Republicans are weary of Donald Trump’s calls for protests amid the belief by the former president that he’ll be arrested this week in connection with a years-old hush-money payment to a porn star.
Mr. Trump has called on his supporters to protest and “take our nation back!” prompting warnings of caution Sunday from prominent conservatives who say they do not want a repeat similar to the violent attack on the U.S. Capitol.
Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene said over the weekend that if she had led the January 6, 2021, insurrection at the US Capitol that “we would have won” and that people would have been “armed.” “I come to Washington, I swear in on January 3, I get accused of giving insurrection tours which I thought was hilarious because I couldn’t even find the bathroom in the Capitol. True story,” Greene, a Georgia Republican, said while speaking at an event by the New York Young Republican Club, according to video posted by the Twitter user @patriottakes. “Then January 6 happens, and next thing you know, I organized the whole thing along with Steve Bannon here. And I gotta tell you something:
If Steve Bannon and I had organized that, we would have won. Not to mention, it would have been armed. Yeah. See, that’s the whole joke isn’t it?”
Source: Rep. Greene says she and Bannon ‘would have won’ January 6
Uncle Donald has never got rid of Mary
Psychologist and podcaster Mary Trump, who is former President Donald Trump’s niece, blasted the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the United States Secret Service on Saturday’s edition of The Mary Trump Show over the revelations that the agencies were aware of the threats against House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-California) [as well as then-Vice President Mike Pence] in advance of the January 6th, 2021 Capitol insurrection. The House Select Committee investigating the attack broke that news during its public hearing last week.
Trump Wants nothing revealed because there is nothing there for the public to see if it doesn’t earn him a dollar rouble or rial and coin or creepy crypto will do even sex
The contents of some of the classified documents recovered by the FBI during the search of Donald Trump’s Florida resort, Mar-a-Lago, have been revealed, and it isn’t very comforting. Unless, of course, you don’t love this country. Some of the docs included highly sensitive intelligence regarding Iran and China. If they were/have been shared with others, such information could expose intelligence-gathering methods that the U.S. wants to keep hidden from the world for obvious reasons.
Source: Contents Of Mar-a-Lago Docs Revealed, And It’s Worse Than We Thought | Crooks and Liars
Donald Trump and his adult children have been sued for fraud by New York state’s attorney general, who for more than three years has conducted a civil investigation into the former US president’s business practices, court records show.
Source: Donald Trump and children sued in US over fraud allegations
The fact that the entire Trump clan is being brought in for a reckoning adds more context to Trump’s predictable move to sue the attorney general to end her civil investigation a couple of weeks after this filing. James’ response to that was, “Neither Mr. Trump nor the Trump Organization gets to dictate if and where they will answer for their actions.”
Source: Morons Who Can’t Afford Good Attorneys: Trump Kids ‘Defy’ Subpoenas | Crooks and Liars
MEET THE TRUMPS
There is no bottom to how low Don Jr. will go for a buck. Like father, like son.
Source: Don Jr Sells Disgusting Alec Baldwin T-shirts | Crooks and Liars
While Ivanka appears to be coolly attempting to control her own narrative behind the scenes, Donald Jr and Eric reacted to the Trump Organization criminal charges by having histrionics on camera. Eric Trump told Newsmax last week that “Don, Ivanka and I live really nice, clean lives”. Meanwhile, Don Jr posted a 13-minute video on Facebook calling the charges against his dad “banana-republic stuff”. He also (rather unhelpfully) acknowledged that the allegations Trump paid for Weisselberg’s grandchildren’s school fees were true. “My dad did that,” he said, because he is a “good guy”. A “good guy” who probably wishes he raised smarter kids. With children like these, who needs enemies?
In a keenly awaited memoir, Joe Biden’s son Hunter attacks Donald Trump as “a vile man with a vile mission” who plumbed “unprecedented depths” in last year’s US presidential election.
Hunter, 51, is a lawyer and businessman who has been the focus of Republican bile ever since Trump and his lawyer Rudy Giuliani sought information on his business dealings in Ukraine to use in the 2020 campaign.
