By Pogo, a Trail Mix Contributor
From Michelle Ye Hee Lee in Wapo:
COLORADO SPRINGS — Top officials with the donor network affiliated with billionaire industrialist Charles Koch this weekend sought to distance the network from the Republican Party and President Trump, citing tariff and immigration policies and “divisive” rhetoric out of Washington.
At a gathering of hundreds of donors at the Broadmoor resort here, officials reiterated their plans to spend as much as $400 million on policy issues and political campaigns during the 2018 cycle. Earlier this year, they announced heavy spending aimed at helping Republicans to hold the Senate. But in a warning shot at Trump and the GOP, network co-chair Brian Hooks lamented “tremendous lack of leadership” in Trump’s Washington and the “deterioration of the core institutions of society.”
He called out the White House and Trump-allied GOP lawmakers, particularly over trade policy and increased federal spending, and added that “the divisiveness of this White House is causing long-term damage.”
* * *
Asked about Democrats possibly retaking control of the House, he said: “I don’t care what initials are in front, or after, somebody’s name. . . . I’d like there to be many more politicians who would embrace and have the courage to run on a platform like this.”
In reality, the network is expected to be a powerful force for the political right during the midterm elections, particularly in states where Senate Democrats are most vulnerable. It is also heavily backing the confirmation of federal judge Brett M. Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court. Some of the network’s biggest donors and most experienced activists are Trump’s most ardent supporters.
All nonsensical shots across Republicans’ bows, somehow I can’t seeing the nutty donor network be anything more than the funding source for Republicans to keep the House and Senate majorities they currently hold.
More Posts by Pogo
pogo, thank you for the timely thread and for alerting us to those 3 wapo stories last night. this one also got my attention and fits nicely into the subject at issue:
In a new book, Bob Woodward plans to reveal the ‘harrowing life’ inside Donald Trump’s White House
[…]
The expected tenor of the book is underscored by its unsettling cover, an extreme close-up of a squinty-eyed Trump depicted through a gauzy red filter. The hush-hush project derives its title from an offhand remark that then-candidate Trump made in an interview with Woodward and Post political reporter Robert Costa in April 2016. Costa asked Trump whether he agreed with a statement by then-President Barack Obama, who had said in an Atlantic magazine interview that “real power means you can get what you want without having to exert violence.”
At first Trump seemed to agree, saying: “Well, I think there’s a certain truth to that. . . . Real power is through respect.”
But then he added a personal twist: “Real power is, I don’t even want to use the word: ‘Fear.’ ”
Woodward, who declined to be quoted for this article, has privately described the remark as “an almost Shakespearean aside.”
NPR:
Manafort Heads To Court As First Defendant In Mueller Probe To Face Trial
Most tax and bank fraud cases are built on stacks of bland business documents and Internal Revenue Service paperwork — hardly the stuff of international intrigue.
But the trial of former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort, set to begin Tuesday in a suburban Washington, D.C., courthouse, promises to upend those low expectations.
[…]
The judge told potential jurors the trial would last no more than three weeks.
But when it is over, Manafort will not quite be done with the justice system.
He faces a separate trial in late September, on related charges, in Washington, D.C.
and on another front (or shall we say “affront”)
@MichaelAvenatti
Here is a copy of the opposition we filed to prevent the Broidy complaint from remaining sealed and/or the striking of certain allegations. The public has a right to know. Note: we had to redact the blacked out portions per court order.
#Basta#FightClub4:39 PM – 30 Jul 2018
Congrats Pogo, you and he on same wavelength this morning …
Donald J. Trump @realDonaldTrump
6:23 AM · Jul 31, 2018
Holy axis of evil! Who needs koch when you have mercer money?
The trumpence junta has dumped enough caca on citizens, they are beginning to question their own existence. Anyone who thinks trump won the election fairly and squarely? Stupid and foolish.
trump, pretend strongman, plays with other strongmen and thinks he is winning. n. korea…building rockets…I told you the CD wouldn’t work and I think it backfired. turkey’s strongman, now flynn-less, sending militants to syria, 50,000 at last count, is feuding with trump after trump let his goons beat-up citizens on our soil, trump calls for meeting with iran after killing a pretty-good deal, xi and putie aren’t really his friends after all. Asses of evil.
And the little man at justice defends religion and we continue baby-napping (not the good kind) at the border.
The good old US of AA, now a trillion dollars in debt at the hands of the trumpence junta.
So much fear, I may have to wee-wee, but I know that would turn trump on!
