the rich asshole to hire Fox News legal pundit Victoria Toensing — who wants to launch a probe of Robert Mueller: report
Robert Mueller, some rich asshole -- screenshots
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President some rich asshole reportedly isn’t done shaking up his legal team.
According to Vanity Fair’s Gabriel Sherman, the president plans to add Victoria Toensing, who is the wife of recently hired lawyer Joseph diGenova, to his legal team.
Both diGenova and Toensing regularly offer legal analysis on Fox News, and Sherman says that the rich asshole is bringing them on because he’s decided to go to war with special counsel Robert Mueller’s probe.
While diGenova has in the past said the entire probe was based on a “deep state” plot “to illegally exonerate Hillary Clinton and… then frame some rich asshole with a falsely created crime,” Toensing has recommended appointing a new special counsel to investigate Mueller himself.
“Toensing is currently representing William Campbell, a former lobbyist and F.B.I. informant, who claimed in an interview with members of three congressional committees that Russia steered money to the Clinton Foundation to grease the so-called Uranium One deal,” Sherman writes. “Appearing on Fox News, Toensing has called for a second special prosecutor to investigate Mueller, the logic being that he was FBI director at the time that the Uranium One acquisition was approved.”
Top White House lawyer John Dowd resigned on Thursday amid reports that the rich asshole was now refusing to take his advice.
WATCH: the rich asshole whines about being the president during millennial summit interview
President some rich asshole during a Fox News interview. Image via screengrab.
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Speaking to an interviewer at the millennial-oriented Generation Next Summit, President some rich asshole appeared to complain about the difficulties of being president and getting bad press.
“What advice do you give to 25-year-old some rich asshole?” the young interviewer asked.
“Don’t run for president,” the rich asshole responded, to laughter from the crowd.
He went on to complain about how he had “great publicity” before he ran for office — and later shifted gears to discuss what he considers a presidential achievement.
“There is a lot of fake news out there, nobody had any idea,” the president said. “I‘m proud of the fact that I exposed it to a large extent. We exposed it. It’s an achievement.”
During the freewheeling interview, the rich asshole also said he believes a “majority” of college students on the “real campuses” in the “Middle West” support him.
Watch below, via Fox News:
President the rich asshole receives court summons at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue
A major case alleging the rich asshole is violating the Constitution moves forward.
Attorneys general for the District of Columbia and Maryland have expanded their lawsuit against President some rich asshole to include the rich asshole in his personal capacity as a businessman.
As part of the process, they sent an official summon to the rich asshole at his home, the White House, located on 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. Lawyers for the rich asshole have 21 days to respond.
The suit brought by D.C. and Maryland alleges President the rich asshole is violating two separate constitutional clauses: the foreign emoluments clause and the domestic emoluments clause.
The foreign emoluments clause prohibits the president from receiving “any present, Emolument, Office or Title, of any kind whatever, from any King, Prince, or foreign State.” This provision, Maryland and D.C. argue, is violated when foreign governments patronize his D.C. hotel and other properties, including the decision by the Embassy of Kuwait after the election to switch a major event to the rich asshole hotel, after initially booking the Four Seasons — an action first reported by ThinkProgress.
The domestic emoluments clause prohibits the president from receiving gifts or emoluments from the federal government or states. The lawsuit alleges that the federal government provided an improper benefit when it allowed the rich asshole to maintain his lease for his D.C. hotel, which is federal property, despite an explicit provision banning elected officials.
Maryland and D.C. allege that the rich asshole’s unconstitutional actions are stealing business away from other venues, convention centers in Washington, Baltimore and Bethesda. Maryland also claims it is losing tax revenue when the rich asshole hotel draws room and event bookings from private businesses in the state, including the MGM Casino at National Harbor.
This suit, however, addressed the rich asshole as President of the United States. By allowing the plaintiffs to amend their initial lawsuit to include the rich asshole the businessman, the judge in charge of the case, U.S. District Court Judge Peter Messitte, appears to be inclined to let the case proceed. In a Maryland court in January, Messitte repeatedly expressed concern that while the complaints revolve around the rich asshole business dealings, the suit addresses the rich asshole as president. Subsequently, the judge gave D.C. and Maryland the chance to amend the suit.
Similar emoluments suits, like one brought by ethics watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington (CREW) along with a group of employees and owners of hospitality businesses like restaurant and hotels, have failed in the courts. The judge in the CREW case dismissed the suit because, in his opinion, the plaintiffs failed to show that use of the rich asshole properties by foreign officials had harmed their businesses in any way.
The judge believed Congress, not the courts, should decide what is or isn’t constitutional.
“As the only political branch with the power to consent to violations of the Foreign Emoluments Clause, Congress is the appropriate body to determine whether, and to what extent, Defendant’s conduct unlawfully infringes on that power,” the judge wrote in his dismissal. “If Congress determines that an infringement has occurred, it is up to Congress to decide whether to challenge or acquiesce to Defendant’s conduct. As such, this case presents a non-justiciable political question.”
Some legal experts, however, say the Maryland and D.C. lawsuit may have a better chance of moving forward, especially now that it addresses the rich asshole as a businessman.
The president neglected to fully divest himself from his business empire before taking office, leaving the rich asshole the ability to profit off the presidency. According to ProPublica, lawyers for the rich asshole confirmed that the president can pull funds from his blind trust (consisting of his two sons running the day-to-day operations of the rich asshole Organization) whenever he wants without disclosing it to the public.
the rich asshole’s legal strategy is a great way to wind up in prison
If you want to get convicted, hire lawyers who tell you what you want to hear.
At least on paper, some rich asshole is a lawyer’s dream client. He’s not just world famous, he may someday become the most high-profile criminal defendant on the planet. He runs up massive legal bills, and actually has enough money to pay them (or so he claims, anyway). And who wouldn’t want to be able to advertise to potential clients that they once represented the President of the United States?
And yet, elite attorneys largely treat the rich asshole as Typhoid Mary. Earlier this week, former Solicitor General Ted Olson rejected an offer to join the rich asshole’s legal team — for the second time. Last June, Olson was among lawyers from four of Washington, DC’s top law firms who reportedly turned down the rich asshole as a client, including another former Solicitor General, Paul Clement.
As one lawyer told Yahoo News at the time, “the concerns were, ‘The guy won’t pay and he won’t listen.‘”
Then, on Thursday, John Dowd — the lawyer who led the legal team representing the rich asshole in Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian interference with the 2016 election — resigned. According to the New York Times, he did so because “some rich asshole was increasingly ignoring his advice.”
That leaves the rich asshole with a ragtag band of personal attorneys to defend him in the Mueller probe. Some of these lawyers, to be sure, have very serious legal credentials. Others are a bit more goofy. But there appears to be one unifying theme among the rich asshole’s legal team — a tremendous personal alignment with the rich asshole’s own viewpoint.
the rich asshole is surrounded by yes men, and he’s likely to regret that fact. A lawyer’s job is to provide objective, realistic advice to their client, not to tell the client what they want to hear. And a client who won’t hire lawyers that tell him the truth is likely to find themselves in deep trouble.
As Dowd departs, the rich asshole’s newest hire is Joseph diGenova, a former federal prosecutor best known for spouting conspiracy theories on Fox News. In one of his many Fox appearances, diGenova told Fox’s Tucker Carlson that there “was a brazen plot” within the FBI to “illegally exonerate Hillary Clinton, and, if she didn’t win the election, to then frame some rich asshole with a falsely created crime.”
DiGenova, it should be noted, is a former United States Attorney with very serious legal credentials, so it is unclear whether he actually believes the conspiracy theories he’s repeated, over and over again, on Fox News, or if he’s being careerist in a calculated, cynical way. It is possible, as the Washington Post’s Aaron Blake notes, that diGenova’s conspiracy mongering appearances were “auditions for joining the rich asshole’s legal team.”
But regardless of whether diGenova is a true believer or a charlatan who went on TV to advertise for a single, particularly high-profile client, it’s hard to imagine him being an effective member of the rich asshole’s legal team now that he’s got the job.
Suppose that, after looking at the evidence against his new client, diGenova concludes that the rich asshole is in serious legal jeopardy — including in New York state court, where the rich asshole can neither fire prosecutors nor issue pardons — and that the rich asshole’s best course of action is to seek a plea bargain that avoids jail time. How would diGenova possibly have credibility to break this bad news to his client after he just spent months claiming that the allegations against the rich asshole were a grand conspiracy by the Deep State?
DiGenova joins two of the rich asshole’s longtime personal attorneys as members of the president’s legal team (Kasowitz reportedly “stepped back last summer,” but is in contact with the rich asshole and “could take on a larger role again.”) Like diGenova, Marc Kasowitz has impressive legal credentials, but few of those credentials suggest that Kasowitz is the right lawyer to advise a major politician on a high-profile criminal probe involving allegations that strike at the heart of the national interest.
