The Trump thread: All things Donald

[Athos_131]

FBI pushes back on unfounded Trump claim that China hacked Hillary Clinton’s email

#Resist

[Athos_131]

Donald Trump, Paul Manafort and that Pesky Witness Tampering Statute

#Resist

[Athos_131]

Google Calls BS on Trump's Claim It Blacklisted His 2017 and 2018 'State of the Union' Speeches


#Resist

[Athos_131]

AP FACT CHECK: Trump’s baseless claim of ‘fudged’ NBC tape


#Resist

[Athos_131]

Bruce Ohr Fought Russian Organized Crime. Now He’s a Target of Trump.

#Resist

[Athos_131]

Presidential obstruction of justice: The case of Donald J. Trump

#Resist

[Lois]

Puerto Rico's new Hurricane Maria death toll is 46 times higher than the government's previous count

#Resist

Only thing missing is the list of names... Fake News...

Sorry Joan, but Fake News is not just news you don't want to hear.

[joan1984]

Loss of life due to the Hurricane in PuertoRico is a horrible thing, and not one we would wish upon anyone or any territory.

The number 64 came from PuertoRico Doctors and Official Records, including those deaths that were attributed to the Storm, was an honest answer to the question at the time it was given, based upon known deaths, and the reason for such deaths in the opinion of the Doctors and Officials who usually answer such questions as a matter of law, who perform autopsies, assure deaths were not homicide, etc. That was the official answer to the question, of who died due to the Hurricane.

The larger numbers, and there are many different reports, not only this one that is referenced, are calculations as well as opinion of "persons trained in such death counts", or verbiage similar, and "math" is part of the number(s) stated.

The list of names of who those persons are exactly, or were, is not being offered, let alone provided or subject to inspection by interested and qualified persons. There is not a agreed upon list of names to match the 'death count' being proffered in this story, or in many of the competing and widely varying 'death counts' done by other qualified institutional counts.  Where are the death certificates? The originals, please and not those that have been a 'do over' once compensation from 'the government' was part of the conversation.

Did some people die while awaiting skilled treatment, or from injuries which did not heal over time, of course. Were some bodies washed out to sea in flooding, or some other Hurricane related catastrophe, likely, I agree, and I am not saying that every one of the 'dead' in this count are fraudulent claims.. and I am saying, absent any claim seeking compensation, mass death reports without a body to show for it, are not something Insurance usually pays out without proof, and neither shoud the US Government be stampeded into some catch all 'open the cash registers cause we say so' moment.

This is not a body count, that has actual bodies, for much of the supposed 'death toll from the Hurricane' as it stands. It is a calculation, perhaps well done (or not), that includes estimates, and charts and graphs and comparisons to how many people died the year prior, compared to how many people may have abandoned the Island and moved to Florida or whatever, in the days since the Hurricane.

My belief is that the number, if not used for compensation in any way, is as valid as many of the 'death toll' numbers being proffered now, and as good as those that actually were reported Officially shortly after the storm, by Officials who usually count dead folks and assign cause of death for a living, in Puerto Rico then and now.

Puerto Rico's new Hurricane Maria death toll is 46 times higher than the government's previous count

#Resist

Only thing missing is the list of names... Fake News...

Sorry Joan, but Fake News is not just news you don't want to hear.

[Athos_131]

Loss of life due to the Hurricane in PuertoRico is a horrible thing, and not one we would wish upon anyone or any territory.

The number 64 came from PuertoRico Doctors and Official Records, including those deaths that were attributed to the Storm, was an honest answer to the question at the time it was given, based upon known deaths, and the reason for such deaths in the opinion of the Doctors and Officials who usually answer such questions as a matter of law, who perform autopsies, assure deaths were not homicide, etc. That was the official answer to the question, of who died due to the Hurricane.

The larger numbers, and there are many different reports, not only this one that is referenced, are calculations as well as opinion of "persons trained in such death counts", or verbiage similar, and "math" is part of the number(s) stated.

The list of names of who those persons are exactly, or were, is not being offered, let alone provided or subject to inspection by interested and qualified persons. There is not a agreed upon list of names to match the 'death count' being proffered in this story, or in many of the competing and widely varying 'death counts' done by other qualified institutional counts.  Where are the death certificates? The originals, please and not those that have been a 'do over' once compensation from 'the government' was part of the conversation.

