Thursday, August 31, 2017

Lawfare's Benjamin Wittes: DONALD TRUMP It’s Time: Congress Needs to Open a Formal Impeachment Inquiry

(Still in the process of packing, moving, and unpacking.)


Please go to Infidel753's blog and read his indepth analysis:   "Some thoughts on impeachment." 

Then read Benjamin Wittes' article from Lawfare below.


It’s Time: Congress Needs to Open a Formal Impeachment Inquiry






Last Tuesday, the New York Times published a foggy story noting that Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell "has mused about whether Mr. Trump will be in a position to lead the Republican Party into next year’s elections and beyond." 

 The time for musing has passed. It’s now time to begin a serious conversation about the impeachment and removal of President Trump by opening a formal impeachment inquiry. 

 The evidence of criminality on Trump’s part is little clearer today than it was a day, a week, or a month ago. But no conscientious member of the House of Representatives can at this stage fail to share McConnell’s doubts about Trump’s fundamental fitness for office. 

As the Trump presidency enters its eighth month, those members of Congress who are serious about their oaths to "support and defend the Constitution" must confront a question. It’s not, in the first instance, whether the President should be removed from office, or even whether he should be impeached. It is merely this: whether given everything Trump has done, said, tweeted and indeed been since his inauguration, the House has a duty, as a body, to think about its obligations under the impeachment clauses of the Constitution—that is, whether the House needs to authorize the Judiciary Committee to open a formal inquiry into possible impeachment. 

 It’s not a hard question. Indeed, merely to ask it plainly is also to answer it.






Wednesday, August 30, 2017

We interrupt today's post to present a moment of clarity brought to you by Republican Rep. Duncan Hunter of Alpine, California





Reported in the San Diego Union Tribune: 




Rep. Duncan Hunter, one of Donald Trump’s first allies in Congress, described the president in profane terms to a group of Republicans on Friday, but also touted the president as their champion. 

“He’s just like he is on TV,” Hunter, R-Alpine, told the group. “He’s an asshole, but he’s our asshole.” 

Hunter’s salty assessment was recounted by four people who were present when the congressman spoke at a Riverside County Young Republicans meeting in a Murrieta sports bar. 

Three spoke on the record with attribution, while one source spoke on the condition of anonymity. 

Others who were there made posts about Hunter’s comments on social media as well. 

 Hunter’s chief of staff did not respond to emails for comment. His voice mailbox was filled and could not accept more messages. 

The House is on recess until Sept. 5.




Why yes. Yes, Trump is the Republicans' asshole. 


Thank you for your insightful observation, Representative Hunter!



And in Trump's continuing quest to out-asshole every asshole in the country...


"Perhaps the most memorable moment of the day came when Trump marveled at the size of his audience, saying in Corpus Christi, “What a crowd, what a turnout.” 

Apparently, in the president’s mind, what mattered during his brief visit to Texas was the number of locals who wanted to see him. Some initial accounts suggested Trump had made the comments to storm victims, but that wasn’t quite right – because he didn’t meet with any victims. Rather, the president thought it’d be a good idea to host an impromptu rally against the backdrop of a deadly natural disaster. 

 A Washington Post analysis noted, “Yet again, Trump managed to turn attention on himself.” 

The piece added that as of late yesterday, “the president had yet to mention those killed, call on other Americans to help or directly encourage donations to relief organizations.” 

 Indeed, a Dallas Morning News reporter, on hand for Trump’s brief visit, noted that the president made no mention of those killed, injured, or displaced by the storm. 

Former Bush/Cheney Press Secretary Ari Fleischer, hardly a liberal provocateur, conceded that empathy for the hurricane’s victims was “missing from what President Trump said.”

"Wow! What a crowd! What a turnout!"



IT'S ALWAYS, ALWAYS ABOUT HIM.


The so-called POTUS was absolutely giddy with excitement as he surveyed the crowd in Corpus Christi, Texas, on Tuesday afternoon. His supporters were there to see the 30 Percent President, and that's all that mattered to the malignant narcissist. I don't recall seeing him or his runway model wife greeting or speaking with any of the victims of Harvey's devastation.

