MESO-Rx
Anabolic Steroids
Trump Timeline ... Trumpocalypse
- Thread starter CdnGuy
- Start date
WASHINGTON — On a busy day at the White House, President Trump hosted senators to talk about tax cuts, accused a Democratic congresswoman of distorting his condolence call to a soldier’s widow and suffered another court defeat for his travel ban targeting Muslim countries.
And at some point on Wednesday, Oct. 18, 2017, Mr. Trump took the time to sign a $35,000 check to his lawyer, who had made hush payments to prevent alleged sexual misconduct from being exposed before the 2016 presidential election. It was one of 11 occasions that Mr. Trump or his trust cut such checks, six of which were provided this week to The New York Times.
At the heart of last week’s congressional testimony by Michael D. Cohen, Mr. Trump’s former lawyer, was the sensational accusation that the sitting president of the United States financed an illegal cover-up from inside the White House. The dates on the newly available checks shed light on the parallel lives Mr. Trump was living by this account — at once managing affairs of state while quietly paying the price of keeping his personal secrets out of the public eye.
The president hosted a foreign leader in the Oval Office, then wrote a check. He haggled over legislation, then wrote a check. He traveled abroad, then wrote a check. On the same day he reportedly pressured the F.B.I. director to drop an investigation into a former aide, the president’s trust issued a check to Mr. Cohen in furtherance of what federal prosecutors have called a criminal scheme to violate campaign finance laws at the direction of Mr. Trump.
…
Citing Mr. Cohen and other evidence, prosecutors from the Southern District of New York said in court papers that Mr. Trump directed the scheme, essentially making him an unindicted co-conspirator.
Sixteen years after the U.S. invasion of Iraq, we are again barreling toward another unnecessary conflict in the Middle East based on faulty and misleading logic.
The Trump administration’s Iran policy, built on the ashes of the failed Iraq strategy, is pushing us to take military action aimed at regime change in Tehran. We must not repeat the mistakes of the past, and Congress must act urgently to ensure that.
Similar to the George W. Bush administration’s justification for the war in Iraq, the Trump administration has presented the false narratives that Iran is not meeting its obligations under the nuclear deal, and that it is somehow partially responsible for the rise of the Islamic State in Syria. It’s true that the leaders of Iran are deeply problematic. But if this were enough to justify war, other regimes in the region would also be in the United States’ crosshairs, instead of being recipients of U.S. military aid.
On the heels of the recent Middle East summit in Warsaw, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu made no effort to hide their intentions. “You can’t achieve stability in the Middle East without confronting Iran,” Pompeo said. “It’s just not possible.” Netanyahu remarked that the participating nations were “sitting down together with Israel in order to advance the common interest of war with Iran.”
The Trump administration has also been attempting to create a strong link between al-Qaeda and Iran — based on vague suggestions, but no hard evidence.
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo grew testy in a recent newspaper interview when asked to explain why President Trump would take North Korean leader Kim Jong Un “at his word” about the death of a U.S. college student taken prisoner in North Korea.
National security adviser John Bolton, making the rounds of Sunday talk shows, flatly refused to offer his personal assessment of whether Trump’s summit with Kim — which ended early and without an agreement — had effectively handed the autocrat an unearned victory.
And Trump and his top trade adviser quibbled in front of reporters and Chinese officials late last month during an Oval Office meeting over how to describe the contracts that would form the basis of any trade deal between the United States and China.
Two years into a presidency that has upended assumptions about the U.S. role in the world and flipped the script on core Republican tenets such as arms control, ardent support for democratic principles and free trade, Trump’s national security officials and Republican allies are still struggling to defend or even explain the president.
“The party is silent on foreign policy for the same reason it’s silent on other issues: fear and trying to keep open lines of influence,” said former senator Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.), a Trump critic.
Trump’s foreign policy is part nationalist, part conservative, part isolationist, part militaristic pageantry. He distrusts traditional alliances such as the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and slaps punitive tariffs on adversaries and allies alike.
In many ways, Trump’s worldview has been boiled down to a mantra lacking labels and ideology: It is what Trump says it is.
The Commerce Department will almost certainly report Wednesday that — despite more than two years of President Trump’s “America First” policies — the United States last year posted the largest merchandise trade deficit in its 243-year history.
The nation’s trade gap with China also is likely to set a record, underscoring the stakes for the president’s bid to reach a deal with Chinese President Xi Jinping as soon as this month.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/wilbur-ross-says-furloughed-workers-should-take-out-a-loan-his-agencys-own-credit-union-is-charging-nearly-9-percent/2019/01/24/be1c9f1e-2020-11e9-8b59-0a28f2191131_story.html?utm_term=.b2e09887b359 (The department’s)final 2018 trade report, which was delayed by the government shutdown, is expected to show that the United States bought nearly $900 billion more in foreign goods than it sold to customers in other countries. That would top the 2006 record of $838.3 billion, set as the housing bubble was peaking, and would mark the third consecutive year of rising trade deficits.
