Trump Timeline ... Trumpocalypse

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[xy5jn0]

James Comey Just Outed Loretta Lynch For Wanting To Halt Investigation Into… |

 

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Michael Scally MD]

Kushner’s reported plan is evidence of an extreme cynicism about “organs of the state,” said Hayden, and a belief that government institutions only serve the self-interests of the president currently in power. The apparent implication of such a Kremlin link was that the Trump team trusted Russian agents more than the outgoing Obama administration or the U.S. intelligence community.

“What degree of suspicion of the existing government, what degree of contempt for the administration they were replacing would be required again to think this was an acceptable course of action?” he asked.

Hayden added: “It says an awful lot about us as a society that we could actually harbor those kinds of feelings that the organs of the state would be used by my predecessor to come after me or ... to disrupt my administration in a way that made it seem legitimate to me to use the secure communications facilities of a foreign power — a foreign power that some in government alleged you were cooperating with to affect the American election.”

It’s evidence, he added, that “we are in a really dark place as a society.”

 

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Michael Scally MD]

“Jared is doing a great job for the country,” he said. “I have total confidence in him. He is respected by virtually everyone and is working on programs that will save our country billions of dollars. In addition to that, and perhaps more importantly, he is a very good person.”

But in recent weeks, the Trump-Kushner relationship, the most stable partnership in an often unstable West Wing, is showing unmistakable signs of strain.

That relationship had already begun to fray a bit after Mr. Trump’s dismissal of the F.B.I. director, James B. Comey, which Mr. Kushner had strongly advocated, and because of his repeated attempts to oust Stephen K. Bannon, Mr. Trump’s chief strategist, as well as the president’s overburdened communications team, especially Sean Spicer, the press secretary.

It has been duly noted in the White House that Mr. Trump, who feels that he has been ill served by his staff, has increasingly included Mr. Kushner when he dresses down aides and officials, a rarity earlier in his administration and during the campaign.

The most serious point of contention between the president and his son-in-law, two people familiar with the interactions said, was a video clip this month of Mr. Kushner’s sister Nicole Meyer pitching potential investors in Beijing on a Kushner Companies condominium project in Jersey City. At one point, Ms. Meyer — who remains close to Mr. Kushner — dangled the availability of EB-5 visas to the United States as an enticement for Chinese financiers willing to spend $500,000 or more.

For Mr. Trump, Ms. Meyer’s performance violated two major rules: Politically, it undercut his immigration crackdown, and in a personal sense, it smacked of profiteering off Mr. Trump — one of the sins that warrants expulsion from his orbit.

In the following days during routine West Wing meetings, the president made several snarky, disparaging comments about Mr. Kushner’s family and the visas that were clearly intended to express his annoyance, two aides said. Mr. Kushner did not respond, at least not in earshot.

His preppy aesthetic, sotto voce style and preference for backstage maneuvering seemingly set him apart from his father-in-law — but the similarities outweigh the differences. Both men were reared in the freewheeling, ruthless world of real estate, and both possess an unshakable self-assurance that is both their greatest attribute and their direst vulnerability.

Mr. Kushner’s reported feeler to the Russians even as President Barack Obama remained in charge of American foreign policy was a trademark move by someone with a deep confidence in his abilities that critics say borders on conceit, people close to him said. And it echoes his history of sailing forth into unknown territory, including buying a newspaper at age 25 and developing a data-analytics program that he has said helped deliver the presidency to his father-in-law.

He is intensely proud of his accomplishments in the private sector and has repeatedly suggested his tenure in Washington will hurt, not help, his brand and bottom line.

 

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Mister Sandman]

"The lengths to which President Trump’s supporters will go to convince themselves that his many gaffes and off-the-wall statements – almost always made with no basis in truth or reality – are all not only acceptable for the “Leader of the Free World,” but somehow constitute an improvement on past occupants of the Oval Office office, is truly astonishing." [...]

"A popular pastor decided enough was enough.
A popular pastor decided enough was enough. In a blog post he titled “No, White Friend—You Weren’t ‘Embarrassed’ by Barack Obama,” Pastor John Pavlovitz demolishes any moral equivalency Trump’s mostly white, mainly Christian supporters try desperately to maintain when forced to face the painful juxtaposition of the current embarrassment in the White House and his articulate, measured, highly competent predecessor. And he exposes their not-so-thinly veiled racism in the process.

- I remember the day after the Election, a friend of mine who happens to be white, remarked on social media that he “finally wasn’t embarrassed of America and our President.”

I sprained my eyes rolling them and they have never fully recovered.

Since then I’ve heard this sentiment echoed by more white folks than I can count, especially in recent months; supposed relief at once again having a leader who instills pride.

Since I don’t have the time to ask each of the individually, I’ll ask here:

So, you were embarrassed for the past 8 years, huh?

Really?

What exactly were you embarrassed by?

Were you embarrassed by his lone and enduring twenty-five year marriage to a strong woman he’s never ceased to publicly praise, respect, or cherish?

Were you embarrassed by the way he lovingly and sweetly parented and protected his daughters?

Were you embarrassed by his Columbia University degree in Political Science or his graduating magna cum laude from Harvard Law School?

Maybe you were embarrassed by his white American and Black Kenyan parents, or the diversity he was raised in as normal?

