monitoring Trump and relevant contemporary events

tRump was a disgusting criminal and a failed businessman long before he got into politics. He should be dying in a prison cell and not shaming the Oval Office.

We call B.S. on you.

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Donald Trump Helped Build a Case Against Jeffrey Epstein

ATTORNEY WHO SUED EPSTEIN CREDITED TRUMP WITH HELPING HIM BUILD A CASE AGAINST EPSTEIN

Interviewed by The Conscious Resistance outside the courthouse after the settlement announcement, Edwards was asked about accusations that President Trump has been involved in the same things as Epstein.

“The only thing that I can say about President Trump is that he is the only person who, in 2009 when I served a lot of subpoenas on a lot of people, or at least gave notice to some pretty connected people, that I want to talk to them, [Trump] is the only person who picked up the phone and said, let’s just talk. I’ll give you as much time as you want. I’ll tell you what you need to know, ” Edwards recalled.

He added about the president, “[He] was very helpful, in the information that he gave, and gave no indication whatsoever that he was involved in anything untoward whatsoever, but had good information.”

Edwards was also asked about the rumor in a Patterson book that Trump actually had Epstein kicked out of Mar-a-Lago for hitting on an underage girl.

The attorney replied, “I definitely have heard that. I definitely have heard that and I don’t know if it was Trump himself as opposed to a manager there.”

juicy gossip ...

He has probably known for months, yet he continues to praise Putin. The American president is not looking out for the American people

Donald Trump’s response to Russia’s attempts to kill American soldiers in Afghanistan is a dereliction of duty, and yet another sad reminder that the actions of the US president cost American lives.

Numerous reports detail how the Trump administration – and the president himself – were aware as early as 2019 that Russia had been offering bounties to Taliban fighters in Afghanistan to kill US soldiers. The United States reportedly has evidence of money transfers from a bank account controlled by Russian military intelligence to a Taliban-linked account and has identified a possible middleman who helped distribute the cash to the Taliban. These bounties have been linked to the deaths of American soldiers.

Despite the fact that this information was known to the Trump administration for at least months, there is no indication that the president has done anything to punish Russia. The White House has not even attempted to convince the public otherwise. To the contrary, Trump has continued his obsequious behavior towards Vladimir Putin. Since the intelligence on bounties was reportedly provided to Trump in February 2020, Trump has spoken with Putin numerous times, praised Putin publicly, invited Russia to rejoin the G7 group of democracies, and announced the withdrawal of thousands of troops from Germany without consulting US allies – a giant gift to the Russian president.

In its attempts to deflect from the story, the White House has trotted out a dizzying mix of contradictory excuses – including arguing that the information was not briefed to Trump because it was uncorroborated, yet simultaneously serious enough to justify warning US allies. Trump has claimed the whole thing is a hoax. The national security adviser tried to blame one of Trump’s intelligence briefers for not highlighting it for Trump.

It is impossible to believe that Trump was somehow unaware. Every other senior official in the government would have been made aware of the information; it was widely distributed within the intelligence community by May; and it would have been included in each of the briefings for Trump before his calls with Putin in the last few months. Michael Hayden, the former head of the CIA and NSA, made clear that the intelligence agencies regularly brief the president on information that is not 100% verified – that’s how intelligence works. And the former national security adviser Susan Rice explained how she would have dealt with information: “Had I, as national security adviser, received even ‘raw’ reporting that Russia was paying to kill US service members, I would have walked straight into the Oval Office to brief the president.”

Which leads to the disturbing reality: Trump knew that Russia was paying people to kill American soldiers and he not only did nothing to stop it, but he continued to praise and do favors for Putin. Since the moment Trump asked Putin to hack personal information from Trump’s political opponents in 2016, everyone has wondered why Trump acts as though he is in debt to Putin. Whatever the reason for Trump’s consistent attempts to ingratiate himself with Putin and seek his help at the expense of the American people – from the 2016 campaign to taking Putin’s word over that of the US intelligence community – the result is clear: Putin believes he can act with impunity against the US. In addition to doing so by targeting US soldiers, he is probably attempting to interfere in our election this year, yet again, to help Trump.

This story is, of course, much bigger than the Trump-Putin relationship. It is about the danger that lies at the core of the Trump administration. The American president, it has become disturbingly clear, is not looking out for the American people. Trump looks out only for himself – whether it’s asking Russia, China, or Ukraine to help him advance his personal political agenda or continuing to profit off his personal business while in office.

Beyond Afghanistan, one need only look at Trump’s disastrous response to the pandemic, which has already killed more than 128,000 Americans and is currently raging through the country without the slightest hint that Trump will take the actions necessary to save lives.

Whether it’s US soldiers in Afghanistan or the thousands of Americans that have died in the pandemic, it seems every day like the president can’t be troubled to do what’s necessary to protect the American people.

When did America start losing its war against the coronavirus? How did we find ourselves international pariahs, not even allowed to travel to Europe?

I’d suggest that the turning point was way back on April 17, the day that Donald Trump tweeted “LIBERATE MINNESOTA,” followed by “LIBERATE MICHIGAN” and “LIBERATE VIRGINIA.” In so doing, he effectively declared White House support for protesters demanding an end to the lockdowns governors had instituted to bring Covid-19 under control.

(...)

But why did America bungle Covid-19 so badly?

There has been a fair bit of commentary to the effect that our failed pandemic response was deeply rooted in American culture. We are, the argument goes, too libertarian, too distrustful of government, too unwilling to accept even slight inconveniences to protect others.

And there’s surely something to this. I don’t think any other advanced country (but are we still an advanced country?) has a comparable number of people who respond with rage when asked to wear a mask in a supermarket. There definitely isn’t any other advanced country where demonstrators against public health measures would wave guns around and invade state capitols. And the Republican Party is more or less unique among major Western political parties in its hostility to science in general.

But what strikes me, when looking at America’s extraordinary pandemic failure, is how top-down it all was.

Those anti-lockdown demonstrations weren’t spontaneous, grass-roots affairs. Many were organized and coordinated by conservative political activists, some with close ties to the Trump campaign, and financed in part by right-wing billionaires.

And the rush to reopen in Sunbelt states was less a response to popular demand than a case of Republican governors following Trump’s lead.

(...)

In any case, the point is that America’s defeat at the hands of the coronavirus didn’t happen because victory was impossible. Nor was it because we as a nation were incapable of responding. No, we lost because Trump and those around him decided that it was in their political interests to let the virus run wild.

It wasn’t because of our culture, it was because of our leadership.

What the hell. Let's give this great post another go around.