Campaign dealings with a hostile foreign power are so toxic that it’s no wonder the Trump White House wants the story to go away. But the prevarications and outright lies about contacts with Russia lead to the unavoidable conclusion that a cover-up is afoot. Question is whether they’re covering up something or nothing, or perhaps they’re just being stupid. Either way, this presidency is facing crib death.
looks like they’ll have some more opportunity to keep digging in that hole they’ve gotten themselves into according to the guardian: “Jeff Sessions to answer Russia questions in writing”
and along those lines. last thread, xr, you asked Has anyone kept count of the members of trump campaigners and transitioneers who are tainted by russian stench? sounds like the start of a good joke: how many trumpsters does it take to screw in a cover-up?
Published on Mar 3, 2017
The president lives in a dangerous, delusional cocoon
patd – WashPo Phillip Bump has a current linkage diagram. It is probably not the last one before impeachment.
also from the guardian:
Donald Trump accuses Obama of ‘wire-tapping’ his office before election
President accuses his White House predecessor of overseeing ‘Nixon/Watergate’-
and from the hill:
President Trump on Saturday claimed President Obama had his “wired tapped” in Trump Tower before Election Day, tweeting the accusation without offering evidence.
“Terrible! Just found out that Obama had my ‘wires tapped’ in Trump Tower just before the victory. Nothing found. This is McCarthyism!” he wrote.
“Is it legal for a sitting President to be “wire tapping” a race for president prior to an election? Turned down by court earlier. A NEW LOW!” he added in subsequent tweets. “I’d bet a good lawyer could make a great case out of the fact that President Obama was tapping my phones in October, just prior to Election!”
[shows tweets….]
It was not immediately clear whether Trump had any proof or was referencing a report. Breitbart News on Friday reported on conservative radio host Mark Levin’s claim that Obama executed a “silent coup” of Trump via “police state” tactics. White House chief strategist Stephen Bannon was the executive chair of Breitbart before joining Trump’s team.
bbronc, thanks
question of the day: who told him he was wire tapped?
comey? noregard? bibi (via mossad)? …..vlad?
Twitter Trump forwards Breitbart headlines. Steve Bannon reaps advertising benefits of whispering in the Presidential ear while building racist, antisemite mailing list for future power.
Let’s see the bugs. I would guess his mob friends decided to collect a little information for their retirement pension. The guy is starting to wander the halls and talk to pictures.
patd – thank you for posting it.
Good morning all, great day here in KC, I’m going to spend a lot of time outside I think.
On the subject of the day:
I think the primary word in your post is “stupid” As in how stupid can they be?
Evidently way more stupid than any of us gave them credit for.
I meanwhat does it take?
Throw manafort and the Russians under the bus. Flynn’s discussions are executive privilege, none of your business and nothing out of the ordinary. Same for the Sessions meetup. Have them both admit that the Russians expressed concerns about the new sanctions and they were told , “We will take your concerns to the President elect”
That mostly stops the whole mess in it’s tracks
So the question is for me. What else is out there that is so bad that you have to totally deny any contacts with the Russians?
So we come back to the same basic problem when talking about the Trumpistas. Is it evil or stupidity? As I always say never attribute to evil when stupidity will suffice.
And Gods know there is plenty of stupidity with this bunch
Jack
jack, good point. as many a good folk have also advised him to help clear up some of the suspicions: “show us the
moneytax returns”more on tap from wapo:
“It’s highly unlikely there was a wiretap,” said one former senior intelligence official familiar with surveillance law who spoke candidly on the condition of anonymity. The former official continued: “It seems unthinkable. If that were the case by some chance, that means that a federal judge would have found that there was either probable cause that he had committed a crime or was an agent of a foreign power.”
A wiretap cannot be directed at a U.S. facility, the official said, without finding probable cause that the phone lines or Internet addresses were being used by agents of a foreign power — or by someone spying for or acting on behalf of a foreign government. “You can’t just go around and tap buildings,” the official said.
Trump sent the tweets from Palm Beach, Fla., where he is vacationing this weekend at his private Mar-a-Lago estate. It has long been his practice to stir up new controversies to deflect attention from a damaging news cycle, such as the one in recent days about Sessions and Russia.
