he had received from the NRA’s political action committee following the October shooting massacre in Las Vegas.
Frustrated at not being able to pin down Congressman Ryan, the host asked his other guest, Congressman Charlie Dent (R-PA), where he stood on the issue of raising the age required to buy an AR.
“Chris, in order to buy a pistol in this country, an individual has to be 21 years-of-age. We should look at this issue of making sure an 18-year-old can’t buy a high-powered, I’ll say AR-15, we should at least make that conform with the pistols,” Congressman Dent replied.
The question of the minimum age requirement to purchase a semi-automatic rifle was not the only gun control issue where the Republican from Pennsylvania was pushing harder than the Democrat from Ohio.
“We should also focus what we can actually do in Congress. Let’s do this: let’s ban the bump stock. Let’s have universal background checks for all private sales,” Dent suggested. “We did this in Pennsylvania in 1995 with [Republican] Tom Ridge as governor and with a Republican General Assembly. We brought the NRA, gun control groups, and law enforcement together in a room and we expanded background checks for private sales of pistols. We should do that.”
“There are things we should be doing for greater gun safety,” the Republican lawmaker concluded.
When Mueller calls, the rich asshole is going to have a choice: Accept the interview or risk curbing his own authority—and that of other presidents in future.
By ASHA RANGAPPA February 20, 2018
In the coming weeks, President some rich asshole is going to find himself making a decision he’s bound to hate: Does he want to comply with Robert Mueller, or risk diminishing his own power?
Here’s why this choice is inevitable. In the wake of his 8-count indictment against 13 Russian nations and 3 Russian entities for election interference, Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s interest in interviewing the rich asshole will take on a renewed importance. So far, all signs have pointed to the rich asshole’s refusing the interview request, which would almost certainly force Mueller to issue a grand jury subpoena to compel the president to talk. If this comes to pass, and the president refuses to comply with such a subpoena, the country will be in unchartered constitutional territory, and the courts will need to intervene. But history shows that when courts intervene because a president is trying to shield his own conduct, the deck is stacked against him. If the rich asshole isn’t careful, he will end up shrinking his own authority—and diminishing the presidency for years to come.
When it comes to the separation of powers, the Constitution makes it looks pretty simple: Congress makes the laws, the president enforces them and the judiciary adjudicates them. In reality, though, the lines between the branches are a little blurrier than they seem on paper. Writing in 1952, Supreme Court Justice Robert Jackson noted that presidential power sometimes lies in a “zone of twilight” where the precise boundaries of Article II, which defines the president’s role, are unclear. In general, it’s in the interest of presidents to leave some of their authority in the grey area. This is because having a court decide where presidential power begins and ends leaves it set in stone, and applies to anyone who occupies the office in the future. In practice, presidents have typically tended to think of themselves not just as stewards for their party, but also of the presidency itself—preserving the full scope of its constitutional power for their successors is part of their job.
When it comes to the separation of powers, the Constitution makes it looks pretty simple: Congress makes the laws, the president enforces them and the judiciary adjudicates them. In reality, though, the lines between the branches are a little blurrier than they seem on paper. Writing in 1952, Supreme Court Justice Robert Jackson noted that presidential power sometimes lies in a “zone of twilight” where the precise boundaries of Article II, which defines the president’s role, are unclear. In general, it’s in the interest of presidents to leave some of their authority in the grey area. This is because having a court decide where presidential power begins and ends leaves it set in stone, and applies to anyone who occupies the office in the future. In practice, presidents have typically tended to think of themselves not just as stewards for their party, but also of the presidency itself—preserving the full scope of its constitutional power for their successors is part of their job.
For this reason, when questions arise about whether the president can or can’t do something, it’s better, from the presidential perspective, not to have the issue go to court. Sometimes this will be by getting Congress on board to authorize and fortify executive powers—think of the Authorization for the Use of Military Force, or the recently renewed Section 702 of FISA that permits the executive to conduct electronic surveillance on foreign targets. Other times, it might just be reluctant compliance, as when President Ronald Reagan handed over his personal diaries to Iran-Contra Independent Counsel Lawrence Walsh, or when President Bill Clinton agreed to give testimony to the grand jury in Independent Counsel Kenneth Starr’s Whitewater/Lewinsky investigation.
Of course, courts can and do intervene when presidents attempt to extend their authority too far or refuse to negotiate on the parameters. The Supreme Court reigned in President Harry Truman when he tried to use his war powers to take over domestic steel mills during the Korean War, and brushed back President George W. Bush when he established military tribunals to try suspected terrorists at Guantanamo Bay. The nature of our constitutional system presumes that the executive branch will try to overreach, and having the judiciary impose limits on the presidency is appropriate and necessary in these instances. When these cases are about contested policies, limits on presidential power can strengthen our constitutional democracy overall by promoting the robust expression of checks and balances, encouraging collaboration with Congress, or reaffirming individual rights.
However, when judicial limits on the president’s power arise over a dispute concerning his own alleged bad conduct, they weaken the presidency for the wrong reasons. In such situations, the president isn’t defending some larger goal in the national interest. Rather, he’s simply using it as a shield to avoid being held accountable for his personal behavior or criminal acts. The most famous example is President Richard Nixon, who claimed executive privilege to avoid providing incriminating information to Watergate Special Prosecutor Leon Jaworski. The resulting Supreme Court case, U.S. v. Nixon, gave the presidency a blow by ruling that claims of executive privilege didn’t insulate him from having to turn over records that might have evidentiary value in a criminal proceeding. Similarly, Clinton’s attempt to use the same tactic to keep his aides from testifying before Starr’s grand jury failed, with a court deciding that “personal matters” did not fall within the scope of the privilege.
