Natalia Veselnitskaya, the woman who famously met during the 2016 presidential campaign in Trump Tower with Donald Trump Jr., Paul Manafort and Jared Kushner, has closer ties to the Kremlin than previously known, which is demonstrated in a new indictment filed on Tuesday by prosecutors from the Southern District of New York. As for Manafort, thanks to his lawyers’ sloppy efforts at redaction, we now know that he shared polling data with Russian intelligence officer Konstantin Kilimnik in the same time period, and then he conveniently forget to mention this to the Office of Special Counsel during his time of supposed cooperation. He also forgot to mention that he had surreptitiously met with the same Russian intelligence officer in Madrid, Spain. It’s actually far worse than this implies, because Mr. Kilimnik was a key partner and employee of Manafort’s during his time working in Ukraine for the pro-Russia Party of Regions, and he’s also someone who Manafort met with in person during August 2016 to receive instructions from Putin-connected oligarch Oleg Derispaska. In fact, Manafort told Kilimnik to offer of private briefings on the status of Trump’s campaign to Deripaska as a way of satisfying nearing $20 million in debt.
President Trump has obviously understood for some time that news like this would eventually begin dogging him with increased intensity and frequency, which is one reason why he’s going on television tonight to tell the nation about an imagined crisis at the Mexican border that justifies the current partial shutdown of the federal government.
With his polling down sharply across the board, Trump is entering into desperate territory, and we should probably expect him to act in ways that are hard to imagine. Having worked alongside Ed Kilgore for several years, I’ve come to see him as level-headed and cautiously thoughtful, so I take notice when he raises major alarm bells about President Trump possibly using emergency powers to do things like invoking “Section 706 of the Communications Act to assume government control over internet traffic inside the United States.”
I certainly hope this type of fear is unwarranted but it’s hard to argue against anyone who wants to bet that Trump will at some point take us into true uncharted territory. Things are coming to a head and we’ll be lucky if we don’t capsize before the true crisis in this country gets resolved.
We are approaching the July Ordinances stage of this Presidency.
As much as we’ve endured, never on this journey has it been more important to focus on the actions this gang is up to rather than be sidelined by the buffoonery.
By ‘polling’ information it’s hard not to think Manafort was passing along confidential insider campaign polling or even Cambridge Analytica resources. But regardless, this redaction slip up has traction and threatens Trump’s ‘no collusion’ directly.
Greed got him and now us into this disaster and that’s the real national security emergency.
Multiple choice:
If Trump believes that he is at risk of spending the rest of his life in prison, he will:
A. Go quietly.
B. Do whatever is necessary to avoid prosecution.
It’s going to be interesting to see exactly how many of our fellow Americans are actually divine-right monarchists.
All we have so far are educated guesses.
I feel whipsawed reading this blog.
hard to argue against anyone who wants to bet that Trump will at some point take us into true uncharted territory.
That bet is lost before it is made
Trump has already taken us into uncharted territory, many times over. The response has been to gloss over it with “faith” in our system, which in theory provides remedies but in practice, politically there is a lacking of balls to use them. Trump knows this and gets away, and the more he gets away, the more emboldened he is to try something. I don’t think he’d even be talking national emergency had he been checked up to now.
I’ve lost all faith in the so-called “system” because what checks and balances there are, they’re not being used. Trump can literally go on TV, start gunning down hapless citizens on the street, declare martial law, close the banks, and kill & eat puppies, and his rabid fan base would clap and cheer.
And the complicit media will go along because ratings and money.
And McConnell will get down on his knees and kiss Trump’s voluminous ass, as will Mike Dense. And the Beer Pong dudes at the Supremes will go: hip hip hooray! Moar please! Try out this sacrificial virgin, Sir, Yes, Sir!
Yes, we’re mos def in unchartered territory here. Not good. Not good at all.
And we have a boot-licking complicit media on top of it.
