Friday, April 12, 2019

Conservatives Wonder Why Democrats Are Upset

Here is a conservative site with a classic (not classy) question -- Red State: Why Are Democrats Upset At Illegal Aliens Being Sent To Their Sanctuary Cities?

The story, as you have probably heard, is that President Trump had the bright idea of taking migrants from the border, shipping them to sanctuary cities in Democratic states, and dropping them off there. Some liberals think this is a terrible idea.

Red State thinks Democrats are being hypocrites.
Why would any Democrat oppose this? Why would any member of the left-wing media be outraged over this? Why wouldn’t they be fully supportive of sending illegals in need of sanctuary to their own self-described sanctuary cities?

We’ve been told for years by these people that illegal immigrants are a net positive. They supposedly commit less crime (they don’t), do the jobs Americans won’t do, and provide valued diversity. The Democratic party believes that so much that they refuse to do anything to stem the tide...
...and so on.

The author of this piece, "Bonchie," thinks Democrats should be happy to implement this plan. This reminds me of when Trump fired James Comey and then was surprised that Democrats did not approve. Both are cases of inappropriately-used binary logic. Because we all see the world in black and white, and because Comey did something that hurt the Democratic Presidential candidate, we -- Democrats -- should automatically rejoice when something bad happens to him. Reports were that Trump was genuinely surprised that we saw the firing as a cheap political stunt and obstruction of justice.

In this case, we lefties love immigrants this much!, and so if you load up a few cattle-trucks with them and dump them in our downtown we should just be happy as could be. Yay, we will have more people speaking Spanish! We love them so much! Welcome, comrades!

Huh, well maybe some Democrats see it from the migrants' point of view. Maybe some of the 50,000 people currently in federal custody have relatives here that they plan to reunite with, that is, maybe they already know where they're going. People entering the country can currently decide where they want to go, and probably have a destination in mind. So maybe this plan does not work for them. In other words, maybe white American citizens -- Republicans or Democrats -- do not have the only possible point of view in this matter. Maybe it's not really about us.

Or, weird I know, but maybe some lefties think the idea of dumping truckloads of people with no money, no food, no home, who don't speak the language, in the middle of a big city in a new country sounds a little inhumane, unkind, and, actually, mean.

Even from the host city's point of view, dropping thousands of homeless people in the middle of a town without warning will put a burden on resources. A sudden influx of migrants is something a city would want to prepare for -- stock up on supplies, identify shelters and homes, translators, set up medical services, counseling, facilities for processing the paperwork. Democrats seem to have this crazy belief that before you undertake a big project it is good to have a plan. Sorry if I'm talking dirty.

But of course overwhelming the host cities is all part of the joke. Ha-ha, those Democrat-voting urban elites won't know what hit 'em. Poverty, starvation, homelessness, sickness -- it'll be hilarious!

It is possible that a couple of Democrats think that only the lowest kind of scum would use desperate and poor refugees as pawns in a petty partisan political prank. The idea that these are bad or dangerous people and that nobody would actually want them, and so Republicans are going to ship them to states that voted blue as punishment, is some of the most depraved and emotionally numb thinking we have ever seen in the leadership of the United States.

It is bad enough to keep thousands of asylum seekers and immigrants in concentration camps. It is bad enough to split up families intentionally, "losing" children and then saying it might take years to find them again. It is bad enough for officials and volunteers to sexually molest children and young adults at will with no accountability. It is bad enough to send the military to the border instead of immigration officials who can sort out the paperwork and get incoming migrants started on the correct process for entering the country or being sent back. It's already bad enough.

I think the dichotomy here is between those who see the refugees as human beings and those who see them as enemies or worse, vermin. If you recognize them as people with a need for safety then there are a number of ways to deal with them. Seeing them as vermin leads to more concentration camps, more torture, and the unthinkable.

248 Comments:

Anonymous the Lion-hearted said...

Dems always imagine they are virtuous because they try to shift burdens to others

their plan to help the less fortunate is always to get the government to force someone else to help the less fortunate

how noble!

studies show liberals donate less to charities than conservatives

yet, they are always ready to tax someone else to help the less fortunate

"Even from the host city's point of view, dropping thousands of homeless people in the middle of a town without warning will put a burden on resources. A sudden influx of migrants is something a city would want to prepare for -- stock up on supplies, identify shelters and homes, translators, set up medical services, counseling, facilities for processing the paperwork. Democrats seem to have this crazy belief that before you undertake a big project it is good to have a plan."

well, how much time do you need to get ready?

we'll give you a few months

more likely, San Francisco, Portland and Boston would just like to keep the burden on Phoenix, San Diego and San Antonio, while they while away the hours eating wine and brie, talking about how they love to help the illegal immigrants

it's the liberal way

they think they're Robin Hood

if the gallant sanctuary cities won't take the illegal immigrants, there's always Canada!

April 12, 2019 11:33 PM  
Anonymous if only Dems didn't nominate Hillary in 2016 said...