Both Lord Dampnut and his consort used their appearances as a product placement opportunity to sell their $40 hats that are for sale only on Lord Dampnut's website.

What better time or place for the Trumps to make a profit than during an epic catastrophic flood? If there's money to be made, why not? Lord Dampnut was elected by many Americans because he is a businessman, and why shouldn't he make money anywhere he can while presidenting? Even if it's during a disaster?

Here are Lord Dampnut's inspiring words to the people in Texas who've lost everything, except their lives:



"We want to be looked at in five years, in 10 years from now as, this is the way to do it,” the president said on Tuesday. “We want to do it better than ever before.”



How comforting to the victims of the flood to hear that their preznit will be praised years from now for doing a heckava job!  

And selling hats.


Tuesday, August 29, 2017

Another Trump Lie




Did we mention that #45 is a mendacious swine? And that the 30 percenters who still support him are worse than he is. 

Dear Mr. Mueller, here's another piece of the Trump- Russia scandal.










Trump's business tried to open Trump Tower in Moscow during campaign: report


Members of the Trump Organization and investors nearly reached a deal to open a Trump Tower in Moscow during the 2016 presidential race, according to a new report. Trump’s company and investors signed a letter of intent to open up a massive development as part of the Trump brand but dropped the deal in January 2016 after they failed to get the land and permits to launch the project, 

The Washington Post reported Sunday. Felix Sater, a Russian-born developer, also encouraged Trump to visit Moscow to hear about the proposal and promised he could get Russian President Vladimir Putin to say “great things” about Trump, according to the Post.



Donald Trump sought deal for Trump Tower in Moscow while running for president, report says  



Donald Trump faces allegations his company sought a development deal in Moscow while he was campaigning.  

President Donald Trump tried to cut a deal to build a Trump Tower in Moscow during the lead-up to the presidential primaries in late 2015 and early 2016, according to The Washington Post.

The Post reported that Mr Trump and Russian-born real estate developer Felix Sater exchanged emails about the project while Mr Trump was campaigning for the presidency. 

 The newspaper said investors and Mr Trump's company had signed a letter of intent to build a Trump Tower in Moscow but the project, lacking land and permits, was abandoned at the end of January 2016, just before the US presidential primaries began, according to several people familiar with the proposal.


Booman has more on this Trump-Russia scandal:

Trump Has Been Lying About Sater and Russia

FLOTUS, Melania Trump, shows America what an elite wears to a catastrophe of epic proportions!

Who wears 6-inch stiletto heels to view a Once-in-500-years epic disaster of a flood?


Does the FLOTUS think it's really that important to look like Donnie's eye candy even in a catastrophe?

If there ever was a modern-day Marie Antoinette, Melania is it. Sunglasses, a bomber jacket and 6-inch stilettos, because looking like a run-way model is how an out of touch elitist billionaire's wife arrives to witness  a disaster that displaced hundreds of thousands of suffering Americans. Melania's ridiculous outfit says more about her than anything she's done so far, as FLOTUS..

Melania:  FAIL.  BIGLY.




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From a victim of the Houston disaster:


Melania Trump in the new Hurricane Harvey SS17 runway collection. 

Who doesn't need a pair of 6 inch stilettos to wade through waist deep water? I mean, you can't comfort a suffering city without reminding them that at the end of the tunnel is a squinting white lady to receive you in her Air KneeBreak black heels. 

And her dumbass, thumbs-up-giving buffoon of a husband. I don't know about you, but I'm feeling comforted already, knowing Squinty McGee and Squirrelwig McRacistpants are coming to Houston's rescue.

Sunday, August 27, 2017

Hurricane Harvey's Devastation


How you can help:



The American Red Cross, a humanitarian organization that provides emergency assistance and disaster relief in times of crisis, and is seeking donations to help victims of Harvey. 

 The organization is urging people to call 1-800-RED CROSS or text HARVEY to 90999 to make a $10 donation for those in need.


























