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Kid Berwyn
Kid Berwyn's Journal
Kid Berwyn's Journal
May 16, 2019
In the Oval Office in the merry month of May 2017
President Trump gestures to Russia's ambassador to the U.S., Sergey Kislyak, as he speaks to Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov in the Oval Office on Wednesday, May 10, 2017. (Alexander Shcherbak/TASS/Getty Images)
“I just fired the head of the FBI. He was crazy, a real nut job," Trump said, according to The Times. "I faced great pressure because of Russia. That's taken off.”
"I'm not under investigation," he added.
Sources:
https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2017/05/10/527755991/trump-meets-with-russias-lavrov-at-the-white-house-today
https://www.businessinsider.com/trump-nut-job-james-comey-russia-2017-5
May 13, 2019
By DOYLE MCMANUS
Los Angeles Times, MAY 12, 2019 | 4:00 AM
| WASHINGTON
Excerpt...
Even as Republicans in Congress have fallen in line to defend Trump at every turn, a surprising number of conservative lawyers have broken ranks and are condemning the president for abuses of power and denouncing his blanket claims of executive privilege.
Last week, John Yoo, the former Justice Department official who drafted a notorious memo justifying the torture of detainees under President George W. Bush, warned that Trump had gone too far in asserting unbridled presidential power.
Snip...
“This president is undermining the basic principle of checks and balances,” one of the 11, former Deputy Atty. Gen. Donald B. Ayer, told me. “It’s really kind of tyrannical. It’s un-American. It’s the sort of expansion of government power you would expect Republicans to worry about.”
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In addition, more than 800 former federal prosecutors, many of them Republicans, signed a statement declaring that the report by special counsel Robert S. Mueller III, far from exonerating Trump, showed that he deserved to be indicted for obstruction of justice.
Continues...
https://www.latimes.com/politics/la-na-pol-trump-republican-lawyers-20190512-story.html
——————————
John Yoo is so pro-president conservative, he once wrote Smirko Bush could crush a child’s testicles for America.
Suddenly, conservative lawyers are condemning Trump for abuses of power
Suddenly, conservative lawyers are condemning Trump for abuses of powerBy DOYLE MCMANUS
Los Angeles Times, MAY 12, 2019 | 4:00 AM
| WASHINGTON
Excerpt...
Even as Republicans in Congress have fallen in line to defend Trump at every turn, a surprising number of conservative lawyers have broken ranks and are condemning the president for abuses of power and denouncing his blanket claims of executive privilege.
Last week, John Yoo, the former Justice Department official who drafted a notorious memo justifying the torture of detainees under President George W. Bush, warned that Trump had gone too far in asserting unbridled presidential power.
Snip...
“This president is undermining the basic principle of checks and balances,” one of the 11, former Deputy Atty. Gen. Donald B. Ayer, told me. “It’s really kind of tyrannical. It’s un-American. It’s the sort of expansion of government power you would expect Republicans to worry about.”
ADVERTISEMENT
In addition, more than 800 former federal prosecutors, many of them Republicans, signed a statement declaring that the report by special counsel Robert S. Mueller III, far from exonerating Trump, showed that he deserved to be indicted for obstruction of justice.
Continues...
https://www.latimes.com/politics/la-na-pol-trump-republican-lawyers-20190512-story.html
——————————
John Yoo is so pro-president conservative, he once wrote Smirko Bush could crush a child’s testicles for America.
May 10, 2019
Charles Leerhson
Yahoo.com, May 9, 2019
EXCERPT...
I tend to see my time with him — the first part of it, anyway, before things started going bad in a hurry — as his “King Midas” period. I never said this to him; if I had, he probably would have thought I was suggesting he enter the muffler business. But there was a stretch of months when everything he touched turned into a deal. The banks seemed to accept the version of him depicted in his first book, “The Art of the Deal,” which we now know from his previous ghostwriter, Tony Schwartz, was entirely invented. They believed it over what they saw on his balance sheets or heard coming out of his mouth, and they never said no to his requests for more money. Often they came up with things he could say yes to before he could think of them himself. As a result, a failing real estate developer who had little idea of what he was doing and less interest in doing it once he’d held the all-important press conference wound up owning three New Jersey hotel-casinos, the Plaza Hotel, the Eastern Airlines Shuttle and a 281-foot yacht.