Kasowitz built his career by suing big banks and litigating major cases involving securities law. This is serious legal work, and Kasowitz may be the ideal attorney to hire if you want to sue Goldman Sachs. But that sort of work does not give him the kind of intimate knowledge of the Justice Department’s inner workings that a Ted Olson or a Paul Clement would have brought to the table.
What Kasowitz does bring to the table is a distinctly Trumpian desire to throw elbows at his opponents. According to the New York Times, Kasowitz urged the rich asshole to take a more “combative approach” to the Mueller investigation — and the rich asshole, who recently attacked Mueller for the first time on Twitter, appears to have embraced this approach.
That may satisfy the rich asshole’s combative instincts, but it is rarely a good legal strategy. Innocent people typically don’t attack the prosecutor. They are much more likely to cooperate because they want to show that they have nothing to hide.
Another of the rich asshole’s longtime lawyers is Michael Cohen, who claims that he paid porn star Stormy Daniels $130,000 of his own money to cover up Daniels’ relationship with the rich asshole. Cohen, in other words, is either so devoted to the rich asshole that he’s willing to write enormous checks on his client’s behalf, or he is so devoted to the rich asshole that he’s willing to lie about writing enormous checks on his client’s behalf. Neither of those options suggest he will provide dispassionate legal advice.
And then there’s Jay Sekulow.
Sekulow may be the oddest character in the rich asshole’s band of misfit attorneys. An accomplished appellate attorney, Sekulow built a name for himself by litigating cases on behalf of religious right clients. Sekulow also founded at least two legal non-profits, which are ostensibly charities, but that also appear to have made Sekulow fantastically rich.
According to a multi-year investigation into these organizations, “the two charities paid out $15.4 million to Jay’s law half-owned law firm, $5.7 million to Gary,” Jay Sekulow’s brother, “$1.6 million to Jay’s wife Pam, and ‘$2.74 million in private jet lease payments to companies owned by Jay Sekulow and his sister-in-law, Kim Sekulow’” Additionally, “Sekulow-linked companies also ‘earned $2.89 million for space rental, media production and administrative work.’”
Meanwhile, Sekulow’s public performance as the rich asshole’s attorney speaks for itself. In a June 2017 interview with Fox News Sunday, Sekulow alternatively claimed that the rich asshole is under a Justice Department investigation, that the rich asshole isn’t under a Justice Department investigation, and that Sekulow doesn’t know whether the rich asshole is under a Justice Department investigation.
the rich asshole, of course, is also being advised by lawyers within the White House Counsel’s office, including attorney Ty Cobb. But as a government lawyer, Cobb’s role is limited. Among other things, the federal appellate court that oversees the District of Columbia has held that government attorneys cannot invoke attorney-client privilege to avoid a grand jury’s demand for information. So the rich asshole would be foolish to rely too heavily on Cobb for confidential advice.
And, in any event, Cobb appears to be falling out of the rich asshole’s favor. As the legal news site Above the Law puts it in a pointed headline, “the rich asshole Contemplates Axing Ty Cobb, His Only Competent Attorney.”
It’s probably going too far to label diGenova, Kasowitz, or even Sekulow as incompetent attorneys. All have impressive achievements within their areas of expertise. But none of them appear suited to offering painful, objective advice to their most high-profile client. That’s a potentially disastrous shortcoming in a defense attorney.
In 11 days, the rich asshole’s attack on the ‘fake news media’ falls apart completely
Life comes at you fast.
Less than two weeks ago, President the rich asshole took aim at the “Failing New York Times” for a report about how he was considering a shakeup to the legal team he’d assembled to deal with special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation.
“The Failing New York Times purposely wrote a false story stating that I am unhappy with my legal team on the Russia case and am going to add another lawyer to help out. Wrong,” the rich asshole tweeted on March 11. “I am VERY happy with my lawyers, John Dowd, Ty Cobb and Jay Sekulow. They are doing a great job and… have shown conclusively that there was no Collusion with Russia..just excuse for losing. The only Collusion was that done by the DNC, the Democrats and Crooked Hillary. The writer of the story, Maggie Haberman, a Hillary flunky, knows nothing about me and is not given access.”
As they say, life comes at you fast. On Thursday, Dowd resigned from the legal team — a move that came just days after conspiracy-loving attorney Joseph E. diGenova was added to the rich asshole’s legal team.
Dowd’s resignation comes as the rich asshole has become more combative with Mueller. Over the weekend, the rich asshole directly attacked the special counsel on Twitter for the first time, tweeting that “[t]he Mueller probe should never have been started in that there was no collusion and there was no crime,” then following up with another asking why “the Mueller team” has “13 hardened Democrats.”
Dowd, by contrast, reportedly counseled the rich asshole to cooperate with Mueller. The Times reports that Dowd “concluded that some rich asshole was increasingly ignoring his advice,” and that Cobb may be on the way out as well.
“Ty Cobb, the White House lawyer for the investigation, came aboard around the same time as Mr. Dowd and Mr. Sekulow and advocated on behalf of cooperating with the special counsel,” the Times reports. “But the president has discussed with close associates in recent days whether to fire Mr. Cobb, while reassuring Mr. Cobb that he had no plans to do so.”
On Saturday, Dowd released a statement reacting to Attorney General Jeff Sessions’ firing of former deputy FBI director Andrew McCabe by calling for the firing of Mueller.
“I pray that Acting Attorney General Rosenstein will follow the brilliant and courageous example of the FBI Office of Professional Responsibility and Attorney General Jeff Sessions and bring an end to alleged Russia Collusion investigation manufactured by McCabe’s boss James Comey based upon a fraudulent and corrupt Dossier,” Dowd said, adding that he was speaking for the president.
But the perception that the rich asshole forced his attorney general to fire a longtime FBI deputy in order to discredit a potential key witness in the investigation into his campaign for possible obstruction of justice wasn’t a great look, and Dowd quickly tried to walk it back, saying his statement did not in fact speak for the president after all.
Dowd’s resignation, combined with the addition of diGenova and rumbles that Cobb may not be long for the rich asshole’s legal team, suggests that the president will ramp up his attacks on Mueller.
During recent Fox News appearances, diGenova has pushed the conspiracy theory that a secret anti-the rich asshole cabal within the FBI cooked up the Mueller investigation as a way to take down the rich asshole. That theory of the case, however, is completely at odds with the facts of what happened during the 2016 campaign, and hasn’t held up well when its adherents have tried to push it on other cable news networks.
Even Fox News is slamming the rich asshole after John Dowd quit 11 days after president called reports of a shakeup ‘false’
Bret Baier and some rich asshole (Photo: Screen capture)
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In yet another stunning shakeup, John Dowd—some rich asshole’s lead outside lawyer for special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation—announced his resignation from the legal team, a mere 11 days after the president insisted he’s “VERY happy” with his attorneys.
On March 11, the rich asshole tried to push back on a “false story” in the New York Times that indicated the president was “frustrated with his team’s legal strategy” and considering new options.
“The Failing New York Times purposely wrote a false story stating that I am unhappy with my legal team on the Russia case and am going to add another lawyer to help out,” the rich asshole wrote on Twitter. “Wrong. I am VERY happy with my lawyers, John Dowd, Ty Cobb and Jay Sekulow.”
The news of Dowd’s departure came just two days after the president hired Washington lawyer Joseph diGenova, who has pushed a conspiracy that the FBI and Justice Department are trying to frame the rich asshole.
The president’s denial of the Times report, coupled with the rich asshole’s new legal hire and Dowd’s resignation, was not lost on reporters—including Fox News’ Bret Baier—who took to Twitter to point out the president’s claim of “fake news” doesn’t hold up.
Just keeping track - exactly 11 days after this tweet —John Dowd is out and Joe DiGenova has been added to the legal team with more additions expected to come. twitter.com/realdonaldtrum…
We have and we continue to. I am simply pointing out that something stated by the President to be “FAKE news” 11 days ago - is no longer. Whether Dowd resigned or was fired - another lawyer WAS added and more are expected. twitter.com/jeetreeclimber…
Top White House lawyer John Dowd quits after the rich asshole repeatedly ignores his advice in Mueller probe: report
the rich asshole lawyer John Dowd (Photo: Emory University)
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Top White House lawyer John Dowd has quit his position after reportedly being frustrated that President some rich asshole keeps spurning his advice for how to handle the probe of special counsel Robert Mueller.
The New York Times reports that Dowd tendered his resignation on Thursday, although one source tells the publication that he had considered resigning for months because he “ultimately concluded that some rich asshole was increasingly ignoring his advice.”
Although the Times makes no mention of what advice the rich asshole is specifically ignoring, the report does say that Dowd has repeatedly tried to warn the president against doing a face-to-face interview with special counsel Robert Mueller — whereas the rich asshole himself has said that he believes he should do an interview with the special counsel.