I’m really unqualified to comment honestly about this, as I don’t own a tv & avoid tv nooz at all costs – albeit fleetingly I see chyrons at my gym, which tells enough of a tale. I also listen sparingly to NPR nooz, such as that is. For example, yesterday they had some jerk on from none other than Fox Business (or something of that ilk but from Fox) giving a splainer about how fantastically the USA’s steel industry is growing and expanding under Trump and his tariffs and how all of these zillions of jerbs have been created and blah de blah blah blah.
That’s been rated by PoliFact as half true for steel mills in Ohio:
https:/www.politifact.com/ohio/statements/2018/oct/24/donald-trump/facts-trump-and-ohio-steel-mills
/
Other reports are not as positive about gains in steel jobs after the tariffs:
https:
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trade-steel-jobs-idUSKCN1GL2V9
So it’s a mixed bag. Some good, some not so good, but NPR painted a radiant rosy picture of how fantastic the steel industry is doing under Trump (no exaggeration), and this from (sorta kinda) NPR, no less (Yes, I’m well aware of NPR’s conservative biases, but many US citizens are not).
As all here know well, the media refused to open their airwaves to Obama in 2014 to discuss immigration because Presidenting while black & Democrat.
https:
http://www.thewrap.com/that-time-broadcast-networks-declined-to-air-president-obamas-primetime-immi
gration-speech-in-2014
And so here we are with this most imcompetent, corrupt POTUS, whether he actually connived with Putin/Russia or not… he’s frickin’ awful for our nation, but the media kisses his butt and puts him on TV bc ratings and money and because white Republican.
In the meantime all of the same media, including NPR and MSNBC (or so I’m told; I cannot verify that) are setting this up as Trump v. Democrats (only & solely) with narry a peep about the Republicans (particularly in the Senate) role in this. I’ve yet to hear or read anything about the Senate’s votes or refusal to vote.
Nay verily it’s only about the DemonRats v. poor poor benighted Trump, that bastion of reasonableness being ever so concerned about the “humanitarian crisis” at the border… which Trump created deliberately with malice aforethought (and with the backing of his rabid fans).
UGH.
I hope this Orange Foolious doesn’t do something really dire and dreadful but I wouldn’t put anything past him. He’s really sitting in the hot seat now and is clearly squirming and not at all happy.
Double UGH.
Reactionary authoritarian nationalists will go quite far to paralyze democratic processes and arrogate permanent power for themselves and their (political minority) movements, certainly including the reliance upon rule by “emergency” decree—which was Hitler’s method of doing away with the Weimar constitution and elected national assembly. And of course braindead reactionary nationalist citizens will applaud such devices for adopting strongman rule, and will be happy to lap up and vomit back whatever “national emergency” lies that the strongman and his press shit out (“A dagger pointed at the heart of Germany!”)
The question is: how far will National Trumpalists like McConnell, McCarthy and the illegitimate majority of Roberts’ Repubs go to “save” Der Trumper? The National Trumpalist movement has discredited democracy, which has long been one of goals of American “conservatism”.
If history is any guide, those worthies will do whatever Der Trumper requests of them, just as the useless corporate media CEOs caved to Fuhrer-Jr’s demand that his objectively ridiculous, fact-free “national emergency” propaganda be broadcast on every network coast to coast: a “message” which is (quite openly) the kick-off to Trumper’s “re-election” campaign.
Every national institution is in collapse at this point.
Anyone who hasn’t read Adam Serwer’s essay The Cruelty is the Point needs to do so.
Cornered rats bite.
We’re in a fragile time.
Trump has no self discipline or we would be in real trouble. He loves Putin but he’s no Putin.
Trump’s problem isn’t that bloggers criticize him on Twitter or Youtube. It’s that the entire establishment is turning against him. He has problems with the courts, the military and Congress. He has problems with the Special Prosecutor.
He has problems with Wall Street losing billions of dollars because he’s too stupid to realize that he’s started a trade war he could never win and it’s costing very rich people some serious money.
Of course he could cheat wildly in 2020 and try to rig elections. The GOP is obviously going to pull out all the stops to suppress minority voting and disenfranchise voters. That didn’t work very well in 2018 but it probably did help them hang onto control over Georgia and Florida. They would have lost those elections if pre-clearance were still in effect and they would have lost over 50 seats if not for Gerrymandering.