“Who needs koch when you have mercer money?”
bw, and/or bff vlad
according to fortune last year:
Vladimir Putin Is Reportedly Richer Than Bill Gates and Jeff Bezos Combined
Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos made waves this week when he briefly unseated Bill Gates as the wealthiest person in the world, according to Bloomberg’s tracker. The two U.S. tech titans are jockeying for the lead at around $90 billion each. But according to Hermitage Capital Management CEO Bill Browder, they’re nothing compared to Russian President Vladimir Putin, whose personal fortune Browder “believes” to be $200 billion.
wapo:
A federal judge on Monday found that U.S. government officials have been giving psychotropic medication to migrant children at a Texas facility without first seeking the consent of their parents or guardians, in violation of state child welfare laws.
U.S. District Judge Dolly Gee in Los Angeles ordered the Trump administration to obtain consent or a court order before administering any psychotropic medications to migrant children, except in cases of dire emergencies. She also ordered that the government move all children out of a Texas facility, Shiloh Residential Treatment Center in Manvel, except for children deemed by a licensed professional to pose a “risk of harm” to themselves or others.
[….continues…]
excerpt from an op ed in ny times:
Here’s to Michael Cohen. He’s finally getting something right.
First, let’s state forthrightly that Cohen, Trump’s longtime lawyer, the fix-it man, the one who mopped up Trump’s messes, the one who said he would “take a bullet for the president,” is an incredibly unsavory character and a bully.
He thought himself a tough guy, Trump’s muscle collecting the crumbs of Trump’s money.
[….]
But, as Cohen attorney Lanny Davis told CNN’s Chris Cuomo last week:
“Why is Giuliani out falsely disparaging Michael Cohen — because they fear him.” Davis continued:
“What do they fear, Chris? Why am I representing him? They fear that he has the truth about Donald Trump. He will someday speak the truth about Donald Trump.”
For this, Trump world will seek to destroy him. Michael Cohen will indeed take that bullet, metaphorically speaking of course — not for Trump, but from him.
But, if Cohen indeed becomes a cooperating witness for the Robert Mueller Russia investigation, he will salvage a tiny bit of honor from a life of dishonor. He will purchase a sliver of redemption.
Seth takes a closer look at Trump’s defenders moving on from insisting that the president didn’t collude with Russia to arguing that even if he did, it’s not a crime.
love this line by seth:
“He’s a liar whose lawyer is lying about his lying lawyer’s lies.”
A war between Koch and trump…. ROTFLMAO!
I’ve always thought that to become a billionaire one needed at least a lick of sense… but if Charles Koch actually thinks that he can control trump, that thought gives me pause.
nbc news:
Following the lead of his lawyers, President Donald Trump on Tuesday said collusion “is not a crime.”
“Collusion is not a crime, but that doesn’t matter because there was No Collusion,” Trump tweeted Tuesday.
The tweet, alluding to the federal investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election that includes possible collusion between Trump’s campaign and Moscow, came a day after the president’s personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani, in a media blitz, began making the same defense. Giuliani appeared on multiple television networks Sunday and Monday to stress the president’s innocence and add that “collusion is not a crime.”
For months, Trump had insisted that there was “no collusion” between his campaign and Russia. As recently as Sunday, the president went on a tweetstorm, writing that “There is No Collusion!”
Now, however, the president and his personal lawyer are shifting their defense to include the idea that collusion, even if it did occur, isn’t illegal.
In fact, there is no statute covering “colluding” with a foreign power. It is illegal, however, to conspire to violate laws, including ones barring foreign participation in elections.
In an indictment this month, special counsel Robert Mueller accused 12 Russian intelligence officers of conspiracy to hack computers and defraud the United States, alleging that people “known and unknown to the grand jury” participated in that conspiracy.
Meanwhile, Jay Sekulow, another of Trump’s personal lawyers, told Fox News on Tuesday that Mueller’s Russia investigation will find no evidence of collusion, before also stating that collusion is not a crime.
“There’s not any evidence of any collusion here involving our client and the Russians,” Sekulow told Fox, adding that he and his team of lawyers had looked through 1.4 million documents related to the Trump campaign and the special counsel investigation.
“Rudy Giuliani was correct — collusion is not a crime,” Sekulow said. “Well, that’s not just technically correct. I mean that’s actually the law. But there’s no violation of law, statute, rule or regulation that we have seen after reviewing this case for a year, and I think Bob Mueller will come to the same conclusion.”