“It is not clear who will take over the legal team,” the Times further notes. “the rich asshole’s other personal lawyer for the investigation, Jay Sekulow, is liked by the president and recently brought on one of his longtime friends, Joseph E. diGenova, to join the team.”
What makes Dowd’s departure particularly jarring is the fact that he told the Times on Monday that he was staying at his job.
“I’m sitting here working on the president’s case right now,” he told the paper.
the rich asshole in recent days has publicly attacked the Mueller probe on Twitter and has said he doesn’t believe it should have ever been started.
WATCH: John Bolton praises ‘new era of freedom’ under Putin in bizarre propaganda video for Russian gun group
John Bolton in a Russian pro-gun propaganda video/Screenshot
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With the firing of Rex Tillerson by tweet, some rich asshole is looking for a new secretary of state.
The name reportedly at the top of the rich asshole’s list is John Bolton, formerly George W. Bush’s ambassador to the United Nations. Not only did Bolton lie about Iraq having weapons of Mass Destruction—he maintains that he was right to do so.
Bolton is also an ardent authoritarian who has told other the rich asshole staffers to “toe the line or resign,” he led an organization that employed disgraced data firm Cambridge Analytica.
Bolton also has strong ties to Russia. In 2013, as NPR reports, Bolton saluted “a new era of Freedom for the Russian people” under Putin in a video made for The Right to Bear Arms, a Russian gun-rights group launched by Putin ally Alexander Torshin.
Bolton wanted Russia to loosen gun laws to “better allow for the protection of mothers, children and families.”
“Good luck on your journey into a new century of freedom,” Bolton said.
“This right has assured Americans of their freedom to engage in two critical acts of survival: the gathering of food and the protection of their families by all appropriate means,” Bolton says. “Our right bear arms does not detail what types of arms those may be, an important point that allows for both the evolution of technology and the evolution of responses to threats not then or yet imagined.”
Rich asshole GOP kissass senator suggests leakers are going to hell: ‘If you dislike the rich asshole that much… you don’t have a soul’
Sen. John Kennedy speaks to CBS (screen grab)
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Republican Sen. John Kennedy of Louisiana on Thursday suggested that White House staff who leak to the press are in danger of going to hell.
During an interview on CBS This Morning, Kennedy said that he was outraged at the news someone had leaked part of a presidential briefing that told President some rich asshole — in all caps — not to congratulate Russian President Vladimir Putin. The advice was ignored.
According to Kennedy, the person who leaked the information “doesn’t have a soul.”
“We all ought to be concerned,” he told CBS host Gayle King. “It’s unconscionable. You know, if you dislike the president that much and you’re still working for him, you know, you don’t have a soul. You ought to quit.”
“I’m not saying the American people don’t have a right to know. They do,” he continued. “But I’m also saying that a president — whoever the president is — has a right to surround himself with people who at least have a modicum of loyalty and sort of have his best interests and the best interests of the American people at heart.”
Kennedy concluded by suggesting a punishment for the leakers.
“They need to prosecute whoever did it, they need to dig a big ole hole underneath the jail and put the person there,” he said.
Watch the video below from CBS.
By
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March 22, 2018
the rich asshole's biggest cheerleaders at Fox News turn on him over his embarrassing phone call of congratulations.
the rich asshole’s phone call of congratulations to Russian dictator Vladimir Putin is so indefensible that even “Fox & Friends” host Brian Kilmeade called it “horrifying.”
During Thursday morning’s program, co-hosts Steve Doocy and Ainsley Earhardt teed up a segment complaining about the media’s reaction to the rich asshole calling Putin to congratulate him on his rigged election win. the rich asshole had ignored his own national security advisers who included a note that said “DO NOT CONGRATULATE” in the briefing for the call.
Even the rich asshole apologist Kilmeade thought the call was a mistake.
“Vladmir Putin is an evil person who goes out of his way to stomp on people he doesn’t like, and kill those who turn on him,” Kilmeade said.
His co-hosts tried to excuse the phone call, offering the false equivalence that President Obama “did the same thing” in 2012. But Kilmeade wasn’t buying it.
“But this is after they meddled in the election,” Kilmeade said. “So that’s what made it so horrifying, along with the poisoning in Britain.”
the rich asshole’s call to Putin was horrifying to a great many people on both sides of the political spectrum, especially following his weak response to the nerve agent attack that Russia carried out on British soil.
the rich asshole’s response to the uproar has been to throw a tantrum about President Obama, and to brag about his own “chemistry” with Putin. But almost everyone else in the world, including his own advisers, sees things differently.
“Fox & Friends” has been a reliable source of pro-the rich asshole propaganda and a favorite viewing destination for the rich asshole. But the rich asshole humiliated himself and the country by congratulating the Russian strongman for a sham “re-election.” And now even Fox is no longer a safe space for his incompetent presidency.
House easily passes $1.3 trillion spending bill
BY JULIE GRACE BRUFKE - 03/22/18 12:58 PM EDT
The House easily passed a $1.3 trillion spending package on Thursday, sending legislation to the Senate that would prevent a shutdown and deliver the largest federal spending increase in years.
Lawmakers approved the bill in a 256-167 vote on Thursday, with majorities in each caucus backing the measure. Ninety Republicans and 77 Democrats voted against the bill. A large numbers of conservative Republicans were among those voting no over the measure’s massive price tag and the lack of transparency in the bill-writing process.
Conservative unrest came close to knocking the bill out during a procedural vote on Thursday on the rule governing debate. An unusually high number of Republicans — 25 — voted against their own party's rule and in defiance of President the rich asshole, who had publicly backed the package.
The Senate is expected to begin work on the bill immediately ahead of a midnight Friday deadline for preventing a shutdown.
But it's not clear if the Senate can avoid at least a temporary gap. In February, Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) caused a brief government shutdown by delaying a similar vote past its midnight deadline. He has signaled his opposition to the new package.
The spending package includes $695 billion in defense funding and $591 billion in nondefense funding, including a combined $78 billion in Overseas Contingency Operations spending that does not count toward legal budget caps. Last month, Congress agreed to increase the 2018 spending caps by $80 billion for defense and $63 billion for nondefense and set similar increases for 2019.
Alongside the $1.5 trillion tax cuts approved last year, the spending path is poised to push deficits past a trillion by next year, according to the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget.
White House budget director Mick Mulvaney said Thursday that the rich asshole will sign the bill, even though it contains major concessions to Democrats.
“Let’s cut right to the chase. Is the president going to sign the bill? The answer is yes,” he told reporters.
Mulvaney said even though the rich asshole did not get everything he wanted, the measure “funds his priorities” on the military and border security.
The 2,232-page bill was released Wednesday evening after lawmakers struggled for days to finalize details of the legislation.
House GOP leaders, working to sell members in their own conference on the omnibus, have praised the legislation for providing a massive funding boost for the military, funding 100 miles of the border wall and providing money to combat the opioid crisis.
“We have the greatest fighting force in the world, but we have asked them to do so much more with so much less for so long,” Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) told reporters before the vote Thursday. “Today we begin to reverse that damage.”
Conservatives in the lower chamber blasted both the process of crafting the massive spending package and its content, arguing it fails to provide conservative wins while adding to the deficit.
House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) said that while they would have liked to have adhered to the three-day rule, they were unable to adhere to the timeline — noting members would be attending Rep. Louise Slaughter’s (D-N.Y.) funeral Friday.
“We passed all 12 appropriation bills and we've gone through so much of this already — the Speaker has been walking everybody through the bill during the time,” he told reporters. "It's something I'd like to keep longer, it's not something, you'll notice, we've never done before — it's just certain circumstance.”
The road to passing the massive package was not an easy one. While Congress had approved a budget caps deal six weeks ago — which set the spending levels governing the omnibus — negotiators had scores of contentious policy riders to iron out before the sides signed off, a process that ran right up through Wednesday.
Among the most controversial riders were a provision providing $1.6 billion for border security, including hundreds of millions of dollars for new fence construction favored by the rich asshole and the Republicans.
Negotiators also worked out a delicate deal on new funding for the Gateway project, a rail and tunnel initiative connecting New York and New Jersey. the rich asshole had threatened to veto the entire package based on the initial $900 million request from regional lawmakers, notably Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.). The compromise knocks the figure down to $541 million.
Other major provisions include $4 billion to fight the nation’s opioid crisis, a temporary extension to funding for the Federal Aviation Administration and language designed to fix a glitch in the GOP’s new tax law that critics said threatened small farmers.
In a surprise move, the package also features several gun-related provisions: one designed to bolster the background check system before firearm purchases and another clearing the path for federal researchers to examine gun violence as a public health threat — research that’s currently discouraged by a decades-old restriction known as the Dickey Amendment.
The conservative spending hawks were not the only critics of the package. Scores of liberal Democrats, particularly members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, opposed the omnibus largely to protest the absence of language to protect the Dreamers, young immigrants brought to the country illegally as kids.
Rep. Luis Gutiérrez (D-Ill.), who opposed the package, said the Democrats caved on the effort to salvage the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program.