Former President Donald Trump issued more than 100 pardons before leaving the White House, most of them to personal friends and political allies, including controversial figures such as Paul Manafort and Gen. Michael Flynn. According to a Saturday report from Business Insider, some legal experts believe that Trump’s pardons were so “poorly worded” that the individuals he pardoned may still be open to prosecution.
Donald Trump’s Pardons Were So ‘Poorly Worded’ That His Allies May Still Be Prosecuted, Legal Experts Say
With his final acts before leaving office, President Donald Trump revealed a deep contempt for his supporters—and for the platform he ran on.
Trump Never Cared About His Fans. His Pardons Prove It. – Mother Jones
If Trump looks like a fascist and acts like a fascist, then maybe he is one
If Trump looks like a fascist and acts like a fascist, then maybe he is one | Donald Trump | The Guardian
Mary Trump rarely minces her words these days when speaking about her uncle, Donald Trump, and this week, she revealed her deep-seated conviction that the outgoing president “enjoyed every second” of the violent siege of the United States Capitol last week.
Mary Trump convinced her uncle Donald ‘enjoyed every second’ of Capitol attack – TheGrio : TheGrio
The violent and divisive rhetoric of President Donald Trump and his allies ahead of the US Capitol riot is laid bare in a chilling supercut released by The Daily Show with Trevor Noah on Wednesday.
Trump, members of his family, White House officials, Fox News personalities, congressional Republicans and others promote baseless conspiracy theories about the 2020 election and demand retribution in the montage.
Chilling Video Exposes Donald Trump’s Violent Pre-Riot Rhetoric | HuffPost UK
The brute stupidity and utter selfishness of Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner have once again come into sharp focus. But nestled into the more familiar allegations of wasting tax-payer money in the latest report are the surprising appearances of former President Barack Obama and an “unpleasant” bathroom mess.
This Story About Ivanka, Obama, and Poop Is So Much Worse Than You Could Imagine – Mother Jones
Donald Trump’s supporters call themselves patriots, but the flags they fly, and the symbols they use, show us where their loyalties really lie.
US protests: democracy dies in daylight as symbols of insurrection fly
When it comes to Donald Trump, too many people in the mainstream media and elsewhere have tried to impose complexity onto simplicity. For many such observers there must always be some other explanation for Trump and his movement’s anti-democratic behavior and overall evil. Therefore, we must ride the hamster wheel of shock and surprise at each new example of Trump’s ignominious behavior.
Trump’s latest crime “shocks” the media: His niece, Mary Trump, is not surprised | Salon.com
Trump’s coup attempt is on-going. Despite being rejected by state officials and the country’s highest courts, Trump and his agents are continuing their seditious and treasonous attempts to overthrow the results of the 2020 election — and, in effect, overthrow American democracy. These efforts to stop Biden from becoming president have extended to the use of stochastic terrorism and other provocations, to murmurs about martial law, political violence and a second civil war. Because Trump yearns to be a neofascist strongman, his campaign to remain in power indefinitely will not stop. Michael D’Antonio, a CNN contributor and author of “The Truth About Trump”, warned Salon about this during a recent phone conversation:
Richard Painter: Trump is an “incompetent dictator” — but a “shrewder” plot might have worked | Salon.com
But after Donald Trump’s divisive term as US President, some of their old neighbours won’t be rolling out the red carpet when they return. In Palm Beach, Florida, a group of locals has gone so far as initiating legal action to stop Mr Trump from moving back to his private club, Mar-a-Lago. The move is bound to incite a furious reaction.
Neighbours launch legal action to stop Donald Trump living at Mar-a-Lago
Today loyalist William Barr, Trump’s Attorney General, admitted that the Department of Justice has not found any evidence of widespread voter fraud that would mean Trump won the election. Trump’s lawyers Rudy Giuliani and Jenna Ellis promptly issued a statement saying “With the greatest respect to the Attorney General, his opinion appears to be without any knowledge or investigation of the substantial irregularities and evidence of systemic fraud.” Trump allies told PBS NewsHour correspondent Yamiche Alcindor that Barr’s statement was a “complete betrayal.”