Image result for houston flooding






Did I mention that the 30 percenters' preznit is an embarrassing man-child who hasn't a empathetic bone in his overfed, bloated body?






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Friday, August 25, 2017

Trump Pardons Arpaio

UPDATE:


Ryan breaks with Trump on Arpaio pardon

"The speaker does not agree with the decision,” Ryan's spokesman Doug Andres told The Wall Street Journal. “Law-enforcement officials have a special responsibility to respect the rights of everyone in the United States. We should not allow anyone to believe that responsibility is diminished by this pardon.”



If Joe Arpaio accepts Trump pardon he is admitting crimes against US, Constitution says. An innocent man would refuse pardon on principle


Makes perfect sense.





Trump pardons Arpaio, who was convicted of criminal contempt


Sally Yates:



With his pardon pen, POTUS reveals his own contempt for our Constitution, our courts, and our founding principles of equality and justice.









Mayor Greg Stanton (D) of Phoenix (Arpaio’s old jurisdiction) just issued a statement that will offer inspiration in the face of this horrifying news: 

 “Pardoning Joe Arpaio is a slap in the face to the people of Maricopa County, especially the Latino community and those he victimized as he systematically and illegally violated their civil rights. 

“Sheriff Joe Arpaio targeted and terrorized Latino families because of the color of their skin. He was ordered by a federal judge to stop and he refused. He received a fair trial and a justifiable conviction, and there’s nothing the President can do to change that awful legacy and the stain he has left on our community. 

“This is not a proud day for Phoenix, but I’m proud that our city is moving on and moving forward from the divisiveness that defined the Arpaio era. 

Donald Trump can ignore the rule of law, but it was our voters who removed Joe Arpaio from power.”

FRIDAY NIGHT BREAKING STORIES

Two big Russiagate stories breaking Friday: 




NBC News reports that Independent Counsel Robert Mueller has issued grand jury subpoenas this week for testimony concerning ties between Trump campaign officials and foreign entities. Paul Manafort is in the crosshairs. 

Special Counsel Robert Mueller issued grand jury subpoenas in recent days seeking testimony from public relations executives who worked on an international campaign organized by Paul Manafort, people directly familiar with the matter told NBC News. 

 This is the first public indication that Mueller’s investigation is beginning to compel witness testimony before the grand jury — a significant milestone in an inquiry that is examining the conduct of President Donald Trump and his son-in-law and senior adviser, Jared Kushner, among others. 

 It is also further indication that Manafort, Trump’s onetime campaign chairman, could be in serious legal jeopardy. According to one executive whose firm received a subpoena, Mueller’s team is closely examining the lobbying campaign, which ran between 2012 and 2014. Some of the firms involved in the campaign received subpoenas for documents weeks ago, the executive said, and now the Mueller team is seeking testimony. 

 “We think they are trying to figure out, was this a legitimate project?” the executive said. “From our perspective it was — we did a lot of work. We took it seriously.”
GROSS NEGLECT AND INCOMPETENCE:


No agency heads for FEMA or NOAA . . . and here comes Harvey.






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Thursday, August 24, 2017

STARK RAVING MAD TRUMP


STARK RAVING MAD TRUMP:   "So the -- and I mean truly dishonest people in the media and the fake media, they make up stories. They have no sources in many cases. They say "a source says" -- there is no such thing. But they don't report the facts. Just like they don't want to report that I spoke out forcefully against hatred, bigotry and violence and strongly condemned the neo-Nazis, the White Supremacists, and the KKK."


Stark raving mad Trump lied and left off the words "many sides, many sides, believe me," which blames the protesters for protesting dirty rotten murderous Nazis. The media reported that correctly, and Trump told a fake story about it at his rally, where he sounded stark, raving mad.




STARK RAVING MAD TRUMP WHINED: You know why? Because they are very dishonest people. So I said, racism is evil. Now they only choose, you know, like a half a sentence here or there

See above where STARK RAVING MAD LIAR TRUMP quoted only half a sentence here or there of what he said.






