Posting two new Russia revelations here for discussion because, it’s Friday! And why not? Shocker: Carter Page lied to the media about his Russia contacts.
Another shocker: Team Trump has been lying about ‘coffee boy’ George.
Discuss.
With Sessions’ legal jeopardy mounting, the question arises: Will he turn on Trump?
Outside of Paul Manafort and Rick Gates, no one in Donald Trump’s orbit was put in more immediate legal jeopardy by the special counsel’s revelations this week than Attorney General Jeff Sessions, who is now once, twice, three times a liar.
- Strike 1: He did have contacts with Russians.
- Strike 2: He was aware that Trump aide George Papadopoulos was trying to coordinate with the Russians.
- Strike 3: He did know that Trump aide Carter Page was communicating with Russians.
While Sessions’ repeated lies open him up to perjury charges, they also make him a prime target for Robert Mueller’s investigation. Even with what little we in the public know about his legal liabilities, Sessions is already practically begging to be interviewed about Donald Trump’s relationship with the Russians during the campaign as well as his actions as pr*sident. As Washington Post‘s Jennifer Rubin points
Six times in 24 hours, desperate Donald calls for DOJ and FBI to investigate Hillary
Donald Trump’s working hard, but naturally it has nothing to do with serving the American people. He’s desperate to find a foil for the Russia entanglements that are beginning to strangle his presidency. Here’s the start of Trump’s Friday morning campaign:
By “everybody,” we assume he means all his Russian bot followers, whose concerns warranted another seven tweets following that opening bid. Three of those tweets explicitly called on the FBI and the Department of Justice to investigate Clinton for, well, everything: “New Donna B book says she paid for and stole the Dem Primary. What about the deleted E-mails, Uranium, Podesta, the Server, plus, plus…”
It’s clearly driving the Don crazy that he can’t just order two of
Six times in 24 hours, desperate Donald calls for DOJ and FBI to investigate Hillary
Donald Trump’s working hard, but naturally it has nothing to do with serving the American people. He’s desperate to find a foil for the Russia entanglements that are beginning to strangle his presidency. Here’s the start of Trump’s Friday morning campaign:
By “everybody,” we assume he means all his Russian bot followers, whose concerns warranted another seven tweets following that opening bid. Three of those tweets explicitly called on the FBI and the Department of Justice to investigate Clinton for, well, everything: “New Donna B book says she paid for and stole the Dem Primary. What about the deleted E-mails, Uranium, Podesta, the Server, plus, plus…”
It’s clearly driving the Don crazy that he can’t just order two of
Three House Republicans try to oust Mueller over laughable uranium deal conspiracy theory
On the very week that Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s probe started producing evidence of problematic Russian contacts by the Trump campaign, three House Republicans suddenly want to kneecap Mueller. Who could have guessed it? The Washington Post writes:
Three conservative House Republicans are expected to file a resolution Friday calling on special counsel Robert S. Mueller III to recuse himself from his probe of Russian meddling in the 2016 U.S. presidential election, accusing him of conflicts of interest.
Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.), who wrote the resolution, accuses Mueller of having a conflict of interest because he was serving as FBI chief when the Obama administration approved a deal allowing a Russian company to purchase a Canada-based mining group with uranium operations in the United States, according to a draft obtained by The Washington Post.
Now keep this in mind: While there is zero evidence that Hillary Clinton was involved
Three House Republicans try to oust Mueller over laughable uranium deal conspiracy theory
On the very week that Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s probe started producing evidence of problematic Russian contacts by the Trump campaign, three House Republicans suddenly want to kneecap Mueller. Who could have guessed it? The Washington Post writes:
Three conservative House Republicans are expected to file a resolution Friday calling on special counsel Robert S. Mueller III to recuse himself from his probe of Russian meddling in the 2016 U.S. presidential election, accusing him of conflicts of interest.
Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.), who wrote the resolution, accuses Mueller of having a conflict of interest because he was serving as FBI chief when the Obama administration approved a deal allowing a Russian company to purchase a Canada-based mining group with uranium operations in the United States, according to a draft obtained by The Washington Post.
Now keep this in mind: While there is zero evidence that Hillary Clinton was involved
Sorry Sessions: Carter Page tells House Intelligence panel Sessions knew about his Russia trip
During a marathon closed-door hearing Thursday with the House Intelligence panel, former Trump aide Carter Page said he had told then-Senator Jeff Sessions he was going to Russia during the 2016 campaign. CNN writes:
Sessions’ discussion with Page will fuel further scrutiny about what the attorney general knew about connections between the Trump campaign and Russia — and communications about Russia that he did not disclose despite a persistent line of questioning in three separate hearings this year. […]
Rep. Mike Conaway, the Texas Republican who is leading the House intelligence committees Russia probe, confirmed to CNN that Page told the committee he had informed Sessions about his trip, though Conaway downplayed its significance. […]
“Back in June 2016, I mentioned in passing that I happened to be planning to give a speech at a university in Moscow,” Page told CNN. “Completely unrelated to my limited volunteer role with
Trump administration recommends lifting ban on uranium mining in Grand Canyon
For 20 years, mining for uranium inside of the Grand Canyon has been banned. For that same amount of time, the Koch brothers have worked tirelessly to get the ban lifted.
