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April 4, 2018
Where would anyone get the idea the rich asshole wanted to nuke them?
the rich asshole’s favorite Fox News shills cruelly mocked migrant protesters who mistook one of the rich asshole’s tweets for a nuclear threat.
The group of peaceful protesters that the rich asshole labeled a marauding “caravan” ready to sack U.S. taxpayers became alarmed when the rich asshole repeatedly threatened the “Nuclear Option” in anti-immigrant tweets.
On Wednesday morning’s “Fox & Friends,” the trio of hosts smugly mocked the leader of the protest, Irineo Mujica.
“The president was so mad at this. He said I’m not going to do the NAFTA deal, and I have a message for you, Congress. I think you should pass the ‘nuclear option’ so that the majority will pass tougher immigration laws,” co-host Ainsley Earhardt explained with a smile. “Well, the leader of that caravan down in Mexico interpreted that in a different way.”
“A little bit differently,” co-host Pete Hegseth chimed in. “So a leader of this group then said, and the name is Ireno Majuca [sic], head coordinator of the migrant caravan said this: ‘We are scared just like you.’ She’s talking to the remainder of the participants.”
“Now president some rich asshole has said he wants to hit us with nuclear bombs,” Hegseth continued. “I think that was just something lost in translation.”
The Fox hosts’ glib mockery of people who are protesting tremendous suffering is cruel and racist on its own, but also completely without merit.
Anyone not steeped in the minutiae of American political idiom could make that mistake, especially since the rich asshole is prone to casually threatening actual nuclear war on Twitter, as well as in front of leaders from around the world.
the rich asshole’s nuclear trigger finger is so unstable that one tweet “fooled” his entire Pentagon into thinking that he was about to announce a nuclear war.
And the rich asshole’s reckless Twitter habit has been known to tank the stock market, as it did this week, following his campaign of lies against Amazon.
So anyone could be forgiven for worrying about a the rich asshole tweet with the words “Nuclear Option” in it, but especially a group for whom the rich asshole has shown such hatred.
California city votes to back state in the rich asshole administration lawsuit over ‘sanctuary’ law
The Santa Ana City Council voted to file a “friend of the court” brief on behalf of the state of California.
Days after a city in Orange County, California voted to sue the state over its “sanctuary” law, another Orange County city decided to do the opposite.
Members of the Santa Ana City Council decided on Tuesday to support the state immigration law, SB 54, which took effect in January and prevents local law enforcement officials from turning over suspected undocumented immigrants in their custody to federal immigration agents.
The Santa Ana City Council voted to file a “friend of the court” brief on behalf of the state of California, which is currently being sued by the U.S. Department of Justice over the sanctuary law. Last week, the Orange County Board of Supervisors voted to join the DOJ lawsuit.
According to Orange County Register reporter Alicia Robinson, Santa Ana Councilman Vincente Sarmiento said Tuesday that the Constitution’s 10th amendment, which states that the federal government only has the powers that are granted by the Constitution, guarantees Santa Ana’s “right ‘not to be coerced’ to enforce federal immigration laws.”
Orange County cities Los Alamitos and Huntington Beach have also recently been caught up in disputes over the state’s sanctuary law. Last month, Los Alamitos City Council voted to exempt itself from the law. And earlier this week, Huntington Beach City Council moved to sue the state over the law.
President some rich asshole took to Twitter last week to express support for cities in Orange County who have pushed back against the state’s sanctuary law, saying “My Administration stands in solidarity with the brave citizens in Orange County defending their rights against California’s illegal and unconstitutional Sanctuary policies.”
Santa Ana City Councilman David Benavides on Tuesday lamented the fact that “local electeds, municipalities in Orange County have chosen to adopt [the rich asshole’s] anti-immigrant sentiment.”
But that anti-immigrant sentiment has been brewing in Orange County for decades. In the 1990s, the county was a leader in supporting the infamous “Save Our State” proposal, or Proposition 187, which sought to deny undocumented immigrants access to social services before it was struck down.
While Orange County has long been known for being mostly white and Republican, those statistics are no longer accurate. Recent census data found that 35 percent of the county’s population is Hispanic and almost 20 percent are Asian. This reality is not, however, reflected in all neighborhoods, many of which are segregated. A 2016 study by the University of California at Los Angeles’ Institute of American Cultures found that racism plays a key role in fueling that segregation.
By
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April 4, 2018
the rich asshole should not breathe a sigh of relief.
Republican Trey Gowdy, chair of the House Intelligence Committee, is warning the rich asshole not to relax about special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation just yet.
On Wednesday morning’s “Fox & Friends,” Gowdy was asked about a Washington Post report that the rich asshole’s lawyers were told, a month ago, that the rich asshole is the “subject” of Mueller’s investigation, but not a “criminal target” of the probe.
“When I heard that, I wasn’t sure what it meant, because you never know where the facts are going to take you,” Gowdy said. “I think if we weren’t in a political environment, he probably would not have said that.”
“So if you were his attorney, you wouldn’t say, you wouldn’t have a sigh of relief?” co-host Brian Kilmeade asked.
“Heavens no,” Gowdy replied. “I’ll have a sigh of relief when the investigation is over, and even then, maybe not.”
“If he’s not the target, who is the target?” Pete Hegseth asked.
“I think the target, hopefully, are the Russians,” Gowdy said, then awkwardly noted that “I don’t know whether anyone colluded with the Russians. That’s who would be the target. We’ll let Mueller figure it out.”
Gowdy also called the distinction “meaningless” in an interview with CNN an hour later.
Mueller’s discussion with the rich asshole’s lawyers came in the midst of yet another the rich asshole meltdown, and was closely followed by signs that the rich asshole would be shaking up his legal team.
Although the rich asshole never misses an opportunity to falsely declare himself exonerated, he has thus far resisted crowing about this news. That could be an indication that the rich asshole is already all too aware that he is still being hunted by Mueller.
