The Trump thread: All things Donald

[psiberzerker]

Don't let the racists have you taking your eye off the ball.

#Resist

The link could use a little cleaning up, but other than that.  Great post, @Athos.  On point.

Don't let the racists have you taking your eye off the ball.

Sorry, been a little busy taking on all the pedophiles for you.

[Athos_131]

As shutdown keeps TSA screeners home, Miami’s airport is closing off a terminal

Federal screeners are calling in sick at double the normal rate for Miami, and TSA managers aren’t confident they will have enough workers to operate all 11 checkpoints at normal hours throughout the airport, said MIA spokesman Greg Chin.

h/t Miami Herald

#Resist

[Athos_131]

Traveler Got a Gun Through TSA Flying From Atlanta to Tokyo

#Resist

[Athos_131]

As shutdown keeps TSA screeners home, Miami’s airport is closing off a terminal

Federal screeners are calling in sick at double the normal rate for Miami, and TSA managers aren’t confident they will have enough workers to operate all 11 checkpoints at normal hours throughout the airport, said MIA spokesman Greg Chin.

h/t Miami Herald

Dulles closes screening lanes, lines sprawl in Atlanta as shutdown strains air travel

#Resist

[Athos_131]

Revelations about Manafort’s 2016 interactions with Russian associate show special counsel’s intense focus on Russia contacts

But new details inadvertently revealed in a court filing last week — including the fact that Manafort shared polling data about the 2016 race with an associate who allegedly has ties to Russian intelligence — indicate that special counsel Robert S. Mueller III has also been scrutinizing interactions between Russians and Manafort while he led Trump’s presidential bid.

Manafort is among at least 14 Trump associates who interacted with Russians during the campaign and transition, according to public records and interviews.

#Resist

[Athos_131]

Here are 18 reasons Trump could be a Russian asset

Here is some of the evidence suggesting “Individual 1” could be a Russian “asset”:

— Trump has a long financial history with Russia. As summarized by Jonathan Chait in an invaluable New York magazine article: “From 2003 to 2017, people from the former USSR made 86 all-cash purchases — a red flag of potential money laundering — of Trump properties, totaling $109 million. In 2010, the private-wealth division of Deutsche Bank also loaned him hundreds of millions of dollars during the same period it was laundering billions in Russian money. ‘Russians make up a pretty disproportionate cross-section of a lot of our assets,’ said Donald Jr. in 2008. ‘We don’t rely on American banks. We have all the funding we need out of Russia,’ boasted Eric Trump in 2014.” According to Trump attorney Michael Cohen’s guilty plea of lying to Congress, Trump was even pursuing his dream of building a Trump Tower during the 2016 campaign with the help of a Vladimir Putin aide. These are the kind of financial entanglements that intelligence services such as the FSB typically use to ensnare foreigners, and they could leave Trump vulnerable to blackmail.

— The Russians interfered in the 2016 U.S. election to help elect Trump president.

— Trump encouraged the Russians to hack Hillary Clinton’s emails on July 27, 2016 (“Russia, if you’re listening”), on the very day that Russian intelligence hackers tried to attack Clinton’s personal and campaign servers.

— There were, according to the Moscow Project, “101 contacts between Trump’s team and Russia linked operatives,” and “the Trump team tried to cover up every single one of them.” The most infamous of these contacts was the June 9, 2016, meeting at Trump Tower between the Trump campaign high command and a Kremlin emissary promising dirt on Clinton. Donald Trump Jr.’s reaction to the offer of Russian assistance? “If it’s what you say I love it especially later in the summer.”

— The Trump campaign was full of individuals, such as Carter Page, George Papadopoulos, Paul Manafort, Rick Gates and Michael Flynn, with suspiciously close links to Moscow.

— Manafort, who ran the Trump campaign for free and was heavily in debt to a Russian oligarch, now admits to offering his Russian business partner, who is suspected of links to Russian intelligence, polling data that could have been used to target the Russian social media campaign on behalf of Trump.

— Trump associate Roger Stone, who was in contact with Russian conduit WikiLeaks, reportedly knew in advance that the Russians had hacked Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta’s emails. (Stone has denied it .)

