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Trump Dumpf
Re: Trump Dumpf
by thrulookingglass » Sat Apr 27, 2019 4:49 pm
That total douche on Faux News is nothing but a delusory propagandist. Only a shit bag station like Faux News would allow her air time. There is such a thing as being vehemently opposed to Israeli foreign policy or what some refer to as Zionism without condemning those who believe in or practice Judaism. She's a twat.
thrulookingglass
Location: down the rabbit hole USA
by chump » Sat May 04, 2019 12:07 pm
"No Collusion! It's just transnational organized crime!":
https://www.madcowprod.com/2019/05/01/t ... lubavitch/
Trump, Khashoggi, Deutsche Bank, & Chabad Lubavitch
By Daniel Hopsicker -
An unofficial investigation into RussiaGate has uncovered a shocking and previously-unknown new connection— a CIA-connected man who became instantly famous after the Boston Marathon bombing — involved in recent allegations against Trump associate Felix Sater that he laundered $440 million of stolen money for billionaire oligarchs in Kazakhstan through American real estate.
Evidence in the case also showed a startling similarity between suspicions of money laundering in Trump's sale of a Palm Beach mansion to a Russian billionaire gangster and a billionaire banker from Kazakhstan purchasing a similarly over-priced mansion in London from Prince Andrew, the Duke of York, a member of the British royal family, son of Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, and at one time second in line to the throne.
When Donald Trump files suit yesterday to keep his business dealings with Germany's criminal Deutsche Bank secret, it prompted a review of notes for clues that led to long-unanswered questions about why Mueller's investigation showed no apparent interest in linking crimes Deutsche Bank was committing while Trump was doing business with the bank with a man with whom he had clear ties: Saudi arms dealer Adnan Khashoggi.
Was an unwillingness to unmask CIA involvement both situations?
Donald Trump's Palm Beach 'homies' in the news
Adnan Khashoggi, one of Donald Trump's longtime Palm Beach 'homies,' was committing crimes with Deutsche Bank, and as this webite never tires of pointing out, during the same time period Trump was involved in what many suspect was similar business, money laundering, with the bank.
PRO TIP: If investigators also subpoena information about criminal dealings between Deutsche Bank and Adnan Khashoggi—whose death a year ago makes accessing information about his criminal dealings with the bank easier—progress may be made.
It's just a suggestion, but probably a good one.
The return of Uncle Ruslan
Ruslan Tsarni shot to fame six years ago on the day after the Boston Marathon bombing as the uncle of the two men accused. He roundly and vociferously condemned his nephews, and quickly became the chief source of information about the two men.
For days he was ubiquitous on television. Now he has a prominent role in accusing Felix Sater of laundering money for two billionaires from Kazahstan through American real estate.
[… con'd]
by Iamwhomiam » Sat Jul 13, 2019 9:15 pm
https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2019/07/10/american-carnage-excerpt-access-hollywood-tape-227269
'Mother Is Not Going to Like This': The 48 Hours That Almost Brought Down Trump
The exclusive story of how Trump survived the Access Hollywood tape.
By TIM ALBERTA
One by one, they had trickled out of the conference room on the 25th floor of Trump Tower. It was Friday, October 7, 2016, two days before the second presidential debate, and the Republican nominee's brain trust had spent the morning running a carefully simulated rehearsal session. New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, playing the role of Hillary Clinton, was stationed adjacent to his opponent at a conference table; Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus, acting as the moderator, was positioned directly across from Donald Trump. The rest of the observers—press secretary Hope Hicks, campaign chief executive Steve Bannon, campaign manager Kellyanne Conway, deputy campaign manager David Bossie, son-in-law Jared Kushner and the nominee's children, among a few others—listened critically, offering occasional feedback.
Hicks had left the room first. The rest of the team, more glued to their smartphones than usual, began taking turns excusing themselves. Priebus, Christie and Trump pushed onward with the debate prep. Finally, looking up and realizing that it was only the three of them remaining, Priebus paused the proceedings. "OK," he told Trump. "When the entire staff leaves the room, something's up."
Trump hadn't noticed, either. Now he glanced from side to side. To his right, through the glass-plated doors, he could see the members of his team huddled outside the conference room, whispering in hushed tones. "Yeah," Trump said, breaking from his practiced debate cadence and barking toward the door. "What the hell's going on out there?"
A few agonizing moments passed before the door opened. In walked Hicks, carrying a stapled packet of papers. She handed them silently to Trump. A former Ralph Lauren model known for her sharp looks and confident mien, Hicks was now ashen-faced. Trump eyed the top sheet and began reading. "Uh huh," he said, flipping to the next page. "Mmm hmmm."
Priebus was growing impatient—and fearful. "What is it?" he said. "Tell me what's happening."
Trump ignored him. Turning to a new page, he scanned the print and then stopped suddenly, his expression and tone shifting at once. He looked up at Hicks. "This doesn't sound like me."
Priebus raised his voice in uncharacteristic fashion. "Someone tell me something, please!"
Trump looked at him, put the packet on the table, and slid it across. The party chairman began to read, the room now filling around him with the rest of the team. They had all seen it: an email exchange with Washington Post reporter David Fahrenthold, who claimed to have an old audio recording of Trump making exceedingly lewd remarks about women and boasting of his ability to get away with sexual assault. Fahrenthold had sent over the alleged quotes and was requesting comment from the campaign for a story that would run later that day.
