#Mike Flynn fired national security adviser

[malenipshadows]

  ***  It's not clear that this is the only time that Kushner will meet with the special counsel's team....  Mueller's investigators have expressed interest in Kushner, President Donald Trump's son-in-law and a White House senior adviser, as part of its probe into Russian meddling, including potential obstruction of justice in Comey's firing, sources familiar with the matter said.  Even before Mueller took over the Russia investigation, the FBI had been looking at Kushner's multiple roles on both the Trump campaign and the Trump transition team.***

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

* * * *

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

January 19, 2021

Heather Cox Richardson

On January 20, 2017, Trump took the oath of office and gave his “American Carnage” speech describing America as a hellscape, and we were off to the races.

Trump vowed he would smash norms and boundaries to “drain the swamp.” He filled positions in his administration with political operatives and appointed his son-in-law Jared Kushner to manage so many projects it would have been funny if it weren’t so deadly serious. The policies the administration advanced were usually hastily and poorly conceived; when the courts overturned them, Trump complained of “the Deep State.”

Days after he took office, he issued the travel ban aimed at Muslims, the first in a series of actions throughout his presidency designed to subordinate people of color to white Americans. The racism in his rhetoric and regulations pulled white supremacists behind him. On August 11-12, 2017, they rioted in Charlottesville, Virginia. Their protest of the removal of a statue of Confederate General Robert E. Lee became an attempt to create a political vanguard.

The “Unite the Right” rally turned violent, injuring more than 30 people and killing 32-year-old Heather Heyer, whose last Facebook post before she joined the counter protest in Charlottesville read: “If you’re not outraged, you’re not paying attention.” Three days after the riots, asked about the violent protests in Charlottesville, Trump said that “you… had people that were very fine people, on both sides.” People took that, rightly, as Trump’s support for white supremacy and the gangs that advanced it, a support illustrated dramatically in summer 2020, when he and his attorney general, William Barr, used federal troops against peaceful Black Lives Matter protesters.

By spring 2017, there was another crisis on the horizon. The FBI was investigating the cooperation of Trump’s presidential campaign with Russian spies. Trump’s former National Security Adviser, retired lieutenant general Michael Flynn, had lied to the FBI about conversations with then-Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak, and Trump pressured then-FBI Director James Comey to stop the agency’s investigation of Flynn. When Comey refused, Trump fired him, prompting the deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein to appoint Special Counsel Robert Mueller (then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions had recused himself because he, too, had lied about conversations with Russians) to investigate the ties between Trump campaign officials and Russian operatives.

Both Mueller’s report and the report of the Republican-led Senate Intelligence Committee established that Russian operatives had interfered in the 2016 election to help Trump. They indicated that Trump campaign officials knew what the Russians were doing and were willing to accept their help. The Senate Intelligence Committee also noted that Trump’s campaign chair Paul Manafort gave sensitive internal information about the campaign to a Russian operative in Ukraine. Trump continued to call these allegations the “Russia hoax,” but observers noted that, for all his feuds with other leaders, he seemed oddly solicitous of Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Trump came to office with an expanding economy. In the first three years of his presidency, the economy continued to grow, in part because of tax cuts that slashed the corporate tax rate by 40%. Trump promised that these cuts would be “rocket fuel for our economy,” but economic growth stayed at about 2.9%, the same as it had been in 2015, and more than 60% of the benefits from the cuts went to those at the top 20% of the economic ladder. Even before the pandemic, Trump’s economic policies were projected to add about $10 trillion to the national debt by 2025, an increase of more than 50%.

And then the pandemic hit. Trump first downplayed the crisis, then insisted that Democrats demanding he address the crisis were overplaying it: he called it a Democratic “hoax.” The pandemic tanked the economy, undercutting his best argument for reelection, and by summer 2020 the administration had decided its best option was to reopen schools and the economy and to try to achieve herd immunity through infections. The result was a disaster. Today, on the last day of Trump’s administration, the number of Americans we have officially lost to Covid-19 has topped 400,000. That’s about the same number of people we lost in World War Two.

The pandemic threw about 22 million people out of work and forcing businesses into bankruptcy. As the faltering economy undercut Trump’s plans for reelection, he tried to destroy faith in mail-in ballots, trying to drive people to in-person voting sites. Then, when that didn’t work, he pushed the idea that Democrats would steal the election. Although his Democratic challengers Joe Biden and Kamala Harris won the 2020 election by more than 7 million popular votes and secured the Electoral College by a vote of 306 to 232, Trump and his supporters continued to insist the election was stolen.

On January 6, 2021, Trump and key members of his administration rallied his supporters to attack the counting of the certified electoral ballots for Biden and Harris. Encouraged by the president, the crowd marched to the Capitol with the plan of disrupting the vote. They overpowered the police, killing one officer; broke into the building; and came within a minute of taking our elected leaders hostage, or perhaps executing them on the gallows they built.

In the wake of the attack on the Capitol, the House of Representatives impeached Trump for the second time—the first was in 2019 after he withheld congressionally-approved money to Ukraine in an attempt to bully the newly-elected Ukraine president into announcing an investigation into Joe Biden’s son Hunter in the hopes of weakening Biden as a potential rival in the 2020 election.

So, Trump leaves the White House tomorrow facing a second Senate impeachment trial.

Trump has split the Republican Party. His true loyalists intend to turn America into a right-wing, white, Christian nation as embodied in the 1776 Report the administration released yesterday. In the last days of the administration, Trump’s Secretary of State Mike Pompeo is pretty clearly trying to position himself for a 2024 presidential run, tweeting from the official government account of the State Department a long list of what he considers his accomplishments. Others are likely planning to give him a run for his money. Today Senator Josh Hawley, under suspicion of inciting the January 6 rioters with his support for throwing out Biden’s Electoral College votes, slow-walked Biden’s nominee for Secretary of Homeland Security because Hawley objects to Biden’s plans to create a path to citizenship for undocumented immigrants.

Establishment Republicans are trying to regain control of the party. After the January coup attempt, some corporations announced they would no longer donate to Republicans who had voted to challenge the certified electoral votes, while others declared a moratorium on all political spending. The corporate turn against the Trump wing of the Republican Party strengthened the backbone of the establishment Republicans. Today Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) stood on the floor of the Senate and put Trump at the center of the January 6 attack on the Capitol. "The mob was fed lies," McConnell said. “They were provoked by the President and other powerful people."

But McConnell went on. He claimed that neither party has a broad mandate after the 2020 elections, which, he said, meant that the Democrats have no call to advance “sweeping ideological change.” He is referring, of course, to the plans of incoming President-Elect Biden and Vice President-Elect Kamala Harris, which he has every intention of stopping.

Today, President-Elect Joe Biden arrived at Joint Base Andrews. He traveled in a private plane since Trump refused to extend him the traditional courtesy of a military plane offered from an outgoing president to an incoming one. Trump will not attend Biden’s swearing-in; he will leave for Florida in the morning. In his place, three of the other living ex-presidents will be attending the inauguration: Republican George W. Bush, Democrat Bill Clinton, and Democrat Barack Obama. It’s a party of ex-presidents, together to emphasize the peaceful transition of power. Trump won’t be there.

The tide is already turning against him. Vice President Mike Pence has announced he will not be able to attend Trump’s farewell ceremony as he is attending Biden’s inauguration instead. House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) and McConnell—who will become minority leader tomorrow after the two new Democratic senators from Georgia are sworn in—are not going to see Trump off, either: they will be attending church with Biden before his inauguration.

Tomorrow at noon, President-Elect Joe Biden takes the oath of office. He intends to return the government to the principles the Democratic Party has held since the late nineteenth century: that the federal government has a role to play in responding to the needs of ordinary Americans. He has also embraced the traditional Democratic idea that the government should actually look like the people it represents. In an implicit rebuke of Trump’s white nationalism, he has tapped the most diverse set of officials in American history. They are also extraordinarily well-qualified and have many years of experience in government.

Biden and Harris have already outlined a very different administration than Trump’s. Their first task is to combat the coronavirus. Biden wants 100 million vaccinations in his first 100 days in office, and is mobilizing the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and the National Guard to make that happen. To rebuild the economy, they have advanced a coronavirus relief package designed to protect children, first, and then women and families. It calls for expanded food relief and rent and mortgage protection, as well as expanded unemployment benefits and a one-time relief payment.

Trump’s administration is, perhaps, ending where it began. This weekend, Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny returned to Russia after his near-fatal poisoning by Putin’s agents in August. Upon his return to Russia, authorities immediately detained him. Trump refused to join other nations in condemning the poisoning, but yesterday, Senator Mitt Romney (R-UT) demanded that the U.S. hold Putin accountable for “the corruption and lawlessness of the Putin regime.” Joining Romney in calling for new sanctions against Russia were a range of senators from both parties.

The act is called the “Holding Russia Accountable for Malign Activities Act.”

—-

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

[herbertandlom]

