The Trump thread: All things Donald

[Northwest]

I continue to think that the best evidence of Trump's collusion with Russia during the campaign if his own behavior. He clearly acts like he's guilty. The innocent don't continuously float new versions of stories to see which ones play the best. They tell the truth, and let go, with an understanding that the facts, when fully exposed, will vindicate them.

Was That Wrong?



There’s something emerging in the right-wing media, especially something from prominent voices in the right-wing media who talk regularly to talk to President Trump and his entourage. That is a new line of defense – public, if not legal – in the Russia probe which is basically this: “if Trump colluded with Russia, it wouldn’t be a crime. In fact, it might be awesome.”

I’ve heard things drifting in this direction for some time. But it reached a new level when I noticed Media Matters flagging Sean Hannity adopting this as his new line of argument.

Here’s the passage Media Matters grabbed from Hannity’s radio show …

    SEAN HANNITY (HOST): I never understood it anyway. What was the collusion? That maybe somebody in the Trump campaign talked to somebody in Russia because Russia supposedly had the information that Hillary Clinton had destroyed on her server when she committed a felony and tried to cover up her crimes? And that they might say as a Trump campaign representative, “wow you have that? Tell the American people the truth. Let them see it themselves, release it.” Is that a crime, to say “release it”? To show the truth? To show damaging information?

And he’s not the only one. Media Matters have other recent examples, including Fox’s Brit Hume. Here’s Hume asking what the investigation is even about in a conversation with Bob Woodward and Jennifer Griffin.

    What crime? Can anybody identify the crime? Collusion, while it obviously would be alarming and highly inappropriate for the Trump campaign to — of which there’s no evidence, by the way, of colluding with the Russians — it’s not a crime.

Now, obviously people say all sorts of crazy things, especially on Fox News. Hannity is a complete clown. So on one hand it may seem hard to draw any real conclusion based on his latest nonsense. But the thing is we know he talks to people in Trump’s circle a lot and he seems to have some kind of on-going conversation with Trump himself. In so many words, I don’t think this is just Hannity’s nonsense: I think these are essentially trial balloons from Trumpland. Just how formal and deliberate a policy this is, I don’t know. Is this just what the Trump people are saying among themselves and among their pals? Or is it a more concerted effort to prepare the ground? I suspect it’s a combination of the two.

Can I prove this? I can’t. I base this solely on knowing that this is how defenses tend to emerge in scandals like this. It says volumes about where this is going.

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/was-that-wrong

[Athos_131]

We Stood Up to the Administration Today Because Free Press is Crucial

The president has never admitted one mistake. The current administration sells half-truths and lies like they’re day-old cookies at a bake sale.

#Resist

[Athos_131]

Trump Campaign Chief’s Firm Got $17 Million From Pro-Russia Party

#Resist

[Athos_131]

Who’s afraid of Trump? Not enough Republicans — at least for now.

“When you have a 35 percent approval rating and you’re under FBI investigation, you don’t have a hammer,”

#Resist

[Well Behaved Lady]

I'll just leave this here

[joan1984]

  Is "collusion" a crime?  Which specific statute would be violated? What is the penalty for 'collusion'?  A year and a day? Any mandatory sentence at all? Is 'collusion' a Felony?  A Misdemeanor?  Who has be charged with 'collusion' as a crime, ever?

  Very little can be charged to a sitting President, if anything, from a criminal standpoint. The Political impact can be different, and Democrats should bring the charge, if they have 'proof' to support their claim, and seek Impeachment.

  Or, Democrats should shut up and earn their cost, represent their districts, and "govern", a novel concept.

  Get over it, she lost! How many years do you think you can play as if it matters.  If Trump did not win, then he cannot sign the laws, right? So no worries.. be an ostrich..

[Katiebee]

Collusion with a foreign government to affect the vote . Some would call that treason.

[Lois]

Definition of collusion:

secret or illegal cooperation or conspiracy, especially in order to cheat or deceive others.
"the armed forces were working in collusion with drug traffickers"
synonyms:   conspiracy, connivance, complicity, intrigue, plotting, secret understanding, collaboration, scheming
"there had been collusion between the security forces and paramilitary groups"

So yes Joan, it is a crime.

[Athos_131]

Trump’s voting commission asked states to hand over election data. Some are pushing back.

#Resist

[Athos_131]

Kellyanne Conway would like to question the media’s patriotism — because Mika Brzezinski questioned President Trump’s

And the greatest irony here is that Trump is hardly a stranger to the nastiest of innuendo-laden political smears. Trump spent years questioning Obama's birth certificate, after all. That's going beyond questioning one's patriotism; it was about Obama's very legitimacy.

#Resist

[Athos_131]

At one Trump golf resort, fake Time magazine covers are taken off the wall

It was a literal piece of fake news. The cover contained several telltale errors: The red border did not match the width of Time’s usual border. The headlines ended in exclamation points, which is not Time’s style.

#Resist

[Athos_131]

Senate Intelligence committee will see the Comey memos

#Resist

[Athos_131]

Trump to Senate Republicans: kill Obamacare now, replace later

This sure seems like a way to not get reelected.