Trump’s tweets took numerous top White House aides by surprise, according to a second White House official who was not authorized to speak publicly. Saturday was expected to be a “down day, pretty quiet,” this official said, and there was little, if any, attempt to coordinate the president’s message on the wiretapping allegations.
Keith Olbermann corrects Trump’s Tweet on Obama wiretapping his phones: “In fact, it’s @MELISSAMcCarthyism !”
This wiretapping is only news to Trump, who is decompensating as he suffers death by a thousand leaks. Sad.
To use my mother’s cheery phrase, Trump White House is a bunch of dumb bunnies.
Apologies to my idol, Bugs Bunny.
mr ddog, wapo could be spot on with their It has long been his practice to stir up new controversies to deflect attention from a damaging news cycle,…
anything to divert our attention… bombing yemen didn’t do it so who’s next? bets are on nuking north korea for diversion.
Can’t he be sued for slander, libel, being the stupidest President ever…something!!!! So he’s vacationing again in marlazy at taxpayer expense and tweeting nonsense from his pea brain. When will the GOP congress grow a couple and start actual investigations of REAL potential crimes.
In other news…I thought this was cute. Tom Hanks sent a gift to the WH press corps with this note. I’d like the picture to be where I want it but it will likely be at the top and out of contexts 🙁
(tweet ref:
)
And I thought this was funny: http://www.markfiore.com/january-march-2017/2017/3/1/unpresidented-trump
granny, that applause-o-meter cartoon not far off the mark. sounded like he brought his applause groupies (remember them at cia visit) for background music on the aircraft carrier the other day…. or it could be a sound tape as the hoots and hollers seem an awfully lot like the same ones at his other performances.
xr
it has a pistol grip. I cushion my right hand holding the grip against the right side of my abdomen. Not so bad because I have a lot of mass. Important to make sure the sling is not blocking the barrel as the forward swivel is mounted to the end of the feed tube which is even with the end of the barrel. The laser is on a Picatinny rail atop the receiver. Very nice combo.
Sturg
I have a small .38 revolver in Rosie. It should be enough to be a good Samaritan should that be called for. I do have a CWP. Should I actually feel compelled to carry on some occasion, I would probably use the .40 S&W with it’s shoulder holster under a jacket. Lots of firepower there.
tap dancing fast and furious
Granny Sue, when I was in the Army in Vietnam, Bob Hope came to town. Most of us said, “screw that” and stayed in our tents. That was probably in the Fall of ’66.
about the above interview, raw story:
Carl Bernstein mocks ‘excruciating’ Carter Page interview: ‘He was a deer caught in headlights’
“One, I thought it was an excruciating interview to watch,” Bernstein said. “He looked like a deer caught in headlights. What I came away with is here is someone who may have been used by the Russians and may have been used by the Trump campaign and perhaps rather cruelly in both instances. I don’t know.”
Bernstein said that one thing he absolutely believes is that there is a cover-up. But let’s cut to the chase here. There’s a cover-up going on. We can’t tell yet what the cover up from the Trump administration and from Mr. Flynn and Mr. Sessions, who have lied is about. But there is a cover-up going on. People are trying to keep us and investigators from knowing what all of these goings-on are about, people around Donald Trump and Russians, Russian nationals, ethno-Russians, and the campaign. That’s what all of this about.”
who told him about the wire…just some people in the grill at trump tower
Flatus
my cousin was in Viet Nam during that time period — in the Navy
my brother was there a couple of years later air force
Had the TV muted the other evening & Jared Kushner just stuck out like a sore thumb for some reason.
BananaNazi will problaby feed Trump whatever he wants & that is disturbing.
never thought i’d prefer to watch dubya than what’s going on in the media at the moment but this was pretty entertaining
https://youtu.be/Af9nJ22Jtsc
be sure to see it beginning at 5:27 in when they talk about sml impersonations
Katherine, left there in Dec 66, got out of the Army because the officer leadership in Vietnam was so incredibly bad; in our hq we only had one officer, the battalion xo who had the courage to go out on support operations. We would have followed him anywhere.