COLUMBUS, Ohio - Gov. Mike DeWine signed a bill passed by the Ohio General Assembly earlier this week banning abortions after a fetal heartbeat is detected.

Fetal heartbeats can be detected aroud six weeks. That’s before many women know they’re pregnant.

The ACLU of Ohio announced it is ready to slap the state with a lawsuit after the bill is signed.

Gee, I wonder how the Supreme Court will rule on that.

Abortion opponents feel the heartbeat bill will end up before the U.S. Supreme Court, which appears poised to overturn Roe v. Wade.

April 13, 2019 8:58 AM  
Anonymous TTf can probably use their ears to fly said...

"the idea of dumping truckloads of people with no money, no food, no home, who don't speak the language, in the middle of a big city in a new country sounds a little inhumane, unkind, and, actually, mean"

as opposed to the border towns in the desert?

I know that many of our big cities have been run by Dems for decades and so they're real hell-holes but, even at their worst, they have a plethora of amenities and opportunities

more so than Marfa and Tombstone

April 13, 2019 10:17 AM  
Anonymous get ready, Montgomery County said...

MEXICO CITY (AP) — Mexican authorities said a group of about 350 migrants broke the locks on a gate at the Guatemalan border Friday and forced their way into southern Mexico to join a larger group of migrants trying to make their way toward the United States.

The National Immigration Institute said the migrants were acting in a "hostile" and "aggressive" way, and accused them of also attacking local police in Metapa, a Mexican village that lies between the border and the nearby city of Tapachula.

The group of 350 pushed past police guarding the bridge and joined a larger group of about 2,000 migrants who are walking toward Tapachula in the latest caravan to enter Mexico.

April 13, 2019 10:40 AM  
Anonymous Sieg Heil! said...

During President Donald Trump's visit to the border at Calexico, California, a week ago, where he told border agents to block asylum seekers from entering the US contrary to US law, the President also told the commissioner of Customs and Border Protection, Kevin McAleenan, that if he were sent to jail as a result of blocking those migrants from entering the US, the President would grant him a pardon, senior administration officials tell CNN.

Two officials briefed on the exchange say the President told McAleenan, since named the acting secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, that he "would pardon him if he ever went to jail for denying US entry to migrants," as one of the officials paraphrased.

It was not clear if the comment was a joke; the official was not given any further context on the exchange.

The White House referred CNN to the Department of Homeland Security. A DHS spokesman told CNN, "At no time has the President indicated, asked, directed or pressured the Acting Secretary to do anything illegal. Nor would the Acting Secretary take actions that are not in accordance with our responsibility to enforce the law."

Trump gets no benefit of the doubt for "joking" about dangling pardons to people who break the law for him. There's just too much evidnce that he's prepared to do it.

Recall that on the same visit, Trump told border patrol agents that they should just tell judges that "we're full" if they the give them any trouble. They took the president seriously enough that they asked their bosses if they should follow his orders and were told they shouldn't break the law.

He's testing the boundaries to see how far he can go.

April 13, 2019 3:23 PM  
Anonymous Trump prefers to incite people to do his dirty work for him said...

President Donald Trump tweeted a video Friday fanning the flames of the recent right-wing uproar over comments Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) made about the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

“WE WILL NEVER FORGET!” Trump tweeted with the video, which alternates between an out-of-context remark Omar made during a speech last month and footage of the terrorist attacks, an attempt to characterize her as dismissive of the tragedy.

It’s unclear whether Trump’s administration made the video or if he harvested it from another account.

Trump joins a chorus of conservative media voices that have tried to paint Omar saying “some people did something” during that speech as being flippant about Sept. 11. In reality, Omar was speaking about why the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) ramped up its efforts to combat Islamophobia in the wake of the attacks.

“CAIR was founded after 9/11 because they recognized that some people did something, and that all of us were starting to lose access to our civil liberties,” Omar, a freshman lawmaker who is one of the first Muslim women elected to Congress, said during a speech to CAIR members.

The video Trump posted includes footage of the planes crashing into the towers despite broadcast networks moving away from showing that specific imagery in recent years. Research has shown that just watching footage of the Sept. 11 attacks can be enough to trigger clinically diagnosable stress responses in people, even those who were nowhere near the attacks when they happened.

Several high-profile lawmakers called out Trump’s actions because Trump has repeatedly put a target on Omar, a frequent recipient of far-right attacks attempting to paint her as a foreigner who sympathizes with Muslim extremists. Some have gone as far as to connect her to the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks via an inflammatory poster hung up in the West Virginia House of Delegates.

Last week, Trump mocked her during a speech just one day after a man proclaiming that he “loves the president” was arrested for allegedly threatening to kill her.

April 13, 2019 3:47 PM  
Anonymous Trump breeds hate said...

