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Trump Timeline ... Trumpocalypse
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1. To me, the most interesting thing about the flurry of legal action around Cohen, Nat'l Enquirer, Flynn, Manafort, Butina, etc., was how much of it 1) 1has already been reported or 2) could be logically deduced (like that the payoffs of the 2 women were directed by Trump)
2. Because this probe has lasted 2 years, been slow and methodically, with lots of great journalism filling in the gaps, we probably know the broad outline of the Trump-Russia conspiracy. Team Trump will wave the lack of a closing "bombshell" as a red flag that Mueller failed
3. But what Team Trump is really hoping is that Americans have grown numb to what in fact is the most outrageous electoral conspiracy in U.S. history, whose contours have been revealed to us, drip by drip, over the last two years.
4. Here's the reality we need to come to terms with: Congress and the American people had -- by Trump's first few months in office -- more evidence of criminality against the president than what was used to oust Nixon over Watergate in 1974
5. The "smoking (or 'smocking') gun" tape that sunk Nixon and caused Republican leaders to march down Capitol Hill and tell the 37th POTUS to resign was Nixon using his power to derail the FBI and obstruct the probe - exactly what Trump admitted to after he fired Comey
6. And that's in addition to the June 2016 Trump Tower meeting, also more damning than anything we know about the Watergate break-in. Collusion? We've long known the quids (Russian hacking of DNC, "fake news" on FB) and quos (RNC platform change, sanctions relief promises).
7. Simply put, some folks are waiting for a "bombshell" while a slow-motion demolition of American democracy has taken place right before our eyes. Mueller's final moves could drop a real shocker, but they may not. We need to accept that the real shock is what we already know,
8. That's why the focus needs to shift from what else we're going to learn about Trump-Russia -- we may already know 97 percent of it -- to what Congress and the rest of the establishment will do about the most dangerous conspiracy in our history, already in plain sight
9. The question going forward is whether what we already know -- that a U.S. presidential election was won through fraud, theft, lying, illegal payoffs and other criminal acts -- will have real consequences for the man who stole that election, Donald Trump.
10. If not, we can stop publishing all those books about whether democracy is dying. It will be already long dead. -30-
Thread by @Will_Bunch: "1. To me, the most interesting thing about the flurry of legal action around Cohen, Nat'l Enquirer, Flynn, Manafort, Butina, etc., was how m […]"
2. Because this probe has lasted 2 years, been slow and methodically, with lots of great journalism filling in the gaps, we probably know the broad outline of the Trump-Russia conspiracy. Team Trump will wave the lack of a closing "bombshell" as a red flag that Mueller failed
3. But what Team Trump is really hoping is that Americans have grown numb to what in fact is the most outrageous electoral conspiracy in U.S. history, whose contours have been revealed to us, drip by drip, over the last two years.
4. Here's the reality we need to come to terms with: Congress and the American people had -- by Trump's first few months in office -- more evidence of criminality against the president than what was used to oust Nixon over Watergate in 1974
5. The "smoking (or 'smocking') gun" tape that sunk Nixon and caused Republican leaders to march down Capitol Hill and tell the 37th POTUS to resign was Nixon using his power to derail the FBI and obstruct the probe - exactly what Trump admitted to after he fired Comey
6. And that's in addition to the June 2016 Trump Tower meeting, also more damning than anything we know about the Watergate break-in. Collusion? We've long known the quids (Russian hacking of DNC, "fake news" on FB) and quos (RNC platform change, sanctions relief promises).
7. Simply put, some folks are waiting for a "bombshell" while a slow-motion demolition of American democracy has taken place right before our eyes. Mueller's final moves could drop a real shocker, but they may not. We need to accept that the real shock is what we already know,
8. That's why the focus needs to shift from what else we're going to learn about Trump-Russia -- we may already know 97 percent of it -- to what Congress and the rest of the establishment will do about the most dangerous conspiracy in our history, already in plain sight
9. The question going forward is whether what we already know -- that a U.S. presidential election was won through fraud, theft, lying, illegal payoffs and other criminal acts -- will have real consequences for the man who stole that election, Donald Trump.