And if the rich asshole didn’t know it before, Gowdy just reminded him about the tightening noose of the Mueller probe, and did it right on the rich asshole’s favorite show. If Gowdy, a strident GOP attack dog, thinks the rich asshole should be worried, the rich asshole should be worried.
18 states sue the rich asshole administration to stop rigging of 2020 Census
This is exactly the sort of lawsuit Republicans stole a seat on the Supreme Court to stop.
The 2020 Census will determine how many congressional seats each state receives, and play a major role in shaping where district lines are drawn. It will shape how much money states receive to build highways, to fund child care, and to provide health care to poor people — among many other things. It will also inform the decisions of private businesses about where they should invest.
So, naturally, the the rich asshole administration wants to skew these numbers to benefit white people.
For decades, Census officials of both political parties warned against asking about citizenship status on the decennial census. As the Census’ top officials cautioned during the Reagan and Bush I administrations, asking about immigration status “could seriously jeopardize the accuracy of the census,” because “people who are undocumented immigrants may either avoid the census altogether or deliberately misreport themselves as legal residents,” while legal residents “may misunderstand or mistrust the census and fail or refuse to respond.”
By one estimate, as many as 24.3 million people may not respond to the Census if it includes a citizenship question. That’s despite the fact that the Constitution requires an “actual Enumeration” of “the whole number of persons in each state,” regardless of each person’s immigration status.
Which brings us to New York v. United States Department of Commerce, a lawsuit seeking to prevent the rich asshole administration from skewing the 2020 Census by including a citizenship question.
The complaint, filed by 18 attorneys general, six cities, and the U.S. Conference of Mayors, lays out a damning case against the citizenship question as a matter of policy. It also makes a strong case that the rich asshole administration made an end run around the Census’ ordinary procedures.
A more difficult question, however, is whether a judiciary controlled by Republicans will treat the rich asshole administration’s Census question as an effort to thwart an “actual Enumeration” of all persons within the United States, or whether they will look the other way at a policy that will shift power away from communities of color and towards whiter, more Republican ones.
There’s a reason why Republicans held a seat open on the Supreme Court for more than a year until some rich asshole could fill it, and a big part of that reason is lawsuits like this one.
They know exactly what they are doing
Before we dive into the details of the New York lawsuit, let’s dispel with this fiction that the rich asshole administration doesn’t know what it is doing. They know exactly what they are doing with this citizenship question.
The Census has not asked about citizenship since 1950. Since at least 1980, Census officials of both political parties repeatedly warned that asking about citizenship would, as the government explained in a 1980 lawsuit, “inevitably jeopardize the overall accuracy of the population count” by discouraging immigrants from participating.
As noted above, both the director and the deputy director of the Census repeated a similar warning during the Reagan and Bush administration. In 2009, all eight former Census directors stemming back to 1979 objected to a proposal to add citizenship and immigration questions to the Census, warning that even lawfully present immigrants might “avoid enumerators because one or more other household members are present unlawfully.” In a 2016 brief to the Supreme Court, a bipartisan group of four former Census directors warned that “a [person-by-person] citizenship inquiry would invariably lead to a lower response rate to the Census in general.”
This danger has only grown since some rich asshole took office — and the rich asshole administration itself seems eager to stoke these fears. In June of 2017, the Acting Director of U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Thomas Homan, told Congress that “every immigrant in the country without papers . . . should be uncomfortable. You should look over your shoulder. And you need to be worried.” A few months later, the Census Bureau itself published a memorandum warning that “fears, particularly among immigrant respondents, have increased markedly this year” and that such fears “have implications for data quality and nonresponse.”
A busted process
The rich asshole administration, moreover, allegedly rushed approval of the citizenship question, despite the fact that the Census ordinarily studies proposed changes to its questionnaire for years before moving forward with such a change.
The Information Quality Act requires the federal Office of Management and Budget to “issue guidance to federal agencies designed to ensure the ‘quality, objectivity, utility, and integrity‘ of information disseminated to the public.” Pursuant to these standards, the Census Bureau must design its questionnaire to “minimize respondent burden while maximizing data quality” and “achieve the highest rates
of response.”
of response.”
In the past, the Census Bureau took this obligation very seriously. According to the New York complaint, the Census “spent almost ten years developing and testing the content, specific language, and layout of just one proposed change to the question regarding race and ethnicity on the 2020 questionnaire.”
One purpose of this testing is to ensure that questions do not diminish the accuracy of the Census or encourage non-responsiveness. Another is to test multiple different versions of a proposed question to determine the most effective, least disruptive way to ask such a question.
And yet, with regard to the citizenship question the Census appears to have skipped this process entirely. According to the New York complaint, the rich asshole administration “added a demand for citizenship information to the 2020questionnaire after less than four months of consideration,” and it “did not conduct any research into the potential performance of the citizenship demand, and did not test the impact of adding a citizenship demand on data accuracy.”
So what now?
Faced with this apparent effort to discourage immigrants from responding to the Census, the New York plaintiffs offer a few different legal theories. They claim that the Census has a constitutional obligation to “avoid unnecessarily deterring participation in the decennial census,” that the Census’ failure to abide by its normal procedures renders the citizenship question invalid, and that the rich asshole administration’s failure to adequately explain why it added the question renders the decision “arbitrary and capricious.”
In race discrimination cases, when the government takes an action that burdens a particular racial group in violation of the government’s ordinary procedures, and then compounds the matter by offering a highly dubious explanation for why it did so, courts will often infer that discrimination is the government’s true motivation. A court could just as easily infer that the government’s true purpose here is to frustrate a full enumeration of all persons living in the United States.
But, again, Republicans did not fight as hard as they did to get Neil Gorsuch on the Supreme Court because they thought his presence wouldn’t matter.