The overall number of recorded hate crimes against all groups has grown in recent years, but Muslims have been disproportionately targeted, as ABC News pointed out in a recent analysis:

"In 2007, the FBI recorded 33 anti-Muslims assaults. In 2017, the FBI recorded 105 such assaults, and another 168 incidents targeting Muslims for practicing their religion…Anti-Muslim assaults account for a small fraction of hate-based assaults reported to police each year, but Muslims overall account for an even smaller fraction of the total U.S. population, as reflected in findings from the FBI and Gallup Organization. Accordingly, Muslims are three times more likely to be assaulted for their religion than Jews, who themselves have increasingly become targets in recent years, peaking at 100 anti-Semitic assaults in 2015. Hate-inspired assaults also victimize Muslims at a rate twice as high as African-Americans, who suffer several hundred targeted assaults each year, an ABC News review of the FBI’s 2017 statistics found."

The situation appears to be getting worse under Trump. His administration has pushed for a ban on Muslim travelers to the United States and continues to use fearmongering language about Islamic terrorism (even though right-wing extremists, and especially white supremacists, are responsible for most domestic terrorism attacks). About half of Americans say Islam is not part of “mainstream American society,” according to a recent Pew poll, and that view is much more common among Republicans and white evangelicals. Another Pew poll found that Muslim Americans self-reported an increase of incidents where they were “treated with suspicion”—32 percent of respondents said it had happened at least once over the prior year, compared with 28 percent in 2011.

Omar herself has faced death threats. In New York, a man was recently arrested and charged with threatening to assault and murder the freshman congresswoman. “Do you work for the Muslim Brotherhood?” the man allegedly said to one of her staffers when he called their office, according to a press release from the US Attorney’s Office in the Western District of New York. “Why are you working for her, she’s a (expletive) terrorist. I’ll put a bullet in her (expletive) skull.”

In the ABC analysis, former counterterrorism officials who worked for both Democratic and Republican administrations blamed the uptick in anti-Muslim hate crimes in part on the rise of social media, and on comments by politicians. The fearmongering tweets Trump and others pushed out in the wake of Omar’s speech serve as yet more pieces of fuel for this fire.

April 13, 2019 4:00 PM  
Anonymous Lots of support said...

Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) thanked supporters on Saturday as the hashtag "#IstandwithIlhan" entered its second day on the list of top trending terms on Twitter in the United States.

In a series of tweets Saturday afternoon, Omar vowed that her love for the U.S. was unquestionable amid attacks from conservatives and allies of the president aimed at her loyalty to the country, as well as criticism of comments about 9/11 that some viewed as dismissive.

"I did not run for Congress to be silent. I did not run for Congress to sit on the sidelines. I ran because I believed it was time to restore moral clarity and courage to Congress. To fight and to defend our democracy," Omar wrote.

"No one person – no matter how corrupt, inept, or vicious – can threaten my unwavering love for America. I stand undeterred to continue fighting for equal opportunity in our pursuit of happiness for all Americans," she continued.

"Thank you for standing with me – against an administration that ran on banning Muslims from this country – to fight for the America we all deserve," Omar concluded.

April 13, 2019 4:49 PM  
Anonymous mistra know-it-all said...

the dumbo Dems have held the House for 100 days now

to quote Stevie Wonder: you haven't done nothing

April 13, 2019 11:53 PM  
Anonymous Even eagles do it said...

Proof that families come in all shapes, sizes and species, three eagles — two dads and a mom — are raising three, fluffy-feathered eaglets in a nest near the Mississippi River this spring.

According to the Stewards of the Upper Mississippi River Refuge, all three birds, Valor I, Valor II (dads) and Starr (mom), “take part in nest maintenance, incubation and raising the young.”

The refuge hosts a live webcam of the Illinois family, which is a rare example of an eagle trio cooperatively nesting, raising young together. While not unheard of, such trios have been documented only a few times, according to the National Audubon Society: in Alaska in 1977, in Minnesota in 1983 and in California in 1992.

What might make this all-American family different is that both males are copulating with the mom, whereas earlier examples of a second dad may have been live-in nanny situations, with no role in the reproduction itself, Audubon reports.

Domestic life in this nest was in turmoil before Valor II arrived, and it has been only two years since the dad duo lost their first partner, Hope.

When Hope and Valor I began nesting at this location, Valor I “wasn’t a very good partner or father,” Audubon wrote. “He was irresponsible about incubating the eggs and feeding the eaglets, which were really his only two jobs.”

“Normally they will switch roles, but what happened was Hope would sit on the nest for a long, long time,” Pam Steinhaus, the visitor services manager at the refuge, told Audubon. “Valor I would never bring food in, so she’d have to get up and leave to hunt.”

He would hang out on the nest for 10 minutes — then get up and fly away. Which is probably why everyone in the nest was cool with Valor II stepping up.

“I think Hope didn’t care for what Valor I was doing, so he got replaced,” Steinhaus told Audubon.

Even after Valor II moved in, Valor I stayed. By 2016, the trio was “cooperatively nesting.” Even Valor I was contributing, apparently motivated by his new male counterpart.