STARK RAVING MAD TRUMP: "...and then they just go on this long rampage,


Stark raving mad Trump went on a 77 minute-long rampage in Phoenix on Tuesday night complaining about the media that did not conduct a long rampage.

Did I mention that Trump- is a liar?





STARK RAVING MAD TRUMP:  "...or they put on these real lightweights all around a table that nobody ever heard of, and they all say what a bad guy I am."

Stark raving mad Trump is not JUST a "bad guy," but he's also a stark raving MAD BAD guy.





STARK RAVING MAD TRUMP:  "But, I mean do you ever see anything -- and then you wonder why CNN is doing relatively poorly in the ratings."

FAKE news from stark raving mad Trump. CNN is doing just fine. The New York Times and Washington Post are NOT failing and MSNBC is beating the ratings panties off of FAUX NOOZ.





STARK RAVING MAD TRUMP:  "Because they're putting like seven people all negative on Trump. And they fired Jeffrey Lord, poor Jeffrey. Jeffrey Lord. I guess he was getting a little fed up, and he was probably fighting back a little bit too hard."

Jeffrey Lord wrote "Sieg Heil" in a tweet. That's what Nazis say. Poor Jeffrey? Stark raving mad Trump feels sorry for scumbucket Jeffrey Lord. 






STARK RAVING MAD TRUMP:   "And you know I mention that, but to the best of my knowledge when there was a big problem, Barack Obama never said it took place because of radical Islamic terrorists, he never said that, right."

Stark raving mad blame-monkey Trump always manages to blame President Obama for Trump's rank stupidity and gross behavior because he's a malignant narcissist and a pissant crybaby.






And here's the redoubtable Charlie Pierce addressing stark raving mad Trump's stark raving mad supporters:


"Before we get to the other stuff, and there was lots of other stuff, I'd like to address myself to those people...who waited for hours in 105-degree heat so that they could have the G-spot of their irrationality properly stroked for them. 

You're all suckers. 

You're dim and you're ignorant and you can't even feel yourself sliding toward something that will surprise even you with its fundamental ugliness, something that everybody who can see past the veil of their emotions can see as plain as a church by daylight, to borrow a phrase from that Willie Shakespeare fella. 

The problem, of course, is that you, in your pathetic desire to be loved by a guy who wouldn't have 15 seconds for you on the street, are dragging the rest of us toward that end, too. 

 A guy basically went mad, right there on the stage in front of you, and you cheered and booed right on cue because you're sheep and because he directed his insanity at all the scapegoats that your favorite radio and TV personalities have been creating for you over the past three decades. 

 It was a deadening, numbing 77 minutes. (If there's one modern orator he most resembles, it's Fidel Castro.) 

The abiding feelings that I took away from this carnival of the Id were twofold: first, that this jefe manqué is on the verge of sending people infinitely better than he is to die in a war he doesn't understand, and second, and probably most important, this is a president* who is scared to death. He's frightened of the responsibilities of his office, of the mounting unpopularity of both himself and his policies, and of the hounds baying at the frontiers of his shady past and shadier present. He's terrified, and he should be. He's desperately shoring up the bubble that his ovine followers helped him build to insulate him from the truth and from empirical reality.



 READ THE WHOLE THING!

Wednesday, August 23, 2017

“Well, I never heard it before, but it sounds uncommon nonsense.”

(Light posting this week. Mr. Shaw Kenawe in hospital again, also, going through a move.)











Donald Trump is madder than the Mad Hatter in Alice in Wonderland:





Here Are The Wildest Moments From Trump’s Wild Arizona Rally






In Arizona, Trump Shows He Can't and Won't Be President


On Tuesday evening, Trump came to Phoenix, Arizona, for a campaign rally, disregarding the calls by many—including that city’s mayor, Greg Stanton—to stay away. Speaking for more than an hour to a large and friendly crowd, Trump complained about the media, taunted liberal protesters and maligned Arizona’s two senators, both of whom are Republicans. 


