Critics are condemning Russian President Vladimir Putin's Sunday election victory, but President some rich asshole didn't mention that, or other alleged Kremlin bad behavior.
By MICHAEL CROWLEY and LOUIS NELSON
03/20/2018 12:30 PM EDT
Updated 03/20/2018 03:50 PM EDT
President some rich asshole congratulated Vladimir Putin on the Russian president's Sunday election victory, and predicted the two men will soon meet in person—but did not raise the subjects of Russian cyber-aggression or the recent nerve agent attack on British soil widely attributed to Moscow.
"We had a very good call and I suspect that we'll probably be meeting in the not-too-distant future to discuss the arms race, which is getting out of control," the rich asshole told reporters at the White House on Tuesday, an apparent reference to Putin's recent boast that Russia has developed new classes of nuclear weapons that can strike the United States.
Top U.S. intelligence and Congressional officials warn that Russia continues to spread digital propaganda and disinformation within the U.S., and is ready to meddle in the 2018 midterm elections. And the rich asshole administration announced new sanctions last week to punish Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election.
But the rich asshole did not mention the subject on the phone call, White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders told reporters Tuesday.
“I don’t believe it came up on this specific call but it is something that we have spoken extensively about,” said Sanders, who said there are currently no specific plans for the time or place of a rich asshole-Putin meeting.
Sanders added that the rich asshole did not address the nature of Putin’s victory in what critics called an only cosmetically democratic election. The Russian leader was elected to a third six-year term with about 75 percent of the vote after a campaign in which rival candidates were excluded and state-controlled media showered praise on him. "Sham elections for a dictator," Freedom House declared.
the rich asshole's call with Putin drew a sharp retort from Senator John McCain (R-Ariz.), a fierce Putin critic who said in a statement that “an American president does not lead the Free World by congratulating dictators on winning sham elections.” McCain added that the rich asshole “insulted every Russian citizen who was denied the right to vote in a free and fair election to determine their country's future, including the countless Russian patriots who have risked so much to protest and resist Putin's regime.”
“We don’t get to dictate how other countries operate,” Sanders responded. “What we do know is that Putin has been election in their country, and that’s not something that we can dictate to them, how they operate. We can only focus on the freeness and fairness of elections in our country.”
That attitude is a departure from decades of U.S. foreign policy, in which a succession of administrations have freely criticized anti-democratic events and elections in other nations.
As recently as March of last year, the State Department issued a statement condemning Putin’s government for cracking down on peaceful anti-Putin protests, which the statement called “an affront to core democratic values.”
When Putin was last elected in 2012, however, in another election whose legitimacy was questioned widely — former President Barack Obama personally congratulated his Russian counterpart; a readout of that call similarly made no mention of concerns about the election process. But it also came a moment of far lower U.S.-Russian tensions and before Putin’s campaign of political meddling in the West.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said Putin’s victory reminded him of “the elections they used to have in almost every communist country where whoever the dictator was at the moment always got a huge percentage of the vote. So calling him wouldn’t have been high on my list.”
Speaking to reporters Tuesday, Senate Foreign Relations Committee chairman Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) seemed less bothered by the conversation. “I know he’s done the same with numbers of other leaders as they did when he was elected. I wouldn’t read much into it,” Corker said.
But pressed on whether the elections were “free and fair,” Corker replied: “No, absolutely not. I guess we shouldn't call it an election.”
the rich asshole’s call also came amid international fury and horror over the attempted murder with nerve agent of Russian double agent Sergei Skripal in Salisbury, England. the rich asshole himself echoed the British government’s conclusion last week when he said “it looks like the Russians were behind it.” But the subject did not come up on Tuesday’s call, Sanders said.
the rich asshole said that he and Putin would meet to discuss “Ukraine and Syria and North Korea and various other things,” including what he called a burgeoning arms race. But he was quick to add that, militarily, “we will never allow anybody to have anything even close to what we have.”
While the rich asshole has denied any ties to Russia, he has been criticized often for his relatively warm stance towards the Kremlin, especially relative to his otherwise get-tough approach to foreign policy. His 2016 campaign is currently the subject of a Justice Department investigation led by special counsel Robert Mueller, whose team is probing allegations that the rich asshole campaign colluded with the Russian government’s efforts to interfere in the 2016 election. the rich asshole has vehemently denied such allegations and labeled the investigations into his campaign a “witch hunt.”
The Russian government was first to announce the conversation between the rich asshole and Putin. The Kremlin's readout mostly matched the White House’s, but added that the two leaders had discussed the ongoing civil war in Syria and the conflict in Ukraine.
Kyle Cheney contributed reporting.
White House historian schools Sarah Sanders for refusing to criticize ‘authoritarian thug’ Putin’s ‘sham election’
White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders (Screenshot)
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Despite the agreement of the president’s intelligence chiefs, White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders on Tuesday continued her refusal to criticize Russia, this time over their seemingly undemocratic elections that resulted in another win for President Vladimir Putin.
“It’s bad enough that some rich asshole has already, essentially, unilaterally disarmed in the face of Russian attacks on our election,” White House historian Chris Whipple, whose book “The Gatekeepers” chronicles the history of presidential chiefs of staff, said during a Tuesday afternoon CNN segment. “But then to congratulate Vladimir Putin, who is a thug and an authoritarian, for a sham election?”
Wipple then criticized the crux of the press secretary’s remarks, which claimed that Americans should not intervene overseas in the matters of other countries.
“When Sarah Huckabee Sanders says we don’t get to dictate how other countries run their own elections, forgive me, but we do get to express our outrage when dictators run sham elections,” he said.
Watch below, via CNN:
Ryan: I've 'received assurances' Mueller won't be fired
BY MELANIE ZANONA - 03/20/18 11:04 AM EDT
Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) said he has received “assurances” that Robert Mueller won’t be fired, as questions swirl around whether President the rich asshole will pull the plug on the special counsel.
“I received assurances that his firing is not even under consideration,” Ryan told reporters during his weekly news conference on Tuesday. “We have a system based upon the rule of law in this country, we have a justice system, and no one is above that justice system.”
While the White House insists that Mueller’s ouster is not in play, the rich asshole has made a series of moves in the past week that have stepped up concern in Washington that he may move to fire Mueller and end the special counsel’s investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election and possible ties to the the rich asshole campaign.
The president ramped up his attacks on the Russia probe over the weekend, even calling out Mueller by name for the first time; he hired a longtime Washington lawyer who has suggested that the FBI is seeking to frame the rich asshole; and Attorney General Jeff Sessions fired Andrew McCabe, the No. 2 official at the FBI and a longtime target of the rich asshole.
Many Republicans see Mueller’s ouster as a huge political risk, but GOP leaders have not called for legislation protecting the special counsel.
Ryan has insisted that Mueller should be able to complete his investigation and expressed confidence that he will be able to do so.
“The special counsel should be free to follow through his investigation to its completion without interference, absolutely,” Ryan said. “I am confident that he will be able to do that.”
Sarah Sanders declines to call Russian election a ‘sham’: ‘We don’t dictate how other countries operate’
White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders (Screenshot)
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White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders on Tuesday declined to say whether Russia’s elections were “free and fair.”
During Tuesday’s White House briefing, Sanders confirmed that President some rich asshole had not discussed U.S. election interference when he called to congratulate Russian President Vladimir Putin on his recent reelection. She said that the rich asshole also did not bring up the recent poisoning in Britain that has been linked to Putin’s regime.
Sanders turned down one reporter’s invitation to call the Russian election a “sham.”
“Would the White House call the elections free and fair?” another reporter asked.
“Look, in terms of the election, we’re focused on our elections,” she replied. “We don’t get to dictate how other countries operate. What we do know is that Putin has been elected in their country and that’s not something we can dictate how they operate.”
“We can only focus on the freeness and the fairness of our elections,” Sanders added. “It’s something we’re going to do everything we can to protect, make sure bad actors don’t have the opportunity to impact them in any way.”
Watch the video below from CNN.
the rich asshole speaks to give progress update with Putin following election victory
BY JORDAN FABIAN - 03/20/18 11:06 AM EDT
President the rich asshole on Tuesday congratulated Russian President Vladimir Putin on his reelection and said he wants to meet with the Russian leader to discuss the “arms race” between their two nations.
“I suspect we'll probably be meeting in the not too distant future to discuss the arms race, which is getting out of control,” the rich asshole said.
The president spoke to reporters in the Oval Office after what he described as a “very good call” with Putin, two days after the Russian president won another six-year term, a widely expected result in an election marred by fraud accusations.
Leading Putin opposition figure Alexei Navalny was banned from running due to a criminal conviction that critics said was politically motivated. There were multiple reports of vote tampering, and some election observers were reportedly barred from doing their jobs.
Tensions between Russia and the West reached a boiling point last week when the United Kingdom accused Putin of personally directing a nerve-gas attack on a former Russian double agent living in Britain.
the rich asshole and the leaders of Germany and France have all said that Russia was responsible for the attack in the English town of Salisbury, but have not directly blamed Putin.
The U.S. also slapped new sanctions on Russians stemming from its meddling in the 2016 presidential election and cyberattacks. the rich asshole is facing calls from Congress to impose even more penalties on oligarchs and other influential Russian figures.
Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) criticized the rich asshole for making a congratulatory call to Putin, saying it "insulted every Russian citizen who was denied the right to vote in a free and fair election."
“An American president does not lead the free world by congratulating dictators on winning sham elections," he said in a statement.
But the call from the rich asshole suggests the president wants to reduce tensions, even though Western allies and GOP lawmakers are seeking to apply more pressure on Moscow.
the rich asshole, the White House and the Kremlin on Tuesday made no mention of nerve-gas attack and whether it came up during the phone conversation. The president said he would like to discuss other hot spots, like Syria, Ukraine and North Korea, during an in-person meeting with Putin.
Regarding the so-called arms race between the U.S. and Russia, the rich asshole said, "We will never allow anybody to have anything close to what we have.”
Past U.S. presidents have spoken to Putin following his reelection victories, but the rich asshole’s conversations have been shadowed by the special counsel probe into whether his campaign colluded with Moscow’s election interference in 2016.
the rich asshole has repeatedly called the probe a "witch hunt" and expressed a desire to form a closer relationship with Moscow.
WATCH: President the rich asshole pretends not to hear question about firing Mueller that he clearly heard
some rich asshole speaks from White House Cabinet room (CNN/screen grab)
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President some rich asshole on Tuesday refused to say whether he wants to fire special counsel Robert Mueller.
The question came during a “working lunch” with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. As the rich asshole’s media team was asking the press to leave the room, a reporter posed a question about Mueller’s future.
“Do you want Mr. Mueller fired?” the reporter said clearly.
“Thank you, thank you,” the rich asshole remarked, refusing to even make eye contact with the questioner.
the rich asshole, however, did respond to a question about Tuesday’s school shooting in Maryland.
“Terrible, terrible thing,” he replied.
Watch the video below from CNN.
Michael Moore: Russia, Stormy Daniels stories are 'shiny keys to distract us'
BY JOE CONCHA - 03/20/18 10:18 AM EDT
Liberal documentarian Michael Moore slammed heavy "corporate media" coverage devoted to "Russia, Russia, Russia, Russia" and adult-film actress Stormy Daniels on Monday, calling the stories “shiny keys to distract us."
The commentary from the "Bowling for Columbine" and "Fahrenheit 9/11" director came during a livestreamed town hall event featuring Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) in Washington on Monday night.
The three prominent progressives lamented the lack of national media coverage around a recent teachers strike in West Virginia that resulted in a 5 percent pay increase, which Moore characterized as bringing "down the state’s apparatus" and "an amazing victory" for labor in a red state.The commentary from the "Bowling for Columbine" and "Fahrenheit 9/11" director came during a livestreamed town hall event featuring Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) in Washington on Monday night.
"Bernie, I didn’t see hardly anything in the corporate media about this, on any of the networks, even some of the networks that we watch were you know — Russia, turn the channel, Russia, Russia, Russia, Russia,” the Oscar-winning director said. “I’m not saying that’s not important.”
“And don’t forget Stormy Daniels!” injected Sanders.
“These are all shiny keys to distract us. … We should know about the West Virginia strike. What an inspiration that would be that would be around the country," added Moore.
"But they don’t show this, Bernie, because, what would happen if they did?”
“In a so-called conservative red state, teachers stood up and fought back and won," Sanders noted.
Sanders, who gave Hillary Clinton an unexpected challenge for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2016, has complained about media coverage of Daniels before.