"Wow, this isn't good," Priebus said, his eyes fixed on a single line. "This is really, really bad."
The group was paralyzed with silence. Finally, Kushner piped up. "You know, I don't think it's all that bad."
"Jared, what are you talking about?" Priebus said, burying his head in his hands. "This is as bad as it gets."
Trump, talking to no one in particular, repeated himself. "This doesn't sound like me."
Two of the nominee's advisers spoke up in support of that theory. Conway and Bossie vouched for Trump, saying they had never heard him use any such language to describe women. This wasn't his style.
Priebus was struck by an impossible bolt of optimism. He told Trump that maybe it was all a mistake; he recalled the time he was misquoted after a speech, when the chairman had used the phrase "hates us" and a reporter wrote that he had said "racist." Tape recordings were tricky things, Priebus said. Maybe this entire thing was a foul-up.
Just then, Bossie pulled out his iPad. Fahrenthold, the Post reporter, had sent the audio file. With the nominee's team clustered around him, Bossie pressed Play. They listened. And then, Trump spoke up. "Well," he said, "that's me."
The room fell hushed. "It was a moment of humility and vulnerability," recalls Conway. "He legitimately did not remember saying that."
It was just before 4 p.m. in the nation's capital when the Washington Post published an "October surprise" for the ages.
Fahrenthold's story told of an exclusively obtained audio recording of Trump, 11 years earlier and newly married, boasting of his sexual exploits to television host Billy Bush. The two were riding together on a bus, preparing to shoot a segment for the NBC show Access Hollywood, when Trump recalled how he'd once tried to sleep with Bush's co-host, Nancy O'Dell.
"I moved on her and I failed. I'll admit it. I did try and fuck her. She was married. And I moved on her very heavily," Trump said on the tape. "In fact, I took her out furniture shopping. She wanted to get some furniture. I said, 'I'll show you where they have some nice furniture.' I took her out furniture—I moved on her like a bitch. But I couldn't get there. And she was married."
Then, when the two men spotted a young woman awaiting them outside the bus—actress Arianne Zucker—Trump told Bush, "I've got to use some Tic Tacs just in case I start kissing her. You know, I'm automatically attracted to beautiful—I just start kissing them. It's like a magnet. Just kiss. I don't even wait."
Trump added, "And when you're a star, they let you do it. You can do anything. Grab 'em by the pussy. You can do anything."
The fallout was apocalyptic.
House Speaker Paul Ryan had been scheduled to make his first joint appearance with Trump the next morning at Fall Fest, the annual beer-and-bratwurst political rally in his district. Preparing to speak at a fundraiser for a congressman in Cleveland, Ryan was pulled aside by his longtime aide, Kevin Seifert, who showed him the story. Ryan, the Boy Scout, burst into a fit of cursing just outside a roomful of wealthy donors.
He phoned Priebus immediately. "He cannot come here," Ryan said. "You need to tell him."
Priebus relayed this to Trump, who promptly shot the messenger. "Oh no," the Republican nominee replied, "I'm coming."
The party chairman called Ryan back with Trump's reaction. "You're gonna have to publicly disinvite him, Paul."
"Fine, then he's disinvited. He ain't coming," the speaker said, raising his voice to Priebus for the first time in their decades-long relationship. "This isn't something I'm intimidated by."
A short while later, Ryan's office blasted out a news release saying he was "sickened" by Trump's remarks and announcing the presidential candidate's banishment from the Wisconsin event. Priebus understood but was nonetheless distraught. He had started Fall Fest years ago as the Wisconsin GOP chairman. Saturday's event was supposed to be a homecoming for him and a harmonious breakthrough for the party. All of them—Priebus, Trump, Ryan—were meant to take the stage together, at long last projecting a united front entering the final weeks of the campaign.
Up until that point, despite Trump's self-destructive antics, Priebus believed his party had a chance. Clinton was so deeply flawed, and the Democratic base had been made so complacent by the combination of her candidacy and eight years in power, that Priebus clung to the belief that Trump somehow, in some way, might just win the White House.
Everything changed when he heard the Access Hollywood tape. And it wasn't just the party chairman's own gut reaction. Over the next 36 hours, Priebus fielded scores of phone calls from the most prominent people in Republican politics: congressmen and senators, governors, donors, activists and his own RNC members. Every single person was telling him the same thing: Trump was doomed. The party needed to replace him with Mike Pence atop the ticket.
Reconnecting by phone later that night, Ryan demanded that the national party take action to excommunicate Trump. "This is fatal," he told Priebus. "How can you get him out of the race?"
Priebus had to explain—to Ryan and to everyone else—that there was no mechanism for removing Trump. But this answer proved inadequate. The voices on the other end of the line demanded that something be done. Many suggested that he, the RNC chairman, publicly renounce Trump and ask for him to step aside as the nominee for the good of the party. (Even some of the people endorsing such an ultimatum knew how silly it sounded. Trump cared nothing for the party; he had not belonged to it until signing his name to a piece of paper a year earlier.)
For his part, Trump had agreed after some cajoling to offer a nonapology apology, issuing a statement to the Post that read, "This was locker room banter, a private conversation that took place many years ago. Bill Clinton has said far worse to me on the golf course—not even close. I apologize if anyone was offended."
But his team quickly realized this would not suffice. By Friday evening, Trump's campaign appeared on the brink of collapse. There were rumors of an imminent mass exodus of Republican officials who would publicly withdraw their support for the party's nominee. The first departures came that very night.