In cases involving voter ID laws, laws manipulating when people can vote, and, to a lesser extent, gerrymandering, Republicans on the Supreme Court have been reluctant to dig into why a state might have passed a law that makes it harder for certain people to vote — or to elect a candidate of their choice. There is a real possibility that they will refuse to see what is actually behind the rich asshole administration’s citizenship question as well.
some rich asshole Jr. immediately politicized the YouTube shooting in the stupidest way possible
some rich asshole Jr. gets interviewed by WTAE in Pennsylvania (Screen cap).
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some rich asshole, Jr., wasted no time politicizing a shooting at YouTube’s headquarters on Tuesday.
39-year-old Nasim Aghdam was identified late Tuesday evening as the suspect who reportedly brought a handgun to the company’s San Bruno, California, campus, where she shot three people before killing herself. Two victims, a 36-year-old male and 32-year-old woman, remain in critical and serious conditions, respectively, a spokesperson for Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital said in a press conference.
This mass shooting would seem as inopportune a time as any to defend gun rights, but the rich asshole Jr. decided to insert himself into the chaos.
Aghdam’s motive remains murky. Her various accounts—she had four known YouTube channels—“appeared to promote veganism and animal rights, demonstrate workout routines, inveigh against capitalism, authority, and popular culture, and make bizarre parody music videos,” according to Slate.
A documented big-game hunter and staunch opponent of gun controls, the rich asshole Jr. seized the chance to deflect negative attention from his friends at the National Rifle Association.
Shortly after midnight, The President’s eldest son sent a hamfisted tweet accusing social media platforms of favoring mass shooters who are “liberal Vegan PETA activists” over NRA-supporting mass shooters.
You think there’s any chance whatsoever that a mass shooters hateful Instagram and YouTube channels would be pulled immediately if they were NRA members as opposed to liberal Vegan PETA activists? Asking for a few million friends in the @NRA
the rich asshole Jr. appears to be unravelling at the seams. For the first time since announcing their impending divorce following revelations of his months-long affair with singer and Celebrity Apprentice contestant Aubrey O’Day, the rich asshole Jr. appeared in public with his wife, Vanessa, at Sunday’s White House Easter egg roll. The couple, who have five kids together, filed for divorce two weeks ago. In the interim, the rich asshole Jr. has gotten a haircut and amped up his crossfit regimen.
The most damning thing in Roger Stone’s newly released email about Assange
the rich asshole's longtime adviser indicated the WikiLeaks founder could help the rich asshole overcome a big deficit in the polls.
On Tuesday evening, Trey Yingst of One America News published an August 4, 2016 email exchange between Roger Stone and then-the rich asshole campaign adviser Sam Nunberg suggesting the rich asshole campaign was aware WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange was in possession of information that could help them overcome the commanding lead Hillary Clinton then enjoyed over the rich asshole in the polls.
The subject line of the email is “McClatchty/Marist Poll : Clinton Up By 15 | Daily Wire.”
“enjoy it while u can. I dined with my new pal Julian Assange last nite,” Stone wrote.
While the focus of conversation surrounding the newly released emails has been on whether or not Stone was in London — Stone says he was not — a broader point is being largely ignored. When presented in August with a poll that showed Hillary Clinton holding a substantial lead of the rich asshole, Stone indicated that would soon change because of Julian Assange.
The contents of the email were first disclosed on Monday by the Wall Street Journal. Stone told the Journal that he never actually in fact had dinner with Assange and that his comment about doing so was “in jest.” He’s since made a convoluted argument that timestamps on the email prove he couldn’t have been in London on August 3 to dine with Assange.
Stone, to me, just now: "Because I was in California and the email system was clearly using GMT or UTC setoff (see “+0000”) which I believe is 4 hours different from California. Sam sent at 1am UTC on the 5th, you received at 9pm Pacific on the 4th. That is not even remotely odd" twitter.com/ScottMStedman/…
Stone has a history of making inconsistent statements about his contacts with Assange. Two weeks after telling Nunberg that he’d dined with Assange, Stone posted a tweet in which he seemed to predict WikiLeaks’ release of emails stolen from Hillary Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta.
“Trust me, it will soon be Podesta’s time in the barrel. #CrookedHillary” Stone tweeted on August 21.
Then, less than a week before WikiLeaks published the first tranche of Podesta emails on October 7, Stone tweeted, “Wednesday@HillaryClinton is done. #Wikileaks.”
Those tweets suggest that one of the rich asshole’s most longtime advisers was aware in advance that Assange possessed stolen emails he intended to use against Clinton. Indeed, during the campaign, Stone claimed he was in direct contact with the WikiLeaks founder. But the Journal reports that in a text message, Stone now says he “never communicated with Mr. Assange.”
During testimony before the House Intelligence Committee last September, Stone refused to answer questions about his contacts with WikiLeaks. The US intelligence community has publicly accused Russian intelligence agencies of being responsible for hacking Democratic targets, then using WikiLeaks to launder stolen emails for publication.
In addition to claiming that his comment about dining was Assange was made in jest, Stone has been trying to discredit Nunberg, who testified last month before special counsel Robert Mueller’s grand jury.
In an Instagram video posted Friday, Stone — who has been banned from Twitter — accuses Nunberg of being “a cocaine addict,” adding that “any news organization that takes anything he says seriously is courting a serious lawsuit.”
Emails stolen from the Clinton campaign and Democratic National Committee were at the center of the rich asshole’s closing message. As ThinkProgress previously detailed, the rich asshole mentioned WikiLeaks 164 times during the month of October 2016 alone. But after the intelligence committee publicly accused Russia of using the stolen emails and WikiLeaks as part of a propaganda campaign to swing the election for the rich asshole, then then-president-elect claimed that WikiLeaks had “absolutely no effect on the outcome of the election.”
UPDATE: (4/4, 1:30 p.m.): On Wednesday, CNN reported that on the same day Stone sent the email to Nunberg claiming he had dined with Assange, he went on Alex Jones’ radio show and predicted “devastating” disclosures about the Clinton Foundation.