These were the worst kind of cases to test the limits of presidential power because they weren’t about the role of the presidency, but the individual occupying the office. This makes a difference. When presidents decide to litigate an issue to protect their policy decisions, they are more likely to act judiciously, and with an eye toward compromise, because they can see the larger implications for the legacy of their office. But when presidents are just trying to keep their own bad or illegal conduct from public view—or keep themselves out of jail—they end up placing the power of the presidency at risk unnecessarily, with no real benefits to the other branches, individual rights or the country generally if they lose. They offer courts a way to extend these decisions to other contexts in the future, tying the president’s hands in ways we might not want.
And though these battles can reaffirm the important principle that no one, not even the president, is above the law, they can still be damaging to democracy. Criminal investigations pit the president against law enforcement, making the public believe their loyalty belongs with one or the other. Even worse, they incentivize the president to accuse the investigations against him of being illegitimate, or an abuse of power. This kind of behavior is a typical self-preservation strategy for a criminal target—the rich asshole, like Nixon, has attacked the prosecutors and FBI agents investigating him as being politically biased. When this rhetoric comes straight from the chief executive of the United States against his own branch of government, it is especially destructive to democratic institutions and the faith people have in their legitimacy.
Electing someone to the presidency with bad moral character isn’t just a 4-year embarrassment. It’s also a constitutional risk, since there’s a good chance these individuals will have little regard for how their actions impact the legacy of the office they hold—especially if they find themselves in the crosshairs of an investigation, like the rich asshole does now. The irony, of course, is that the rich asshole’s impending showdown with Mueller is on shaky legal ground precisely because of the precedent set by some of his predecessors. Still, the presidency, and the country, would be better off if these questions never had to be decided in the first place.
‘You know who is tough on Russians? Bob Mueller’: Former ambassador mocks the rich asshole claim of Russian toughness
Mike McFaul (MSNBC)
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Former President Barack Obama’s ambassador to the Russian Federation responded on MSNBC to President some rich asshole’s claim he is “much tougher on Russia than Obama.”
Speaking with MSNBC host Chuck Todd, Ambassador Michael McFaul, explained how some rich asshole won’t criticize Vladimir Putin on Twitter. Even when boasting of his toughness.
“You know who is tough on Russia? Bob Mueller,” McFaul suggested. “That is being tough on Russia…going forward, if you are connected to what these people were doing, and in any way shape or form, you also broke the law.”
“He has never criticized Vladimir Putin,” Ambassador McFaul pointed out, adding, “twenty-one tweets or whatever and not one of them was aimed at Putin.”
“So you know Vladimir Putin about as well, you know him well in some respect, it is hard to know this person very well. But how do you believe he is reacting to the fact that the president doesn’t get tough on him the way everybody American government does?” Todd asked.
“I’ve known Putin for a long time,” McFaul responded. “I wouldn’t say we’re Facebook friends, but I first met him in the spring of 1991.”
“One thing I know about Putin, he doesn’t respect weakness, he only respects strength,” he explained.
“And our president looked really weak this weekend, he looked like he was flailing about. He didn’t look confident,” he observed. “He was shooting at — tweets off about everything and everybody except Vladimir Putin.”
“That is a sign of weakness. That is how Vladimir Putin perceives our president today,” Ambassador McFaul concluded.
Watch:
Kushner Resists Losing Access as Kelly Tackles Security Clearance Issues
Feb. 20, 2018
WASHINGTON — Jared Kushner, President the rich asshole’s son-in-law and senior adviser, is resisting giving up his access to highly classified information, prompting an internal struggle with John F. Kelly, the White House chief of staff, over who should be allowed to see some of the nation’s most sensitive secrets, according to White House officials and others briefed on the matter.
Mr. Kushner is one of the dozens of White House officials operating under interim security clearances because of issues raised by the F.B.I. during their background checks, according to the officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the clearances. The practice has drawn added scrutiny because of Rob Porter, the former staff secretary who resigned under pressure this month after domestic abuse allegations against him became public.
Mr. Porter’s post entailed handling and reviewing the flow of documents to and from the president, which routinely includes highly classified material. He had been allowed to continue in the job for more than a year with a stopgap clearance even though the F.B.I. had informed the White House of the damaging accusations against him.
Mr. Kushner’s clearance has afforded him access to closely guarded information, including the presidential daily brief, the intelligence summary some rich asshole receives every day, but it has not been made permanent, and his background investigation is still pending after 13 months serving in some rich asshole’s inner circle.
Now Mr. Kelly, his job at risk and his reputation as an enforcer of order and discipline tarnished by the scandal, is working to revamp the security clearance process, starting with an effort to strip officials who have interim clearances of their high-level access. In a memo issued on Friday, Mr. Kelly said he would revoke top clearances for anyone whose background check had been pending since June 1 or earlier, and review such clearances every month thereafter.
Mr. Kushner, frustrated about the security clearance issue and concerned that Mr. Kelly has targeted him personally with the directive, has told colleagues at the White House that he is reluctant to give up his high-level access, the officials said. In the talks, the officials say, Mr. Kushner has insisted that he maintain his current level of access, including the ability to review the daily intelligence briefing when he sees fit.
But Mr. Kelly, who has been privately dismissive of Mr. Kushner since taking the post of chief of staff but has rarely taken him on directly, has made no guarantees, saying only that the president’s son-in-law will still have all the access he needs to do his job under the new system.
“As I told Jared days ago, I have full confidence in his ability to continue performing his duties in his foreign policy portfolio including overseeing our Israeli-Palestinian peace effort and serving as an integral part of our relationship with Mexico,” Mr. Kelly said in a statement the White House released on Tuesday in which he refused to address Mr. Kushner’s security clearance or elaborate on his memo.
“Everyone in the White House is grateful for these valuable contributions to furthering the president’s agenda,” Mr. Kelly said of Mr. Kushner. “There is no truth to any suggestion otherwise.”
It is unclear why Mr. Kushner would want or need to review highly classified information. His current portfolio — which includes acting as an intermediary with Mexico, trying to forge Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations, participating in an economic dialogue with China and working on revising the North American Free Trade Agreement — seems unlikely to involve major intelligence or national security secrets. But Mr. Kushner, by dint of his relationship with some rich asshole, has wide-ranging access to the president and the information that he sees, and does not want to surrender it.
The fact that the White House chief of staff would take the step of publicly denying that a policy change would harm the president’s son-in-law pointed up the tension in the West Wing after the Porter episode, particularly between Mr. Kushner and his wife, Ivanka the rich asshole, who had been close allies of Mr. Porter, and Mr. Kelly.
Mr. Kushner and Ms. the rich asshole have been critical of Mr. Kelly in conversations with the president, who spent the weekend at his Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach, Fla. surveying people about whether he should fire his chief of staff. Since Mr. Porter’s departure, one official said, Mr. Kushner and Ms. the rich asshole have told people around the White House that they have been vocal in their attempts to defend Mr. Kelly but are being treated unfairly in return.
One person familiar with Mr. Kushner’s thinking, who insisted on anonymity to describe it, denied that he felt personally targeted by Mr. Kelly or was agitating to have him removed. Another White House official denied that Mr. Kushner had ever raised the issue of the intelligence summary in his discussions with Mr. Kelly over his clearance.
But the memo, deliberately or otherwise, has shone an unflattering light on Mr. Kushner, raising questions about whether he can be effective in his post and how much authority he has. That debate threatens to complicate what Mr. Kelly has acknowledged is a long-overdue effort inside the White House to get a handle on the clearance process, a national security imperative over which top officials appear to have placed little priority after some rich asshole took office.
“We should — and in the future, must — do better,” Mr. Kelly said in his memo last week.
The questions surrounding Mr. Kushner’s clearance are particularly acute because of the possibility that his extensive contacts with foreign actors — including travel, meetings with leaders overseas and multiple business ventures — might be relevant to the investigation by the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, into Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election.
Mr. Kushner initially failed to disclose scores of those contacts on the standard form required for all prospective government officials, and has since amended his submission, substantially delaying his background check.
That meant that his background information was not submitted in its entirety until June, after the June 1 cutoff that Mr. Kelly set in his memo.
Under the new policy, anyone holding interim clearance to see top secret or sensitive compartmented information whose background investigation had been pending since then is to be stripped of that access by Friday. Even if Mr. Kushner was not in that initial group, the document suggested that his status would soon be reviewed, and that his access going forward would be subject entirely to Mr. Kelly’s discretion.
“Similar reviews will occur monthly for long-outstanding adjudications,” Mr. Kelly wrote. The new rules, he said, would “limit access to certain highly classified information for those individuals working with interim clearance status absent explicit chief of staff’s office approval, which would be granted only in the most compelling circumstances.”
Matt Apuzzo contributed reporting.
Sarah Sanders gave a cryptic answer about a forthcoming 'incident' while being grilled over the rich asshole's stance toward Russia
WATCH: MSNBC’s Velshi shows the direct link from Russian ‘disinformation’ attacks to Sean Hannity’s Twitter account
MSNBC anchor Ali Velshi calls out far-right personality Sean Hannity for spreading lies by Russian trolls
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MSNBC host Ali Velshi called out Fox News personality Sean Hannity on Tuesday for pushing a conspiracy theory created by a Russian troll farm, the weekend before the 2016 presidential election.
NBC News discovered how the Russians were able take advantage of America’s existing right-wing echo chamber to smear Democratic Party nominee Hillary Clinton with charges of satanism in the home stretch of the campaign. The reporting was based on 202,000 tweets were recovered from 2,752 Twitter accounts the House Intelligence Committee confirmed as Russian trolls.
“I want to dig in a little more and show you exactly how the Internet Research Agency, this troll farm for Twitter was so influential,” Velshi explained.
“Take a look at these popular people that falsely accused Hillary Clinton and her campaign chair of being involved in a satanic ritual called spirit cooking,” he reported. “These lies spread so far, it showed up on the Drudge Report and in Sean Hannity’s account.”
“This is kind of crazy stuff,” Velshi concluded.
MSNBC correspondent Ben Popken explained how Hannity’s actions were exactly what the Kremlin wanted.
“You don’t know who to believe or what to believe. That’s one of the primary goals,” Popken explained. “You don’t know what’s real or what’s not. Don’t trust anyone, return to your tribal groups, stop communicating, and just break down and weaken the American conversation.”
Watch:
Holy fuck sticks. Ever since the shooting in Florida on 02-14-2018, the shit has hit the fan.
The proof came out that Russia interfered with our elections
‘Rantings of an increasingly isolated and worried individual’: Nicolle Wallace explains cause of the rich asshole’s Twitter meltdown
'Deadline: White House' host Nicolle Wallace.
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MSNBC host slammed the “fake news” coming from President some rich asshole’s Twitter feed on “Deadline: White House” Tuesday.
“It’s no coincidence that as the pace of indictments and charges from the Mueller probe take on the feel of a drumbeat, some rich asshole’s Twitter feed reads like the rantings of an increasingly isolated and worried individual,” Wallace explained.
“News today that Mueller has charged a lawyer who once worked with former the rich asshole campaign manager Paul Manafort for lying to investigators,” Wallace reported. “The son-in-law of a Ukrainian Russian oligarch named in the controversial some rich asshole dossier who’s accused of lying to investigators in the Russia investigation.”
“This is as some rich asshole blusters away on Twitter about the significance of Friday’s 13 indictments of Russian nationals for their role in meddling in the 2016 presidential election,” the host noted.