Sen. Mike Lee of Utah, whom Trump had recently named to an extended list of potential Supreme Court nominees, called on Trump to drop out. So did his colleague Sen. Mark Kirk of Illinois, who asked the RNC to "engage rules for emergency replacement." Jason Chaffetz, the Utah congressman and chairman of the House Oversight Committee, told a local TV station, "I'm out. I can no longer in good conscience endorse this person for president. It is some of the most abhorrent and offensive comments that you can possibly imagine."
Trump's campaign was in scramble mode. He and Clinton were scheduled to debate Sunday night in St. Louis. Convinced that a thorough, videotaped apology was their only chance to survive the weekend, his senior aides set about staging the production. Some tinkered with the text, debating how much emphasis to place on the Clintons' past scandals involving women. Others prepared for the most important video shoot of the celebrity's career, cycling between four background screens: daytime Manhattan, nighttime Manhattan, campaign signage or a flat, unassuming blue.
Trump seemed mystified by the blur of manic activity. "I've never taken anyone furniture shopping!" he laughed, throwing up his arms. His staff members traded disoriented looks.
Just after midnight, on Saturday, October 8, the campaign posted a 90-second video clip to Trump's Facebook page. Against a dark superimposed horizon of illuminated skyscrapers, Trump looked directly into the camera. "I've never said I'm a perfect person, nor pretended to be someone that I'm not. I've said and done things I regret, and the words released today on this more than a decade-old video are one of them. Anyone who knows me know these words don't reflect who I am. I said it, I was wrong, and I apologize," he said.
Trump added, "I've said some foolish things, but there is a big difference between the words and actions of other people. Bill Clinton has actually abused women and Hillary has bullied, attacked, shamed, and intimidated his victims. We will discuss this more in the coming days. See you at the debate on Sunday."
Not for a moment would Trump consider quitting the race. He was unmoved by the rebukes of the Republican lawmakers who were piling on with excoriating statements; most of them, he scoffed, were the same people who had opposed his candidacy from its inception. Trump cackled as one of his aides read aloud the rolling list of disavowals from the likes of Ryan and Mitt Romney. He could not have cared less what they had to say.
There was one politician whose reaction Trump worried about: Pence.
Their ticket had been a shotgun marriage, one of convenience more than love. Yet Trump had grown unusually fond of Pence. There was a sincerity to his running mate that he thought rare and endearing. Certainly, Trump found Pence a bit alien: the way he was always praying; the way he referred to his wife, Karen, as "Mother"; and the way the couple was constantly holding hands. ("Look at them!" Trump would tease. "They're so in love!") But he appreciated the earnestness with which Pence seemed to believe, as so few in the party did, that Trump was a decent person. Trump had worked hard to earn that faith. On the night of the October 4 vice presidential debate, he even left a voice mail for Pence letting him know that he would be saying a prayer for him.
Speaking in Ohio just after the Access Hollywood bombshell dropped, Pence had initially dismissed the news as just another media hatchet job. Yet soon after, he called Trump from the road, checking in as he did daily, sounding upset. He advised Trump to offer a sincere apology. That was the last anyone had heard from the VP nominee. Pence had gone back to Indiana and bunkered down, cutting himself off from the outside world, praying with his wife about what to do next and telling his advisers that he wasn't sure he could continue with the campaign.
To the extent Trump felt regret, it was over disappointing the Pences.
"Oh boy," he said Friday afternoon after hanging up with his running mate. "Mother is not going to like this."
The apology video did little to stanch the flow of defections. On Saturday morning, another tranche of Republicans—congressmen, senators, governors, former primary rivals—announced their renunciations of Trump. The list also included GOP luminaries such as Bill Bennett, the former education secretary, and Condoleezza Rice, the former secretary of state, whose name was being tossed around inside the RNC as a potential substitute running mate if Pence took over the ticket.
By midday Saturday, October 8, more than two dozen Republican elected officials had abandoned Trump (counting only those currently in office). Many were calling for Pence to replace him as the GOP nominee. Among them were Sen. John Thune, a member of the GOP leadership, and Ann Wagner, the Missouri congresswoman and a former co-chair of the national party committee.
Priebus continued to swat away the suggestion. As the former general counsel of the RNC, he knew better than anyone that no trigger existed for forcing out the party's nominee—especially not at this late stage. When he received a call Saturday morning from Wisconsin's national committeeman, Steve King, informing him that some RNC members were mulling an organized mutiny, the party chairman told King the same thing he was telling everyone else: "It's not going to work. We need to ride this out."
But Priebus worried, as did just about everyone else he spoke with, that another shoe was soon to drop. There had been rumors in recent weeks that a lethal opposition-research blast was imminent. Now that it had arrived, Republicans felt certain there were more to follow; that somewhere there existed a veritable treasure trove of old tapes revealing Trump's greatest hits: misogyny, racism and all sorts of other uncouth talk from the set of his NBC show. (Reporters raced unsuccessfully to reach Mark Burnett, producer of The Apprentice, sensing that he possessed the power to swing an election.)
While the party chairman saw no path to removing Trump, he wasn't ruling out the possibility of Trump stepping aside. Having gotten the sense from Pence's advisers that the Indiana governor would be willing to take over if Trump quit, Priebus talked into the wee hours Friday night with trusted allies—Ryan and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, as well as top staffers and party lawyers—discussing the logistical hurdles to replacing a nominee one month before Election Day. It wouldn't be easy: Early voting had begun in some states, and ballots had been printed in most others.