January 8, 2021 (Friday) More information continues to emerge about the events of Wednesday. They point to a broader conspiracy than it first appeared. Calls for Trump’s removal from office are growing. The Republican Party is tearing apart. Power in the nation is shifting almost by the minute. [Please note that information from the January 6 riot is changing almost hourly, and it is virtually certain that something I have written will be incorrect. I have tried to stay exactly on what we know to be facts, but those could change.] More footage from inside the attack on the Capitol is coming out and it is horrific. Blood on statues and feces spread through the building are vile; mob attacks on police officers are bone-chilling. Reuters photographer Jim Bourg, who was inside the building, told reporters he overheard three rioters in “Make America Great Again” caps plotting to find Vice President Mike Pence and hang him as a “traitor”; other insurrectionists were shouting the same. Pictures have emerged of one of the rioters in military gear carrying flex cuffs—handcuffs made of zip ties—suggesting he was planning to take prisoners. Two lawmakers have suggested the rioters knew how to find obscure offices. New scrutiny of Trump’s “Stop the Steal” rally before the attack shows Trump’s lawyer Rudy Giuliani, Representative Mo Brooks (R-AL), Don Jr., and Trump himself urging the crowd to go to the Capitol and fight. Trump warned that Pence was not doing what he needed to. Trump promised to lead them to the Capitol himself. There are also questions about law enforcement. While exactly what happened remains unclear, it has emerged that the Pentagon limited the Washington D.C. National Guard to managing traffic. D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser requested support before Trump’s rally, but the Department of Defense said that the National Guard could not have ammunition or riot gear, interact with protesters except in self-defense, or otherwise function in a protective capacity without the explicit permission of acting Secretary Christopher Miller, whom Trump put into office shortly after the election after firing Defense Secretary Mark Esper. When Capitol Police requested aid early Wednesday afternoon, the request was denied. Defense officials held back the National Guard for about three hours before sending it to support the Capitol Police. Maryland Governor Larry Hogan, a Republican, tried repeatedly to send his state’s National Guard, but the Pentagon would not authorize it. Virginia’s National Guard was mobilized when House Speaker Nancy Pelosi called the governor, Ralph Northam, herself. Defense officials said they were sensitive to the criticism they received in June when federal troops cleared Lafayette Square of peaceful protesters so Trump could walk across it. But it sounds like there might be a personal angle: Bowser was harshly critical of Trump then, and it would be like him to take revenge on her by denying help when it was imperative. Refusing to stop the attack on the Capitol might have been more nefarious, though. A White House adviser told New York Magazine’s Washington correspondent Olivia Nuzzi that Trump was watching television coverage of the siege and was enthusiastic, although he didn’t like that the rioters looked “low class.” While the insurrectionists were in the Capitol, he tweeted: “Mike Pence didn’t have the courage to do what should have been done to protect our Country and our Constitution, giving States a chance to certify a corrected set of facts, not the fraudulent or inaccurate ones which they were asked to previously certify. USA demands the truth!” Even as lawmakers were under siege, both Trump and his lawyer Rudy Giuliani were making phone calls to brand-new Senator Tommy Tuberville (R-AL) urging him to slow down the electoral count. After Trump on Wednesday night tweeted that there would be an “orderly” transition of power, on Thursday he began again to urge on his supporters. With the details and the potential depth of this event becoming clearer over the past two days—Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas’s wife, Virginia, tweeted her support, and state lawmakers as well as Republican attorneys general were actually involved—Americans are recoiling from how bad this attempted coup was… and how much worse it could have been. The crazed rioters were terrifyingly close to our elected representatives, all gathered together on that special day, and they were actively talking about harming the vice president. By Friday night, 57% of Americans told Reuters they wanted Trump removed from office immediately. Nearly 70% of Americans disapprove of Trump’s actions before the riot. Only 12% of Americans approved of the rioters; 79% of Americans described the rioters as “criminals” or “fools.” Five percent called them “patriots.” Pelosi tonight said that she hoped the president would resign, but if not, the House of Representatives will move forward with impeachment on Monday, as well as with legislation to enable Congress to remove Trump under the 25th Amendment. The most recent draft of the impeachment resolution has just one article: “incitement of insurrection.” As a privileged resolution, it can go directly to the House without committee approval. In the Senate, Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) has no interest in further splitting the Republicans over another impeachment, or forcing them onto the record as either for or against it. Timing is on his side: the Senate is not in session for substantive business until January 19, so cannot act on an impeachment resolution without the approval of all senators. It can take up the resolution then, but more likely it will wait until Biden is sworn in, at which point the measure would be managed not by McConnell, but by the new House majority leader, Chuck Schumer (D-NY). A trial can indeed take place after Trump is no longer president, enabling Congress to make sure he can never again hold office. Whether or not the Senate would convict is unclear, but it’s not impossible. Senator Lisa Murkowski (R-AK), for one, is so furious she is talking of switching parties. “I want him out,” she says. Still, Trump supporters are now insisting that it would “further divide the country” to try to remove Trump now, and that we need to unify. Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX), who led the Senate effort to challenge Biden’s election, today tweeted that Biden was not working hard enough to “bring us together or promote healing” and that “vicious partisan rhetoric only tears our country apart.” Trump, meanwhile, has continued to agitate his followers, and today began to call for more resistance, while users on Parler, the new right-wing social media hangout, are talking of another, bigger attack on Washington. Tonight, Twitter banned Trump, stating: “we have permanently suspended the account due to the risk of further incitement of violence.” As evidence, it cited both his claim that his supporters would “have a GIANT VOICE long into the future,” and his tweet that he would not be going to Biden’s inauguration on January 20. Twitter says that Trump’s followers see these two new tweets as proof that the election was invalid and that the Inauguration is a good target, since he won’t be there. The Twitter moderators say that “plans for future armed protests have already begun proliferating on and off-Twitter, including a proposed secondary attack on the US Capitol and state capitol buildings on January 17, 2021.” Twitter also took down popular QAnon accounts, including those of Trump’s former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn and his former lawyer Sidney Powell, who is having quite a bad day: the company that makes election machines, Dominion Voting Systems, announced it is suing her for defamation and asking $1.3 billion in damages. After taking down 7,000 QAnon accounts in July, Twitter continued by today taking down the account of the man who hosts the posts from “Q.” While Twitter officials might well be horrified by the insurrection, the ban is also a sign of a changing government. With the election of two Democratic senators from Georgia this week, the majority goes to the Democrats, and McConnell will no longer be Majority Leader, killing bills. Social media giants know regulation of some sort is around the corner, and they are trying to look compliant fast. When Twitter banned Trump, so did Reddit, and Facebook and Instagram already had. Google Play Store removed Parler, warning it to clean up its content moderation.   Trump evidently couldn’t stand the Twitter ban, and tried at least five different accounts to get back onto the platform. He and his supporters are howling that he is being silenced by big tech, but of course he has an entire press corps he could use whenever he wished. Losing his access to Twitter simply cuts off his ability to drum up both support and money by lying to his supporters. Another platform that has dumped Trump is one of those that handled his emails. The San Francisco correspondent of the Financial Times, Dave Lee, noted that for more than 48 hours there had been no Trump emails: in the previous six days he sent out 33. This has been a horrific week. If it has a silver lining, it is that the lines are now clear between our democracy and its enemies. The election in Georgia, which swung the Senate away from the Republicans and opens up some avenues to slow down misinformation, is a momentous victory.

Heather Cox Richardson https://www.facebook.com/heathercoxrichardson/posts/2563012823842768

[skepticraven]

Dear Trump Fans,

I keep hearing you say that Trump has done so much for America but you never elaborate on that, even when I ask you to. So, I’m asking again & my question is simple. What has he done that you think is so great? Aside from insulting people you don’t like, I just don’t see any achievements. This is what I do see:

-Trump didn't end the overseas wars like he promised. Instead, he got us involved in Syria. And he has nearly started a couple new wars with Iran & North Korea

- It seems you don't have your giant, waste-of-money wall. You have a small amount of fencing that anyone could cross should they want to. And Mexico won't EVER pay for it. Now, I’m fine with no wall but you shouldn’t be. 

- Trump is trying to cut the CDC budget by almost 20% amidst a pandemic. 

- Trump fired the pandemic response team last year.

- Trump is already saying he wants everyone back to work by Easter & all of the churches full on Easter- except every doctor & all his medically educated advisors are advising Trump against that. The cases of coronavirus are still increasing rapidly. Sending people back into such close proximity to one another will only inflame the problem, increasing the number of infected & dead tenfold.

-Trump has violated the emoluments clause of the constitution by failing to put his assets in a blind trust & thus is charging foreign leaders & American politicians inflated prices to stay at his hotels to win his favor & get private access to the president since he goes there all the time

- Trump is guilty of blatant nepotism. For example, he appointed Jared Kushner to negotiate peace in the middle east, handle diplomacy with China & Mexico, address the opioid epidemic, manage the wall construction process, etc. Jared isn't qualified for any of that, he only has that job because he bones Trump's daughter. Jared wouldn’t be qualified to manage a Pizza Hut. He was born rich and has done nothing but lose billions when he landed in his father job because his father went to prison for tax evasion, witness tampering, & illegal campaign contributions.

- Trump, who claims to be tough on terrorism, signed a multi-billion dollar weapons deal with Saudi Arabia RIGHT AFTER they murdered & dismembered an American journalist. Not to mention the genocide they were waging in Yemen. There is a reason that 80% of the 9/11 terrorist were from Saudi Arabia.

- Trump has eliminated funding for programs that work to de-radicalize people in extremist groups/organizations & help them escape that life.

- Trump cut his own taxes & that of his rich buddies & corporations BY 40%. Due to all the tax loopholes & shady financial dealings (like equity swapping or offshore tax havens) which the wealthiest Americans & corporations do, they already historically weren't paying anywhere near the marginal tax rate they should be on paper. Trump cut the corporate marginal tax rate from 35% to 21%. So after the loopholes & their shady bullshit, they're very likely paying a lower effective tax rate than you are. Thanks to Trump, many paid no income taxes at all in 2018 like Amazon, Netflix, Chevron, IBM, Delta Airlines, General Motors, Whirlpool, Goodyear Tires, etc.

-Trump promised to reduce the deficit but he has actually raised it by a lot. When you decrease the amount of taxes coming in that drastically & you increase government spending that much, the deficit is going to increase. The Caronavirus situation has only exacerbated that problem but the problem was already there.

-Trump pulled out of the Iran deal, solely because Obama did it. And Mr. Art of the Deal did not even try to negotiate a new deal. 

- This great healthcare Trump promised hasn't happened. Less people have insurance now than when Trump first took office. Drug prices have only gone up. There have be cuts to Medicaid as well.

-Trump appointed a judge who clearly lied to congress & whom likely sexually assaulted someone. Why Trump did not pick a different conservative judge to nominate, I will never understand.

- Trump cut all the social safety net programs that help the poor & disabled: SSI Disability, Food Stamps, Medicaid, HUD, etc.

- Like it or not, Trump was technically impeached. He just wasn’t removed from office by the Senate because there are a bunch of scared Republicans who are too scared to do or say anything against Trump. Tribalism saved him. That’s it. Because he admitted on national television that he talked about Biden & his son on that phone call- you can even see the exact moment when he realizes he shouldn’t have said that. So, he did do what he was accused of.

-His administration is a revolving door of hiring & firing/quitting. Trump said he knew the best people so why would he need to fire so many of them? Think about how many people have come & gone. These are just some of the big names who left the administration but there are WAY MORE than I am listing: Rex Tillerson, Mike Pompeo, Scott Pruitt, Steve Bannon, John Bolton, Jeff Sessions, John Kelly, Anthony Scaramucci, Reince Priebus, Sean Spicer,  Sarah Sanders, James Mattis, Rick Perry, Nikki Haley, Dan Coats, Alexander Acosta, Scott Gottlieb, Bill Shine, Tom Price,  H.R. McMaster, Ryan Zinke, Mick Mulvaney, James Comey,  Sebastian Gorka, Omarosa Newman, Gary Cohn, Don McGahn, Rod Rosenstein, Michael Flynn, Sally Yates, Tom Homan, Ty Cobb, Tom Bossert, K.T. McFarland, Rob Porter, Dina Powell, Rick Dearborn, Matthew Whittaker, Ezra Cohen-Watnick, Hope Hicks, Brenda Firtzgerald, Rob Snyder, Michael Dubke, Sean Doocey, etc.

-This is kind of a minor point but it does illustrate Trump’s hypocrisy.  Trump criticized Obama for golfing so much & then Trump turns around & plays 2.6 times more golf than Obama in his first 2 years and 91 days & has cost the tax payer an estimated $74 million more than Obama. 

- Does it ever embarrass you how little Trump knows about anything? Ever notice how he never goes in depth talking about anything? Its all vague because he doesn’t know enough about healthcare or the Iran Deal or climate change to address it in any kind of depth. You still see that idiocy spill out regardles. During an interview for SiriusXM’s P.O.T.U.S. channel, Trump said that former President Andrew Jackson was angry about the Civil War. The only problem is, Jackson couldn’t have been angry about the war. He died in 1845. The Civil War was in 1861. Another example would be during a call with Canada’s prime minister, Justin Trudeau, Trump claimed Canada burned down the White House during the War of 1812. Canada didn’t exist as a country until 1867. That was the British... Trump also claimed General John J. Pershing dealt with Muslim terrorists by shooting them with bullets dipped in pig’s blood. That did not happen. The story began circulating the internet around the September 11 terrorist attacks. Apparently Trump believed it was factual, talking about it during his 2016 presidential campaign & again after a terror attack in Barcelona. Then, speaking to the conservative radio host Hugh Hewitt, Trump confused the Quds Force, a unit of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard, with the Kurds, the minority group battling ISIS in northern Iraq (who he would later abandoned). Maybe that confusion could be forgiven for an average Joe but if you’ president, you need to know stuff like that (especially given the region these two groups are in). Hence why most presidents study political science, law, or economics in college or at least, they bother to read up on this stuff. But Trump doesn’t really read. The only book he claims to have read was a biography about Andrew Jackson whom, he thought was mad about a war that happened 16 years after his death & he also seems to have missed the whole Trail of Tears thing.