“There are enormous problems facing our country ... and what are we talking about over and over again? Stormy Daniels," Sanders said to CNN's Anderson Cooper Cooper on "AC360" on Mar. 7.
"Let me respectfully suggest that I do not think Stormy Daniels is one of the major issues facing our country.”
Daniels, whose real name is Stephanie Clifford, is locked in a legal battle with the rich asshole over a $130,000 payment she received weeks before the 2016 election. The payment was part of a nondisclosure agreement, which Daniels says was under regarding an affair she says she had with the rich asshole a decade earlier. The mechanics behind how the rich asshole attorney Michael Cohen obtained the $130,000 to pay Daniels could potentially have violated campaign finance law.
The White House denies that the rich asshole had a relationship with Daniels.
the rich asshole tries to recruit ‘star’ GOP lawyer for Mueller probe — and gets humiliatingly rejected: report
some rich asshole (Photo: Screen capture)
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A Washington Post report on Tuesday claimed that the rich asshole White House has been trying to recruit Theodore B. Olson, described as a “star” Republican lawyer, to help defend President some rich asshole in special counsel Robert Mueller’s probe.
However, just hours after the report was published, it looks as though Olson has rejected the White House’s overtures.
Ted Boutrous — a partner at Olson’s law firm Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher — sent out a tweet on Tuesday shooting down any notion that Olson would be leaving to work with the White House.
I can confirm that @gibsondunn and Theodore B. Olson will not be representing @realDonaldTrump
Following up on that, BuzzFeed News editor Chris Geidner similarly reported that a “source familiar” with the situation confirmed that Olson had turned down the rich asshole’s offer to join his team.
UPDATE: A source familiar with the situation confirms that Ted Olson was approached to represent Donald Trump and that Olson/Gibson Dunn declined to do so.
Earlier this week, the rich asshole reportedly offered a job to attorney Joseph E. diGenova, a Washington lawyer who has pushed the conspiracy theory that officials at the FBI and Department of Justice are engaged in a plot to frame the rich asshole for colluding with Russian government officials.
the rich asshole told Don Jr to ‘cut it out’ and stop cheating on his wife while she was pregnant: report
some rich asshole Jr. (C) hugs his father, Republican Some rich asshole, as Donald Jr's wife Vanessa (L) walks past after the rich asshole accepted the Republican presidential nomination at the 2016 Republican National Convention in Cleveland, Ohio U.S. July 21, 2016. REUTERS/Mike Segar/File photo
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President some rich asshole advised his son to not cheat on his wife while she was pregnant and to save his marriage, reports Business Insider.
According to the report, some rich asshole Jr. cheated on his wife with singer Aubrey O’Day, a contestant on “Celebrity Apprentice,” for months while his wife, Vanessa, was pregnant with their third child, leading his father to attempt to intervene.
The pair began their relationship in late 2011 as the taping of the show was concluding, reports Us Weekly.
“When it started, they were very serious all of a sudden,” explained a source. “He told her it was over with his wife, that they were separated and he didn’t love her. … Aubrey fell for him hard. She thought they were going to be together for real.”
Another source claimed Don Jr. told the singer his marriage was “already in the process of dissolving,” and that he was confronted by his wife when she found emails between the two.
According to Page Six, the rich asshole — who reportedly had an affair with adult film star Stormy Daniels while his wife was pregnant with son Barron — stepped in and told his son to “cut it out.”
Stormy Daniels took a lie detector test about affair with the rich asshole — and passed with flying colors
Stormy Daniels attends the Los Angeles Premiere of "The Fast and the Furious: Tokyo Drift" held at the Universal Studios in Hollywood, California, United States (Shutterstock).
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Adult film star Stormy Daniels insists that she’s telling the truth about the alleged affair she had with President some rich asshole — and she has a lie-detector test to back up her claims.
The Wall Street Journal has obtained a copy of a polygraph test that Daniels, whose real name is Stephanie Clifford, took in 2011.
When asked by the test administrator about having unprotected sexual intercourse with the rich asshole, Daniels replied that she had — and the test determined that she was being truthful.
“In the opinion of this examiner, Ms. Clifford is truthful about having unprotected vaginal intercourse with some rich asshole in July 2006,” the test concluded.
Daniels allegedly had an affair with the rich asshole back in 2006, just months after his wife, Melania the rich asshole, gave birth to their son, Barron the rich asshole. The White House has denied that the rich asshole had a relationship with Daniels, even as longtime the rich asshole attorney Michael Cohen acknowledged paying her $130,000 just before the 2016 presidential election in what the Journal’s sources have described as hush money in exchange for her silence about the affair.
According to the Journal, this admission by Cohen is what led Daniels to believe that he had broken the nondisclosure agreement she signed with him, thus freeing her up to talk about the affair publicly.
This is relevant because this is a major case that "stolen seat" Gorsuch can actually weigh in on.
POLITICS
Supreme Court’s First Abortion Case Of The the rich asshole Era Has Arrived
The high court will decide whether Christian pregnancy centers have a right to mislead women.
Inside the chicly decorated clinic, the receptionist wore bright purple scrubs. There were no signs on the wall or brochures to indicate that Caitlin was not in a real doctor’s office.
The 23-year-old graduate student, home in San Antonio for Christmas break, had found the place by Googling “free STD testing San Antonio.” She usually got tested at the Planned Parenthood clinic in Austin, where she attended the University of Texas, but she was looking for a clinic near her parents’ house. The Google search pointed her to a woman’s health center in a ritzy part of town near a hospital. It was called Any Woman Can, and now here she was, having produced a urine sample, following a middle-aged woman into a private room for what Caitlin thought would be a conversation about the test results.
Instead, the woman “started asking me a lot of really emotionally intense and invasive questions,” Caitlin said.
“The first and last name of my current partner and where he lives; what age I lost my virginity; whether I had been molested as a child, or if I’d ever been raped or had an abortion. I said, ‘Is this really medically important? Is it OK if I don’t answer?’”
The woman continued to read questions from her script, each of which Caitlin declined to answer. Eventually she informed Caitlin that she had chlamydia.
Caitlin had never been diagnosed with a sexually transmitted infection before and naturally had many questions about what chlamydia is and how to treat it. But the woman “kept trying to steer the conversation away from the medical stuff.” She couldn’t prescribe the necessary antibiotic nor was there anyone on staff who could. She couldn’t even refer Caitlin to a doctor for treatment.
Upon leaving the clinic, Caitlin realized she had to find a real doctor and make a second appointment for an STI test, because she didn’t trust the first. “I went to the parking lot and cried for a while. I felt so gross, so deeply weirded out.”
Any Woman Can is part of a nationwide network of over 3,000 “crisis pregnancy centers” (CPCs) established by evangelical Christians to dissuade women from having abortions. They masquerade as women’s health clinics ― advertising free STD testing and pregnancy services, dressing their staffers in scrubs and setting themselves up near hospitals ― but they often have no licensed medical professionals on staff.
These centers ― “fake clinics,” as reproductive rights groups call them ― are the subject of the U.S. Supreme Court’s first abortion-related case under President some rich asshole. When arguments begin Tuesday, an attorney representing the Christian-run Pregnancy Care Clinic in El Cajon, California, will argue before the high court that California violated the clinic’s constitutional right to free speech by enacting a law that requires centers that are licensed as family planning facilities to notify women that the state offers free or low-cost birth control and abortion services. The law also requires pregnancy centers to disclose if they have no medical providers on staff.
I went to the parking lot and cried for a while. I felt so gross, so deeply weirded out.Caitlin, 23
“They’re forcing us to use our walls as a billboard to promote abortion,” Pregnancy Care Clinic Executive Director Josh McClure told Reuters. The clinic is being represented by the National Institute of Family and Life Advocates legal organization (NIFLA).
California Attorney General Xavier Becerra (D) will defend the state’s 2015 Reproductive FACT Act, which the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld last year.
“Information is power,” Becerra said in a statement, “and all women should have access to the information they need when making personal health care decisions.”
It’s fitting that NIFLA v. Becerra will be the first abortion case to land on the Supreme Court’s docket in the the rich asshole era. The CPCs are Trumpish things― hostile to expertise and insincere about their supposed mission. (Meanwhile, the rich asshole’s administration is slashing funds from family planning and teen sex ed programs that have been shown to reduce unintended pregnancies and redirecting that money to abstinence-only programs, which don’t work.)
Didactic pregnancy centers, which date back to the 1960s, share the rich asshole’s antagonistic relationship to facts. They push the myths that abortion leads to suicide and drug addiction, that condoms don’t work because they’re “naturally porous” and that birth control causes hair loss, memory loss, headaches, weight gain and breast cancer. Their advertisements ― often carrying slogans like “We inform, you decide” ― give the illusion that they’re disinterested purveyors of expert information and medical treatment, but in fact they are mostly interested in lecturing women about sex and abortion.
Mel G., 40, from southeast Missouri, told HuffPost that she visited a CPC at the age of 13 because her grandfather had been sexually abusing her and she feared she was pregnant. She lived about 65 miles from St. Louis and was limited to traveling by bike, so the religious-based pregnancy center was the only place she could find within biking distance that advertised pregnancy services.
Mel’s pregnancy test came back negative, but she said that no one at the clinic seemed to notice that she was a child rape survivor or offered her any help. “The lady told me I should be going to church and thanking God that I wasn’t pregnant and beg for forgiveness for even having to show up,” Mel said. “The shame that I experienced really compounded what I was going through and made it harder for me to reach out for help.”
CPCs believe they are providing an important public service by counseling and protecting women from making decisions they will regret. Requiring them to post information about state abortion and birth control services, they argue, is akin to forcing a McDonald’s to post directions to the nearest Burger King.
“Information about abortion is just about everywhere, so the government doesn’t need to punish pro-life centers for declining to advertise for the very act they can’t promote,” said Kevin Theriot, senior counsel for the Alliance Defending Freedom, which is representing the CPCs.
Abortion rights groups argue that women deserve to have all the facts about a health center in order to make the best decisions for themselves. “The principle here is simple,” said Amy Everitt, state director of NARAL Pro-Choice California. “Nobody’s ideology should ever be allowed to get between a woman and her doctor.”
The stakes are high for this case, which will be the first to indicate how the current Supreme Court may treat abortion rights for decades. And free speech questions are tricky: If the court strikes down this California law, the decision could also have implications for laws in red states that require doctors to convey state-sponsored anti-abortion messages.
For women like Caitlin and Mel who have been tricked by CPCs, the case is pretty simple.
“My life wasn’t ruined because of this,” Caitlin said. “But I would have loved some clear indication of what I was getting myself into.”
Senate, the rich asshole clash over Saudi Arabia
BY ALEXANDER BOLTON - 03/20/18 06:00 AM EDT
The Senate is headed for a clash with the rich asshole administration over Saudi Arabia this week.
The chamber is expected to vote Tuesday on a resolution directing the U.S. military to stop cooperating with Saudi bombing operations in Yemen, an action the administration strongly opposes.
The vote comes at an awkward time, as President the rich asshole is meeting Tuesday with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman on his first trip to Washington since becoming next in line to the throne.
Supporters of the bipartisan Senate resolution, which has the backing of conservative Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah), Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) and liberal Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), are pressing hard for a debate.
As civilian deaths mount in Yemen, where an estimated 10,000 people have died in a years-long civil war, these senators say it’s time for Congress to claw back some of its warmaking authority from the executive branch.
“The Constitution is pretty clear on this point. It says that Congress shall have the power to declare war. Congress — not the president, not the Pentagon, but Congress,” Lee said on the floor last week.
U.S. military advisers are helping Saudi forces target enemies in Yemen for attack and U.S. planes are refueling Saudi-led bombers on combat missions.
“The War Powers Resolution was designed to stop secret, unauthorized military activities such as these. So Congress is well within its right to vote on whether these activities should continue,” Lee said.
Republican leaders are trying to postpone action on the resolution until after Salman’s visit by sending it to the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
“I hope what will happen is that we will not in our haste make a mistake that we’ll come to regret,” said Senate Republican Whip John Cornyn(Texas).
“I think the better course is for the Foreign Relations Committee to take this up and to have a hearing and to make a recommendation to the whole Senate rather than just have this pop and have people voting on it and perhaps live to regret it later on,” he added.
Cornyn said he expected that Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Bob Corker (R-Tenn.) will recommend moving the resolution through his committee before bringing it to the floor.
Corker is scheduled to meet with Salman on Capitol Hill this week, according to a spokesman.