[…continues…]
no collusion mentioned in (b)(I) of order 3915-2017
just the words “any links and/or coordination” between Russia and any one in trump campaign
wonder if the twit urging Russia to hack and expose Hillary’s email 2 years and a few days ago during the campaign comes under that “any links and/or coordination” directive for the special counsel to investigate.
doesn’t this qualify as a link or coordination
politico article published 7/27/2016:
Trump urges Russia to hack Clinton’s email
The campaign later attempted to clarify Trump’s remarks, saying he wanted Russia to hand over the emails if they had them.
Take a meeting. PR prez, photo-op specialist, the cameo potus begs to take secret meetings and meets with rejection. He needs to be recorded during these secret meetings…the NY Times meeting is such an instance. trump is unable to recollect anything he says and even denies tweets under his thumb. iran rejects him, n.korea rejects him, mel rejects him, 52% of citizens reject him and xi never calls anymore and putie is pissed. I cannot believe anything he says.
And the phony war on the media…and the sexual scandals and the media…front and center since the Access Hollywood tape hit the airwaves. Literally opening pandora’s box on sexual scandal, abuse, rape in our entertainment and media empires. And the more complicit the media? Depends on their current merger, DOJ court filings and friends of trump. fox and murdoch to do well while the ousted regulars at the old network are running the WH. cbs and viacom? Look to Mrs. chen’s husband. cnn and ATT and Time Warner merger? cnn not allowed at WH. The WH running the media circus. Picking and choosing winners and losers…just as trump accused Mr. Obama of doing.
how many links? let me count the ways:
Flynn, Manafort, Page, Don Jr. and a seeming unseemly cast of thousands more…..
A summit is still considered a meeting, no matter how trump defines it.
Definition: The formal definition of summit is a meeting of heads of state or government, usually with considerable media exposure, tight security, and a prearranged agenda. … A summit is different from a conference and a convention in that it is an exclusive event reserved for top level executives.
media, please please stop using the word “collusion” and refer to the order’s specific language.
ORDER NO. 3915-2017
APPOINTMENT OF SPECIAL COUNSELTO INVESTIGATE RUSSIAN INTERFERENCE WITH THE2016 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION AND RELATED MATTERS
By virtue of the authority vested in me as Acting Attorney General, including 28 U.S.C.§§ 509, 510, and 515, in order to discharge my responsibility to provide supervision and management of the Department of Justice, and to ensure a full and thorough investigation of the Russian governments efforts to interfere in the 2016 presidential election, I hereby order as follows:
(a) Robert S. Mueller III is appointed to serve as Special Counsel for the United States Department of Justice.
(b) The Special Counsel is authorized to conduct the investigation confirmed by then-FBI Director James B. Corney in testimony before the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence on March 20, 2017, including:
(i) any links and/or coordination between the Russian government and individuals associated with the campaign of President Donald Trump; and
(ii) any matters that arose or may arise directly from the investigation; and
(iii) any other matters within the scope of 28 C.F.R. § 600.4(a).
(c) If the Special Counsel believes it is necessary and appropriate, the Special Counsel is authorized to prosecute federal crimes arising from the investigation of these matters.
(d) Sections 600.4 through 600.10 of Title 28 of the Code of Federal Regulations are applicable to the Special Counsel.
May 17, 2017 ….. Rob. J. Rosenstein, Acting Attorney General
Trudee must think this is his swan song –wife left him, asked to leave the law firm, but still sucking in $$$$ from sleazoids around the world to help them stay safe
When Trudee ran for president he did not get one single delegate
probably the most money per actual vote ever. What a freakin loser
This one really ‘burns my fanny!’ While sessions goes after a very dangerous movement? The average citizen gets mugged on the internets, ends-up cornered in an alley on the dark web and data raped at alarming rates. The little man at justice could give a rat’s behind. Instead, our resources at justice at wasted on a fake repression.
Sessions says there’s a “dangerous movement” to erode protections for Americans to worship and believe as they choose.
He asserted that “nuns were being forced to buy contraceptives” — an apparent, though not fully accurate, reference to an Obama administration health care policy
“Let’s be frank: A dangerous movement, undetected by many but real, is now challenging and eroding our great tradition of religious freedom. There can be no doubt. It’s no little matter. It must be confronted intellectually and politically and defeated,” Sessions said. “This election, this past election, and much that has flowed from it, gives us a rare opportunity to arrest these trends and to confront them.
The mulberry street dracula is a decoy lawyer…a crazy cartoon character with bulging eyes spurning and spinning word defecation to muddy the waters. He is beyond ‘jumping the shark’ or in the case of these bozos? Not beyond stealing a shark.