In January I was in the AF and KumCho and I were on our way back to Korea. It was a tense couple of years over there–lots of upheval because of DPRK machinations.
Kumcho and I found two beautiful, underfed, skinny 6-year olds in a country orphanage. Within weeks our new daughters were with us, and with the blessing of everybody, they became our official daughters in record time and were official immigrants when we returned to the States in early ’69. New adventures started in the 70s.
Well of course the Obama Admin tapped the deadbeat russian mole’s phones. How else do you catch foreign saboteurs ? And, apparently they caught the lying groper with his tongue in putin’s ear.
Lock him up !
The wire taps indicate that the Obama Administration got warrants to tap the deadbeat’s phones.
The russkie hack of the DNC is the equivalent of Nixon’s burglary of the DNC 44 years earlier.
Lock ’em ALL up !
the hill:
Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) on Saturday said he is “very worried” about President Trump’s accusation that former President Obama wiretapped Trump Tower.
“I’m very worried that our president is suggesting the former president has done something illegal,” Graham said at a town hall in Clemson, S.C.
“I’d be very worried if in fact the Obama administration was able to obtain a warrant lawfully about Trump campaign activity with foreign governments. It’s my job as United States senator to get to the bottom of this.”
[….]
“The other side of the story … If the former President of the United States was able to obtain a warrant lawfully to monitor Trump’s campaign for violating the law, that would be the biggest scandal since Watergate.”
note Lindsey used the words able to obtain a warrant lawfully because if so that in itself would cause even the most reluctant congress critter to support a special prosecutor/independent commission/jt investigative committee.
and this from reuters which leads me to believe (and the spokesman seems to hint as much) that if there were a tap it was ordered by doj:
A spokesman for ex-President Barack Obama on Saturday denied President Donald Trump’s allegation that the former president ordered a wiretap of him last October.
Obama spokesman Kevin Lewis said: “A cardinal rule of the Obama administration was that no White House official ever interfered with any independent investigation led by the Department of Justice.”
He added, “As part of that practice, neither President Obama nor any White House official ever ordered surveillance on any U.S. citizen. Any suggestion otherwise is simply false.”
the guardian:
Just before last November’s election, however, the British former MP and novelist Louise Mensch reported that the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (Fisa) court had granted a warrant to enable the FBI to conduct surveillance of “US persons” in an investigation of possible contacts between Russian banks and the Trump Organization.
Two months later, the BBC published an article backing up Mensch’s original story about the Fisa court warrant issued in October to allow the justice department to scrutinise transfers and communications between Trump associates and Russian banks. US intelligence agencies were investigating the link, it added.
The Guardian reported in January that the Fisa court had turned down an application, asking the FBI to narrow the terms of inquiry.
[….]
A surveillance operation would require a federal judge’s approval, based on evidence presented. Moulton noted that US agencies routinely monitor Russians with government links.
“If under the Obama administration they were simply monitoring contacts with Russian officials,” he said, “not trying to wiretap into the Trump campaign but simply looking at who Russian officials were talking with, and then Trump campaign officials got ensnared in that net, then it’s a total mischaracterisation to say President Obama was wiretapping Trump.”
The source of the wiretap story was fuhchrissake Breitbart as filtered through Mark fucking Levin. Gotta be right, right?
Poobah, LOL!!!!! Mrs. P’s “pet” name for drumpf is Pinocchio Nose. Gotta capture that image.
New SNL tonight. How will they squeeze it all into 90 minutes?
Bush…….yeah, see, I coulda liked that guy……..if he hadn’t been such a……..well, you know…….
I’m contemplating putting the Rossi snub in the glove compartment, where it’s legal, but I haven’t done it yet. I’ve always relied on my personality to allay problems in public…….and also any time you might need it you’d have to “go for it” which in itself could get you snuffed……so that’s a conundrum I haven’t worked completely out yet……
Yet, for the first time, I’m feeling some need of being armed when out and about……it’s weird.
Sturg, for goodness sake, go to a few hour class and get a CWP–that clears any ambiguity about it being legal in evolving situations. Show your 214 and you don’t have to fire it; if you have any VA disability, fees are waived.