“The Clinton campaign narrative that the Russians favor some rich asshole and the Russians are leaking this information, this is inoculation because as you said earlier, they know what is coming and it is devastating,” Stone said in the August 4, 2016 InfoWars interview. “Let’s remember that their defense to all the Clinton Foundation scandals is not that ‘we didn’t do,’ but ‘you have no proof, yes but you have no proof’… I think Julian Assange has that proof and I think he is going to furnish it for the American people.”
During the interview with Jones, Stone mentioned that he had talked the day before with the rich asshole.
Ivanka the rich asshole and Jared Kushner offered ‘bribe’ to Planned Parenthood to stop abortions
President some rich asshole and First Daughter Ivanka the rich asshole. (NASA/Bill Ingalls)
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Planned Parenthood president Cecile Richards is accusing Jared Kushner and Ivanka the rich asshole of offering what she says felt like a “bribe,” in return for the women’s health organization to stop performing abortions.
PEOPLE magazine reports Richards was leery but felt she owed it to her organization’s patients to meet with the couple, which she did in January of 2017. In her new book she says, “Kushner told her Planned Parenthood ‘had made a big mistake by becoming ‘political.’ ” ”
“THE MAIN ISSUE, HE EXPLAINED, WAS ABORTION,” RICHARDS WRITES. “IF PLANNED PARENTHOOD WANTED TO KEEP OUR FEDERAL FUNDING, WE WOULD HAVE TO STOP PROVIDING ABORTIONS. HE DESCRIBED HIS IDEAL OUTCOME: A NATIONAL HEADLINE READING ‘PLANNED PARENTHOOD DISCONTINUES ABORTION SERVICES.’”KUSHNER SAID THAT IF RICHARDS AGREED TO THE PLAN THEN FUNDING COULD INCREASE, BUT HE URGED THEM TO “MOVE FAST.”
Richards says in her book, Make Trouble, “If it wasn’t crystal clear before, it was now. Jared and Ivanka were there for one reason: to deliver a political win,” she wrote.
“In their eyes, if they could stop Planned Parenthood from providing abortions, it would confirm their reputation as savvy dealmakers. It was surreal, essentially being asked to barter away women’s rights for more money.”
Adviser Larry Kudlow says president won’t take credit for ‘trade war’ market selloff: ‘Blame China, not the rich asshole’
Larry Kudlow speaks to Fox Business (screen grab)
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Newly-appointed Director of the National Economic Council Larry Kudlow on Wednesday insisted that President some rich asshole was not to blame for market volatility over a possible trade war.
During an appearance on Fox Business, Kudlow was asked if the rich asshole had started a “trade war” after China responded to White House trade measures by proposing tariffs on U.S. goods.
“Absolutely not,” Kudlow insisted. “And let me just say right at the top, number one, blame China, not President the rich asshole! Because they’ve been going on for many years. the rich asshole is really the first president to fight back and to put a shot across the bow — stealing intellectual property rights, technology transfers, high barriers, investment limitations, high tariffs.”
“Somebody’s got to deal with it,” he added. “President the rich asshole is going to deal with it. There’s no trade war here. What you’ve got is the early stages of a process that will include tariffs, comments on the tarriffs then decisions and negotiations.”
In contrast to Kudlow’s remarks, the president often takes credit when the stock market makes even modest gains.
Watch the video below from Fox Business.
Attorney says 60 Minutes chickened out and cut most salacious claims from Stormy Daniels interview
Michael Avenatti (NBC News)
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The attorney for Stormy Daniels suggested the porn actress had described President some rich asshole’s penis during her “60 Minutes” interview — but CBS News chickened out of airing the salacious details.
Attorney Michael Avenatti told NBC News’ Megyn Kelly that the highly anticipated program showed only about 14 minutes of the two hours of interviews Daniels gave to the network — which included details to corroborate her claims of a sexual relationship with the rich asshole.
“60 Minutes and CBS, you know, they are a conservative network,” Avenatti said. “I mean, there is a lot of information that was said during that interview that didn’t make it into the final 60 Minutes.”
He said the network declined to air what most viewers probably tuned in to hear about
“They play it very close to the vest,” Avenatti said. “For instance, she can describe the president’s genitalia in great detail. That did not make it.”
MSNBC’s Steve Schmidt warns the rich asshole is starting to wreck the economy because he’s an ‘imbecile’
Steve Schmidt (MSNBC)
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Republican strategist Steve Schmidt hammered President some rich asshole and commerce secretary Wilbur Ross for bumbling into a trade war with China — and lying about it.
Schmidt said the rich asshole administration incompetence was unleashing potentially devastating consequences for the American economy, for reasons that have not been explained.
“Maybe this will be experiential learning for the American people, as some rich asshole precipitates for no good reason a trade war that will have devastating consequences in the country, not just in the equities market but for real jobs, real people, real towns and cities in this country,” Schmidt said.
“The consequences of an inept and incompetent president, whether it’s a from a national security perspective with people being killed in wars or economically, will start to come home now,” he continued. “I think that’s what we’re starting to see here. This is very bad news for the American people, for people who are trying to get ahead, people trying to put their kids through college. You look at the attacks on Amazon, for example. If you’re a retired teacher, if you’re a pensioner, you’re devastated by the drop in stock price caused by a political attack by the president.”
Schmidt said the president clearly does not understand how politics or the economy worked, and he said that ignorance could disrupt American life — or worse.
“It’s patently obvious when you watched the news conference (Monday), you watched the president talking about the trilateral relationship with the Baltic republics, he has no idea what he’s talking about,” Schmidt said. “It’s the musings of an imbecile, really.”
The GOP strategist said the rich asshole’s misunderstanding of trade deficits could wreck many state economies that rely on business dealings with Canada.