-  By pulling out of the Iran Nuclear Deal & the Paris Climate Accord, Trump has isolated us from our allies. Our word means nothing anymore. And who can blame them for being pissed? Whether Iran has a nuclear weapon effect more than just us. Given the size of our nation, our refusal to take the looming threat of climate change seriously is a detriment to the entire world that can & likely will have devastating consequences for everyone. Furthermore, Trump trash talks our closest allies & has placed tariffs on nearly all of them. For example:

AUSTRALIA: Shortly after taking office, Trump reportedly berated then-Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull over an agreement between the U.S. and Australia involving refugee resettlement. 

CANADA: Trump also attacked Canadian President Justin Trudeau as “meek, mild, dishonest, & weak” during a conversation on trade at the G7 summit in 2018. He also threatened to withhold the U.S.’s signature from a joint communique from the meeting over the feud. Trudeau he also found it “insulting” that tariffs were placed on Canada under a rarely invoked law that allows levies to be placed on a country in the interest of national security. Since when is Canada a national security threat? 

DENMARK: Trump also went after Denmark’s Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen after she refused to sell him Greenland. She called the idea “absurd,” & Trump referred to her as “nasty & inappropriate.” The people that live there don’t want to become American. You can’t just buy a country on whim. Greenland belongs to Denmark but its semi-autonomous. 

FRANCE: Trump threatened to slap tariffs on French wine & called French President Emmanuel Macron “foolish” after he signed a digital services tax on tech companies making at least 750 MILLION EUROS annually, a figure which meant U.S.-based tech giants like Apple, Google, Facebook & Amazon would be included. 

GERMANY: Trump has had a particularly tumultuous relationship with German Chancellor Angela Merkel. The president has repeatedly threatened Germany with auto tariffs, saying if companies like BMW and Mercedes wanted to sell cars in the U.S., they should build them in the country. German Chancellor Angela Merkel on Friday criticized President Donald Trump's tweets about four Democratic congresswomen of color telling them to go back to where they came from. She said that the president's tweets contradict "the strength of America." "I distance myself firmly from this & feel solidarity with the women who were attacked," Merkel said. (Canada’s prime minister, Justin Trudeau also criticized Trump for the same thing).

JAPAN: Trump has lamented the U.S.’s responsibility to defend Japan if attacked, saying the alliance between Washington & Tokyo is uneven. Trump has also threatened Japan with auto tariffs, though it announced in May it was delaying any levies for six months. 

MEXICO: President Trump has repeatedly torn into Mexico, slamming it on trade but focusing much of his ire on the country over immigration. Trump has threatened America’s southern neighbor with tariffs over its alleged inaction in working to stem the flow of undocumented migrants in the U.S. And let’s face it, he doesn’t exactly talk about the Mexican people in the nicest way and stroked racial tensions.

SWEDEN: President Trump feuded with Swedish Prime Minister Stefan Löfven after American rapper A$AP Rocky was detained in Sweden & charged with assault following a June incident in Stockholm. Apparently Kanye West told Trump about it. 🙄 The rapper was ultimately released in & returned to the U.S AFTER he was convicted & had to pay a fine (plus time served).

UNITED KINGDOM: While Trump has bashed the United Kingdom over trade practices, threatening tariffs on one of the U.S.’s closest allies to rectify what he sees as an imbalance, he has directed much of his criticism toward the country’s handling of Brexit. He also attacked the UK's National Health Service, claiming it is "going broke & not working." That’s not true but its not really his business either way. Trump is so disliked in the UK that at one point, 75,000 protestors gathered in central London’s Trafalgar Square to protest U.S. President Trump’s visit to the U.K

SOUTH KOREA: The Trump administration is reportedly demanding South Korea pay 400% more for U.S. troops in the region- despite the fact that having a base in South Korea is essential as much for us as it is for them. We need a base near North Korea should we ever have to attack. Maybe raising it some is reasonable but raising anything 400% overnight is a little absurd.

I see failure & corruption in Trump. I see a danger to America. Feel free to try to change my mind.

[bountyofbeads]

http://nymag.com/intelligencer/amp/2019/10/the-full-case-for-trump-impeachment.html?__twitter_impression=true

The (Full) Case for Impeachment

A menu of high crimes and misdemeanors.

By Jonathan Chait | Published October 14, 2019 | New York Magazine | Posted October 15, 2019 |

The crimes for which impeachment is the prescribed punishment are notoriously undefined. And that’s for a reason: Presidential powers are vast, and it’s impossible to design laws to cover every possible abuse of the office’s authority. House Democrats have calculated that an impeachment focused narrowly on the Ukraine scandal will make the strongest legal case against President Trump. But that’s not Trump’s only impeachable offense. A full accounting would include a wide array of dangerous and authoritarian acts — 82, to be precise. His violations fall into seven broad categories of potentially impeachable misconduct that should be weighed, if not by the House, then at least by history.

I. Abusing Power for Political Gain

Explanation: The single most dangerous threat to any democratic system is that the ruling party will use its governing powers to entrench itself illegitimately.

Evidence: (1) The Ukraine scandal is fundamentally about the president abusing his authority by wielding his power over foreign policy as a cudgel against his domestic opponents. The president is both implicitly and explicitly trading the U.S. government’s favor for investigations intended to create adverse publicity for Americans whom Trump wishes to discredit.  (2) During his campaign, he threatened to impose policies harmful to Amazon in retribution for critical coverage in the Washington Post. (“If I become president, oh do they have problems.”) He has since pushed the postmaster general to double rates on Amazon, and the Defense Department held up a $10 billion contract with Amazon, almost certainly at his behest. (3) He has ordered his officials to block the AT&T–Time Warner merger as punishment for CNN’s coverage of him. (4) He encouraged the NFL to blacklist Colin Kaepernick.

II. Mishandling Classified Information

Explanation: As he does with many other laws, the president enjoys broad immunity from regulations on the proper handling of classified information, allowing him to take action that would result in felony convictions for other federal employees. President Trump’s mishandling of classified information is not merely careless but a danger to national security.

Evidence: (5) Trump has habitually communicated on a smartphone highly vulnerable to foreign espionage. (6–30)  He has reversed 25 security-clearance denials (including for his son-in-law, who has conducted potentially compromising business with foreign interests). (31) He has turned Mar-a-Lago into an unsecured second White House and even once handled news of North Korea’s missile launch in public view. (32) He gave Russian officials sensitive Israeli intelligence that blew “the most valuable source of information on external plotting by [the] Islamic State,” the Wall Street Journal reported. (33) He tweeted a high-resolution satellite image of an Iranian launch site for the sake of boasting.

III. Undermining Duly Enacted Federal Law

Explanation: President Trump has abused his authority either by distorting the intent of laws passed by Congress or by flouting them. He has directly ordered subordinates to violate the law and has promised pardons in advance, enabling him and his staff to operate with impunity. In these actions, he has undermined Congress’s constitutional authority to make laws.

Evidence: (34) Having failed to secure funding authority for a border wall, President Trump unilaterally ordered funds to be moved from other budget accounts. (35) He has undermined regulations on health insurance under the Affordable Care Act preventing insurers from charging higher rates to customers with more expensive risk profiles. (36) He has abused emergency powers to impose tariffs, intended to protect the supply chain in case of war, to seize from Congress its authority to negotiate international trade agreements. (37–38) He has ordered border agents to illegally block asylum seekers from entering the country and has ordered other aides to violate eminent-domain laws and contracting procedures in building the border wall, (39–40) both times promising immunity from lawbreaking through presidential pardons.

IV. Obstruction of Congress

Explanation: The executive branch and Congress are co-equal, each intended to guard against usurpation of authority by the other. Trump has refused to acknowledge any legitimate oversight function of Congress, insisting that because Congress has political motivations, it is disqualified from it. His actions and rationale strike at the Constitution’s design of using the political ambitions of the elected branches to check one another.

Evidence: (41) Trump has refused to abide by a congressional demand to release his tax returns, despite an unambiguous law granting the House this authority. His lawyers have flouted the law on the spurious grounds that subpoenas for his tax returns “were issued to harass President Donald J. Trump, to rummage through every aspect of his personal finances, his businesses and the private information of the president and his family, and to ferret about for any material that might be used to cause him political damage.” Trump’s lawyers have argued that Congress cannot investigate potentially illegal behavior by the president because the authority to do so belongs to prosecutors. In other litigation, those lawyers have argued that prosecutors cannot investigate the president. These contradictory positions support an underlying stance that no authority can investigate his misconduct. (42) He has defended his refusal to accept oversight on the grounds that members of Congress “aren’t, like, impartial people. The Democrats are trying to win 2020.” (43) The president has also declared that impeachment is illegal and should be stopped in the courts (though, unlike with his other obstructive acts, he has not yet taken any legal action toward this end).

V. Obstruction of Justice

Explanation: By virtue of his control over the federal government’s investigative apparatus, the president (along with the attorney general) is uniquely well positioned to cover up his own misconduct. Impeachment is the sole available remedy for a president who uses his powers of office to hold himself immune from legal accountability. In particular, the pardon power gives the president almost unlimited authority to obstruct investigations by providing him with a means to induce the silence of co-conspirators.

Evidence: (44–53) The Mueller report contains ten instances of President Trump engaging in obstructive acts. While none of those succeeded in stopping the probe, Trump dangled pardons and induced his co-conspirators to lie or withhold evidence from investigators. Former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen testified to Congress that Trump had directed him to lie to it about his negotiations with the Russian government during the campaign to secure a lucrative building contract in Moscow. And when Cohen stated his willingness to lie, Robert Costello, an attorney who had worked with Rudy Giuliani, emailed Cohen assuring him he could “sleep well tonight” because he had “friends in high places.” Trump has publicly praised witnesses in the Russia investigation for refusing to cooperate, and he sent a private message to former national-security adviser Michael Flynn urging him to “stay strong.” He has reinforced this signal by repeatedly denouncing witnesses who cooperate with investigators as “flippers.” (54–61) He has exercised his pardon power for a series of Republican loyalists, sending a message that at least some of his co-conspirators have received. The president’s pardon of conservative pundit Dinesh D’Souza “has to be a signal to Mike Flynn and Paul Manafort and even Robert S. Mueller III: Indict people for crimes that don’t pertain to Russian collusion and this is what could happen,” Roger Stone told the Washington Post. “The special counsel has awesome powers, as you know, but the president has even more awesome powers.”

VI. Profiting From Office

Explanation: Federal employees must follow strict rules to prevent them from being influenced by any financial conflict. Conflict-of-interest rules are less clear for a sitting president because all presidential misconduct will be resolved by either reelection or impeachment. If Trump held any position in the federal government below the presidency, he would have been fired for his obvious conflicts. His violations are so gross and blatant they merit impeachment.

Evidence: (62) He has maintained a private business while holding office, (63) made decisions that influence that business, (64) and accepted payments from parties both domestic and foreign who have an interest in his policies. (65) He has openly signaled that these parties can gain his favor by doing so. (66) He has refused even to disclose his interests, which would at least make public which parties are paying him.