10. If not, we can stop publishing all those books about whether democracy is dying. It will be already long dead. -30-
Thread by @Will_Bunch: "1. To me, the most interesting thing about the flurry of legal action around Cohen, Nat'l Enquirer, Flynn, Manafort, Butina, etc., was how m […]"
SEND IN THE FEMBOT!!!
https://claytoonz.com/2018/12/14/send-in-the-fembot/
Austin Powers defeated the fembots by crossing his mojo with their mojo. Apparently, crossing mojos will make a fembot’s head explode. I don’t think the National Rifle Association has any mojo to cross, and their heads will be the ones doing the exploding.
I am always intrigued that the loudest screamers are hypocrites and projectors. Everything Donald Trump says about his enemies turns out to be true about himself. Hillary’s administration would be plagued by endless investigations? Check. Pay-for-play? Check. Corrupt charity? Check. Incompetent associates? Check. Massive deficits? Check. Womanizing? Check. Stupid? Check. Selling out to Russia and other foreign interest? Check, check, checkity, check, check.
Russian gun rights activist Maria Butina pleaded guilty Thursday to conspiring to act as an unregistered agent of Russia, admitting that she worked for more than two years to forge relationships with conservative activists and leading Republicans in the United States. Conservatives and Republicans are always the loudest about their patriotism, and always questioning that of others.
One of Butina’s main targets was the NRA, a group she identified in a 2015 memo as an organization that “had influence over” the Republican Party. She wrote that her relationship with the NRA could be used as the groundwork for an unofficial channel of communication to the next presidential administration. Both, the NRA and the Trump administration were eager to be influenced by Russia.
She helped organize a delegation of top NRA leaders to visit Moscow and meet with top Russian officials. She attended their conventions as an honored guest. She used their NRA connections to get access to GOP presidential candidates, including Donald Trump. The NRA even let her ring their bell for top donors, literally.
What’s being questioned is; how much money, if any, did Russia filter through Butina to the NRA? Did any of that money end up in the Trump campaign? What did the NRA know of Russia’s efforts to influence U.S. policy? What did the NRA get in return? Why would Russia, where gun rights are extremely restricted, be so willing to promote gun ownership in America?
Was the NRA willing accomplices or where they just stupid enough to be tricked by a pretty smile and a head full of red hair?
Now Butina has pleaded guilty and has entered into a plea agreement with federal prosecutors. She’s flipping on somebody, but who? Would prosecutors make a plea deal with her just for information on Alexander Torshin, a former Russian government official who helped direct her activities? There’s not much prosecutors can do to Torshin as he’s not in the country and barred from entering. Torshin is also a lifetime member of the NRA.
The NRA is extremely secretive about how many members they truly have and how much money they make. They have turned over documents related to Butina to the Senate Finance Committee, but they haven’t turned over requested financial records. Why not? What are they hiding?
The NRA’s political action committee and political nonprofit arm together shelled out $54.4 million on the 2016 presidential campaign, which was triple the amount they spent on the 2012 race. $30 million of that money went to efforts to help the Trump campaign. Did any of that money come from Russia? It’s illegal for foreign citizens to fund political efforts in the United States.
Donald Trump and the NRA never had any mojo. If you’re looking for mojo, look toward federal prosecutors, because heads are about to explode. But, hey…the NRA usually likes things that explode.
https://claytoonz.com/2018/12/14/send-in-the-fembot/
Austin Powers defeated the fembots by crossing his mojo with their mojo. Apparently, crossing mojos will make a fembot’s head explode. I don’t think the National Rifle Association has any mojo to cross, and their heads will be the ones doing the exploding.
I am always intrigued that the loudest screamers are hypocrites and projectors. Everything Donald Trump says about his enemies turns out to be true about himself. Hillary’s administration would be plagued by endless investigations? Check. Pay-for-play? Check. Corrupt charity? Check. Incompetent associates? Check. Massive deficits? Check. Womanizing? Check. Stupid? Check. Selling out to Russia and other foreign interest? Check, check, checkity, check, check.