The biggest obstacle, of course, was Trump. It would be tricky enough rejiggering the ticket to pair Pence with a new running mate; doing so without Trump's blessing would be impossible.
Shortly before 11:00 a.m. Saturday, the Republican nominee convened the campaign's high command in his residence on the 64th floor of Trump Tower. Everyone looked withered. Rudy Giuliani, the former mayor and one of Trump's staunchest campaign loyalists, wore a Yankees cap low over his eyes. Priebus hadn't shaved. Christie, dressed in jeans and a Mets jacket, had already informed the group that he needed the rest of the weekend off and would not fly to Sunday's debate with Trump as planned.
"So," Trump began, looking to Priebus. "What are you hearing?"
The RNC chairman had spent the past day defending Trump's rightful claim to the party's nomination, dismissing calls to expel him and urging calm amid the commotion. But Priebus was not going to sugarcoat the situation. He had long been nauseated at watching all the nominee's sycophants telling him whatever would keep him happy and upbeat. Trump needed to hear the truth for a change.
"I'll tell you what I'm hearing," Priebus said. "Either you'll lose in the biggest landslide in history, or you can get out of the race and let somebody else run who can win."
Nobody said a word. Trump's many loyalists who had gathered—his children, Hicks, Bannon, Conway, Christie, Bossie, Giuliani—were shocked by the blunt assessment. Yet none was eager to push back on it. When Trump went around the room, asking what people thought his chances were, he heard a lot of throat-clearing. Even Bannon, who made it a habit of always saying "100 percent" whenever Trump asked the question, dodged it this time.
Trump tried humor. "So, what's the good news?" he said.
Nobody laughed.
The meeting lasted 30 minutes longer, most of it spent pushing Trump to sit for an interview that afternoon with David Muir of ABC News. His team said it would be best to discuss the comments fully, and repent for them, ahead of the debate. Trump agreed and the meeting broke up. But then he abruptly changed his mind. Complaining that he would look "weak" by subjecting himself to a journalist whose sole purpose would be extracting as many apologies as possible, he told Hicks the ABC interview was off.
The Republican Party was going to live or die with Trump; if his team couldn't persuade him to do a network television interview, they certainty weren't going to convince him to step aside as the nominee. Whatever fantasies of a Pence-Rice ticket danced through the heads of party elders were officially dashed on Saturday afternoon. "The media and establishment want me out of the race so badly," Trump tweeted. "I WILL NEVER DROP OUT OF THE RACE, WILL NEVER LET MY SUPPORTERS DOWN! #MAGA."
Pence himself was nowhere to be found. Ryan had asked his old friend to attend the Saturday rally in his district in lieu of Trump. Pence had accepted. Accommodations were made; a Secret Service checkpoint, waved off at the news of Trump's disinvitation, was reerected outside the event in Elkhorn, Wisconsin. But then Pence didn't show up. There was no notice, no courtesy call from the VP nominee's staff. Ryan dialed his old friend's cell number and got voice mail. Pence was AWOL.
Instead of returning Trump's calls, or Ryan's calls, or flying to Wisconsin, the Indiana governor spent Saturday at home. He mostly prayed with his wife, Karen. She was apoplectic, warning her husband that she would no longer appear in public if he carried on as Trump's running mate. He, in turn, hinted to his advisers that his time on the trail might be up. Feeling moved to communicate his inner anguish, Pence wrote Trump a letter spelling out what hearing that audio had done to him and his wife. (Trump confirmed to me that he received Pence's note.) When two of Trump's advisers learned of the letter, they worried they had seen the last of his running mate.
Meanwhile, Ryan was left to fly solo in Elkhorn—no Trump, no Pence and no Priebus.
"There is a bit of an elephant in the room," the speaker said, taking the stage in Wisconsin. He referenced his statement from the previous day and how "troubling" the situation was. Then, announcing that he wasn't there to talk about said elephant, Ryan pivoted to his homily about "ideas" and "conservative principles" and his vision for being a "proposition party." But it was hard to hear over the boos. Chanting the nominee's name, Trump's supporters in the audience heckled Ryan throughout his speech. "Shame on you!" they shouted.
The women flanked Trump, two of them on each side, seated behind rectangular folding tables draped in olive fabric. The small conference room, on the campus of Washington University in St. Louis, was barren save for the tables, some black coffee mugs, bottles of water and an American flag. Reporters rushed into the room. Cameras started rolling. Jaws hit the floor.
It was less than two hours until the start of the October 9 presidential debate, a spectacle that would draw tens of millions of eyeballs, and the GOP nominee was putting on a surprise pregame show. Without advance warning, Trump held an impromptu news conference alongside a group of women who had publicly accused Bill Clinton of sexual misconduct.
There had been speculation for months that he could invite one of the former president's accusers to a debate, perhaps having them sit in the front row to unnerve Hillary Clinton. Trump's campaign always dismissed the rumors. Priebus, who joined Trump on the flight to St. Louis to help with last-minute debate prep, had heard nothing about the planned stunt; the only gossip from the plane ride was Trump railing against Giuliani's performance on the Sunday shows, yelling repeatedly through the cabin, "What the fuck is Rudy doing? Get this guy off the television!"