— Once in office, Trump fired Comey to stop the investigation of the “Russia thing” — and then bragged about having done so to the Russian ambassador and foreign minister while also sharing with them top-secret information. Later, Trump fired Attorney General Jeff Sessions because he would not end the special counsel investigation that resulted after the firing of Comey. As Lawfare editor Benjamin Wittes argues, “the obstruction was the collusion” — Trump has been effectively protecting the Russians by trying to impede the investigation of their attack on the United States.

— Trump has refused to consistently acknowledge that Russia interfered in the U.S. election or mobilize a government-wide effort to stop future interference. He has accepted Putin’s protestations that the Russians did not meddle in the election over the “high confidence” assessment of the U.S. intelligence community that they did.

— Like no previous president, Trump attacks and undermines the Justice Department and the FBI (“a cancer in our country”) — two institutions that stand on the front lines of combatting Russian espionage and influence operations in the United States.

— Again, like no previous president, Trump attacks and undermines the European Union and NATO — he has suggested that France should leave the E.U. and that the United States should leave NATO, reportedly saying, “NATO is as bad as NAFTA.” The E.U. and NATO are the two major obstacles to Russian designs in Europe.

— Trump supports populist, pro-Russian leaders in Europe, such as Viktor Orban in Hungary and Marine Le Pen in France, just as the Russians do.

— Trump has praised Putin (“a strong leader”) while trashing just about everyone else from grade-B Hollywood celebrities to leaders of allied nations. Trump even praised Putin for expelling U.S. diplomats and, notwithstanding instruction from his aides (“DO NOT CONGRATULATE”), congratulated Putin on winning a rigged reelection.

— Trump was utterly supine in his meetings with Putin, principally in Hamburg and Helsinki. Even more suspicious, according to a Post article on Saturday, Trump “has gone to extraordinary lengths to conceal details of his conversations with . . . Putin, including on at least one occasion taking possession of the notes of his own interpreter and instructing the linguist not to discuss what had transpired with other administration officials . . . Several officials said they were never able to get a reliable readout of the president’s two-hour meeting in Helsinki.”

— Trump defends the Russian invasion of Afghanistan and repeats other pro-Russian talking points.

— Trump is pulling U.S. troops out of Syria, handing that country to Russia and its ally Iran.

— Trump has effectively done nothing in response to the Russian attack on Ukrainian ships in international waters, thereby encouraging greater Russian aggression.

— Trump is sowing chaos in the government, most recently with a record-breaking partial government shutdown and “acting” appointees in key posts such as the Defense Department and Justice Department, thus furthering a Russian objective of undermining its chief adversary.

#Resist

[Athos_131]

Did Trump try to cover up the Trump Tower meeting coverup?

When the New York Times first learned that Donald Trump Jr. and other members of President Trump’s 2016 campaign had met with a Kremlin-linked lawyer at Trump Tower during the race, Trump Jr. dismissed the story in a written statement.

"It was a short introductory meeting,” he said, adding that "we primarily discussed a program about the adoption of Russian children that was active and popular with American families years ago and was since ended by the Russian government, but it was not a campaign issue at the time and there was no follow up.”

As more details about the meeting were discovered, this answer was quickly revealed as either incomplete or entirely misleading. Although the group in attendance -- including campaign chairman Paul Manafort and Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner -- may have touched on adoptions as a component of the fight over a U.S. sanctions law targeting people close to Russian President Vladimir Putin, the genesis of the meeting was the promise of negative information about Hillary Clinton, Trump’s general-election opponent.

It’s not clear, though, that adoptions ever came up at all — and new reporting from The Washington Post raises questions about why that was part of Trump Jr.'s explanation in the first place. Andrew Weiss of the Carnegie Endowment noticed how the timeline of Trump Jr.'s explanation overlapped with that reporting, which is worth walking through in detail.

In early July 2017, Trump made his second overseas trip as president, stopping in Poland for a summit and then traveling to Hamburg for a meeting of the Group of 20. He arrived on July 6, the day before the summit began.

July 7, 2017
Early the next morning, Eastern time, the Times contacted the White House to ask questions about the meeting. White House officials asked for additional time to respond, scheduling a conference call for the morning of July 8.

At 3:45 p.m. local time — a quarter to 10 on the East Coast — Trump and Putin held their first in-person summit. Also attending were then-Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and interpreters.

Over the weekend, The Post’s Greg Miller reported that Trump took unusual steps to keep private the details of that conversation. Trump, Miller reported, “[took] possession of the notes of his own interpreter and instruct[ed] the linguist not to discuss what had transpired with other administration officials.” The sole report of the conversation came from Tillerson, who held a briefing with reporters.