VII. Fomenting Violence

Explanation: One of the unspoken roles of the president is to serve as a symbolic head of state. Presidents have very wide latitude for their political rhetoric, but Trump has violated its bounds, exceeding in his viciousness the rhetoric of Andrew Johnson (who was impeached in part for the same offense).

Evidence: (67) Trump called for locking up his 2016 opponent after the election. (68–71) He has clamored for the deportation of four women of color who are congressional representatives of the opposite party. (72) He has described a wide array of domestic political opponents as treasonous, including the news media. (73–80) On at least eight occasions, he has encouraged his supporters — including members of the armed forces — to attack his political opponents. (“I have the support of the police, the support of the military, the support of the Bikers for Trump — I have the tough people, but they don’t play it tough until they go to a certain point, and then it would be very bad, very bad.”) (81) He has threatened journalists with violence if they fail to produce positive coverage. (“If the media would write correctly and write accurately and write fairly, you’d have a lot less violence in the country.”) (82) There have been 36 criminal cases nationwide in which the defendant invoked Trump’s name in connection with violence; 29 of these cited him as the inspiration for an attack.

[dragoni]

Trump, President Barack Obama did do something!

Trump’s lies can not be allowed to be normalized or unanswered.

On August 15, 2016, Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson warned state-level elections officials to protect voting-related systems from cyber intrusions

In September 2016. President Obama personally confronted Putin at the G20 Summit. The photo is iconic, check it out

On October 31, 2016, President Obama warned Putin via the "red phone" to stop interfering in the election or face consequences

On Dec. 9, 2016, President Obama ordered the Intelligence Agencies to report on ordered a full review into hacking aimed at influencing US elections going back to 2008. Trumpsters that includes Russia’s cyberwarfare in 2016.

On Dec. 29, 2016, President Obama kicked out 35 Russian intelligence agents and imposed sanctions on Russia’s two leading intelligence services

Trump and his Campaign Team were  briefed repeatedly by US Intelligence Agency Chiefs that Putin personally ordered cyberattacks to help elect him in 2016. The last briefing was on Jan. 6, 2017, 2 weeks before the inauguration.

What did Trump do before being elected?

There’s more but this is sufficient for now.

Trump asked for Russia’s help to get Clinton’s emails: “Russia if you’re listening... “. Russia’s intelligence agencies then started attacking the DNC servers hours later.

Trump: “Wikileaks. I love Wikileaks”. Trump mentioned Wikileaks 164 times in last month of election, now claims it didn’t impact one voter 

Trump Tower Meeting with so many Russians. Shout out to Don Jr.

What has Trump done since?

Trump has been pOTUS since Jan. 21, 2017 and has done absolutely nothing to prevent Russia’s cyberwar on American elections especially the 2018 midterms.  #PsyOps

Trump has tried to kill the Russia Investigation. Fired Comey....list too long.

Trump has agreed to Putin’s PLAN to create a joint “Cyber Security Unit” to investigate election meddling by the country who’s guilty of the election meddling.

Trump has agreed to Putin’s PLAN to send Mueller’s Team to Russia to WATCH 12 indicted Russian agents being questioned. The same country guilty of election meddling.

Trump has agreed to Putin’s PLAN to allow Russia to interrogate Americans including Michael McFaul, the former U.S. ambassador to Russia.

Trump has done this: "adheres to their enemies, giving them aid and comfort within the United States or elsewhere”  #TreasonSummit

What has the Mueller Team being doing?

The Russian Witch Hunters have indicted 25 Russians including 12 Intelligence Officers

The Russian Witch Hunters have indicted FOUR former members of the Trump Campaign including Mike Flynn while he was Trump’s National Security Adviser.

Richard Gates, George Papadopoulos, Richard Pinedo and Alex van der Zwaan  are co-operating with Mueller.

What Putin Confirmed at the Helsinki Summit?

Reporter Jeff Mason: “President Putin, did you want President Trump to win the election and did you direct any of your officials to help him do that?”

President Putin:  “Yes, I did. Yes, I did. Because he talked about bringing the U.S.-Russia relationship back to normal.”

There’s another word that starts with “T” and it isn’t Trump

[diarrheaworldstarhiphop]

WASHINGTON — The White House has engaged in a slow-motion purge of hard-line officials at the National Security Council in recent weeks, angering conservatives who complain that the foreign policy establishment is reasserting itself over a president who had promised a new course.

The latest to go was Ezra Cohen-Watnick, who ran the N.S.C.’s intelligence division and, like others who have left, was originally appointed by Michael T. Flynn, President Trump’s first national security adviser. Mr. Flynn resigned in February after it was disclosed that he misled Vice President Mike Pence and others about a telephone call with Russia’s ambassador.

Lt. Gen. H. R. McMaster succeeded Mr. Flynn and has slowly tried to move out some of Mr. Flynn’s appointees. He initially tried to fire Mr. Cohen-Watnick earlier this year, only to be rebuffed by Stephen K. Bannon, the president’s chief strategist, and Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law and senior adviser. But Mr. Kushner dropped his opposition this week, according to someone with knowledge of the decision.

A fierce Trump loyalist, Mr. Cohen-Watnick drew attention when he and another White House official briefed Representative Devin Nunes, Republican of California and the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, on classified intelligence reports revealing that American intelligence agencies had conducted incidental surveillance of Mr. Trump’s transition team. The briefing was intended to bolster Mr. Trump’s unsubstantiated claim that President Barack Obama ordered phones tapped at Trump Tower.

Mr. Cohen-Watnick’s resignation was announced by the White House late Wednesday. “General McMaster appreciates the good work accomplished in the N.S.C.’s intelligence directorate under Ezra Cohen’s leadership,” a spokesman said in a statement. “He has determined that, at this time, a different set of experiences is best suited to carrying that work forward. General McMaster is confident that Ezra will make many further significant contributions to national security in another position in the administration.”

His departure follows several others last month. Tera Dahl, the deputy chief of staff at the N.S.C. and a former writer for Breitbart News, which was run by Mr. Bannon before he joined the White House staff, left for a post at the United States Agency for International Development.

Later in the month, in separate developments, Derek Harvey, the top Middle East adviser, and Rich Higgins, the director of strategic planning, were each pushed out.

Mr. Higgins was forced out after writing a memo arguing that Mr. Trump was being subverted by an array of foreign and domestic enemies, including globalists, bankers, officials of the “deep state,” Islamists and those questioning interactions between Trump campaign officials and Russia, according to a report in The Atlantic magazine.

All four officials were considered Trump allies who shared the antiglobalist views of Mr. Flynn and Mr. Bannon. General McMaster, whose relationship with the president has been strained at times, has long wanted to remove the pro-Flynn hard-liners from his staff. First to go was K. T. McFarland, a former Fox News analyst, who was pushed out as deputy national security adviser in May and nominated to be ambassador to Singapore.

The latest moves come at a time of heightened unease in the world, punctuated by North Korea’s recent intercontinental ballistic missile test, and continued uncertainty about the leadership and direction of the council, which was created to provide presidents with in-house guidance on foreign and military affairs.

Mr. Trump, according to several administration officials, has been considering a shake-up that could include appointing Mike Pompeo, the C.I.A. director, to take over as national security adviser, while sending General McMaster to command forces in Afghanistan. Such a move could earn General McMaster a fourth star.

NBC News reported on Wednesday that the president recently suggested that Gen. John W. Nicholson Jr., the commander of American-led forces in Afghanistan, be fired. White House officials have said the president has yet to decide on any new moves.

Mr. Trump has been considering a new strategy for Afghanistan, but it has become mired in his frustration over the options he has been given. General McMaster presented the president with a plan to bolster the effort in Afghanistan after a stormy meeting of national security officials, only to have Mr. Trump reject it. The president has publicly asked why the United States should still be in Afghanistan after nearly 16 years.

This was an article from August, 2017 describing the exorcism of the last anti-establishment elements of the Trump Presidency’s foreign policy.

Infamous neocon, Mitt Romney’s National Security advisor, fox news commentator and prowar hawk; John Bolton, will be succeeding McMaster as the third national security advisor in the Trump whitehouse.

[malenipshadows]

+ Tr*mp’s move marks a full embrace of the retired general he had ousted from the White House after only 22 days on the job — and a final salvo against the Russia investigation that shadowed the first half of his term in office. +  The pardon he granted Flynn, an early backer of his 2016 White House bid, underlines how Tr*mp has used his clemency power to benefit allies and well-connected offenders. White House officials said Tr*mp has been considering other pardons before leaving office, including possibly other former aides who were convicted of crimes as part of the special counsel probe of Russian interference in the 2016 campaign.

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

* * * *

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

January 8, 2021

Heather Cox Richardson

More information continues to emerge about the events of Wednesday. They point to a broader conspiracy than it first appeared. Calls for Trump’s removal from office are growing. The Republican Party is tearing apart. Power in the nation is shifting almost by the minute.

[Please note that information from the January 6 riot is changing almost hourly, and it is virtually certain that something I have written will be incorrect. I have tried to stay exactly on what we know to be facts, but those could change.]

More footage from inside the attack on the Capitol is coming out and it is horrific. Blood on statues and feces spread through the building are vile; mob attacks on police officers are bone-chilling.

Reuters photographer Jim Bourg, who was inside the building, told reporters he overheard three rioters in “Make America Great Again” caps plotting to find Vice President Mike Pence and hang him as a “traitor”; other insurrectionists were shouting the same. Pictures have emerged of one of the rioters in military gear carrying flex cuffs—handcuffs made of zip ties—suggesting he was planning to take prisoners. Two lawmakers have suggested the rioters knew how to find obscure offices.

New scrutiny of Trump’s “Stop the Steal” rally before the attack shows Trump’s lawyer Rudy Giuliani, Representative Mo Brooks (R-AL), Don Jr., and Trump himself urging the crowd to go to the Capitol and fight. Trump warned that Pence was not doing what he needed to. Trump promised to lead them to the Capitol himself.

There are also questions about law enforcement. While exactly what happened remains unclear, it has emerged that the Pentagon limited the Washington D.C. National Guard to managing traffic. D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser requested support before Trump’s rally, but the Department of Defense said that the National Guard could not have ammunition or riot gear, interact with protesters except in self-defense, or otherwise function in a protective capacity without the explicit permission of acting Secretary Christopher Miller, whom Trump put into office shortly after the election after firing Defense Secretary Mark Esper.

When Capitol Police requested aid early Wednesday afternoon, the request was denied. Defense officials held back the National Guard for about three hours before sending it to support the Capitol Police. Maryland Governor Larry Hogan, a Republican, tried repeatedly to send his state’s National Guard, but the Pentagon would not authorize it. Virginia’s National Guard was mobilized when House Speaker Nancy Pelosi called the governor, Ralph Northam, herself.

Defense officials said they were sensitive to the criticism they received in June when federal troops cleared Lafayette Square of peaceful protesters so Trump could walk across it. But it sounds like there might be a personal angle: Bowser was harshly critical of Trump then, and it would be like him to take revenge on her by denying help when it was imperative.

