Trump Timeline ... Trumpocalypse

[Michael Scally MD]

WASHINGTON — As a candidate, Donald J. Trump claimed that the United States government had known in advance about the Sept. 11 attacks. He hinted that Antonin Scalia, a Supreme Court justice who died in his sleep two years ago, had been murdered. And for years, Mr. Trump pushed the notion that President Barack Obama had been born in Kenya rather than Honolulu, making him ineligible for the presidency.

None of that was true.

Last week, President Trump promoted new, unconfirmed accusations to suit his political narrative: that a “criminal deep state” element within Mr. Obama’s government planted a spy deep inside his presidential campaign to help his rival, Hillary Clinton, win — a scheme he branded “Spygate.” It was the latest indication that a president who has for decades trafficked in conspiracy theories has brought them from the fringes of public discourse to the Oval Office.

Now that he is president, Mr. Trump’s baseless stories of secret plots by powerful interests appear to be having a distinct effect. Among critics, they have fanned fears that he is eroding public trust in institutions, undermining the idea of objective truth and sowing widespread suspicions about the government and news media that mirror his own.

“The effect on the life of the nation of a president inventing conspiracy theories in order to distract attention from legitimate investigations or other things he dislikes is corrosive,” said Jon Meacham, a presidential historian and biographer. “The diabolical brilliance of the Trump strategy of disinformation is that many people are simply going to hear the charges and countercharges, and decide that there must be something to them because the president of the United States is saying them.”

Barr’s attempt to explain away her comment about Jarret as “a bad joke about her politics and her looks,” depends on the assumption that her audience would understand her references to both the racist belief that African-Americans look like apes and the baseless conspiracy theory, popular on the far-right, that Obama and his close adviser were secretly agents of a Muslim plot for global domination.

Although she deleted her racist tweet about Jarrett, the rest of Barr’s Twitter feed reveals a mind saturated in far-right conspiracy theories. In just the hour leading up to her apology on Tuesday, Barr’s tweets and retweets included: references to the viral “QAnon” conspiracy theory, which holds that a senior government official is using 4chan to post clues about pedophiles in the intelligence services plotting against Trump; a blog post claiming that Obama had directed the CIA to spy on Trump’s campaign; lies about the philanthropist George Soros having collaborated with the Nazis and claims that he was scheming to undermine democracy in cahoots with Chelsea Clinton; another attempt to smear Jarret by claiming that her mother was an anti-American communist; and an impassioned defense of Tommy Robinson, a far-right English nationalist who was jailed for contempt of court in Britain after using Facebook to harass and smear British Muslims.

As outrage spread across social networks over Barr’s clear racism against an African-American woman, several commentators noted that ABC had previously seemed willing to overlook her prior, frequent expressions of anti-Muslim bias.

Barr herself replied to one such comment, claiming that it was not racist to hate an entire class of people as long as they are defined solely by their religion and not their ethnicity.

While it is probably only a matter of time until the president weighs in, the Yahoo News editor Colin Campbell pointed out that Barr’s tweets spreading lies about Soros had already been retweeted by Donald Trump Jr.

 

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Michael Scally MD]

WASHINGTON — A new U.S. intelligence assessment has concluded that North Korea does not intend to give up its nuclear weapons any time soon, three U.S. officials told NBC News — a finding that conflicts with recent statements by President Donald Trump that Pyongyang intends to do so in the future.

President Trump is continuing to pursue a nuclear summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un even though the CIA analysis, which is consistent with other expert opinion, casts doubt on the viability of Trump's stated goal for the negotiations, the elimination of North Korea's nuclear weapons stockpile.

In an odd twist, a list of potential concessions by North Korea in the CIA analysis included the possibility that Kim Jong Un may consider offering to open a Western hamburger franchise in Pyongyang as a show of goodwill, according to three national security officials.

 

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Senorman]

That was the most critical piece I have seen by Fox News on Trump since he won the election. The rats are jumping ship!

 

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Michael Scally MD]

That was the most critical piece I have seen by Fox News on Trump since he won the election. The rats are jumping ship!

IF Fox Folds/Weakens, ...

 

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Michael Scally MD]

ROSEANNE BANNED
https://claytoonz.com/2018/05/30/roseanne-banned/

I’ve said it here before and I’m going to say it again. I don’t know who said it first, and maybe someone will inform me. But, when someone tells you who they are, believe them. As you see people deflect and/or defend Roseanne Barr over her racist tweet on Tuesday, believe them. They’re showing you who and what they are.

Roseanne tweeted, “muslim brotherhood & planet of the apes had a baby=vj.” She was referencing Obama adviser Valerie Jarrett. Her hit show, which was recently rebooted, was immediately booted by ABC. They didn’t wait for a public backlash. They didn’t stick their finger in the air to test the wind. They didn’t wait for an advertiser boycott. They kicked Roseanne, and the millions it brought in from advertisers, to the curb.

Conservatives quickly howled. Some pointed out that Bill Maher had compared Trump to an orangutan, not really getting the difference that comparing a white guy with a primate is different from doing it with a black person. Others pointed out that Jimmy Kimmel had made fun of Melania Trump’s accent, so that must be racist. Some brought up Joy Behar’s comment about Mike Pence talking to Jesus, and Jesus talking back, and wondered why it’s OK to mock Christianity but not Islam. All these equivocations are excusing racism, which is what conservatives did when they voted for Trump.