But the happy nest didn’t last long, with Hope disappearing in a true-crime, Unsolved Mysteries kind of way.

April 14, 2019 8:15 AM  
Anonymous by the end of Pence's 2nd term, there won't be a liberal judge left in America said...

Predicting what history will decide was significant is always dicey. But in the context of our fractured nation and the nonstop Washington tumult since 2016, events in the last three weeks have been nothing short of ­remarkable.

Against an enormous army of antagonists, political and cultural, academic and judicial, Donald Trump is enjoying some of the best days of his presidency. His power and popularity are expanding.

Meanwhile, Democrats and the left, including the media, have suffered one crushing blow after another. Their recent confidence that Trump was not long for the Oval Office is suddenly morphing into a panic that he could win a second term.

The worm began turning on the ­afternoon of Sunday, March 24, when Attorney General William Barr released his letter summarizing the findings of special counsel Robert Mueller. There was no collusion with Russia, Mueller found, and no obstruction of justice, Barr determined.

The momentous victory for Trump vindicated his claims of innocence. The fog of accusations that he was an illegitimate president was destroyed by a news flash that left no room for ambiguity.

To grasp the significance, imagine the consequences if the report found he was probably guilty of one or both charges.

The left would have erupted in ­orgasmic joy. We would be discussing articles of impeachment and Republicans would have fallen in line. There would have been worldwide implications as America turned inward to face its crisis.

Yet it is now apparent that Mueller’s report, as great as it was for Trump, was just the start of a dramatic turnaround in the fortunes of both the president and his tormentors. The bookend, at least so far, came last week with Barr’s stunning comment that “spying did occur” on Trump’s 2016 campaign and that Barr was obligated to review “the conduct of the investigation.”

“Spying on a political campaign is a big deal,” Barr said matter-of-factly.

Heart be still. Barr’s promise touches on the holy grail for those of us who believe there was an outrageous abuse of government power to try to tip the election to Hillary Clinton and then to topple Trump.

If Barr keeps his word, the sunlight of transparency soon will shine on the rancid corruption of the Justice Department, the FBI and the intelligence agencies under Barack Obama.

Turning the tables on the conspirators is absolutely necessary to hold accountable those who tried to rig the election. That accountability, if it is seen as honest and evenhanded, will prevent a repeat and begin to restore public trust.

Among the obvious questions that must be addressed are these: How did the unprecedented FBI probe of a presidential candidate get started if the allegations were instigated and paid for by the opposition? Who leaked scores of misleading investigative tidbits to the media in ways that suggested Trump’s guilt was all but certain?

It’s no exaggeration to say that Barr’s promise to investigate the investigators sets the stage for fundamentally changing the narrative from the one the media fed the nation for two years.

April 14, 2019 9:12 AM  
Anonymous by the end of Pence's 2nd term, there won't be a liberal judge left in America said...

Even at this early stage, Trump looks stronger than ever and Dems are mad with frustration.

Many are furious with Barr, with some hysterics saying they want to remove him from office, as if somebody must be impeached. CNN, NBC and others are accusing Barr of doing Trump’s “dirty work” by daring to use the “spy” word, as if straight talk is too much for their tender sensibilities.

They are so in the tank against Trump that they denounce the search for truth because the truth might ­favor the president.

Those with the most skin in the game are the most at risk, starting with Jim “The Snake” Comey. The former FBI director, whose conduct makes J. Edgar Hoover look like a choirboy, claims he is confused, saying “I have no idea” what Barr is talking about.

James Clapper and John Brennan, the intelligence chiefs under Obama who came out of the closet as naked partisans, added their two cents of shock. “Stunning and scary,” Clapper said of Barr’s plans, and Brennan accused Barr of sounding like a “personal lawyer” for Trump.

Translation: we better lawyer up.

Meanwhile, Mueller, the would-be savior, is now a nobody, an afterthought in the Dems’ river of rage.

Other recent developments also favored Trump. The economy continues to roar and the crisis on the border that Dems said didn’t exist clearly does, with illegal crossers numbering more than 100,000 a month — and those are just the ones apprehended.

Trump is at least searching for solutions while Dems have closed their eyes and ears to a security and humanitarian nightmare, as if it is just an inconvenient distraction.

Trump was also a winner in the Israeli election, with his support of Bibi Netanyahu helping to lift the prime minister to victory.

While there is personal satisfaction for both men, the greater truth is that stability in Israeli politics removes any Palestinian fantasy that a dovish new prime minister would return to the lifeless land-for-peace formula. Arabs — and Iran — can either deal with Trump and Netanyahu, or waste more time and lives weaving their dream palaces.

Democrats, in reaction to the Trump-Netanyahu alliance, continued to move away from Israel. All the 2020 candidates skipped the AIPAC conference and Beto O’Rourke called Netanyahu a “racist.”