“They can pat themselves on the back as much as they want; the fact is there’s going to be more enforcement in this bill,” he said. “I just think the Dreamers were thrown under the omnibus.”
Mike Lillis, Niv Elis, Jordan Fabian, Scott Wong and Melanie Zanona contributed.
WATCH: Fox host speculates the rich asshole leaked dirt on his Putin call to show intel community ‘I’m the boss’
Fox News host Bill Hemmer (Screen cap).
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Ever since word leaked that President some rich asshole did not follow his aides’ instructions to not congratulate Russian President Vladimir Putin on the phone, there has been a great deal of speculation about who gave this story to the media.
However, Fox News’ Bill Hemmer said on Thursday that the rich asshole himself might be the leaker, despite the fact that the leak led to a torrent of bad press for the president this week.
“Maybe the president put this out there,” Hemmer suggested. “He’s been going at it with the intel community for some time. If they say ‘don’t congratulate him,’ this might be his way of saying, ‘Hey, the heck with you — I’m the boss.'”
Fox legal analyst Andrew Napolitano thought that Hemmer’s theory, as wild as it sounded, might have some merit.
“The president has apparently complained privately about the leak, but not publicly,” he said. “I’m smiling because I wouldn’t put it past President the rich asshole to use this as a way of saying, ‘I’m the boss, you guys don’t tell me what to do.'”
Watch the video below.
White House sources leak details from meeting where new anti-leaking edict was imposed
White House Communications Director Hope Hicks departs as she and White House counselor Kellyanne Conway (L) stand on the sidelines while U.S. President some rich asshole speaks to reporters in the Oval Office at the White House in Washington, U.S., February 9, 2018. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst/File Photo
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The White House is scrambling to stem a tide of leaks and rumors, White House sources told The Daily Beast this week.
The news that White House leakers had leaked information about an effort to stop leakers came in the Beast‘s report on White House infighting over outgoing Communication Director Hope Hicks’ job.
Soon after the news broke that Hicks was leaving the White House, leaks began to emerge either supporting or undercutting certain White House staff who are in line for the job. In one leak, for example, the Treasury department’s Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs Tony Sayegh was said to be a “terrible bully” towards women.
The report includes a note about how Hicks herself sought to tamp down the leaks.
The tension is so rampant that it has caught the attention of the rich asshole’s inner circle. Two White House sources told The Daily Beast that Hicks herself in a staff meeting last week reminded officials to refrain generally from backstabbing, leaking to the press, or spreading innuendo or rumors about any colleagues.
The Beast adds: “the rich asshole aides subsequently noted the irony of leaking details of this part of the meeting to The Daily Beast.”
the rich asshole says he wants to testify to Mueller in Russia probe
BY JORDAN FABIAN - 03/22/18 01:09 PM EDT
President the rich asshole said Thursday he still wants to testify before special counsel Robert Mueller in the ongoing probe into Russia's interference in the 2016 presidential election.
"Yes. I would like to," the rich asshole told reporters at the White House when asked if he would submit to questioning from Mueller.
The president's pronouncement comes after his lead attorney, John Dowd, resigned amid a broader shakeup of his legal team.
the rich asshole and Dowd found themselves at odds over how to handle the Russia probe, and one of their disputes was regarding a potential the rich asshole interview with Mueller.
The president has publicly and privately said he should sit down with the special counsel, while Dowd had advised against it.
the rich asshole has long expressed a belief that he should be able to deliver his argument personally to Mueller that his campaign did not collude with Moscow’s election-meddling efforts in 2016.
“I'm looking forward to it," the rich asshole said in January when asked about a Mueller interview. “I would do it under oath.”
But some the rich asshole attorneys and outside legal experts warned the president could expose himself to tremendous legal risks if he makes false statements during an interview with Mueller or his team of investigators.
Mueller is also probing whether the rich asshole obstructed justice in his investigation into Russian meddling.
His team reportedly sent a list of questions to the rich asshole’s lawyers that may come up in a possible interview.
The special counsel’s office is said to be focused on the president’s role in drafting a misleading statement about some rich asshole Jr.'s meeting with a Russian lawyer at the rich asshole Tower in June 2016, the circumstances surrounding the meeting and the firings of national security adviser Michael Flynn and FBI Director James Comey.
the rich asshole, meanwhile, has indicated he wants to take a more bare-knuckled approach toward Mueller. Under Dowd’s leadership, his legal team largely cooperated with the special counsel's requests for interviews and documents.
The president this week added longtime Washington lawyer Joseph diGenova to his legal team. DiGenova has argued the Russia probe is part of an FBI plot to frame the rich asshole and exonerate 2016 Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton.
the rich asshole has also recently begun to attack Mueller by name, something he previously refrained from doing.
“The Mueller probe should never have been started in that there was no collusion and there was no crime,” the rich asshole tweeted last weekend, again calling the investigation a “witch hunt.”
Down issued a statement last weekend calling for an end to Mueller’s investigation, but then gave conflicting accounts over whether he was speaking on behalf of the rich asshole or just himself.
the rich asshole’s Legal Team In Disarray As Lead Lawyer In Russia Probe Resigns
Just days after the rich asshole called for an end to the Russia probe, his lead lawyer for the special counsel investigation, John Dowd, resigned on Thursday, according to what two people briefed on the matter told the New York Times.
the rich asshole has insisted he should sit for an interview with Mueller, even though Dowd believed it was a bad idea. Someone really needs to tell the rich asshole that former President Barack Obama would do it so that the former reality show star will see it as a challenge.
Dowd considered resigning from the team several times and ultimately decided that the rich asshole was increasingly ignoring his advice, one of the people familiar with the matter said.
Earlier this month, the rich asshole said that reports of a shake-up with his legal team was false.
“The Failing New York Times purposely wrote a false story stating that I am unhappy with my legal team on the Russia case and am going to add another lawyer to help out. Wrong,” the Dotard tweeted. “I am VERY happy with my lawyers, John Dowd, Ty Cobb and Jay Sekulow. They are doing a great job…”
the rich asshole has amped up his attacks on Mueller recently.
“The Mueller probe should never have been started in that there was no collusion and there was no crime,” the rich asshole tweeted last week.
“It was based on fraudulent activities and a Fake Dossier paid for by Crooked Hillary and the DNC, and improperly used in FISA COURT for surveillance of my campaign. WITCH HUNT!” President Exclamation Mark added.
Dowd’s reported resignation comes just days after the rich asshole added former U.S. attorney Joseph diGenova, a conspiracy theorist, to his legal team.
the rich asshole is not taking advice from his own legal team. We’re thinking he should represent himself in court.
the rich asshole says new tariffs, penalties on China could total $60B
BY VICKI NEEDHAM AND JORDAN FABIAN - 03/22/18 12:30 PM EDT
President the rich asshole on Thursday announced he plans to slap tens of billions of dollars in tariffs and penalties on imports from China to try to curb what he described as its efforts to steal intellectual property from U.S. companies.
The president signed a memorandum directing the Office of the U.S. Trade Representative (USTR) and the Treasury Department to launch a broad range of actions against China.
During an event at the White House, the rich asshole said that imposing tariffs on China is “going to make us a much stronger, much richer nation.”
The president called China a “friend” but demanded the world’s second-largest economy adopt more favorable trade practices with the U.S.
“We want reciprocal, mirror,” he said. “If they charge us, we charge them the same thing. That’s the way it’s gotta be.”
the rich asshole said the tariffs "could be about $60 billion," hours after his own advisers said the number would be closer to $50 billion.
The memorandum is a result of a Section 301 investigation launched in August that found that China’s theft of U.S. intellectual property is costing the U.S. economy billions of dollars.
"This is the first of many," the rich asshole said as he signed the memorandum.
the rich asshole will ask U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer to consider whether the actions by China should result in increased tariffs on their imports. Within 15 days, the USTR is expected to publish a proposed list of products and recommended tariff increases for public comment.
The decision follows a separate move by the rich asshole to impose new tariffs on imports of steel and aluminum. That decision affected imports of those metals to the United States from around the world and prompted fears of a trade war.
While the steel and aluminum tariffs were targeted toward China, the new measures are even more focused on Beijing and could draw more political support from Congress. The steel and aluminum tariffs have been criticized by many Democratic and Republican lawmakers.
The new order responds to longstanding criticisms from U.S. businesses that China uses a number of methods to illegally acquire U.S. technologies, sometimes through requirements imposed on U.S. companies that want to sell their products in China.
“We have a tremendous intellectual property theft situation going on, which likewise is hundreds of billions of dollars and that’s on a yearly basis,” the rich asshole said.
The administration said that 1,300 tariff lines describing different imports are in the mix for possible penalties under the new order.
“[The action] is designed to offset the gains that the Chinese have received through their unfair trade practices,” a senior administration said.
