Trump Timeline ... Trumpocalypse

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Michael Scally MD]

WASHINGTON — During a night of heavy drinking at an upscale London bar in May 2016, George Papadopoulos, a young foreign policy adviser to the Trump campaign, made a startling revelation to Australia’s top diplomat in Britain: Russia had political dirt on Hillary Clinton.

About three weeks earlier, Mr. Papadopoulos had been told that Moscow had thousands of emails that would embarrass Mrs. Clinton, apparently stolen in an effort to try to damage her campaign.

Exactly how much Mr. Papadopoulos said that night at the Kensington Wine Rooms with the Australian, Alexander Downer, is unclear. But two months later, when leaked Democratic emails began appearing online, Australian officials passed the information about Mr. Papadopoulos to their American counterparts, according to four current and former American and foreign officials with direct knowledge of the Australians’ role.

The hacking and the revelation that a member of the Trump campaign may have had inside information about it were driving factors that led the F.B.I. to open an investigation in July 2016 into Russia’s attempts to disrupt the election and whether any of President Trump’s associates conspired.

If Mr. Papadopoulos, who pleaded guilty to lying to the F.B.I. and is now a cooperating witness, was the improbable match that set off a blaze that has consumed the first year of the Trump administration, his saga is also a tale of the Trump campaign in miniature. He was brash, boastful and underqualified, yet he exceeded expectations. And, like the campaign itself, he proved to be a tantalizing target for a Russian influence operation.

While some of Mr. Trump’s advisers have derided him as an insignificant campaign volunteer or a “coffee boy,” interviews and new documents show that he stayed influential throughout the campaign. Two months before the election, for instance, he helped arrange a New York meeting between Mr. Trump and President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi of Egypt.

The information that Mr. Papadopoulos gave to the Australians answers one of the lingering mysteries of the past year: What so alarmed American officials to provoke the F.B.I. to open a counterintelligence investigation into the Trump campaign months before the presidential election?

It was not, as Mr. Trump and other politicians have alleged, a dossier compiled by a former British spy hired by a rival campaign. Instead, it was firsthand information from one of America’s closest intelligence allies.

 

[Michael Scally MD]

WASHINGTON — During a night of heavy drinking at an upscale London bar in May 2016, George Papadopoulos, a young foreign policy adviser to the Trump campaign, made a startling revelation to Australia’s top diplomat in Britain: Russia had political dirt on Hillary Clinton.

About three weeks earlier, Mr. Papadopoulos had been told that Moscow had thousands of emails that would embarrass Mrs. Clinton, apparently stolen in an effort to try to damage her campaign.

Exactly how much Mr. Papadopoulos said that night at the Kensington Wine Rooms with the Australian, Alexander Downer, is unclear. But two months later, when leaked Democratic emails began appearing online, Australian officials passed the information about Mr. Papadopoulos to their American counterparts, according to four current and former American and foreign officials with direct knowledge of the Australians’ role.

The hacking and the revelation that a member of the Trump campaign may have had inside information about it were driving factors that led the F.B.I. to open an investigation in July 2016 into Russia’s attempts to disrupt the election and whether any of President Trump’s associates conspired.

If Mr. Papadopoulos, who pleaded guilty to lying to the F.B.I. and is now a cooperating witness, was the improbable match that set off a blaze that has consumed the first year of the Trump administration, his saga is also a tale of the Trump campaign in miniature. He was brash, boastful and underqualified, yet he exceeded expectations. And, like the campaign itself, he proved to be a tantalizing target for a Russian influence operation.

While some of Mr. Trump’s advisers have derided him as an insignificant campaign volunteer or a “coffee boy,” interviews and new documents show that he stayed influential throughout the campaign. Two months before the election, for instance, he helped arrange a New York meeting between Mr. Trump and President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi of Egypt.

The information that Mr. Papadopoulos gave to the Australians answers one of the lingering mysteries of the past year: What so alarmed American officials to provoke the F.B.I. to open a counterintelligence investigation into the Trump campaign months before the presidential election?

It was not, as Mr. Trump and other politicians have alleged, a dossier compiled by a former British spy hired by a rival campaign. Instead, it was firsthand information from one of America’s closest intelligence allies.