In Line For Immunity? | The Smirking Chimp
We’ve got more deaths from this virus than the number of soldiers killed in World War I, World War II, Korea, Vietnam and the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan combined. The president of the United States we just voted out of office is sitting around watching Fox News, filing phony lawsuits, firing people he thinks are “disloyal,” and running a new scam on his way out the door to line his pockets with dollars from his adoring base. Donald Trump is living up to every expectation we ever had about him. He’s going out exactly the way he came in: lying, cheating and stealing.
Trump Is Going out the Way He Came In: A Loser, a Liar and a Cheat | The Smirking Chimp
“He plans to wreck Fox. No doubt about it,” a source with detailed knowledge of Trump’s intentions told Axois.
Could Donald Trump build a media empire to rival Fox News?
I
Proud Boys’ Post-Election Crackup Offers Revealing Glimpse Of Their Deep White Nationalist Nature | Crooks and Liars
nternecine warfare is a natural state for right-wing extremists; they are, after all, uniformly paranoid, suspicious, confrontational, and narcissistic (not to mention deeply unpleasant) people. The proto-fascist street-brawling Proud Boys have never been an exception, as observers in Portland well know from the days when they and members of their far-right colleagues in Patriot Prayer were threatening to kill each other. Their latest internal dustup, however—in which an early cofounder of the group dubiously claims to have fired their current national leader while embracing an explicitly racist approach—is more revealing than most. Although the claims are mostly toothless grandstanding, the episode lays bare how the Proud Boys’ disavowals of white nationalism are really just a risible burlesque.
Proud Boys’ Post-Election Crackup Offers Revealing Glimpse Of Their Deep White Nationalist Nature | Crooks and Liars
Proud Boys rally in Portland, Oregon, stokes fears of renewed violence | US news | The Guardian
“This is a critical moment,” said Brown, a Democrat. “We have seen what happens when armed vigilantes take matters into their own hands. We’ve seen it in Charlottesville, we’ve seen it in Kenosha and, unfortunately, we have seen it in Portland.
Proud Boys rally in Portland, Oregon, stokes fears of renewed violence | US news | The Guardian
“I want to know who’s the person, who’s the person who gave the whistleblower the information? Because that’s close to a spy. You know what we used to do in the old days when we were smart? Right? The spies and treason, we used to handle it a little differently than we do now.“
The “people” that gave the Whistleblower the information wasn’t a person but people yes people all part of Trump’s Administration and now even his envoy to the Ukraine has “quit” (ODT
The tears Trump causes Americans abroad.
Trump politicises the lives of less than 1% of people some Americans among them which he turns into a demand of 100% support to be able to group stereotype and justify is using them as domestic punching bags. When it’s that 1% of America that is now treating it as their own personal feifdom or colony and remaining silent. Real abuse consistently punches down. Punching up isn’t what Trump makes it out to be it’s “justified criticism” in a Real Democracy. Is America a Real Democracy or a dying one? Before or after Trump America needs sure as hell needs CPR. (ODT)
I leave the U.S. often, ironically, and I have been fortunate to live and study and work abroad in countries from Mexico and Argentina to Spain and the U.K.—experiences that have thrown the good and the bad the U.S. has to offer into high relief. On the days when I read the news, I can’t imagine how I can love the country I still, sometimes reluctantly, call home, but I try to remember what the great James Baldwin said in an interview with the Paris Review:
I think that it is a spiritual disaster to pretend that one doesn’t love one’s country. You may disapprove of it, you may be forced to leave it, you may live your whole life as a battle, yet I don’t think you can escape it. There isn’t any other place to go—you don’t pull up your roots and put them down someplace else. At least not in a single lifetime, or, if you do, you’ll be aware of precisely what it means, knowing that your real roots are always elsewhere. If you try to pretend you don’t see the immediate reality that formed you I think you’ll go blind.
I’m trying not to go blind, even though the tears that come more and more often these days make it harder than ever to see the nation for which my parents gave up so much to call their own.
via I Know What It’s Like to Be Told to ‘Go Back’ to My Own Country | The Smirking Chimp
Just Lie like I do says Trump
Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders over President Trump 51 – 42 percent;
California Sen. Kamala Harris ahead of Trump 49 – 41 percent;
Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren tops Trump 49 – 42 percent;
South Bend Mayor Pete Buttigieg edges Trump 47 – 42 percent;
New Jersey Sen. Cory Booker by a nose over Trump 47 – 42 percent.