The White House said that the administration will propose for public comment adding 25 percent additional tariffs on certain products including aerospace, information communication technology and machinery that they argue are supported by China’s unfair trade policies.
The figure of $50 billion is based on 2017 estimates and is “designed to capture the amount of the harm done simply by the forced-ownership restrictions,” another official said.
The president also is asking the USTR to pursue dispute settlement through the World Trade Organization to address China’s discriminatory licensing practices.
And the rich asshole is tasking Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin to propose executive branch action at the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS), which overseas foreign investments in the U.S. for national security problems.
The CFIUS recently rejected the takeover by Singapore-based Broadcom of U.S.-based Qualcomm on national security grounds, arguing Broadcom would reduce Qualcomm's research and development budget to such an extent that it would give Chinese telecommunications firm Huawei an advantage in developing advanced technologies such as 5G wireless networks.
The administration argues that the CFIUS must be strengthened to protect U.S. national security from predatory practices used by the Chinese to acquire U.S. technology.
the rich asshole lawyer John Dowd resigns
BY JONATHAN EASLEY - 03/22/18 11:28 AM EDT
President the rich asshole’s lead personal attorney handling the investigation into Russian meddling abruptly resigned on Thursday.
John Dowd, a prominent white-collar attorney who joined the rich asshole’s legal team last summer, will step down after breaking with the president on key elements surrounding the probe, including whether the rich asshole should sit for an interview with Robert Mueller.
“I love the President and I wish him well,” Dowd said in a written statement to The Hill.
Dowd’s exit comes as the president seeks to shake up his legal team amid frustrations within the White House over Mueller’s probe, which has cast a cloud over the administration for more than a year now.
This week, the rich asshole added Joseph diGenova, a former U.S. attorney who has been highly critical of the FBI and Department of Justice (DOJ), to his outside legal team. With Dowd gone, the rich asshole’s outside legal team handling the Russia matter will be led, at least in the interim, by diGenova and Jay Sekulow.
"John Dowd is a friend and has been a valuable member of our legal team,” Sekulow said in a statement to The Hill. “We will continue our ongoing representation of the president and our cooperation with the office of the special counsel."
the rich asshole extended an offer to prominent Washington attorney Theodore Olson earlier this week. Olsen declined, but the president could still be looking to bolster his roster of outside attorneys following Dowd's exit.
Dowd sent Washington into a frenzy over the weekend when he released a statement calling for an end to the special counsel probe, signaling a more aggressive posture by the rich asshole’s team toward the investigation.
Dowd publicly pressured Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein to “bring an end to the alleged Russia collusion investigation” that he said had been “manufactured” by former FBI Director James Comey and former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, who Attorney General Jeff Sessions fired last week.
That statement came ahead of a blistering string of tweets from the rich asshole, in which he attacked Mueller by name for the first time. the rich asshole accused Mueller of stocking his special counsel team with “hardened Democrats” and called the investigation a “witch hunt” that is rife with “massive conflicts of interest.”
Those remarks ignited speculation over whether the rich asshole was preparing to fire Mueller.
The White House insists that there have been no discussions about that. But at a briefing this week, press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders vented frustration with the probe.
Sanders blasted GOP lawmakers, like Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.), who have said that the rich asshole’s attacks on Mueller make it look like he has something to hide.
“To pretend like going through this absurd process over a year would not bring frustration seems a little ridiculous,” Sanders said.
“I don't think any individual, including members of Congress, would like it if they had been accused of taking their seat in Congress by doing something nefarious when they hadn't, particularly if it went on for more than a year into their time in office," she said.
But Sanders said that firing Mueller “would not be the most productive step forward.”
The White House position has long been that it will cooperate with the special counsel in hopes of bringing the investigation to a speedy conclusion.
But outside of the White House, the rich asshole’s legal team has been more aggressive.
DiGenova has fiercely defended the rich asshole in conservative media while attacking the FBI and DOJ. He has described Comey as the “dirtiest cop in America.”
Sekulow has been a similarly vocal attack dog for the president, decrying alleged anti-the rich asshole bias at the FBI and DOJ and demanding a second special counsel investigation in appearances on Fox News’s “Hannity” and on his own radio show.
Dowd had cut a lower profile among the rich asshole’s outside personal attorneys and reportedly broke with the president over whether to sit for an interview with Mueller.
When the rich asshole announced to reporters earlier this year that he was eager to speak under oath to the special counsel, Dowd sought to throw cold water on idea.
His departure comes as the rich asshole’s in-house legal team, led by Ty Cobb, is negotiating the parameters of a possible meeting between the rich asshole and Mueller.
There are concerns among some of the rich asshole’s allies that the president would be at risk of making a false statement to investigators in a freewheeling conversation. White House lawyers are seeking to limit the scope of Mueller’s questions and potentially provide written, rather than verbal, answers on some matters.
Cobb has been trying to reassure the president that the investigation will be over soon.
Since last fall, Cobb has predicted that the investigation would end by Thanksgiving, Christmas or the New Year. Cobb’s team has been in a holding pattern, believing it has turned over everything Mueller has requested.
But media reports indicate that the probe has expanded to include the rich asshole’s business empire, the business dealings of his son-in-law and senior adviser Jared Kushner, and overseas meetings between the president’s supporters that took place after the election.
That has generated concern at the White House about the scope and length of the investigation.
-Updated 12:26 p.m.
POLITICS
John Dowd Resigns As the rich asshole’s Lead Lawyer In Russia Probe
His resignation comes just days after the rich asshole added former U.S. Attorney Joseph diGenova to his legal team.
John Dowd resigned Thursday as President some rich asshole’s lead attorney assigned to deal with the Russia probe, Jay Sekulow, one of the rich asshole’s personal lawyers, confirmed to HuffPost.
“John Dowd is a friend and has been a valuable member of our legal team,” Sekulow said in a statement. “We will continue our ongoing representation of the President and our cooperation with the Office of Special Counsel.”
Dowd felt the rich asshole was increasingly ignoring his advice on how to deal with special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into whether the rich asshole’s 2016 presidential campaign colluded with Russia, sources told The New York Times and The Washington Post.
“I love the president, and I wish him well,” Dowd told NPR on Thursday.
Dowd, who took over the rich asshole’s legal team when attorney Marc Kasowitz departed in July, had encouraged the rich asshole to cooperate with Mueller. Instead, the rich asshole has repeatedly attacked Mueller’s credibility on Twitter in recent weeks.
the rich asshole was “pleased” with Dowd’s decision to step down, according to the Times and Post. He had been upset with Dowd’s media appearances over the weekend in which he called on the Justice Department to end the special counsel’s investigation. Dowd initially said he was speaking on behalf of the rich asshole, but later backtracked and said he was only speaking for himself.
Dowd’s resignation comes just days after the rich asshole added former U.S. attorney Joseph diGenova to his legal team. The addition of diGenova, who has accused the FBI and Justice Department of trying to frame the rich asshole in the Russian collusion probe, marks a more aggressive legal strategy in the handling of Mueller’s investigation.
Rumors of Dowd’s imminent departure have been swirling for several months. The Times reported earlier this month that the rich asshole hoped to add to his legal team Emmet Flood, a veteran Washington attorney who represented President Bill Clinton in the late 1990s during his impeachment hearings. the rich asshole immediately denied the report and tweeted that he was “VERY happy” with his legal team.
A representative for the White House declined to comment, while a request for comment from Dowd was not immediately answered.
CORRECTION: An earlier version of this article misidentified Sekulow as the White House counsel. Don McGahn is the current White House counsel.
Tapper shreds the rich asshole-Biden exchange: 'Tough guys' had a total of nine draft deferments
BY MORGAN GSTALTER - 03/22/18 10:51 AM EDT
CNN anchor Jake Tapper roasted President the rich asshole and former Vice President Joe Biden for their volatile exchange this week, reminding people that the two "tough guys" both received several deferments from the military draft.
“Reminder that between the two of these tough guys are nine Vietnam deferments and claims they couldn’t serve because of asthma and bone spurs,” Tapper tweeted on Thursday.
Reminder that between the two of these tough guys are nine Vietnam deferments and claims they couldn’t serve because of asthma and bone spurs.
Tapper followed up by praising his father-in-law, Sgt. Tom Brown, who “isn’t running around talking about how tough he is.”
You know who’s a tough guy from that generation? My father in law, Sgt Tom Brown, enlisted in the US Air Force 1966, honorably discharged 1969. In country from 1968-1969, in the 12th Security Police Squadron Pacific Air Command. Isn’t running around talking about how tough he is.
Biden received five student draft deferments and was disqualified from service because of teenage asthma, The Associated Press reported.
the rich asshole received five deferments during the war because of his education and from bone spurs in his heels, according to The New York Times.
The online feud began after Biden's comments at an anti-sexual assault rally on Tuesday.
"A guy who ended up becoming our national leader said, 'I can grab a woman anywhere and she likes it,'" Biden reportedly said at the event.