Refusing to stop the attack on the Capitol might have been more nefarious, though. A White House adviser told New York Magazine’s Washington correspondent Olivia Nuzzi that Trump was watching television coverage of the siege and was enthusiastic, although he didn’t like that the rioters looked “low class.” While the insurrectionists were in the Capitol, he tweeted: “Mike Pence didn’t have the courage to do what should have been done to protect our Country and our Constitution, giving States a chance to certify a corrected set of facts, not the fraudulent or inaccurate ones which they were asked to previously certify. USA demands the truth!” Even as lawmakers were under siege, both Trump and his lawyer Rudy Giuliani were making phone calls to brand-new Senator Tommy Tuberville (R-AL) urging him to slow down the electoral count.

After Trump on Wednesday night tweeted that there would be an “orderly” transition of power, on Thursday he began again to urge on his supporters.

With the details and the potential depth of this event becoming clearer over the past two days—Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas’s wife, Virginia, tweeted her support, and state lawmakers as well as Republican attorneys general were actually involved—Americans are recoiling from how bad this attempted coup was… and how much worse it could have been. The crazed rioters were terrifyingly close to our elected representatives, all gathered together on that special day, and they were actively talking about harming the vice president.

By Friday night, 57% of Americans told Reuters they wanted Trump removed from office immediately. Nearly 70% of Americans disapprove of Trump’s actions before the riot. Only 12% of Americans approved of the rioters; 79% of Americans described the rioters as “criminals” or “fools.” Five percent called them “patriots.”

Pelosi tonight said that she hoped the president would resign, but if not, the House of Representatives will move forward with impeachment on Monday, as well as with legislation to enable Congress to remove Trump under the 25th Amendment. The most recent draft of the impeachment resolution has just one article: “incitement of insurrection.” As a privileged resolution, it can go directly to the House without committee approval.

In the Senate, Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) has no interest in further splitting the Republicans over another impeachment, or forcing them onto the record as either for or against it. Timing is on his side: the Senate is not in session for substantive business until January 19, so cannot act on an impeachment resolution without the approval of all senators. It can take up the resolution then, but more likely it will wait until Biden is sworn in, at which point the measure would be managed not by McConnell, but by the new House majority leader, Chuck Schumer (D-NY). A trial can indeed take place after Trump is no longer president, enabling Congress to make sure he can never again hold office.

Whether or not the Senate would convict is unclear, but it’s not impossible. Senator Lisa Murkowski (R-AK), for one, is so furious she is talking of switching parties. “I want him out,” she says. Still, Trump supporters are now insisting that it would “further divide the country” to try to remove Trump now, and that we need to unify. Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX), who led the Senate effort to challenge Biden’s election, today tweeted that Biden was not working hard enough to “bring us together or promote healing” and that “vicious partisan rhetoric only tears our country apart.”

Trump, meanwhile, has continued to agitate his followers, and today began to call for more resistance, while users on Parler, the new right-wing social media hangout, are talking of another, bigger attack on Washington.

Tonight, Twitter banned Trump, stating: “we have permanently suspended the account due to the risk of further incitement of violence.” As evidence, it cited both his claim that his supporters would “have a GIANT VOICE long into the future,” and his tweet that he would not be going to Biden’s inauguration on January 20. Twitter says that Trump’s followers see these two new tweets as proof that the election was invalid and that the Inauguration is a good target, since he won’t be there. The Twitter moderators say that “plans for future armed protests have already begun proliferating on and off-Twitter, including a proposed secondary attack on the US Capitol and state capitol buildings on January 17, 2021.”

Twitter also took down popular QAnon accounts, including those of Trump’s former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn and his former lawyer Sidney Powell, who is having quite a bad day: the company that makes election machines, Dominion Voting Systems, announced it is suing her for defamation and asking $1.3 billion in damages. After taking down 7,000 QAnon accounts in July, Twitter continued by today taking down the account of the man who hosts the posts from “Q.”

While Twitter officials might well be horrified by the insurrection, the ban is also a sign of a changing government. With the election of two Democratic senators from Georgia this week, the majority goes to the Democrats, and McConnell will no longer be Majority Leader, killing bills. Social media giants know regulation of some sort is around the corner, and they are trying to look compliant fast. When Twitter banned Trump, so did Reddit, and Facebook and Instagram already had. Google Play Store removed Parler, warning it to clean up its content moderation.  

Trump evidently couldn’t stand the Twitter ban, and tried at least five different accounts to get back onto the platform. He and his supporters are howling that he is being silenced by big tech, but of course he has an entire press corps he could use whenever he wished. Losing his access to Twitter simply cuts off his ability to drum up both support and money by lying to his supporters. Another platform that has dumped Trump is one of those that handled his emails. The San Francisco correspondent of the Financial Times, Dave Lee, noted that for more than 48 hours there had been no Trump emails: in the previous six days the president sent out 33.

This has been a horrific week. If it has a silver lining, it is that the lines are now clear between our democracy and its enemies. The election in Georgia, which swung the Senate away from the Republicans and opens up some avenues to slow down misinformation, is a momentous victory.

—-

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

[darthkieduss]

Trump’s Rise to Power

How did Donald Trump rise to power? How did a sociopathic fat hairless ape become the most powerful man in the world?

It all started in the 1990s with Donald “Fat Donnie” Trump. A string of bankruptcies had left Fat Donnie a deadbeat on the street. But somehow, he keeps getting money. But where? According to Donald “Donny Douchebag” Trump Jr, the asshole that didn’t fall far from the fucking tree, said that “Russians make up a pretty disproportionate cross-section of our assets.” This was collaborated by his brother Eric “Short Bus” Trump, who told his friends that “We don’t rely on American banks. We have all the funding we need out of Russia.” BINGO! Sarah Palin might see Russia from her meth lab, but Fat Donnie can see it from his bank account. Eventually, Fat Donnie got bored with Melania and was ready to fuck someone new: ‘MURICA.

Meanwhile, in Russia, ex-KGB agent Vladimir “Vladdy Bats” Putin is looking to install a puppet in the country he still hates. But who? Who’s desperate and dumb enough? Take a wild guess...

So, according to the Steele Dossier, Vladdy Bats reached into his old bag of KGB tricks to blackmail and compromise Fat Donnie, not just with the bank loans, but by secretly filming him with Ivanna Goldenshower and her fellow prostitute Natasha Urinkostekstra.

In 2014, Vladdy Bats invades Ukraine, which causes US President Barack “Black Dumbo” Obama and his consigliere Hillary “The Nutcracker” Clinton to impose crippling economic sanctions on Russia, which scuttles a multi-million dollar deal for Black Sea oil between Russia and Exxon Mobile run by now Secretary of State Rex “I drink your milkshake” Tillerson. Coincidence? I think NYET.

Vladdy Bats doesn’t like his oil deal going south, so he fixes things in Washington by paying millions to Paul “Paulie Numbnuts” Manafort, now in prison for treason after being investigated by every agency in the US except William Morris. For good reason, he was so far up Putin’s ass, he could taste his lunch. So it raised eyebrows when one day, out of nowhere, he becomes campaign manager for Fat Donnie, even offers to do the job for free. Though word on the street is a Russkie was paying...

Also Paulie Numbnuts used to be partners at a lobbying firm with Fat Donnie’s albino assassin Roger Stone, who is secret Twitter pals with Guccifer, AKA Russian Intelligence. They’d been hacking the Democratic Party’s private emails and sending them to WikiLeaks founder Julian “Gay Richard Branson” Assange.

On October 7, 2016, at 1:03 p.m., the famous “Access Hollywood tape” is leaked, which in the old days of civility would’ve been Fat Donnie’s ticket to defeat. But 29 minutes later, WikiLeaks announces it’s suddenly come across a trove of DNC emails and releases the first 2,000. Every intelligence agency in America says the hack came from Russia. But Fat Donnie, covering for his puppet masters, doesn’t agree and says it could’ve been anybody, even a fat guy on his bed. Yeah, a lot of things could be, like the meeting Donny Douchebag set up with 8 Kremlin-connected Russians in the middle of the campaign that he said was about “adoptions”. BULLSHIT. Republicans don’t care about other people’s kids.

An email turned up addressed to Donny promising “Very high level and sensitive information [that is] part of Russia and its government’s support of Mr. Trump.” Donny Douchebag’s responded “I love it!”...because he’s a fucking idiot.

Also at the meeting were Paulie Numbnuts and Fat Donnie’s son-in-law Jared “The Jew” Kushner. Jared the Jew also needs Russian money to cover bad bets so he meets secretly with Russian ambassador and spy master Sergey “Big Potato” Kislyak, a meeting that also includes Michael “Mikey Head Case” Flynn, who had accepted buckets of money to “advise” Russia and then served as National Security Adviser to Fat Donnie before he had to resign after being caught lying about Russia to Vice President Mike “The Guard of the Hawk” Pence.

Everybody lies about knowing Big Potato except for Fat Donnie, who invites him right into the Oval Office with that shit-eating grin of his to yuck it up the day after he fired FBI Director James “Jimmy the Giant” Comey, the boy-scout election fucker who had been investigating the whole mess.

It all adds up. All we lack is a confession. But Donald Trump is a narcissistic psychopath. Part of narcissistic personality and anti-social personality disorders is the inability to admit wrong-doings. So unless more evidence comes up before November 2020, we’ll never be rid of Trump.

[bountyofbeads]

John Bolton Is Out as National Security Adviser

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/10/us/politics/john-bolton-national-security-adviser-trump.html

🚨 🚨 Breaking News: President Trump fired John R. Bolton, his third national security adviser, over differing approaches on Iran, North Korea and Afghanistan.

Trump: "I informed John Bolton last night that his services are no longer needed at the White House. I disagreed strongly with many of his suggestions, as did others in the Administration, and therefore........I asked John for his resignation, which was given to me this morning. I thank John very much for his service. I will be naming a new National Security Advisor next week."

Bolton:"I offered to resign last night and President Trump said, "Let's talk about it tomorrow.""

Trump Fires John Bolton as National Security Adviser

By Peter Baker | Published Sept. 10, 2019 Updated 12:18 p.m. ET | New York Times | Posted September 10, 2019 |

WASHINGTON — President Trump fired John R. Bolton, his third national security adviser, on Tuesday amid fundamental disagreements over how to handle major foreign policy challenges like Iran, North Korea and Afghanistan.

Mr. Trump announced the decision on Twitter. “I informed John Bolton last night that his services are no longer needed at the White House. I disagreed strongly with many of his suggestions, as did others in the Administration, and therefore I asked John for his resignation, which was given to me this morning. I thank John very much for his service. I will be naming a new National Security Advisor next week.”

His departure comes as Mr. Trump is pursuing diplomatic openings with two of the United States’ most intractable enemies, efforts that have troubled hard-liners in the administration, like Mr. Bolton, who view North Korea and Iran as profoundly untrustworthy.

The president has continued to court Kim Jong-un, the repressive leader of North Korea, despite Mr. Kim’s refusal to surrender his nuclear program and despite repeated short-range missile tests by the North that have rattled its neighbors. In recent days, Mr. Trump has expressed a willingness to meet with President Hassan Rouhani of Iran under the right circumstances, and even to extend short-term financing to Tehran, although the offer has so far been rebuffed.

To his admirers, Mr. Bolton was supposed to be a check on what they feared would be naïve diplomacy, a cleareyed realist who would keep a president without prior experience in foreign affairs from giving away the store to wily adversaries. But Mr. Trump has long complained privately that Mr. Bolton was too willing to get the United States into another war.

