The Trump Administration: A Clusterfuck in the Making

[kaylasdad99]

@Rick_Kitchen

Individual 1:
“Nancy Pelosi, as far as I’m concerned, unfortunately she’s no longer Speaker of the House.”
https://www.sfgate.com/politics/article/trump-press-conference-pelosi-twitter-jokes-14467585.php

That sounds an awful lot like he put her on “Ignore” (to put it in SDMB-related terms).

If so, WTactualF?

[steatopygia]

@ThelmaLou

Meanwhile…

“Trump’s company, seeking to revive a money-losing golf course in Scotland, gets approval to build 550 homes there”
https://wapo.st/2lmvfKl

Cause if one golf course is a loser, it makes sense to build another one.

Plus, there is something deeply troubling and just wrong with the phrase, “most ambitious foreign expansion of his presidency.”

:dubious:

This means he’s going to need more Russian money.

[Morgyn]

An audio recordingof Trump basically pulling a “Will no one rid me of this turbulent priest?” with respect to the whistleblower and the people in the White House who passed information on to him.

@Trump

“You know what we used to do in the old days when we were smart? Right? The spies and treason, we used to handle it a little differently than we do now.”

[Walken_After_Midnight]

@Morgyn

An audio recordingof Trump basically pulling a “Will no one rid me of this turbulent priest?” with respect to the whistleblower and the people in the White House who passed information on to him.

He also called the press “animals, some of the worst human beings you’ll ever meet”, as well as “scum”.

[Snowboarder_Bo]

I also posted this in Elections, but I want to make sure people don’t miss it: Ghouli Colludiani is losing it!

“It is impossible that the whistle-blower is a hero and I’m not. And I will be the hero! These morons—when this is over, I will be the hero,” Giuliani told me.

“I’m not acting as a lawyer. I’m acting as someone who has devoted most of his life to straightening out government,” he continued, sounding out of breath. “Anything I did should be praised.”

“I’m not acting as a lawyer.”

Let that sink in…

ETA: I see that Walken After Midnight beat me in here with the link but I still have the money quote, IMO.

[kaylasdad99]

@Sage_Rat

Congress will tell the Executive branch that they have to hand X over. The White House will ask the lawyers in the Executive branch to find a justification that ignores any precedent set by the Supreme Court in similar cases (which will be relatively easy since there aren’t all that many). Given that it’s their job to comply, the lawyers will issue guidance to the person in the Executive branch that they do not need to turn X over because of Y argument that has not yet ever been tried in court.

Congress (i.e. the House Intelligence Committee) will issue a counter-argument saying that Y is nonsense, that this is clearly the same situation as Nixon, Clinton, etc. and between that and the right to investigate impeachment there’s no counter-argument. They will, thus, issue a subpoena against them.

Depending on how many and how bad all of the different transcripts are that are in the secure system - which is probably many and real, real bad - the subpoena is liable to be ignored.

If ignored, Congress can either send the Congressional police to lock someone up, or take the issue to court. They are more likely to take the person to court.

Nearly every court will decide that it’s above their pay grade and bump it to the next level, until the Supreme Court.

At that point, the SC will either determine without trial that Y is nonsense and refuse to take the case, saying that Y is nonsense and that the President’s lawyers are stupid and the Executive branch has to do what Congress says. Or, the Supreme Court will hear the case. They will almost certainly rule in favor of Congress.

At that point, depending on how bad the transcripts are, Trump tries to get them deleted and shortens the impeachment cycle.

But, in general, Trump wants to drag things out for as long as he can. The key to winning this fight is to leak as much information about the matter, anonymously, to the press as he can so that none of it can be used by Congress in formal impeachment queries. The longer the general public knows everything that he’s done, the more they’ll move on from it and move back to supporting Trump. Humanity only has a two week memory and then they flush everything and just consider it old news when mentioned again.

Now, granted, that’s all just a prediction. But I’d put the probability of it being accurate pretty dang high.

At the moment, Trump decided to go forward with releasing information to the public that’s fairly damning. That’s counter to the general approach that we would expect Trump to take.