"They asked me if I’d like to debate this gentleman, and I said no. I said if we were in high school, I’d take him behind the gym and beat the hell out of him.'"
Biden reportedly said he was a pretty good athlete and said guys who spoke inappropriately of women were “usually the fattest, ugliest S.O.B. in the room.”
the rich asshole then fired back on Thursday.
“Crazy Joe Biden is trying to act like a tough guy. Actually, he is weak, both mentally and physically, and yet he threatens me, for the second time, with physical assault,” the president said.
“He doesn’t know me, but he would go down fast and hard, crying all the way,” he added.
“Don’t threaten people Joe!”
Crazy Joe Biden is trying to act like a tough guy. Actually, he is weak, both mentally and physically, and yet he threatens me, for the second time, with physical assault. He doesn’t know me, but he would go down fast and hard, crying all the way. Don’t threaten people Joe!
Biden had also remarked during the 2016 presidential race about taking on the rich asshole "behind the gym" during a rally for Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton, slamming the rich asshole's "disgusting" comments about women following the release of the infamous "Access Hollywood" tape.
‘Hopefully there’s a grand plan’: Fox & Friends excuses the rich asshole’s congratulatory call to Putin — and blames Obama
Steve Doocy, Ainsley Earhardt and Brian Kilmeade (Fox News)
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The hosts of “Fox & Friends” reacted to President some rich asshole’s congratulatory call to Russian president Vladimir Putin by attacking former President Barack Obama.
The U.S. president congratulated his Russian counterpart against the warnings of his national security staff, and his Fox News allies amplified the rich asshole’s tweeted explanation hours later.
“The thing about the president he actually is a significantly tougher than the other prior president on Russia,” said co-host Brian Kilmeade. “Look, he has armed the Ukrainians and hit the oligarch list, he went along with sanctions. Three days ago he condemned them for the poison attacks in Britain. Look at his actions, not past his words. Hopefully there is a grand plan.”
Co-host Steve Doocy then turned the focus to Obama.
“He did exactly the same thing,” Doocy claimed. “He also, if the mainstream media is going to call President the rich asshole and say, ‘Hey, I can’t believe you picked up the phone to say, congratulations you won.’ Look at the things that the president of the United States by the name of Barack Obama did in 2012 — he congratulated him.”
Then co-host Ainsley Earhardt listed all the Muslim leaders Obama had congratulated as president.
“He congratulated also the Islamic Brotherhood candidate when he won Egypt’s presidential election in 2012,” she said. “He broke three decades of precedent in 2013 when he congratulated the winner of the Iranian presidential election, and then congratulated Turkey’s President Erdogan in 2014 — the guy who said there is no such thing as moderate Islam.”
Kilmeade harshly criticized Erdogan, but neglected to mention the rich asshole’s praise for the Turkish autocrat.
“Erdogan has done despicable things with that country as a NATO ally — consolidated power and jailed the media,” Kilmeade said. “For (Obama) to call him, says he gets along with great — that was abhorrent.”
‘You need to be scared’: GOP lawmakers warned to start panicking about a 2018 ‘Blue Wave’
Paul Ryan, some rich asshole and Mitch McConnell
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Rep. Conor Lamb’s (D-PA) victory over Republican rival Rick Saccone has set off a fresh wave of panic among GOP lawmakers.
Politico reports that Republican leadership is sounding alarms about incumbents who are raising less money than Democratic rivals — and they are trying desperately to whip them out of complacency.
“If you’re getting outraised or if you haven’t started your campaign yet, you need to be scared and start today,” Corry Bliss, the executive director of the Congressional Leadership Fund, tells Politico. “Saying ‘I’ve never lost before, therefore I can never lose this time’ is not a campaign plan.”
In the final quarter of 2017, more than 40 GOP incumbents found themselves getting outraised by Democratic challengers, which has Republican leadership fearful of getting swamped this fall.
“Many of our members have not been in Congress during a possible ‘wave’ election cycle, as happened in 2006 and 2010,” a Republican campaign staffer says. “Members in Republican-leaning districts should heed the warnings from House leadership and get ready for a fight.”
According to FiveThirtyEight, Democrats have an average eight-point lead over Republicans on the generic congressional ballot, while President some rich asshole’s approval rating sits in the 40 percent range.
POLITICS
the rich asshole Appears To Brag About Using Data Mining Firm Roiled In Scandal
The president’s comments came amid revelations that Cambridge Analytica reportedly collected data on 50 million people through Facebook.
President some rich asshole appeared to boast about his presidential campaign’s social media-cultivating tactics even as Cambridge Analytica, the data mining firm he commissioned, is roiled in controversy.
In a fiery Thursday morning tweet, the rich asshole ― referring to himself in the third person ― countered the argument that Hillary Clinton’s social media strategy was more sophisticated than his during the 2016 election cycle.
“Well, not saying that anymore!” he wrote, seemingly referring to the scandal engulfing Cambridge Analytica and Facebook, the social network from which the firm reportedly obtained its user data. Cambridge Analytica created a technology to better target and influence individuals on Facebook through a personality quiz, allowing it to reportedly collect data on 50 million people.
The rich asshole campaign hired Cambridge Analytica ― former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon was on the board ― to identify voters and the issues they were most passionate about, leading to questions about whether the technology helped propel the rich asshole to victory. The firm has also been connected to various other political machinations, including the push for the United Kingdom to leave the European Union and Sen. Ted Cruz’s (R-Tex.) presidential run.
The company has denied that data acquired through Facebook was used as part of the services it offered the rich asshole campaign.
But the firm wasn’t able to evade the controversy, as it decided to suspend its CEO Alexander Nix on Tuesday. Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg made the national media rounds on Wednesday to apologize for allowing a massive data breach to take place.
the rich asshole fires back at ‘Crazy Joe Biden': ‘He would go down fast and hard, crying all the way’
BY KYLE BALLUCK - 03/22/18 06:47 AM EDT
President the rich asshole fired back at Joe Biden in an early morning tweet on Thursday, saying the former vice president is “trying to act like a tough guy."
“Crazy Joe Biden is trying to act like a tough guy. Actually, he is weak, both mentally and physically, and yet he threatens me, for the second time, with physical assault,” the president said.
“He doesn’t know me, but he would go down fast and hard, crying all the way,” he added.
“Don’t threaten people Joe!”
Crazy Joe Biden is trying to act like a tough guy. Actually, he is weak, both mentally and physically, and yet he threatens me, for the second time, with physical assault. He doesn’t know me, but he would go down fast and hard, crying all the way. Don’t threaten people Joe!
Biden reportedly said Tuesday at an anti-sexual assault rally at the University of Miami that he would have "beat the hell out" of the rich asshole in high school over comments the president has made about women.
"A guy who ended up becoming our national leader said, 'I can grab a woman anywhere and she likes it,'" Biden said, according to ABC News.
"They asked me if I’d like to debate this gentleman, and I said no. I said if we were in high school, I’d take him behind the gym and beat the hell out of him."
Biden also said he’s a “pretty damn good athlete” and has been in a lot of locker rooms in his life.
"Any guy that talked that way was usually the fattest, ugliest S.O.B. in the room," he added.
Biden was referring to the "Access Hollywood" tape in which the rich asshole is heard making lewd comments about women.
Then-candidate the rich asshole said when the contents of the tape were made public that it was "locker room talk."
Multiple women during the 2016 presidential race accused the rich asshole of sexual misconduct.
the rich asshole repeatedly denied allegations made against him.
the rich asshole and Biden also sparred in the weeks before the 2016 election.
"Did you see where Biden wants to take me to the back of the barn?" the rich asshole, who was then the Republican presidential nominee, asked supporters at a rally in Tallahassee, Fla.
"I'd love that. I'd love that," the rich asshole continued. "Mr. Tough Guy. He's Mr. Tough Guy. You know, he's Mr. Tough Guy, when he's standing behind a microphone by himself."
Biden had remarked about taking on the rich asshole "behind the gym" during a rally for Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton, slamming the rich asshole's "disgusting" comments on women that Biden said amounted to "textbook" sexual assault.
"The press always asks me: Don't I wish I were debating him? No, I wish we were in high school — I could take him behind the gym. That's what I wish," Biden said.
Recent polling has shown Biden leading the rich asshole in a potential 2020 matchup.
By
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March 22, 2018
The truth is out: the rich asshole and his fellow Republicans never cared at all about Dreamers.
When Speaker Paul Ryan went on Fox News to brag about the omnibus funding bill his party is trying to ram through Congress, he made a terrible mistake.
He admitted what Republicans have been trying to deny for months: The party took young immigrants known as Dreamers hostage to extort funding for the rich asshole’s border wall.
“We said, let’s do multiyear funding for the wall for multiyear relief for the DACA kids, and [the Democrats] walked away from that, they wouldn’t take that,” Ryan said. “So what we’re doing here is, there isn’t a DACA solution here. We have the wall in here.”