Salman has been a leading proponent of the kingdom’s military effort to push Shiite rebels known as the Houthis out of power in Yemen. The Houthis are allied with Iran, Saudi Arabia’s chief military and political rival in the region.
Saudi Arabia is predominately Sunni, a competing tradition of Islam.
Defense Secretary James Mattis warned Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) in a letter last week that cutting off U.S. support for the military operation in Yemen would be a mistake.
“New restrictions on this limited U.S. military support could increase civilian casualties, jeopardize cooperation with our partners on counter-terrorism and reduce our influence with the Saudis — all of which would further exacerbate the situation and humanitarian crisis,” he wrote.
The Yemen War Powers Resolution is privileged and guaranteed to get a vote on the floor at some point, but leaders could delay action by filing cloture motions on other Senate business.
Lee, Sanders and Murphy, however, have leverage — GOP leaders need unanimous consent to pass an anti-sex trafficking bill and an omnibus spending package before a two-week congressional recess scheduled to begin Saturday.
The tensions come amidst growing criticism in Congress of Saudi Arabia, a longtime U.S. ally, over its human rights record and links to terrorist organizations.
Complicating matters is a $110 billion arms deal that the rich asshole is trying to finalize with Saudi Arabia and several other Middle Eastern countries despite some reservations on Capitol Hill.
There are also significant U.S. commercial interests at stake.
Defense contractor Raytheon is pressing for a green light to go ahead with the sale of 60,000 smart bombs to Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, which is also participating in the bombing of targets in Yemen.
Corker criticized Saudi Arabia last year for not doing more to crack down on financing of terrorists, and put a hold on the arms deal, which he just recently lifted.
In July, he charged that significantly more support for terrorist groups is coming from Saudi Arabia than from Qatar, which the rich asshole accused last year of being a state sponsor of terrorism.
The rich asshole administration took Saudi Arabia’s side in the dispute last year, just as it has in the current debate over whether to continue U.S. military support of Saudi Arabia’s intervention in Yemen.
Senate sources are split over what chance the bill would have of passing. Because it is a privileged resolution, it only needs a simple majority to pass.
Two Senate aides said it has a good shot of rounding up 51 votes, but Murphy, one of the original sponsors, cautioned that success is far from a sure thing.
He said votes on the Democratic side of the aisle are “fluid,” and the administration is going all-out to persuade Republicans to vote against it.
“I think a lot of members on our side are trying to figure out what a ‘yes’ vote means, what a ‘no’ vote means,” Murphy said. “The administration is spending a lot of energy trying to spin the rationale for this war. I would expect that most Republicans would oppose it.”
Jordain Carney contributed.
POLITICS
the rich asshole’s Latest Ideas To Combat The Opioid Epidemic Are Also His Dumbest
The president proposed the death penalty for drug dealers and a new anti-drug ad campaign. Just say no.
President some rich asshole wants to execute drug dealers, build a wall on the U.S.-Mexico border and launch a new “just say no”-style advertising campaign to scare kids away from drugs in order to stem the opioid epidemic.
The president characterized his drug-enforcement proposals during an address in New Hampshire on Monday as key parts of his administration’s plan to “liberate our country” from an opioid overdose crisis that claimed 50,000 lives in 2016.
But experts say the rich asshole’s ideas are little more than ineffective retreads of failed drug policies that will do little to alleviate the suffering.
the rich asshole has reportedly spent weeks flirting with the idea of imposing capital punishment for certain drug crimes. He made the proposal official on Monday, saying the death penalty must be part of a broader effort to “get tough on the drug dealers.”
It’s not entirely clear what changes to sentencing laws the administration envisions, or whether it will follow through with any proposals. But laws at the state and federal levels are already tough on drug dealers, so much so that even small-time pushers can be convicted of murder.
“These sorts of laws already exist, so people shouldn’t be so outraged ― they should be outraged that they already exist and are on the books and haven’t been reformed,” said Leo Beletsky, an associate professor of law and health sciences at Northeastern University.
Many of these statutes, which were popular in the 1980s, allow prosecutors to seek harsh penalties for what’s known as drug-induced homicide ― incidents in which someone can be identified as the source of drugs that led to an overdose death.
Research generally shows that increasing the severity of punishment doesn’t lead to reductions in drug use or supply, though increasing the certainty of punishment may. This is in part because locking up individual drug dealers simply results in a “replacement effect,” in which newcomers fill the void left by someone who’s sent to prison. The main effect of imprisoning dealers “is merely to open the market for another seller,” one report highlighted.
Beefing up penalties may also lead to significant collateral consequences. Just because someone provides drugs to another person doesn’t mean they’re a dealer, or at least the kind many people would view as deserving of the full force of the law. As HuffPost’s Jason Cherkis reported in his story on heroin addiction in Kentucky, drug users will often pool resources in order to buy in bulk. Some users may end up selling to others to subsidize their own habits, but they’re far from the kingpins responsible for the drug trade.
“It’s going to ensnare other users, it’s going to be applied disproportionately to people of color and it’s going to mean that we’re spending millions of dollars keeping people behind bars while jurisdictions don’t have money to pay for naloxone, which actually can save people,” said Beletsky.
Naloxone, also known as Narcan, is an opioid overdose-reversal drug that can counteract the effects of respiratory depression that often lead to death during an opioid overdose. In his remarks Monday, the rich asshole hailed Narcan as an important tool to combat the opioid epidemic.
But in order to a have a chance at successfully intervening in an overdose, a bystander must either have access to naloxone or be willing to call a first responder to administer it. Other opioid users are typically the closest to the scene of an overdose. If they fear that they could be charged with murder or be eligible for the death penalty, they’d be far less likely to report, said Beletsky.
Research conducted by Beletsky’s group, Health In Justice, shows that drug-induced homicide laws have been used with increasing frequency in recent years, and in a racially disproportionate manner.
“About half of them target people of color, and a combination of a person of color who’s a dealer and a white victim,” said Beletksy. “That’s the narrative that prosecutors look for when they choose to apply these provisions.”
the rich asshole appeared to drive home that idea on Monday, singling out Mexico and undocumented immigrants as the primary source of illicit opioids into the U.S. To address the problem, the U.S. must “build the wall to keep the damn drugs out,” he said.
The president’s logic falls short here, too. Most drugs flow into the U.S. through legal ports of entry, and ramping up enforcement and penalties has generally only encouraged cartels to traffic in increasingly potent substances like fentanyl, a synthetic opioid 50 times stronger than heroin, and similar analogs that are now associated with tens of thousands of overdose deaths each year.
Maia Szalavitz broke down some of the reasons for this shift, known as the “iron law of prohibition,” in an article for Vice in 2016.
Basically, the idea is that because illegal drugs need to be kept hidden, harsher laws will tend to promote the spread of more potent and dangerous drugs, simply because smaller quantities are easier to conceal and smuggle. Alcohol prohibition, for example, favored whisky over beer. The rise of illegally produced fentanyl and its derivatives — overdoses of which increased 79 percent between 2013 and 2014 alone — seems an apt illustration of this principle.
the rich asshole’s plan to launch an aggressive new ad campaign warning kids about the dangers of drug use also has faced plenty of detractors. The president first floated this proposal in October, and he doubled down on Monday, saying he wants to spend “a lot of money on great commercials showing how bad it is.” But the record suggests this would be a poor investment.
The federal government has pushed anti-drug commercials for decades, spending millions of dollars and achieving varying degrees of success, most recently during President George W. Bush’s administration.
Some of the most famous ad campaigns are now best known for their absurd hyperbole. Others were so lame that they appeared destined to fail from the outset. And most of them have. Studies have shown these commercials generally did not have the intended effect of reducing adolescent drug use, though there is some evidence that a shift to less extreme messaging produced better results.
Taken together, critics say the rich asshole’s ideas for staunching the opioid epidemic are little more than relics of the past that favor tough rhetoric over a more effective commitment to treatment and prevention.
“The war on drugs didn’t work in the ’80’s, and it won’t work now by reviving failed deterrence measures like the death penalty for drug dealers,” Sen. Dick Durbin (I-Ill.) said in a statement. “We must instead crack down on the over-production and over-prescribing of painkillers, and increase treatment for those suffering from addiction — both of which have bipartisan support in Congress.”
Kremlin says the rich asshole congratulated Putin on his electoral win — and then discussed a face-to-face meeting to give a progress report
some rich asshole and Vladimir Putin (MSNBC)
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Tensions have been rising between Russia and several Western democracies in recent months — but that apparently isn’t stopping President some rich asshole from wanting to meet Russian President Vladimir Putin face to face.
According to BBC reporter Daniel Sandford, a Kremlin-produced readout of a phone call that took place between Putin and the rich asshole on Tuesday morning claims that the rich asshole “congratulated” his Russian counterpart on his electoral win this week — and didn’t once mention the nerve agent attack unleashed in the United Kingdom against a former Russian spy.
It is possible that the rich asshole did bring up the nerve agent attack and that his mention of it was not part of the Kremlin’s official readout.
That Putin-Trump call in the Kremlin's words. "Donald Trump congratulated Vladimir Putin on winning the presidential election." No mention of Salisbury kremlin.ru/events/preside…
Per AFP reporter Andrew Beatty, the Kremlin also claims that the rich asshole and Putin discussed meeting face-to-face — and specifically said that “special attention has been paid to working out the issue of holding a possible meeting at the highest level.
Kremlin on Trump-Putin call "Special attention has been paid to working out the issue of holding a possible meeting at the highest level." #Summit
GOP leaders back second special counsel
BY SCOTT WONG AND MELANIE ZANONA - 03/20/18 06:00 AM EDT
House GOP leaders are starting to come out in strong support of a second special counsel to investigate conservative allegations of bias and abuse at the FBI.
Majority Whip Steve Scalise (R-La.) said Monday he backs the appointment of another special counsel to look at how law enforcement has handled the Russia probe. Scalise’s statement echoed similar calls from Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) over the weekend.
The moves align the No. 2 and No. 3 House GOP leaders with President the rich asshole, who could be a factor in a future leadership race between the two friendly rivals.
“I agree with the many others who have called for the appointment of an additional special counsel,” Scalise said in a statement Monday.
“We need a second special counsel,” McCarthy told Fox News on Saturday.
Ryan and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) have not endorsed the idea of a second probe nor criticized special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation, despite growing calls from rank-and-file members.
Ryan spokeswoman AshLee Strong did not respond to questions about other GOP leaders calling for another special counsel, but said Ryan continues to back Mueller’s investigation.
“As the Speaker has always said, Mr. Mueller and his team should be able to do their job,” Strong said in a statement.
McConnell has not publicly weighed in on the issue, and a spokesman did not return a request for comment.
The creation of a second special counsel would almost certainly muddy the waters surrounding Mueller’s investigation and could undermine it by raising questions about his evidence. At the same time, it could chill suggestions that Mueller should be fired by the rich asshole, a maneuver many Republicans see as a huge political risk and the White House insists is not in play.
Democrats argue the creation of a second investigation would be a smokescreen designed to shift criticism toward 2016 Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, whom the rich asshole has repeatedly blamed for the instigation of the probe.
“The Mueller probe should never have been started in that there was no collusion and there was no crime,” the rich asshole tweeted on Saturday in a message notable for calling Mueller out by name.
“It was based on fraudulent activities and a Fake Dossier paid for by Crooked Hillary and the [Democratic National Committee], and improperly used in [Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act] COURT for surveillance of my campaign. WITCH HUNT!”
The tweet references the “Steele dossier,” a collection of opposition research produced by retired British spy Christopher Steele, and funded by Clinton’s campaign and the Democratic National Committee. The dossier was then used in an application to obtain a surveillance warrant on former the rich asshole campaign adviser Carter Page.
“That appears to be a political distraction machine,” Rep. Joaquin Castro(D-Texas) said of the growing calls for a second special counsel. “I think that’s the point of it, for them to try to equate everything, basically try to paint a picture as though everybody messed up, or everybody’s bad, therefore nobody’s bad.”
Castro expressed concern that the rich asshole would fire Mueller regardless of whether there is a second special counsel in place.
“My sense is that ultimately, if the special counsel gets close to people around the president, that the president will fire Bob Mueller,” Castro said.
the rich asshole’s legal team wants the second special counsel to investigate whether FBI and Justice Department officials abused the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) by using the dossier to justify spying on Page as part of the Russia probe.
Attorney General Jeff Sessions last week revealed he has tapped a former official outside the Beltway to review the need for a second special counsel, suggesting the idea is receiving a serious look.
Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein appointed Mueller to investigate the rich asshole campaign associates’ ties to Russia after Sessions recused himself from the investigation last year.
McCarthy and Scalise have joined a growing chorus of powerful GOP lawmakers who support another special counsel.
House Judiciary Committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte (R-Va.) and House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.) have called on Sessions and Rosenstein to appoint a second special counsel to investigate “potential criminality” related to the surveillance warrant application for Page.
They also called for a review of any evidence of “bias” by Justice Department or FBI employees, as well as whether there was any “extraneous influence” on the surveillance process.
Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) and Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) sent a letter to Sessions and Rosenstein last week asking for a special counsel to “gather all the facts.”
The Justice Department’s inspector general, Michael Horowitz, is already investigating potential FISA abuses. But Republicans argue the inspector general does not have the prosecutorial authority needed to conduct a full investigation of the FBI’s actions.
“An inspector general does not have subpoena power,” McCarthy said. “We need somebody to look at this, and not from the inside — because you can’t trust what’s happening right now.”
In his statement, Scalise argued it’s the only way to ensure the public has full faith in Mueller’s findings.
“The credibility of the Mueller investigation will be in doubt unless we get to the bottom of the many serious questions regarding the FBI’s handling of their investigation of the the rich asshole campaign,” Scalise said.
Katie Bo Williams contributed.
A psychologist explains how the rich asshole won mindless loyalty from millions of Americans
some rich asshole speaking with supporters at a campaign rally at the Phoenix Convention Center in Phoenix, Arizona. (Gage Skidmore/Flickr)
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Many the rich asshole supporters are proud of their absolute faith in him. You see it in the way they beam proudly when they tell reporters that they’d support him no matter what he does. Now that’s unconditional love!
We have mixed feelings about absolute faith and unconditional love. Sometimes we regard them as the highest virtues. Sometimes we think such commitment is pretty dangerous. Unconditional? Would you still love a partner who turned into an ax murderer?
On the receiving end, absolute faith and unconditional love are pretty handy. Gaining that kind of unconditional respect means you can do no wrong, which frees you to do all the wrong you want.
So if you’re into that sort of thing, here’s all it takes to get it. And if you’re not into that sort of thing, here’s what to watch out for.
- Target people who can’t stand uncertainty: Go for the hungry, anxious, eager to believe; people who have had their fill of uncertainty and can’t stand anymore.
- Target people who don’t notice the downside of absolute faith: These are people who get all dewy eyed when thinking about faith, the kind who either ignore a faith they regard as wrong-headed or will tell you that wrong-headed faith is not really faith.
- Get their guard down: You’ll want people who see you as the answer to their prayers, people who want to align with you for a boost in their morale, status and prospects. Charm them. Listen to them and feed them whatever will satisfy them. The hungry are the easiest to eat.
- Make bold, vague statements that speak directly to them. (the rich asshole’s “Make America Great” is a great example.) Great how? Your targets can fill in whatever comes to mind. Likewise, you can court someone personally with a line like, “Wow, I can really tell that you’ve got talent for understanding what’s going on!” Bold, flattering, vague. Suckers line right up.
- Include them in your “winner’s circle” with talk about the idiots “out there”: Nothing wins faith like disparaging others. You see it at rallies where the speaker riles the audience by ridiculing everyone outside your circle. You can hear it in the way people flirt by confiding in you (yes you, because you’re wonderful!).
- Speak as though you are the absolute final, neutral judge of reality. Don’t ever qualify what you say; it’s not your opinion, it’s truth. That will annoy careful thinkers. but they’re not your targets. It will win gullible thinkers, but only if they agree with you already. They’ll agree with you if you’re sufficiently vague (see #4).
- Dog whistle: Keep your pandering to your targets and your attacks on others under the radar, so you can always deny them if challenged.
- Make it easy to align with you, costly to break with you: Don’t ask your targets to make sacrifices. Once you’ve hooked them they’ll make all sorts of sacrifices. Make all of their first encounters with you self-affirming fun for them and make the alternative, not aligning with you, seem like nothing but a hassle.
- Appear invincible: Your targets want to believe you, so make it easy for them. Prove you are right, absolutely and always (by your “authoritative” standards). Remember, there is absolutely nothing that can’t be mocked, attacked or vilified. It’s easy. Just pick apart anything that suggests you’re wrong.
- Heads you win, tails you lose: Any good news affirms that you’re right. Any bad news affirms you’re the victim of persecution.
- Avenge tenfold: Be savage. Be relentless. Don’t let anyone get away with saying anything bad about you. Make sure that anyone who tries has at least 10 times more bad things said about them. Gaslight like crazy.
- Police morality as though you’re a crusader for reality: Above all you are always the morality police. If you hate immorality in others, the gullible will believe that you must be morally pure.
What’s nice about these rules is that it doesn’t matter what you know or think. Following them frees you from careful thought. That’s the beauty of it! You can apply these to win absolute faith and unconditional love from the gullible in support of anything. It doesn’t matter whether you offer anything for them to have faith in, since your targets are the kind who have faith in faith. Remember, they consider it a relief to no longer have to keep an eye on things—a relief from dreaded uncertainty.
The Memo: Republicans fear disaster if the rich asshole fires Mueller
BY NIALL STANAGE - 03/20/18 06:00 AM EDT
Republicans are almost unanimous in the view that any move by President the rich asshole to fire special counsel Robert Mueller would be a political disaster.
Even GOP figures loyal to the rich asshole see any such move as hugely counterproductive, while more critical conservative voices — especially those looking toward November’s midterm elections — fear the president would make already-difficult terrain close to impossible.
“I think it would be a really bad idea to fire him and exacerbate the situation,” said Barry Bennett, a senior adviser to the rich asshole’s 2016 campaign who remains supportive of the president.
Heye added dryly, “That is a much better place, as opposed to ‘did you or did you not obstruct justice?’ ”
Speculation about a possible push against Mueller from the rich asshole has been feverish since FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe was fired late Friday.
In the wake of the firing, the president took an even more combative tone than usual, name-checking Mueller in tweets for the first time and complaining that the special counsel’s team of investigators includes “13 hardened Democrats.”
Mueller himself has been reported to be a registered Republican, and he was nominated to lead the FBI by former President George W. Bush in 2001. There is, in any case, no prohibition on investigators holding different political views from the targets of their investigations.
But speculation about Mueller’s fate was stoked still further during the weekend when a the rich asshole lawyer, John Dowd, told the Daily Beast that Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein should “bring an end” to the probe.
Dowd, who initially told the Daily Beast he was speaking as the rich asshole’s counsel, said later he was speaking only in a personal capacity.
Then, on Monday, news emerged that the rich asshole is adding Joseph diGenova to his legal team. DiGenova has previously suggested the Justice Department and FBI are trying to frame the rich asshole for collusion.
The president also maintained his Twitter fusillade, writing on the social media platform on Monday morning that the Mueller probe was “A total WITCH HUNT with massive conflicts of interest!”
The White House sought to dampen talk of a Mueller firing on Monday. Deputy press secretary Hogan Gidley told reporters during a trip to New Hampshire, “There are no conversations or discussions about removing Mueller.”
Michael Caputo, a longtime friend of the president who also worked on the 2016 campaign, painted the rich asshole’s recent pronouncements as expressions of frustration rather than direct threats to Mueller.
“This is the president trying to define the terms of discussion when it comes to the investigation and perhaps even using Twitter to determine the boundaries,” Caputo said. “I don’t think he is threatening to fire anybody. I think he is frustrated and voicing his frustrations.”
Caputo, like other the rich asshole loyalists, asserted that the root of this frustration lies in the length of time Mueller’s investigation has gone on, with no clear evidence of collusion with Russia made public.
White House lawyer Ty Cobb has said on previous occasions that Mueller’s probe would end by Thanksgiving 2017 or by the end of that year. Those predictions were widely interpreted as an attempt to keep the rich asshole from losing his patience and taking Mueller on full force — but the downside of the strategy is now becoming clear.
The move to bring diGenova onto the team is being interpreted by some in the rich asshole’s circle as a rebuke to Cobb and a break with his more conciliatory approach.
Caputo also emphasized, however, that another source of irritation for the rich asshole, and for the administration more broadly, is the degree to which the Mueller probe overshadows everything else.
“Everyone’s extremely frustrated — those of us who … support the president and the people who want to get the agenda moving forward and they can’t,” he said.
Referring to Democrats and other the rich asshole foes, Caputo added, “They have been stalling the president with this. They have successfully done so for over a year.”
But GOP voices more skeptical of the rich asshole, such as Heye, argue the president makes his own trouble and distracts from his party’s priorities.
Alluding to the long-established practice of the Bureau of Labor Statistics releasing jobs numbers on the first or second Friday of each month, Heye said, “I look at the Friday jobs numbers and see these have been opportunities for really successful messaging by the White House. But we talk about the jobs report from about 8:30 to 8:33, and then we are back to whatever the rich asshole is talking about — which is not that.”
Some Republican lawmakers have sought to promote a kind of halfway house between the rich asshole’s red-hot anger at Mueller and the argument that the special counsel should simply be left to do his job unimpeded.
Conservatives in the House have suggested the appointment of a second special counsel who could investigate allegations of FBI and Department of Justice malfeasance. House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) and House Majority Whip Steve Scalise (R-La.) have both come out in support of that idea.
Meanwhile, some Senate Republicans have sought to rein the rich asshole in.
Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) told CNN’s “State of the Union” on Sunday that any effort to oust Mueller would be “the beginning of the end” of the the rich asshole presidency.
Some Republicans who spoke to The Hill shared that assessment.
“There is no appetite among the Republican establishment to remove Mueller,” one GOP operative warned. “If the president fires him, he could be impeached."
The Memo is a reported column by Niall Stanage, primarily focused on some rich asshole’s presidency.
CNN’s Mudd blasts the rich asshole’s cynical hiring of conspiracy-spouting attorney DiGenova to rile up the kook base
Phil Mudd on CNN -- screengrab
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According to former CIA officer, turned CNN pundit, Phil Mudd, President some rich asshole only hired attorney Joe DiGenova to go on television and rile up his conspiracy-loving base, and not for his legal expertise.
Appearing on CNN’s New Day with hosts John Berman and Erica Hill, Mudd scoffed at the rich asshole’s move of bringing on DiGenova, who was a regular cable TV fixture when conservative activists worked with GOP lawmakers to bring down President Bill Clinton with a variety of conspiracy theories.
Sharing a clip of the attorney accusing the Clinton campaign of planting the seeds of Russian collusion before the election in an effort to undermine the rich asshole should he beat the former Secretary of State, host Hill pressed Mudd to explain what DiGenova brings to the president’s defense team table.
“Phil Mudd, he’s lashed out at the FBI, the Department of Justice, talked about this conspiracy,” Berman explained. “This is the man some rich asshole has brought on who can go out there and be a fire for him. what’s the impact there?” the CNN host asked.
“There’s no impact on the investigation,” Mudd scoffed. “Look, the investigators are going to do what they want. I see two aspects to the hiring of DiGenova. I don’t think he’s about the investigation, he’s about the face of the investigation. A lot of people in this country, I talk to them all the time, I get emails from them, believe in these conspiracies, they think there is some deep state conspiracy to take out the president.”
“This guy is going to be on TV talking about this, all the time,” he added. “Look, the other thing is I think this is more about what happens after the investigation. If you get further indictments of people in the Oval Office, this guy is going to be on two minutes later saying, ‘I told you there is a conspiracy against the White House, I see it now and now and we have to take action to stop the conspiracy.’ He’s all about TV and the after-action.”
CNN correspondent Chris Cillizza then jumped in to add his two cents.
“I think a lot of what’s happening here, particularly over the last 96 hours it’s sped up, is some rich asshole getting ready for what comes next, that it is unlikely that this investigation sort of ends,” Cillizza explained. “A lot of what you see, the smearing of Mueller, the attempted smearing of Mueller, DiGenova coming out, it’s prepping for something is going to happen and no one knows what that something is.”
“The Mueller investigation is going to conclude,” he warned. “And it likely not going to look great for the rich asshole administration.”
Watch the video below via CNN:
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March 20, 2018
Joe diGenova reminds us there's nobody too fringe for the rich asshole.
Continuing a push to surround himself with B- and C-list Fox News commentators, the rich asshole’s decision to add Joe DiGenova to his legal team will do nothing to raise the White House IQ. But it does bring in another conspiratorial voice.