That meeting with Tillerson wasn’t the end of the Trump-Putin conversations that day. That evening, the two presidents spoke for about 15 minutes during a dinner associated with the Group of 20 event. The only other person in attendance was Putin’s interpreter. Ian Bremmer, president of the Eurasia Group, learned of the meeting, which, he said, Trump hadn’t informed his advisers about afterward.

The content of that conversation?

"Really, pleasantries more than anything else. It was not a long conversation, but it was, you know, could be 15 minutes. Just talked about things,” Trump told the Times when the conversation came to light days later.

That interview with the Times also followed the first reports about the Trump Tower meeting.

"Actually, it was very interesting,” Trump added, “we talked about adoptions. ... We talked about Russian adoption. Yeah. I always found that interesting. Because, you know, he ended that years ago. And I actually talked about Russian adoption with him, which is interesting because it was a part of the conversation that Don [Jr.] had in that meeting.”

When Trump and Putin spoke at that dinner, Trump would not have necessarily known about the content of that meeting. Trump Jr. didn’t travel with him to Europe, though he and his father probably spoke on the phone.

July 8, 2017
That statement about the subject of adoptions was written the following day. The proposed conference call between the Times and the White House didn’t happen, so the Times sent a list of questions to be answered. As Trump and his coterie flew back to the United States on July 8, Trump drafted the initial response Trump Jr. offered to the Times, as The Post first reported at the end of that month.

“Flying home from Germany on July 8 aboard Air Force One,” we reported, “Trump personally dictated a statement in which Trump Jr. said that he and the Russian lawyer had ‘primarily discussed a program about the adoption of Russian children’ when they met in June 2016, according to multiple people with knowledge of the deliberations.” In a memo sent to special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s team last year, Trump’s attorneys acknowledged that this was an accurate characterization of the development of the statement.

The Times article was published online on the evening of July 8. In short order, Trump Jr.'s statement about adoptions was shown to be misleading. The predicate for the meeting was, as released emails demonstrate, that promise of dirt on Clinton. Trump Jr. claimed — and the Russian lawyer with whom he met didn’t deny — that the conversation focused instead on the Magnitsky Act, targeting Putin allies, and Putin’s retaliatory ban on the adoption of Russian children by Americans.

That this is a central issue for Putin was reinforced by his mentioning it during the news conference after his (also largely private) conversation with Trump in Finland last year. That suggests that he may very well have both raised the subject with Trump during the brief, private conversation at the dinner in Hamburg and approved of the lawyer raising the subject during the Trump Tower meeting.

It’s possible that Trump, with the subject of adoptions fresh in his mind, changed a planned response to the Times story during that Air Force One flight to raise a subject that he knew was of interest to the Russians.

But there’s another intriguing possibility: that Trump and Putin, taking advantage of the privacy offered by their conversation at that dinner, discussed how to respond to the existence of the meeting.

Whether Trump knew about the Trump Tower meeting in advance has long been an open question. Shortly after the meeting was set, he made reference to giving a speech uncovering dirt on Clinton, the supposed intent of the meeting. Immediately before confirming the meeting, Trump Jr. spoke with someone calling from a blocked number — which Trump’s home number is.

If he and Putin discussed a response to the Times during that conversation in Hamburg, though, it raises the possibility that Putin, too, knew about the meeting. If so, it suggests that Putin’s involvement in that meeting may be more significant than has been suggested. (It took months before the lawyer admitted her own links to the Kremlin.)

This is speculative. But, as Weiss notes, it stems from the central question in The Post’s reporting: Why did Trump go to such extensive lengths to keep his conversations with Putin private?

#Resist

[Athos_131]

As shutdown keeps TSA screeners home, Miami’s airport is closing off a terminal

Federal screeners are calling in sick at double the normal rate for Miami, and TSA managers aren’t confident they will have enough workers to operate all 11 checkpoints at normal hours throughout the airport, said MIA spokesman Greg Chin.

h/t Miami Herald

Dulles closes screening lanes, lines sprawl in Atlanta as shutdown strains air travel

TSA reports twice the normal rate of security officers calling in sick

I don't blame them, I don't work for free either.