Inside the debate hall, when co-moderators Anderson Cooper and Martha Raddatz introduced them, Trump and Clinton entered from opposite wings of the auditorium looking steeled for a street fight. They approached one another, only to stop abruptly and stand several feet apart. There would be no handshake—a first, it was believed, in the annals of presidential debating.
After a schoolteacher in attendance asked the opening question, about whether the candidates felt they were modeling good behavior for the nation's children, Cooper sensed a natural segue to ask about Trump's remarks. The Republican nominee offered an answer rehearsed again and again on the plane ride from New York: "I'm not proud of it," he said, "but this is locker room talk." Pressed on what his comments meant, Trump replied, "I have great respect for women. Nobody has more respect for women than I do." There were audible groans from the audience.
When the moderators turned to Clinton, she, like Trump, commenced with a clearly practiced soliloquy. "With prior Republican nominees for president, I disagreed with them … but I never questioned their fitness to serve," Clinton said. "Donald Trump is different."
Trump attacked and counterattacked throughout, bringing up Bill Clinton's history of being "abusive to women" and aggressively prosecuting Clinton's use of a private email server while secretary of state, an issue he had failed to raise during the first debate. "If I win," Trump declared, "I am going to instruct my attorney general to get a special prosecutor to look into your situation. Because there have never been so many lies, so much deception."
"Everything he just said was absolutely false," Clinton responded when given the floor, adding, "It's just awfully good that someone with the temperament of Donald Trump is not in charge of the law in our country."
"Because you'd be in jail," Trump shot back. Some audience members gasped. Others cheered.
It was, without question, the ugliest and most vitriolic presidential debate in the mass-communication era. And it was exactly what Trump needed. Facing pressure unlike any White House hopeful in memory, the Republican nominee didn't just get off the mat; he came up swinging. It made all the difference. Within 48 hours the bleeding had stopped: Republicans ceased their calls for his withdrawal, Pence dutifully returned to the stump and his campaign went on as though nothing had happened.
"What were the odds? Like 50-50, will he show up?" Trump says, looking back on Access Hollywood weekend and his performance in St. Louis. "That debate won me the election."
From the forthcoming book AMERICAN CARNAGE: On the Front Lines of the Republican Civil War and the Rise of President Trump by Timothy Alberta. Copyright © 2019 by Timothy Alberta. To be published on July 16, 2019 by Harper, an imprint of HarperCollins Publishers. Excerpted by permission.
Iamwhomiam
by chump » Sun Sep 15, 2019 10:40 am
https://youtu.be/PcKlPhFIE7w
Donald Trump Calls Into WWOR/UPN 9 News on 9/11
'This was an unbelievably powerful building. If you know anything about structures, it was built from the outside with steel. The reason the World Trade Center had such narrow windows was that between all the windows you had all this steel on the outside of the building. That's why when I first looked at the building… I couldn't believe it because there was hole in the steel! …How could a plane, even a 767 or 747 …how could it possibly go through the steel? I happen to think that they had not only a plane, but they had bombs that exploded almost simultaneously, because I can't even imagine anything being able to go through that wall. Most buildings are built where the steel is on the inside around the elevator shaft. This one was built from the outside, which is the strongest structure you can have, and it was almost (came down) like a can of soup."
by chump » Sat Oct 12, 2019 8:02 am
https://www.mintpressnews.com/unfaithfu ... nt/262275/
An Unfaithful Servant of Imperialism: The Real Reason Donald Trump Is Facing Impeachment
For the neocons and the "liberal" right-to-protect Humanitarian Imperialists" Trump lurches in the direction of non-intervention and repproachment and only venial sins.
by Roger D. Harris
"The United States has spent EIGHT TRILLION DOLLARS fighting and policing in the Middle East. Thousands of our Great Soldiers have died or been badly wounded. Millions of people have died on the other side. GOING INTO THE MIDDLE EAST IS THE WORST DECISION EVER MADE."
— Tweet, Donald J. Trump, October 9, 2019.
Granted Trump may arguably be more corrupt than Biden. But that's splitting hairs over which crook is more crooked. Bullying vassal states and "doing well by doing good" are indicators of finesse in Washington. Inside the beltway, corruption is not a liability for holding high political office, but a requirement. The key to membership in the power elite club is carrying water for the imperial state, and most club members must go through an elaborate vetting process to prove that they are reliable. Some such as Trump slip through.
The sine qua non for membership in this exclusive club is to prove you'll take a hit for the empire. When the results of the 2000 US presidential election were inconclusive, Al Gore took a fall rather than risk instability at the top: "(for) the strength of our democracy, I offer my concession." There are higher callings than merely winning the presidency for good servants of the empire.
But would Trump have been so compliant? Maybe not. So, impeachment is in order to either chasten him to faithful obedience or get rid of him.
The Not Thoroughly Vetted President
The presidential primaries are an audition process to see who can best serve the ruling class while conning the public. If the presidential "debates" demonstrate anything, it is that all the contestants are aspiring reality TV stars. Trump was different only in that he had previous experience.
Whenever one of the contestants shows vacillation on empire, they get slapped on the side of the head. Gabbard got summarily dismissed from the debates for her failure of faith in wars of imperial aggression as the highest expression of humanitarianism. Sanders had to grovel, calling the democratically elected president of Venezuela a "vicious tyrant."
