The Trump Administration: A Clusterfuck in the Making

[RickJay]

@Mijin

I’m beginning to enjoy this presidency now, just because it looks like it won’t last long.

I mean, I know there aren’t many ways for a term to end prematurely, but it’s a shitstorm already with just self-inflicted wounds. What’s going to happen when real events (dear boy) occur?

What’s going to happen is things will get worse for most people and Donald Trump will still be President.

There is no indication whatsoever that the Republicans will entertain impeachment for any reason. Trump can screw up every week, he can literaly set fire to the Oval Office, whatever. At every step of the way the Republicans have made a few “tut-tut” noises and gone along with it.

If the GOP has any intent at all of doing the decent thing, please explain to me why they haven’t already. They could impeach him tomorrow on the basis of the “emoluments clause,” since he’s still cheerfully doing business with foreign governments.

[k9bfriender]

@RickJay

What’s going to happen is things will get worse for most people and Donald Trump will still be President.

There is no indication whatsoever that the Republicans will entertain impeachment for any reason. Trump can screw up every week, he can literaly set fire to the Oval Office, whatever. At every step of the way the Republicans have made a few “tut-tut” noises and gone along with it.

If the GOP has any intent at all of doing the decent thing, please explain to me why they haven’t already. They could impeach him tomorrow on the basis of the “emoluments clause,” since he’s still cheerfully doing business with foreign governments.

Because he is currently working with them. He is willing to sign the bills they want him to sign, he nominated the SC justice they wanted him to nominate, he is signing EO’s they want to have written.

Once that stops, once he balks at them, that’s when the GOP will start to look into removing him, and replacing him with a more ideological ally in Pence.

Personally, I don’t see it happening until Gorsuch is confirmed, as there is no way that a SC justice can be confirmed while the nominating president is under impeachment, but after that, it may be fair game on him.

If he doesn’t sign the healthcare bill, or the budget, or some other piece of legislation that the GOp puts in front of him, they no longer have a use for him, and may very well push him out.

[StarvingButStrong]

Gee, suddenly I have an idea for a website. I can’t divulge the details, but it involves a bunch of cute kittens and a litter box filled with pictures of Donald Trump…

[Steve_MB]

@mhendo

But the principle still doesn’t work in Trump’s case.

The whole Streisand Effect revolves around the idea that an attempt to suppress publicity ends up leading to massively increased publicity. Whether or not more people think about creating stupid little Trump-bashing websites, it is basically impossible for Trump to get any more publicity than he already has. Hence my argument that it makes no sense to talk about a Streisand Effect in this case.

That’s why the principle is named after some hitherto-unknown woman who lived in absolute obscurity before the incident that inspired the term.

[digs]

@Steve_MB

That’s why the principle is named after some hitherto-unknown woman who lived in absolute obscurity before the incident that inspired the term.

Well, I for one had never even heard of Gail Streisand before seeing an aerial photo of her house…

[Happy_Lendervedder]

Well, well, well.

Paul Manafort’s plan to ‘greatly benefit Putin government’
Manafort proposed in a confidential strategy plan as early as June 2005 that he would influence politics, business dealings and news coverage inside the United States, Europe and the former Soviet republics to benefit the Putin government, even as U.S.-Russia relations under Republican President George W. Bush grew worse. Manafort pitched the plans to Russian aluminum magnate Oleg Deripaska, a close Putin ally with whom Manafort eventually signed a $10 million annual contract beginning in 2006, according to interviews with several people familiar with payments to Manafort and business records obtained by the AP. Manafort and Deripaska maintained a business relationship until at least 2009, according to one person familiar with the work.

“We are now of the belief that this model can greatly benefit the Putin Government if employed at the correct levels with the appropriate commitment to success,” Manafort wrote in the 2005 memo to Deripaska. The effort, Manafort wrote, “will be offering a great service that can re-focus, both internally and externally, the policies of the Putin government.”

…

Manafort told Deripaska in 2005 that he was pushing policies as part of his work in Ukraine “at the highest levels of the U.S. government — the White House, Capitol Hill and the State Department,” according to the documents. He also said he had hired a “leading international law firm with close ties to President Bush to support our client’s interests,” but he did not identify the firm. Manafort also said he was employing unidentified legal experts for the effort at leading universities and think tanks, including Duke University, New York University and the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

Manafort did not disclose details about the lobbying work to the Justice Department during the period the contract was in place.

Under the Foreign Agents Registration Act, people who lobby in the U.S. on behalf of foreign political leaders or political parties must provide detailed reports about their actions to the department. Willfully failing to register is a felony and can result in up to five years in prison and a fine of up to $250,000…

So how many foreign agents (who have not disclosed their work to the US government) is that that Trump’s had advising him in the past year?

