monitoring Trump and relevant contemporary events

Canadian Wisdom

http://www168.lunapic.com/do-not-link-here-use-hosting-instead/148708527314883?7852485287

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@blatham,

I can write them these permissions, for a modest fee...

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Not as if these people are predictable. Or anything.

Quote:

Jamie DupreeVerified account
‏@jamiedupree
Rep Jason Chaffetz R-UT tells reporters there's no need to further probe Flynn. "It’s taking care of itself"

And this morning on Fox, Doocy blames "shady leaks" for Flynn's downfall. Conway thanks him for that.

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Quote:

Politico, meanwhile, talks to a person familiar with Conway’s thinking and reports that she “was aware of the uncertainty about Flynn’s future and the concerns in Trump’s orbit but tried to telegraph on TV that the adviser wasn’t in trouble hoping the storm could pass.” But the very act of wanting the “storm to pass” is tantamount to wanting to keep the public in the dark about what the White House knew to be true about Flynn — and about what Justice had warned about it.

Thus, this episode now raises questions about why Flynn was not pushed out earlier. These questions feed directly into other lingering questions, such as why Trump would want Flynn to remain at all, given that Justice had concluded that Flynn might be vulnerable to Russian blackmail, and why Trump continues to resist calls for a full, independent probe into alleged Russian meddling in the election. This is now happening because the media unearthed previously-unknown facts about the Justice Department’s warning.

WP

This, along with the refusal of the GOP to do any sort of responsible investigations and oversight on these matters, is why we are going to be able to count only on vigorous reporting and whistleblowers.

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@blatham,

Quote:

Will these leaks be happening as I deal on N.Korea etc?

Well, if he answers his cell phone and starts looking at documents and even leaving some information laid out on his table in the Mar-a-Lago dinning hall, how secret can it be?

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@revelette1,

Yes. Real estate con men, pro wrestling promoters, pathological narcissists and serial pussy grabbers are not, even if they have a lot of money they've managed to grasp necessarily the sorts of persons who can be counted on to demonstrate competence as POTUS. Some of us thought this obvious.

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@blatham,

ya think that trumpies give a ****??
This aint 1974 when even the GOP apparatchik worked for the best outcome for the whole country

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Rant of the pet peeve sort.

For a decade I have been writing to reporters and media people trying to persuade someone, anyone, to do some hard-nosed reporting on how TV booking gets done for the major tv networks. This is the point where political interests and tv audiences intersect. It's where choices are made which, for example, produce Sunday shows that feature 3 conservative voices for every 1 liberal voice (the actual stat may be more severe than that but it's a known empirical piece of data).

How does that happen? What pressures or demands or habits are in place which lead to that result? Where and how is corruption a potential or real problem.

This is always seemed to me incredibly important but it hasn't been covered anywhere I've ever seen and I have had no success at convincing others it is a worthy line of investigation/reporting.

But in the last few weeks, I've seen two references to TV bookers as key influencers in political coverage, both from Jay Rosen. This has clearly arisen as a consequence of Trump's media people and their lie-about-*******-everything mode and thus concerns about how media ought to or can deal with it.

Ironically, Jay was one of the people I'd written to on this matter. About six years ago.

Rant terminated.

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@farmerman,

Quote:

ya think that trumpies give a ****??
This aint 1974 when even the GOP apparatchik worked for the best outcome for the whole country

No, I don't think they give a ****. Nor the modern GOP broadly. Their fealty lies elsewhere and that elsewhere doesn't give a **** either.

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@revelette1,

I found a list online McG. Maybe it's the one you were thinking of (hard to know though since you didn't reference anything).

My quote only goes back to January 6th. There are many more things on there since the election.

I'm willing to concede that this list is incomplete.

http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2017/02/every-terrifying-thing-that-donald-trump-has-done.html

Declared the “court system” a threat to national security.
Insisted that his Supreme Court pick had no problem with attacks on the judiciary, in the face of blatant evidence to the contrary.
Trashed New START during a call with Putin — after putting the phone aside to ask his advisers what that (nuclear-arms treaty) was.
Suggested that publicly criticizing his military decisions is tantamount to aiding “the enemy.”
Publicly condemned a private company for dropping his daughter’s (increasingly unpopular) fashion line.
Got angry at his press secretary for being impersonated by a woman.
Used the executive branch’s immense authority over border control to inflict arbitrary cruelty on thousands of Muslim immigrants, create chaos at airports all across America, and sour diplomatic relations with the rest of the world.
Violated court orders against his travel ban.
Created a diplomatic crisis with Australia — and threatened to invade Mexico.
Allowed his press secretary to falsely claim that Iran had committed an act of war against the United States.
Retained the author of a reactionary screed that likened the 2016 election to Flight 93 as a national-security staffer.
Suggested that Frederick Douglass is still alive in speech on Black History Month.
Told a demonstrable lie about the size of the crowd at his inauguration — and predicted that the media would “pay a big price” for refusing to repeat it.
Told congressional leaders at a private meeting that he only lost the popular vote because undocumented immigrants cast millions of ballots against him.
Suggested America might once again have the opportunity to confiscate Iraq’s oil.
Allowed his company to leverage the cachet of his election into a massive expansion of its hotel empire.
Ordered the Department of Homeland Security to issue a weekly list of crimes (allegedly) committed by undocumented immigrants in sanctuary cities.
Prepared to radically reduce American funding to the United Nations.
Signed a bevy of executive orders that were drafted by the White House’s Breitbart wing — and no one else.
Stood by as his top advisers leaked like a sieve.
Declared that his election had restored American democracy, in an angry, authoritarian inaugural address.
Replaced the White House website’s page on climate change with a vow to drill for oil on federal lands.
Defamed a hero of the civil-rights movement in a series of racist tweets.
Suggested that America’s intelligence agencies might be turning the United States into something akin to Nazi Germany.
Allowed his secretary of State nominee to pledge that America would block China’s access to its disputed islands in the South China Sea — a promise that, if kept, would almost certainly mean war.
Named his son-in-law a senior White House adviser, in defiance of norms (and, very likely, laws) against nepotism.
Called NATO obsolete.