The tension between the men was aggravated in recent months by the president’s decisions to call off a planned airstrike on Iran in retaliation for the downing of an American surveillance drone and to meet with Mr. Kim at the Demilitarized Zone and cross over into North Korea.

Mr. Bolton favored the strike on Iran and publicly criticized recent North Korean missile tests that Mr. Trump brushed off. After the president arranged the DMZ meeting with Mr. Kim via a last-minute Twitter message, Mr. Bolton opted not to accompany him and instead proceeded on a previously scheduled trip to Mongolia.

The rift between the president and his national security adviser owed as much to personality as to policy. The president never warmed to him, a dynamic that is often fatal in this White House. Mr. Bolton also clashed with Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.

At its core, the schism reflected a deep-seated philosophical difference that has characterized the Trump presidency. While given to bellicose language, Mr. Trump came to office deeply skeptical of overseas military adventures and promising negotiations to resolve volatile conflicts. Mr. Bolton, however, has been one of Washington’s most outspoken hawks and unapologetic advocates of American power to defend the country’s interests.

A former under secretary of state and ambassador to the United Nations under President George W. Bush, Mr. Bolton, 70, never fully subscribed to Mr. Trump’s courtship of Mr. Kim and privately expressed frustration that the president was unwilling to take more meaningful action to transform the Middle East in the service of American interests.

Mr. Bolton was hamstrung in his ability to steer Mr. Trump in what he saw as the right direction. He also clashed with officials at the Defense Department. At one point, military officials expressed alarm at Mr. Bolton’s requests for contingency war plans.

While in office, Mr. Bolton sought to minimize his differences with the president in public. After Mr. Trump said he would be open to meeting with Mr. Rouhani and even to extending a line of credit to help Tehran get through its financial difficulties while talks proceeded, Mr. Bolton insisted that did not reflect a concession by the president.

“He’ll meet with anybody to talk,” Mr. Bolton told Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty. “He is a negotiator. He is a deal maker. But talking with them does not imply — for President Trump, does not imply changing your position.”

Appointed in spring 2018, Mr. Bolton followed Michael T. Flynn — who stepped down as national security adviser after 24 days and later pleaded guilty to lying to the F.B.I. — and his successor, Lt. Gen. H. R. McMaster, who never forged a strong connection with the president and was forced out.

In choosing Mr. Bolton, Mr. Trump appreciated his outspoken performances on Fox News and wanted a contrast to the current and retired generals who were perceived as running his foreign policy team. Mr. Bolton also had the strong backing of Sheldon G. Adelson, the casino magnate and Republican megadonor who is a key supporter of Mr. Trump.

Long before Mr. Trump popularized his “America First” slogan, Mr. Bolton termed himself an “Americanist” who prioritized a cold-eyed view of national interests and sovereignty over what they both saw as a fuzzy-headed fixation on democracy promotion and human rights. They shared a deep skepticism of globalism and multilateralism, a commonality that empowered Mr. Bolton to use his time in the White House to orchestrate the withdrawal of the United States from arms control treaties and other international agreements.

With Mr. Trump’s backing, Mr. Bolton likewise helped enact policies meant to pressure the Communist government in Cuba, reversing some but not all of the measures taken by President Barack Obama in a diplomatic opening to the island. Among other things, the Trump administration imposed limits on travel and remittances to Cuba and opened the door to lawsuits by Americans whose property was seized in the revolution in 1959.

But if Mr. Trump’s original national security team was seen as restraining a mercurial new commander in chief, the president found himself sometimes restraining Mr. Bolton. Behind the scenes, he joked about Mr. Bolton’s penchant for confrontation. “If it was up to John, we’d be in four wars now,” one senior official recalled the president saying.

Mr. Trump also grew disenchanted with Mr. Bolton over the failed effort to push out President Nicolás Maduro of Venezuela. Rather than the easy victory he was led to anticipate, the president has found himself bogged down in a conflict over which he has less influence than he had assumed. The political opposition backed by the White House could not turn Venezuela’s military against Mr. Maduro and has been stuck in a stalemate for months.

The divergence between the two men was on display in May during the president’s first trip this year to Japan. After Mr. Bolton told reporters then that “there is no doubt” that North Korean short-range missile launches violated United Nations resolutions, Mr. Trump dismissed the concern, still eager to preserve his strained relationship with Mr. Kim.

“My people think it could have been a violation, as you know,” the president told reporters. “I view it differently.”

Mr. Trump likewise repudiated an idea of working to overthrow the government of Iran, a goal Mr. Bolton long advanced as a private citizen. “We’re not looking for regime change,” Mr. Trump said. “I just want to make that clear.”

After Iran was accused in June of damaging two tankers with explosives and then shot down the drone, Mr. Bolton favored a demonstration of force. He facilitated a recommendation by the national security team for an airstrike against Iranian radar and other facilities, which Mr. Trump initially accepted only to change his mind at the last minute out of what he said was concern over casualties that would result.

Mr. Bolton’s later absence from Mr. Trump’s trip to the DMZ and hourlong meeting with Mr. Kim seemed conspicuous. Mr. Bolton’s staff said he was only following through on his schedule by going to Mongolia, but right or wrong, it was taken as a sign that he was not fully on board with the president’s diplomatic overture to North Korea.

[1765liberty]

Please consider sharing widely.

There has been increased pressure from the GOP and FOX lately on Mueller and his team and even rumors that Trump might try and fire Mueller and the GOP might try and shut down the House Intelligence Committee's investigation. There has also been a PR push by FOX and Sean Hannity to both discredit Mueller and try and claim his team is biased. Both FOX and the GOP have claimed that there is not a shred of evidence of collusion and that this is a witch hunt and a PR stunt.

Seth Abramson (who I've mentioned before) has gone and compiled the top PUBLIC evidence (not including what Mueller has available through his investigation) for you to provide any of your friends/family who claim this is all just made up:

#1: In March of 2016, Papadopoulos reveals to Trump—face-to-face—he's a Kremlin intermediary sent to establish a Trump-Putin backchannel (he says Putin is favorably disposed to Trump's candidacy). Trump then and there orders Gordon to coordinate a pro-Kremlin GOP platform change.

#2: In June 2016, Don Jr. knowingly attends a meeting with—and set up by—Kremlin agents. He asks the Kremlin for what he has reason to believe is illegally acquired Clinton material. Afterwards, he (allegedly) tells no one. When caught, he lies about every aspect of the meeting.

#3: In April, July and September of 2016 Sessions meets Russian Ambassador Kislyak in settings in which Russian sanctions are discussed. He holds the latter two meetings *after* it's known Russia is cyber-attacking America. He lies about these contacts under oath before Congress.

#4: Kislyak egregiously violates longstanding diplomatic protocol to attend—as a guest of the Trump campaign—a major Trump foreign policy speech. Having been invited to the speech as a VIP, Kislyak sits in the front row as Trump promises Putin's Russia "a good deal" on sanctions.

#5: Flynn—aided and abetted by Kushner and the full Presidential Transition Team—illegally conducts sanctions and resolution negotiations with Russia during the 2016 transition. When asked about it by the FBI, he lies. When the lies are published, no one on the PTT corrects them.

#6: Carter Page travels to Moscow under the guise of an academic conference—in fact, he meets with top Kremlin officials and top Rosneft executives, speaking with both about Russian sanctions just as the Steele Dossier alleges. When questioned about his activities, he lies on TV.

#7: Trump campaign manager Manafort and Sessions aide Gordon aggressively push to change the GOP platform to benefit Putin under direct orders from Trump. When asked about Trump's involvement, they lie to the media; when asked about their own involvement, they lie to the media.

#8: Shortly after the inauguration, it's revealed that Trump has been holding onto a secret plan to unilaterally drop all sanctions against Russia for months—a plan he's never before revealed, which would *reward* Russia for cyber-attacking America during a presidential election.

#9: When Trump learns the FBI Director plans to indict his ex-National Security Advisor, he fires him—first lying about his reason for doing so, then eventually admitting he did it due to "the Russia thing." Later—in an Oval Office conversation with Russians—he repeats the claim.

#10: In an Oval Office meeting into which no U.S. media are allowed (foreshadowing a meeting with Putin in which no U.S. translators would be allowed), Trump deliberately leaks classified Israeli intelligence to the Russians, who are allies of Israel's (and America's) enemy—Iran.

#11: In late 2016, Kushner and Flynn smuggle Kislyak into Trump Tower to secretly discuss the creation of a clandestine—Kremlin-controlled—Trump-Putin backchannel only a few principals would know about. The men don't disclose the meeting or plan, which would constitute espionage.

#12: In May 2016, Trump NatSec advisor Papadopoulos makes secret trips to Athens to make contact with Kremlin allies. During the second trip, Putin's also there—to discuss sanctions. It's his only trip to an EU nation during the campaign. Papadopoulos meets the same men as Putin.

#13: In 2013, Trump and Putin's developer sign a letter-of-intent to build Trump Tower Moscow—a deal requiring Putin's blessing that only goes forward when Putin dispatches to Trump his permits man and banker. Trump and principals lie about the deal—and events at the Ritz Moscow.

#14: Just before Trump's inauguration, Trump's lawyer Cohen and ex-Russian mobster Sater secretly meet with a pro-Russia Ukrainian politician to help ferry a secret Kremlin-backed "peace deal" to Flynn, Trump's National Security Advisor. All involved then lie about their actions.

#15: After it's publicly revealed Russia is waging cyberwar on America, Trump publicly and in all seriousness invites the Kremlin to continue cyber-attacking America if doing so will result in the theft and release of his opponent's private emails. He never retracts the request.

#16: Trump advisors Bannon, Prince, Flynn, Don Jr., Giuliani and Pirro are involved—to varying degrees—in leaking, sourcing, disseminating, and legitimizing a false "True Pundit" story that seeks to use fraud to blackmail the FBI into indicting Clinton. Russian bots pump it also.

#17: Trump's top advisors—including Manafort, Sessions, Flynn, Clovis, Page, Papadopoulos, Cohen, Sater, Don Jr, Kushner, Prince, Dearborn, Gordon, Gates, Stone and others—lie about or fail to disclose Russia contacts or key conversations on Russian efforts to collude with Trump.

#18: For many months after Trump begins his run, he is secretly working under a letter-of-intent with Russian developers to build Trump Tower Moscow. The deal—brokered by Cohen and Sater—allegedly falls apart only when Putin's top aide won't return an email from Trump's attorney.

#19: In 2008, Don Jr. privately tells investors that "a disproportionate percentage" of the Trump Organization's money comes from Russia—a fact later confirmed by Eric Trump. Trump Sr. then becomes the first presidential candidate in decades to refuse to release his tax returns.

#20: Though he's fully briefed on Russia's cyberwar against America in August 2016, Trump publicly denies it—calling the U.S. intel community Nazis—while accepting Putin's denials he's done anything wrong and proposing the U.S. create a cybersecurity task force with the Kremlin.

#21: Trump NatSec advisor Erik Prince secretly traveled to UAE at the command of the UAE's Royal Family so he could have a clandestine meeting *on Russia sanctions* with a top and Putin ally—the Russian Direct Investment Fund manager. Prince lied to Congress about all aspects of this.

#22: Trump NatSec advisor Flynn secretly worked with Trump pal Thomas Barrack and Iran-Contra criminal Robert "Bud" McFarlane to lobby Trump to drop Russia sanctions—the better to make money off a deal to bring nuclear technology to Saudi Arabia via Russian-built nuclear reactors.