My read on that is that it’s because the Senate Intelligence Committee (lead by the Republicans and Richard Burr) decided to throw in with the House Intelligence Committee. Mitch McConnell generally gives Burr room to do what he wants, actually doing the job of Intelligence oversight and review of the President’s slimy activities. How strongly McConnell wants to fight for America’s interests and the security of our political system, I don’t know, but I do think that he considers Trump to be a good foil to distract the voters while the party moves to accomplish its agenda and a good political campaigner, but otherwise largely just a nuisance to be managed and mitigated when Trump tries to do anything that would go against the party’s agenda. So my expectation would be that McConnell views Burr and his desire to keep on top of Trump as a part of that mitigation process. He doesn’t want that to get to impeachment, just to more leverage over the President.

At the moment, Trump is being forced to hand stuff over. But, I don’t think, McConnell will let that last too long. He’ll want to cut off the tap as soon as Burr has gotten enough to be able to tell Trump that they know where the jewels are and that he’d better behave if he wants them to hold back from grabbing them.

Once Trump is subdued, McConnell will go back to aiding the White House and supporting any delays in the process, so that Trump can protect himself from further inquiry. Unless Burr doesn’t get what they need in time for Schiff to get to the subpoena phase, I would expect the above prediction to hold. And given that McConnell is so good at what he does, I’d be doubtful that he can’t get what they need in time to allow Trump to get into defense mode.

One thing to know about Trump is that he’s an expert in being extorted. His whole presidency is, in essence, a daily balance of deciding who he needs to knuckle under for that has compromising info on him, while minimizing how much he pisses off someone else by submitting to the orders of the person telling him to do something.

I do not envy the man. Even for as great a narcissist as the man is, even he has to realize on an every day basis how crappy his life is in almost every way outside of some minimal indulgences like being able to eat an infinite supply of cheeseburgers, have sex with models, and crow about being the President of the USA.

I realize that it would entail waiting another four months, but how about the HoR wait until the America-hating fuckstick shows up to give the 2020 SOTU address and THEN have the Sergeant at Arms place him under arrest and hold him in their Mall Jail (or whatever they call it)?

[JKellyMap]

Oh, come on. Let him be a hero.

But just for one day.

[Fiveyearlurker]

Republicans complaining that the Mueller report cost too much could have saved us a lot of money if they had just told us that they didn’t care that Trump colluded with a foreign government to win an election rather than pretending that they didn’t think it happened.

[ThelmaLou]

While he’s busy distracting us, other stuff is going on.

Trump lowering the number of refugees permitted into U.S. to 18,000

The Trump administration is proposing to cut the number of refugees permitted to resettle in the U.S. next year to just 18,000 — down from a record-low of 30,000 last year, according to a State Department press release on Thursday.

Why it matters: The administration also plans to prioritize refugees who have been persecuted for religious beliefs, Iraqis who have helped the U.S. overseas, and legitimate refugees from Northern Triangle countries, per the release. This would be the fourth time the Trump administration lowered the refugee cap, and it had reportedly discussed lowering it to zero. There are more displaced people in the world today than at any point since World War II, according to the United Nations.
…

My bold.

What the USA has become.

[EinsteinsHund]

@kaylasdad99

That sounds an awful lot like he put her on “Ignore” (to put it in SDMB-related terms).

If so, WTactualF?

He has put on the whole universe on “Ignore” the day he was born.

[Sherrerd]

@Sherrerd

… Pelosi had to do this, of course: the Dem activists were transitioning fast into forgiving Trump anything, and declaring Pelosi the Font Of All Evil. …

@bobot

OK, you’ve stumped me. What do you mean by this?

@JRDelirious

The perception that among a faction on the Dem side there is a growing “who cares if it loses us the election or is doomed to fail, Nancy, WE HAVE TO IMPEACH OR WE’RE BAD PEOPLE!” sentiment. Even if we could in fact just Benghazi him from here to the election, it would not be enough.