Finally, Rep. Ilhan Omar is proving to be a one-woman wrecking crew for the party as well as for the image of all American Muslims. On top of her anti-Semitism, Omar’s dismissive description of 9/11 as “some people did something” marks her as a heartless ingrate to the nation that rescued her family from civil war and possibly death at the hands of other Muslims.

The only question is whether party leaders will have the courage to stand up against her. Sen. Chuck Schumer and Speaker Nancy Pelosi are usually camera hogs, but ducked questions about Omar’s 9/11 reference and her claim that criticisms of her are anti-Muslim.

They did, however, find time to criticize Barr’s plan to investigate the investigators, thus proving again that Democrats have the leaders they deserve.

Then, there's Michael Avenatti, ringleader of anti-Trump conspiracies, planning to run for President himself.

The scores of sordid criminal charges against Michael Avenatti wouldn’t be news if the media hadn’t turned him into a weapon against Trump. He appeared on CNN and MSNBC nearly 200 times to push his Stormy Daniels case — and to launch his presidential hopes.

Did anybody at those networks vet the guy? Did they ask former clients if he was honest?

Of course not. He was their useful idiot until he was no longer useful.

In 2020, American voters won't be the Dems' useful idiots.

April 14, 2019 9:18 AM  
Anonymous I'd be LMAO if it wasn't so sad said...

For two years the Party of Trump controlled the White House, Senate and House.

And yet routine dishonesty has been a defining characteristic of President Donald Trump’s campaign and tenure in the White House—and it should not be sugar-coated. At a staggering 8,158 false statements made over his first two years in office, Trump’s habit of lying can begin to seem mundane or even comical. But, for millions of American families living paycheck to paycheck, Trump’s unfulfilled economic promises are anything but trivial. Throughout his campaign, Trump pledged to quickly reverse sweeping economic trends that have left wages stagnant and large swaths of the country behind for decades, exploiting the understandable desire for systemic change in order to get elected. Once in office, however, he methodically executed an agenda to make those same problems worse.

Trump’s inability or unwillingness to assess the economy accurately and honestly has harmed the very people whose lives he promised to improve. A self-described advocate for “the forgotten men and women,” Trump’s economic priorities have instead heaped benefits on corporations and the wealthiest Americans, who were already reaping the vast majority of the economy’s rewards.

This was not a case of a presidential candidate with lofty aspirations meeting the reality of gridlock in Washington, particularly considering the advantage of having a Republican-controlled Congress. Trump’s core economic promises, which were the backbone of what he and others called “populism” or “economic nationalism” were—almost without fail—flat lies from the beginning.

Lie #1: “We’re going to have insurance for everybody”

Access to affordable health care is directly related to economic security, which, particularly given rising health care costs, may explain why it was a vital issue for voters in the 2018 midterm elections. Yet, despite promising “insurance for everybody,” Trump made it his first priority to pass legislation that would strip coverage from 20 million Americans and end protections for tens of millions more with pre-existing conditions. Trump has also called for work requirements—which disproportionately bar those who are working, ill, disabled, caregivers, or students from receiving health insurance—and cut tribal health care funding by hundreds of millions of dollars. Despite Trump’s campaign promise to lower drug prices, he has failed to deliver: Drug manufacturers continue to hike prices, and he backed Congress’ repeal of the individual mandate, which is estimated to increase the number of uninsured Americans by about 8 million by 2027.

Lie #2: “It’s going to cost me a fortune”

On the campaign trail in 2015, Trump claimed that his tax reforms would cost him a fortune. Once in office, however, Trump and congressional Republicans passed a tax bill, known as the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act (TCJA), that gave a massive windfall to high-earners, including Trump himself, and wealthy real estate investors. The pass-through deduction loophole expanded benefits for companies—including the Trump Organization and Kushner Companies, to name a few—and a new carveout extended this break to real estate owners such as Trump.

April 14, 2019 10:14 AM  
Anonymous I'd be LMAO if it wasn't so sad said...

Lie #3: “Every policy decision we make must pass a simple test: Does it create more jobs and better wages for Americans?”

In 2016, Trump outlined his economic plan, stating that every policy passed should “create more jobs and better wages for Americans.” Yet, the current economic reality paints a bleak picture for all but the wealthiest few. Wages have remained virtually stagnant for decades—increasing just $2.41 since the beginning of 2000—and have continued to follow this trend under Trump’s presidency. All the while, corporate profits have soared to unprecedented levels, with year-over-year increases of nearly 17 percent from this past quarter. The Trump administration also reversed an Obama-era rule updating overtime rules, resulting in $1.2 billion in lost wages per year. Furthermore, Trump has backed an assault on unions and left the minimum wage at a paltry $7.25, despite its purchasing power having sharply diminished in the 10 years since it was last raised.

Despite claims during his first press conference that he’d be the “greatest jobs producer that God ever created,” job growth under Trump has fallen in line with job growth of past administrations. The average number of jobs added per month has roughly mirrored that of the Obama administration. And despite the disproportionate effect that recessions have on working and low-income people, Trump has advocated for the very reckless policies that led to the 2008 crisis.