It has been evident for months that the president was failing to shrink a trade gap that he calls “unsustainable” and that he says represents a massive transfer of wealth from Americans to foreigners. Over the past year, even as he https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/trump-delays-increase-in-tariffs-on-china-citing-progress-in-trade-talks/2019/02/24/273198aa-388c-11e9-a2cd-307b06d0257b_story.html?utm_term=.c3a97380aea9 (imposed tariffs)on foreign-made https://www.washingtonpost.com/Trump%20slaps%20tough%20tariffs%20on%20imported%20solar%20panels,%20washing%20machines (solar panels, washing machines,) steel, aluminum and assorted goods from China, imports roared ahead of exports.
The president thus begins his reelection drive with a core campaign promise unfulfilled — and with a recent flurry of economic research showing that his embrace of tariffs is damaging the U.S. economy.
ALL DAY SUCKERS
https://claytoonz.com/2019/03/06/all-day-suckers/
Most people understand the National Enquirer isn’t a legitimate news organization. Until recently, most wouldn’t have thought it was propaganda. Most people believed it was nothing more than a gossip rag that got its headlines from stalking celebrities and going through their garbage. It seemed to spare nobody. Then, we learned they paid for stories (which credible news organizations don’t do) about Donald Trump scandals and then buried them. The publisher, David Pecker locked them in safe along with his picture of Elvis in his coffin (really).
The Enquirer didn’t just bury stories that would embarrass Trump and potentially cost him the election. They paid for those stories (along with Trump and Michael Cohen). Such tactics seemed beneath the journalist integrity of even the National Enquirer. You wouldn’t find a major, credible news organization doing that, right?
Wrong.
To be fair, a lot of people don’t consider Fox News a credible news organization. Even though they do some actual reporting and anchors such as Chris Wallace and Shepard Smith are respected, most of Fox News works as Trump TV and actively works to promote and defend the guy in the White House.
Fox is Trump’s favorite outlet. He calls into Fox & Friends in the morning, has nightly phone chats with Sean Hannity, tweets their reports, and praises them at his hate rallies. He even raids Fox News to fill positions in his administration. Hey, Eric Trump only had one wedding planner so Trump has to find candidates someplace.
Now we learn the network’s relationship with Trump has them sharing a journalistic sewer with that Pecker guy.
The New Yorker published an article by Jane Mayer on the “Fox News White House.” In it, she reports that Fox News buried a story on…wait for it…killed a story about Stormy Daniels’ mushroom encounter before the 2016 presidential election. She also reports that Trump tried to spike the AT&T-Time Warner merger over his hatred for CNN, now an AT&T company, and the network he describes as Fake News (though I hear they run decent cartoons).
Mayer wrote, “The White House and Fox interact so seamlessly that it can be hard to determine, during a particular news cycle, which one is following the other’s lead.”
Fox’s Tucker Carlson was pissed and said, “The American Media has changed forever. News organizations that seemed like a big deal are now extinct. Those that remain have now degraded themselves beyond recognition, like the New Yorker.” Detecting no irony whatsoever, Trump tweeted out Carlson’s statement.
According to the New Yorker story, a top executive at Fox told the reporter with the Stormy story, “Good reporting, kiddo. But Rupert wants Donald Trump to win. So just let it go.” He has since denied it, but that reporter was demoted, sued, came to a financial settlement, and signed a non-disclosure agreement. Fox probably buried that story too.
Mayer also reported that Roger Ailes, then the chairman of the network and now dead guy, tipped Trump off about a question coming his way from then-Fox host Megyn Kelly about Trump’s comments about women during a 2015 Republican candidate debate.
Former DNC official Donna Brazile caught a lot of heat when it came to light through Wikileaks that she fed questions to the Clinton campaign while she was a political analyst for CNN. The network fired her. Guess which network ran a lot of stories about it, heavy with condemnation over the violation of journalistic ethics and the viewers’ trust. Yup. Fox News.
I’ve always hated when people argued for the need of a right-wing media, saying it counters the left-wing media. I don’t see the solution to biased news being more biased news. And, most “left-wing” media is usually described that way because facts have a “left-wing” bias.
Those Smart News TV commercials annoy me. They advertise their app as providing news from both sides. You don’t need news from “both sides.” You just need news. Fox, at this point, isn’t just an uncredible news outlet. They’re not even a right-wing news outlet. Just like the Republican Party and CPAC, they’re a part of the Trump cult.
If you watch Fox News, you’re not watching news. Just like there’s no such thing as “fake news,” there’s no such thing as Fox news.
https://claytoonz.com/2019/03/06/all-day-suckers/
Most people understand the National Enquirer isn’t a legitimate news organization. Until recently, most wouldn’t have thought it was propaganda. Most people believed it was nothing more than a gossip rag that got its headlines from stalking celebrities and going through their garbage. It seemed to spare nobody. Then, we learned they paid for stories (which credible news organizations don’t do) about Donald Trump scandals and then buried them. The publisher, David Pecker locked them in safe along with his picture of Elvis in his coffin (really).