Billionaire businessmen Charles and David Koch are channeling money into an Arizona-based organization that’s fighting a plan that would include a permanent ban on uranium mining around the Grand Canyon.
The arguments for upholding the ban are that it provides no public profit to allow private uranium mining and that by not allowing such, we relieve ourselves of the burden of worrying about the very real environmental damage uranium mining would open up.
This is exactly why the new USDA report by the Trump administration is both unsurprising and grotesquely craven. In it they have all kinds of great recommendations for how we can “streamline” things in our national parks. Lo and behold, one of them “could” lead to uranium mining.
Adoption of this recommendation
Continue reading “Trump administration recommends lifting ban on uranium mining in Grand Canyon”
Trump delivers more doozies: ‘My generals and my military’ authorized the Niger mission, ‘I didn’t’
Donald Trump gave a meandering impromptu interview to the press corps Wednesday in which he touched on issues ranging from the Niger mission he claimed he didn’t authorize to his own superior intellectual capacities and how “extremely nice and extremely respectful” he was to the widow of slain soldier Sgt. La David Johnson.
Frankly, there was too much outlandishness to cover in one blog post, but let’s hit some central points from the presser, which aired on MSNBC. First, Trump claimed complete ownership over the military yet said he didn’t authorize the fateful Niger mission. Instead, he scapegoated his generals for the mission that resulted in the deaths of four American soldiers.
Asked by reporters whether he gave the go-ahead for the operation, Trump said: “No I didn’t. Not specifically.”
But just after that, Trump declared the very same generals as his own, not America’s.
With that being said, my generals and my military, they have
Faced with Flake’s rally cry to save America, most Republicans say tax cuts are just too important
Sure, GOP Sens. Jeff Flake and Bob Corker made some good points Tuesday about how Donald Trump is “debasing” our political discourse and the entire country in the process, but they’re retiring from the Senate. Ask any Republican who plans on indefinitely clinging to his or her Senate seat, and they’ll tell you Flake and Corker are totally off track because giving tax cuts to America’s wealthiest is just too important to get sidetracked by the legal, ethical, moral, and existential questions surrounding Trump’s presidency. Take Sen. Rob Portman of Ohio, for one.
”I’m focused on getting stuff done,” Portman said in response to a question about the Flake/Corker rally cry. “This week it’s about opioids, tomorrow it’s opioids. Today it’s tax reform. That’s my job.”
How about protecting the American people from a maniac—is that in your job description?
Mississippi Sen. Roger Wicker, fighting for his political future
Cartoon: The Consoler-in-Chief
‘Trump is treason!’: Protester yells directly at Trump in Capitol
A protester got rare access Tuesday to deliver a direct protest of Donald Trump as he entered the capitol to talk tax cuts with Republican senators.
“Why are you talking about tax cuts when they should be talking about treason?” the protester yelled as Trump passed by. “This president has conspired with agents of the Russian government to steal an election. We should be talking about treason in Congress …”
The protester has been identified as “Ryan Clayton, same activist who tricked CPAC attendees into waving Russian flags during Trump’s speech.”
More video below.
Republican Sen. Bob Corker: Trump is ‘devolving’ as president
It’s not just people on the outside watching Donald Trump’s mental/emotional capacity disintegrate. Others, like Republican Sen. Bob Corker, are noticing the same thing. In a rather candid on-the-fly interview from the halls of Congress, Corker talked about the White House asking him to “intervene” with Trump in moments where he was going “off the tracks.” Corker’s conclusion—and probably a main driver of his recent straight talk about Trump—is that Trump’s getting worse, not better.
“I’ve had private meetings with him, dinners with him, I’ve played golf with him, I’ve had multiple occasions where the staff has asked me to please intervene—he was getting ready to do something that was really off the tracks,” Corker said, “And look, I’ve seen no evolution in an upward way. As a matter of fact, I would say, it appears to me that it’s almost devolving.”
Corker also expanded on his earlier assertions that Trump is debasing the
Continue reading “Republican Sen. Bob Corker: Trump is ‘devolving’ as president”
Ryan sidelines questions about Trump’s mental fitness for something far more important: tax cuts
Wherein House Speaker Paul Ryan proves how uniquely useless he is when it come to showing any kind of leadership when it comes to Donald Trump. After Trump’s five-tweet rant against “liddle’” Bob Corker Tuesday morning, Ryan weighs in with: Nothing to see here.