Trump Instructs Staff To Lie About Poll Numbers, Really! | Crooks and Liars
“For the over 355,000 immigrants whose cases have been administratively closed, this is frightening.”
via The Trump Administration Is Seeking To Restart Thousands Of Closed Deportation Cases
Donald Trump has lashed out against hundreds of US newspapers that published editorials on Thursday defending press freedom and denouncing his constant attacks on the media.
Tweeting in all capitals, the president wrote: “THE FAKE NEWS MEDIA IS THE OPPOSITION PARTY. It is very bad for our Great Country.” He added: “BUT WE ARE WINNING!”
More than 350 newspapers across America, large and small, responded to Trump’s relentless attacks on much of the mainstream media as “fake news” and the “enemy of the people”.The US Senate unanimously adopted a resolution on Thursday affirming support for a free press and declaring that “the press is not the enemy of the people”.
The non-binding resolution approved by voice vote was a rebuke to Trump who for more than 18 months has frequently called reporters “the enemy of the people”.
via Trump lashes out against US news outlets defending press freedom | US news | The Guardian
Donald Trump calls former White House aide Omarosa Manigault Newman a ‘dog’
US President Donald Trump has escalated his messy clash with former aide Omarosa Manigault Newman, referring to his longtime colleague, who had been the top African-American in his White House, as “that dog!”
Key points:Trump calls Manigault Newman “crazed, crying lowlife”
Former aide says she has more recordings
Trump presidential campaign files arbitration action against Manigault NewmanThe pressure on Ms Manigault Newman increased, as the Trump presidential campaign filed arbitration action against her, alleging a breach of a confidentiality agreement.
President Donald Trump’s lawyers have reportedly sent Special Counsel Robert Mueller a “counter-offer” regarding the scope of a possible sit-down interview as part of the ongoing Russia probe, and they apparently made one key demand: Absolutely no questions about whether Trump has obstructed justice.
Bridgewater, New Jersey: US President Donald Trump has acknowledged for the first time that a 2016 Trump Tower meeting between a Kremlin-connected lawyer and his son was to collect information about his political opponent.
But 13 months ago, Trump gave a far different explanation for the meeting.
A July 2017 statement – dictated by the President and released on behalf of Donald Trump jnr – read: “We primarily discussed a program about the adoption of Russian children that was active and popular with American families years ago.”
via Trump Tower meeting in 2016 was to collect information about Clinton, says US President
The first lady contradicted president Trump’s comments on Lebron James: is she trolling him, or on a damage limitation exercise for the White House?
via Is Melania trolling Trump (again) with her defence of LeBron? | US news | The Guardian
Meet the Trumps
President Donald Trump lashed out at basketball star LeBron James in a scathing attack on Twitter after James criticised the president in an interview on CNN.
In a wide-ranging interview with Don Lemon, an anchor on CNN, on Monday, James spoke about a school for at-risk children that he recently helped open in his hometown, Akron, Ohio, in a partnership between his philanthropic foundation and the city’s public schools. During the interview, he also said Trump was using sports to divide the country.
The billion-dollar question is: How much of that filthy lucre has circulated through Donald Trump’s business empire?
Is Trump a Launderer?Before he became president, Donald Trump was basically an unsuccessful businessman who managed, time and again, to fail upward. He filed for bankruptcy six times — five times for his casinos and once for the Plaza Hotel.
He’s been involved in several high-profile and very expensive investments that ultimately didn’t go forward: the West Side Yards in New York City, the Trump International Hotel and Tower in Dubai, Trump Towers Rio, Trump Ocean Resort in Baja, Mexico, and several shady real-estate deals in Florida.
An astounding number of his other business ventures have gone belly up too, including Trump Airlines, Trump University, and Trump Magazine.