#23: In 2002, Trump tried to rig the Miss Universe pageant—by leaning illegally on judges—to award the title to Miss Russia, whose two boyfriends at the time were a) one of the top real estate developers in Saint Petersburg, a market Trump wanted access to, and b) Vladimir Putin.

#24: In 2003, Trump was saved from bankruptcy by the sudden, miraculous appearance of Russian mobster Felix Sater in his orbit. Sater found Trump new partners and tenants—often, Russians—and they helped make Trump rich again. Trump then perjured himself over whether he knew Sater.

#25: Trump Campaign Manager Paul Manafort was secretly contacting Putin ally Oleg Deripaska during the 2016 presidential campaign, at one point promising him special access to the Trump campaign—and to Trump's thinking on Russia policy—via clandestine "briefings" on those topics.

#26: After it was revealed Don Jr. met Kremlin agents at Trump's house—Trump Tower—at a time Trump was in the building and meeting with Don, Jared, and Manafort on the same topics they met the Kremlin agents to discuss, Trump witness-tampered by writing his son's false statement.

#27: Trump's campaign hired Bannon/Mercer-run Cambridge Analytica to target voters via "psychographics." There's evidence Cambridge Analytica leaked its data to the Kremlin to aid its massive propaganda campaign. Emails *from Cambridge Analytica to WikiLeaks* have been discovered.

#28: *After* it was known Trump's NatSec team had met to talk Russia policy and receive orders from Trump on sanctions, Sarah Huckabee Sanders lied—from the White House—on how many times the team met. She said once—it was three times, plus innumerable group calls and email chains.

#29: Trump National Security Advisor Flynn dined with Putin in Moscow during the presidential campaign—*while he was advising Trump*. He admits they discussed Russia policy. The chances he didn't brief the man he was advising on what Putin said—and what Flynn said back—are *nil*.

#30: Trump selected as Secretary of State a man who didn't want the job, wasn't qualified, and has revealed himself to be as bad at it as anticipated. But Tillerson had one qualification—he's not just a Putin pal, but had received the *Russian Order of Friendship Medal* from him.

#31: During the presidential campaign—while he was a Trump NatSec advisor—Trump's future National Security Advisor Mike Flynn received tens of thousands of dollars directly from Kremlin propaganda network RT. He then lied about it on TV and failed to disclose it on federal forms.

#32: Months ago, both houses of Congress voted overwhelmingly—517 to 5—to impose new sanctions on Russia for its massive election interference campaign (correctly classified as "cyber-war") on the United States. Trump is now protecting Putin by refusing to impose those sanctions.

#33: Three of Trump's top NatSec advisors—Schmitz, Gordon, Page—went to Budapest in 2016. Budapest is the European HQ for Russia's FSB. It was Gordon's sixth trip to the tiny EU nation in recent years; Page admits meeting an unnamed Russian; *no one knows* what Schmitz was doing.

#34: In 2013, the Trumps developed close business and personal ties with the Agalarovs—a Kremlin-linked family of oligarchs who've acted as Putin agents before (including delivering gifts to Trump from Putin). Trump stayed in touch with them throughout the presidential campaign.

#35: Alexander Torshin—a Putin-linked Russian banker and "long-time Trump acquaintance"—met Trump at an NRA conference weeks before Trump announced his run, then tried to set up a secret Putin-Trump meet in May 2016. He then tried to secretly meet Trump at an event this February.

#36: At a time it was *widely known* that the way to reach Trump was to send an email to Hope Hicks—Trump doesn't use email—Russian intelligence did so several times, suggesting they felt Hicks and Trump would be amenable to the contacts. The FBI had to warn Hicks not to respond.

#37: In 2004, Trump bought a Miami mansion no one wanted for $40 million. After making no improvements to either the land or the property and failing to sell it for *four years*, in 2008 Russian billionaire Dmitry Rybolovlev—facing no competing offers—gave him $95 million for it.

#38: In 2014, Eric Trump told reporter James Dodson his father got "all the funding he needed" for his golf courses—a big part of his financial portfolio—from Russian banks. Dodson had no reason to lie, but Eric denied it vehemently—underscoring how dangerous that truth would be.

#39: Trump made his Campaign Manager a man who'd been out of politics for years and is known largely not just for working on behalf of Putin allies in Ukraine but having angled for years to do direct propaganda work for the Kremlin itself—outreach which has since been documented.

BONUS: Though he knows by August 2016 that Russia is committing crimes against America, Trump still lets his top NatSec advisor, Sessions, negotiate sanctions with Kislyak—presumably Trump's plan for a unilateral dropping of sanctions. This is Aiding and Abetting Computer Crimes.

BONUS: During the transition, Trump's son-in-law Kushner secretly meets with Putin's banker—after which discussion the two men disagree wildly as to what they discussed, suggesting that whatever the topic was, it was clandestine. Kushner won't reveal the meeting for many months.

BONUS: Advisors to the Trump campaign, including Trump Jr. and Stone, have contacts with WikiLeaks and/or Russian hackers—the timeline of which conversations dovetails perfectly with consequential changes in behavior by one or both of the parties (including Trump's stump speech).

BONUS: When Acting AG Yates warns Trump that Flynn—his National Security Advisor—has been compromised by Russia, Trump fires her and keeps Flynn on board for 18 days. Either he lies to Pence about what he knows on this or both Trump and Pence lie to America about their knowledge.

BONUS: Fears that the Kremlin recorded "kompromat"—blackmail—on Trump at the Ritz Moscow in November 2013 have been stoked by Trump's repeated lies about his trip, his bodyguard's confession it could've happened, and as many as eight witnesses found by the BBC and intel agencies.

BONUS: After Trump's son Don began engaging in a back-and-forth correspondence with Russian front-operation WikiLeaks in September 2016, the Trump campaign responded to WikiLeaks' pro-Trump overtures by inserting praise of WikiLeaks into then-candidate Trump's daily stump speech.

BONUS: The 4 ambassadors Trump invited to the VIP event before his first foreign policy speech (Mayflower Hotel, 4/27/16)—that'd be 4 of a possible 195—all *breached diplomatic protocol to attend* and were all from nations involved in Russia's sanctions-impacted Rosneft oil deal.

BONUS: Trump has repeatedly angled—almost *desperately*—for private meetings with Putin, including orchestrating pretenses for them. Each time they've met, they've exceeded the allotted time for such a meeting by 300% and breached protocol in how the meetings have been conducted.

[divulgacion-alternativa]

Ben Ful Links - February 8/2021

Ben Ful Links - February 8/2021:

P3 sources say Amazon founder Jeff Bezos is now the de facto Director calling the shots as interim caretaker, so-called President Joe Biden is holding his oval office appearances at the Castle Rock, Amazon Studios in Culver City, California.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d3bx42MrtZw

Also, on February 3rd, the U.S. and Japanese military were staging a live-fire drill at a training ground near Mt.  Fuji when a massive fire erupted that raged uncontrolled all night.  It was briefly reported in the Japanese media before a news black-out was enforced.  None of our contacts was willing to talk about what happened but it looks like they were attacked, probably by the Chinese. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LqczipCW1j0&feature=youtu.be

However, according to Japanese military intelligence, the Chinese Communist Party is about to lose power.  The reason is that the Taiwan faction, connected to the old Ming, Sung, and Tang royal families, has activated its 8 million secret society members in mainland China.  They did this in reaction to the attempted invasion of Taiwan and because the CCP killed millions of people in Wuhan with their ill-advised 5G activation.  This means the people of China and the U.S. are fighting the same Satanic enemy.

This is what this entire Covid-19 bio-warfare campaign against the people of the planet is all about.  For example, take a look at how Egypt punished slaves and damaged their brains to make them more docile and then compare it with “Covid-19 tests.” https://twitter.com/DeannaSpingola/status/1356349883251351554

Then look at the nano-devices they are putting into people’s brains using this intrusion. https://www.naturalnews.com/2021-02-01-swab-tests-microdevices-secretly-vaccinating-hesitant.html#

This is the real enemy we are fighting.

Also, in case you haven’t figured it out yet, here is more proof Covid-19 is a fraud. https://twitter.com/DeannaSpingola/status/1356349883251351554

Furthermore, if you do not think the pedophilia stuff is real, take a look at what took place in just one Catholic orphanage.  Young boys were sold as sex objects over decades.  For sure, this was not an isolated incident, child sex slavery, etc. was systematic and took place all over the world. https://www.thedailybeast.com/german-nuns-sold-orphaned-children-to-sexual-predators-says-report

https://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2021/02/04/forbes-attacks-mercola.aspx

In another example, establishment Republican insider Ruben A. Verastigui was arrested last night for allegedly soliciting possessing, and distributing extremely violent child pornography depicting infants being raped by adult men, police say.  He was quoted as saying “when a baby screams it’s my favorite.” https://nationalfile.com/when-a-baby-screams-its-my-favorite-establishment-republican-insider-mtg-hater-arrested-for-child-pornography/

We are fighting back, and fighting hard.  For example, Mario Marín, who governed the central state of Puebla from 2005 to 2011 is the first governor arrested for acts of torture against journalists and linked, furthermore, with a ring of trafficking girls and boys, https://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/mexico-arrests-governor-case-tortured-journalist-75685936

The Russians are doing their part by successfully using an ordinary flu vaccine to replace the DNA altering vaccine being pushed by the Satanists. https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/russias-sputnik-v-covid-vaccine-surprise-global-hit

Also, the systematic removal of all people involved in the Covid 19 crime is continuing according to MI6 and Russian FSB sources.  That is certainly why Andrew Brooks a research professor at Rutgers University who developed the first saliva test for the coronavirus has unexpectedly died at the age of 51.

https://nypost.com/2021/02/01/rutgers-researcher-creator-of-covid-19-saliva-test-dead-at-51/

Worldwide, meanwhile, as Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei tweeted “The post-U.S.  era has started.” https://twitter.com/khamenei_ir/status/1358464064322691078?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw

Let’s also keep in mind recent developments such as U.S. General Michael Flynn speaking on February 6th in a 50-minute interview where he said, “We have to accept the situation as it is and now we have to do something about it.”  Flynn noted that if they are trying to impeach Donald Trump then “you must still call him Mr. President because you can only impeach a sitting president.”  He also noted, “People do not believe the nonsense coming out of our current government.”  Flynn previously said he was 100% confident in the future outcome so let’s see where that goes.

https://www.youtube.com/embed/Gvd96tP4FMA

He may be providing some misdirection for operational security as the public is now able to view a summary of key evidence in the “Absolute Proof” presentation likely to be used in Trump’s defense during the upcoming impeachment trial.  It implicates many foreign nations of hacking the vote in a feeding frenzy with captured real-time IP addresses and vote tabulation. https://rumble.com/vdlebn-mike-lindell-absolute-proof-exposing-election-fraud-and-the-theft-of-americ.html

The P3 is promoting Bezos as a believer in meritocracy who wants to colonize space. https://abcnews.go.com/Business/blue-origin-jeff-bezos-unveils-lunar-lander-mission/story?id=62941981

That is why “the European oil giants Total, BP and Shell have been buying up assets along the EV charging value chain.  The latest news is that Shell has agreed to buy 100% of the European charging network ubitricity.”

https://www.naturalnews.com/2021-02-07-gm-kristin-zimmerman-clean-energy-95percent-coal.html#

https://chargedevs.com/newswire/oil-companies-buying-up-ev-charging-networks-shell-acquires-ubitricity