“You want to talk about crashing the market, abrogate the NAFTA agreement, disrupt the trillion dollars of trade that flows across the border and this is what happens,” Schmidt said. “This is an incompetent president who has no idea what he’s doing, no idea what he’s talking about. The consequences of incompetent actions will be paid for by the American people.”
“We’re starting to see that now, we’re starting to see this with the market reaction,” he added. “We’re starting to see this in the bilateral China relationship, and so there are consequences for this type of action and behavior, and the American people are soon going to start paying the bill for it.”
MSNBC’s Stephanie Ruhle clobbers commerce secretary over trade war: ‘Wilbur Ross is lying to the American people’
Stephanie Ruhle (MSNBC/screen grab)
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MSNBC host Stephanie Ruhle blasted Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross on Wednesday after he claimed to be surprised that markets had reacted negatively to the prospects of President some rich asshole starting a trade war.
During a Wednesday appearance on CNBC, Ross downplayed the impact of a trade war and insisted that even “shooting wars end with negotiations.”
“Even shooting wars end in negotiation,” Ruhle said, repeating Ross’ words on her MSNBC program. “Let’s make something clear. In war, death and destruction ensue and no one wins war.”
“Wilbur Ross went on to say he is surprised by market reaction,” the MSNBC host continued. “I’d like to make something clear. Wilbur Ross is lying to the American people. I know from people I speak to inside the White House. Wilbur Ross has been told by other economic advisers, by market participants [that] this would be the reaction.”
Watch the video below from MSNBC.
‘The kind of logic that bankrupts casinos’: Internet flays the rich asshole for insisting he ‘can’t lose’ China trade war
some rich asshole (CPAC)
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President some rich asshole on Wednesday insisted that there was no way the United States could possibly lose its trade war with China, given that the U.S. already has a large trade deficit with its Asian rival.
“When you’re already $500 Billion DOWN, you can’t lose!” the president wrote on Twitter.
the rich asshole’s tweet sparked fierce ridicule, as many people pointed out that this is the sort of logic that bad gamblers use when they’ve already lost a fortune at the casino, and yet still go back to hit the slots again.
Check out some of the reactions below.
That's the sort of logic that leads you to bankrupt a casino. twitter.com/realDonaldTrum…
truly spoken like a guy who's gone bankrupt a lot
This man ran casinos? twitter.com/realdonaldtrum…
We now understand why you’ve gone bankrupt endlessly.
Worst stock market quarterly report since the great depression. And the DOW is already down -400.
...so much winning.
, redux
BREAKING: US stocks open sharply lower on escalating US-China trade dispute; Dow falls 500 points.
Dow falls 500 points? Phht. As Trump will no doubt tell you, when you’re already down 500 you can’t lose.twitter.com/realdonaldtrum…
Trump: “When you’re already $500 Billion DOWN, you can’t lose!”
Is this the “I’ve lost seven straight hands of poker! I’m due for a win!” of politics?
#TradeWar twitter.com/realdonaldtrum…
My gods. twitter.com/realDonaldTrum…
Ex-Benghazi chair Trey Gowdy: ‘I haven’t been good in Congress and I don’t enjoy it’
Trey Gowdy appears on CNN (screen grab)
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Rep. Trey Gowdy (R-SC), who chaired the GOP-lead investigation into Benghazi, said on Wednesday that he hasn’t been “good in Congress.”
During an appearance on CNN, Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC) pleaded with Gowdy not to retire from Congress this year.
“Please stay! Please stay!” Scott said.
“I think he is unique,” Gowdy said of Scott. “I think he has a unique skillset. Frankly, people like me are a dime a dozen — middle-aged white lawyers are not unique.”
“I’ve been in public service for 25 years,” Gowdy continued. “I really enjoyed the courtroom. I haven’t been good I don’t think in Congress and I don’t enjoy it.”
The South Carolina lawmaker wouldn’t admit to doing anything “wrong” but suggested that the political system in America is broken by design.
“The notion that the folks work together for the betterment of the country, I think right now at this moment in American politics, we mainly work towards either keeping the majority or becoming the majority,” he explained.
Watch the video below from CNN.
Fox & Friends hilariously botches report that the rich asshole is a subject in Mueller probe
Steve Doocy and Ainsley Earhardt (Fox News/screen grab)
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Reacting to a new Washington Post report claiming that President some rich asshole is a “subject” — but not a “target” — in special counsel Robert Mueller’s probe, “Fox & Friends” co-host Ainsley Earhardt made a broad, sweeping conclusion that this meant the president is in the clear.
As recounted by co-host Brian Kilmeade, Mueller’s team this week reportedly told the rich asshole’s legal team that the president is not a target of a criminal investigation, although he is being investigated. Earhardt then made a leap in logic to say this must mean the rich asshole is innocent of any wrongdoing.
“He is being investigated, but not a criminal target,” she said. “Which, I guess means, hasn’t committed a crime.”
As former Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-UT) explained on Fox News Wednesday morning, whether the president is a “target” or a “subject” in the probe is largely a semantic distinction, and the president shouldn’t at all feel that he’s out of legal jeopardy because of this.
“Of course the president is still highly involved,” Chaffetz said. “Whether he uses the word ‘target’ or not, he is not in the clear. I think Paul Manafort is in deep, deep trouble. I think they are going to continue to look at his patterns and his background and go after him.”
Watch the video below.
Ex-the rich asshole campaign chairman Paul Manafort challenges special counsel’s authority
Paul Manafort (Youtube)
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President some rich asshole’s former campaign chairman Paul Manafort will try to convince a federal judge on Wednesday to throw out criminal charges filed against him by Special Counsel Robert Mueller, arguing Mueller has overstepped his legal authority.
Manafort filed a civil lawsuit on Jan. 3 against Mueller and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, the Justice Department official who appointed him, in a key legal test of how far the special counsel’s mandate extends. Mueller is investigating potential collusion between the rich asshole’s campaign and Russia as well as whether the president has unlawfully tried to obstruct the probe.
