[Winstonm]

barmar, on 2018-August-18, 14:46, said:

In Trump's mind there are only two types of people: if you support him, you're a "really good people"; if you're against him, you're scum. And it's easy to go from one to the other -- Omarossa was one of his proteges for years, but now that she's written a tell-all book that insults him, she's persona non grata.

Too much credit - the two types he recognizes are 1) those to be used and 2) those to be discarded - and in neither case are they elevated to the status of persons.

[Winstonm]

Anyone who thinks this latest McGahn "bombshell" article in the NYT is anything but a sideshow instigated by the Dennison side to stop the presses from headlining each new Omarosa claim is naive.

[Winstonm]

Why is Rand Paul lobbying for Russia?

Quote

Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) says he will ask President Trump this weekend to lift sanctions against top Russian officials so they can visit the United States later this year.

This is totally unnecessary. If a meeting is warranted, a third nation neutral site can be used.

[Winstonm]

AP reported this: (emphasis added)

Quote

BRIDGEWATER, N.J. (AP) — President Donald Trump David Dennison insisted Sunday that his White House counsel isn’t a “RAT” like the Watergate-era White House attorney who turned on Richard Nixon, and he blasted the ongoing Russia investigation as “McCarthyism.”

It speaks volumes about this president's integrity when he considers being honest and doing the right thing as "being a rat".

[barmar]

Winstonm, on 2018-August-19, 21:16, said:

It speaks volumes about this president's integrity when he considers being honest and doing the right thing as "being a rat".

Isn't that what criminals call insiders who inform on them? If you're not a criminal, the informant isn't a "rat". So guess what he's admitting to.

[PassedOut]

Finally, a Republican acknowledges the truth about Trump: Everything Trump Touches Dies

Quote

“Everything about Trump’s opening speech was moral poison to anyone who believed in any part of the American dream. Everything about his nationalist hucksterism smelled like … a knock on the door of authoritarian statism.”

The right is “merrily on board with a lunatic with delusions of godhood”.

“There’s an odds-on chance that our grandchildren will hear this tale while hunched over guttering fires in the ruins of a radioactive Mad Max-style hellscape.”

“Washington is the drug-resistant syphilis of political climates, largely impervious to treatment and highly contagious.”

The tax bill was a masterwork of “gigantic government giveaways, unfunded spending, massive debt and deficits, and a catalogue of crony capitalist freebies”.

Trump has surrounded himself with Wall Street alumni “who have behaved with weapons-grade venality … and Master of the Dick affects. They were there … only for the tax bill. Nothing else ever mattered to any of them.”

The Trump administration has been “a hotbed of remarkably obvious pay-to-play and corny capitalist game-playing. How obvious? Think 1970s Times Square hooker on the corner obvious … The degree to which this president has monetized the presidency for the direct benefit of himself, his soft-jawed offspring, and his far-flung empire of bullshit makes the Teapot Dome scandal look like a warm-up act in the Corruption Olympics.”

Trump and his enablers are working hard to force a Russian-style kleptocracy down the throats of the people of the US, and they've enlisted faux Christians to help them do it:

Quote

All the things evangelicals had said for generations that made a candidate anathema were suddenly just fine … Being a *****ed degenerate pussy-grabber with a lifetime of adultery, venality, and dishonesty is not, to my knowledge, one of the core tenets of the Christian faith … Trump has opened entirely new theological avenues … There is literally not one aspect of Trump’s behavior as a citizen, a husband, and as a man that shows the slightest scintilla of repentance for anything, ever.”

It's going to take some help from republicans to clean this up, and it's encouraging to see Wilson and some others start to speak up.

[kenberg]

Once again reading the WC introduces me to someone that I had not previously heard of. I looked up Rick Wilson and he is described as a Republican. We might need a new category: Disillusioned Republican.

From e. e. cummings:

Quote

Olaf(upon what were once knees) does almost ceaselessly repeat "there is some sh*** I will not eat"

[Winstonm]

Another one bites the dust: Michael Cohen

NYT:

Quote

Aug. 21, 2018

Michael D. Cohen, President Trump’s former lawyer, on Tuesday reached a plea agreement with prosecutors investigating payments he made to women on behalf of Mr. Trump, a deal that does not include cooperation with federal authorities, two people familiar with the matter said.