Were you embarrassed by his eloquence, his quick wit, his easy humor, his seeming comfort meeting with both world leaders and street cleaners; by his bright smile or his sense of empathy or his steadiness—perhaps by his lack of personal scandals or verbal gaffes or impulsive tirades?

No. Of course you weren’t.

Honestly, I don’t believe you were ever embarrassed. That word implies an association that brings ridicule, one that makes you ashamed by association, and if that’s something you claim to have experienced over the past eight years by having Barack Obama representing you in the world—I’m going to suggest you rethink your word choice.

You weren’t “embarrassed” by Barack Obama.

You were threatened by him.
You were offended by him.
You were challenged by him.
You were enraged by him.

But I don’t believe it had anything to do with his resume or his experience or his character or his conduct in office—because you seem fully proud right now to be associated with a three-time married, serial adulterer and confessed predator; a man whose election and business dealings and relationships are riddled with controversy and malfeasance. You’re perfectly fine being represented by a bullying, obnoxious, genitalia-grabbing, Tweet-ranting, Prime Minister-shoving charlatan who’s managed to offended all our allies in a few short months. And you’re okay with him putting on religious faith like a rented, dusty, ill-fitting tuxedo and immediately tossing it in the garbage when he’s finished with it.

None of that you’re embarrassed of? I wonder how that works.

Actually, I’m afraid I have an idea. I hope I’m wrong.

Listen, you’re perfectly within your rights to have disagreed with Barack Obama’s policies or to have taken issue with his tactics. No one’s claiming he was a flawless politician or a perfect human being. But somehow I don’t think that’s what we’re talking about here. I think the thing President Obama did that really upset you, white friend—was having a complexion that was far darker than you were ever comfortable with. I think the President we have now feels much better.

Because objectively speaking, if what’s happening in our country right now doesn’t cause you great shame and doesn’t induce the continual meeting of your palm to your face—I don’t believe embarrassment is ever something you struggle with.

No, if you claimed to be “embarrassed” by Barack Obama but you’re not embarrassed by Donald Trump—I’m going to strongly suggest it was largely a pigmentation issue.

And as an American and a Christian committed to diversity and equality and to the liberty at the heart of this nation—that, embarrasses me."

 

[Mister Sandman]

And may I remind all these conservative bigots that seem not to want to remember that Jesus was a semite and a Jew. He certainly had dark skin, brown eyes and black hair. God chose Him to be born in the Jewish state, not among the blond Saxons or blue eyed Germanic races. His mother was a very young Jewess who came from a noble family of High Priests, whilst Joseph, if one believes the Gospels , was of the city and of the family of David. That is to say, he too had noble blood. All these white conservatives who think of Jesus as a blond, blue eyed aryan, are completely mistaken. He looked more like an arab, more like a Syrian refugee than a Trump supporter..

That is for those who believe in Christianity of course ...

 

[Michael Scally MD]

LONDON — At the Trump National Golf Club outside Washington, which hosted the Senior P.G.A. Championship this weekend, the president’s coat of arms is everywhere — the sign out front, the pro shop, even the exercise room.

The regal emblem, used at President Trump’s golf courses across the United States, sports three lions and two chevrons on a shield, below a gloved hand gripping an arrow.

A different coat of arms flies over Mr. Trump’s two golf resorts in Scotland. The lions on the shield have been replaced by a two-headed eagle, an image the company has said represents the “dual nature and nationality” of Mr. Trump’s Scottish and German roots.

But this emblem was not just about honoring his heritage.

The British are known to take matters of heraldry seriously, and Mr. Trump’s American coat of arms belongs to another family. It was granted by British authorities in 1939 to Joseph Edward Davies, the third husband of Marjorie Merriweather Post, the socialite who built the Mar-a-Lago resort that is now Mr. Trump’s cherished getaway.

 

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Michael Scally MD]

Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), the chairman of the Judiciary Committee, is calling for an investigation into “potentially fraudulent statements and misrepresentations” made by a Chinese company promoting investments in property partly managed by White House adviser Jared Kushner's family's company.

 

[Michael Scally MD]

To believe Donald Trump, you must believe two largely contradictory things.

You must believe that there are a slew of leakers in the executive branch who are providing damning details to the press illegally, and who must be rooted out and punished. (See tweets here, here, here, here and here.)

You must also believe that the press makes up imaginary leakers simply to slowly and incrementally report false stories that are tangentially embarrassing to the president. The most recent examples of Trump making that case came on Sunday (“Whenever you see the words ‘sources say’ in the fake news media, and they don’t mention names,” he said on Twitter, “it is very possible that those sources don’t exist but are made up by fake news writers. #FakeNews is the enemy!”), but he’s been railing against this idea that some media sources are not real since the campaign. (See tweets here and here.)

The result is that we end up with a president who at 8:33 a.m. says that it’s his opinion “that many of the leaks coming out of the White House are fabricated lies made up by the #FakeNews media,” and then at 10:43 a.m. says that the prime minister of the United Kingdom was mad about information that was leaked.

Trump, unlike most politicians and, frankly, most people, will nonchalantly argue two logically inconsistent points at the same time.

 

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Michael Scally MD]

[Trump Punk ...] Watch & *look at Putin's face* — you do not need to speak French to feel the daggers Macron throws at Putin over his propaganda machine lies.

 

[Michael Scally MD]