Not only does DiGenova push the loony theory that a group of rogue players inside the FBI is trying to push the rich asshole out of power, but he’s spent years appearing on Fox News peddling all kinds of garbage claims against Democrats that never pan out.
And now he’s been hired by the rich asshole to try to fend off special counsel Robert Mueller, who will likely soon demand the rich asshole answer questions under oath, a prospect that terrifies his advisers. The latest move comes while the rich asshole’s personal legal team is in a state of chaos as the rich asshole lashes out wildly.
the rich asshole could have tried to hire a sterling legal mind. Instead, he hired DiGenova, a publicity hound whose integrity level seems to mirror that of a Fox News primetime host.
Specifically, in recent years DiGenova tried to insert himself into the GOP’s Benghazi charade under President Barack Obama and spent months making reckless allegations.
For one, he claimed that some members of the military were “relieved of their duty because they insisted that there be a military response” to the Benghazi attack.
He’s also claimed, “[The] Obama administration was trying to cover up the theft of 400 surface-to-air missiles that were somehow linked to the American presence in Benghazi,” as Media Matters noted.
DiGenova even pushed the dubious claim that anonymous State Department and CIA “whistleblowers” had been blocked from going public and threatened by the Obama administration to prevent their testifying about the Benghazi attack.
But the loaded allegations all failed to amount to anything.
After that, DiGenova told anybody who would listen that Hillary Clinton wouldn’t be able to complete her 2016 presidential campaign because she’d be indicted before Election Day for the “numerous federal crimes” she committed while using a private email server as secretary of state.
DiGenova also claimed in 2016 that “150 agents” from the FBI were working on the Clinton emails investigation. It turns out he was only off by 138.
It’s somewhat stunning to think that fringe player like DiGenova, who would currently seem more at home at Alex Jones’ InfoWars than inside a federal courtroom, would be defending the President of the United States.
Then again, the rich asshole has obliterated all achievement guidelines for the White House and will welcome anyone into his orbit if they promise to echo his paranoid mindset.
the rich asshole fumes Mueller probe is ‘going to choke the life out of’ his presidency
the rich asshole's planned tariffs on steel and aluminium have triggered fears of a trade war. (AFP / MANDEL NGAN)
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President some rich asshole is privately fuming and publicly lashing out over special counsel Robert Mueller and his sprawling probe of the president’s ties to Russia.
Republican lawmakers have bluntly told the rich asshole to tone down his escalating criticism of Mueller, the former FBI director, and his investigation, but GOP leaders have taken no action to protect the special counsel and instead are hoping to wait out the storm, reported the Associated Press.
The president has griped to confidants that the Mueller probe was “going to choke the life out of” his presidency if allowed to continue indefinitely,” one outside adviser told the AP.
The Washington Post reported Monday night that the rich asshole was not consulting with top advisers, such as chief of staff John Kelly or White House counsel Donald McGahn, on the Russia probe but was instead “watching television and calling friends,” according to a source who apparently receives those calls.
He added attorney Joe diGenova, who floats “deep state” conspiracy theories on Fox News and other TV networks, to his legal team this week.
the rich asshole tweeted Mueller’s name for the first time over the weekend, after his legal team received some questions the special counsel might ask during a face-to-face interview with the president.
White House lawyer Ty Cobb issued a statement Sunday insisting that the president was not considering Mueller’s removal, a day after the rich asshole attorney John Dowd called for an end to the special counsel probe.
“Multiple White House officials said Monday that they believe the rich asshole is now acutely aware of the political — and even legal — consequences of taking action against Mueller,” the AP reported. “For now, they predicted, the rich asshole will snipe at Mueller from the outside.”
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March 20, 2018
Safety is expensive.
the rich asshole Housing and Urban Development (HUD) Secretary Ben Carson is still trying to explain why he forced taxpayers to buy him a $31,000 dining set for his office. His new reason? The old set was “dangerous.”
At a House Appropriations Committee hearing Tuesday, Carson was asked about his office’s failure to notify Congress about the extravagant purchase.
“It’s my understanding that the facilities people felt that the dining room table was actually dangerous, and it was a facilities issue, not a decorating issue,” Carson told ranking member Rep. David Price (D-NC).
“I don’t think there is a notification requirement for facilities issues as there is with decorating issues,” the secretary added.
He did not elaborate on why the old dining set was supposedly a hazard or why it needed to be replaced with a new set that cost $31,000.
Price pointed out that emails released via a FOIA request show his staff was aware of the reporting requirement, and Carson claimed not to have known anything about it.
“Remember,” Carson said, “I was dealing with running an organization with virtually no secretarial staff.”
According to emails from Carson’s own staff, though, the law requires advance notice to Congress for “costs of furnishings or redecoration for agency heads in excess of $5,000.”
The assertion that the old table was “dangerous” may provide technical cover failing to comply with the reporting requirement. But it does not change the fact that his staff clearly believed the purchase required advance notice to Congress.
It also does not change the fact that there is an ample universe of perfectly safe dining room sets that cost less than $31,000, regardless of the White House spin that $31,000 only sounds like a lot of money but actually isn’t.
Carson’s attempt to blame this monumental failure on anyone but himself is typical of an administration that never takes responsibility for anything.
Rick Santorum shreds the rich asshole’s attacks on Mueller probe: ‘Looking like he’s got something to hide’
Former Sen. Rick Santorum talks with CNNs John Berman
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Although former Republican Sen. Rick Santorum typically defends President some rich asshole during his appearances on cable news, he issued a stark warning to the president on Tuesday morning about his attacks on special counsel Robert Mueller’s probe.
When asked by CNN host John Berman whether it was wise of the president to hire an attorney who peddles conspiracy theories about the “deep state” trying to frame him, Santorum said that it was not.
“I think, overall, he’s making it worse,” Santorum said. “Had he been more aggressive on pursuing the national security aspects in the Russian involvement in our election, that would have taken the high ground. Again, you can still take that position and say there was no collusion.”
Santorum also said that the rich asshole’s attacks on the Mueller probe were not helping him in the court of public opinion because they make it look as though he’s guilty of something.
“Calling for the end of the Muller investigation… again, I understand the frustration,” Santorum said. “But the president harping about it… as Trey Gowdy said, ‘If you’re innocent, act innocent.’ And right now he’s looking like [he wants] this over because he’s got something to hide.”
Watch the video below.
Morning Joe panel horrified by growing belief in ‘deep state’ conspiracy: ‘This is the gift we got from the rich asshole surrendering to Putin’
Mika Brzezinski and David Ignatius (MSNBC)
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Panelists on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” were aghast at a poll showing the widespread belief in “deep state” conspiracy theories promoted by President some rich asshole.
The president and his right-wing allies — from Fox News hosts to InfoWars’ Alex Jones — have claimed the rich asshole is the victim of a government plot to undermine his presidency and remove him from office, rather than the target of a law enforcement investigation of his political and business ties to Russia.
Although 63 percent of Americans are unfamiliar with the term “deep state,” according to Monmouth University, 74 percent said they believe such a network exists in Washington when pollsters described the conspiracy theory.
“America is an idea, it’s not a democracy, it’s not a republic before it is an idea,” said MSNBC analyst Mike Barnicle. “And the idea that 74 percent, according to the Monmouth University poll, believe there is a deep state run by a military-political intellectual hierarchy, apart from government, and this is the gift we’ve gotten from some rich asshole. This is the gift we’ve gotten from him surrendering to Vladimir Putin and causing chaos in the country.”
Host Mika Brzezinski and two of her guests, veteran diplomat Richard Haas and Washington Post columnist David Ignatius, explained how career bureaucrats helped elected officials navigate a complicated U.S. foreign policy.
“This is not happening in a vacuum,” said Haas, the longtime president of the Council on Foreign Relations. “Over the next two or three months this administration is going to face three enormous decisions, what to do about these tariffs, and what to do about the Iran nuclear agreement, and the idea that it is consumed by this chaotic churn of people and what to do about this investigation, the combination of the two, again, this is about as bad as it gets.”
Brzezinski suggested one wrong move by the the rich asshole administration could set off a nuclear showdown — or worse — and Ignatius agreed the stakes were enormous.
“It’s a really dangerous time, real challenges for an inexperienced president — thank goodness we have very good people in the military,” Ignatius said. “I just want to note one thing about this deep state poll. It’s a very dangerous thing when most of the country begins to believe that a small group in the country is manipulating decisions. We’ve seen that historically in countries that begin to break down.”
“I’ve spent much of my life reporting from countries in the Middle East where people believe that, that conspiratorial idea that politics is embedded,” Ignatius added. “If the United States is becoming a country like that, people have to fight for democracy. If most people think my vote is stolen, it doesn’t matter then you get into that it appeals to that feeling that people have and you begin to go over the edge, so I take that poll seriously.”
the rich asshole believes he can make an Israeli-Palestinian deal. Don’t hold your breath
Posted with permission from The Conversation
By David Mednicoff, Director, Middle Eastern Studies, University of Massachusetts Amherst.
Palestinian laborers work at a construction site in an Israeli settlement near Jerusalem in 2017. AP Photo/Oded BaliltyCould Trump succeed?
I’m a scholar who teaches about the high stakes of Middle East conflict. I think we should look beyond obvious obstacles to consider why Trump may believe he can achieve a deal. However, past failures and present Palestinian-Israeli hostility suggest that skepticism about an agreement remains warranted.
The basic obstacles to peace
The barriers to an Israeli-Palestinian agreement are numerous.On the Israeli side, a deal would be unpopular among Israelis on the political right and require tremendous change. For example, Israel’s military and security position would be entirely different if it disengaged from much of the West Bank. And Israeli governments have faced relatively low political costs to leaving the conflict unresolved.
Israeli leaders have established massive security measures in the West Bank, restricted contact between Israelis and Palestinians through the border wall and allowed politically influential Israeli settlers to expand settlements. All of this cements Israeli de facto control over internationally recognized Palestinian land.
In addition, its economic and military strength and regional strategic importance to the West put Israel under little pressure to address the conflict.
Meanwhile, Palestinian leadership is aging, fragmented between Gaza and the West Bank and losing credibility among its people. Few Palestinians believe that the U.S.-led negotiating process can deliver a fair agreement. Palestinian leaders may consider negotiations less useful than building broader international pressure to raise the cost to Israel of maintaining the status quo.
Even before Trump, the U.S. was viewed by many Palestinians as a dishonest broker. Thus, Palestinian leaders have little reason to prioritize negotiations that seem stacked against them, over a longer diplomatic game in which American power may become weaker. This is especially so, given that Palestinians may think that their growing population will supplant Israeli Jews over time and, in turn, increase their international bargaining power.
These are among the obstacles that diplomats faced in recent years when trying to make progress toward a solution.
The result is an enduring impasse that may endanger the democratic nature of Israeland the basic rights of Palestinians. Long-term subjugation of an occupied population threatens Israeli democracy by encouraging further militarization and discrimination in the West Bank. Meanwhile, Palestinians live with a lack of economic opportunities and basic freedom of movement.
Given these dynamics, some knowledgeable experts argue that a two-state solution is dead.
Why then would the Trump administration raise hopes that its inexperienced foreign policy team can succeed where others have failed?
Why Trump might be acting
Trump may well believe that present conditions and his willpower can move the Palestinian-Israeli conflict toward resolution.His likely rationale is that his good relationship with Israel’s government might align with the strategic interest of key Arab states to push Palestinians into a credible, if unfavorable, deal.
Trump appears to have strong rapport with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Even if Netanyahu’s legal problems neutralize his power, Israel’s more rightward-looking political forces are pleased both with the Trump administration’s recent plan to move the U.S. embassy to Jerusalem and their close ties with some in his administration. They may therefore be willing to consider a peace plan proposed by this White House.
Moreover, Trump and son-in-law Jared Kushner both enjoy a warm relationship with Saudi Arabia. Saudi Arabia, in turn, has been working closely with Egypt in regional politics. Thus, the two most populous and influential Arab states are cooperating closely with the U.S.
Trump insiders can point to several developments that present an unusual opportunity for a settlement.
First is the respect hawkish Israelis hold for the Trump administration. Second is the strong U.S. coordination with Egypt and Saudi Arabia, who might themselves wish to step up ties to Israel in a broader effort to combat Iran. Third is the possible economic benefit to both Israel and Palestine of increased regional cooperation. That would happen if the barrier that the Palestinian problem represents to clearer Arab-Israeli ties were removed. Indeed, the White House has suggested that Palestinians are unlikely to get foreign aid if they don’t join new peace talks.