Wallace had particular contempt for the falsehoods in one the rich asshole tweet, where he falsely compared his record to that of former President Barack Obama.
“The fake news is that part of that tweet where President the rich asshole claims to have been tougher on Russia,” Wallace declared.
Watch Nicolle Wallace fact-check White House claims that the rich asshole has been tougher on Russia than Obama:
Florida GOP staffer accuses Parkland students of being ‘crisis actors’ who travel to shootings
UPDATE: Florida GOP staffer fired after accusing Parkland students of being ‘crisis actors’ who travel to shootings
Students leaving Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School (Screenshot)
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Republicans are ramping up attacks on survivors of the Parkland school massacre who have asked for new gun control laws.
Journalist Alex Leary of the Tampa Bay Times reports on Twitter that he received an e-mail from Benjamin Kelly, an aide to Shawn Harrison alleging that Emma Gonzalez and David Hogg were “actors that travel to various crisis when they happen.”
An aide to state Rep. Shawn Harrison, using state email, sent me this: “Both kids in the picture are not students here but actors that travel to various crisis when they happen.”
An aide to state Rep. Shawn Harrison, using state email, sent me this: "Both kids in the picture are not students here but actors that travel to various crisis when they happen." bit.ly/2EIDaGp
Seeking comment from the representative and whether he knew about this. twitter.com/learyreports/s…
Leary asked Harrison for comment, and Harrison reportedly responded by saying that he’s “seeking more information” from Kelly. “If my aide disparaged a student from Parkland who is grieving than I will deal most strongly with my aide. … Clearly it was inappropriate for him to send that,” Leary tweeted.
The students have been attacked by right wingers and reportedly by troll farms.
Alex Jones, who made waves by making the then shocking claim that school shootings were staged using child actors after Sandy Hook, has predictably joined the chorus.
Updated: Kelly has been fired, see tweet below:
WATCH: Fox News’ Shep Smith calls out Sarah Sanders for lying about Russian collusion during frantic press conference
Shep Smith (Screengrab)
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Just moments after White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders concluded an attenuated press briefing, Fox News’ Shep Smith immediately called her out for promoting a falsehood when discussing Russian involvement in the 2016 election.
Sanders was asked about the President’s tweet about H.R. McMaster that inferred the national security adviser forgot to say that the Russians didn’t impact the election. Sander’s quickly responded that the rich asshole is a fan of McMaster and that the president thought that “little addendum” about no collusion would be “helpful to add.”
Sanders then bolted from the lecture as reporters shouted more questions at her.
“That addendum would have made that inaccurate,” Smith told his Fox viewers.
“A couple of things,” Smith said. “Sarah Sanders went on to say that Sanders said we know from the Russian indictment that there is no collusion — that is not true. The collusion, according to a Fox News investigation, is a separate investigation and there was no mention of that.”
“The White House is trying to say it’s incontrovertible the Russian meddling had no impact on the election, that is not true, it’s an open matter,” He added.
Watch the video below via Twitter:
‘Sanders couldn’t fake empathy if she tried’: White House blasted for statement on Parkland massacre victims
White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders.
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White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders, who cancelled last week’s scheduled press conference following the Parkland shooting massacre in Florida, received harsh criticism online for the callowness of her statements.
“Here at the White House the victims and families have constantly been in our thoughts and prayers,” she said.
In the same press conference, Sanders also melted down trying to defend the rich asshole’s attempt to blame the shooting on the FBI’s investigation of Russian collusion.
Here are some of the best commentary:
Could sanders speak about the horrific deaths with a little emotion in her voice? Listening on the radio abdvsge sounds like a robot with no soul. Oh right.... Live: White House briefing February 20, 2018 cbsnews.com/news/live-whit… via @CBSPolitics
She's terrible today. Shaky, nervous, keeps touching her forehead. Has all the lying actually made her sick?
That was a whole lot of nothing wrapped in a whole lot more of nothing.
"Here at the White House, the victims are in our thoughts and prayers." - Sarah Huckabee Sanders, whose boss golfed during all of yesterday's #Parkland funerals.
No wonder she bumped today's #PressBriefing for hours.
the rich asshole directs AG Sessions to prepare memo on ban on gun modifications like bump stocks
President some rich asshole (Screenshot)
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In an address Tuesday afternoon, President some rich asshole stated that he has issued a memorandum to the Justice Department asking the Attorney General to ban bump stocks for rifles.
According to the president, he has asked the Justice Department to propose regulations to “ban all devices that turn legal weapons into machine guns.”
Watch the video below:
the rich asshole denies accusations of forcibly kissing woman in 2006
BY JOHN BOWDEN - 02/20/18 10:47 AM EST
President the rich asshole on Tuesday denied claims made by a woman who says he forcibly kissed her in the rich asshole Tower a decade ago.
In a tweet, the president rejected accusations from Rachel Crooks, a then-22-year-old secretary in a neighboring office building, who told The Washington Post that the rich asshole grabbed her and began forcibly kissing her upon meeting him in 2006.
"A woman I don’t know and, to the best of my knowledge, never met, is on the FRONT PAGE of the Fake News Washington Post saying I kissed her (for two minutes yet) in the lobby of the rich asshole Tower 12 years ago," the president wrote on Twitter.
"Never happened!" he added.
....cameras running. Another False Accusation. Why doesn’t @washingtonpost report the story of the women taking money to make up stories about me? One had her home mortgage paid off. Only @FoxNews so reported...doesn’t fit the Mainstream Media narrative.
A woman I don’t know and, to the best of my knowledge, never met, is on the FRONT PAGE of the Fake News Washington Post saying I kissed her (for two minutes yet) in the lobby of Trump Tower 12 years ago. Never happened! Who would do this in a public space with live security......