At first, Roseanne said she didn’t understand why it was racist. Then, she apologized. Then, she apologized again and blamed it on taking Ambien, which must now come with a warning label stating, “may cause racist tweeting.”

Conservatives celebrated the return of Roseanne because she is a supporter of Donald Trump. Eighteen million people watched the debut and Trump said it was “about us.” And it was about them every time Roseanne tweeted a debunked conspiracy theory or something racist, just like the president likes to do. Now, conservatives will notch this episode as another example of their perceived persecution.

ABC may have been ready to pull the plug knowing that at any moment Roseanne would force their hand. ABC Entertainment president Channing Dungey, who is the first African-American woman to hold that position in network television, had defended Roseanne and her show in the past. This time she said, “Roseanne’s Twitter statement is abhorrent, repugnant and inconsistent with our values, and we have decided to cancel her show.”

In the past, Roseanne’s tweets accused George Soros of being a Nazi who turned Jews over to concentration camps and stole their wealth. The lesson here is, do business with a Trump supporter, expect a racist tweet.

Roseanne’s agency also dumped her and consulting producer Wanda Sykes left the show immediately after the tweet.

Conservatives, who want NFL players fired for kneeling and an end to college safe spaces for “snowflakes,” decried the political correctness of canceling the show. What they don’t understand is, it’s not political correctness to disassociate yourself from racists. Is it only political correctness that’s preventing the creation of a sitcom about a wacky KKK family, or a show called Those Darn Nextdoor Nazis?

Producer and actor on the show Sara Gilbert said that Barr’s comments were, “abhorrent and do not reflect the beliefs of our cast and crew. Previously, as a liberal activist she was criticized for being on the show. She explained it by saying, “it’s not so much about the politics as it is about how the struggle of the working class is affecting families.” She added that working with Barr was from a desire of understanding each other.

She also stated, “Are you not supposed to talk to each other? All of us should be working together and talking to people of different views.”

But Gilbert just learned that’s almost impossible with Trump supporters. As Roseanne proved, it’s difficult to talk and understand when they start throwing out conspiracy theories, calling liberals Nazis, and compare African-Americans to apes.

When that starts, it’s time to pull the plug. But maybe it never should have been plugged-in in the first place.

 

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Michael Scally MD]

Federal prosecutors investigating President Trump’s personal lawyer Michael Cohen are poised to receive on Wednesday one million files from three of his cellphones seized last month, according to a filing submitted to the court by special master Barbara Jones Tuesday night.

In her update to the court, Jones said investigators from the office of the U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York have already been given access to nearly 300,000 pieces of potential evidence seized from Cohen’s office and residences in an April raid.

Jones was https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/federal-prosecutors-quickly-cite-trumps-fox-and-friends-comments-to-help-make-their-case-on-cohen-documents/2018/04/26/709eeaee-4961-11e8-827e-190efaf1f1ee_story.html?utm_term=.a257f93406f7 (appointed)by U.S. District Judge Kimba Wood late last month to review the material seized after attorneys for Cohen and President Trump said many seized documents and communications could be protected by attorney-client privilege.

Jones, a retired judge who served on the federal bench for 16 years in the Southern District of New York, is a former organized-crime prosecutor who was chief assistant to Robert M. Morgenthau, the longtime Manhattan district attorney.

 

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Michael Scally MD]

Ivanka Trump abruptly left a conference call on Tuesday about a coming fitness event after receiving questions about her company’s trademarks in China and her father’s exercise regimen.

White House officials insisted that she had always been scheduled to leave.

Ms. Trump and Holli M. Richmond, the director of the White House Council on Sports, Fitness and Nutrition, both hosted the call with reporters before a field day President Trump will host Wednesday at the White House.

At the outset, a White House official said that Ms. Trump would take a few questions before departing for a meeting, and that Ms. Richmond would handle the rest.

But the first reporter to ask a question broached the number of trademarks that China recently awarded Ms. Trump’s private, eponymous brand. Around the same time, Ms. Trump’s father, the president, endorsed saving the Chinese telecommunications company ZTE, a move that surprised several people in his own administration. The company was left paralyzed after it was recently banned from buying American technology components for seven years as punishment for breaking American sanctions against some countries, including Iran and North Korea.

When the reporter, from NBC, asked whether Ms. Trump would weigh in on the matter, the official, Ninio Fetalvo, said that he had to “refer those questions to the press office.” He quickly moved on to the next question.

Ms. Trump, a top-ranking White House official, rarely takes questions from the news media in uncontrolled settings. The issue of overlap between her brand and her work at the White House has frequently raised eyebrows, including among ethics watchdogs.

Later on the call, a question came up about whether Mr. Trump has changed his fitness and diet routine, which Dr. Ronny L. Jackson, his White House physician at the time, had recommended this year.

Ms. Trump, Mr. Fetalvo said, had departed for another meeting and could not take the question.

 

[Michael Scally MD]

IF Fox Folds/Weakens, ...