And to qualify for the debates, a contestant must first prove that they are a "serious candidate." In a "democracy" where bribing politicians is considered "free speech" and where corporations are afforded the constitutional rights of "persons," the single overriding measure of seriousness is raising bundles of money from the rich. Of course, the rich did not become rich without expecting a return on their investments. Warren's surge, as it was dutifully reported in the press, came when some of the big money began to shift from Biden to her.
Trump, on the other hand, had his own billionaire's booty to back him, plus a little help from his wealthy cohorts. As billionaire Ross Perot proved in 1992, if you are filthy rich, you can independently run for president. And, in his case, throw the election from Bush the Elder to Bill Clinton.
To win a presidential election, however, you need more than deep pockets…you need a little help from your friends in getting a major party backing. Why a major party ballot line is so useful has constitutional antecedents.
The revolution of 1776, the last revolution that the US elites liked that was not rigged by the CIA, gave us the Articles of Confederation as the ruling document for the new sovereign. By 1787 the US elites of the time, Hamilton and supporting cast, were chafing under what they characterized as the "excesses of democracy." A new constitution was drafted and approved with "checks and balances." What needed to be checked and balanced? Democracy, the direct rule of the people, was what was checked in the new document, while slavery was reaffirmed under the highest law of the land.
The new constitution gave us the Electoral College, whereby presidents are selected by "electors" rather than trusting the direct vote of the people and states can vote as a block. This allowed Trump to triumph even when his opponent received some 3 million more votes. Oddly, his Democratic Party opponents have since focused on alleged Russian interference through Facebook ads rather than the need to make the US Constitution an instrument for the expression of the popular will.
But we are getting ahead of the story because Trump still had to become the frontrunner in a crowded Republican field before he could even take on the other party of capital. Here he had help from friends in unexpected quarters. The Republican establishment hated him, but Clinton and the so-called liberal media became Trump boosters. The corporate media gave the flamboyant Trump a bully platform because it was good for ratings.
Clinton and the Democratic National Committee, as revealed in their leaked emails published by Wikileaks, pulled for Trump because they thought him an easier opponent than, say, the mainstream Republican heir-apparent Jeb Bush. There was precious little difference between the positions of Jeb and Hillary, though the popular images projected by the two major parties superficially diverged. The core of both parties greatly overlaps, while the right fringe of the Republicans and the left fringe of the Democrats provide the contrasting colors but not the contending policy directions.
The 2016 electoral contest was a spectacle of insurgencies. Initially, there was Sanders. That he was somehow considered an "outsider" is a symptom of just how terminally ingrown the US polity has become. How could someone who served years in the US Senate and caucused with the Democrats be an outsider? Sanders ran on two premises: supporting the Democratic Party and raising suppressed issues such as income inequality. He succeeded in the first and failed in the second.
Meanwhile, after 40 years of neoliberalism, CEO compensation has grown 940% as compared to 12% for typical employees in the US.
Trump in his way also pandered to the genuinely deteriorating condition of US workers. Both the Trump and the Sanders anti-establishment insurgencies, however, were contained within the two-party system and thus were structurally destined not to come to fruition. The establishment won't come down by joining them.
Unfaithful Servant of Imperialism
Defying even the Las Vegas bookies' predictions, Trump became the 45th President of the US. He had kvetched about the plight of US workers and made some noise about ending unending wars, but was he for real? After all, Obama had promised to get out of Gitmo and NAFTA, but ended up doing neither. Obama, the former critic of Bush's Iraq war, continued Bush's wars and started a handful of his own.
Upon occupying the Oval Office, Trump not unexpectedly threw the working class under the bus with his tax cut for the rich and similar actions, which must have won him some brownie points from the owning class. But to date he has failed to start a new war. The last US president with a similar failing was the one-term Jimmy Carter. And now Trump is showing insufficient enthusiasm for continuing the war in Syria and possibly even a closet aversion to starting World War III with nuclear-armed Russia. These may be impeachable offenses in the estimation of parts of the ruling class.
David R. Sanger, writing in the October 7 New York Times, represents "liberal" establishment views in support of US imperialism: "Mr. Trump's sudden abandonment of the Kurds was another example of the independent, parallel foreign policy he has run from the White House, which has largely abandoned the elaborate systems created since President Harry Truman's day to think ahead about the potential costs and benefits of presidential decisions."
There you have it. Trump is accused of having an "independent" foreign policy, emanating out of his office of all places, even though he is the elected President of the US and the one charged with executing foreign policy.
Who is Trump "independent" from? It's not the US citizenry according to the Times. As the article points out: "Mr. Trump sensed that many Americans share his view – and polls show he is right… Mr. Trump has correctly read the American people who, after Iraq and Afghanistan, also have a deep distaste for forever wars."
So, who might Trump have betrayed? According to the article, it's "circumventing the American generals and diplomats who sing the praises of maintaining the traditional American forward presence around the world." This is who his alleged crime of independence is against. They fear Trump could "abandon" the post-war imperial consensus.
Note that the Times, as reflective of current ruling class ideology, no longer bothers to justify the dictates of the world's sole hegemon as a crusade against the current evil, be it communism or terrorism. Simply, the imperial state must be supported. Hence, Trump's view that "acting as the world's policeman was too expensive" or his tweet, "time for us to get out," have become grounds for impeachment.
The article favorably cites Republican majority leader Senator Mitch McConnell, who called on Trump "to exercise American leadership" by capitulating to the dictates of the imperial state, while contrasting it to that glory day "not even three months after his inauguration, [when] he ordered the first military strike of his presidency."