Did some people die while awaiting skilled treatment, or from injuries which did not heal over time, of course. Were some bodies washed out to sea in flooding, or some other Hurricane related catastrophe, likely, I agree, and I am not saying that every one of the 'dead' in this count are fraudulent claims.. and I am saying, absent any claim seeking compensation, mass death reports without a body to show for it, are not something Insurance usually pays out without proof, and neither shoud the US Government be stampeded into some catch all 'open the cash registers cause we say so' moment.

This is not a body count, that has actual bodies, for much of the supposed 'death toll from the Hurricane' as it stands. It is a calculation, perhaps well done (or not), that includes estimates, and charts and graphs and comparisons to how many people died the year prior, compared to how many people may have abandoned the Island and moved to Florida or whatever, in the days since the Hurricane.

My belief is that the number, if not used for compensation in any way, is as valid as many of the 'death toll' numbers being proffered now, and as good as those that actually were reported Officially shortly after the storm, by Officials who usually count dead folks and assign cause of death for a living, in Puerto Rico then and now.

Puerto Rico's new Hurricane Maria death toll is 46 times higher than the government's previous count

#Resist

Only thing missing is the list of names... Fake News...

Sorry Joan, but Fake News is not just news you don't want to hear.

First they were lying, now they aren't exactly lying but these deaths are irrelevant.

We get it, you hate these people and just don't want to be bothered with them.

#Resist

[Athos_131]

FBI: Man threatened to shoot Boston Globe staff, calling them the ‘enemy of the people’

Officials said that Chain began making threatening calls to the newsroom immediately after the Globe's announcement, calling the Globe “the enemy of the people,” lambasting “fake news” and threatening to kill its employees. Many of the calls Chain made to the newspaper were recorded, the criminal complaint alleges. The majority came from a blocked number that officials said they traced to his home after they secured phone records from Verizon.

On Aug. 13, he said over the phone, “We are going to shoot you . . . in the head,” using multiple expletives. “Shoot every . . . one of you.” And after the Globe published the coordinated editorial response, in concert with dozens of other news organizations Aug. 16, he threatened to shoot Globe staff in the head “later today, at 4 o'clock,” the FBI said.

"You're the enemy of the people, and we're going to kill every f---ing one of you,” he said according to the complaint. “Hey, why don't you call the F, why don't you call Mueller, maybe he can help you out buddy.”

On Aug. 22, a Globe employee asked Chain why he was calling, the complaint said.

"Because you are the enemy of the people,” Chain responded, saying he was motivated to attack the media because of the way they covered Trump.

#Resist

[Athos_131]

American political consultant admits foreign money was funneled to Trump inaugural

#Resist

[Athos_131]

GoFundMe raises thousands to place billboard of Trump's anti-Cruz tweet in Texas

#Resist

[Katiebee]

The POTUS and his organization do NOT obey laws.

For the Third time Aerosmith has issued a cease and desist order to Trump to stop using their music without permission.

https://www.nme.com/news/music/steven-tyler-legal-action-donald-trump-2369737?share=464040f6

It just goes to show what a slimy piece of crap Trump is. 

[Athos_131]

So much for the law and order candidate.

#Resist

[Athos_131]

Bob Woodward’s new book reveals a ‘nervous breakdown’ of Trump’s presidency

John Dowd was convinced that President Trump would commit perjury if he talked to special counsel Robert S. Mueller III. So, on Jan. 27, the president’s then-personal attorney staged a practice session to try to make his point.

In the White House residence, Dowd peppered Trump with questions about the Russia investigation, provoking stumbles, contradictions and lies until the president eventually lost his cool.

“This thing’s a goddamn hoax,” Trump erupted at the start of a 30-minute rant that finished with him saying, “I don’t really want to testify.”

The dramatic and previously untold scene is recounted in “Fear,” a forthcoming book by Bob Woodward that paints a harrowing portrait of the Trump presidency, based on in-depth interviews with administration officials and other principals.