Russia wasn't "colluding" with the Trump campaign, it was running it. Why else would Trump be so obsessed with doing favors for and "business" with Russia, a decrepit oligarchy whose economy is smaller than Florida's? No other presidential campaign in history has been this involved with a foreign power, much less a hostile foreign power like Russia. Spy novelist John Le Carre' said recently on Terri Gross' "Fresh Air" program that world oligarchs are colluding, regardless of nationality to set up puppet regimes and undermine traditional government worldwide, including the U.S. Thus, the U.S. Koch Brothers and Putin find themselves in alignment, with the wealth to dictate terms to any government or politician. How the Russia Inquiry Began: A Campaign Aide, Drinks and Talk of Political Dirt

 

[Michael Scally MD]

The poll to which Trump referred was released Thursday by Rasmussen Reports, showing him with a 46 percent approval rating and a 53 percent disapproval rating. Obama, on Dec. 28 of his first year in office, had almost identical numbers, according to Rasmussen: 47 percent approval, 52 percent disapproval. (In updated results released on Friday, Trump’s approval rating dropped a point, to 45 percent.)

The Rasmussen poll is somewhat of an outlier, though. Of the 12 polls that go into the Real Clear Politics polling average of the president’s approval rating, the 46 percent in Rasmussen’s poll on Thursday was the highest score Trump earned, 3 points better than his next best score.

...

Overall, the Real Clear Politics polling average shows Trump with a 39.3 percent approval rating and a 56.2 disapproval rating, historically poor numbers for a president at this point in his first term. Obama, in late December of his first year in office, had an average approval rating of 49.9 percent, according to the Real Clear Politics polling average, and a disapproval rating of 44.5 percent.

 

[master.on]

Happy new year 2018 to y'all

 

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Michael Scally MD]

TrumpFuckingPsychopath ...

 

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Michael Scally MD]

A few social scientists are in fact pondering the likelihood of a slide into authoritarianism. Although she is careful not to label Trump a fascist, Julia Lynch points to “important parallels” between Trump and Benito Mussolini. Both received support from the far right and from conservative religious organizations or individuals.

“Trump’s plans for the economy, like the Italian fascists’, seem to blend economic nationalism with giveaways for well-positioned big-business owners.” Given Republican control of all three branches of the federal government, “the U.S. political configuration generates possibilities for consolidation of power in a loosely accountable executive that are similar to the period surrounding Mussolini’s rise.”

In the guise of a review of Hannah Arendt’s Origins of Totalitarianism, Jeffrey Isaac also notes similarities between the 1930s and the present: “we, too, live in dark times, even if they are different and perhaps less dark.” Origins offers pertinent lessons, perhaps most importantly a discussion of the almost accidental “crystallization” of many specific evils—“anti-Semitism, imperialism, racism, . . . crises of multinational empires, the displacement of peoples by war and by technological change”—into “a maelstrom of evil and horror foreseen by no one, perhaps not even the protagonists themselves. . . . A society suffused with resentment, according to Arendt, is ripe for manipulation by the propaganda of sensationalist demagogues.”

Daniel Ziblatt and Steven Levitsky concur that “democracy’s fate may hang in the balance.” The United States “has already entered uncharted territory. Unlike any other major party candidate in modern US history, Trump has openly and repeatedly attacked basic norms of our democracy.” Levitsky and Ziblatt apply Juan Linz’s “litmus test” for a would-be authoritarian leader: “These warning signs include a refusal to unambiguously disavow violence, a readiness to curtail rivals’ civil liberties, and the denial of the legitimacy of an elected government.”

Not only did Trump ace this test during his campaign, but also Republican leaders are passing another Linzian test: “what undermines democracies in crisis is not only the behavior of extremists but also that of mainstream politicians who—out of fear, ignorance, or political calculation—tolerate and even facilitate their ascent.” Probably American norms, institutions, and practices are strong enough to provide a “soft guardrail” to preserve liberal democracy.

But not certainly: “democracies get into trouble when that mutual acceptance [by major political parties] disappears. When we view our partisan rivals as disloyal, as un-American, as a threat to our security, as a threat to our way of life, then we can begin to justify extraordinary measures against them. And that is the road to authoritarian politics.”

 

[Michael Scally MD]

BEIJING — North Korean leader Kim Jong Un boasted in an annual New Year’s Day speech Monday that he had a nuclear button on his desk and that the entire United States was within range of his weapons — but he also vowed not to attack unless threatened.

Kim promised to focus this year on producing nuclear warheads and missiles for operational deployment. But he also struck a conciliatory note, opening the door to dialogue with South Korea and saying he would consider sending a delegation to the Winter Olympics to be held in his southern neighbor in February.

“The United States can never fight a war against me and our state,” he said in the nationally televised speech. “It should properly know that the whole territory of the U.S. is within the range of our nuclear strike and a nuclear button is always on the desk of my office, and this is just a reality, not a threat.”

But Kim also said that North Korea was a peace-loving and responsible nuclear power, and would not use its nuclear weapons unless “hostile aggression forces” encroach on its sovereignty or interests.