Mr. Cohen is expected to plead guilty to multiple counts of bank and tax fraud charges and campaign finance violations. For months, prosecutors in New York have been scrutinizing him for those crimes and focusing on his role in helping to arrange financial deals to secure the silence of women who said they had affairs with Mr. Trump.

Update: The Cohen plea directly implicates Dennison in a felony - the first of many high crimes and misdemeanors.

WaPo:

Quote

When it came to the campaign finance violations, Cohen implicated the president directly. He told the court that that he worked with Trump pay off two women to keep their stories of alleged affairs with Trump from becoming public before election day.

[hrothgar]

Winstonm, on 2018-August-21, 13:06, said:

Another one bites the dust: Michael Cohen

More significantly

1. Michael Cohen in a courtroom in SDNY, under oath, declared that the President directed him to commit a federal crime.

2. There are signed receipts documenting that Trump authorized and paid for this

[Winstonm]

hrothgar, on 2018-August-21, 15:52, said:

More significantly

1. Michael Cohen in a courtroom in SDNY, under oath, declared that the President directed him to commit a federal crime.

2. There are signed receipts documenting that Trump authorized and paid for this

This is how the NYT is reporting it:

Quote

Michael D. Cohen, President Trump’s former fixer, pleaded guilty on Tuesday to breaking campaign finance laws and other charges. He made the extraordinary admission that he arranged payments to two women “at the direction of the candidate,” referring to Mr. Trump, to secure their silence about affairs they said they had with Mr. Trump.

Mr. Cohen told a judge in United States District Court in Manhattan that the payments were “for the principal purpose of influencing the election” for president in 2016.

Also, Manafort was found guilty of 8 felonies.

[hrothgar]

FWIW

I understand that the last dumpster fire is but a prelude to the real story
(There is no way that Cohen was allowed to plea with out either sealed cooperation agreement or a confidential understanding which means MONEY LAUNDERING charges)

Still, it feels really really good

This is why the word #schadenfreude is so very necessary!

[y66]

kenberg, on 2018-August-21, 08:44, said:

Once again reading the WC introduces me to someone that I had not previously heard of. I looked up Rick Wilson and he is described as a Republican. We might need a new category: Disillusioned Republican.

From e. e. cummings:

Quote

Olaf(upon what were once knees) does almost ceaselessly repeat "there is some sh*** I will not eat"

Clearly, Olaf is not a member of the WC Trump cult.

[hrothgar]

kenberg, on 2018-August-21, 08:44, said:

Once again reading the WC introduces me to someone that I had not previously heard of. I looked up Rick Wilson and he is described as a Republican. We might need a new category: Disillusioned Republican.

From e. e. cummings:

Anna Marie Cox has an decent enough podcast called

"With Friends Like These"

Wilson is on fair often (one a month or so). You can get a pretty good idea who he is and what his background is listening to any of the episodes.
The latest one is pretty good.

He also has a new book out
https://www.amazon.c...ing=UTF8&btkr=1

[Winstonm]

Michael Cohen's lawyer was on Rachel Maddow show tonight and he claimed Cohen had information that would be of grat interest to Mueller, including whether Dennison knew about the Russian hack prior to it being public information, and he was happy to provide the special counsel whatever help he could.

This has to be the worst day of Dennison's life - he became an un-indicted co-conspirator today in the Cohen crime of campaign finance violations.

Edit:

Wheeler reports:

Quote

once he (Cohen) pleads on the Stormy Daniels charge, he loses his Fifth Amendment rights, so the Daniels suit against him can go forward — and with it the deposition of Trump.

This should make Michael Avenatti happy.

[jjbrr]

hrothgar, on 2018-August-21, 16:25, said:

FWIW

I understand that the last dumpster fire is but a prelude to the real story
(There is no way that Cohen was allowed to plea with out either sealed cooperation agreement or a confidential understanding which means MONEY LAUNDERING charges)

Still, it feels really really good

This is why the word #schadenfreude is so very necessary!