Russian gun rights activist Maria Butina pleaded guilty Thursday to conspiring to act as an unregistered agent of Russia, admitting that she worked for more than two years to forge relationships with conservative activists and leading Republicans in the United States. Conservatives and Republicans are always the loudest about their patriotism, and always questioning that of others.
One of Butina’s main targets was the NRA, a group she identified in a 2015 memo as an organization that “had influence over” the Republican Party. She wrote that her relationship with the NRA could be used as the groundwork for an unofficial channel of communication to the next presidential administration. Both, the NRA and the Trump administration were eager to be influenced by Russia.
She helped organize a delegation of top NRA leaders to visit Moscow and meet with top Russian officials. She attended their conventions as an honored guest. She used their NRA connections to get access to GOP presidential candidates, including Donald Trump. The NRA even let her ring their bell for top donors, literally.
What’s being questioned is; how much money, if any, did Russia filter through Butina to the NRA? Did any of that money end up in the Trump campaign? What did the NRA know of Russia’s efforts to influence U.S. policy? What did the NRA get in return? Why would Russia, where gun rights are extremely restricted, be so willing to promote gun ownership in America?
Was the NRA willing accomplices or where they just stupid enough to be tricked by a pretty smile and a head full of red hair?
Now Butina has pleaded guilty and has entered into a plea agreement with federal prosecutors. She’s flipping on somebody, but who? Would prosecutors make a plea deal with her just for information on Alexander Torshin, a former Russian government official who helped direct her activities? There’s not much prosecutors can do to Torshin as he’s not in the country and barred from entering. Torshin is also a lifetime member of the NRA.
The NRA is extremely secretive about how many members they truly have and how much money they make. They have turned over documents related to Butina to the Senate Finance Committee, but they haven’t turned over requested financial records. Why not? What are they hiding?
The NRA’s political action committee and political nonprofit arm together shelled out $54.4 million on the 2016 presidential campaign, which was triple the amount they spent on the 2012 race. $30 million of that money went to efforts to help the Trump campaign. Did any of that money come from Russia? It’s illegal for foreign citizens to fund political efforts in the United States.
Donald Trump and the NRA never had any mojo. If you’re looking for mojo, look toward federal prosecutors, because heads are about to explode. But, hey…the NRA usually likes things that explode.
In November 2015, I spent a couple of weeks reporting in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia. It had been less than two years since my last visit to the country and just 10 months since King Salman’s ascension to the throne, but the mood among local activists and intellectuals had darkened considerably. On my final evening, my friend Fahad al-Fahad, a marketing consultant and human rights activist, offered to take me on a tour that, he suggested, might help to explain the new atmosphere.
We drove to the Jaffali mosque, where, just outside, public beheadings are carried out, and where, earlier that year, Raif Badawi, another Saudi activist, had been flogged before hundreds of onlookers. Then we drove through the desert toward the village of Dhahban, where the Interior Ministry was building a massive new prison complex, which Fahad said was to help house the burgeoning population of Saudis convicted under the country’s broad counterterrorism laws. Under King Salman, Fahad explained, these laws were increasingly being used to lock up peaceful dissidents.
But despite continuing anger over Mr. Khashoggi’s fate, too little attention is being paid to the crown prince’s treatment of dissidents inside the kingdom, who often lack the resources to consider lives in exile, and who are now being imprisoned in record numbers. More than 2,600 Saudi dissidents, including prominent scientists, writers, lawyers and women’s rights campaigners, are in detention in Saudi Arabia, according to Prisoners of Conscience, a Saudi group that tracks political prisoners. Most were convicted under the kingdom’s counterterrorism laws, receiving sentences for such nonviolent offenses as “criticizing the royal court” and “ridiculing religious figures.” Few of these people are as well known in Western capitals as Mr. Khashoggi was, but their stories are no less important.