Miss Helen is back home after her kidnapping for shark week.
Good news for trump, he can watch shark week from prison.
BW
I’ve always rather enjoyed the “nuns & contraceptives” argument if only for it being a blatant example of right wing stupidity. First the policy the nuns had was a totally standard one that had always included the normal sexual medications in its formulary as would any business of any size. Nice cookie cutter, sign here type policy. Then someone read the thing and all hell broke loose in order play political football while demonstrating that those getting upset knew little to nothing about human reproduction.
Even the totally virginal or celibate can require these drugs for other medical reasons. By demanding that they not be covered due to religious beliefs, it made the perfectly normal expensive and hard to acquire by those needing them.
tidbits from abc news coverage of Manafort trial:
[…]
Perhaps the biggest day in court – and potentially the most damaging for Manafort – is when Gates, who also worked alongside his longtime colleague on the Trump campaign, takes the stand against him. The government’s exhibit list, alone, is littered with communications involving Gates.
The two were originally indicted in Washington, D.C., in October on conspiracy, false statements, and a slew of financial crimes related to their lobbying and political work on behalf of pro-Russia Ukrainian politicians.
Besides Gates, the list of 35 potential witnesses the government revealed Friday includes the former chief strategist to Sen. Bernie Sanders’ 2016 presidential campaign, who worked with Manafort eight years ago to help get Kremlin-backed Viktor Yanukovych elected.
[…continues…]
salon:
George Washington University Law professor Jonathan Turley, a frequent critic of special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation, told MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” on Monday that President Donald Trump ought to be very concerned about former “fixer” Michael Cohen flipping.
When asked about last week’s leak that claimed Cohen is willing to tell special counsel Robert Mueller that Trump knew about the infamous 2016 Trump Tower meeting between Donald Trump Jr. and Russian agents, Turley did not sugarcoat the danger the president faces.
“I think the current development is very serious,” Turley claimed. “He’s one witness away from a potential catastrophe. If any of those five witnesses breaks and supports Michael Cohen, this will get real bad, real fast.”
Turley noted that any witness corroborating Cohen’s account would give Mueller the ammunition he needed to go after Donald Trump Jr., who swore under oath that he did not tell his father about the Russia meeting.
“It’s not that the meeting will establish a crime of collusion, even if what Cohen is saying is true, but what it would mean is that Donald Trump Jr. would be in serious jeopardy of a criminal charge,” he said. “If Mueller was to go after Donald Trump Jr., I think we would see a very rapid chain of events and it would not end well for anyone.”
This is when SFB will tweet he never wanted to name him Donald jr in case he was a loser and that he has now asked him to change his name but good job on getting Kimberley G
I just can’t conceive why Trump would want to start a war with the Koch brothers. I have to think they would fight back and knock his block off.
Libertarians and Socialists have always had a great deal in common in the fact that neither is successful in its purest form and never has been, yet they have definite goals in common.
The Kochs and their foundations have always been among the largest of the charitable contributors of the “noblesse oblige” variety, but they do like to slap their name on things from museums to fountains to hospital wings. Totally selfish in the sense that they can’t totally impoverish their customers and a work force needs to be at least literate and trained.
Socialism wants everybody to share the products of all their labor, but it always falls apart on human greed and need for success. Penalizing the most accomplished to reward the least productive and the whole thing falls apart.
Most of the developed nations have agreed on about a 55/45 split with services & rewards to the productive and creative getting the 55% and the whole of society getting 45% of services.
Unfortunately, the US has an absolutely huge defense budget that while it provides jobs directs the profits to corporations, many of which are making things the military neither needs or wants. Taxes are way too low and to provide services to the general public, money has been borrowed and the interest alone is making the debt and deficit skyrockets. This throws the 55/45 shares all out of whack and we now have a deficit that is over a trillion and a debt that is over 22 trillion with a debt to GDP ratio of 105.4.
https://tradingeconomics.com/united-states/government-debt-to-gdp
Not the worst in the world, but definitely worse than Canada, UK, Germany. Rather than directing the money we are taking in to better services (health care, education, infrastructure etc) or GASP (!!) increases taxes, we are upside down and getting worse.
the trial begins:
“A man in this courtroom believed the law did not apply to him,” Asonye said. “Not tax law, not banking law.”
and in another court
the hill:
A district court judge has denied a request from President Trump’s former attorney, Michael Cohen, to issue a gag order against Stormy Daniels’s attorney, Michael Avenatti.