But, some of the wilder scenarios are not likely to help him. Does he even have the discipline to figure out what he would need to do and maintain it?
He could try and do some of these things. But, like his idea that the military would build the wall is just another idiot idea that became Trump’s latest brain fart. How could they do it?
I’m not complacent he won’t try something insane like that as the rats start closing in. But, are they? As long as he maintains his support from all the idiot Trumpites, then he’s never going to be convicted of any crimes, no matter how serious. No GOP Senator dares move against him. I don’t see that changing.
I put the chances of his completing his term at 90% + .
Everyone except his racist and nationalist base will quickly condemn any move he makes to seize the internet or to use a “national security crisis” to impose a wider martial law move. It won’t work (and Pence will continue to look like a stupid enabler).
But I don’t think he will do any of those things. He has always been a bellower and a coward. And he fundamentally doesn’t understand anything about government.
As I said in response to the second post before this, I hope there is an election in 2020.
I guess we’re about to find out just how determined the Republiclowns are to break the republic.
Rod’s got himself an exit plan. Gotcha says President Bone Spurs. One going down, one to go.
Apparently it was a Trump rally “speech” without the shrieking, adulating Nazi’s. So I hear.
Trump told his usual pack of lies and said there’s a crisis at the border due to Democrats.
M$M reliably pretended that Nancy Pelosi has been Speaker of the House since November, and apparently now Chuck Schumer is President of the Senate, rather than Yurtle.
So – eh? M$M reliably complicit. Provides Trump with free campaign coverage for 2020. Trump sends out begging emails for his 2020 campaign before and after his – SNIFF! SNIIIFFF!!! – “speech.”
Some parts of the M$M go into Both Sides! Both Sides! hyper-fixation.
Nancy Pelosi & even Chuck Schumer come on the teevee and provide a reasonable rebuttle to the brain dead mess. But: Both Sides!! Dems need to compromise! Both Sides!
Compromise with what.
Make frickin Yurtle have the Senate vote on the damn bill on their desk – which they passed the last time.
But – eh? It’s all about how the DemonRats won’t compromise.
Yeah, right.
I took out the garbage. Much more useful thing to do and less stinky.
. . . I only listened, didn’t watch, and I’ve seen critiques of the visuals/theatrics (makeup, backdrop, lighting, etc., with comparisons to Nixon losing debate to JFK by sweating too much — at least according to conventional wisdom) that seem probably valid. And even in just audio, Nancy’s delivery struck me as somewhat tepid/weak (Chuck was better in this regard).
But the substance was all spot-on, with this minor exception: pretty sure I recall Nancy pointing out Yertle’s role in blocking the same bill the Senate passed 100-0 last session, which the House already passed this session. But this needed much greater emphasis.
At this point, it’s not the #TrumpShutdown, it’s the #TrumpYertleShutdown (or if preferred for mass consumption, the #TrumpMcConnellShutdown). Traitor McConnell’s getting away with WAY too little of the blame at this point. He could probably personally end the shutdown simply by allowing a vote on that bill in the Senate. I could foresee two possible paths to re-opening government from there:
Else, Yertle allows a vote, Banana Republicans vote against en bloc, bill fails — and Banana Republicans have put themselves in a pickle to explain this reversal to opposition to a bill they voted for unanimously a couple weeks ago. Which has very large political benefits, but isn’t a path to re-opening gov’t, but would instead prolong shutdown to “no end in sight”.
But whichever of those outcomes (or some variation I didn’t sketch out) Yertle’s preventing, he now owns the shutdown co-equally (imo) with Trump, and that can’t be emphasized too much. I can only guess Nancy ‘n Chuck didn’t go after Yertle harder than they did on that out of some consideration of the necessity of “working with” McConnell on things in the future, and so being reticent to burn bridges any more irreparably than necessary. Something I’ll never be in a position to have to consider, so I’ll abstain from judging the validity of it, if that’s indeed what they were doing.