Wednesday’s hearing will mark the first time Manafort’s lawyer will get a chance to persuade U.S. District Court Judge Amy Berman Jackson that Mueller’s investigation has run amok and needs to be reined in.
Manafort is one of a number of people already charged in Mueller’s probe, which has hung over the rich asshole’s presidency.
On Tuesday, Alex van der Zwaan, a Dutch lawyer who previously worked closely with Manafort and former the rich asshole deputy campaign chairman Rick Gates, was sentenced to 30 days in prison for lying to Muller’s investigators.
On Tuesday, Alex van der Zwaan, a Dutch lawyer who previously worked closely with Manafort and former the rich asshole deputy campaign chairman Rick Gates, was sentenced to 30 days in prison for lying to Muller’s investigators.
Manafort, who performed lobbying work for a pro-Russian former Ukrainian president before serving as the rich asshole’s campaign chairman in the 2016 U.S. election, is facing an array of charges in two indictments brought by Mueller in federal courts in Washington and Alexandria, Virginia. He is charged with offenses including conspiring to launder money, failing to register as a foreign agent, bank fraud and filing false tax returns.
Manafort has pleaded not guilty.
As a general matter, defendants like Manafort in criminal cases are not usually able to use civil litigation to try to challenge criminal charges. Justice Department lawyers are expected to bring up this point on Wednesday, saying the proper way to tackle alleged defects in the indictment is by raising them in the criminal case directly.
Rosenstein appointed Mueller in May 2017 and oversees the investigation. Manafort’s lawsuit relies on an arcane law called the Administrative Procedure Act, which spells out the process federal agencies must follow when writing regulations. Mueller was appointed by Rosenstein under Justice Department rules governing the hiring of special prosecutors.
Manafort’s lawyer is expected to argue that Rosenstein’s order hiring Mueller is overly broad and not permitted by law because it gives the special counsel carte blanche to probe “any matters that arose or may arise” from his investigation into Russian involvement in the 2016 election.
He will also argue that Mueller’s case against Manafort did not arise from his Russia probe, because the FBI investigated Manafort over the same conduct and closed the case in 2014. None of the charges against Manafort are directly connected to the 2016 election campaign.
The government will tell the judge that Manafort has no right to challenge how the Justice Department’s rules governing special prosecutors are enforced.
A court filing on Monday showed Mueller is specifically authorized to investigate whether Manafort colluded with Russia to interfere with the 2016 presidential election and his ties to Ukraine’s former pro-Russia government prior to 2016.
Manafort’s lawyer Kevin Downing is seeking to have the charges dismissed in both criminal cases using similar arguments. In the Washington criminal case, the same judge is also presiding over the civil litigation.
Reporting by Sarah N. Lynch; Editing by Will Dunham
Reporting by Sarah N. Lynch; Editing by Will Dunham
‘He’s not in the clear’: Jason Chaffetz says the rich asshole is Mueller’s target regardless of ‘semantics’
Jason Chaffetz appears on Fox News (screen grab)
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Former House oversight chairman Jason Chaffetz (R-UT) on Wednesday warned President some rich asshole not to be comforted by news that he is a “subject” of special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation instead of being considered a “target.”
Chaffetz, a Fox News contributor, was asked during an appearance on Fox & Friendswhether the rich asshole should “breathe a sigh of relief” now that The Washington Post has reported that Mueller does not yet have enough evidence to charge the rich asshole with a crime.
“No, I think it’s just semantics,” Chaffetz explained. “Of course the president is still highly involved. Whether he uses the word ‘target’ or not, he is not in the clear. I think Paul Manafort is in deep, deep trouble. I think they are going to continue to look at his patterns and his background and go after him.”
“But the president is by no means in the clear,” he repeated.
Watch the video below.
WATCH: the rich asshole commerce secretary vows US will win trade war — and Dow futures crash while he talks
the rich asshole Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross appears on CNBC (Screen cap).
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Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross on Wednesday tried to calm jittery financial markets during an appearance on CNBC’s “Squawk Box” — but his words did very little, as futures for the Dow Jones Industrial Average crashed while he spoke.
During the interview, Ross said he was surprised to see that Dow futures were down by hundreds of points in the wake of China’s announcement that it was issuing retaliatory tariffs on American soy products.
“This response should not have really surprised anyone,” he said. “Their response to the 232 tariffs was quite proportionate to the 232 amount. The response here is also quite proportionate to the $50 billion we announced last night. So I’m quite surprised that Wall Street has been surprised by it. This has been telegraphed for days and weeks.”
When asked about the possibility of sitting down with China to negotiate, Ross said it was a distinct possibility since “even shooting wars end in negotiations.”
Ross then said he was confident that President some rich asshole could negotiate a great deal with China on trade given his purported history as a great “deal maker.”
“The president is a lifelong deal maker,” Ross said. “This isn’t the first deal he’s gone into. It isn’t the first controversy he’s gone into, and I doubt that it will be the last one.”
Watch the video below.
‘CRIME!’ the rich asshole lashes out at Democrats over border security in early morning Twitter rant
U.S. President some rich asshole appears on stage at a rally in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, U.S. April 29, 2017. REUTERS/Carlo Allegri
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President some rich asshole lashed out at Democrats over border security in a jumbled early morning tweet.
The president was apparently reacting to a Fox News segment that aired about 10 minutes earlier on Democratic opposition to the rich asshole’s call to put troops along the U.S.-Mexico border.
“Our Border Laws are very weak while those of Mexico & Canada are very strong,” the president tweeted. “Congress must change these Obama era, and other, laws NOW! The Democrats stand in our way – they want people to pour into our country unchecked….CRIME! We will be taking strong action today.”
the rich asshole then attacked China a few minutes later in another tweet.