In place of compassion, he showed selfishness. In place of seriousness, petulance. In doing so, Trump proved definitively that he has no interest in being presidential, and that while he enjoys the spectacle that is the campaign trail, he has little use for the trappings of the presidency itself.

 

Monday, August 21, 2017

PATH OF THE TOTAL ECLIPSE OF THE SUN



Here in Boston, we'll have a 63% eclipse of the sun.






Image result for eclipse of the sun

Saturday, August 19, 2017

America is Proud of Boston

UPDATE:


Boston Police: "We had 40K standing tall against bigotry & hatred in our city & that's a good feeling" 

Fox News (Fake News): It was violent  FAUX NOOZ LIES. 

Out of 40,000 people, 33 arrested. And the hooligans who disrespected the police were probably outside agitators who came to make Boston look bad. They didn't succeed. 

Boston made Massachusetts and America proud:

"A total of 33 arrests were made Saturday, mostly from disorderly conduct and a few assaults on police officers, the Boston Police Department announced. Police Commissioner William Evans said at a news conference this afternoon that some urine-filled bottles were thrown at officers, and police indicated on Twitter that some demonstrators were throwing rocks at police. 

 But for the most part, Evans said, the day of direct action went off smoothly as police planned, with very little injury and property damage. 

"Overall I thought we got the First Amendment people in, we got them out, no one got hurt, no one got killed," he said. 

 Police did stop three people with ballistic vests and a gun, Evans said, "but we were lucky to get those three out of here and confiscate the vests." Evans said roughly 40,000 people descended on Boston Saturday, "standing tall against hatred and bigotry in our city, and that's a good feeling." 

He added that he wished the "trouble makers stayed away," who he said weren't there for either the free speech side or the counterprotesters' side, but "were here just to cause problems."

 Evans said that "99.9 percent of the people here were for the right reasons -- that's to fight bigotry and hate."




Saturday, August 19, 2017


What happened in Boston today was a peaceful demonstration AGAINST Trump, the alt-right and the Nazis he sympathizes with. No anti-police agitators were there.*

*According to Boston Police Commissioner, Bill Evans, the anti-police agitators were probably outside goons who came to make trouble. 

Trump is a known liar. His tweet below is just another one of his many lies that promotes his banality of evil.


"What he said was always the same, expressed in the same words. The longer one listened to him, the more obvious it became that his inability to speak was closely connected with an inability to think, namely, to think from the standpoint of somebody else. No communication was possible with him... because he was surrounded by the most reliable of all safeguards against the words and the presence of others, and hence against reality as such. "
-- Hannah Arendt on Eichmann, The Banality of Evil




Trump tried to stir up division among the American people once again because 20,000  40,000 people came out in Boston to counter his messages of hate.









Looks like many anti-police agitators in Boston. Police are looking tough and smart! Thank you.

Ah, Boston, You're My Home!













Anti-racism protesters totally eclipsed Boston's right-wing Free Speech rally





Provocative ‘Free Speech’ Rally In Boston Railroaded By Counterprotesters 

The alt-right rally ended early.



BOSTON ― A week after a white supremacist at a rally in Virginia killed one person and injured more than a dozen others, thousands of counterprotesters in Boston turned out to oppose participants of a self-described “free speech” rally with a message of their own: White supremacy has no place in this country. Crowds marched to gather at the historic Boston Common park, where the rally was being held, with swarms of people chanting “make racists afraid again” and “who defends the Nazis? Trump defends the Nazis!” 

The rally remained peaceful, and the number of counterprotesters dwarfed the dozens or so of those who came in support of the alt-right rally.

















Images via HuffPost

Image may contain: 4 people, people standing, crowd and outdoor

Friday, August 18, 2017

OUT!

But possibly on speed dial?

Is this John Kelly's doing?

Who will replace Bannon? One commenter at P.E. guessed David Duke.

Anything's possible with the Maniac-in-Chief and this chaotic White House.






This was sent to me by a fb friend "Cool photo of Bannon leaving the White House":








Also, this: