Trump Timeline ... Trumpocalypse

[Michael Scally MD]

Senior European officials admit that however good their cooperation may be with counterparts in the Trump administration, the president’s unpredictability looms too large over decision-making. We have now entered the third stage of the great European disbelief. It could be called the “Angela Merkel was right” stage, in a nod to the German chancellor’s statement after the NATO and Group of 7 meetings last May that “we Europeans must really take our destiny into our own hands.”

American officials keep trying to reassure their puzzled European interlocutors: “Don’t look at the tweets, look at what we do.” Repeated over and over, it is truly an extraordinary line. Think of representing your administration and telling foreigners every day: Ignore our president. But that’s a pipe dream. This president cannot be ignored because he is already profoundly transforming international relations, well beyond promoting unilateralism at the expense of multilateralism.

Will there be a trade war? Maybe not. Yet last week’s assault from the White House, like a bolt from the blue, is a taste, for Washington’s European and Canadian allies, of how low the trans-Atlantic relationship can go under President Trump. Western partners of the United States cannot expect to be treated any better than China. When Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross said on ABC on Sunday, “There is a lot of history that needs to be undone,” he was addressing trade relations. To Europeans, this has a deeper meaning. It is post-World War II history that is being undone — the very history that the United States built, the foundation of the Western alliance.

Mr. Trump earlier pulled the United States out of the Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal as part of his “America First” doctrine. The TPP is now back, revived by its 11 remaining members — without America. A world where the United States led multilateral trade agreements is ending. But nations still engage in multilateral trade pacts, as the European Union has done with Japan and Mercosur, the South American trade bloc. The United States is just not part of them.

President Trump has also pulled his country out of the Paris accord on climate change. Signatory countries are finding ways to go around this defection by working with more cooperative partners — American cities, states, corporations — just as they’ve done with trade.

 

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Michael Scally MD]

TAMPA — In May of last year, the Tampa Bay Times asked the U.S. Department of Agriculture to provide the three most recent inspections of 15 puppy breeders who supply Tampa-area stores.

It took nine months, but the reply arrived last week: 54 pages of total blackout.

Every word of every inspection — from the date to the violations — were redacted from the documents provided. Providing "personnel and medical files," the agency said, would "constitute a clearly unwarranted invasion of personal privacy."

These records used to be available on the USDA website for anyone to search and find. But in the first month after President Donald Trump took office, the information was scrubbed entirely from the website.

Why does that matter to Floridians? Because state lawmakers are now considering legislation that would null any local ordinance that prohibits the sale of dogs from a USDA-licensed breeder.

 

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Michael Scally MD]

This is the first of two excerpts adapted from https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B075WVX3MS?tag=hacboogrosit-20 (Russian Roulette: The Inside Story of Putin’s War on America and the Election of Donald Trump) (Twelve Books), by Michael Isikoff, chief investigative correspondent for Yahoo News, and David Corn, Washington bureau chief of Mother Jones.

 

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Michael Scally MD]

President Trump is upset with White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders for her handling on Wednesday of questions about allegations that the president once had an affair with adult-film actress Stormy Daniels.

CNN's Jim Acosta reported that Trump is "very unhappy" with his press secretary after she acknowledged at a press briefing on Wednesday that Trump has been involved in a legal dispute with Daniels stemming from her allegations.

A source reportedly told Acosta that, by acknowledging that an arbitration proceeding was won in Trump's favor, Sanders "gave the Stormy Daniels storyline steroids yesterday."

 

[Michael Scally MD]

TRUMP TRAMPS
https://claytoonz.com/2018/03/08/trump-tramps/

Make America great again, my ass. When the Trump era is finally over, we’re going to have to hose America down again. I want that cap.

We thought Bill Clinton sullied the office by traipsing around with an intern. Who woulda thunk that we could get nastier than finding a president’s DNA on a blue dress….or any dress for that matter? Leave it to Donald Trump to do just that.

Republicans were outraged over Clinton’s affair with Monica Lewinsky. They campaigned that it was an erosion of family values, blah, blah, blah. Apparently, to Republicans, the only thing worse than a Democratic president in a torrid sex scandal is a black president. No sex scandal. Just that the president is black. Because, when if you listened to Republicans over the past several years, a black president, married to one woman, with two children from that same individual woman, and lives by ethics, principles, and loyalty, is so much worse than a dishonest Republican cheating on his wife with a porn star.

It’s alleged that Trump had an affair with Stormy Daniels in 2006, but forget that alleged stuff. She said she can describe his junk perfectly, which would explain why she’s had the night terrors since 2006. She has even hinted she has photos, which brings up two questions: Where are they and why? For the love of god and all that is holy….WHY?

Days before the election, Trump’s lawyer Michael Cohen paid Stormy $130,000 through a shell company in Delaware (there’s at least one reason to go to Delaware). He had Stormy sign an agreement that she would never talk about it, and he has claimed he paid the money himself and wasn’t reimbursed by Trump or his campaign. The White House says Trump doesn’t know anything about it.

There’s a couple of problems, at least a couple, with that. Lawyers don’t settle claims without their client’s involvement or permission. Paying someone off to help a political candidate is a campaign contribution. If it goes unreported, as this has, it’s a crime.

Stormy has sued the president in a California court seeking to speak publicly on the matter. She claims her hush contract is void because the president never signed it. In fact, the president’s name isn’t on the contract. It’s attributed to David Dennison, which is presumably a fake name for Trump. I guess Trump thought it would be tacky to use his usual pseudonym, Barron, as that’s also the name of his son, who his wife was pregnant with at the time of the affair. Two points for Trump for not dragging his son’s name into an affair with a porn star. But, even David Dennison didn’t sign the contract. Stormy didn’t sign the contract either, nor did she in her real name, Stephanie Clifford, but as “Peggy Peterson.” They’re fighting over a contract that was signed and unsigned by people who do not exist.

On Wednesday, Sarah Huckabee Sanders told the press that Trump won an arbitration proceeding to prevent Stormy from talking. Wait, what? An arbitration proceeding?

Court cases are public. Arbitration proceedings are not. We would not have known about this arbitration proceeding if Sanders hadn’t told us. Thanks, Sarah. You really are worth every penny we’re paying you. But, if Trump isn’t involved then how does the White House know about this arbitration proceeding, and….how did Trump win if he’s not a part of it? Do you just like winning so much that you’ll claim wins you weren’t a part of, like Obama’s economy? Do you like winning so much that you’ll out the president’s affair with a porn star? Sarah Huckabee Sanders basically gave Viagra to Trump’s porn star scandal. Did I just put a horrible image in your head? It’s what I do, folks.

Trump doesn’t have a good track record with blondes. Ivanka is now being investigated by Robert Mueller for shady business dealings. Kellyanne Conway violated the Hatch Act, which prohibits government employees from using their position to play politics. Conway did just that by advocating on TV, twice, for voters in Alabama to vote for a Republican pedophile.

Trump has brought corruption, obstruction of justice, Russians, treason, stupidity, nepotism, Nazis, pedophiles, and porn stars to the Oval Office. I really miss the blue dress.

 

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Michael Scally MD]

Is there a terminal brain drain underway at the White House? How would one even measure such a thing?

With President Trump setting his own metrics as the smartest smart-aleck ever, how do you go from there to construct a scale of comparison? Especially when anyone remotely clever enough to be noticed is quickly fired for spotlight-stealing. This is a built-in dimmer switch for White House luminaries.

Then, of course, there is the related question of why anyone with any sense would want to work in this White House in the first place. Okay, Gary Cohn came in to get the rich some much-craved tax cuts, and got them. Thanks, Gary, for your service! But his work was apparently completed, and now he’s leaving, too. I guess the array of staffers attracted to this administration can be sorted into the principled opportunists and the unprincipled ones. But after the passage of the tax giveaway, the opportunities for opportunists are dwindling. That leaves the field to crazed opportunists, the natural equilibrium state of the Trump universe.

Still, there does come a point at which there is so much chaos and dysfunction that every human with any survival instinct at all starts smiling and backing slowly away. We may be at that point now. If you are an intelligent person with principles, here’s what’s on offer at this White House. Your principles can either be checked in the Oval Office coatroom, or you can quit. As for your intelligence, you can either hide it or be fired. In either instance, you can expect to be humiliated first, and absorb a quantity of radioactivity sufficient to make you nearly unemployable afterward. Any takers?

I remember one of my first brushes with the peculiar mind-state of what came to form my own working concept of a sociopath. It was in 2008, and it was Rod Blagojevich, who shared some traits with our current president. A former amateur boxer, television personality and politician, elected to the governorship of Illinois, he had gotten himself into so much trouble that the law was closing in hard on him. I distinctly recall being astonished when his comment on his situation was “I don’t believe there’s any cloud that hangs over me. I think there’s nothing but sunshine hanging over me.” He said this one day before being arrested on corruption charges. His bravado and apparent lack of awareness were simply breathtaking.

I mention this now only because it echoed rather strongly this week when Trump tweeted, “There is no Chaos, only great Energy!“

 

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Michael Scally MD]

Last night, https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/mueller-gathers-evidence-that-2016-seychelles-meeting-was-effort-to-establish-back-channel-to-kremlin/2018/03/07/b6a5fb8c-224b-11e8-94da-ebf9d112159c_story.html?utm_term=.b1b9e1ff446d (WashPost reported) that a witness informed Robert Mueller that a January 2017 meeting in the Seychelles, which took place just days before President Trump's inauguration, was an attempt to set up a back channel between the White House and the Kremlin.

Why it matters: In the grand scheme of Mueller's sweeping investigation — which has caught 19 individuals and three companies in its web of indictments and guilty pleas thus far — a single meeting between a Russian emissary and an American businessman with no formal ties to the Trump transition team may seem relatively benign. But with reports that Mueller may be targeting the influence of foreign cash, the Seychelles meeting takes on a new significance.

 

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Michael Scally MD]

Clifford's suit makes two arguments. First, she argues that the NDA did not form a valid, binding contract because one of the parties -- ostensibly President Trump -- did not sign it. In contract law, a valid agreement requires what is known as a "meeting of the minds," or an agreement to the terms of the contract. One element of that agreement is each party signing it.

Contract law is governed by state law -- in this case, California -- and even in the absence of a signature of one of the parties to the agreement, a "meeting of the minds" can be proven in other ways.

Second, Clifford argues that even if the NDA is valid, it is no longer enforceable because when Cohen spoke publicly in January about the NDA and his payment to her under the agreement, he breached the agreement's required confidentiality and nullified the bargain.

Whether Clifford prevails on her legal claims remains to be seen, but what's more significant about Clifford's lawsuit is that she has used her complaint as a vehicle to tell her side of the story, including the circumstances of her alleged affair with the President, the creation of the NDA and even the consequences she has suffered since her story surfaced in January.

Most importantly, the lawsuit includes as an attachment a copy of the NDA itself (in order to show that it was not signed by one of the parties), which ultimately undermines the very point of the agreement to begin with.

If Clifford is successful in her suit, making the NDA and the circumstances surrounding its creation public doesn't cause her any problems. But if she isn't, then the lawsuit itself could constitute a breach of the NDA on her part, which could expose her to legal liability -- which could include having to pay damages to the tune of $1 million.

How to respond to the lawsuit is a dicey proposition for both Donald Trump and his lawyer. In order to countersue Clifford for breach of contract, a court would have to examine who the parties to the contract were, including the person under the alias David Dennison.

The court would also have to inquire into what that person knew about the contract, and whether they were aware of and agreed to its terms: If David Dennison is the President, this means that, at the very least, the President would have to acknowledge that he was the party to the agreement and agreed to pay a settlement in order to force Clifford not to talk.

If the court finds that the NDA is not a valid agreement, then the fair result is that Clifford should not be enriched at the expense of Cohen or a third party. The problem is that for Cohen to recover his money, he would have to prove to the court that he made the payment to Daniels out of his own funds, as he has publicly stated.

If this is true, it could cause him professional problems, since lawyers cannot ethically pay third-party settlements from their own funds. And if it is not true, it could open a Pandora's box by opening up an inquiry into where the money came from: If the money trail leads to Trump's campaign funds, this would be illegal under campaign finance laws.

Ultimately, Clifford's suit could back the President into a corner. The Supreme Court's precedent in Clinton v. Jones held that the president does not have immunity from a civil lawsuit for acts performed before he assumed office. While that case was brought in federal court, the same rationale would likely apply to state court in a case like this.

If so, then the President, as the named defendant in Clifford's lawsuit, would be forced to respond to her complaint, and potentially deposed, which is the last thing Trump would want to do. (Remember that President Bill Clinton was caught lying in a deposition in a civil suit for sexual harassment by Paula Jones -- and perjury was one of the articles of impeachment brought against him.)

And choosing not to respond at all would result in a default judgment -- meaning that Clifford would win simply because her claims are not contested -- leaving her able to discuss her version of the story in detail with no legal consequences.