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@McGentrix,

McGentrix wrote:

I seem to recall not too long ago that a Presidential candidate had emails "stolen" by the "Russians" that exposed many DNC lies and problems.

When was John Podesta a presidential candidate? And I think the more precise term would be "hacked".

Quote:

I remember a whole lot of worry about the leak and the theft and VERY little on the actual material that was "stolen".

I remember a whole lot of attention being paid to the hacked e-mails by the press and the Republicans. There wasn't much the DNC could do about it but there was enough attention paid to force Wasserman to step down.

Quote:

The messenger was certainly the problem then. What's changed?

What changed was the party in power. The victim whines about the messenger, opponents publicize the content and circumstances of the leak. Why would you expect anything different?

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@hightor,

hightor wrote:

McGentrix wrote:

I seem to recall not too long ago that a Presidential candidate had emails "stolen" by the "Russians" that exposed many DNC lies and problems.

When was John Podesta a presidential candidate? And I think the more precise term would be "hacked".

Don't be that guy. No one likes that guy.

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@McGentrix,

Quote:

I seem to recall not too long ago that a Presidential candidate had emails "stolen" by the "Russians" that exposed many DNC lies and problems.

No such thing happened. You must be referring to Podesta's emails. But in that case, we're referring to a political operation during a campaign and protest/criticism regarding a foreign nation acting to influence an election.

The situation here (in Trump's tweet) is the sitting president trying to deflect attention away from leaks coming from within his own administration rather than honestly dealing with the serious matter of Flynn/Russia and the related issues of how that happened and who in his administration knew it happened and who lied about it.

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Quote:

House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI) said Tuesday that former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn was asked to resign from his position by the President, contradicting comments from White House adviser Kellyanne Conway earlier Tuesday morning.

...But during an interview hours earlier on NBC’s “Today," White House counselor Kellyanne Conway said that Flynn resigned voluntarily.

"The President is very loyal. He’s a very loyal person. And by nighttime, Mike Flynn had decided it was best to resign. He knew he became a lightning rod, and he made that decision," she said.

A White House official told TPM Tuesday morning that Flynn was asked to resign.

TPM

Quote:

...Spicer said. "That's why the President decided to ask for his resignation and he got it."

TPM
Such a **** show. On such a simple point they can't get their stories straight.

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Point from Josh Marshall worth remembering. Flynn is the third member of Trump's circle to resign over dealings with Russia. Manafort and Page earlier.

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@blatham,

Quote:

A WikiLeaks figure is claiming that he received leaked Clinton campaign emails from a “disgusted” Democratic whistleblower, while the White House continued to blame Russian hackers Wednesday for meddling in the presidential election and asserted that Donald Trump was “obviously aware” of Moscow’s efforts on his behalf.

Craig Murray, a former British ambassador to Uzbekistan and a close associate of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, said in the report by the Daily Mail that he flew to Washington for a clandestine handoff with one of the email sources in September.

He said he received a package in a wooded area near American University.
“Neither of [the leaks] came from the Russians,” Mr. Murray told the British newspaper. “The source had legal access to the information. The documents came from inside leaks, not hacks.”

WikiLeaks published thousands of emails stolen from Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta, providing a steady stream of negative news coverage of the Democratic presidential nominee during the final weeks of the campaign. Mr. Murray said the leakers were motivated by “disgust at the corruption of the Clinton Foundation and the tilting of the primary election playing field against Bernie Sanders.”

Yes, I was referring to Podesta's emails. The only thing that was really discussed HERE was how the Russians were hacking the election for Trump and hardly anything was brought to the fore about the actual content of the emails. I know I certainly didn't see a train of disgust from you regarding them. So which is more important, the message or the messenger?

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@blatham,

AS it always happens, th attmpts at "cover up" will cause this to live a life of its own beyond a normal expanse had everyone just fessed up at the outset.
NAAAAH, we'll never get caught by the cheese eaters, and the donut eaters ll buy anything we shove at em!!

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Quote:

Republicans are back to open warfare over Obamacare.

Disparate factions of the GOP are drawing hard lines on what they're willing to support — or not — when it comes to repealing the health care law. And the sparring raises the question of what, if anything, can pass Congress over the next few weeks.

... Senate hard-liners are joining with the House Freedom Caucus and some top Republican Study Committee members to demand a back-to-basics approach: Kill the law now, even if there's no clear picture of what replaces it.

Politico

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Finally some truth from Blatham...

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@McGentrix,

McGentrix wrote:

I know I certainly didn't see a train of disgust from you regarding them. So which is more important, the message or the messenger?

I'll be the first to admit McG, I didn't find the contents of the emails to be all that damning on Clinton.

I know why Sanders supporters were pissed about them (and they sure did complain a lot, even here). But aside from some disgust at how the "sausage was made" so to speak, really didn't see a big issue there. Still don't.

*edited to add - I know the emails were damning to her campaign and public image of course, which is the worst kind of damage to a political candidate, but the emails themselves didn't reveal anything that I didn't already assume happens in every politician's political office, including the 17 republicans and Senator Sanders.

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