The Times article continues: "That system is badly broken today. Mr. Trump is so suspicious of the professional staff – many drawn from the State Department and the C.I.A. – and so dismissive of the 'deep state' foreign policy establishment, that he usually announces decisions first, and forces the staff to deal with them later."
"That system," cited above, is the post-WWII permanent state. Trump is chastised in the Times for being "so dismissive of the 'deep state' foreign policy establishment." Trump instead, according to the article, has the temerity to make his own decisions and then he expects the agencies of government to follow his instructions. For some, having the elected representative formulate policy and the unelected state apparatus follow it would be democratic. But not so for the cheerleaders of US imperialism.
Trump's habitual corruption and bullying have now been outed by a whistleblower. Unlike Ellsberg, Manning, and Snowden, who sought to correct US imperial policy, this whistleblower comes from the very gatekeeper of imperialism, the CIA. According to his lawyers, there is not a lone whistleblower but a whole cabal of well-placed spooks in the secret US security apparatus. The deep state (I would prefer the term "permanent" state) is more than a conspiracy theory.
The impeachment imbroglio is bigger than Trump. That the outing of Trump was done by a current employee of a US agency shrouded in secrecy, who is unaccountable and unknown, should be a subject of enormous concern for all small-d democrats and not just anti-imperialists. The CIA has the means and mission to overthrow regimes, and now ours may be one of them, however undesirable the current president may be.
We, the people, should take no solace that Trump, in his careening about, may stumble in the direction of anti-imperialism. Trump is just as much an imperialist as the rest. Only he is not as reliably consistent and that is what has gotten leading segments of the ruling class into a hissy fit. The ruling class is not always unified on policy. Here we are, witness, to an intra-class struggle. But we needn't take sides, because the ruling class is always unified in serving their class interests, which are not ours.
A policy conflict, some have speculated, is raging within the ruling class between Trump's "isolationist" and a more "globalist" imperialism. Rest assured the ruling class has institutions to adjudicate these disputes such as the Council on Foreign Relations. For the neocons and the "liberal" right-to-protect "humanitarian imperialists," Trump's lurches in the direction of non-intervention and rapprochement are only venial sins. The mortal sin would be if the erratic Trump fails to listen to what the Times delicately calls the "professionals."
A corollary fear is if the "populist" (note how the ruling class thinks of this is a pejorative) Trump listens to the people's desire for peace. Unlike the first fear, the latter is unwarranted. That is, unwarranted unless and until the people rebuild an independent peace movement to check the rising tide of US militarism.
Feature photo | President Donald Trump walks on the South Lawn of the White House in Washington, Friday, Oct. 11, 2019, as he returns from a campaign rally in Minneapolis. Patrick Semansky | AP
Roger D. Harris is on the state central committee of the Peace and Freedom Party, the only ballot-qualified socialist party in California.
The views expressed in this article are the author's own and do not necessarily reflect MintPress News editorial policy.
by chump » Sat Nov 02, 2019 12:25 pm
https://youtu.be/a7WsHoHgUP8
EXCLUSIVE: President Donald Trump talks to Farage on LBC: Live Stream & Phone In
The leader of the free world President Donald Trump speaks exclusively to LBC's Nigel Farage from 6pm.
by Elvis » Sat Nov 02, 2019 6:45 pm
Caller: "The biggest holders of American gov't bonds are the Chinese."
Nigel Farage: "I know. I know. I know."
Caller: "So if they ask for their money back, how does he [Trump] pay it back?"
"Frankly, I don't think it's a good idea but the sums proposed are enormous."
Re: Trump "You Print the Money" Dumpf
"You never have to default because you print the money, I hate to tell you."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ihjgYj5tNYk
Re: Who's gonna love the wolf?
by chump » Sat Dec 14, 2019 11:58 pm
"Should voters make this the call of the wild?
When I was with the family, always we were talking about strength. Jesus say, You must go to those who are in positions of power." And I remember one of the senior brothers talking to me about the metaphor of the sheep and the wolf. He said, "You think Christ came for the sheep, huh?"
And I said, "Yes, of course."
He said, "You know, it's good to love the sheep, but who's going to love the wolf? And you know what? If you can get the wolf alongside you, the wolf'll get everyone else in line pretty quick. And so we don't worry about the sheep. We must go out and reach the Wolf King. How do you get the Wolf King? You show him that you have a great power."
- Jeff Sharlet, Netflix series, The Family, Episode 2, 17:35
https://urbanbalance.com/the-story-of-two-wolves/
An old Cherokee is teaching his grandson about life. "A fight is going on inside me," he said to the boy. "It is a terrible fight and it is between two wolves. One is evil – he is anger, envy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority, and ego."
He continued, "The other is good – he is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion, and faith. The same fight is going on inside you – and inside every other person, too."
The grandson thought about it for a minute and then asked his grandfather, "Which wolf will win?"
The old Cherokee simply replied, "The one you feed."
https://saturatetheworld.com/2017/05/23 ... st-wolves/
Sheep In the Midst of Wolves
Bold and Blameless
by Dhati Lewis May 23, 2017
I will never leave you. I will never forsake you. I am here with you." That type of commitment is a tall order—especially in hostile environments but this became my heart's cry: "Behold, I am sending you out as sheep in the midst of wolves, so be wise as serpents and innocent as doves (Matthew 10:16).