#Resist

[psiberzerker]

Honestly, I can't say I feel too bad about the TSA not being able to abuse people trying to travel.

How To Feel Unwelcome In Your Own Country

I mean, it sucks that flights are being delayed, or canceled because of this Security Theater, too.  Still, of all the impacts this shutdown over funding has caused.  The TSA's ability to "Just Follow Orders" is one I'm not losing any sleep over.  The Waste Management, the garbage collectors forced to deal with our refuse, and not being payed for it, or worse the stuff piling up, because the trucks just aren't leaving the garage.  The Police, Fire Departments, and so forth.  That sucks, but the TSA could just stop illegally searching people, at random over something that happened 16 and a half years ago, if they want to save some money.

[Athos_131]

This Dude Really Served Clemson Boxed-Up Fast Food On A Bunch Of Fancy Trays

THE CULINARY COACH

It is less than a mile to Trump's hotel.  I have to imagine they cater.  Clemson probably ate better the two weeks on the road during the playoffs than they did at the White House.

#Resist

[Athos_131]

Aid groups rush to help as 42,000 Coast Guard members prepare to miss first paycheck



#Resist

[_priapism]

I’m wondering if it isn’t part of a more sinister plan.  If 800,000 furloughed workers seek alternate employment, it really could cripple the government’s ability to govern.  Justice Department and the Federal Courts run out of money on January 18.  That’s just 3 days from now.  Can’t charge Donald with a Federal crime, if there are no Federal prosecutors or court personnel.

[psiberzerker]

I’m wondering if it isn’t part of a more sinister plan.  If 800,000 furloughed workers seek alternate employment, it really could cripple the government’s ability to govern.  Justice Department and the Federal Courts run out of money on January 18.  That’s just 3 days from now.  Can’t charge Donald with a Federal crime, if there are no Federal prosecutors or court personnel.

(A)

[Jed_]

Aid groups rush to help as 42,000 Coast Guard members prepare to miss first paycheck



#Resist

When I heard the garage sale advice, I thought sure they can sell what’s in their garage as in the family car followed by the garage itself seeing as it’s attached to the house.

Meantime a border emergency that wasn’t is now real given what’s being done to our Coast Guard.

[_priapism]

Aid groups rush to help as 42,000 Coast Guard members prepare to miss first paycheck



#Resist

When I heard the garage sale advice, I thought sure they can sell what’s in their garage as in the family car followed by the garage itself seeing as it’s attached to the house.

Meantime a border emergency that wasn’t is now real given what’s being done to our Coast Guard.

Not to mention TSA and security theater.  The precheck lane was reported to be an eight hour wait at some airports, last night.

[Elizabeth]

Not to mention TSA and security theater.  The precheck lane was reported to be an eight hour wait at some airports, last night.

Eight Hours isn't possible , that would disrupt flights and flight schedules all over the world, not to mention flight connections.
Airlines are required to keep to their schedules. They can not deviate by that much just for the sake of the TSA. Aircraft are departing on a schedule as required by the FAA for aircraft flow control. The only deviation that would allow for that kind of delay would be aircraft maintenance / weather / airport closures.
Other wise its depart as scheduled, simply because arriving aircraft need that gate and departing aircraft are only allotted a slot time that they have to follow (two aircraft can't be in the same spot at the same time.....it gets very messy).

Love,
Liz
 

[joan1984]

Liz is correct. More 'fake news' by leftist marxist media...

Not to mention TSA and security theater.  The precheck lane was reported to be an eight hour wait at some airports, last night.

Eight Hours isn't possible , that would disrupt flights and flight schedules all over the world, not to mention flight connections.
Airlines are required to keep to their schedules. They can not deviate by that much just for the sake of the TSA. Aircraft are departing on a schedule as required by the FAA for aircraft flow control. The only deviation that would allow for that kind of delay would be aircraft maintenance / weather / airport closures.
Other wise its depart as scheduled, simply because arriving aircraft need that gate and departing aircraft are only allotted a slot time that they have to follow (two aircraft can't be in the same spot at the same time.....it gets very messy).

Love,
Liz
 

[Athos_131]

Go Fuck Yourself.

#Resist

[Athos_131]

Government shutdown: TSA absences cause airport delays, terminal closures


#Resist

[psiberzerker]

More 'fake news' by leftist marxist media...

Marxism is anti-media.  Look up Pravda real quick.