Trump Timeline ... Trumpocalypse

[Michael Scally MD]

A source with direct knowledge of the investigation told The Daily Beast that it was their interpretation that “Mueller was making a case to Congress, who (unlike DOJ, in Mueller’s view) is empowered to weigh the lawfulness of a president’s conduct.”

After two years of seeing Mueller’s integrity being impugned by the president and his allies, supporters of the special counsel enjoyed their own told-you-so moment. Robert Litt, who was general counsel for the director of national intelligence when Mueller served as FBI director, called the result a vindication of Mueller and “the rule of law.”

“Mueller and his staff have been unfairly attacked for two years, and by all measures they come up with a thorough and professional report,” he told The Daily Beast. “It’s not a surprise to anyone who knows Bob Mueller. But that point shouldn’t be lost here.”

 

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Michael Scally MD]

The ideology of neo-Nazi terrorist Anders Behring Breivik has, since his 2011 attack in Norway, percolated quietly not just on the Internet fringes, but through places of power across the US, UK and elsewhere in Europe. The white supremacist movement has certainly internationalised online, but a pivotal mechanism of its transmission and legitimisation has operated via our institutions of democracy. If nothing is done to halt the spread of extremist ideology through political parties with mainstream leverage, the white nationalist attacks of the last year will escalate.

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This ideology of white genocide — through rhetoric sanitised for the mainstream, designed to resonate with widespread social anxieties — is leading to further acts of terror. It promotes its supporters’ hopelessness in the face of a ‘foreign invasion’ facilitated by bankrupt liberal elites, and tells them that the only defence is for ‘white natives’ to take power into their own hands. We urgently need to deal with entryist politicians working to mainstream their radical views in the name of security. And we need counter-narratives that refute and delegitimise, at all levels, this extremist ideology.

 

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Michael Scally MD]

Let me say at the outset that I fully accept one core conclusion reached by the special counsel’s investigation, as described in Attorney General William P. Barr’s https://www.washingtonpost.com/context/read-attorney-general-barr-s-principal-conclusions-of-the-mueller-report/?noteId=9048a12b-2332-4645-a1be-d645db216eb5&questionId=218b8095-c5e3-4eab-9135-4170f5b3e87f&utm_term=.c9eb81cdd384 (letter to Congress): The probe did not establish any criminal conspiracy between the Trump campaign and Russia to sabotage the 2016 election.

That is genuinely, if narrowly, exonerating for the president on the “collusion” question.

But even if you accept that to be the case, the following three things are also true:

1. Donald Trump got elected president in part due to a massive foreign attack on our democracy.
2. Even if Trump’s campaign didn’t collude with that act in a criminally chargeable manner, he committed extraordinary abuses of power to try to prevent a full accounting of that attack on our democracy from taking place.
3. Trump’s attorney general is in the process of preventing a real public airing of the full dimensions of both of the above points.

Multiple news organizations are pushing variations on the idea that a “cloud” has lifted from Trump. The president himself claims “Complete and Total EXONERATION.”

This is nonsense. Indeed, one of the most important takeaways from Barr’s brief summary of Robert S. Mueller III’s conclusions is that it underscores the above three points with fresh urgency.

 

[Michael Scally MD]

EXONERATION HOAX
https://claytoonz.com/2019/03/25/exoneration-hoax/

The one thing we can expect from Donald Trump now that Robert Mueller has let him off the hook is he’s going to be an even bigger asshole.

Instead of taking the higher ground, saying something humble or even somewhat unifying like “the system works,” Trump continued lying, calling for revenge, and being divisive. He screamed he was exonerated when he wasn’t. He’s calling for an investigation into the other side, even though there’s nothing out there to suggest Democrats ever did anything illegal. He called the investigation “an illegal takedown that failed: and whined that it was allowed to happen to “your president.”

We haven’t seen an escape from justice this big since O.J.

But, there are reasons Donald Trump continues to defend Vladimir Putin, burn notes from his closed-door meetings with him, fails to acknowledge Russia interfered in our election, and is the only president in the modern era who’s refused to release his taxes while also refusing to dissolve himself from his businesses. It’s because he’s hiding something.

While the Mueller Report, according to the Barr Summary says there’s no evidence of collusion with Russia, there is evidence of collusion. How is Trump publicly asking Russia for help not evidence, or Trump Jr., Paul Manafort, and Jared Kushner meeting with Russians, or Jared trying to set up a back channel with Russia, or Manafort giving Russia internal campaign polling, or sixteen campaign officials having contact with Russia, or Roger Stone in contact with Wikileaks, etc, etc? The Trump team attempted to hide and lied about each of these details. Why would Trump release a statement lying about the context of the Trump Tower meeting? What are you hiding when there’s nothing to hide?

When it comes to obstruction, Mueller handed that to Barr to make the determination. William Barr auditioned for the AG job by writing a public memo against obstruction, so of course, he ruled against it.

They argue you can’t obstruct if there’s not a crime, but maybe you can’t find the crime because they’re obstructing.

Putting aside the Mueller investigation, there are still questions about Trump’s corruption. There are his years of shady taxes, selling condos to Saudis, the missing money from the inauguration, emoluments, stealing from charity, loans from Deutsche Bank, hush payments to porn stars, and the Moscow Project. On top of all that, why does Jared Kushner have a secret security clearance when he’s involved financially with Saudi Arabia and other foreign governments, and lied about his contacts with Russia? These people are about as clean as a Baptist preacher in a Tijuana whorehouse.

Like me, you’re tired of watching shitweasels win unfairly. You’re tired from watching Trump with Russia’s help, steal an election. You’re tired of watching him give himself, his kids, and his rich buddies mega tax cuts. You’re tired of watching them steal a Supreme Court seat and then change the rules to install an accused sex offender. You’re tired of Trump appointees ruling in favor of Trump. You’re tired of watching Democrats resign from accusations of sexual offenses while Trump remains in office. At this point, the Supreme Court is going to give Trump all the money he wants for a border wall and he’ll start a new company called Trump Racist Border Walls Construction, and award himself the contract.

People are arguing that Democrats need to move on from the Russia investigation, while Trump refuses to move on. We’re worried that Democrats will overplay it while Trump gets away with overplaying it. We’re tired of Trump being allowed to play by different rules.

There are two undeniable truths which Republicans still fail to acknowledge; Russia interfered in our election and Donald Trump is corrupt. Just because Robert Mueller got tired and couldn’t finish the job, doesn’t mean we should give up, no matter how tired we are of Trump, his administration, and all of stupid, racist, ignorant, lying supporters.

Mueller didn’t finish the job. We will because we have to.

 

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Big_paul]

Why do many working-class white Americans support politicians whose policies are literally killing them?

This is the question sociologist and psychiatrist Jonathan Metzl tries to answer in his new book, Dying of Whiteness: How the Politics of Racial Resentment is Killing America’s Heartland. The book is a serious look at how cultural attitudes associated with “whiteness” encourage white people to adopt political views — like opposition to gun laws or the Affordable Care Act — that undercut their own health.

The book is not about racism at the individual level, though you can certainly read that into it. For Metzl, the key question is how did a politics of racial resentment become so powerful that it overwhelmed even the basic instinct for self-preservation? To get answers, he spent years talking to voters in Southern and Midwestern states, asking them to explain their political choices. The answers aren’t terribly satisfying, but they are instructive.

I spoke to Metzl about what he learned and what he thinks we can do to solve this problem. A lightly edited transcript of our conversation follows.

Your average trump supporter.