Trump may anticipate a deal that would allow Israel to keep many key settlements in the West Bank and establish embassies with key Arab states, in exchange for some version of an independent Palestinian state. The latter would likely be a patchwork of Palestinian lands to allow Jewish settlements to be integrated into Israel.
The White House may contend that a deal is possible based on its proposed detailed approaches to key issues in the conflict, including humanitarian aid for Gaza and national status for Palestinians, backed by generous financial commitments by the Saudis and other Gulf and Western states to the new state.
So why won’t it work?
In the end, though, a Palestinian-Israeli deal is unlikely for two key reasons.First is the Trump administration’s deficits in diplomacy. This presidency’s disregard for foreign policy expertise is illustrated by Trump’s use of inexperienced aides like Kushner and by his cuts to State Department funding. Add to that State Department instability caused by the replacement of Secretary Rex Tillerson with Mike Pompeo, a military and CIA man with limited experience in diplomacy and likely mistrust of political Islamists, such as the Hamas group that rules in Gaza.
The U.S.’ current disadvantage in global diplomacy may matter little on the Israeli side. But it is likely to make work harder with Palestinians and other Arabs who remain concerned about Palestinian rights. This was illustrated recently in the strong negative reactions to Trump’s Jerusalem embassy move, which is widely regarded outside of Israel as a major blunder that has angered Arabs.
There is a second key reason to be skeptical of a possible Palestine-Israel pact any time soon. A two-state deal remains the popular, and only clear, arrangement that could give both sides security and self-determination. Both sides must agree on such a deal and sell it to their people for it to stick. But decades of Israeli security control over the West Bank and decreasing Israeli-Palestinian contact make this unlikely.
Palestinians see Israelis mainly as coercive overlords who control central aspects of their lives in humiliating ways. Israelis have little direct contact with Palestinians, other than during their mandatory military service. This facilitates images of Palestinians as mainly violent agitators. The growing integration of West Bank settlements into Israeli society makes it much harder for them be to dismantled in a peace deal.
Trump and his allies in Cairo and Riyadh may think they can make an offer that Israelis and Palestinians can’t refuse. Yet leaders on each side remain accountable to diverse – and divided – voters.
The parties on the ground have had reasons to refuse U.S.-brokered deals in the past. Though people who care about peace and justice in the Middle East may wish otherwise, I doubt that Trump has found a new way to change this entrenched dynamic.
This article was originally published on The Conversation. Read the original article.
David Mednicoff does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
Judge says no decision for at least a month in Kris Kobach’s Kansas voter ID case
Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach talks about the Kansas voter ID law that he pushed to combat what he believes to be rampant voter fraud in the United States in his Topeka, Kansas, U.S., office May 12, 2016. (REUTERS/Dave Kaup)
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Lawyers presented closing arguments on Monday in the trial of a legal challenge to a Kansas law requiring proof of U.S. citizenship to register to vote, with opponents calling the statute illegal and supporters deeming it necessary to fight voter fraud.
The seven-day, non-jury trial in Kansas City drew to a conclusion as U.S. District Judge Julie Robinson said she was taking the case under submission and would not render a decision for at least a month.
The Kansas law, which took effect in 2013, requires individuals to present a U.S. passport, birth certificate or other proof of citizenship in order to register to vote. Several other Republican-led state legislatures have enacted similar measures in recent years.
Critics argue that voter ID laws are designed to suppress groups of the electorate that tend to support the Democratic Party, such as the young and minorities. Proponents say they help ensure the integrity of elections.
The American Civil Liberties Union filed suit in February 2016 challenging the Kansas law as a violation of the National Voter Registration Act, which allows individuals to register to vote at state motor vehicles offices with no more documentation than they would need to obtain a driver’s license.
Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach, a Republican who is running for governor and is named as a defendant in the lawsuit, argued in court that 129 non-U.S. citizens had voted or registered to vote in Kansas since 2000, a number he said was merely the “tip of the iceberg.”
He cited expert witnesses who testified for the state that extrapolations from the 129 known cases could mean a total number of illegally registered voters ranging from 1,067 to 33,001 in Kansas, given the state’s population.
But lawyers for the ACLU contended that all but a handful of those 129 people were registered due to clerical errors, misunderstandings or other unintentional reasons, and that most did not vote.
“That iceberg, upon closer inspection, is an ice cube,” ACLU lead attorney Dale Ho said in his closing argument. “There is no evidence it is in the thousands, as Secretary Kobach asserts.”
Kobach countered that even a small number of illegal voters could throw the outcome of an election. He also argued that the vast majority of Kansas residents have and can readily obtain the documents they need under the ID law.
“There is no evidence that people who are U.S. citizens are prevented from voting by virtue of the Kansas law,” Kobach said in closing.
The ACLU has estimated that more than 35,000 citizens in Kansas were blocked from registering to vote from 2013 to 2016.
Kobach previously served on a commission appointed by U.S. President some rich asshole to investigate voter fraud. the rich asshole contended, without evidence, that millions of people voted illegally in the 2016 presidential election he won. The commission was shut down in January. Most state election officials and election law experts say that U.S. voter fraud is rare.
Lawmakers in 23 states have imposed new voting restrictions since 2010, according to the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University School of Law.
This year, lawmakers in eight states have introduced bills imposing photo identification requirements for voting, but in two of those states the bills failed to win enough support for passage, the Brennan Center said.
Reporting by Kevin Murphy in Kansas City, Kan.; Additional reporting by Alex Dobuzinskis in Los Angeles; Editing by Steve Gorman and Leslie Adler
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March 20, 2018
the rich asshole doesn't want to talk about the fatal bombings terrorizing residents of the Texas capital — but he has time to promote Sean Hannity.
the rich asshole has yet to comment on the deadly serial bombings in Austin, Texas, and hasn’t even spoken with his press secretary about the latest bombing.
Since March 2, there have been five bombings around Austin, including one just after midnight Tuesday. On Monday’s “Fox & Friends,” White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders was asked about the latest bombing, and had shockingly little to say about it.
Asked if she’s spoken with the rich asshole about the most recent bombing, Sanders replied “I haven’t spoken to him directly, but I have talked to our team here at the White House here this morning since this is taken place.”
Sanders then hemmed and hawed her way through some non-specific talking points about cooperation with local authorities, and twice insisted that while she hasn’t talked to the rich asshole, he is “aware of the situation.”
Sanders was unable to give even basic information about which federal authorities are assisting with the investigation, or what those authorities are doing to assist. It is unclear, from Sanders’ remarks, if she has ever spoken to the rich asshole about the bombings.
Sanders’ lack of preparation is consistent with a White House that has ignored these bombings since they began nearly three weeks ago. The first bomb was a package bomb that killed Anthony Stephan House after it exploded on March 2, followed by another package bomb ten days later that killed one and injured another. The third bomb injured two this past Sunday, and was apparently set off with a tripwire.
the rich asshole has yet to comment on the mysterious wave of bombings, despite his well-documented affection for immediately exploiting acts of terror if he feels they reinforce his bigoted policies. the rich asshole has consistently jumped on unfolding terror attacks to promote his Muslim ban, and even used them to slam domestic political opponents and international allies alike.
Meanwhile, the rich asshole has found the time to comment on subjects as trivial as the television ratings for an awards show, a book by a reality TV producer, and a television appearance by Sean Hannity.
the rich asshole has a disturbing habit of ignoring acts of terror that doesn’t benefit him politically, but Americans deserve a leader who cares about protecting all of them, all of the time.
Attorney General Sessions backs some rich asshole call for death penalty in drug cases
FILE PHOTO: U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions speaks on the growing trend of violent crime in sanctuary cities during an event on the Port of Miami in Miami, Florida, U.S. on, August 16, 2017. REUTERS/Joe Skipper/File Photo
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U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions on Monday backed a plan outlined by President some rich asshole aimed at combating the opioid crisis by vowing to seek the death penalty “wherever appropriate” against drug traffickers.
“Drug dealers show no respect for human dignity and put their own greed ahead of the safety and even the lives of others,” he said in a statement, adding that the Justice Department “will continue to aggressively prosecute drug traffickers.”
CNN’s Cooper hammers GOP rep over his ‘massive conspiracy theory’ about an anti-the rich asshole ‘cabal’ at the FBI
CNN's Anderson Cooper and Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL)
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CNN’s Anderson Cooper on Monday hammered Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL), a vocal some rich asshole supporter, over his assertion there may be a “cabal at the top echelon of the FBI” working to take down the president.
Gaetz, who’s called for Jeff Sessions to fire Robert Mueller (despite the attorney general’s recusal from the Russia probe), told Cooper it’s time to “wrap up” the special counsel investigation “and move onto tax cuts and other important things for the country.”
“We’re 14 months into the rich asshole presidency,” Gaetz said. “So let’s assume those who are the president’s biggest critics are right and there was collusion. We shouldn’t wait any longer to see the evidence. Let’s find out what the evidence is as we stand here today.”
Cooper asked Gaetz if he believes “there’s some sort of cabal at the top echelon of the FBI” that’s out to get the rich asshole.
“I think we need to look into that question,” Gaetz replied.
Cooper pointed out Gaetz’s theory mirrors an earlier assertion that he and other the rich asshole-backing congressmen shared—namely, that there’s a FBI “secret society” plotting the president’s downfall.
“It’s a reasonable question to wonder why people at the FBI were referencing a secret society,” Gaetz told Cooper. “While there may have not been some formal incarnation of that, you may have had the very informal cabal that [the rich asshole’s lawyer] referenced.”
“I think there’s a lot more investigating to do, and it may very well be you had an informal cabal functioning in secret with a societal goal of hurting President the rich asshole without any evidence,” Gaetz continued.
“That sounds like a massive conspiracy theory,” Cooper pushed back.
“There may have been a massive conspiracy at play,” Gaetz insisted.
“So just so I’m clear, you want to shut down special counsel Robert Mueller, who’s investigating the president, but create a new special counsel to investigate a potential cabal or secret society at the highest echelons of the FBI?” Cooper asked dryly.
Gaetz replied that Cooper’s summation was correct.
Watch the interview below, via CNN:
POLITICS
New York City Council Launches Probe Into Kushner Company’s False Tenant Records
State attorney general is also talking to tenants.
The New York City Council has launched an investigation into false tenant documents reportedly filed by the Kushner family real estate company that dodged rent laws and boosted profits.
New York State Attorney General Eric Schneiderman is also meeting with tenants of Kushner properties because he’s “concerned about the allegations,” said a spokeswoman.
Hundreds of rent-regulated tenants in buildings owned by Kushner Cos. were protected by city law from being hit with major rent hikes or forced out by a new owner. However, the company “routinely” filed false paperwork stating that the buildings had no rent-regulated tenants from 2013 to 2016, The Associated Press reported. White House adviser Jared Kushner, the husband of first daughter Ivanka the rich asshole, was CEO of the operation during that time.
According to documents obtained by the tenant watchdog group Housing Rights Initiative, at least 80 false applications were filed for construction permits in 34 buildings during that time. They stated that the buildings had no rent-regulated tenants when, in fact, they included 300 rent-regulated units, AP reported. The result was less city supervision at sites. That left tenants vulnerable to being harassed to get out or left to endure the constant disruption of construction as the Kushners sought to hike rents or sell buildings.
City Council member Ritchie Torres announced an investigation into the practice by the Kushner business and other landlords on Monday. He called the Kushner strategy a “weaponization of construction” to force tenants out for higher-paying residents and “deregulate affordable housing units out of existence.”
“The falsification of building permits is not merely about bureaucratic paperwork; it poses a profound threat to the affordability of rent-regulated units ... and it poses a profound threat to the safety of residents who live in these units during construction,” he said.
Today, we are announcing a new investigation in partnership with @housingrightsNY into Kushner Companies and predatory landlords who lie to the city and use construction as harassment.
Torres also blamed the city for failing to check on the Kushner paperwork, which was contradicted by city tax documents.
Kushner Cos. has said that a third party was contracted to file the paperwork and that documents were amended whenever errors were discovered. “Kushner Companies values all of our tenants and takes our legal and ethical responsibilities very seriously,” said a company statement.
Housing Rights Initiative, however, said that paperwork often wasn’t amended for a year or two, by which time tenants had already been driven out.
Jared Kushner stepped down from his role as CEO last year but still holds major stakes in a number of family real estate holdings. He maintains a holding in Westminster Management, the Kushner Cos. subsidiary that oversees its residential properties. Westminster has been hit with a class-action lawsuit by Maryland tenants who say they were charged mysterious fees in a bid to drive them out, a charge the company has denied.