Lie #4: “Wall Street has caused tremendous problems for us. We’re going to tax Wall Street”

Despite promises to enhance the safety and stability of the financial system, since taking office, Trump and his appointed financial regulators have gutted postcrisis protections. From allowing big banks to load up on even more debt to eroding the Volcker Rule, the administration and Trump-appointed regulators have consistently advanced policies that serve the interests of Wall Street. An August report from the U.S. Senate Finance Committee estimated that Trump’s tax scam would hand a $26 billion windfall to the U.S. banking sector by the end of the year, with nearly half of the windfall going to six of the biggest U.S. banks. After Obama appointee Richard Cordray stepped down as head of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, the Trump administration quickly appointed Mick Mulvaney as acting director. Mulvaney, who had once called the very agency created to protect consumers in the financial sector a “sick, sad” joke, stripped powers from the fair-lending office, and publicly announced enforcement actions have fallen by 75 percent during his tenure. Although Trump once proclaimed his intention to break up the big banks in the interest of working Americans, the TCJA has directly—and generously—benefitted the wealthy and corporations by lowering the top individual income tax rate to 37 percent and slashing the statutory corporate tax rate...

April 14, 2019 10:14 AM  
Anonymous I'd be LMAO if it wasn't so sad said...

Lie #5: “These [U.S.] companies aren’t going to be leaving any more”

On the campaign trail, Trump asserted that “these [U.S.] companies aren’t going to be leaving any more.” Yet, just this past November, General Motors Co. announced plans to close five plants in the United States and Canada, resulting in a 15 percent cut in its workforce, or 14,700 fewer jobs. This comes on the heels of hundreds of layoffs at Carrier and the Ford Motor Co. restructuring—far from the “great deal for workers” Trump once touted.

Trump made false promises in order to tap into many Americans’ genuine concerns and worries about income inequality and an economy that is tilted to benefit corporations, elites, and the wealthiest 1 percent.

Whether by paying for massive tax cuts for the rich with subsequent cuts in federal programming, or initiating a so-called trade war in which he uses thousands of American farmers as pawns to help corporations—Trump has rigged the U.S. economy for his and the wealthiest Americans’ gain. The past two years of Trump’s presidency have showcased not only his manipulation of the economy, but also the fraudulence of his economic promises to working Americans—the very promises that contributed to his electoral win.

April 14, 2019 10:15 AM  
Anonymous GOPers vs. Trumpettes said...

President Trump has begun a fresh assault on the Affordable Care Act, declaring his intent to come up with a new health-care plan and backing a state-led lawsuit to eliminate the entire law.

But Trump and Republicans face a major problem: The 2010 law known as Obamacare has become more popular and enmeshed in the country’s health-care system over time. Thirty-six states and the District of Columbia have expanded Medicaid — including more than a dozen run by Republicans — and 25 million more Americans are insured, with millions more enjoying coverage that is more comprehensive because of the law.

Even Republicans who furiously fought the creation of the law and won elections with the mantra of repeal and replace speak favorably of President Barack Obama’s signature domestic achievement.

“Quite obviously, more people have health insurance than would otherwise have it, so you got to look at it as positive,” Sen. Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa) said in a recent interview.

Ten years ago, Grassley was at the forefront of GOP opposition to the law, ominously pushing the debunked claim that it would allow the government to “pull the plug on grandma” by creating “death panels.”

Today, Grassley is chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, the panel that would be responsible for drafting a new health-care law, and he has shown little enthusiasm for Trump’s call for congressional Republicans to produce a replacement for the ACA.

Republicans from states that embraced the law’s Medicaid expansion also concede that it has benefited large portions of the low-income population, many of whom were previously uninsured.

“For the people who are in that tranche of expanded Medicaid, I think it has been very helpful,” said Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.). Nearly one-third of West Virginians are on Medicaid, and the percentage of uninsured has dropped by about 56 percent since 2013.

It is an astonishing turn in the circumstances of a polarizing law that the House GOP voted more than 60 times over nearly a decade to scrap and almost scuttled in 2017 — and one that Trump remains intent on destroying.

In the past week, the Justice Department sought to expedite the legal challenge to the law, asking the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit to hold oral arguments in the case in July. The lawsuit, spearheaded by conservative states and embraced by Trump’s Justice Department, would destroy the ACA, upending coverage for 12 million people newly eligible for Medicaid and 9.2 million more who receive federally subsidized coverage via the law’s state-based marketplaces.

The lawsuit also would wipe out consumer protections established by the law, such as allowing children to remain on their parents’ health-care plans up to age 26 and requiring insurers to accept those with preexisting medical conditions without charging them more...

April 14, 2019 12:10 PM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

Jim, you always know what's important and explain it all so extremely well. You've yet again laid out what is really going on and made an unassailable case for doing the right thing.