ETA: It should also be noted that the Russian businessman for whom Manafort was working was accusing Manafort, last year, of fraud and threatening to sue him…until Trump secured the nomination.

[JohnT]

How many foreign agents who worked to destabilize the previous (Republican) President’s foreign policy… is more accurate phrasing, I think.

[running_coach]

@Happy_Lendervedder

Well, well, well.

So how many foreign agents (who have not disclosed their work to the US government) is that that Trump’s had advising him in the past year?

The GOP is in power. All is forgiven.

[Happy_Lendervedder]

I don’t know if that link is causing problems for anyone else, but when I click on it now, I don’t get the story.
Here’s another link to the same story.

[elucidator]

“Ah, Paul! Good timing, your bus will be here in a minute!”
“I’m taking a bus somewhere?”
“Well, not, exactly…”

[duality72]

@ElvisL1ves

Is it really implausible to think he’s going to Russia to smooth over some troubles with ExxonMobil’s projects there?

Not at all, but that’s tangential to what I wrote about.

[Punoqllads]

@elucidator

“Ah, Paul! Good timing, your bus will be here in a minute!”
“I’m taking a bus somewhere?”
“Well, not, exactly…”

I’m thinking Manafort shouldn’t check the stability of his balcony railings any time in the near future.

[Steve_MB]

@elucidator

“Ah, Paul! Good timing, your bus will be here in a minute!”
“I’m taking a bus somewhere?”
“Well, not, exactly…”

In Putinist Russia, bus takes you!

[Rick_Kitchen]

Jeffrey Epstein is a former Big Deal on Wall Street. He managed people’s portfolios, but only if the portfolio was worth at least a billion dollars. He was a big contributor to campaign funds. And he was a partier, who hosted parties where Bill Clinton, Prince Andrew, and Donald Trump were attendees. But Jeffrey Epstein is also a pedophile with a penchant for teenaged girls. Federal prosecutors had an 82-page prosecution memo and a 53-page indictment ready to go, but the federal prosecutor for Southern Florida declined to prosecute him in exchange for his pleading guilty to a single state charge that resulted in his serving 13 months in jail and registering as a sex offender. The former police chief for Palm Beach thinks that he got off too easily.

And who was the federal prosecutor who declined to file federal charges? Alexander Acosta. Trump’s nominee for Secretary of Labor.

Trump's Labor nominee Acosta cut deal with billionaire in underage sex abuse...

[Euphonious_Polemic]

I love the recent editorial from the Wall Street Journal.

Prize quote from the article about Trumps asinine wiretapping claims:

He has offered no evidence for his claim, and a parade of intelligence officials, senior Republicans and Democrats have since said they have seen no such evidence. Yet the President clings to his assertion like a drunk to an empty gin bottle, rolling out his press spokesman to make more dubious claims.

[jsc1953]

@Euphonious_Polemic

I love the recent editorial from the Wall Street Journal.

Prize quote from the article about Trumps asinine wiretapping claims:

Now House Intelligence Committee Chairman Nunes is spilling the beans that Trump and his aides may have had their conversations monitored during normal eavesdropping of conversations with foreign officials.

Now, you and I know that this is not the same thing as wiretapping Trump Tower. But you can just bet that this will muddy the waters, and the WH and all Trump’s minions will be crowing “See?! See!? Told ya!!!”

And I hate that the House Intelligence Committee is being run by a Trump ass-licking toady.

[Euphonious_Polemic]

@jsc1953

Now, you and I know that this is not the same thing as wiretapping Trump Tower. But you can just bet that this will muddy the waters, and the WH and all Trump’s minions will be crowing “See?! See!? Told ya!!!”
.

“The Government is wiretapping me!”

“No, the government is wiretapping foreign criminals, and they happened to catch you talking to one of them.”

“See!! I told you so!!”
Does not really work for me. Probably will fool the Trumpsters though.

[Chimera]

As I posted elsewhere;

I would expect you would need to have all your forms filled out in quintuplicate, all your ducks in orderly rows, all your i’s dotted and t’s crossed before you spark a Constitutional Crisis by arresting the President of the United States and half his staff (and maybe a few members of Congress) for Treason.

[Skywatcher]

@Euphonious_Polemic

“The Government is wiretapping me!”

“No, the government is wiretapping foreign criminals, and they happened to catch you talking to one of them.”

“See!! I told you so!!”
Does not really work for me. Probably will fool the Trumpsters though.

Yep.

[ElvisL1ves]

@Euphonious_Polemic

I love the recent editorial from the Wall Street Journal.

Charles Krauthammer and Cal Thomas have been writing editorials along those lines too. If he’s lost the WSJ now too, it’s all over except for Hannity.