When you have it in the car, its most likely use is to prevent continuing mayhem on a helpless victim; we no longer drive around with our heads in the clouds
carl Hiaasen: Bang, bang, you’re dead, and so are you and you and …
Florida lawmakers convene this week in Tallahassee, an event traditionally kicked off by a barrage of wacko gun legislation.
This year, some of it actually stands a chance of passing.
The worst by far is a bill filed in both the House and Senate that would eliminate all “gun-free” zones in the state. If passed, persons with concealed-weapons permits would be able to carry firearms to pro sports events, bars, police stations, K-12 public schools, public colleges and universities, courthouses, polling places, government meetings, seaports and airport passenger terminals.
To single out just one of the many pathways to random bloodshed, Republican lawmakers seem determined to make handguns accessible wherever mass quantities of alcohol are being consumed.
What would normally be a sloppy fistfight in the stands at a Dolphins game could literally be a .45-caliber shootout next season. And if you think campus keg parties aren’t lively enough, throw a couple of loaded Glocks into the mix.
Polls show widespread opposition to abolishing gun-free zones, a view shared by college officials, business leaders and many in law enforcement.
But the politicians pushing for more firearms in public are serving a higher master: the NRA.
Its unabashed darling in the Senate is mild-mannered Dennis Baxley, who is, fittingly, an undertaker by trade. His Ocala funeral parlor could see an uptick in business if guns are allowed in bars.
[….]
Even if the state’s gun-free zones are abolished, companies and private business owners can’t legally be required to allow customers with weapons on their property. Never fear — one GOP senator has a devious compliance tactic.
Sen. Greg Steube of Bradenton, a favorite pet of the NRA, has filed a bill aimed to punish the many retailers, restaurants, nightclubs, theme parks, movie theaters and other businesses that prohibit firearms. Among the big names potentially affected would be Disney, Costco and Whole Foods.
Steube’s measure would allow anyone holding a concealed-weapons permit to sue a gun-banning establishment if he or she gets shot, or otherwise assaulted, on the premises. The legal claim would be that they could have protected themselves had they been armed.
It’s a tort lawyer’s dream. If your drunken stepbrother sneaks a stolen pistol into a bar and shoots you in the ass, you get to sue the bar because you were deprived of the chance to shoot him first.
That scenario fits Will Ferrell better than Charles Bronson, but it’s closer to reality than the NRA can ever admit.
I played music in crestview fla with a vet, front line grunt guy, who had a couple of firearms and a rather large knife on the stage with him all the time……I saw him do a funny thing one night……there was this other night spot which stayed open 24/7 we went to after we were thru. Glenn told me that when he’d signed up to go they’d given him this immersion type short martial arts training which would “come to you when you needed it”. So anyway we’re heading in to the doorway which is being hogged by this huge “webfoot”. ……. ( boggy-boy, redneck…..). This cat was a man mountain. So Glenn turns sideways to slip past him peacefully into the joint with me behind him, and next thing I know the man mountain is lying on his back and Glenn is kneeling over him holding a beer bottle in both hands with the neck about 2″ pointed dead at his eye……all is silent and still…….I think then Glenn simply says, “Well?” And the guy must’ve blinked his eyes right cause Glenn stands up and we went on into the joint. I had no idea what had caused the flare-up. And it was fast. Glenn tells me later that as he was trying to pass by, the guy swelled up and gave him a nasty leer…….was an amazing thing to see…..with one fell swoop Glenn had jerked that guy out of the doorway and onto the ground threatening to joog him in the eye with a bottle……
So I’ve always had to figure that Glenn not only jerked the guy to the ground, he also grabbed his beer on the way down……..
Me, I’d have probably made the guy laugh about something, and he’d have wound up buying me a beer……….lol
alas and alack and mercy me, ain’t no longer any genteel like folk anymore in today’s honky tonks and juke joints. what’s a gal to do without her purty pink derringer tucked away in her heaving bodice….
Pat, the rules here are strict. And a proprietor who isn’t covered by a rule can post an establishment with a standardized sign. Also, managers can ask armed people to leave at their discretion.
