monitoring Trump and relevant contemporary events

Yeah, if Rush says it, you know it's got to be true.

There is nothing wrong with caucuses. By all accounts they are a lot of fun.

Caucuses are fine.

Progressives just naturally screw everything up.

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If anything, the lesson most will derive on the left is: the centrists in the Dem party are entitled, incompetent and opaque, while the progressives are not.

That would be dumb. It has nothing to do with ideology.

Laura Rosenberger
@rosenbergerlm
Reminder of this from SSCI's election security report on 2016 - the Russians had a disinfo campaign ready to go alleging a rigged election. This is why perceived lack of integrity is a huge vulnerability - and anyone feeding into that narrative is undermining democracy.

Donald J. Trump
@realDonaldTrump
It is not the fault of Iowa, it is the Do Nothing Democrats fault. As long as I am President, Iowa will stay where it is. Important tradition!

Jim Sciutto
@jimsciutto
Beyond the delay, the most alarming story are coordinated (& false) claims by Trump surrogates the vote is rigged. Beware of more in 2020 w/damaging consequences.

Don Jr: “The fix is in..AGAIN”
Eric Trump: “..they are rigging this thing."
Parscale: "Quality control=rigged?"

Donald J. Trump
@realDonaldTrump
Based on the fraud committed by Senator Ted Cruz during the Iowa Caucus, either a new election should take place or Cruz results nullified.
Feb 3, 2016

Amy Siskind
@Amy_Siskind
* Pompeo kicks NPR off the plane
* Trump campaign excludes Bloomberg News from an event
* Trump excludes CNN from annual pre-SOTU lunch
Media cover this as an authoritarian regime. IT IS!

As the Watergate scandal unfolded, the former Kennedy aide Arthur Schlesinger, Jr., published an influential book called “The Imperial Presidency,” in which he enumerated the habits of potential autocrats: “The all-purpose invocation of ‘national security,’ the insistence on executive secrecy, the withholding of information from Congress, the refusal to spend funds appropriated by Congress, the attempted intimidation of the press, the use of the White House as a base for espionage and sabotage directed against the political opposition.”

DES MOINES - Then-candidate Donald Trump asked state GOP Chairman Jeff Kaufmann in 2016 to publicly “disavow” results of the presidential caucus that had him coming in second, the Republican Party confirmed Tuesday.

The anecdote was first told in national political reporter Tim Alberta’s new book, “American Carnage,” and was confirmed by a spokesman for the Republican Party of Iowa.

Texas Sen. Ted Cruz won the 2016 Republican caucuses with 28 percent. Trump finished second with 24 percent.

. The release of Iowa caucus results was delayed after inconsistencies in the reporting of data. “This is not a hack or an intrusion,” said a spokeswoman for the state Democratic Party. The party is using photos of results and a paper trail to validate the results.

. A frustrated pack of Democratic presidential candidates sought to turn the mood of chaos to their own advantage Tuesday morning as they barreled toward the next nominating contest, in New Hampshire.

. Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont, Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, Former Vice President Joseph R. Biden Jr., Senator Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota, and Pete Buttigieg, the former mayor of South Bend, Ind., among others, have events in New Hampshire throughout the day.

. Unexplained inconsistencies in results, heated conference calls and firm denials of hacking: Read more about how the Iowa caucuses melted down.

Iowa Democratic Party: ‘our ultimate goal’ is to ensure integrity and accuracy.
The Iowa Democratic Party said Tuesday that there were delays in announcing the results from the precincts because the new app that it planned to use for its caucus results reported only partial data, thanks to a coding issue.

“As precinct caucus results started coming in, the IDP ran them through an accuracy and quality check,” said Troy Price, party chairman, in a statement.

“It became clear that there were inconsistencies with the reports. The underlying cause of these inconsistencies was not immediately clear, and required investigation, which took time.”

“As this investigation unfolded, IDP staff activated pre-planned backup measures and entered data manually,” he said. “This took longer than expected.”

Mr. Price said that the party had determined that the data collected via the app was sound and that the system did not experience a “cyber security intrusion.”