DACA is the Obama-era program the rich asshole rescinded last year that had protected nearly 1 million immigrants brought to the United States as children from deportation. At the time, the rich asshole and his Republican enablers in Congress insisted they didn’t really want to start deporting young Americans. They simply wanted to find a better solution.
That’s not what the party that controls Congress and the White House has done though. While the rich asshole has been taunting Democrats for months, claiming his party wants to fix DACA, his only “solution” is a trade. They’d give protections for kids in exchange for billions of dollars to build his wall.
If Republicans really cared about these young immigrants, they would act immediately to protect them without any conditions. But the White House has said it’s only interested if it gets something out of the deal.
In January, the rich asshole’s budget chief Mick Mulvaney said as much. Asked on CNN what the rich asshole would do for Dreamers, Mulvaney answered, “[It] depends on what we get in exchange. What do we get for border security? What do we get for a wall?”
And now Ryan has confirmed that cynical plan of extortion. He and the rich asshole offered Democrats a temporary DACA fix in exchange for funding the wall. When Democrats refused, Republicans simply went forward with the wall and stripped out the DACA fix.
the rich asshole needlessly and heartlessly threw the lives of 800,000 young immigrants and their families into chaos when he rescinded the program. For months, they have waited for a solution — a solution the rich asshole promised he and his party wanted to give them.
Now Republicans have a chance to do exactly that. Instead, they’re revealing that those kids were nothing more than a vicious negotiating tactic all along.
POLITICS
Retired 4-Star General: ‘Simply Outrageous’ That Jared Kushner Represents America
“This is the personalization of a family business dealing with U.S. policy,” said Barry McCaffrey.
Retired four-star Army Gen. Barry McCaffrey did not mince his words on Wednesday when asked for his opinion about Jared Kushner.
“Putting Jared Kushner, a 30-something person with no foreign policy experience or defense policy experience, as a leading representative of the United States is simply outrageous,” McCaffrey told MSNBC’s “All In with Chris Hayes.”
President some rich asshole has charged his son-in-law and senior adviser with bringing peace to the Middle East.
McCaffrey made his comments in response to a report by The Intercept which alleged that Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman had boasted about having Kushner “in his pocket.”
“The officers of our government, under the constitution, have to be confirmed by the Senate whether they are ambassadors, generals or senior officials of the government,” said McCaffrey. “So reading out the State Department and having one-on-one contact with Jared Kushner, by phone and in person, is a huge threat to a rational policy making process.”
“It just has no precedent, in my view, in American government in modern times,” McCaffrey added. “This is the personalization of a family business dealing with U.S. policy.”
Check out the interview above.
WATCH: Lawyer hints Stormy Daniels’ claims in ‘60 Minutes’ could provide fodder for the rich asshole’s impeachment
Attorney Michael Avenatti (Screen cap).
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Michael Avenatti, the attorney representing adult film star Stormy Daniels, told CNN’s Chris Cuomo on Thursday that his client will expose the corrupt and sleazy behavior of President some rich asshole.
When Cuomo pointed out that the Stormy Daniels scandal hasn’t had much of an impact so far because the rich asshole’s history of marital infidelity was well known before he became president, Avenatti countered that this scandal is about much more than just having an affair.
“I think this is about engaging in thuggish behavior, threats, intimidation, and hiding the money trail,” he said. “I think ultimately, Chris, that’s what this is going to get to. And ultimately, we’re going to make sure that the facts are known to the American people.”
Avenatti then hinted that Daniels’ story could lead to serious consequences for the president — and he suggested that it could spur congresspeople into action.
“Individuals that are far more powerful than me, far more powerful than my client, they will ultimately determine whether those facts lead to something else,” he said.
An interview with Daniels is scheduled to air on Sunday, March 25, on CBS’ “60 Minutes.”
Watch the video of Cuomo’s interview with Avenatti below.
WATCH: MSNBC’s Mika delivers epic takedown of all the ways the rich asshole is ‘unfit to lead’
Mika Brzezinski (MSNBC)
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MSNBC’s Mika Brzezinski said Republicans were faced with a clear choice on President some rich asshole, whose latest bad week once again showed that he was “unfit to lead.”
The “Morning Joe” host said GOP lawmakers were standing on the sidelines as the rich asshole signaled he would fire special counsel Robert Mueller, cozied up to Russian president Vladimir Putin and showed he was at risk for blackmail by various women he’d paid off for sex.
“While most Republicans are playing politics with and not sure whether they can succeed with or without the rich asshole, let me lay out for you the questions that we’re dealing with just this week alone,” Brzezinski said. “The question as to whether or not the president will fire Bob Mueller. That is front and center right now, and people high up in the administration and people high up in the intelligence community are deeply concerned will happen.”
“We’ve been watching over time this president’s confused relationship with his attorney general,” she continued. “His deep misunderstanding that the attorney general does not work for him, that he works for the country. The president has shown that he does not understand this concept, he can’t get his head around it and he’s abused that relationship.”
“The question definitely is coming to a head as to whether or not this president can be blackmailed,” Brzezinski added. “It is clear to so many people that he has some problem with Russia, that Vladimir Putin has something on him, that he and his press secretary or his stooges can not say anything disparaging about Russia in any way for fear that something might come out.”
“A lot of people feel that is a reality at this point, and then it’s his relationship with women, and several women coming forward and saying they had affairs with the president, but affairs aside, they say they were threatened, abused by the president,” Brzezinski said. “Did it happen by his people during his presidency, during his campaign? These stories are coming to a head and one may come out on ’60 Minutes’ this Sunday. This is all on the president’s plate right now. What you see in tweets that come out with misspellings, with urgency, with a sense of unhinged impulsiveness, and you have to be wondering especially if you’re in the intelligence community if this president is so impaired and so subject to blackmail that he’s unfit to lead.”
Brzezinski said every action and statement the president makes shows that he’s panicked, and that he can’t handle the responsibilities of the job.
“You want to think like the president? Watch TV and watch his tweets,” she said. “It’s unbelievable, frightening and terribly childish. I would watch cable news, watch our show, watch his tweets. It’s literally A, B and C.”
“He comes here for what’s really going on,” Brzezinski added. “He really wants everybody to like him. They don’t, and it — it actually gets to his head. Meanwhile, we have our entire country’s place in the world at stake.”
POLITICS
Remember When the rich asshole Said Mexico Would Pay For His Border Wall? Twitter Does.
The president said Wednesday that $1.6 billion in taxpayer money has been earmarked for his oft-touted border wall.
President some rich asshole took to Twitter on Wednesday night to boast about the $1.6 billion that was earmarked in the new omnibus spending bill for his oft-touted wall project along the U.S.-Mexico border.
But not only was the rich asshole’s assertion misleading (the money isn’t actually going to help build the concrete wall he’s long-championed), many Twitter users pointed out that it contradicted the president’s repeated claims that American taxpayers wouldn’t have to pay for the wall at all:
Who doesn’t remember this from the campaign trail?
Trump: Who’s going to pay for the wall?
Crowd: America! twitter.com/realDonaldTrum…
Doing a search of omnibus text and nowhere do I find a provision for billing Mexico for what the President is calling The Wall. twitter.com/realdonaldtrum…
You mean the one that Mexico was going to pay for and now you’re taking out of our pockets? Because you lie about everything and are full of empty words? K cool.
1.6 billion is going to build how many miles of the wall exactly?
This bill sucks.
So Trump didn't solve DACA, didn't have Mexico pay for the wall, in his words had to 'waste' taxpayer money on programs he doesn't support, and used deficit spending on priorities he does support.
"Deals are my art form." DT 12/21/2012 twitter.com/realDonaldTrum…
On several occasions, the rich asshole has claimed that he would get Mexico to pay for the border wall, despite the vehement rejections of such a plan by Mexican leaders.
“I believe Mexico will pay for the wall,” the rich asshole said at a news conference in January, a day after his administration asked Congress for $18 billion over the next decade to fund the construction of the barrier.
“I have a very good relationship with Mexico,” the rich asshole added. “But yes, in some form, Mexico will pay for the wall.”
The new government spending bill released on Wednesday has designated $1.6 billion for border security. Democrats pointed out, however, that only $641 million of that will be used to build 33 miles of “new fencing or levees” — and not the concrete wall that the rich asshole has championed. The rest of the funds will be used for the repair and replacement of existing fencing or border security technology.
The $1.3 trillion spending bill must pass by midnight Friday to avert another government shutdown.
the rich asshole tweets out response to ‘Crazy Joe Biden’ after ex-VP says he deserved beating for treatment of women
Republican rich asshole smiles as he speaks at the start of a campaign victory party after rival candidate Senator Ted Cruz dropped after the race for the Republican presidential nomination, at the rich asshole Tower in Manhattan, New York, on May 3, 2016. (Reuters/Lucas Jackson)
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President some rich asshole slapped back at former Vice President Joe Biden, who said this week that the current president deserved a beating over his treatment of women.