I remember heaving bodices……..
Nowadays bodices just kind of fade into the woodwork.
Poor Kumcho–never had a bodice to heave
on this day march 4 1793, George, according to wiki
tweetedgave hissecond inaugural address [which] remains the shortest ever delivered, at just 135 words.
an encore for emphasis with current news in mind:
…if it shall be found during my administration of the Government I have in any instance violated willingly or knowingly the injunctions thereof, I may (besides incurring constitutional punishment) be subject to the upbraidings of all who are now witnesses …
As we wind down week five, and continue counting down, these last few hours have a current prez blaming a former prez for putting wire taps on him just because he never had any contacts with the
Soviets, er, Russians. Wandering the halls talking to pictures. Besides presidents cannot order anything like that, DOJ can if they have very good evidence.The most interesting piece to me to this week is that the former Worst President Ever has been rehabilitated, just like the Soviets rehabilitated those they had sent off to the gulags and had removed from pictures when they decided it was time to make them a hero for spying on an enemy. Bush II is now spreading wisdom on regular television shows such as Ellen. I do give him one little point for refusing to dance. So much has changed in this world. So much.
Sounds like George’s bodice was heaving…….
Yeah………refusing to dance………..he reminds me of that twain saying about his old man………
Yancy Derringer had a derringer…….and Pahoot had a big knife…….Lash laRue had a whip…….Sherrif Taylor didn’t carry no gun…..rest of them guys had six-shooters, cept for the rifleman, red Ryder and Johnny Yuma…….and maybe Steve McQueen…….and Colorado ……….
Yeungling is Trump-swill, that company will never get a dime of my $, again. Boycott, Flatus!
Everyone one else, stop buying guns.
Part of the social achievement of Obama’s election to POTUS was the ascension of a minority class to our society’s highest and most respected office. TrumpCo. has turned that office into a joke, retroactively diminishing said social achievement.
*vomits*
Bink:
“Owner: Richard Yuengling, Jr. Website: http://www.yuengling.com: D. G. Yuengling & Son is the oldest operating brewing company in the United States, established in 1829.”
Yeah Flatus, that dick endorsed Trump and made a big deal out of it.
Hopefully they go out of business and Pottsville residents can go back to coal-mining cuz it’s such a great job, or so Republicans would have you believe.
“HRC wants to take our dangerous, dirty, and carcinogenic jobs away! Trump! Trump! Trump!”
Business people with a public presence should know better. Let’s hope his off-spring have learned that basic lesson.
I stopped buying guns in 1970…. The ones I have came to me…….I’m not saying I wouldn’t. Just haven’t had to……..
bink, it may be swill, but it’s good ol’ american swill.
I got out of “hunting” when I got my first daisy eagle BB gun……..shot a little tweety bird and actually happened to have hit it so that it fell to the ground……it was twitching so I shot it some more and it kept twitching……I didn’t know enough to just jerk it’s head off so I just kept shooting it and it kept twitching so I finally clubbed its little head into the ground and it kept twitching…….you know, on tv, when they shoot somebody they just fall over and die…..
That poor little birdie. Well, at least it cured me of that shit.
a tho’t just arrived in my devious cynical little brain: the bannon republic are fishing for assurance things said on phones in the tower were not being recorded. they are looking for signs/hints/confirmation whether or not there were or are bugs and wire tapping.
Sturg, when I was about 9 or 10 I shot a robin with my bow and arrow. It was deader than dead. I was heartsick. Never touched that stringed monster again.
I often wonder about the goofball who invented the bow and arrow……guy was ahead of his time…….
I’m thinking he just invented the bow just so he’d have something to play in front of the cave with all the drummers and just added the arrow as an afterthought……..probably had to use them against the drummers……
“the bannon republic are fishing for assurance things”-patd
Don’t let them manipulate your mind. The breitbartists are deliberately trying to erode all of our institutions with the goal of collapsing our society so that they can purge ethnic and social minorities and replace it with a White Empire. They are proto-Nazis, nothing more, nothing less.