Special counsel Robert Mueller is reportedly looking into Jared Kushner’s efforts to secure financing for family real estate operations from foreign investors during the presidential transition that may have influenced his work in the White House.
the rich asshole runs his legal team like the ‘dysfunctional West Wing’ — and his lawyers double as ‘therapists’
Ty Cobb and Don McGahn (composite image)
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Amid the president’s increasing attacks against special counsel Robert Mueller, fractures and in-fighting have reportedly occurred within his legal team.
The Washington Post reported Monday night that the latest developments on the rich asshole’s legal team — which includes him bringing on a lawyer known for promoting “deep state” conspiracy theories — are making his defense seem a lot like his tumultuous administration.
“The half-dozen key lawyers tasked with defending the rich asshole are increasingly operating with conflicting information, feuding internally, and pursuing strategies that many legal analysts and friends of the president view as dubious — if not downright dangerous,” the Post‘s report continued.
“It does seem as though it’s mirroring the dysfunction in the West Wing and this is not some complicated chaos theory of management — it’s just chaos,” author Chris Whipple, who wrote a history of White House chiefs of staff titled “The Gatekeepers,” told the Post. “Common sense tells you that it’s critical that everyone be on the same page, not just the White House staff but especially the legal team on whom he’s relying for survival.”
Along with serving as legal counsel, the Post‘s sources close to the president said, the rich asshole’s lawyers also act as his “publicists and therapists.”
Although “the lawyers employ a range of strategies to try to manage the impulses of their uncooperative client,” they’ve often feuded with each other and the rich asshole. Most recently, those fights have centered on what to do about Mueller, with members of his legal team making contradicting statements and having to issue amendments to what they said previously.
Read the entire report on the rich asshole legal team in-fighting via the Washington Post.
POLITICS
Lawyer Offers To Represent Any the rich asshole Staffer Who Breaks ‘Forever’ Nondisclosure Pacts
“It’s an unconstitutional prohibition on 1st Amendment rights,” attorney Mark Zaid argues.
A prominent Washington, D.C., attorney said his law firm will represent, pro bono, anyone who wants to challenge the draconian nondisclosure agreements President some rich asshole reportedly demanded early last year from his senior White House officials.
Mark Zaid, who represents government workers in free speech and national security cases, was responding to a Sunday report from The Washington Post that administration officials are prohibited from disclosing information both during their employment and “at all times thereafter.”
Each infraction would be subject to a $10 million fine, according to a draft agreement the Post obtained. The draft covered all “non public” communications, including conversations with the press and with any other government official. It even barred any revelations in works of fiction.
Zaid, a founding partner of the nonprofit law firm Whistleblower Aid, said the staffers can only lawfully be constrained from disclosing classified information when their employment is over.
This is an unconstitutional prohibition on 1st Amendment rights. My law firm offers to rep pro bono any signatory (or individual legitimately contemplating) of these NDAs. Former employees can only be lawfully prevented from disclosing classified info.@BradMossEsq @AndrewBakaj twitter.com/ktumulty/statu…
Several free speech and civil rights experts besides Zaid said the agreement is unconstitutional, and therefore unenforceable.
“Public employees can’t be gagged by private agreements,” Ben Wizner of the American Civil Liberties Union said in a statement. “These so-called NDAs are unconstitutional and unenforceable.”
The agreements “strike me as clearly unconstitutional under the First Amendment,” University of Minnesota law professor Heidi Kitrosser told Reuters. University of Florida law professor Mark Fenster told the outlet that “public employees can’t be forced to sign away the right to speak.”
Experts also noted that White House staffers don’t technically work for the rich asshole, but for the United States, which would be the only party that could enforce the NDAs — and that’s not likely to happen.
The highest-profile nondisclosure agreement currently linked to the president is the one between the rich asshole lawyer Michael Cohen and Stormy Daniels, the adult film star whose real name is Stephanie Clifford. Daniels says she had a year-long affair with the rich asshole, but Cohen has warned her that she could be sued for up to $20 million if she violates the nondisclosure pact she signed in 2016, reportedly in exchange for $130,000.
The White House has not denied the existence of nondisclosure agreements for senior administration staffers. However, it told Reuters on Monday that staffers “were never asked or required to sign NDAs with $10 million clauses.”
The Post speculated that senior staffers agreed to a lower amount before they signed. According to the Post, the staffers did all eventually sign the agreements, in part because many believed they could not be enforced.
MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow outlines how the rich asshole’s lawyers are seeking a Watergate-style compromise with Mueller
MSNBC anchor Rachel Maddow.
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Reports on Monday revealed the latest ploy by President some rich asshole’s lawyers to strike a deal with special counsel Robert Mueller — and as MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow noted, a similar compromise took place during the Watergate scandal.
In an attempt to exonerate himself after the revelations of White House tapes regarding the Watergate break-in was revealed, President Richard Nixon proposed a compromise — he’d not only release to his special counsel, Archibald Cox, a transcript of the tapes, but would also have a seemingly neutral lawmaker compare the transcripts to the audio.
The only problem? The lawmaker, John Stennis, a “pro-Nixon, Dixiecrat senator” from Mississippi, “was famously deaf.”
The episode became infamously known as the “Stennis Compromise.” When Cox refuted Nixon’s offer, the president went down the line at the Justice Department to get someone to fire him — an episode that, even more infamously, became known as the “Saturday Night Massacre” after his attorney general and deputy AG resigned in protest of the request.
“Ultimately, a new special counsel was appointed,” Maddow said. “And that was all she wrote for the Nixon administration.”
The host proceeded to note that the rich asshole’s lawyer’s latest “gambit” — offering Mueller “written descriptions that chronicle key moments under investigation” in hopes that Mueller won’t ask the president about them in person — resembles the Stennis Compromise.
“The records do not include the rich asshole’s personal version of events but provide a narrative of the White House view,” the Washington Post‘s report on the document turnover, which Maddow read on air, noted.
“Trump’s lawyers hope this evidence eliminates the need to ask the president about some of these episodes,” the host continued, citing the Post‘s reporting. “Raise your hand if this is gonna make this whole problem for the White House go away.”
Watch below, via MSNBC:
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March 19, 2018
Republicans like Mitch McConnell talk a good game — until they don't.
Republicans are well aware that the rich asshole is inching closer to trying to fire special counsel Robert Mueller again. And some talk tough against it. But when it really counts, GOP leaders like Sen. Mitch McConnell are complicit in the rich asshole’s threats.
According to a new report in Politico, “Republican Senate leaders threw cold water Monday on passing a bill to protect Mueller, calling it unnecessary despite the rich asshole’s increasingly scathing attacks against the special counsel and his team.”
In the midst of the rich asshole’s latest unhinged outbursts on social media, in which he called Mueller’s investigation a “total WITCH HUNT” conducted by “big Crooked Hillary supporters,” some Republicans voiced support for Mueller.
Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) said that firing Mueller would be the “beginning of the end of his presidency.” And Sen. Jeff Flake (R-AZ) called it a “red line.”
But when push comes to shove, McConnell will not allow any provision to protect Mueller to pass. Not in the multiple bipartisan proposals floating through Congress, nor as part of the omnibus spending bill.
McConnell has refused to pass such bills on previous occasions, giving the excuse that he does not believe the rich asshole will make good on his threats. But even if that is true, McConnell has no good reason against passing a bill to make sure the special counsel is protected.
Nor is McConnell alone in wanting the rich asshole to retain the power to commit a Saturday Night Massacre.
Forty-eight Republican senators did not condemn the rich asshole for ramping up his attacks on Mueller. Meanwhile, even Graham is lending credence to the rich asshole’s conspiracy theories, arguing for a second special counsel to investigate the investigators.
Whatever their words, McConnell and his fellow Republicans are taking no action to preserve the rule of law — and that speaks much louder.
Republicans See No Need For Legislation To Protect Robert Mueller
“I do not believe the president would take such a foolish action,” Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) said.
WASHINGTON ― Republicans say they see no need to pass legislation to protect Robert Mueller, the head of the investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election, despite fresh attacks from President some rich asshole against him over the weekend.
the rich asshole took on the special counsel by name for the first time on Saturday, writing the next day on Twitter that his probe was not “fair” and stating falsely that it was staffed by all Democrats and no Republicans. The president’s attorney, John Dowd, later urged the Justice Department to immediately end the special counsel probe. Despite ensuing White House denials, Dowd’s statement and the rich asshole’s pointed attacks earlier in the day led many to speculate that Mueller’s job could be in peril.
On Monday, the rich asshole again criticized the Russia investigation, alleging it had “massive conflicts of interest.”
Republicans over the weekend offered a mostly muted response to the rich asshole’s attacks against Mueller. A few, like Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) and Sen. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.), warned that moving to terminate the special counsel would represent a “red line” and could even represent the “end” of the rich asshole’s presidency.
No Republican, however, called for a vote on long-stalled legislation meant to shield Mueller from firing. Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.), a co-author of one such bill, tweeted Monday that the special counsel ought to be able to “continue his investigation unimpeded.”
Republican leaders, meanwhile, said they had no plans to intervene because they did not believe the rich asshole would act against Mueller despite a slew of recent personnel shake-ups among government agencies and the firing of Andrew McCabe, who served as the Deputy Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Friday.
“I have urged the White House in public and private to allow Mueller to continue his investigation uninterrupted,” Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), the Senate president pro tempore, said in a statement on Monday. “I know Mueller well and believe him to be a straight shooter, and I continue to believe that giving Mueller the time and support necessary to get to the bottom of things is in the best interest of all parties involved.”
“My conversations with the White House have led me to believe legislation is not necessary at this point because I do not believe the president would take such a foolish action,” Hatch added in the statement.
Senate Majority Whip John Cornyn (R-Texas) was similarly dismissive of the possibility that the rich asshole could fire Mueller, telling reporters on Monday he did not think the president would do so because “the consequences would be so overwhelming.”
“I don’t see the necessity of picking that fight right now,” Cornyn added.
The views of Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) lined up with those of Republicans on Monday. She told reporters that she didn’t think special protections were necessary since firing Mueller was so obviously a bad move, according to The Washington Post’s Karoun Demirjian.
Feinstein clarified later that she believes Mueller is already protected under current regulations because Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein has said there is no cause to fire him. The senator added, however, that she also supports legislation to codify those regulations.
It’s not hard to envision the rich asshole taking his attacks against Mueller to another level, however. The president has a reputation for impulsiveness, and on Monday the White House added a lawyer to its team who has pushed the theory on television that the FBI and Justice Department framed the rich asshole.
the rich asshole also surprised many members of his party earlier this month by announcing tariffs on steel and aluminum imports ― policies that have historically been opposed by free-trade conservatives. Many Republicans on Capitol Hill were unaware of the details surrounding the policy until after it was announced by the rich asshole at the White House.
New York Times reporter Maggie Haberman wrote over the weekend on Twitter that the president was “testing” lawmakers with his attacks on Mueller.
‘the rich asshole is Nixon on steroids’: John Dean tells CNN’s Cooper ‘we’re witnessing a very public obstruction of justice’
John Dean, Former White House Counsel for United States President Richard Nixon (Photo: Screen capture)
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John Dean, the former White House Counsel for President Richard Nixon, on Monday said some rich asshole’s recent attacks on special counsel Robert Mueller constitute “a very public obstruction of justice,” telling CNN’s Anderson Cooper, “the rich asshole is Nixon on steroids.”
Dean was discussing the rich asshole’s weekend Twitter rant, during which the president wrote Mueller’s name for the first time—all while declaring the special counsel’s probe “a witch hunt.”
“I think what we’re witnessing is a very public obstruction of justice,” Dean said Monday. “He, as I see it, has already exceeded everything that Nixon did. He’s really much more intimately involved than Nixon ever was in a cover-up.”
Dean contrasted the rich asshole’s engagement in the “cover-up” with Nixon’s—who Dean explained was not involved in Watergate until he was informed about it by his chief of staff.
“the rich asshole from the very beginning, he’s involved in this,” Dean said. “And so I see a very different profile, and the big difference being Nixon was behind closed doors— everyone was surprised when there were recordings of it. the rich asshole is right out front on it, and he’s dealing with it publicly.”
“That’s a pretty stunning statement that I want you to have repeat that,” Cooper replied. “You’re saying in your opinion some rich asshole has gone farther than Richard Nixon did to obstruct justice?”
“That’s exactly what I’m saying,” Dean replied. “I think the rich asshole is Nixon on steroids and stilts.”