Trump’s business failures over the years and his unorthodox financial behavior pushed him to the margins of the financial world. Only one institution, Deutsche Bank, continued to supply him with credit. Otherwise, Trump began to rely on some questionable characters and networks. He created baroque financial arrangements involving shell companies. He used pseudonyms on contracts. He became squirrely about his tax returns.
via Trump & Dirty, Rotten Russian Money: Will it be his Downfall?
https://crooksandliars.com/cltv/2018/07/fox-news-produced-presidency
“He comes down for the day, and whatever he saw on ‘Fox and Friends,’ he schedules meetings based on that,” said one former White House official. “If it’s Iran, it’s ‘Get John Bolton down here!’ … If he’s seen something on TV or [was] talking to Hannity the night before, he’s got lots of flexibility to do whatever he wants to do.”
and
Michael Cohen, President Donald Trump’s former personal attorney, claims that then-candidate Trump knew in advance about the June 2016 meeting in Trump Tower in which Russians were expected to offer his campaign dirt on Hillary Clinton, sources with knowledge tell CNN. Cohen is willing to make that assertion to special counsel Robert Mueller, the sources said.
Cohen’s claim would contradict repeated denials by Trump, Donald Trump Jr., their lawyers and other administration officials who have said that the President knew nothing about the Trump Tower meeting until he was approached about it by The New York Times in July 2017.
via Bombshell Report: Michael Cohen Claims Trump Knew About Infamous Trump Tower Meeting – Mother Jones
IRONY
Words from a demented bully who currently has had active Special Ops action in 133 countries and who has had some involvement in 144. Given these numbers terrorist activity has had greater support from the USA than anyone else in the world and currently Venazuela and Nicaragua are very much back in the frame. (ODT)
Washington: US President Donald Trump has reacted furiously to a warning from Iran’s President Hassan Rouhani against attacking the theocratic state.
Trump tweeted: NEVER, EVER THREATEN THE UNITED STATES AGAIN OR YOU WILL SUFFER CONSEQUENCES THE LIKES OF WHICH FEW THROUGHOUT HISTORY HAVE EVER SUFFERED BEFORE. WE ARE NO LONGER A COUNTRY THAT WILL STAND FOR YOUR DEMENTED WORDS OF VIOLENCE & DEATH.
She sold her story for $150,000 in August 2016 but it was never published by the National Enquirer, a practice known as “catch and kill” to prevent a potentially damaging story from becoming public. David Pecker, the chairman of parent company American Media Inc (AMI), is Trump’s friend.
Giuliani said the discussion of payment did not mean McDougal’s claim of an affair was true and characterised it as an attempt to resolve false allegations that were “personally damaging” to Trump.
via Trump says Cohen taping him ‘totally unheard of and perhaps illegal’
“Today is a good day for Putin and the oligarchs in Russia. It is a bad day for people in the United States and all over the world who believe in democracy and who are trying to understand what world our idiot president lives in.”
Since being elected president, Donald Trump has vociferously claimed he engaged in “no collusion” with Vladimir Putin’s attack on the 2016 US election and that the investigation of any interactions between him and his associates and Russians was a “witch hunt” or a “rigged witch hunt.” Yet his historic Helsinki summit with Putin—and particularly the unsettling joint press conference they held—provided a clear indication that Trump is indeed guilty of one form of collusion: colluding with Putin to cover up Moscow’s criminal assault on American democracy
Plus
Donald Trump’s personal driver for more than 25 years says the billionaire real estate developer didn’t pay him overtime and raised his salary only twice in 15 years, clawing back the second raise by cutting off his health benefits.
Noel Cintron, who is listed in public records as a registered Republican, sued the Trump Organization for about 3,300 hours of overtime that he says he worked in the past six years. He’s not allowed to sue for overtime prior to that due to the statute of limitations.
via Donald Trump’s personal driver for 25 years sues for unpaid overtime
Dancing with Dictators
“Support” often takes the form of selling arms, as in the cases of Turkey despite widespread repression, Saudi Arabia in its bombing campaign in Yemen, and the Philippines despite its unrestrained drug war.
Israel should be added to this list, since the far-right Netanyahu government receives about $1.5 billion annually in arms that give it license to violently suppress Palestinian protests. Not surprisingly, the equally far-right US ambassador to Israel has said Israel should be exempt from US law that requires a State Department report on whether or not US-supplied weapons are being used to repress human rights. “Israel is a democracy,” Amb. David Friedman said, “whose army does not engage in gross violations of human rights.”
olddogthoughts 