Biden said Tuesday during an anti-sexual assault rally at the University of Miami that he would have “beat the hell out of” of the rich asshole if they’d attended high school together, and the president tweeted out a response early Thursday morning.
“Crazy Joe Biden is trying to act like a tough guy” the rich asshole tweeted. “Actually, he is weak, both mentally and physically, and yet he threatens me, for the second time, with physical assault. He doesn’t know me, but he would go down fast and hard, crying all the way. Don’t threaten people Joe!”
Biden said he would not have argued with the rich asshole over his “Access Hollywood” comments about grabbing women by the genitals if the two had been high school classmates, but instead would have responded physically.
“They asked me would I like to debate this gentleman, and I said no. I said, ‘If we were in high school, I’d take him behind the gym and beat the hell out of him,'”Biden said.
the rich asshole apologized for the remarks, which were recorded in 2006 but revealed weeks ahead of the 2016 presidential election, and said they were just “locker room talk.”
“I’ve been in a lot of locker rooms my whole life, I’m a pretty damn good athlete,” Biden said. “Any guy that talked that way was usually the fattest, ugliest S.O.B. in the room.”
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March 22, 2018
By touting Cambridge Analytica's work on his campaign, the rich asshole tightens his bond to growing scandal.
Using Twitter on Thursday morning, the rich asshole broke his silence on the embattled data analysis firm at the center of an international campaign scandal, appearing to gloat about how Cambridge Analytica helped him secure a narrow electoral victory in 2016, while losing the popular vote.
“Remember when they were saying, during the campaign, that some rich asshole is giving great speeches and drawing big crowds, but he is spending much less money and not using social media as well as Crooked Hillary’s large and highly sophisticated staff. Well, not saying that anymore!” the rich asshole tweeted, in what appeared to be his comment on the scandal.
Still smarting about not getting enough credit for his 2016 win, the rich asshole looked willing to strengthen his association with a firm accused of illegal activity — in order to stroke his own ego.
The rich asshole boast comes amid a series of explosive reports detailing Cambridge Analytica’s involvement in potentially illegal activity, including harvesting Facebook data from more than 50 million Americans, and then using it — without their knowledge or consent — to help the rich asshole campaign.
Also this week, London’s Channel 4 aired an undercover expose, in which top executives at Cambridge Analytica were caught admitting that they use bribes and sex workers to entrap politicians. In the video, Cambridge Analytica CEO Alexander Nix described how the firm uses shadowy front companies, fake IDs, and subcontractors to operate secretly in elections across the world.
Previously, it was reported that Cambridge Analytica’s CEO had reached out to WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange in an effort to obtain Hillary Clinton’s deleted emails.
Not surprisingly, special counsel Robert Mueller’s team has been zeroing in on the controversial firm, according to a recent ABC News report.
The rich asshole campaign hired Cambridge Analytica in June 2016. Jared Kushner, who was in charge of overseeing then-candidate the rich asshole’s digital operations, brought the data firm into the campaign — a decision that was reportedly cheered on by Steve Bannon, a former vice president of Cambridge Analytica.
By August of 2016, 13 full-time Cambridge Analytica employees were working for the rich asshole’s campaign.
“We found that Facebook and digital targeting were the most effective ways to reach the audiences. After the primary, we started ramping up because we knew that doing a national campaign is different than doing a primary campaign,” Kushner told Forbes magazine just after the election. “That was when we formalized the system because we had to ramp up for digital fundraising. We brought in Cambridge Analytica.”
As the burgeoning scandal unfolds, the rich asshole may regret hugging the company so tight.
GOP pushes to change Senate rules for the rich asshole
BY ALEXANDER BOLTON - 03/22/18 06:00 AM EDT
A group of Republican senators wants to press the button on a new “nuclear option” that would limit debate time on President the rich asshole’s nominees.
The controversial move would hasten the pace of the president’s nominees getting confirmed and curtail Democratic power in the upper chamber.
Senate leaders have twice used the nuclear option to facilitate action on nominees in recent years.
In 2013, then-Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) stripped the minority of the power to filibuster executive branch and judicial nominees below the level of Supreme Court.
Some Republicans say it’s time again to deploy the controversial tactic, which earned its name because it is viewed as a procedural weapon of last resort.
“It’s completely gotten out of hand,” said Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.). “It’s ridiculous we have all these 30 hours of post-cloture time. It’s chewing up the clock and we can’t address the major problems facing this nation.”
“I’ve been recommending for quite some time to utilize the Harry Reid precedent to change the rules [with] 51 votes,” he added.
McConnell, however, is not a fan of this aggressive plan. He has rebuffed pressure from House Republicans and the rich asshole to change the Senate’s rules to curtail the filibuster, and Senate colleagues describe him as an institutionalist.
Johnson owes less allegiance to McConnell than some other Republicans because the National Republican Senatorial Committee pulled ads out of his reelection race in 2016 because he was projected to lose.
He rallied to a surprising come-from-behind win over Democrat Russ Feingold and usually feels emboldened to speak his mind, even if it means contradicting his party’s leaders.
Johnson admitted that there are not yet enough Republican votes to change the rules unilaterally, as they have a narrow 51-seat majority and Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) is away from Washington for the foreseeable future because of health reasons.
Some Republicans, such as Sen. Susan Collins (Maine), have stated their opposition to using the nuclear option to speed up floor business.
Other Republicans agree with Johnson that it’s time to deploy the nuclear option if Democrats balk at changing the rules for nominees under regular order, which requires 67 or 60 votes under different scenarios.
Sens. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and Steve Daines (R-Mont.) on Wednesday said they also support using that path if Democrats refuse to reduce the length of procedural time required for nominees.
Cruz said he “strongly” supports reducing floor time for nominees and would back the nuclear option.
Under current rules, 30 hours must elapse on the floor every time the Senate votes to end dilatory debate and advance a nominee — unless there’s unanimous consent to yield back floor time.
This forces GOP leaders to perform triage by making tough choices about what executive branch positions are important enough to deserve floor time, leaving some nominees in limbo for months.
The the rich asshole administration has complained that more than 300 Senate-confirmed positions remain unfilled, according to GOP senators, and they’re feeling increasing pressure to do something about it.
“Thirty hours is just too much. You have cloture motion filed on a nominee and the nominee gets 98 votes and then you wait 30 hours for nothing else but to slow the process down,” said Sen. Pat Roberts (R-Kan.), who said he would have to think more about backing the nuclear option.
Republican leaders want to negotiate an agreement with Democrats to limit how much time must elapse on the Senate floor after lawmakers vote to proceed on a nominee.
They want to implement the bipartisan agreement that was in place during 2013 and 2014, which limited debate time for executive nominees below the level of the Cabinet to eight hours and for district court nominees to two hours. Nominees to the Supreme Court, appellate courts and Cabinet-level positions would still require 30 hours of post-cloture debate.
Sen. James Lankford (R-Okla.) is leading the negotiations with Democrats.
“Same exact thing that was in 2013,” he said of the proposal the GOP favors.
He said the reform could be made by voting to change the Senate rules, which requires 67 votes, or by issuing a permanent standing order, which requires 60 votes.
There are 21 positions listed at the executive Cabinet level. They would still require 30 hours on the floor after the Senate votes to end dilatory debate on nominations to those posts.
Democrats, however, aren’t interested in striking a deal to speed up staffing of the the rich asshole administration.
They say the dynamic has changed after Republicans held the seat of the late Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia vacant for months and then changed the Senate rules to confirm conservative Justice Neil Gorsuch to replace him.
Republicans say Democrats broke tradition first by using the nuclear option to eliminate filibusters on executive branch and most judicial nominees in November 2013.
Asked about reimplementing the 2013 bipartisan agreement, Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) said, “That was before the rules changed. That’s the difference.”
Sen. Amy Klobuchar (Minn.), the ranking Democrat on the Rules Committee, did not appear optimistic for a deal when asked about her talks with Lankford but declined to go into detail.
“We’re going to continue to talk about it,” she said.
A spokesman for Schumer said 145 the rich asshole nominees are stuck in Republican-controlled committees and nearly 60 high-level positions at the State Department lack nominees.
White House legislative affairs director Marc Short on Friday blamed Democrats for what he called “historic obstruction.”
He noted that the Senate has had 79 cloture votes on nominees in the first 14 months of the the rich asshole administration, about five times as many as the number during the same spans of the past four administrations combined.
Often Democrats have required the full 30 hours of post-cloture debate time to elapse before allowing a final vote.
Senate Republican Conference Chairman John Thune (S.D.), the third-ranking Senate GOP leader, said support for the nuclear option could pick up if Democrats refuse to speed the processing time for nominees.
“Ideally it would be the regular order, but I suppose we’ll see,” he said. “Our members would like to have a vote and see where the Democrats are.
“If they continue this practice of just dragging things out and making it really impossible to get anything done then I could see our members saying, ‘enough already.’ ”
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