The Post published the claims Tuesday morning in a profile of Crooks, now 35, who is running for state office in Ohio. She said, however, that the incident happened on the 24th floor of the Manhattan office building. The Post noted that she had called on the rich asshole during a news conference to release the security tapes from the 24th floor that day, but he never responded.
“He took hold of my hand and held me in place like this,” she told the newspaper. “He started kissing me on one cheek, then the other cheek. He was talking to me in between kisses, asking where I was from, or if I wanted to be a model. He wouldn’t let go of my hand, and then he went right in and started kissing me on the lips," Crooks said.
Crooks was one of 19 women who came forward with accusations of sexual assault and other misconduct against then-candidate the rich asshole during the 2016 presidential race, claims that were denied by the rich asshole and his aides during the campaign.
“Totally made up nonsense to steal the election. Nobody has more respect for women than me!” the rich asshole tweeted in 2016 after the claims surfaced initially.
Despite the rich asshole's denials, Crooks says she will continue sharing her story to speak out against the "character" of the president, dismissing the idea of a lawsuit.
“I know there are many worse forms of sexual harassment, but doesn’t this still speak to character?” she said. “I don’t want money. I don’t need a lawsuit. I just want people to listen. How many women have to come forward? What will it take to get a response?”
Sarah Sanders melts down trying to defend the rich asshole’s tweets blaming Russia probe for Parkland shooting
White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders (Screenshot)
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White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders clashed with ABC News chief White House correspondent Jonathan Karl on Tuesday.
“The president hasn’t said that Russia didn’t meddle. What he’s saying is it didn’t have an impact, and it certainly wasn’t with help from the rich asshole campaign. It’s very clear that Russia meddled in the election,” Sanders said during a press briefing.
But Karl asked Sanders if President some rich asshole really thought — as he tweeted over the weekend — that the FBI failed to stop a school shooting in Florida because it was preoccupied with investigation the rich asshole campaign’s potential collusion with Russia during the 2016 election.
Sanders insisted that was not what the rich asshole thought.
“Did he mistweet?” Karl shot back. “He said this is not acceptable. they’re spending too much time to prove Russian collusion.”
“I think he’s making the point that we would like our FBI agencies to not be focused on something that is clearly a hoax in terms of investigating the rich asshole campaign and its involvement,” Sanders said.
“You just agreed that the evidence is that there the Russians interfered,” Karl said.
“I said that the rich asshole campaign interfered and colluded with it,” Sanders said.
“But the investigation is obviously about what Russia did and raises the question now that you’ve said the president agrees, the national security adviser says the evidence is incontrovertible, what is the president going to about it?” Karl asked.
Sanders insisted the rich asshole administration had “spent a lot of time” on cyber security and said Russia was not fond of the president’s defense budget.
Sanders later claimed the rich asshole “has been tougher on Russia than Obama was in eight years combined.”
Ex-DOJ official explains how Mueller ‘is sending a signal’ with charges against Alex Van der Zwaan
MSNBC anchor Katy Tur and former top DOJ and FBI official Chuck Rosenberg.
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A former top official at the Federal Bureau of Investigation and Department of Justice explained to Katy Tur on Tuesday the message being sent by special counsel Robert Mueller.
“When you heard about this new charge today, this charge of lying by this gentleman, [Alex] Van der Zwaan, what was your reaction?” Tur asked MSNBC contributor Chuck Rosenberg.
“Well, Katy, I’ll tell you: eat your vegetables, make your bed, and don’t lie to the FBI,” Rosenberg suggested.
“I think Bob Mueller is sending a signal, even if this case is a one-off — and by that I mean, not in the heart of the Russia interference portion of the investigation — if you go in front of the FBI, in you’re talking to Bob’s prosecutors, tell the truth,” he translated.
“Is that really what this is? More than anything else, a big signal to everybody in this, if they’re not coming to play — as in coming to tell the truth and coming to be fully honest and forthright with this special counsel — that they will face some serious repercussions?” Tur asked.
“So, what a prosecutor is trying to do is really two things. They’re sending a message to the person who broke the law, in this case, Van der Zwaan is being punished for lying to the FBI. That’s specific deterrence,” Rosenberg explained.
“But there’s another theory of deterrence that matters a lot, Katy, and that’s general deterrence. It’s the message to everyone else, ‘look at what happened to this guy for lying, don’t make that mistake!'” he concluded.
Watch:
Attorney Alex Van der Zwaan pleads guilty in Mueller probe of the rich asshole-Russia collusion
Alex Van der Zwaan (Screenshot)
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A London-based attorney pleaded guilty Tuesday afternoon in the special probe of the rich asshole campaign ties to Russia, according to CNN’s Marshall Cohen.
Alex Van der Zwaan admitted to lying to special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigators and FBI agents about his contacts with a former the rich asshole campaign associate and another person about his work for Ukrainian politician Yulia Tymoshenko.
The attorney was hired by Paul Manafort more than five years ago to draft a report for his pro-Kremlin client Viktor Yanukovych to justify the jailing of a political rival.
Van der Zwaan, whose father-in-law German Khan was named in the Steele dossier, pleaded guilty to lying about the last time he’d spoken with Rick Gates, a former the rich asshole campaign associate and longtime Manafort lieutenant, and a second, unnamed person.
Court documents show Van der Zwaan said he last spoke with Person A in 2014, when they discussed the unnamed person’s family, but investigators say the attorney recorded a phone call between the pair in September 2016 about legal work for Tymoshenko.
Van der Zwaan was accused of secretly recording that call and destroying a follow-up email that same month.
He was also accused of lying to FBI and special counsel investigators about his last conversation with Gates, in mid-August 2016.
Van der Zwaan was charged Friday, the same day Mueller indicted 13 Russian nationals and three Russian companies in connection with efforts to influence the U.S. presidential election.