POLITICS
John Kelly Sure Seems Like A Jerk
He’s humiliated a Cabinet official, lied about a congresswoman and lamented the lack of “compromise” in the Civil War.
WASHINGTON ― When John Kelly took over as President some rich asshole’s chief of staff last July, many in the Washington establishment breathed a sigh of relief. Maybe this man, a retired Marine Corps general who received praise from both sides of the political aisle as well as the media, would be able to restore some dignity to the White House.
He would “dial back the drama” and “turn the White House around.” Kelly’s perceived effectiveness was enhanced by the fact that he looked like many people’s expectation of a leader: an older white man with a military bearing. One article noted his “square-jawed” features and said he would be “an imposing and strait-laced figure.”
But there’s still been plenty of drama over the past eight months. the rich asshole continues to tweet about random celebrities and make shocking comments about other nations. Now he’s also rapidly hiring all his favorite people on cable news to help him run the nation.
And Kelly has been anything but a grown-up holding down “the adult wing of the new regime.” In fact, he’s revealed himself to be a bit of a jerk, even in a job known to attract jerks. (President Barack Obama once joked about how his first chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, lost a middle finger while working at Arby’s, which “rendered him practically mute.”)
Rex Tillerson faced a fair amount of humiliation last week when he learned the rich asshole had fired him by reading the news on Twitter. But Kelly decided to make Tillerson’s week even shittier: He told reporters that he had informed Tillerson he would soon be fired at a time when the secretary of state, who was suffering through a stomach bug, was sitting on the toilet.
The Daily Beast reported that journalists who were in the off-the-record briefing with the White House chief of staff were “stunned” that this mature adult would share such a personal, embarrassing detail about a man who had just been ousted so unceremoniously.
Maybe Kelly just thought it was a funny anecdote. He once made a joke about how the rich asshole should use a sword on the press. Ha. Ha.
Kelly also created a significant scandal for the rich asshole when he protected then-White House aide Rob Porter in the face of domestic violence accusations ― with photographic evidence ― made by his ex-wives. Kelly tried to spin his own involvement, claiming that he and other top White House officials didn’t know about the physical abuse allegations and took immediate action when they found out. But other White House aides disputed his characterization, saying Kelly looked the other way on Porter, another official who was supposed to be one of the grown-ups in the room.
the rich asshole reportedly blamed not Kelly, but White House communications director Hope Hicks, who was dating Porter at the time. The president believed Hicks put her personal feelings over his best interests.
And Kelly, according to a new New York Magazine story, had trouble dealing with Hicks because she was a woman in power.
“He was extraordinarily dismissive of her. He would refer to her as ‘the high-schooler,’ he would joke about how she was inexperienced, she was in over her head, she was immature,” a former senior White House official said. “He doesn’t like a woman that potentially has some position of power over him. He thinks women should be subservient to him. If you look at his relationship with Ivanka or Hope — women who aren’t subservient to him — he has problems with those people.”
This description fits perfectly with what Kelly himself has said about women ― that they should be “sacred,” like they were in the good old days. In the past, of course, there were fewer women in positions of power in places like the government.
Last October, Kelly had another run-in with a powerful woman. When Rep. Frederica Wilson (D-Fla.) revealed the callous comments that the rich asshole had made to the family of a fallen U.S. service member, Kelly publicly criticized her and told reporters about past comments from the congresswoman that made her seem selfish and self-glorifying. Video of Wilson’s remarks revealed that Kelly had completely misrepresented them, yet like his boss, he refused to apologize and retract his claims.
Kelly has also asserted that the Civil War was caused by “the lack of ability to compromise.” It’s not clear what compromise on the central issue of the war ― slavery ― Kelly would like to have seen.
HuffPost reached out to a number of former White House chiefs of staff to ask about Kelly and his conduct. They all either didn’t respond or didn’t want to comment for this article.
Mueller sees the rich asshole lawyer Mike Cohen as ‘a potential cooperator’ in Russia probe: Ex-federal prosecutor
President some rich asshole's longtime personal attorney Michael Cohen (Screen capture)
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According to some legal experts, the legal debacle surrounding President some rich asshole’s alleged affair with Stormy Daniels may shape up to be more than just a national embarrassment.
CNBC reported Monday that the Daniels saga — and the rich asshole lawyer Michael Cohen’s role in it — may be of interest to special counsel Robert Mueller.
Though Cohen’s role in the Daniels scandal is not directly related to the special counsel’s probe, it could be used to cast doubt on his continued insistence that he did not collude with Russia.
“If the affair did happen,” CNBC’s report noted, “the rich asshole and Cohen’s denials could be used by Mueller to cast into doubt the reliability of their claims about other areas of his investigation.”
Stephen Braga, a white-collar criminal defense professor at the University of Virginia’s law school, told CNBC that “this information would go generally to both of their credibilities and, more specifically, to both of their potential modus operandi for trying to control information that might be adverse to the president’s interests.”
He went on to say that Mueller “might be able to use the potential threat of prosecuting Cohen for actions related to Daniels as leverage to get him to cooperate in the ongoing probe of the rich asshole campaign.”
Mimi Rocah, former federal prosecutor and regular MSNBC contributor, said that “it may be that this doesn’t connect directly to Russia, but rather that Mueller sees Cohen as a potential cooperator.”
Because Cohen is named in the infamous “golden showers” dossier for allegedly meeting with Kremlin officials in a secret 2016 meeting in Prague, the report continued, his culpability in the Daniels lawsuit may be used to attain his testimony on that meeting.
the rich asshole promised a big policy speech on opioids, but couldn’t stay focused
This was a mess.
In a strange Monday afternoon speech on opioid policy, President some rich asshole dedicated the bulk of his time to ideas that would be likely to worsen the crisis.
Reporters who had been briefed on the administration’s plans ahead of time wrote that the White House seeks to put force behind a 12-point guideline for the proper, safe prescribing of opioids that has languished for two years after the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released them. The move would be a rare thing for the rich asshole’s opioid policy so far: a novel move rather than a continuation of existing policy, and one that appeals to treatment-oriented groups rather than just law enforcement advocates.
Gary Mendell, an addiction and recovery expert who runs the organization Shatterproof, told ThinkProgress the guidelines are “the single most important thing we could do to prevent tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of our loved ones from becoming addicted to opioids.”
the rich asshole’s team reportedly plans to require that doctors adhere to the CDC best-practices list if they want to receive payments from Medicare, Medicaid, or other publicly-financed health services. Elsewhere in the speech, he even suggested his team is looking to file major federal litigation against the companies that have made billions of dollars off of prescription drugs that drag people into addiction — another potentially major shift in policy that would be in harmony with expert coalitions.
But the rich asshole didn’t lead with these substantive policy change on Monday. If you blinked at the wrong moment, you’d have missed either of them. He spent the top of the speech reiterating his desire to see major drug dealers put to death, extolling the virtues of such bloody example-making to bursts of applause from his audience, mentioned the two promising initiatives briefly, then pivoted to familiar railing against immigration policies he hates.
“Our Department of Justice is looking very seriously into bringing major litigation against some of these drug companies,” the rich asshole said after winding down the executions talk. “We’re going to cut nationwide opioid prescriptions by one-third over the next three years. We’re also going to make sure that virtually all prescriptions reimbursed by the federal government follow best practices for prescribing.”
Then, just as quickly as he’d brought up the long-awaited move on CDC’s guidelines and the surprise prospect of corporate accountability, he shifted subjects again. The government will soon be “spending a lot of money on great commercials showing how bad it is, so that kids seeing those commercials during the right shows, on television or wherever, the internet, when they see these commercials they, ‘I don’t want any part of it,'” he said. “That’s the least expensive thing we can do, where you scare them from ending up like the people in the commercials.”
Soon after, he was back on the subject of executing dealers, jumping between it and immigration policy rambles and occasionally inviting one or another attendee up to the microphone for an ad-libbed cameo.
Standing in front of a wall labeled “OPIOIDS: THE CRISIS NEXT DOOR,” the rich asshole railed against so-called “sanctuary cities,” blasted Democrats’ negotiating positions on his border wall proposal and citizenship options for undocumented young people, and rambled about MS-13 gang members’ preference for using knives rather than guns.
Eventually, the rich asshole wound his way back to the death penalty again, again praising other countries that execute their drug dealers.
“Now maybe our country is not ready for that,” the president said, seemingly ad-libbing in his signature loose, rambling, contradictory style. “It’s possible, it’s possible that our country is not ready for that, and I can understand it, maybe, although personally I can’t understand that.”
The chaotic nature of the rich asshole’s remarks undercut the administration’s pre-speech marketing of a major policy platform rollout.
Here are the big things you need to know about the rich asshole’s approach to opioids:
On prescriber rules and ‘major litigation’
The CDC’s list contains a dozen specific requirements for prescribers that would radically restrict the flow of legitimate doctor-provided opioids as a pain management strategy. The doctors who crafted the list hoped to split the difference between a status quo where the pills are given too freely and an overcorrection where patients in serious pain would be expected to just rub some dirt on it and move on.
“The implementation of these guidelines is going extremely slow,” Mendell said, noting that the policy is a relatively cheap, simple way to tackle the demand side of the drug problem by shrinking the number of people who will slide from legitimate, safe, and short-term use of painkillers into a more dangerous relationship with narcotics.
the rich asshole’s approval of changes to Medicare and Medicaid to require compliance with the CDC rules would mark a significant shift in medical practice. But his administration is also seeking sweeping cuts to those programs which would make it harder for people to seek and obtain treatment for addiction, making it unlikely his policies would produce a net-positive change in America’s drug problem.
the rich asshole’s suggestion of a federal suit against drug marketers opens further interesting doors. When Purdue Pharmaceutical first marketed Oxycontin, the opioid formulation most directly associated with the 20-year surge in addiction to such drugs, the company knowingly misled doctors about what their patients could expect from the pill. The gap between Purdue’s marketing copy and its own clinical trials helped fuel numerous lawsuits from state governments seeking to recoup the costs of grappling with mass opioid addiction, most of which the company has quashed or settled.
A federal pursuit of accountability for such marketing swindles would mark a genuinely new direction. But other, lengthier moments in the speech tacked away from the rich asshole’s brief mention of a possible crackdown. He mentioned a proposal to develop less-addictive painkiller alternatives, referencing a proposal in his most recent budget that would funnel hundreds of millions of research dollars to the same industry that created the current crisis by pretending that their products were not likely to generate dangerous addiction cycles. His philosophical predisposition to trust the industry cropped up again as he introduced Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar. “Who knows better than the guy running the drug company?” the rich asshole said of the secretary, who was a top executive at drug-making company Eli Lilly.
‘Great commercials…where you scare them’
the rich asshole’s fascination with War on Drugs advertising is well-documented. He’s been proposing dedicated funding for scared-straight advertising for months, mirroring Attorney General Jeff Sessions’ repeated calls to return to Reagan-era “Just Say No” campaigns with young people.
But we already know that those ad campaigns failed to reduce youth drug experimentation — and maybe even backfired by triggering greater use of certain drugs. the rich asshole either hasn’t seen any of that research or doesn’t feel obligated to explain how his new ad push will be different. After a lengthy description of the coming media buys, he pivoted to attacking Democrats over their negotiating stance toward border security and immigration reform.
The big talk on executions has only one easy outlet. A 30-year-old law allows federal prosecutors to seek the death penalty in prosecutions of senior members of a “continuing criminal enterprise” that moves mass quantities of drugs. This so-called “kingpin law” has barely been used since Congress passed it in 1988. Its use raises constitutional questions the Supreme Court has never answered. In theory, the the rich asshole administration can already seek death sentences for traffickers they can prove participated in a ring that moved at least 24 kilos of fentanyl or 60 kilos of heroin, or generated at least $20 million in profits in any given year.
But while that’s the only ready-to-use federal provision for imposing death sentences on dealers, a corresponding ramp-up in prosecutorial aggression in general following the rich asshole’s lead would have a bunch of other serious consequences. The federal “drug-induced homicide” statute, for example, allows prosecutors to seek sentences of 20 years to life in cases where they can prove the drugs someone sold caused a specific overdose death.
Several states have their own drug-induced homicide laws that trigger harsh sentences. In Colorado, Florida, and Oklahoma law, drug-induced homicide convictions can even confer the death penalty — with none of the “kingpin” requirements in the federal law the rich asshole wants to dust off, meaning that a destitute addict who sells a baggie to a friend to support their own habit could get the needle if that friend dies in Denver, Miami, or Tulsa.
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