Its a shame conservatives are wilfully blind to what is best for society and determined to attack the spirit of democracy in the name of doing everything they can to seize as much power as possible that they might dictate in luxury to the harmless liberal majority they hate.

April 14, 2019 4:30 PM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

Wyatt/Regina/bad anonymous said "by the end of Pence's 2nd term, there won't be a liberal judge left in the United States.".

Oooo! Is that an admission that you know as I do that in 2020 a Democrat might not win but its a certainty that Trump won't?

Or is this another one of those "16 years of the Romney and Ryan presidencies" kinda things?


Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha!

April 14, 2019 4:34 PM  
Anonymous heterosexuality is life-affirming and deserves preferential treatment said...

so, Dems say that Russians gave hacked Hillary emails to wikileaks, which Assange agreed to leak as the Democratic 2016 convention was beginning, to help Bernie steal the nomination

two questions:

1. why weren't FISA warrants sought to eavesdrop on Bernie's campaign?

2. Assange has been arrested and the indictments have now been unsealed. Why wasn't he indicted for colluding with Russia?

April 15, 2019 12:01 AM  
Anonymous I reeeeeally like our current and near future and through 2036 apponited Supreme Court said...

Trump's proposal is pure genius and I can't understand why Democrats are upset about this. Two sets of facts, number one, it is the position of the Democratic Party that illegal aliens held by ICE should be released into the country, into our communities. During negotiations during the government shutdown, Democrats' official negotiating position was we should limit amount the amount of beds ICE has to 35,000 and they expressly said for the purpose of forcing the Trump administration to release noncriminal aliens into the community. So they're for releasing them into the community. Secondly, they created sanctuary cities and this is their policy for the purpose of giving sanctuary to illegal aliens. NYC Mayor de Blasio wants to offer them free healthcare. Stacy Abrams wants them to vote in local elections. Governor Newsom wants to make the entire state a sanctuary, so how can you be upset about President Trump offering to do exactly what you say you want to do?

April 15, 2019 10:21 AM  
Anonymous Hillary Clinton said...

Hillary ClintonVerified account
@HillaryClinton

Hillary Clinton Retweeted Robert Maguire
Yes we can.

Robert MaguireVerified account
@RobertMaguire_

Can we all just appreciate for a moment that the older sister of the sitting President of the United States just retired so as to avoid an inquiry into a decades-long tax fraud scheme she participated in *with the President* (who is still in office) https://nyti.ms/2YVyzuS

9:39 AM - 11 Apr 2019

The Trump kids learned tax evasion from their father, Fred, the German draft dodger and US immigrant and slumlord.

April 15, 2019 11:04 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Families with children escaping violence in their home countries and coming here seeking asylum aren't illegal aliens. Seeking asylum in this country isn't criminal offense, and it doesn't make them "illegal immigrants." It makes them "asylum seekers."

There is no reason to detain these people, and it serves no one's interest to separate children from their parents in these cases. One might think that the party of "family values" would understand that. But over the years, we've come to learn that "family values" they like only apply to straight white people. Everyone else can be derided, mocked, harassed, and even detained whenever it is convenient to score political points.



April 15, 2019 1:40 PM  
Anonymous Cardinal Dolan said...

"I just went next door to our own beloved Cathedral, Saint Patrick's, to ask the intercession of Notre Dame, our Lady, for the Cathedral at the heart of Paris, and of civilization, now in flames! God preserve this splendid house of prayer, and protect those battling the blaze.

April 15, 2019 3:18 PM  
Anonymous Digby said...

Exactly one month ago today a Trump-admiring white supremacist walked into a mosque in Christchurch New Zealand and killed 50 Muslim worshippers and injured 50 more.

And the President of the United States is doing this:

President Donald Trump on Monday ramped up his attacks against Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) —this time labeling her statements “ungrateful” and “hateful” toward the United States—while newly accusing House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of ignoring what he claimed was a record of anti-semitism by the Minnesota congresswoman.

If that wasn’t enough, Trump also baselessly asserted that Omar had been exercising “control” over the top Democrat.

The tweet is the latest escalation in Trump’s targeting of Omar after he drew widespread condemnation on Friday for sharing a video that used out-of-context remarks Omar had given during a Muslim civil rights event to play over graphic images of the 9/11 attacks. Democrats and prominent progressives have since rushed to Omar’s defense, accusing the president of using the inflammatory video to suggest that Omar had downplayed the 9/11 attacks.

Pelosi on Sunday became the highest-ranking Democrat to forcefully denounce Trump over the video. She also announced through a statement that she was consulting with Capitol Police to ensure Omar’s protection.

Shortly after Pelosi’s statement, Omar revealed that she has been subjected to an increase in death threats against her in the days since Trump’s 9/11 video attack.