U.S. District Court Judge S. James Otero found that while Cohen objected to Avenatti’s public statements about him and the adult film star’s case, Cohen did not demonstrate how this would impact his right to a fair trial, noting that it has been delayed for several months.
“It is far from clear that the publicity in this case would affect the outcome of a trial that may happen, if at all, months down the road,” Otero wrote.
The judge also wrote that if a trial is held, Cohen would not be a party to the proceedings, as the legal issue surrounds Daniels, President Trump and Cohen’s company, Essential Consultants LLC.
Otero also wrote that he has concerns about “the extent and manner of Mr. Avenatti’s publicity tour, the rights and issues involved in this action are far less consequential than the potential criminal prosecution in New York,” citing the current federal investigation into Cohen.
[…]
The judge also extended a stay on the trial for another 45 days, again citing the federal investigation in New York on Cohen.
Avenatti celebrated the ruling in a tweet Tuesday. “So much winning from these two!” he wrote, referring to Trump and Cohen.
[…continues…]
also from the hill:
Facebook reveals evidence to Congress of new campaign to influence midterm elections
Facebook has revealed a new coordinated disinformation campaign ahead of November’s elections that used dozens of fake accounts and pages on its platform.
The company said it has removed 32 pages and accounts across Facebook and Instagram involved in “inauthentic behavior” after discovering them last week.
It has briefed lawmakers on its discoveries and has been working with the FBI on the matter since discovering the accounts last week.
“We’re still in the very early stages of our investigation and don’t have all the facts — including who may be behind this,” Facebook said in a post.
“But we are sharing what we know today given the connection between these bad actors and protests that are planned in Washington next week. We will update this post with more details when we have them, or if the facts we have change,” it added.
The news of the coordinated campaign is likely to raise new fears of interference in this fall’s midterm elections, which are already taking place in the shadow of the fight over Russian interference in the last election.
Facebook told lawmakers in a series of briefings this week that the new efforts could have been conducted by Russia but that it has not been able to confirm this, according to a report in The New York Times.
Facebook said in its post on Tuesday that “whoever set up these accounts went to much greater lengths to obscure their true identities than the Russian-based Internet Research Agency (IRA) has in the past.”
The Kremlin-linked Internet Research Agency was responsible for a significant amount of election interference efforts in 2016. The group successfully organized events intended to sow discord among the public, including an anti-Trump event attended by thousands in New York City.
The social media company did say that while it lacked the “technical evidence” to attribute blame directly, it found that misinformation strategies carried the hallmarks of the IRA’s previous efforts.
“Some of the activity is consistent with what we saw from the IRA before and after the 2016 elections. And we’ve found evidence of some connections between these accounts and IRA accounts we disabled last year,” Facebook said explaining one case in which one of the inauthentic pages briefly had an admin who was also an admin in IRA page from 2016.
[…]
Despite Facebook saying that it cannot yet attribute responsibility for the inauthentic accounts to specific groups, the top Democrat in the Senate Intelligence Committee Sen. Mark Warner (Va.) pointed the finger at Russia.
“Today’s disclosure is further evidence that the Kremlin continues to exploit platforms like Facebook to sow division and spread disinformation, and I am glad that Facebook is taking some steps to pinpoint and address this activity,” he said in a statement on Tuesday.
Fellow committee Democrat Sen. Ron Wyden (Ore.) also pinned the blame on Russia saying, “Vladimir Putin is apparently determined to hijack Americans’ outrage against Donald Trump and his administration for his own purposes: weakening America and ensuring that his corrupt dictatorship can act with impunity around the world.”
Warner’s Republican counterpart on the committee, Chairman Richard Burr (R-N.C.) was more hesitant to attribute blame, but told reporters he expected more findings to come and said that he was among the lawmakers Facebook briefed on the matter this week.
[…continues…]
trump borrowed his way to success. While he claims to be ‘worth’ $10 B!LL!ON$, I’ll guess that he has borrowed $1B!LL!ON$, and merely calls his debt an asset and exaggerates X10. No doubt he believes that the USA can do the same thing on the way to success.
I am waiting impatiently for his, “I’m bigger than Jesus” moment.
What a day on the trail. Sorry I missed it. Sometimes I just hate working and organizing L’il P’s move back to NYC. No time to fuck off blogging.
maybe tomorrow…
OMG the Senators are beating the Mets 25 to 4 two outs top of the ninth
XR, there’s one thing tRump ain’t- and that’s any Beatle much less John Lennon. He’s not even the John Lennon of the upper east side. He might make the grade as a pimple on John Lennon’s ass, but that’s questionable.