Translation:
Just to piggyback on Corker’s paraphrased point, Paul Ryan will also be remembered for his debasement of our nation. He’ll be remembered as the guy who had a chance to help save
Disgraceful: GOP congressman gets three tries, won’t condemn Trump’s attack on soldier’s widow
After the wife of Sgt. La David Johnson confirmed Monday morning that she was indeed upset by Donald Trump’s phone call to her and his inability to remember her husband’s name, Trump immediately took to Twitter to say Myeshia Johnson was lying. Apparently nothing is “sacred”—to use Chief of Staff John Kelly’s word. Trump relentlessly attacked Congresswoman Frederica Wilson as a liar, and now that Johnson corroborated Wilson’s version of events as “100 percent correct,” he’s turned his fire directly on the pregnant grieving widow.
On Monday afternoon, Florida Rep. Francis Rooney had three chances (video below) in an appearance with MSNBC host Steve Kornacki to say the president’s actions were completely inappropriate, but he just couldn’t bring himself to do it. Here’s the first installment of Rooney’s profile in cowardice:
Kornacki: Just hours ago this morning, [Trump] chose to go on Twitter and tell the world, everybody sees this message, to dispute the story that sergeant Johnson’s
Trump’s election ‘integrity’ chief using unsecured voter database primed for hacking
Kansas Secretary of State Kris Krobach has never been accused of being the sharpest tool in the shed, and now he’s proving why. Kobach, who co-chairs Donald Trump’s ‘election integrity commission’ (aka, voter suppression commission), has been utilizing an unsecured database platform to compare the voter rolls of 32 different states in search of duplicates. Mother Jones‘ Ari Berman has more on the hacker-friendly Interstate Crosscheck Program Kobach has been using to push his assault on voting rights.
Yet newly released documents show that the program touted by Kobach has major security vulnerabilities that could lead to sensitive voter data being hacked, released, and even modified. States that employ the program upload their voter data to an unsecured server and exchange usernames and passwords to access the server over unsecured emails. They have also released sensitive, unredacted information on voters to the public.
Crosscheck was founded in 2005 to compare registration lists
McConnell so toxic, almost two dozen GOP Senate candidates decline to back him as leader
This is absolutely stunning reporting from The Hill:
The Hill asked nearly two dozen Senate candidates this week if they would support McConnell as leader if elected. Not one campaign said outright that they would support him, although two candidates appear to have expressed support in the past.
Several candidates declared their opposition to McConnell and attacked their GOP primary opponents for not taking a stance on the question. Other candidates deflected, or spoke on background about the bind they’re in over the question of McConnell’s leadership. Most candidates were eager to avoid the question entirely, and ignored multiple requests for comment.
Well, that gives us a sense of who’s winning the McConnell vs. Steve Bannon “war” in which everyone is staking out a position. Republican hopefuls won’t touch McConnell with a 10-foot pole, even as the guy who essentially helped create the GOP’s ruling class, Karl Rove, tagged Bannon
Sinclair Broadcasting’s plan to take over local news should frighten us all
With 193 television stations across the nation, Sinclair Broadcasting’s influence already extends into 40 percent of American households. But the broadcast empire, which often requires its stations to air unabashed conservative content, now wants to reach fully 70 percent of households with its $3.9 billion bid to acquire Tribune Media’s 42 TV stations.
This a truly frightening prospect from a media conglomerate that’s already wielding enormous power in local TV markets, which polls show many Americans trust more than other news outlets. And the Trump administration appears to be serving as an ally in helping Sinclair achieve its goals. Mother Jones‘ Andy Kroll writes:
“The most important force shaping public opinion continues to be local, over-the-air television,” says Andrew Jay Schwartzman, a senior attorney at Georgetown’s Communications and Technology Law Clinic. “That’s the underlying premise of the FCC continuing to regulate broadcast ownership.”
But under the leadership
Continue reading “Sinclair Broadcasting’s plan to take over local news should frighten us all”
Democrats’ early fundraising eclipsing that of GOP incumbents
Republicans are stunned at both the sheer number of Democratic candidates throwing their hats in the ring for 2018 and the cash they are amassing in these early fundraising days. Politico writes:
Animated by opposition to President Donald Trump and the Republican congressional majorities, at least 162 Democratic candidates in 82 GOP-held districts have raised over $100,000 so far this year, according to a POLITICO analysis of the latest FEC data. That’s about four times as many candidates as House Democrats had at this point before the 2016 or 2014 elections, and it’s more than twice as many as Republicans had running at this point eight years ago, on the eve of capturing the House in the 2010 wave election.
Nearly three dozen Republican incumbents were outraised by Democratic challengers in the third quarter of this year – a stunning figure. Nine GOP incumbents already trail a Democratic opponent
Continue reading “Democrats’ early fundraising eclipsing that of GOP incumbents”
Cartoon: State of denial
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