…it would really make their heads explode if they found out that Russians are as much Asian as they are European! Maybe not- it’s all about skin-color, to them.
in other words they are just making shit up
I boycott the businesses of all Pussy Grabber supporters even if I like the product or the store
https://grabyourwallet.org/
https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2016/12/01/kareem-abdul-jabbar-how-boycotts-could-help
You right, Bink…..what now?
I’m selective about boycotting. When BP was destroying the seven seas I wouldn’t go to their company owned stations, but that didn’t stop me from going to the small station that was owned by a couple of immigrants.
Listen……..the trump supporters are die-hards.
Tell the special people in your life you love them, keep your head right, your mouth loud, and smoke ’em if ya got ’em, my good man.
They believe The Plan to Save Humanity is under attack.
I’m widja on all but mouth loud……..that don’t never get it………
Bink, I see yeungling threw support to drumpf. Glad Sam Adams isn’t on that list.
No fucking way I’m patronizing any business that supported the effort to make me the subject of a fascist government. I wouldn’t support your business if you punched me in the face, either, and that’s less of an affront.
In the original German:: Furcken zem jungleiners
It is looking like a floater is circling the porcelain goddess.
The special people in me life…….hey Bink, cc, Cbob, jack, , flatus, Ran, Nash, dex, Jamie, Corey, Christ do I Gotta list everyone of yas? No…….I refuse to be ruled by denouement and onomatopoeia…..
Thanks, Sturge, always a pleasure.
onomatopoeia—Pizza and Beer?
USC 89 KY 77 on to the finals tomorrow!
Congrats to SC. Earned but not unexpected.
I’ll pass it on, Pogo. I like them all as individuals. I’m fortunate that I’m able to take full advantage of our location thru season tickets. Sunday was Senior Day. We had a full house at 18,000 people–not bad for a small town.
Marc Laidlaw’s recent tweet might start a new round of “You Don’t Know Jake”.
Edgar sings My Ding a Ling
HEAR the sledges with the bells,
Silver bells!
What a world of merriment their melody foretells!
How they tinkle, tinkle, tinkle,
In the icy air of night!
5
While the stars, that oversprinkle
All the heavens, seem to twinkle
With a crystalline delight;
Keeping time, time, time,
In a sort of Runic rhyme,
10
To the tintinnabulation that so musically wells
From the bells, bells, bells, bells,
Bells, bells, bells—
From the jingling and the tinkling of the bells.
Flatus: My father was in nam in 1966 during the Hope visit. He didn’t go to the show but he did meet Mr Hope. Seems like you were army so you probably never saw my father, he was Air Force Intelligence. He made a couple trips in the 60s but never spoke about it….well, he never spoke about his work in general LOL! My ex-husband was in the army and in nam I think in ’68/69. It left a lasting mark on him. He had a roommate who committed suicide and the ex had to clean up the room. Pretty horrible stuff for a young man. We were married in ’70.
Pat: Sadly, most Presidents are not woven from the same cloth anymore. Too bad George’s words aren’t permanently nailed to the wall in the oval office!
Advice on Wiretap Warrants
For a federal government employee, agency, office, or department to lawfully tap the phone of a US citizen, a warrant for that tap must be obtained from an appropriate federal judge. To be granted, an application for a wiretap warrant must include the following information:
1. Reported Felony, Time, and Place
a. There must be a report by a witness of a felony that has been committed, is being committed, or shall be committed.
b. The application must include the exact place or the exact electronic communication account used by the suspect(s).
c. The felony must fall within the jurisdiction of the US, and the felony must be ‘current’, meaning the statute of limitations does not preclude prosecution.
2. The Witness
a. The witness cited in the application for warrant must be reliable, meaning (s)he has a track record of giving correct information in criminal cases.
b. The witness must have had the ability to learn of the felony, meaning that (s)he could have been in the vicinity at the time alleged.
c. The witness must be believable, meaning (s)he must include in the report enough relevant detail that a reasonable person might reasonably presume the witness told the truth.
If the application for a wiretap warrant does not meet all of these criteria in every point, the warrant cannot be granted.
– Xrepublican
Jamie, i’m getting a little ding-y too. thanks for the poe