Gates is expected to plead guilty to money laundering and other charges in the probe.
February 20, 2018
Shashank Bengali
Los Angeles Times
Posted with permission from Tribune Content Agency
MUMBAI, India — Landing in New Delhi on Tuesday to begin what was billed as an unofficial tour to promote his family's real estate interests in India, Donald Trump Jr. wasted little time before skirting into international politics.
Some of Trump Jr.'s first statements in India could be seen as crossing the line into geopolitics, showing how difficult it is to focus solely on business when you're the son of the U.S. president and you haven't been exactly shy about defending his political views, statements and policies while running his business empire.
Asked to compare India with China as a place to invest, President Donald Trump's eldest son — and acting head of his business empire — told journalists: "As a businessman, I feel things here are substantially more above-board.
"I think the mentality of the people is the same," the Press Trust of India quoted Trump Jr. as saying. "I think there is probably little bit more honesty."
The comparison undoubtedly flattered his Indian hosts, who view China as a strategic rival in Asia, but illustrated what many U.S. critics described as the ethical and political quandaries surrounding Trump Jr.'s multicity tour of the country this week.
Donald Trump Jr. has described this as purely a business trip to boost sales in four luxury real estate projects in India that have the Trump name attached. A fifth commercial property is in the works outside New Delhi, making India the Trump Organization's most active overseas market.
But Trump Jr. could hardly avoid politics completely.
He is scheduled to deliver a policy address on Friday at a business summit in New Delhi, with the topic listed as "Reshaping Indo-Pacific ties." The conference brings together executives and policymakers, and organizers say it will "showcase India's rise in world affairs."
On the website of the summit, sponsored by a leading Indian newspaper, Trump Jr. received second billing among the speakers, after Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and ahead of the country's finance minister, Arun Jaitley.
And he was due to attend at least two dinners to thank buyers of apartments in Trump-branded properties, including in the New Delhi satellite city of Gurgaon, where a pair of 600-foot towers will house deluxe apartments ranging from $750,000 to $1.5 million.
Trump's Indian partner, Tribeca, launched the Gurgaon project last month and promised any buyer who put down a 30 percent deposit an invitation to dinner with Trump Jr. In recent days, glossy wraparound advertisements have run in major Indian newspapers reading: "Trump is here. Are you invited?"
The dinners gave the appearance, to some ethics experts in the U.S., that the Trump Organization was selling access to a member of the president's inner circle. A representative of Mumbai-based Tribeca who was not authorized to speak to the media said the dinner would be a "meet-and-greet" and "nothing at all about politics."
Late last year, President Trump's daughter Ivanka Trump led the U.S. delegation to a global entrepreneurship summit in the southern Indian city of Hyderabad. Unlike his sister, Trump Jr. has no official White House position.
"By American standards, it's very unusual to have a presidential family member coming ostensibly on a business visit and talking about things that are not about business," said Dhruva Jaishankar, a foreign policy fellow at the Brookings India think tank in New Delhi.
The Trump Organization has not invested any money in the Indian projects but licensed the use of its name and stands to reap an undisclosed amount of royalties based on sales. Tribeca said this month that sales in the Gurgaon towers — where the apartments are said to feature floor-to-ceiling windows and private elevators — had topped $78 million in the first 30 days, making it the fastest-selling Trump property in India.
Others include twin residential towers in the western city of Pune, a gold-encrusted skyscraper being built in the commercial capital Mumbai and a 38-story residential tower in the eastern city of Kolkata. The projects are lavish by Indian standards, some advertising valet service, lap pools and designer interiors.
The Trump Organization does not disclose its income from the licensing fees, but according to President Trump's 2017 financial disclosure report filed with the U.S. Office of Government Ethics, his company earned up to $1 million in royalties from the Kolkata project.
As president, Trump said he would not conduct any new business in foreign countries, but deals that were struck before his election were not paused. Speaking to an Indian news channel, Trump Jr. lamented the fact that the company could not do more in India, where it signed its first licensing deal in 2011. (That project, in Mumbai, was ultimately scrapped.)
"When people talk about it these days, it's like, 'profiteering from the presidency' and all this nonsense," Trump Jr. told India's CNBC channel. "But wait a minute. I can't do deals. I've spent over a decade creating relationships to now, where we have given incredible deals that are all active, and we could do so many more."
Trump Jr.'s positive reception in India was due in part to his father's warm relations with Modi, who also developed a strong working relationship with President Barack Obama. Trump has pleased many Indians with his tough stances against Pakistan and China, and in a phone call last month, said the U.S. "considers India a true friend and partner in addressing challenges around the world."
Speaking about his father, Trump Jr. told the Economic Times newspaper: "You have someone now ... who'll say what he's thinking and then actually implement it, not just tell you what you want to hear and do nothing. And that's kind of important and I think you may be experiencing something a little similar here" with Modi.
It was striking, to some observers, that Trump Jr.'s visit was receiving more favorable media attention than that of Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, who has been snubbed by top officials during a visit to India this week due to his perceived outreach to members of a Sikh religious separatist movement who live in Canada.
"It's not as if people in the Indian government are going to go by anything that Trump Jr. says, because there are many other official channels to the White House," Jaishankar said. "But if he develops a more favorable impression of India, that can only be a good thing."
No good vibes in the rich asshole marriage
February 19, 2018
Robin Abcarian
Los Angeles Times
Posted with permission from Tribune Content Agency
America asks a lot of its first couples. Fairly or not, they become national marital role models. We don't really care if they have separate bedrooms, but we do expect them to demonstrate a certain amount of mutual respect and fondness for each other.
We like it when they seem to be in love, like George and Laura Bush, or Barack and Michelle Obama. Even Bill and Hillary Clinton, for all their woes, seem to take pleasure in each other's intellects and achievements. We also want them to be devoted parents.