Last December, Republicans relied on the support of conservative economists who predicted that the party's corporate tax cuts would boost productivity and investment in the United States substantially. The forecasts were wrong, and the silence of those who made them suggests that they knew it all along.
President Trump would like to consider himself a modern-day King Midas, with the ability to turn anything he touches to gold (and his apartment certainly looks like the actual Midas careened drunkenly about the place, laying hands on everything from the wallpaper to the furniture). But it’s becoming clearer by the day that everything he touches is poisoned by corruption.
It's not like we didn't know it before, but somehow the party that followed him into power in Washington hasn't fully reckoned with what they made themselves a part of. They figured out how to live with their fears about his ideological reliability ("It's about judges!") and his repellent personality ("I wish he'd tweet less, but...judges!"), but with each new corruption scandal they seem caught off-guard, as though surprised that they'd have to defend him.
And now it seems that just about everything Trump has ever done has in one way or another either been proven to be corrupt or is under investigation and will likely be proven corrupt.
But at this point it's hard not to assume that if Trump is involved, there's probably something corrupt happening and it probably means he's getting paid.
Just consider the following brief roundup:
- Trump's campaign is under investigation for its hidden dealings with Russia and a possible conspiracy to violate campaign finance laws.
- Trump's administration has been beset with a shocking number of scandals of various types.
- Trump is currently https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/judge-denies-trumps-request-for-stay-in-emoluments-case/2018/11/02/aa87611c-dec8-11e8-b3f0-62607289efee_story.html (being sued) for violating the Constitution's emoluments clause, since foreign governments are directing money his way by booking large numbers of rooms and holding events at his properties.
- The attorney general of New York https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/new-york-files-suit-against-president-trump-alleging-his-charity-engaged-in-illegal-conduct/2018/06/14/c3cbf71e-6fc9-11e8-bd50-b80389a4e569_story.html (is seeking) to have the Trump Foundation dissolved, citing a pattern of "persistently illegal conduct" that made the foundation little more than a scam devoted to self-dealing.
- In October it was revealed in an exhaustively documented investigation that Trump, his father, and his siblings engaged in a conspiracy to commit tax fraud on an absolutely epic scale, to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars.
- Trump and his daughter Ivanka repeatedly misled buyers and investors about properties they were developing in order to acquire funding and pump up sales.
We see it in even relatively trivial ways, like Trump charging the Secret Service hundreds of thousands of dollars to use golf carts to get around his properties when he visits there, or the fact that he has offered ambassadorships to four different members of his Mar-a-Lago club, all of whom have paid him six-figure sums.
Trump is always looking to get paid, and has never in his life seemed too concerned about what ethics or the law demanded, except insofar as it might require covering his tracks. Perhaps it would be better to ask not what Trump is involved in that’s corrupt, but what Trump is involved in that isn’t corrupt.
His tax returns are the key to answering those questions, which is why he will fight like hell to keep them secret. When the House Ways and Means Committee https://www.washingtonpost.com/powerpost/pelosi-says-she-expects-a-house-committee-will-take-the-first-steps-toward-obtaining-trumps-tax-returns/2018/12/13/fbc02660-feec-11e8-862a-b6a6f3ce8199_story.html (demands them) once Democrats take over in January, as it has a legal right to do, Trump will probably order the IRS not to comply with the law, and the whole matter will end up before the Supreme Court. There's no telling if the court's five conservatives will save him, but before they decide we'll have plenty of time to debate it.
And when we have that debate, what will Republicans say? How will they argue that the American public, faced with the most comprehensively, blatantly, obviously corrupt president certainly of our lifetimes and perhaps in all of American history, has no right to see the documents that could reveal the full extent of his corruption? How will they look voters in the face and say, "You don't have to know — just trust Trump that everything is on the level"? How will they claim afterward that they care in the least about integrity in government? How will they sleep at night?
If history is any guide, they’ll find a way. And who knows, maybe Trump will get away with all of it. But every knew question we ask reveals that this president and this presidency is even more rotten than we realized. We’ve only begun to plumb the depths.
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