I strongly suspect these aren't the only two options for Cohen's situation. The guy hoarded evidence in a manner that demonstrates some pretty amazing carelessness. Recordings of conversations, cell phones, mountains of documents. I am willing to bet prosecutors have so much evidence against Cohen specifically that 1) they don't need to cut him any breaks for testimony, 2) Cohen, himself, is less of a reliable witness than what prosecutors can demonstrate through paper documentation, and 3) defense can save some time/money/energy/jail time via this route.

I am curious if we'll see headlines of the FBI raiding Allen Weisselberg soon. Seems like an interesting next step. Cohen might have some interesting information for us, but I think we all understand that following the money is the thing that will solve this case, minus a smoking gun (or constitutional crisis that derails everything).

[Winstonm]

Vanity Fair has this:

Quote

Another theory for what’s motivating Trump’s increasingly unhinged tweets is that Mueller may be closing in on his son Don Jr. “A lot of what Trump is doing is based on the fact [that] Mueller is going after Don Jr.,” a person close to the Trump family told me. “They’re squeezing Don Jr. right now.”

Don Jr.’s lawyer said, “I’m not going to comment.” Another person briefed on the investigation disputed the term "squeeze," but said the Mueller team continues to ask for documents.

[Winstonm]

This Lawfare take makes plain the problem we face:

Quote

That Trump himself continues to express sympathy with Manafort, not outrage at his conduct, further undermines confidence in his judgment of character.

Presidential judgment matters. In a week dominated by headlines about the president’s real and threatened revocation of security clearances of current and former officials who have criticized him, take a moment to consider the individuals the president has favored with trust and confidence, as well as those to whom he has denied it.

And now that Dennison has been named in Cohen's plea deal, where is the Republican party, its voices, its shame?

And from the Birds of a Feather Department:

Isn't it oddly fitting that the first two Congressmen to endorse Dennison have both, as of today, been indicted? Yes, both Chris Collins and Duncan Hunter are now charged with crimes - and it couldn't happen to more deserving candidates.

[hrothgar]

And now this

MAJOR BREAKING NEWS: Lanny Davis, Cohen Attorney, Says Michael Cohen Will Tell Robert Mueller of a "Conspiracy to Collude" With Russia That Trump Participated In, Which Conspiracy Involved Him Having Advance Knowledge of Russian Hacking of the DNC

[awm]

Does any of this matter? The chance of Trump resigning is basically zero, and while the Democrats might take over the house and impeach him, the 2/3 senate vote for removal seems like a stretch.

Do you see any writers or news organizations or non-retired politicians who supported Trump before and are now changing their minds? Any evidence Trumps electoral “base” is deserting him?

I guess these convictions might fire up some voters to come vote against Rs in the midterms or against Trump in 2020, but they also might fire up Trump supporter to vote because of all the “unfair persecution.”

While I agree that the amount of criminality is quite high, most of us suspected this about Trump anyway and it’s sort of already priced into our opinions?

For me the biggest impact is how bad our government is at white collar crime, considering that these serial tax fraudsters were getting away with it for years and probably could’ve continued indefinitely if not for the special prosecutor. Who knows how many other scumballs not connected to Trump are getting away with the same stuff? Of course “there are other criminals on the world” doesn’t excuse Trump, but I can’t help feel that both the Democrats and the country as a whole would be better off now if Obama had prosecuted a few banksters and other rich lawbreakers after the economic crash.

[hrothgar]

awm, on 2018-August-22, 05:43, said:

Does any of this matter? The chance of Trump resigning is basically zero, and while the Democrats might take over the house and impeach him, the 2/3 senate vote for removal seems like a stretch.

From my perspective, there is actually a shadow impeachment already in progress.

The big money contributors on the far right + Rupert Murdoch are constantly evaluating whether or not Trump has started doing more harm than good.
At that point in time, they'll turn on Trump, the Republicans in congress will see the writhing on the wall, we'll be rid of this idiots, and some new idiot will wander in to 1600 Pennsylvania avenue and mindless sign tax cut legislation.