We get no good vibes from the Trump marriage.
Trump, who demands adoration, would no doubt love for Melania to gaze upon him the way Nancy Reagan gazed upon her Ronnie. But Ronnie didn't cheat on Nancy with porn stars and Playmates.
What's distressing to many Americans is that Melania seems like a prop in her husband's reality show. During his inauguration last year, when the new president turned around to say something to his wife, her face lit up for a second. As soon as he turned away, her happy mask fell away. Months later, she slapped away his hand as they walked on the tarmac in Israel.
"These people are under constant scrutiny," said University of Washington sociologist Pepper Schwartz, a sex and relationships expert. "Has anyone ever seen a loving gesture between them?"
Our first lady does not seem to be having a good time. In the last month alone, amid the daily chaos that is the Trump White House, stories about the president's womanizing, and his techniques for suppressing stories about his womanizing, have become fodder for the daily news report.
Porn star Stormy Daniels said she was paid to stay quiet about an affair she alleges she had with Trump shortly after Melania gave birth to their son, Barron. Michael Cohen, Trump's personal attorney and self-described "fix-it guy" for the president, announced he had paid the actress, whose real name is Stephanie Clifford, $130,000, but has not said why.
Last week, the New Yorker reported that former Playboy Playmate Karen McDougal kept a diary of the nine-month affair she began with Trump in 2006, around the same time he was seeing Clifford. McDougal has said that the National Enquirer, whose publisher is a friend and protector of Trump, paid her $150,000 for the exclusive rights to her story, then never ran it. (Trump has denied both affairs.)
Melania had already skipped the billionaire confab in Davos after the Stormy Daniels payment story broke. Then came McDougal, and more wifely passive-aggression followed: On Friday, Melania's office, citing a scheduling issue, announced she would drive alone to Andrews Air Force Base rather than helicopter there with her husband from the White House.
Maybe Melania passed on the copter ride because she is getting tired of walking across the White House lawn in her stilettos, but she was also a no-show at a Mar-a-Lago dinner her husband hosted with Geraldo Rivera and her stepsons, according to the Washington Post.
Melania seems to be punishing Donald, but for what?
"I don't think she ever imagined that he was going to be faithful to her," Schwartz said. "This is a man who has never stopped pushing himself on women. The preponderance of the evidence, as they say, is pretty convincing."
The punishment, in that case, must be for the relentless humiliation.
::
Surely, Melania Trump knew what she was getting into when she married the man who would become our 45th president.
Twenty-four years her senior, Donald Trump had already been divorced twice. He was a famous adulterer, womanizer and sexist, and a regular on shock jock Howard Stern's radio show, making proclamations about then-girlfriend Melania's breasts, the hotness of his own daughter, his belief that when a woman turns 35, it's "checkout time."
She rallied to his defense after the infamous "Access Hollywood" tape became public during the 2016 presidential campaign. America's future first lady dismissed her husband's boast about being able to grab women's genitals as just "boy talk," and said her husband had been "egged on" by host Billy Bush.
And then, when more than a dozen women came forward to allege that Trump had sexually harassed or assaulted them over a period of four decades, the former model attacked the women. Their stories, she said, were "lies."
"This was all organized from the opposition," Melania Trump, 47, told CNN. "Did they ever check the background of these women? They don't have any facts."
Well, you certainly can't blame a wife for supporting her husband.
Unless, of course, she's a Democrat, like Hillary Clinton. In which case the wife will be vilified for supporting her husband.
::
In the last year, there has been a lot of speculation about the durability of the Trumps' marriage, mostly focusing on Melania's tolerance levels. Tongue-in-cheek memes include "#FreeMelania."
Thirteen months ago, at the first Women's March, there were numerous handmade posters, riffing on the first lady's generally stone-faced expression, with variations of "Melania, blink twice if you need help!" And that was long before details about the porn star and the Playmate emerged.
A Marist poll released on Valentine's Day, found that 43 percent of Americans think the Trumps should stay together, 34 percent said Melania should leave and 23 percent were unsure. I can't imagine what it feels like to have your marriage put to a popular vote.
Over the course of the last year, Melania's approval rating has inched up. She is now far more popular than her husband. This is not much of a surprise; most first ladies are more popular than their mates. In Melania's case, the bar was pretty low given Trump's low ratings, but good for her.
Last fall, during a White House dinner, President Trump acknowledged his wife's popularity, calling her "the star of the Trump family," according to news reports. "They love her out there, I'll tell you. We walked all over Florida. We walked all over Texas, and they're loving Melania."
Since he has a history of walking all over his marriage, it's good to know that someone is loving Melania.
Justice Thomas unleashes angry pro-gun rant while Parkland kids beg for their lives on television
Official portrait of Justice Clarence Thomas (Wikimedia Commons)
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Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas sounded like a talk radio host in his dissent to a challenge of California’s waiting period to buy guns.
The top court refused to hear the challenge to California’s 10-day waiting period for firearms purchases, and two other justices agreed with Thomas to hear the case but did not join his dissent.
“If a lower court treated another right so cavalierly, I have little doubt this court would intervene,” Thomas wrote. “But as evidenced by our continued inaction in this area, the Second Amendment is a disfavored right in this court.”
Thomas accused other justices of showing contempt toward constitutional protections for gun owners, and he complained they would likely have heard cases involving potential waiting periods for abortion, racist publications or police stops.
“The right to keep and bear arms is apparently this court’s constitutional orphan. And the lower courts seem to have gotten the message,” Thomas wrote.