Woodward writes that his book is drawn from hundreds of hours of interviews with firsthand participants and witnesses that were conducted on “deep background,” meaning the information could be used but he would not reveal who provided it. His account is also drawn from meeting notes, personal diaries and government documents.

Woodward depicts Trump’s anger and paranoia about the Russia inquiry as unrelenting, at times paralyzing the West Wing for entire days. Learning of the appointment of Mueller in May 2017, Trump groused, “Everybody’s trying to get me”— part of a venting period that shellshocked aides compared to Richard Nixon’s final days as president.

The 448-page book was obtained by The Washington Post. Woodward, an associate editor at The Post, sought an interview with Trump through several intermediaries to no avail. The president called Woodward in early August, after the manuscript had been completed, to say he wanted to participate. The president complained that it would be a “bad book,” according to an audio recording of the conversation. Woodward replied that his work would be “tough” but factual and based on his reporting.

The book’s title is derived from a remark that then-candidate Trump made in an interview with Woodward and Post political reporter Robert Costa in 2016. Trump said, “Real power is, I don’t even want to use the word, ‘Fear.’ ”

A central theme of the book is the stealthy machinations used by those in Trump’s inner sanctum to try to control his impulses and prevent disasters, both for the president personally and for the nation he was elected to lead.

Woodward describes “an administrative coup d’etat” and a “nervous breakdown” of the executive branch, with senior aides conspiring to pluck official papers from the president’s desk so he couldn’t see or sign them.

Again and again, Woodward recounts at length how Trump’s national security team was shaken by his lack of curiosity and knowledge about world affairs and his contempt for the mainstream perspectives of military and intelligence leaders.

At a National Security Council meeting on Jan. 19, Trump disregarded the significance of the massive U.S. military presence on the Korean Peninsula, including a special intelligence operation that allows the United States to detect a North Korean missile launch in seven seconds vs. 15 minutes from Alaska, according to Woodward. Trump questioned why the government was spending resources in the region at all.

“We’re doing this in order to prevent World War III,” Defense Secretary Jim Mattis told him.

After Trump left the meeting, Woodward recounts, “Mattis was particularly exasperated and alarmed, telling close associates that the president acted like — and had the understanding of — ‘a fifth- or sixth-grader.’ ”

In Woodward’s telling, many top advisers were repeatedly unnerved by Trump’s actions and expressed dim views of him. “Secretaries of defense don’t always get to choose the president they work for,” Mattis told friends at one point, prompting laughter as he explained Trump’s tendency to go off on tangents about subjects such as immigration and the news media.

Inside the White House, Woodward portrays an unsteady executive detached from the conventions of governing and prone to snapping at high-ranking staff members, whom he unsettled and belittled on a daily basis.

White House Chief of Staff John F. Kelly frequently lost his temper and told colleagues that he thought the president was “unhinged,” Woodward writes. In one small group meeting, Kelly said of Trump: “He’s an idiot. It’s pointless to try to convince him of anything. He’s gone off the rails. We’re in Crazytown. I don’t even know why any of us are here. This is the worst job I’ve ever had.”

Reince Priebus, Kelly’s predecessor, fretted that he could do little to constrain Trump from sparking chaos. Woodward writes that Priebus dubbed the presidential bedroom, where Trump obsessively watched cable news and tweeted, “the devil’s workshop” and said early mornings and Sunday evenings, when the president often set off tweetstorms, were “the witching hour.”

Trump apparently had little regard for Priebus. He once instructed then-staff secretary Rob Porter to ignore Priebus, even though Porter reported to the chief of staff, saying that Priebus was “‘like a little rat. He just scurries around.’ ”

Few in Trump’s orbit were protected from the president’s insults. He often mocked then-national security adviser H.R. McMaster behind his back, puffing up his chest and exaggerating his breathing as he impersonated the retired Army general, and once said McMaster dresses in cheap suits, “like a beer salesman.”

Trump told Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, a wealthy investor eight years his senior: “I don’t trust you. I don’t want you doing any more negotiations. . . . You’re past your prime.”

A near-constant subject of withering presidential attacks was Attorney General Jeff Sessions. Trump told Porter that Sessions was a “traitor” for recusing himself from overseeing the Russia investigation, Woodward writes. Mocking Sessions’s accent, Trump added: “This guy is mentally retarded. He’s this dumb Southerner. . . . He couldn’t even be a one-person country lawyer down in Alabama.”

