Trump Is A Dipshit

[Steve Minkin]

Retiring Justice Kennedy's son worked for Deutsche Bank, arranged loans for The Chump

https://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/sa ... pecial-guy

[Steve Minkin]

BREXIT

NYmag.com:

>>In 2016, Vladimir Putin reaped two of his greatest foreign policy triumphs in quick succession. The United Kingdom voted narrowly to exit the European Union, advancing a longstanding Russian goal of splitting Western allies that have long been united against it. Later that year, the United States voted even more narrowly to elect Donald Trump president.

On Friday evening, the New York Times revealed new detail about Russian involvement in the Brexit vote. The more we learn, the more clearly the pattern of behavior in the two countries becomes similar, and the more suspicious the denials of Putin’s partners grows.

In both countries, the right-wing pro-Russian populists indignantly insist there is no more incriminating information to be found beyond what was known at any given moment, even as the bounds of what is known at any moment continues to expand. In Britain, billionaire businessman Arron Banks financed the Brexit referendum with the largest donation in British history. Initially, he copped to having one meeting with Russian officials. After the Guardian obtained secret documents blowing up this claim, he admitted there were actually three meetings. Now the Times has even more information, and Banks concedes the number of covert meetings has grown to four.

At the secret meetings with Russians, Banks was dangled the prospect of lucrative gold and mining deals. In the course of speaking with the Times, Banks changed his story: “In interviews earlier this week, Mr. Banks initially said he knew nothing about the [mining] project. Then he later said he remembered hearing about it from the investment banker but did not pursue it.”

Well, that sounds innocent.

Banks continues to insist he never actually took up the Russians on the offer of cutting him in on their mining deals at a favorable price. This denial seems extremely hard to credit. For one thing, Banks tweeted at the time that he was buying up gold and mining stocks. For another, the Times adds the crucial detail that his business partner and fellow Brexit supporter, James Mellon, did participate in the sweetheart deal. The mining stocks were sold at a discount, and Mellon’s investment firm, Charlemagne Capital, “was among a restricted number of investors who were allowed to participate.”

Banks’s defense of his behavior to the Times is so absurdly suspicious it almost reads like a winking, dada joke: “The idea that things were dangled as some sort of carrots for me to be involved with the Russians is very far-fetched,” he said. “I wonder what the Russians wanted from me?” What they wanted was perfectly obvious: Banks funded a political referendum in which Russia had a strong interest in passing. Russia could not directly finance the referendum, but Banks could. Therefore, what they would want is for him to use some of the money they were dangling before him to support Brexit, which he did. At this point, it seems virtually certain that Russia did use Banks, perhaps in conjunction with Mellon, as a pass through to covertly finance the Brexit referendum.

Meanwhile, back in the United States, Donald Trump and many members of his inner circle have a long trail of financial ties to Russia. The overt behavior looks remarkably similar. Trump and his cronies refuse to disclose their precise financial connections (by, for instance, following the established norm of a presidential candidate publishing his tax returns.) They continuously lie about the number and nature of their covert contacts with Russian officials, then keep insisting with each new disclosure that there is no more to disclose and the whole question is a witch hunt. Meanwhile, they continue to deliver a policy outcome payoff to Putin.

Yesterday alone, reports have emerged that Trump offered Emmanuel Macron a better deal if France would exit the European Union, refused to rule out accepting Russia’s claim to seized territory from Ukraine, and that his government is studying the possibility of withdrawing troops from Germany. Like Banks’s winking “what could the Russians have wanted from me?” defense, Trump is virtually daring his critics to draw the obvious conclusion.<<

[Steve Minkin]

Question of the day in America: Will Alaska still belong the United States following The Chump's meeting with the KGB?

[walto]

Question of the day in America: Will Alaska still belong the United States following The Chump's meeting with the KGB?

Meanwhile, back in the United States, Donald Trump and many members of his inner circle have a long trail of financial ties to Russia.

What?! He doesn't know anything about Russia! He doesn't have any business in Russia!!

[Dan Warburton]

[Mo Noyz]

https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainme ... st/565112/

Tangerine Tyrant. Best nickname ever!

[faster]

#theresistance are also dipshits

[Steve Minkin]

I'm going to predict that not only will the pee tape go public, it won't even be among the top three presidential scandals. Not even hookers pissing on Obama's bed can explain The Chump in Helsinki. A performance for the history books.

The level of detail Mueller has on the Russian intelligence service has to make Putin a wee bit anxious.

I may be a cockeyed optimist, but even though this hasn't been much fun so far, I think there's a big party a-coming.

[Dan Warburton]

You've been saying that for months, mighty bard, and I'm still waiting.. Do you think the wanker Republicans, with mid-terms looming, are really going to do anything in the next few weeks other than bluster? There's no credible Democrat candidate on the horizon for 2020 as far as I can see - this fucking moron (not my words, Rex's) looks like he's going to be there until I retire.. Unless Vlad rolls the tanks into Tallinn and triggers a major conflict. Miserable thoughts, both.

