Trump... feelsbadman.jpg



Kozhurov Ilyich



For years, he fed off disrespect and used it to grab more tabloid headlines, to connect to common people. Now… He commands history’s most lethal military, along with economic levers that can change the lives of billions. “There’s a difference for voters between what offends you and what affects you,” Conway helpfully explained. A reporter mentions that what Trump is saying echoes the rhetoric of Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte, who has overseen the extrajudicial killing of thousands of alleged drug dealers and users in recent months. The President-elect offers no objection to the comparison. “Well, hey, look, this is bad stuff,” he says.

Stephen Bannon - known for stirring racial animus and provoking liberal outrage—explained it simply. “Darkness is good,” he told the Hollywood Reporter. “There’s a difference for voters between what offends you and what affects you,” Conway helpfully explained.

Every president has shaded the truth or told occasional whoppers. Yet, no other president — of either party — has behaved as Trump is behaving. He is trying to create an atmosphere in which reality is irrelevant, but as a businessman and not a politician, his statements are not simply careless errors, it would be the height of naïveté to imagine he is merely making honest mistakes... President Trump’s political rise was built on a lie, Americans have become accustomed to President Trump’s lies, On days without an untrue statement, he is often absent from Twitter, vacationing at Mar-a-Lago in Florida, or busy golfing. And The Public’s Mistrust of Trump Grows, 60 percent of Americans say the president is not honest, polls show, up from about 53 percent when he took office.

His semi-literate 5am tweets about a former Miss Universe’s sex tapes; quotes like “If Ivanka weren’t my daughter, I’d be dating her” just screaming out for Freudian analysis; reports that one of the first things he asked an international foreign policy expert after becoming President was why the US couldn’t use nuclear weapons as a first response. All these remarks seem – to put it lightly – abnormal for a head of state. Every time we willingly blur the line between raging arsehole and mentally ill person we excuse people for their terrible behavior on the basis that they had to have been “out of their minds,” We make this mistake all the time. Donald Trump’s remarks about Muslims or actions surrounding his Mexican wall should be taken as seriously as the actions of anyone else who popular opinion has decided is sound of mind.

For reasons that remain unclear, Trump still refuses to acknowledge the U.S. intelligence community’s conclusion that Putin’s agencies were responsible for stealing the Democratic National Committee and Clinton campaign emails released on WikiLeaks. “I don’t believe it. I don’t believe they interfered,” Trump says. When Asked if he thought the conclusion of America’s spies was politically driven, Trump says, “I think so.” On Comey's accusations that Trump pressed him to drop the FBI investigation of Flynn, Bharara said "no one knows right now whether there is a provable case of obstruction" of justice. But: "I think there's absolutely evidence to begin a case." The House Intelligence committee has requested that the White House produce any recordings that might exist of President Donald Trump’s conversations with fired FBI director James B. Comey. “I’ll tell you about that maybe sometime in the near future,” Mr. Trump said. Mr. Trump had been leveling a baseless threat when he wrote on May 12, “James Comey better hope that there are no ‘tapes’ of our conversations before he starts leaking to the press!” Meeting a self-imposed deadline of this week to resolve questions he himself raised by implying that he had taped Mr. Comey, Mr. Trump said on Twitter that he had not made tapes of what Mr. Comey has testified were attempts by the president to derail the Justice Department’s investigation. The timing of the announcement — after an internal debate in which Mr. Trump was at first reluctant to come clean quickly — seemed calculated to change the subject. Hours earlier, Senate Republicans released their heath care bill, which drew immediate opposition from four Republican senators and fanned fresh doubts about the president’s legislative agenda.

“Donald Trump Jr. clearly violated the Federal Election Campaign Act by conspiring to solicit something of value from a foreign national," Lieu said on MSNBC's "All In with Chris Hayes." In one of the emails, Rob Goldstone, a music promoter who arranged the meeting, offered "information that would incriminate Hillary" Clinton and her "dealings with Russia." Goldstone described it as "obviously very high level and sensitive information," and wrote that it "is part of Russia and its government's support for Mr. Trump." Trump Jr. replied, in part, "if it's what you say I love it." Political veterans from Republican and Democratic campaigns have said it was unusual to take a meeting with a foreign operative offering information on a rival. After months of innuendo, leaks and whispers over the Russia intrigue, the sight of inside information laid out in simple, conversational language in the email chain was shocking in itself. It remains unknown what exactly went on in the meeting, “The emails are simply put damning as a legal matter,” explains Ryan Goodman, a former Defense Department special counsel and current editor of the legal site Just Security. “The text of the emails provide very clear evidence of participation in a scheme to involve the Russian government in federal election interference, in a form that is prohibited by federal criminal law.”





Intertube Links

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/06/23/opinion/trumps-lies.html

http://time.com/time-person-of-the-year-2016-donald-trump/

http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/341815-lieu-trump-jr-emails-and-meeting-were-clear-violation-of

http://www.cnn.com/2017/07/11/politics/trump-jr-russia-politics/index.html

http://time.com/4814180/republicans-trump-comey-tapes/

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/22/us/politics/trump-comey-tapes.html

https://www.vox.com/world/2017/7/10/15950590/donald-trump-jr-new-york-times-illegal

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2017/jun/9/if-there-are-any-trump-comey-tapes-congress-wants-/