#Resist

[Athos_131]

GOP Operative Sought Clinton Emails From Hackers, Implied a Connection to Flynn

#Resist

[Athos_131]

GOP Activist Who Sought Clinton Emails Cited Trump Campaign Officials

#Resist

[Athos_131]

The Time I Got Recruited to Collude with the Russians

#Resist

[Athos_131]

 Is "collusion" a crime?  Which specific statute would be violated? What is the penalty for 'collusion'?  A year and a day? Any mandatory sentence at all? Is 'collusion' a Felony?  A Misdemeanor?  Who has be charged with 'collusion' as a crime, ever?

  Very little can be charged to a sitting President, if anything, from a criminal standpoint. The Political impact can be different, and Democrats should bring the charge, if they have 'proof' to support their claim, and seek Impeachment.

  Or, Democrats should shut up and earn their cost, represent their districts, and "govern", a novel concept.

  Get over it, she lost! How many years do you think you can play as if it matters.  If Trump did not win, then he cannot sign the laws, right? So no worries.. be an ostrich..

I was an FBI agent. Trump’s lack of concern about Russian hacking shocks me.

Instead, it was the prima facie evidence that Comey presented that Trump appears unwilling to uphold his oath “to preserve, protect, and defend” the country — which puts the security of our nation and its democracy at stake. In the nine times Trump met with or called Comey, it was always to discuss how the investigation into Russia’s election interference was affecting him personally, rather than the security of the country. He apparently cared little about understanding either the magnitude of the Russian intelligence threat, or how the FBI might be able to prevent another attack in future elections.

When Sen. Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.) asked Comey whether Trump had ever appeared concerned about Russian interference or how to stop it in the future, Comey’s answer was blunt: “No.” After a moment of reflection, he added, without prompting, that he had “attended a fair number of meetings on that with President Obama.” This contrast alone underscores Trump’s disregard for his fundamental duty, which is to ensure the security of the nation, its government and its citizens from foreign enemies.

It’s worth noting that there is unanimity among senior intelligence officials that the Russian interference in our election not only happened, but that it was extraordinary and unprecedented. In previous testimony, Comey described Russia as the “greatest threat of any country on earth,” and he warned Thursday that Russia is “coming after America,” regardless of party, “to undermine our credibility in the rest of the world.”

Former CIA director John Brennan testified to Congress in May that he was shocked that Russia had “brazenly interfered” in the election, so much so that he took the extraordinary step of directly confronting his Russian counterpart. He added that he believes that even in the election’s aftermath, “Russian intelligence services are trying to exploit what is going on in Washington now to their benefit and to our detriment.”

It does not require an FBI investigation to see that a president of the United States who finds no reason for concern in any of these assertions — and indeed considers them a “hoax” — cannot have the best interest of the country at heart.

To understand their perspective, consider this happening in the context we normally think of as a national security threat: Imagine that during the 2016 presidential election, a candidate publicly invited the Islamic State to bomb the Democratic Party headquarters. And then imagine that such a bombing in fact took place, resulting in the worst terrorist attack in U.S. history. Now further imagine that the new president not only had no interest in learning more about who caused the attack or bringing them to justice, but in fact went out of his way to make nice with the Islamic State and offer them political and diplomatic concessions. Finally, imagine that there may be evidence that members of the president’s campaign or other American citizens were actively or passively involved in facilitating such an attack.

#Resist

#Resist

[Athos_131]

GOP Activist Who Sought Clinton Emails Cited Trump Campaign Officials

#Resist

[Lois]

And more slime drips from the Trump administration.  Possibly Joan thinks such blackmail is and acceptable political strategy.  The ends justify the means, eh Joan?

Think about it, the Trump administration is threatening its enemies with fake news.

Morning Joe hosts say Trump tried to blackmail them with National Enquirer hit-piece
Top White House aides promised the story would go away if they apologized to the President.

The Washington Post op-ed Mika Brzezinski and Joe Scarborough penned in response to the sexist tweets President Trump posted Thursday morning mocking Brzezinski’s appearance contains a bombshell allegation: that Trump tried to blackmail them with a National Enquirer hit-piece.

“This year, top White House staff members warned that the National Enquirer was planning to publish a negative article about us unless we begged the president to have the story spiked,” they write. “We ignored their desperate pleas.”

During their show on Friday morning, the Morning Joe hosts provided more details.
“The president is friends with the guy that runs that National Enquirer,” Scarborough said. “And they said, ‘If you call the president up, and you apologize for your coverage, then he will pick up the phone and basically spike this story.’ I had, I will just say, three people at the very top of the administration calling me, and the response was like, are you kidding me? I don’t know what they have, run a story.”

Brzezinski said that the Enquirer called her teenage children and close friends in an effort to dig up dirt on her and Scarborough.

“These calls persisted for quite some time, and then Joe had the conversations that she had with the White House where they said, ‘Oh, this could go away,’” she said.

Scarborough said that tabloid journalists were even staking out Brzezinski’s house.
“After all this started happening, that’s when we started getting calls from the White House saying, ‘If you call, you need to call the president, and we’ll do what we can,’” he added.

more details here: https://thinkprogress.org/morning-joe-hosts-say-trump-tried-to-blackmail-them-with-national-enquirer-hit-piece-d7bf3178fe3d

[_priapism]

Douchebag.