The Enquirer didn’t just bury stories that would embarrass Trump and potentially cost him the election. They paid for those stories (along with Trump and Michael Cohen). Such tactics seemed beneath the journalist integrity of even the National Enquirer. You wouldn’t find a major, credible news organization doing that, right?
Wrong.
To be fair, a lot of people don’t consider Fox News a credible news organization. Even though they do some actual reporting and anchors such as Chris Wallace and Shepard Smith are respected, most of Fox News works as Trump TV and actively works to promote and defend the guy in the White House.
Fox is Trump’s favorite outlet. He calls into Fox & Friends in the morning, has nightly phone chats with Sean Hannity, tweets their reports, and praises them at his hate rallies. He even raids Fox News to fill positions in his administration. Hey, Eric Trump only had one wedding planner so Trump has to find candidates someplace.
Now we learn the network’s relationship with Trump has them sharing a journalistic sewer with that Pecker guy.
The New Yorker published an article by Jane Mayer on the “Fox News White House.” In it, she reports that Fox News buried a story on…wait for it…killed a story about Stormy Daniels’ mushroom encounter before the 2016 presidential election. She also reports that Trump tried to spike the AT&T-Time Warner merger over his hatred for CNN, now an AT&T company, and the network he describes as Fake News (though I hear they run decent cartoons).
Mayer wrote, “The White House and Fox interact so seamlessly that it can be hard to determine, during a particular news cycle, which one is following the other’s lead.”
Fox’s Tucker Carlson was pissed and said, “The American Media has changed forever. News organizations that seemed like a big deal are now extinct. Those that remain have now degraded themselves beyond recognition, like the New Yorker.” Detecting no irony whatsoever, Trump tweeted out Carlson’s statement.
According to the New Yorker story, a top executive at Fox told the reporter with the Stormy story, “Good reporting, kiddo. But Rupert wants Donald Trump to win. So just let it go.” He has since denied it, but that reporter was demoted, sued, came to a financial settlement, and signed a non-disclosure agreement. Fox probably buried that story too.
Mayer also reported that Roger Ailes, then the chairman of the network and now dead guy, tipped Trump off about a question coming his way from then-Fox host Megyn Kelly about Trump’s comments about women during a 2015 Republican candidate debate.
Former DNC official Donna Brazile caught a lot of heat when it came to light through Wikileaks that she fed questions to the Clinton campaign while she was a political analyst for CNN. The network fired her. Guess which network ran a lot of stories about it, heavy with condemnation over the violation of journalistic ethics and the viewers’ trust. Yup. Fox News.
I’ve always hated when people argued for the need of a right-wing media, saying it counters the left-wing media. I don’t see the solution to biased news being more biased news. And, most “left-wing” media is usually described that way because facts have a “left-wing” bias.
Those Smart News TV commercials annoy me. They advertise their app as providing news from both sides. You don’t need news from “both sides.” You just need news. Fox, at this point, isn’t just an uncredible news outlet. They’re not even a right-wing news outlet. Just like the Republican Party and CPAC, they’re a part of the Trump cult.
If you watch Fox News, you’re not watching news. Just like there’s no such thing as “fake news,” there’s no such thing as Fox news.
Michael Cohen has painted a target on Trump Organization executives in court and Congress. If prosecutors and grand jurors accept the evidence presented in Cohen’s SDNY sentencing memorandum and congressional testimony, those involved in the ‘hush money’ payments Cohen facilitated for Donald Trump could be prosecuted for a money laundering conspiracy for the way they agreed to handle eleven reimbursement payments to Cohen.
Why didn’t Trump just write out a check to the women at issue — Stephanie Clifford (a/k/a Stormy Daniels) and Karen McDougal — out of one of his multiple personal bank accounts in the days leading up to the election? Why not just pay what they asked for their silence and be done with it? No campaign finance law would have been broken since there are no restrictions on personal campaign contributions by the candidates as long as they are reported.
But, according to Cohen’s account,campaign optics were the critical factor.
The reimbursements to Cohen concealed Trump’s personal involvement with the hush money payments while also maintaining a facade of business legitimacy. Simply put, the reimbursements had to be laundered.
The federal money laundering conspiracy statute is Title 18 U.S.C. § 1956. New York State has a money laundering statute that corresponds exactly with the federal statute, which is important when considering whether New York authorities will seek to prosecute Trump (identified in the federal criminal proceedings as Individual-1) for money laundering. Presidential pardons do not reach criminal violations of state laws. However, this article outlines how a federal money laundering prosecution theory might work in the Southern District of New York.
Section 1956 (a)(1) makes it a crime to knowingly conduct, or attempt to conduct, a “financial transaction” with proceeds from a “specified unlawful activity” (SUA) with specific intent to:
- Promote SUA; or
- Conceal or disguise the source, origin, nature, ownership, or control of the proceeds; or
- Evade reporting requirements; or
- Evade taxes.