Yes, that. And also a lot of remarks such as these by AOC:

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez‏Verified account @AOC Sep 21
At this point, the bigger national scandal isn’t the president’s lawbreaking behavior - it is the Democratic Party’s refusal to impeach him for it.
18,113 replies45,109 retweets232,280 likes

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez

and

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez‏Verified account @AOC Sep 21
Replying to @JamesFallows
It is one thing for a sitting president to break the law. It’s another to let him. The integrity of our democracy isn’t threatened when a president breaks the law. It‘s threatened when we do nothing about it. The GOP’s silence & refusal to act shouldn’t be a surprise. Ours is.
2,925 replies7,189 retweets32,328 likes

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez

And there’s plenty more on along the lines of ‘the REAL problem isn’t Trump, it’s Nancy Pelosi’ all over the internet. AOC herself knows better than to bash Pelosi by name, of course, but her meaning is clear. And a huge number of her fans have been taking her cues and running with them. Pelosi-bashing is a very big thing among online accounts that identify themselves as ‘Democrats’ or ‘resistance’.

Less so in the last few days, of course. But that’s the type of thing I was referring to.

@Maus_Magill

Hopefully, they don’t waste the hearings grandstanding and preening for the cameras, and instead have someone like Barry Berke, the attorney who pigeonholed Lewandowski, take the lead.

Oh, please, yes. On one of the cable shows I heard Eric Swalwell, swelling (!) with self-satisfaction, saying that the way things went on that day of hearings, with Berke ‘doing clean-up at the end’ after the Congresspeople had their moments in the spotlight, was ideal and wonderful and the way to go.

I really would have punched him right through the TV screen if I’d had the capability.

[Ann_Hedonia]

@Sage_Rat

And a similar article from a right-wing source:

Ukraine transcript reveals Trump asked for ‘favor’ related to CrowdStrike conspiracy theory - Washington Examiner

Anyone have a benign theory of why Trump would care about trying to clear Russia, in a private and confidential call, long after (ostensibly) being cleared of having had anything to do with Russia?

I can’t find the link ( I’ve clicked on a lot of links in the past couple of days. ), but one supposition is that he’s looking to discredit the Russian interference part of the Mueller investigation so he’ll have an excuse to pardon Manafort. I’m not sure how that clears Manafort, but I doubt Trump understood the charges against Manafort.

[Sage_Rat]

@Morgyn

An audio recordingof Trump basically pulling a “Will no one rid me of this turbulent priest?” with respect to the whistleblower and the people in the White House who passed information on to him.

Well I agree with Trump on how to handle treason.

[Euphonious_Polemic]

@Euphonious_Polemic

Question: When the congress opens up an official impeachment investigation, are there still going to be court battles over how the party under investigation should be allowed to withhold and hide evidence, and prevent witnesses from testifying?

Because this sounds a bit suspect.

How about witness intimidation? Is the president under investigation alllowed to threaten anyone who might come forward with information? Call them a “spy”? This is fully acceptable?

Mob boss: “You know what we do to squealers right? You want to end up like them? Better just keep your mouth shut buddy.”

[El_Kabong]

@Slash1972

I’m definitely incorporating “These morons—when this is over, I will be the hero” into my daily life.

If these words were stuffed into the mouth of a Marvel Comics supervillain, we’d still be saying it was way over the top.

[Happy_Lendervedder]

@El_Kabong

If these words were stuffed into the mouth of a Marvel Comics supervillain, we’d still be saying it was way over the top.

You know, I think Rudy may have lifted this from a Scooby-Doo. Old Man Weatherby, down at the Mausoleum and Swami Shop- it sounds like something he’d say.

[Rick_Kitchen]

@Morgyn

An audio recordingof Trump basically pulling a “Will no one rid me of this turbulent priest?” with respect to the whistleblower and the people in the White House who passed information on to him.

$50K reward offered to out Trump whistleblower

$50K reward offered to out Trump whistleblower - Washington Examiner

[Ukulele_Ike]

Well, THAT’S something, isn’t it?

$100,000 if you BRING US HIS HEAD.

[kambuckta]

I wondered where I had heard the name Jacob Wohl before…so I googled.

Good fucken grief. Again, God help you America.

[asahi]

I might have said it before, but I don’t want Trump impeached – he probably needs to be, but I’d rather we vote him out. I won’t have faith in the average moron that lives next door to me, sits beside my cubicle, and shares the roadways with me on my commute until I’ve seen an election that convinces me this country’s capable of sane voting behavior.