At a dinner with Mattis and Gen. Joseph F. Dunford Jr., the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, among others, Trump lashed out at a vocal critic, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.). He painted the former Navy pilot as cowardly, falsely suggesting he took an early release from a prisoner-of-war camp in Vietnam because of his father’s military rank and left others behind.

Mattis swiftly corrected his boss: “No, Mr. President, I think you’ve got it reversed.” The defense secretary explained that McCain, who died Aug. 25, had in fact turned down early release and was brutally tortured during his five years at the “Hanoi Hilton.”

“Oh, okay,” Trump replied, according to Woodward’s account.

With Trump’s rage and defiance impossible to contain, Cabinet members and other senior officials learned to act discreetly. Woodward describes an alliance among Trump’s traditionalists — including Mattis and Gary Cohn, the president’s former top economic adviser — to stymie what they considered dangerous acts.

“It felt like we were walking along the edge of the cliff perpetually,” Porter is quoted as saying. “Other times, we would fall over the edge, and an action would be taken.”

After Syrian President Bashar al-Assad launched a chemical attack on civilians in April 2017, Trump called Mattis and said he wanted to assassinate the dictator. “Let’s fucking kill him! Let’s go in. Let’s kill the fucking lot of them,” Trump said, according to Woodward.

Mattis told the president that he would get right on it. But after hanging up the phone, he told a senior aide: “We’re not going to do any of that. We’re going to be much more measured.” The national security team developed options for the more conventional airstrike that Trump ultimately ordered.

Cohn, a Wall Street veteran, tried to tamp down Trump’s strident nationalism regarding trade. According to Woodward, Cohn “stole a letter off Trump’s desk” that the president was intending to sign to formally withdraw the United States from a trade agreement with South Korea. Cohn later told an associate that he removed the letter to protect national security and that Trump did not notice that it was missing.

Cohn made a similar play to prevent Trump from pulling the United States out of the North American Free Trade Agreement, something the president has long threatened to do. In spring 2017, Trump was eager to withdraw from NAFTA and told Porter: “Why aren’t we getting this done? Do your job. It’s tap, tap, tap. You’re just tapping me along. I want to do this.”

Under orders from the president, Porter drafted a notification letter withdrawing from NAFTA. But he and other advisers worried that it could trigger an economic and foreign relations crisis. So Porter consulted Cohn, who told him, according to Woodward: “I can stop this. I’ll just take the paper off his desk.”

Despite repeated threats by Trump, the United States has remained in both pacts. The administration continues to negotiate new terms with South Korea as well as with its NAFTA partners, Canada and Mexico.

Cohn came to regard the president as “a professional liar” and threatened to resign in August 2017 over Trump’s handling of a deadly white-supremacist rally in Charlottesville. Cohn, who is Jewish, was especially shaken when one of his daughters found a swastika on her college dorm room.

Trump was sharply criticized for initially saying that “both sides” were to blame. At the urging of advisers, he then condemned white supremacists and neo-Nazis but almost immediately told aides, “That was the biggest fucking mistake I’ve made” and the “worst speech I’ve ever given,” according to Woodward’s account.

When Cohn met with Trump to deliver his resignation letter after Charlottesville, the president told him, “This is treason,” and persuaded his economic adviser to stay on. Kelly then confided to Cohn that he shared Cohn’s horror at Trump’s handling of the tragedy — and shared Cohn’s fury with Trump.

“I would have taken that resignation letter and shoved it up his ass six different times,” Kelly told Cohn, according to Woodward. Kelly himself has threatened to quit several times but has not done so.

Woodward illustrates how the dread in Trump’s orbit became all-encompassing over the course of Trump’s first year in office, leaving some staff members and Cabinet members confounded by the president’s lack of understanding about how government functions and his inability and unwillingness to learn.

At one point, Porter, who departed in February amid domestic abuse allegations, is quoted as saying, “This was no longer a presidency. This is no longer a White House. This is a man being who he is.”