He said the reporting issue did not impact the ability of precinct chairs to report data accurately, and precinct level results were still being reported.

“While our plan is to release results as soon as possible today, our ultimate goal is to ensure that the integrity and accuracy of the process continues to be upheld,” Mr. Price said.

Three leading members of an Iranian Arab opposition group have been arrested in Denmark and charged with spying for Saudi Arabia.

The three, who live in Denmark, were long suspected of links to rebels who attacked an Iranian military parade in September 2018, killing 24 people.

Danish police say the three are in the Arab Struggle Movement for the Liberation of Ahvaz (ASMLA).

Ethnic Arabs live in oil-rich Ahvaz, south-western Iran.

Denmark's PET intelligence service accuses the three of having spied on individuals in Denmark between 2012 and 2018 and having passed on information to Saudi intelligence.

One of those charged was reportedly targeted by Iranian intelligence in a 2018 assassination plot, which was thwarted by Danish police.

PET Director General Finn Borch Andersen called it "a very serious case" adding: "We cannot and will not accept that foreign states bring their mutual conflicts to this country."

In November 2018 suspected ASMLA activists were arrested in Ringsted, a small town 60km (37 miles) from Copenhagen.

Political journalists boycotted a Downing Street briefing on Monday after one of Boris Johnson’s aides banned selected reporters from attending.

The confrontation took place inside No 10 after Lee Cain, Johnson’s most senior communications adviser, tried to exclude reporters from the Mirror, the i, HuffPost, PoliticsHome, the Independent and others from an official government briefing.

At a time of escalating tensions between Downing Street and the media, Labour accused Johnson of deploying Donald Trump-like tactics to avoid scrutiny.

The incident happened in the foyer of No 10 when journalists on the invited list were asked to stand on one side of a rug, while those not allowed in were asked by security to stand on the other side.

When Cain told the banned journalists to leave, the rest of the journalists decided to walk out collectively rather than allow Downing Street to choose who scrutinises and reports on the government.

When President Trump is acquitted by the Senate on Wednesday afternoon, he’ll surely take from it the message that he can continue abusing his powers however he sees fit to corrupt the 2020 election. He now knows he’ll face zero consequences.

But House Democrats can try to do something about this. They can redouble their oversight and investigative efforts, post-impeachment, geared toward the specific aim of illuminating — and preventing — future efforts by Trump to wield the machinery of government to influence the election’s outcome.

Some ultra-savvy pundits will scoff: Didn’t Democrats just get through impeachment? And some Democrats will be tempted to slink away in defeat, muttering that impeachment wasn’t “worth” the “trouble.”

But this is precisely the wrong message to take from what just happened. The impeachment and trial produced a remarkable new fact record documenting extraordinary misconduct and likely criminality on Trump’s part. This has stripped away any illusions about what Trump is capable of inflicting on our political system — demonstrating why continued efforts to protect the country are even more imperative.

“We have to use all the oversight powers we have to try to check efforts by Trump and the White House to steal the election,” Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), a member of the Judiciary and Oversight committees, told me.
“Just because we’ve impeached the president does not mean his schemes have stopped,” Raskin added. "He continues to be a one-man crime wave.”

Subpoena Bolton
For starters: One of the House committees should immediately invite former national security adviser John Bolton to testify, and if he refuses, subpoena him.
Bolton’s forthcoming book will report that Trump privately linked nearly $400 million in frozen military aid to Ukraine directly to his demand for sham investigations validating lies about Ukrainian interference in the 2016 election that absolve Russia of that crime and smearing potential 2020 foe Joe Biden.

Bolton’s book will also report that as early as last May, Trump instructed Bolton to press the Ukrainian president to work with personal lawyer Rudolph Giuliani on the scheme to extort those announcements from Ukraine.

Learning more about both these episodes — which Senate Republicans refused to do — will further illuminate the scope, reach and inner workings of this whole scheme. Bolton can almost certainly detail other episodes implicated with it.

This matters because this scheme is still in operation today. Republicans have been running ads in Iowa that echo the fabricated narrative of Biden corruption in Ukraine. Giuliani has been meeting with former Ukrainian officials to further validate that narrative.

And Trump’s attorney general, William Barr, is still pursuing a “review” of the origins of the Russia investigation that appear designed to discredit that investigation — and its conclusion that Russia sabotaged the 2016 election to help Trump — just as Trump wants.

What this all means is that post-acquittal, Trump will simply keep up his smearing of Biden with disinformation, including with “evidence” fabricated by Giuliani with the help of foreign officials, as well as his ongoing whitewashing of Russia’s 2016 attack on our political system.

A maximal picture of Trump’s willingness to corrupt the government in service of this whole effort will better equip the American people to evaluate the disinformation and lies we’ll continue seeing on all these fronts. Testimony from Bolton about Trump’s orchestration of this scheme will focus public attention on it as it continues.

Call Lev Parnas
That’s also why House Democrats should seek testimony from Lev Parnas, the former Giuliani associate who turned on Trump after getting indicted on campaign finance charges in connection with efforts to push out Marie Yovanovitch, the former ambassador to Ukraine who stood in the way of the extortion plot.

Parnas’s lawyer has indicated he is prepared to testify in detail about the whole scheme, including the role played in it by Trump and Giuliani, and other players such as Barr and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.

To repeat, this scheme is ongoing as we speak. Trump’s propaganda network will continue to bombard voters with disinformation about fake Biden corruption and invented Ukrainian 2016 electoral sabotage. House Democrats need to keep the focus on this disinformation’s corrupt origins.

“Parnas can speak to the shady characters Rudy is talking to,” Sam Berger, an expert on democracy reform at the Center for American Progress, told me. “Congress needs to figure out everything it can about Trump’s ongoing efforts to cheat in the upcoming election.”

Get to the bottom of Barr’s activities
As part of the case against Parnas, prosecutors in the Southern District of New York have opened a criminal investigation into whether Giuliani broke U.S. laws by working with foreign officials to oust Yovanovitch, something that could further implicate Trump.

The Plum Line
Opinion
Trump is about to get a lot more dangerous. Here’s what’s coming.
Add to list

(Andrew Caballero-Reynolds/Afp Via Getty Images)

By
Greg Sargent
Opinion writer
Feb. 4, 2020 at 6:38 a.m. PST
When President Trump is acquitted by the Senate on Wednesday afternoon, he’ll surely take from it the message that he can continue abusing his powers however he sees fit to corrupt the 2020 election. He now knows he’ll face zero consequences.
But House Democrats can try to do something about this. They can redouble their oversight and investigative efforts, post-impeachment, geared toward the specific aim of illuminating — and preventing — future efforts by Trump to wield the machinery of government to influence the election’s outcome.
The latest Trump impeachment trial updates
Some ultra-savvy pundits will scoff: Didn’t Democrats just get through impeachment? And some Democrats will be tempted to slink away in defeat, muttering that impeachment wasn’t “worth” the “trouble.”

But this is precisely the wrong message to take from what just happened. The impeachment and trial produced a remarkable new fact record documenting extraordinary misconduct and likely criminality on Trump’s part. This has stripped away any illusions about what Trump is capable of inflicting on our political system — demonstrating why continued efforts to protect the country are even more imperative.
AD

“We have to use all the oversight powers we have to try to check efforts by Trump and the White House to steal the election,” Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.), a member of the Judiciary and Oversight committees, told me.
“Just because we’ve impeached the president does not mean his schemes have stopped,” Raskin added. "He continues to be a one-man crime wave.”

Subpoena Bolton
For starters: One of the House committees should immediately invite former national security adviser John Bolton to testify, and if he refuses, subpoena him.
Bolton’s forthcoming book will report that Trump privately linked nearly $400 million in frozen military aid to Ukraine directly to his demand for sham investigations validating lies about Ukrainian interference in the 2016 election that absolve Russia of that crime and smearing potential 2020 foe Joe Biden.
AD

Bolton’s book will also report that as early as last May, Trump instructed Bolton to press the Ukrainian president to work with personal lawyer Rudolph Giuliani on the scheme to extort those announcements from Ukraine.