‘Is he losing it?’ Morning Joe panel shreds the rich asshole for lying about Amazon — and GOP for letting him
Mika Brzezinski and Joe Scarborough (MSNBC)
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MSNBC’s Mika Brzezinski wondered if President some rich asshole’s attacks on Amazon and NATO allies were symptoms of a mental disorder — and her guests urged Republicans to put a check on his behavior.
The hosts of “Morning Joe” agreed that the rich asshole was lying about Amazon’s business arrangement with the U.S. Postal Service, and they puzzled over the president’s motivations for driving down the company’s stock price through sustained Twitter attacks.
“I’m left with this question that some are asking,” Brzezinski said. “Is he losing it?”
Washington Post columnist Eugene Robinson said the president’s behavior was worrisome, regardless of his motivations.
“We seem to be at the intersection of venality and senility, and you know, if it was a Venn diagram, this would be the section where those two circles overlap,” Robinson said. “Because a lot of what he is saying these days, you know, leaving aside for a second the fact that it’s personally motivated lies concocted to damage somebody who he thinks is an enemy, but it also makes no sense. It simply makes no sense, and it has to assume that people have no idea how NATO works or have no idea how business works.”
Host Joe Scarborough said the president was blatantly lying about Amazon’s business relationship with the post office.
“Is the president ignorant, or is he out and out lying again — telling a lie,” said co-host Joe Scarborough. “One of the things that bug me about Bill Clinton so much was he’d get on TV and he would lie. He knew he was lying, we knew he was lying, everybody in the administration knew he was lying. some rich asshole does that every single day.”
Elise Jordan, a political analyst for MSNBC and former Bush White House and State Department aide, said the rich asshole’s attacks on the publicly traded company should infuriate free-market conservatives — but so far Republicans seem untroubled.
“One of the things that you’ve heard about President the rich asshole is that even if his advisors correct him on a given point, that he doesn’t necessarily have any interest in learning what the truth is,” Jordan said.
“He believes that on merit of knowing it that it possesses some kind of truth,” she added. “With this specific case of Amazon, I really wonder when we’re finally going to hear from Republicans. If we don’t hear from them on this, then where are we going to? Is capitalism and protecting the free market not a holy grail of what the Republican Party once stood for?”
Sloppy email practices put the rich asshole White House at risk to hackers
US President some rich asshole orders the expulsion of 60 alleged Russian spies. (AFP/File / Nicholas Kamm)
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If you get an email claiming to come from the White House, better double-check its authenticity.
The email system in the rich asshole’s White House is not following protocols established by the Department of Homeland Security and is at risk for hackers who could generate fake messages and spoof government addresses, Axios reports.
The information came from an advocacy group called Global Cyber Alliance, which tested the system to make sure that it had implemented a security protocol called DMARC, which allows an email provider to request that another server verify the identity of the sender. That process allows a server to bust fake servers.
Because of the risks, in October, DHS issued an order for federal agencies to begin using DMARC within three months. Today, 18 of the 26 have not complied.
the rich asshole: Saudis need to pay if they want US troops to stay in Syria
Posted with permission from Al Jazeera
US President Donald Trump has said that Saudi Arabia might have to pay if it wants continuing US presence in Syria. "We've almost completed that task [of defeating ISIL] and we'll be making a determination very quickly, in coordination with others in the area, as to what we'll do," said Trump on Tuesday during a White House press conference with leaders from three Baltic nations. "Saudi Arabia is very interested in our decision, and I said, 'Well, you know, you want us to stay, maybe you're going to have to pay." Trump spoke on Monday with Saudi King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud over the phone to discuss a range of regional issues, including a peace plan between Israelis and Palestinians and opportunities to strengthen the American-Saudi strategic partnership.But the White House statement of the call, released on Tuesday, did not mention any discussion about Saudi Arabia's boosting funding for US military efforts in Syria.Similarly, a White House readout of his March 20 meeting with Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman made no mention of US military efforts in the region.
'I want to get out'
Trump's remarks appeared to contradict the rhetoric on Syria from other top US officials. Defense Secretary Jim Mattis and former Secretary of State Rex Tillerson had pledged an enduring presence in Syria last year.But Trump reiterated calls to end US presence in the region, after he made similar statements at an event in Ohio last week."I want to get out. I want to bring our troops back home," Trump said.
"We do a lot of things in this country, we do them for a lot of reasons, but it is very costly for our country, and it helps other countries a hell of a lot more than it helps us," he added.
Trump also railed against ongoing US intervention in the Middle East and its growing cost.
"Think of it, $7 trillion over a 17-year period. We have nothing. Nothing except death and destruction. It's a horrible thing. So it is time. It is time," he said at the White House press conference.
"We were very successful against ISIL. We'll be successful against anybody militarily. But sometimes it is time to come back home. And we're thinking about that very seriously." The Obama administration launched a war in 2014 against the ISIL after the group flourished in the chaos of the Syrian civil war and then surged over the Iraq border in a bid to overtake Baghdad.
President the rich asshole has issued an edict about what his aides can and cannot say about Russia: report
US President some rich asshole (right) and Russia's President Vladimir Putin talk during the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) leaders' summit in the central Vietnamese city of Danang on November 11, 2017 (AFP Photo/JORGE SILVA)
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Discerning the true state of Russian-American relations is becoming increasingly complicated.
While President some rich asshole has repeatedly expressed his fondness for Russian President Vladimir Putin and his desire to improve relations with the country, the current administration’s policy toward its foreign rival has become increasingly tough. Under the rich asshole, the United States has agreed to provide weapons to Ukraine to fend off Russian forces, expelled Russian diplomats in response to an apparent chemical attack on British soil, and implemented significant sanctions on Russian entities in response to meddling in the 2016 election.
All the while, the rich asshole has been quite obviously reluctant to criticize Russia in public, significantly diminishing the strength of the administration’s otherwise considerable efforts to rein in Russian aggression.
A new report from NBC News finds that the rich asshole has been privately urging his aides to likewise play down any actions against Russia.