Such moments of panic are a routine feature but not the thrust of Woodward’s book, which mostly focuses on substantive decisions and internal disagreements, including tensions with North Korea as well as the future of U.S. policy in Afghanistan.

Woodward recounts repeated episodes of anxiety inside the government over Trump’s handling of the North Korean nuclear threat. One month into his presidency, Trump asked Dunford for a plan for a preemptive military strike on North Korea, which rattled the combat veteran.

In the fall of 2017, as Trump intensified a war of words with Kim Jong Un, nicknaming North Korea’s dictator “Little Rocket Man” in a speech at the United Nations, aides worried the president might be provoking Kim. But, Woodward writes, Trump told Porter that he saw the situation as a contest of wills: “This is all about leader versus leader. Man versus man. Me versus Kim.”

The book also details Trump’s impatience with the war in Afghanistan, which had become the United States’ longest conflict. At a July 2017 National Security Council meeting, Trump dressed down his generals and other advisers for 25 minutes, complaining that the United States was losing, according to Woodward.

“The soldiers on the ground could run things much better than you,” Trump told them. “They could do a much better job. I don’t know what the hell we’re doing.” He went on to ask: “How many more deaths? How many more lost limbs? How much longer are we going to be there?”

The president’s family members, while sometimes touted as his key advisers by other Trump chroniclers, are minor players in Woodward’s account, popping up occasionally in the West Wing and vexing adversaries.

Woodward recounts an expletive-laden altercation between Ivanka Trump, the president’s eldest daughter and senior adviser, and Stephen K. Bannon, then the chief White House strategist.

“You’re a goddamn staffer!” Bannon screamed at her, telling her that she had to work through Priebus like other aides. “You walk around this place and act like you’re in charge, and you’re not. You’re on staff!”

Ivanka Trump, who had special access to the president and worked around Priebus, replied: “I’m not a staffer! I’ll never be a staffer. I’m the first daughter.”

Such tensions boiled among many of Trump’s core advisers. Priebus is quoted as describing Trump officials not as rivals but as “natural predators.”

“When you put a snake and a rat and a falcon and a rabbit and a shark and a seal in a zoo without walls, things start getting nasty and bloody,” Priebus says.

Hovering over the White House was Mueller’s inquiry, which deeply embarrassed the president. Woodward describes Trump calling his Egyptian counterpart to secure the release of an imprisoned charity worker and President Abdel Fatah al-Sissi saying: “Donald, I’m worried about this investigation. Are you going to be around?”

Trump relayed the conversation to Dowd and said it was “like a kick in the nuts,” according to Woodward.

The book vividly recounts the ongoing debate between Trump and his attorneys about whether the president would sit for an interview with Mueller. On March 5, Dowd and Trump attorney Jay Sekulow met in Mueller’s office with the special counsel and his deputy, James Quarles, where Dowd and Sekulow reenacted Trump’s January practice session.

Dowd then explained to Mueller and Quarles why he was trying to keep the president from testifying: “I’m not going to sit there and let him look like an idiot. And you publish that transcript, because everything leaks in Washington, and the guys overseas are going to say, ‘I told you he was an idiot. I told you he was a goddamn dumbbell. What are we dealing with this idiot for?’ ”

“John, I understand,” Mueller replied, according to Woodward.

Later that month, Dowd told Trump: “Don’t testify. It’s either that or an orange jumpsuit.”

But Trump, concerned about the optics of a president refusing to testify and convinced that he could handle Mueller’s questions, had by then decided otherwise.

“I’ll be a real good witness,” Trump told Dowd, according to Woodward.

“You are not a good witness,” Dowd replied. “Mr. President, I’m afraid I just can’t help you.”

The next morning, Dowd resigned.

#Resist

[Athos_131]

Transcript: Phone call between President Trump and journalist Bob Woodward

#Resist

[Katiebee]

the resistance within

[Athos_131]

Trump suggests that protesting should be illegal




#Resist

[Athos_131]

the resistance within

Don’t get me wrong. There are bright spots that the near-ceaseless negative coverage of the administration fails to capture: effective deregulation, historic tax reform, a more robust military and more.

#Resist

[Katiebee]

Trump suggests that protesting should be illegal




#Resist

impeach, and try the ass for treason.