A real go-getter, right? But Trump’s portfolio did not jibe with what I saw each day — which to a surprisingly large extent was him looking at fabric swatches. Indeed, flipping through fabric swatches seemed at times to be his main occupation. Some days he would do it for hours, then take me in what he always called his “French military helicopter” to Atlantic City — where he looked at more fabric swatches or sometimes small samples of wood paneling. It was true that the carpets and drapes at his properties needed to be refreshed frequently, and the seats on the renamed Trump Shuttle required occasional reupholstering. But the main thing about fabric swatches was that they were within his comfort zone — whereas, for example, the management of hotels and airlines clearly wasn’t. One of his aides once told me that every room at the Plaza could be filled at the “rack rate” (list price) every night, and the revenue still wouldn’t cover the monthly payment of the loan he’d taken out to buy the place. In other words, he’d made a ridiculous deal. Neither he nor the banks had done the math beforehand. Or perhaps Trump knew it because someone had told him, but didn’t want to think about it. The one thing he is above-average at is compartmentalization.
Source:
https://news.yahoo.com/trump-the-billiondollar-loser-his-ghostwriter-recalls-the-king-midas-years-090000640.html
Trump is a moron fixated by fabric swatches.
Trump, the billion-dollar loser — I was his ghostwriter and saw it happenCharles Leerhson
Yahoo.com, May 9, 2019
EXCERPT...
I tend to see my time with him — the first part of it, anyway, before things started going bad in a hurry — as his “King Midas” period. I never said this to him; if I had, he probably would have thought I was suggesting he enter the muffler business. But there was a stretch of months when everything he touched turned into a deal. The banks seemed to accept the version of him depicted in his first book, “The Art of the Deal,” which we now know from his previous ghostwriter, Tony Schwartz, was entirely invented. They believed it over what they saw on his balance sheets or heard coming out of his mouth, and they never said no to his requests for more money. Often they came up with things he could say yes to before he could think of them himself. As a result, a failing real estate developer who had little idea of what he was doing and less interest in doing it once he’d held the all-important press conference wound up owning three New Jersey hotel-casinos, the Plaza Hotel, the Eastern Airlines Shuttle and a 281-foot yacht.
A real go-getter, right? But Trump’s portfolio did not jibe with what I saw each day — which to a surprisingly large extent was him looking at fabric swatches. Indeed, flipping through fabric swatches seemed at times to be his main occupation. Some days he would do it for hours, then take me in what he always called his “French military helicopter” to Atlantic City — where he looked at more fabric swatches or sometimes small samples of wood paneling. It was true that the carpets and drapes at his properties needed to be refreshed frequently, and the seats on the renamed Trump Shuttle required occasional reupholstering. But the main thing about fabric swatches was that they were within his comfort zone — whereas, for example, the management of hotels and airlines clearly wasn’t. One of his aides once told me that every room at the Plaza could be filled at the “rack rate” (list price) every night, and the revenue still wouldn’t cover the monthly payment of the loan he’d taken out to buy the place. In other words, he’d made a ridiculous deal. Neither he nor the banks had done the math beforehand. Or perhaps Trump knew it because someone had told him, but didn’t want to think about it. The one thing he is above-average at is compartmentalization.
Source:
https://news.yahoo.com/trump-the-billiondollar-loser-his-ghostwriter-recalls-the-king-midas-years-090000640.html
May 9, 2019
By Jonathan Chait
New York Magazine, May 7, 2019
During the 2016 election, CIA director John Brennan informed congressional leaders that Russian intelligence was interfering in the election in an effort to help Donald Trump win. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell dismissed the conclusion, and depicted it as a frame-up. “You’re trying to screw the Republican candidate,” he charged, warning that he would refuse to sign a bipartisan statement warning Russia to back off. If blocking Russia meant hindering the Trump campaign, McConnell wasn’t interested.