In India as well, farmers are blocking roads all over the country to stop Prime Minister Narendra Modi from impoverishing them and selling them out to the interests of Fortune 500 agribusinesses. https://www.reuters.com/article/india-farms-protests/update-1-un-urges-maximum-restraint-as-india-farm-protesters-widen-blockade-idUSL1N2KC03L

On a final note this week, the Chinese New Year this year will last for 16 days starting on February 12th.  This means March is when big things will happen.  That is when Asian secret societies say they’ll be ready to reopen negotiations with Western secret societies over the future of the planet.  Their basic stance is “no conflict, no confrontation, mutual respect, and win-win cooperation to focus on cooperation and manage differences.” http://www.xinhuanet.com/english/2021-02/08/c_139729794.htm

--------------------------------------------------------------

[cockerspaniel90]

The complete list of Donald Trump’s pardons and commutations Fri, December 25, 2020, 1:37 PM EST As of Dec. 24, President Trump has issued clemency in the form of pardons or commutations to more than 90 people, from relatively obscure white-collar or nonviolent drug offenders to the famous (conservative commentator Dinesh D’Souza; Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio) and the infamous (four security contractors with the Blackwater firm who murdered more than a dozen civilians in Iraq). Other presidents have issued more pardons, and some of them have been controversial, including Bill Clinton’s last-second pardon for financier Marc Rich, a well-connected Democratic donor who was living in Switzerland as a fugitive and faced numerous criminal charges in the U.S. In the days just before Christmas, Trump issued 45 pardons, including one to Charles Kushner, the father of Trump’s son-in-law and adviser Jared Kushner, and to Trump’s own close associates Paul Manafort and Roger Stone, who had been convicted of crimes related to the 2016 campaign, leading to speculation that the pardons were a reward for their refusing to give evidence to investigators that could have implicated Trump.It is widely believed that Trump will issue more pardons before he leaves office on Jan. 20, including to family members who have not been charged with any crimes — or to himself. Here, in no particular order, is a list of the people given clemency by Trump: Michael Flynn Flynn, a retired Army lieutenant general, had pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI about his contacts with the Russian ambassador to the United States. He was fired from his job as Trump’s national security adviser for lying Vice President Mike Pence about those contacts. Paul Manafort Paul Manafort President Trump's one-time campaign manager Paul Manafort arriving at Manhattan Supreme Court, June 27, 2019. (Timothy A. Clary/AFP via Getty Images) The campaign manager for Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign, Manafort was convicted in 2018 of committing financial fraud in relation to his business dealings in Russia, and for his attempts to hide his crimes from investigators. George Papadopoulos In connection with special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into the Trump campaign’s contacts with the Russian government, Papadopoulos, a foreign policy adviser, also pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI. He served a 14-day prison sentence in 2018. Story continues

https://www.yahoo.com/news/the-complete-list-of-donald-trumps-pardons-and-commutations-183713910.html

[malenipshadows]

“Court-appointed adviser in Michael Flynn case says Justice Dept. yielded to corrupt ‘pressure campaign’ led by Trump”

(an excerpt of story) by Spencer S. Hsu of The Washington Post. Published online 9-11-2020.

+ A retired federal judge accused the Justice Department on Friday (9-11-2020) of yielding to a pressure campaign led by Pres-ident Tr*mp in its bid to dismiss the prosecution of former national security adviser Michael Flynn for lying to federal investigators. + In a 30-page court filing in Washington, D.C., former New York federal judge John Gleeson called Attorney General William P. Barr’s request to drop Flynn’s case a “corrupt and politically motivated favor unworthy of our justice system.” + “In the United States, Presidents do not orchestrate pressure campaigns to get the Justice Department to drop charges against defendants who have pleaded guilty — twice, before two different judges — and whose guilt is obvious,” said Gleeson, who was appointed by the court to argue against the government’s request to dismiss the case. + Gleeson’s filing set the stage for a potentially dramatic courtroom confrontation Sept. 29 with the Justice Department and Flynn’s defense over

the fate of the highest-ranking Tr*mp adviser to plead guilty in special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s Russia investigation. Friday’s filings echo earlier arguments from Gleeson, who called the Justice Department’s attempt to undo Flynn’s conviction a politically motivated and “a gross abuse of prosecutorial power.” U.S. District Judge Emmet G. Sullivan of the District of Columbia set the hearing date after a federal appeals court upheld his authority to review and rule on the government’s dismissal request on Aug. 31. The hearing before Sullivan was selected from three dates proposed by the parties and is scheduled the same day as the first presidential debate between Tr*mp and Democratic nominee Joe Biden. + Flynn’s lawyer Sidney Powell on Friday called Gleeson’s filing “predictable and meaningless,” saying again that Flynn’s investigation was “corrupt from its inception.” + The Justice Department has argued that the executive branch has sole constitutional authority over prosecutorial decisions and that courts cannot “look behind” its decision-making or motives. + Flynn, 61, awaits sentencing after pleading guilty in December 2017 to lying in an FBI interview on Jan. 24 that year to conceal conversations during the presidential transition with Sergey Kislyak, then the Russian ambassador to the United States. The conversations related to securing potential relief from U.S. sanctions once Trump took office. Flynn repeated the lie to White House staff and Vice President Pence, leading to the firing of Tr*mp’s first national security adviser three weeks later. + Although Flynn cooperated with the Mueller probe and was prepared to be sentenced December 2018, he switched course after Mueller’s investigation ended and Barr took office last year. Flynn then accused prosecutors and his former attorneys of coercing him into pleading guilty and concealing FBI misconduct, claims that the department and Sullivan rejected. (Remainder omitted.)

[xtruss]

The Trump White House Has Entered Its Final Stage: Complete Meltdown

— By Richard Wolffe | Guardian USA | December 21, 2020

Rudy Giuliani points to a map as he speaks to the press about various lawsuits aimed at overturning the 2020 election. Also pictured is Trump attorney Sidney Powell. Photograph: Drew Angerer/Getty Images

Trump has retreated to the proverbial bunker with an ‘elite strike force’ of wingnuts and lackeys. They’re all he’s got left

The last days of the Trump presidency increasingly resemble the fictional presidency in the movie Monsters vs Aliens.

In case you missed this 2009 animated masterpiece, President Hathaway (voiced by Stephen Colbert) responds to an alien invasion with a team of unlikely heroes, among them a giant-sized TV reporter from Modesto, a cockroach-turned-mad-scientist, and an enormous blob of Jell-O.

One of the running gags is that the president has installed two red buttons in his situation room. One is to make his morning latte, the other to launch all his nuclear weapons. He can never remember which is which.

In the final month of Donald Trump’s time in the Oval Office, he has at last assembled his own team of outsized odds and ends, self-aggrandizing wingnuts, and brainless lumps of gelatin. You can decide for yourself if this latest incarnation of his “elite strike force” of advisers is more likely to launch all the nuclear weapons or make a fresh cup of coffee.

At the center of the team to save Planet Trump are the unhinged characters of Sidney Powell and Michael Flynn, who reportedly met with the soon-to-be-ex-president in the White House over several hours on Friday.

Both Powell and Flynn have previously been fired by the reality TV star turned president – who, after all, built a public persona around firing people on The Apprentice. But on Planet Trump, firings are not as final as they appear to be, which surely means it’s not too late for the Mooch to extend his 10-day record of service to the nation.

Powell was ejected from the elite strike force of lawyers just one month ago for her outlandish claims that Joe Biden won the presidential election with mysterious “communist money” and the support of the long-deceased Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez.

But that was so November. Now, as the New York Times first reported, Powell’s outlandish claims are the basis for Trump’s desire to name her as special counsel to investigate the Venezuelan plot.

Trump’s attorney general, Bill Barr, told reporters on Monday that he saw no need to name a special counsel to investigate either the election or Biden’s son Hunter.

But it is only a matter of time before Powell disinters the Chavismo corpse once more. Specifically, a couple of days: Barr leaves his office on Wednesday, mysteriously a few weeks before everyone else in the Trump administration.

Friday’s surreal bull session included Michael Flynn, Trump’s first national security adviser, who has the distinct honor of having been fired by both Obama and Trump – a rare point of agreement between the yin and yang of the American presidency. Flynn lied to Mike Pence and the FBI about his conversations with the Russian ambassador, pleading guilty to the felony as part of the Mueller investigation.

Newly pardoned by the man who fired him, Flynn is now reportedly advocating for Trump to invoke martial law to rerun the election. This would normally be key to executing a Chavista coup, but is obviously now the victim of a Chavista coup.

One of the ringleaders of this madcap gang is Patrick Byrne, the former CEO of Overstock, who left the online retailer last year claiming that he had romanced a Russian agent on behalf of “the Men in Black”. Good luck making sense of that, or Byrne’s latest venture: what he calls “a team of hackers and cybersleuths and other people with odd skills”. For Trump’s favorite news channel, OAN, this constitutes an “elite cybersecurity team”.

It’s quite possible that “elite” means something else on Planet Trump. It’s also possible there are giant-sized TV reporters in Modesto.

This is the self-defeating, nonsensical house that Trump built

Byrne, who tweeted that he was part of the long White House session with Flynn and Powell, says that Trump is being lied to by his own advisers and that his buddy can still win the election he so clearly lost.

“It is 100% winnable. No martial law required,” he tweeted. “Sydney [sic] and Flynn presented a course that I estimate has 50%-75% chance of victory. His staff just try to convince him to do nothing but accept it. As a CEO, my heart broke to see what he is going through. He is betrayed from within.”

It must have been heartbreaking to sit in the bunker, watching reason and the constitution push their way into the conversation, while our brave reality TV star battled against his own disloyal lackeys.

Sadly the sickness is not confined to the Oval Office and will outlive its current occupant. Back on Earth, there is no chance of Trump successfully ordering the military to intervene in the election, and no chance of Congress overturning the electoral college. But these pesky facts won’t stop the Trumpista movement that is now the Republican party.

Take Clay Higgins, the duly elected representative for Louisiana’s third district. Higgins is a reserve law enforcement officer with a strained relationship to reality, having made his name videoing outlandish Crime Stoppers messages that his own sheriff told him to stop.

“If Biden is inaugurated as the 46th President of the United States on January 20th, it will mark the final hour of conspiracy to dismantle the American election process, and the first hour of conspiracy to dismantle America,” Higgins tweeted on Sunday.

Normal presidents treat their final weeks in office like a presidential marshmallow test. While they may want, desperately, to opine about everything the president-elect is doing, they delay their gratification for their memoirs.

They may be hoping for a post-presidential mission or at least some post-presidential reassessment of their place in history. But they maintain a dignified silence to buy themselves a little dignity after leaving office.

That’s clearly not the Trump plan. There are no post-presidential missions, or historical reassessments. There are only more outrageous threats and tweets to cap a brief political career overflowing with outrageous threats and tweets.

This is the self-defeating, nonsensical house that Trump built.

“What idiot designed this?” President Hathaway asks his advisers about the twin red buttons in Monsters vs Aliens.

“You did, sir,” says a general.

“OK. Then go fire someone,” the president shoots back.

Soon, there will be nobody left to fire. Or rehire. There will just be a Donald Trump, surrounded by a room full of wackadoodle theories with no staff to pretend to take them seriously.

— Richard Wolffe is a Guardian US columnist