[Steve Minkin]

I remember Watergate. That took longer to come to fruition. But I have that same 'earthquake weather' sense.

It's a very strange period. My wife and I and both of our kids live in Sonoma County, which went for Bernie Sanders, and we're seeing friends and acquaintances who voted for Trump moving out of the area because of the political climate. They put their views out on facebook and get slammed by almost everybody they know and have done business with for years. We used to be able to shrug off our political differences, but not in this environment. It's a sad state of affairs.

[Steve Minkin]

George Will: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GsgccOuZ0qg

[Steve Minkin]

[Steve Minkin]

>>European Union officials who flew to Washington, D.C. this week to try to negotiate a trade treaty with President Donald Trump knew that they couldn’t present him with large sets of complicated information, according to a new report from the Wall Street Journal.

Specifically, the Journal’s sources say that EU representatives made use of “colorful cue cards” that they thought would help keep the president’s attention during meetings. Each card contained what WSJ describes as “simplified explainers” that “had at most three figures about a specific topic, such as trade in cars or standards for medical devices.”

One European official speaking anonymously to WSJ reporters says that they knew they’d have to dumb things down compared to typical meetings they had with world leaders . . . <<

[walto]

Should have put breasts on the cards.

[Antoine]

https://www.theatlantic.com/photo/2018/ ... on/566330/

[Steve Minkin]

QANON, has become a significant and visible presence at all Trump Rallies these days, so I've looked into this group a bit. Here's the skinny.

Q Himself is somebody very powerful, he rides on Airforce One. Some followers even believe that Trump is Q — though others think it’s John F. Kennedy Jr., who they believe faked his 1999 death. He provides breadcrumbs for the QANON to follow through his media sites.

The Founding Moment of Q came on October 5, 2017, during a photo opportunity held before a military dinner. Trump said that the dinner was “Maybe the calm before the storm.” When a reporter asked, “What storm, Mr. President?” Trump responded, “You’ll find out.” QANON takes this comment extremely seriously, and the comment is vague enough to allow many conspiracy theories to find a happy home among the Q.

Some things are known for certain by all the Q: North Korean leader Kim Jong Un was placed in power by the CIA. Seth Rich was murdered by MS13 under orders from former DNC Chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz. Hillary Clinton and many other prominent Democrats (who are cahoots with the Saudis) are currently wearing ankle monitors because they are secretly under arrest because of the pizza/ pedophilia thing and relate sex trafficking crimes. Trump and Mueller are secretly working together against the Deep State, and have things well in hand. 17 is the key number, and Trump has used that number in his tweets, confirming beyond doubt to the Q (17th letter) that he knows that they know.

Some theories are held by some but not all Qers: 9/11 Thrutherism; the existence on the dark web of the #Frazzledrip video, featuring Hillary and Huma raping, mutilating, and cannibalizing a prepubescent girl; etc.

Those of little faith maintain that conspiracy theories provide a certainty that life itself lacks.

[Mo Noyz]

So, what you’re saying is none of that is true?

[Steve Minkin]

[Steve Minkin]

This is the guy running against Ted Cruz:

[Steve Minkin]

>>All sorts of melodramatic language has been deployed to describe Donald Trump’s presidency over the last couple of years: It’s a treasonous conspiracy to undermine American democracy and install a puppet regime controlled by our enemies; it’s a slow-motion fascist coup, seeking to undo civil rights and cultural diversity and institute a white-supremacist theocracy.

What if it was never anything quite so grandiose? Now that the Trump regime is beginning to crack and crumble — one piece at a time, and without the satisfying, cathartic crash so many people have longed for since the fall of 2016 — it looks a lot like something more familiar: a second-rate mob drama. . .


This may well be the beginning of the end of the Trump presidency, although its endgame could take a long while yet. I have a further prediction, which is that we will probably never know for sure what happened between Donald Trump and the Russians, or exactly what kind of leverage Vladimir Putin has over Trump. That will be endlessly disappointing to those who want the real world to have the plot points of a miniseries (which, in fairness, is almost everyone), but it doesn’t mean Trump will get off scot-free.

Craig Unger’s book, which overtly seeks to prove the most grandiose case for collusion (and gets at least part of the way there), is full of so much arcane back story and rampant speculation that it reads like a first draft abandoned by John le Carré as too hard to follow. Mueller appears to have given up on pursuing those fairytales and legends, and is following a much simpler narrative. He believes Donald Trump is running a moderately successful but not very efficient crime family, which blundered into pulling off the biggest con job in history. He knows what to do in that situation: Keep on squeezing the money and sooner or later it talks.<<

https://www.salon.com/2018/08/25/americ ... -the-heat/