Learning more about both these episodes — which Senate Republicans refused to do — will further illuminate the scope, reach and inner workings of this whole scheme. Bolton can almost certainly detail other episodes implicated with it.
This matters because this scheme is still in operation today. Republicans have been running ads in Iowa that echo the fabricated narrative of Biden corruption in Ukraine. Giuliani has been meeting with former Ukrainian officials to further validate that narrative.
And Trump’s attorney general, William Barr, is still pursuing a “review” of the origins of the Russia investigation that appear designed to discredit that investigation — and its conclusion that Russia sabotaged the 2016 election to help Trump — just as Trump wants.
AD


What this all means is that post-acquittal, Trump will simply keep up his smearing of Biden with disinformation, including with “evidence” fabricated by Giuliani with the help of foreign officials, as well as his ongoing whitewashing of Russia’s 2016 attack on our political system.
A maximal picture of Trump’s willingness to corrupt the government in service of this whole effort will better equip the American people to evaluate the disinformation and lies we’ll continue seeing on all these fronts. Testimony from Bolton about Trump’s orchestration of this scheme will focus public attention on it as it continues.

Opinion | Impeachment is a victory for Trumpism




The House impeached Trump, but it was a victory for alternative facts, Russian disinformation and Fox News, says columnist Dana Milbank. (Joy Sharon Yi, Kate Woodsome/The Washington Post)
Call Lev Parnas
That’s also why House Democrats should seek testimony from Lev Parnas, the former Giuliani associate who turned on Trump after getting indicted on campaign finance charges in connection with efforts to push out Marie Yovanovitch, the former ambassador to Ukraine who stood in the way of the extortion plot.
AD


Parnas’s lawyer has indicated he is prepared to testify in detail about the whole scheme, including the role played in it by Trump and Giuliani, and other players such as Barr and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.
To repeat, this scheme is ongoing as we speak. Trump’s propaganda network will continue to bombard voters with disinformation about fake Biden corruption and invented Ukrainian 2016 electoral sabotage. House Democrats need to keep the focus on this disinformation’s corrupt origins.
“Parnas can speak to the shady characters Rudy is talking to,” Sam Berger, an expert on democracy reform at the Center for American Progress, told me. “Congress needs to figure out everything it can about Trump’s ongoing efforts to cheat in the upcoming election.”

Get to the bottom of Barr’s activities
As part of the case against Parnas, prosecutors in the Southern District of New York have opened a criminal investigation into whether Giuliani broke U.S. laws by working with foreign officials to oust Yovanovitch, something that could further implicate Trump.

Has Barr allowed this case to proceed undisturbed? We have no idea.
Trump has threatened retribution against Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), the lead impeachment manager. And Gabriel Sherman reports that Trump has privately told people he wants to see Bolton criminally prosecuted. Fox News’s Sean Hannity has preposterously claimed Biden broke laws in Ukraine.

Given Barr’s role in helping Trump whitewash Russia’s attack on our democracy, one cannot rule out at least the possibility of Barr somehow using the Justice Department against one or more Trump foes in some form, perhaps to lend validity to Trump’s narratives.

What exactly is Barr doing with his “review” of the Russia probe? Has Trump ever tried to instruct him to prosecute one or more of these enemies? Democrats should try to grill Barr on these matters.

“Every other attorney general has appeared before the Judiciary Committee,” Raskin told me. “I would expect this attorney general to appear as well.”
Administration officials will resist any and all efforts at such oversight. But Democrats must try and, if necessary, go to court. Protecting the country demands no less.

When President Trump is acquitted by the Senate on Wednesday afternoon, he’ll surely take from it the message that he can continue abusing his powers however he sees fit to corrupt the 2020 election.

Trump should be removed from office for one simple reason....he believes power should be abused.

Fox News lost its licence to broadcast in the UK. Al Jazeera has no such problems.