This morning, McConnell took to the Senate floor to deliver a coda to this historic act. In a speech that was notably smarmy even by his standards, the Senate Majority Leader declared the Mueller report to be “case closed,” accused Democrats of refusing to accept the legitimacy of Trump’s election, and called for an end to all investigation or inquiries of Mueller’s findings.
SNIP...
McConnell framed his speech as a call for unity, insisting Russia’s goal was to divide the public. “Russia set out to sow discord. To create chaos in American politics and undermine confidence in our democracy,” he said. To continue pursuing the massive evidence of corruption and misconduct in the Mueller report would somehow help Putin. If Americans “remain consumed by unhinged partisanship,” McConnell said, “and keep dividing ourselves … Putin and his agents need only stand on the sidelines and watch as their job is done for them.”
Note here that McConnell is again denying the same thing he denied in 2016: that Russia intervened not just to “divide” Americans but specifically in order to help Trump win. If American political leaders in both parties had closed ranks and rejected Russia’s intervention, it might have backfired. Instead, McConnell assisted their effort.
CONTINUES...
http://nymag.com/intelligencer/2019/05/mitch-mcconnell-case-closed-trump-russia-mueller-collusion.html
Putin Accomplice Mitch McConnell Says Case Closed
Putin Accomplice Mitch McConnell Says Case ClosedBy Jonathan Chait
New York Magazine, May 7, 2019
During the 2016 election, CIA director John Brennan informed congressional leaders that Russian intelligence was interfering in the election in an effort to help Donald Trump win. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell dismissed the conclusion, and depicted it as a frame-up. “You’re trying to screw the Republican candidate,” he charged, warning that he would refuse to sign a bipartisan statement warning Russia to back off. If blocking Russia meant hindering the Trump campaign, McConnell wasn’t interested.
This morning, McConnell took to the Senate floor to deliver a coda to this historic act. In a speech that was notably smarmy even by his standards, the Senate Majority Leader declared the Mueller report to be “case closed,” accused Democrats of refusing to accept the legitimacy of Trump’s election, and called for an end to all investigation or inquiries of Mueller’s findings.
SNIP...
McConnell framed his speech as a call for unity, insisting Russia’s goal was to divide the public. “Russia set out to sow discord. To create chaos in American politics and undermine confidence in our democracy,” he said. To continue pursuing the massive evidence of corruption and misconduct in the Mueller report would somehow help Putin. If Americans “remain consumed by unhinged partisanship,” McConnell said, “and keep dividing ourselves … Putin and his agents need only stand on the sidelines and watch as their job is done for them.”
Note here that McConnell is again denying the same thing he denied in 2016: that Russia intervened not just to “divide” Americans but specifically in order to help Trump win. If American political leaders in both parties had closed ranks and rejected Russia’s intervention, it might have backfired. Instead, McConnell assisted their effort.
CONTINUES...
http://nymag.com/intelligencer/2019/05/mitch-mcconnell-case-closed-trump-russia-mueller-collusion.html
May 8, 2019
Laurence Tribe: 'Trump will talk to Putin about Mueller, but...'
“...Trump won’t talk to Mueller about Putin.”
https://www.msnbc.com/hardball/watch/laurence-tribe-if-we-don-t-impeach-trump-we-might-lose-our-souls-59061317750
Harvard professor of law sums up where we’re at as a nation, politically and strategically:
“Trump is willing to talk to Putin about Mueller, but not to Mueller about Putin. What kind of president has that kind of disloyalty to the United States?” — Laurence Tribe
May 7, 2019
Howdy, Democratic Underground!
The administration invited me to introduce myself.
I am a citizen of the United States and a member of the Democratic Party concerned at the state of the Union.
My handle refers to a town I once lived in. Like much of the Midwest, it has seen better days.
Great place you have here for spreading news and information. Thanks for letting me be part of it.
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Member since: Mon May 6, 2019, 08:01 PMNumber of posts: 14,904