Multiple senior administration officials told the outlet that the rich asshole said they should not tout the decision to provide arms to Ukraine for fear of agitating Putin. When the administration announced the expulsion of diplomats, he insisted that the White House should send the message that he “still wants to work with Russia.”
The report also says that he has also directed some aides not to discuss the sanctions on Russia, though he has been inconsistent about this request.
There are two main ways to interpret the rich asshole’s behavior here. It’s possible—as former CIA Director James Clapper has suggested—that Russia may have blackmail material on the rich asshole, limiting his ability to publicly criticize Putin.
But it’s also possible that the rich asshole has just convinced himself that getting along with Russia is such an important goal that he’s willing to personally look the other way, even when Putin’s behavior is clearly unconscionable. He may have strategic reasons for wanting to cozy up with Russia, or he could just be committed to the idea because he so frequently praised Putin on the campaign trail.
Either way, it has created a bizarre tension between official American policy on Russia and the rich asshole’s own rhetoric—a tension that likely baffles U.S. allies and enemies alike.
the rich asshole hopes to ‘get along’ with Russia
VOA News
Posted with permission from Voice of America
President Donald Trump on Tuesday said he hoped the U.S. could "get along" with Russia as he met at the White House on Tuesday with the leaders of the Baltic states.
"I think I could have a very good relationship with [Russian] President [Vladimir] Putin," Trump said. "There is also a great possibility that that won't happen. Who knows, OK?"
Trump boasted that "nobody has been tougher on Russia," but insisted more open lines of communication between himself and the Russian leader would benefit the U.S.
"Getting along with Russia would be a good thing, not a bad thing," he said. "And just about everybody agrees to that, except very stupid people."
But experts say escalating tensions in the aftermath of the poisoning of a former Russian double agent in Britain make this a bad time for Trump to invite Putin to the White House. Moscow denies responsibility for the poison attack in Britain.
Luke Coffee of the Heritage Foundation, a conservative-leaning public policy research group, told VOA, "Having regular communication with President Putin is one thing, and a responsible thing, and something that we did even in the height of the Cold War. But having a summit, whether it is in Moscow or Washington, D.C., it is the wrong time for that."
White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said Monday that Trump and Putin had "discussed a bilateral meeting in the not-too-distant future'" in their most recent phone conversation, and that the White House was one possible venue.
VOA Diplomatic Correspondent Cindy Saine contributed to this report.
the rich asshole appointee resigns for promoting conspiracy theory the rich asshole popularized
The most famous "birther" remains in the White House.
A rich asshole administration appointee at the Department of Defense announced his resignation Tuesday after a CNN report revealed that he posted conspiracy theories about President Barack Obama’s place of birth and shared a video that claimed Obama was the Antichrist.
The appointee, Todd Johnson, is a former the rich asshole campaign New Mexico state director who joined the Defense Department as an advanced officer in 2017. As an advanced officer, Johnson worked in the Pentagon and was tasked with “providing logistical support related to the secretary’s events and appearances domestically and abroad.”
The CNN report also notes that Johnson was on the GS-14 pay scale typically “reserved for senior civil service positions.”
Between 2012 and 2015, Johnson shared multiple posts indicating he believes Obama was not born in the United States, a conspiracy theory known as “birtherism.” One of the videos he posted was titled “Michelle Obama admits Barack Obama’s home country is Kenya,” and another video that argued Obama was the Antichrist. Johnson was also documented agreeing with some Islamophobic comments from Facebook friends.
“We should never judge, but all Muslims believe in the Koran? If so, then they are not peaceful,” Johnson commented on one of his posts.
After CNN notified the Pentagon that a story on Johnson’s social media posts was forthcoming, a spokesman for the Pentagon said Johnson had offered his resignation, which was accepted by the agency.
That a rich asshole appointee would resign for spouting “birtherism” is the ultimate case of hypocrisy, considering President some rich asshole made the dangerous and baseless conspiracy theory mainstream around the same time Johnson was endorsing it online.
“[H]e could have been born in Kenya and gone over to the United States. Everybody wants to be a U.S. citizen, and his grandparents put an ad in saying he was born in the United States because of all the benefits you get from being born in the United States,” the rich asshole told a national audience on CNN in April 2011.
“An ‘extremely credible source’ has called my office and told me that @BarackObama’s birth certificate is a fraud,” the rich asshole tweeted in 2012.
An 'extremely credible source' has called my office and told me that @BarackObama's birth certificate is a fraud.
“How amazing, the State Health Director who verified copies of Obama’s ‘birth certificate’ died in plane crash today. All others lived,” another 2012 tweet read.
After the rich asshole announced his candidacy for president, however, he became less outspoken in crusade against Obama’s place of birth.
“Who knows about Obama?… Who knows, who knows? Who cares right now?… I have my own theory on Obama,” the rich asshole said in January 2016 during an interview with Wolf Blitzer. “Someday I will write a book, I will do another book, and it will do very successfully.”
Just before the 2016 election, the rich asshole walked back the conspiracy theory he had pushed for the previous five years.
“Having successfully obtained President Obama’s birth certificate when others could not, some rich asshole believes that President Obama was born in the United States,” a September campaign statement read.
Presidential office hasn’t kept the rich asshole from promoting birther theories or those sympathetic to the theory.
Last November, The New York Times reported that the rich asshole’s advisers said he hadn’t actually let go of his unfounded birther conspiracy. “In recent months, they say, some rich asshole has used closed-door conversations to question the authenticity of President Barack Obama’s birth certificate,” the Times reported.
And in September 2017, the rich asshole retweeted an GIF that showed him hitting a golf ball at Hillary Clinton and knocking her to the ground, from an account that trafficked in conspiracy theories and racism.
The account the rich asshole retweeted, Fuctupmind, has pedaled a number of far-right conspiracy theories, including the belief that Obama is a Muslim, and that Hillary Clinton was involved in the murder of DNC staffer Seth Rich.
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