Many have the misconception that sheep are not smart. While they may not be the brightest animals, they are known for their strong following instinct. When a sheep goes into a hostile environment, they are actually quite intelligent. They understand they have no real protection, save their flock instinct. As soon as a wolf comes, the natural instinct for sheep is to come together. The thought is we are more protected together than alone.
RI - The Family
https://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/the ... -of-power/
The Family's most powerful networking event, and virtually its only public-facing event, is the invitation-only annual National Prayer Breakfast, which has been attended by every president since Dwight Eisenhower. One scene in the documentary features Donald Trump making his first appearance at the National Prayer Breakfast, and starting his remarks in typically ham-fisted self-aggrandizing manner, mocking Arnold Schwarzenegger's unsuccessful effort to replace Trump in his "reality" TV show, "The Apprentice."
Those who saw Trump's buffoonish appearance as an embarrassment, Sharlet says, missed the point, and the significance of the National Prayer Breakfast as a ritual of power, a ritual that allows The Family to signal to the world, "We can sanctify anybody, we can anoint anybody we want." (For a bit of contrast, the Religious Right celebrated when author Eric Metaxas used his remarks at the prayer breakfast to attack Barack Obama's faith just before the president spoke.)
The prayer breakfast, in and around which world leaders, U.S. politicians and business leaders, and political insiders build relationships and lobby one another, has recently gotten more scrutiny than usual given Russian Maria Butina's use of the breakfast as a means of gaining access to conservative movement leaders in the U.S. Butina was sentenced to prison for failing to register as a foreign agent, but the breakfast is designed as, in Sharlet's words, "an unregistered lobbying festival" to promote the kind of networking she was apparently engaged in.
Doug Coe, the longtime leader of The Family who died in 2017, was focused on powerful men, and promoting a Jesus who came for the "wolves" and not "the sheep." Coe argued that it was important to identify and come alongside the "wolf king"—now personified in the U.S. by Donald Trump. Of course, Trump has plenty of other Religious Right leaders telling him he was anointed by God and put in office by divine intervention.
https://www.rightwingwatch.org/post/god ... ald-trump/
1. God is using Trump to pave the way for the Second Coming
Frank Amedia, a pastor who has been serving as Trump's "Christian policy" liaison, said that God told him personally last year that Trump would win the GOP nomination and help pave the way for the Second Coming. Amedia also suggested that only God could explain how Trump has survived all his blunders:
And the Lord spoke very clearly to me, and he said to me, 'This man is going to win the nomination and I want you to be ready to serve my cause when I call you.'…In this instance, it's not because Donald Trump has heralded his faith or the name of God, but the Lord has put His favor upon him, and how amazing it is that the favor of God can overcome so many mistakes, so many bumbles, so many things that otherwise we would think would destroy somebody in business, destroy them in politics, destroy them in relationships. But yet it's very evident it was the will of the Lord to do this and here we sit now.
https://www.inquisitr.com/5790807/donal ... abee-2024/
Donald Trump Will Definitely Run For 3rd Term, Says Mike Huckabee, Who Claims He Will Chair 2024 Campaign
The former Arkansas governor may have been 'trolling' Democrats when he claimed that Trump will be 'eligible' to serve longer than the Constitution allows.
Donald Trump has repeatedly told what he says are jokes about the possibility that he will stay in office beyond the two-term limit imposed by the Consitution. Most recently, at a Tuesday rally in Pennsylvania, Trump said that he may remain in the White House for another 29 years, making him 102-years-old.
But on Thursday, former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee — whose daughter, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, served as the administration's press secretary — appeared to confirm that Trump does indeed plan to run for what would be an unconstitutional third term in the White House. In fact, as The Independent reported, Huckabee claimed that he has been asked to chair the 2024 Trump re-election campaign.
"Gives me lots of time to plan!" Huckabee said on his Twitter account. But The Independent also noted that Huckabee himself may not have been serious in his seemingly outrageous claim. There has so far been no evidence that Trump is organizing a 2024 campaign.
In fact, the paper noted, Trump faces an uphill battle just to win a second term in 2020. He trails Democratic frontrunner Joe Biden in almost every poll, and also regularly polls behind other top Democrats.
Nonetheless, even if Huckabee was "joking" about Trump's serving a third term, The Independent reported that some experts say Trump "repeatedly muses about doing so as a means of normalizing the concept before making a serious attempt."
Huckabee's "joke" could also fall under the same category of paving the way for normalization of a third term, which would brazenly defy the 22nd Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
In his tweets on Thursday, as quoted by The Daily Mail, Huckabee claimed that Trump would be "eligible" for a third term due to the supposed attempts by former FBI Director James Comey and congressional Democrats to "oust" Trump from the Oval Office.
Trump himself has suggested that he would be entitled to a third term due to having his time in office "illegally stripped away" due to the investigations against him over his reported collusion with Russia in the 2016 campaign, The Independent noted.
There is, however, no provision in the Constitution that allows for such exceptions to the two-term limit imposed by the 22nd Amendment.
The concern that Trump may not relinquish his hold on the office of president, however, has been seen as no joking matter by political and legal experts. On Tuesday, conservative American Enterprise Institute scholar Norman Ornstein said that the possibility of Trump imposing martial law or even suspending the 2020 elections in order to stay in office, can no longer be seen as "fanciful, alarmist or crazy."
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