 

[Michael Scally MD]

In 2012, a man who believed in what he called "legitimate rape" ran for senator of Missouri, the state where I live. Todd Akin, a Republican, was the front-runner until he said rape victims should be denied abortions because, "if it's legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut the whole thing down." It horrified both my state and my country. Republican women abandoned Mr. Akin in droves, and his opponent, Democrat Claire McCaskill, trounced him at the polls, 54.8 per cent to 39.1 per cent.

Today, Mr. Akin's remark would barely register on the public radar, as a man accused of sexual assault holds the presidency and rancid revelations of brutal misogyny among our elected officials emerge daily. This grotesque plunge in standards led many, including me, to expect Roy Moore to win the Alabama Senate seat. I was thrilled to be wrong.

Before Tuesday night, Mr. Moore seemed like the embodiment of a government that had forsaken everything decent and good. Mr. Moore is an accused serial child molester who believes America was greatest when it had slavery, a disgraced lawyer who wanted to eliminate every amendment after the 10th and a hypocrite who wrapped his hatred of black, Muslim and LGBTQ citizens in a cloak of cynical piety. He was abetted by the enthusiastic support of Donald Trump and Stephen Bannon, as well as the cowardice of Republican officials, most of whom refused to forthrightly condemn him.

Mr. Moore represented the simplest kind of moral test for America – "Do you approve of pedophilia? Do you countenance slavery?" – and the Republicans managed to fail it anyway.

Fortunately, the people of Alabama did not – and by that I mean primarily Alabama's black voters, who came out in full force to vote for Democrat Doug Jones, a lawyer best known for his prosecution of Ku Klux Klan members who bombed a black church. They came out despite repressive new ID laws designed to suppress their voices. Mr. Jones's win was definitive, but amid widespread reports of disenfranchisement, I suspect that without suppression his margin of victory would have been even higher.

 

[Michael Scally MD]

2018 ...

 

[Michael Scally MD]

NO COLLUSION?
https://claytoonz.com/2017/12/31/no-collusion/

Why did I draw a cartoon on New Year’s Eve? Most of my colleagues have taken the day off. I’m two days ahead, so I didn’t need to draw one. Also, my last few cartoons are on Trump, so I didn’t need another on the guy. But, I really wanted to draw Beetlejuice. Plus, just the thought of not drawing another cartoon in 2017 kinda bothered me. Look at it this way: You’re not going to see a new cartoon from me until 2018. You can laugh now.

Many people were surprised Donald Trump allowed a reporter from The New York Times to interview him without any of his handlers present. What wasn’t surprising was how many times Trump said “no collusion,” or that his mind went in several directions during the 30-minute interview.

Trump said “no collusion” sixteen times, and said the word “collusion” 23 times. Kinda like when Trump says he knows more than the generals, understands healthcare better than anyone, and is the greatest at taxes. Saying something doesn’t make it true.

Trump said it’s been proven there’s no collusion, that “virtually every Democrat” has said there is no collusion, and that the only collusion with Russia during the 2016 election was with the Democrats. Those are all lies.

Not one Democrat has said there has been no collusion between Trump and Russia. There is no evidence of any collusion between Democrats and Russia. Paying an independent source for opposition research is not collusion with Russia. And, nobody can say with certainty that there is no proof of collusion between Russia and Trump.

Before Paul Manafort was indicted or Michael Flynn pled guilty, you could have said there was nothing on either of them. Unless you work for Robert Mueller, or you are Robert Mueller, you don’t know if the Special Counsel has evidence of collusion between Trump and Russia.

But, we do know representatives from the Trump campaign were meeting with Russians and exchanging messages with WikiLeaks. They even hosted Russians in Trump Tower seeking damaging information on Hillary Clinton. That sounds like an attempt at collusion at the very least.

Collusion between Trump and Russia may never be proven. Collusion between Trump cohorts and Russia will be proven because it happened. I totally expect Trump to go from, “Michael Flynn being a great guy,” to “Michael Flynn is a proven liar.” I expect him to go from, “there was no collusion,” to “I didn’t know about that collusion.” I expect him to go from, “I am putting heavy responsibility on my son-in-law Jared Kushner” to, “I knew I never could trust that guy.” At some point, he’s going to say “Donald Trump, Jr? Never heard of him.” He has already changed his stories on why he fired James Comey and Michael Flynn.

If there really wasn’t anything to this Trump/Russia stuff, and absolutely no collusion at all, then Trump, the Republicans, and all the nimrods on Fox News wouldn’t be attacking Robert Mueller, the Justice Department, and the FBI. They wouldn’t be deflecting by talking about Hillary Clinton. The Trump team knows this: If there’s any evidence of collusion with Russia and obstruction of justice, Robert Mueller is going to find it.

And, there’s no magic phrase, chant, or whataboutism that will save Donald Trump.

 

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Michael Scally MD]