Thomas complained that the Supreme Court had not heard a gun case in eight years, as students from a Parkland, Florida, high school beg lawmakers to pass gun safety restrictions after a mass shooting killed 17 of their classmates and teachers.
the rich asshole ignored aides on tweeting about Mueller — so advisers went on Fox News so he’d listen
President some rich asshole during a White House meeting. Image via screengrab.
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White House advisers dreaded President some rich asshole’s reaction to last week’s indictments of 13 Russian nationals accused of meddling in the 2016 election, and they enlisted Fox News to help cheer him up.
The president spent hours watching news coverage with his two adult sons, growing angrier and angrier as commentators credited Russian interference for his election win and teenage survivors of a Florida school shooting criticized him, reported Time.
Aides worried the president would step on good economic news with his outbursts, and his lawyers warned the special counsel investigation was not over — but the rich asshole didn’t want to hear it.
So advisers tried find someone to say the same things on TV in hopes the president would pay attention.
“Knowing the president’s fondness for Fox, the White House booked spokesmen to try to direct the rich asshole toward a little less fanciful readings of the indictments,” Time reported.
the rich asshole agreed with aides that he shouldn’t golf Saturday out of respect for 17 students and teachers killed nearby in a Florida school shooting, but the president stewed with free time on his hands.
He spent the holiday weekend firing off angry tweets before mingling with guests at his private Mar-A-Lago club, and he went ahead and golfed on Presidents Day, as grieving families buried their children about an hour away.
‘Criminals don’t care’: NRATV contributor tells Fox that laws against robbery, murder and rape are useless
Former Secret Service agent Dan Bongino (Screen cap).
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Dan Bongino, a former Secret Service agent and regular contributor to the NRA’s online TV network, went on Fox News program “Outnumbered” Tuesday to decry the uselessness of laws banning certain kinds of guns — as well as laws that ban other crimes.
Talking about the gun control debate sparked by last week’s massacre in Parkland, Florida, Bongino lashed out at the idea that more gun laws would reduce school shootings since criminals would find a way to commit crimes regardless of what laws are passed.
“Criminals don’t care about your gun laws,” he said. “They don’t give a damn. They don’t care about rape laws, robbery laws, homicide laws, burglary laws, gun laws, or anything else. I don’t know why you think a supply-side measure meant to limit criminals who simply get them off the street and openly mock gun laws!”
A contributor on the panel pointed out that Parkland school shooter Nikolas Cruz didn’t just buy an AR-15-style rifle off the street, but instead bought it legally through a licensed gun dealer.
Bongino shot back that there are “already laws” that should have stopped Cruz from getting a gun, but authorities “missed” the warning signs about him and his behavior.
Watch the video below.
Ex-Bush lawyer: Mueller’s latest indictments show he ‘can bring collusion charges’ anytime he wants
Former Bush White House Associate Counsel Jamil Jaffer talks with CNN (Screen cap).
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Jamil Jaffer, a former attorney for the George W. Bush administration and current professor at the Antonin Scalia Law School at George Mason University, told CNN on Tuesday that special counsel Robert Mueller’s recent indictments show he’s confident he can charge people with collusion in Russia’s interference in the 2016 presidential election.
During a CNN interview, Jaffer was asked the most recent set of Mueller indictments, and the former Bush White House associate counsel zeroed in on the charges that Mueller brought against Russian nationals who allegedly conspired to help the rich asshole get elected president in 2016.
“What you see there is an attempt by Mueller to show Americans and other foreigners that, ‘I’ve got charges I can bring if I think there is a conspiracy to defraud the United States, to prevent the FEC from doing its job in preventing foreign influence in our elections,'” he explained.
Jaffer went on to say that Mueller’s new indictments will turn up the heat on other people being investigated to cooperate and come clean on what they know.
“That’s a big deal because at the end of the day, everyone thought there are no real collusion charges to be brought,” he said. “And this is the example of him saying, ‘I can bring collusion charges.’ And what that does is it pressurizes everybody to start cooperating. You didn’t think he had charges to bring, now he does, they might force you to cooperate and work his way up the chain. A very smart move by the special prosecutor here.”
Watch the video below.
the rich asshole accuser Rachel Crooks calls his bluff after president’s attack on ‘woman I don’t know and never met’
Rachel Crooks, who said some rich asshole forcibly kissed her in 2005 (Screen cap).
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Rachel Crooks is running for a state house seat in Ohio after coming forward about with accusations that President some rich asshole once accosted her while waiting for an elevator in the rich asshole Tower.
“A woman I don’t know and, to the best of my knowledge, never met, is on the FRONT PAGE of the Fake News Washington Post saying I kissed her (for two minutes yet) in the lobby of the rich asshole Tower 12 years ago. Never happened!” the rich asshole tweeted Tuesday. “Who would do this in a public space with live security cameras running. Another False Accusation. Why doesn’t @washingtonpost report the story of the women taking money to make up stories about me? One had her home mortgage paid off. Only @FoxNews so reported…doesn’t fit the Mainstream Media narrative.”
Crooks took the James Comey approach of calling out the president. “Lordy, I hope there are tapes,” Comey famously said after the rich asshole threatened to release tapes of their conversation.
“Please, by all means, share the footage from the hallway outside the 24th floor residential elevator bank on the morning of January 11, 2006,” Crooks tweeted from her campaign account. “Let’s clear this up for everyone. It’s liars like you in politics that have prompted me to run for office myself.”
Please, by all means, share the footage from the hallway outside the 24th floor residential elevator bank on the morning of January 11, 2006. Let’s clear this up for everyone. It’s liars like you in politics that have prompted me to run for office myself. secure.actblue.com/contribute/pag… twitter.com/realdonaldtrum…
“Nothing shocks me anymore about him,” Crooks said of the rich asshole’s denial during an appearance on Megyn Kelly in December. “I think he’s a pathological liar — it’s not shocking, but it’s sad that people don’t hold him more accountable.”
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