Perhaps the worst aspect of this, aside from the dangerous incitement, is the fact that they are openly using this as a way to appeal to their voting base:

But Trump’s tweet on Monday came as a clear signal that he intended to ignore his critics, and perhaps even capitalize on the division. The New York Times reported that Trump’s pummeling of Omar, one of the only two Muslim women in Congress, is now a full-on White House strategy aimed at wooing his base. The next stage of that campaign will likely take place later Monday as the president visits Omar’s home state for a so-called economic roundtable.

I think this says as much about his base as it does him. The President is obviously a deranged bigot. We know that. For the most powerful man on earth to dishonestly misrepresent the words of a Muslim congresswoman to incite religious hatred and racism is one of the lowest things he's done. But his followers are clearly the same if they respond to this sort of attack.

What do we do about the fact that 60 million of our fellow Americans think this way?

By the way, here are some white supremacist Trumpies flashing that white power hand signal in the White House:

https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-ATu-5GXanE4/XLS8pTHw4yI/AAAAAAABDd4/RKicUQP8UR0qn36QaiEk44V9OkfLRydjwCLcBGAs/s1600/DSOweP8U8AIqR4j.jpg

Yes, of course, they knew what they were doing.

April 15, 2019 4:02 PM  
Anonymous Sad! said...

Twelve years ago this morning, we woke up to what was then the deadliest mass shooting in modern American history at Virginia Tech in Blacksburg, VA.

Since then, we've watched as people have used the words "unthinkable" and "unimaginable" to describe these events, but the sad truth is that they’re not.

The United States is the only advanced country in the world where these kinds of mass shootings happen with this kind of frequency.

Virginia Tech is no longer the deadliest mass shooting, but what remains true is that Congress has still done nothing to make our communities safer from gun violence. The carnage continues. But it doesn’t have to.

Congress must close loopholes in our laws that allow criminals and domestic abusers to get their hands on guns. Congress must act to empower families and law enforcement to intervene when someone is experiencing a crisis.

Americans support gun control but doubt lawmakers will act: Reuters/Ipsos poll

House passes another bill to strengthen gun background checks as Trump pledges to veto

April 16, 2019 1:47 PM  
Anonymous What if Fox New covered Trump the way it covered Obama? said...

It would look like this.

April 17, 2019 8:12 AM  
Anonymous I reeeeeally like our current Supreme Court said...

Sometimes I wonder how Barack Obama feels about the fact that the person most likely to be the Democratic nominee for president in 2020 has the same position on Obamacare as Donald Trump.

Sen. Bernie Sanders, the crankiest old man in this race, is full steam ahead on his plan to repeal Obamacare and replace it with “Medicare for All.” Last week, Sanders said: “Our current health care system is failing when 80% of Americans worry about affording and accessing health care. We need Medicare for all now.”

Other than the Medicare part, he sounds just like every Republican I know! And Sanders has convinced a fair number of his competitors for the Democratic nomination to follow suit.

President Obama used to stir Americans with his powerful calls for national unity. It looks like he has, after all these years, finally forged agreement among leaders in both parties that his health care law made things worse and should be replaced. Bipartisanship blooms in Washington.

This will make for interesting conversations in the Democratic primary debates. With Sanders railing against Obamacare — and getting amens from across the stage — the task of defending it falls to Joe Biden, who the Associated Press reports is “finalizing the framework for a White House campaign that would cast him as an extension of Barack Obama’s presidency and political movement.”

Former Vice President Biden, the AP says, is betting that Democratic voters are “eager to return to the style and substance of that era.” That’s a risky bet in a party that can’t seem to flee fast enough from Obama’s signature accomplishment.

Hillary Clinton barely survived a Democratic primary pursuing Obama’s third term, and then lost a general election on the same question. And that was before folks had a couple more years to digest their rising insurance premiums and deductibles, often so high as to make their private plans useless. Many Obamacare plan deductibles top $7,000 for a single person, with family policies clocking in well above that.

Voters in both parties know they were duped by Obama’s health care promises. Private insurance customers saw their premiums and deductibles jump to pay for someone else’s health care, but not their own. The smartest thing Sanders could do is emphasize that deductibles go away under his plan. He’ll probably want to de-emphasize the wait times, however. Sanders loves the Canadian single-payer model where 3% of the population is waiting for some sort of medical care. Need to see a specialist like an orthopedic surgeon? The average wait was 24 weeks in urban areas, and 39 weeks in rural.

April 17, 2019 2:21 PM  
Anonymous I'm just ecstatic about the Supreme Court! said...

Health care isn’t the only part of Obama’s legacy getting a fresh look these days. The indictment of Julian Assange for his role in leaking U.S. military secrets has renewed interest in how he got away with attacking America for so long. The answer is simple — Obama’s Department of Justice, led by Eric Holder, declined to prosecute him in 2010 after Assange and his traitorous handmaiden, Chelsea Manning, leaked documents that put in danger thousands of American soldiers, diplomats and their foreign allies. Wikileaks and Assange attacked America; Obama and Holder did nothing.

Obama’s people coddled Assange and his helper, leaving Wikileaks in place to assist Russia’s meddling in the 2016 election. If you are a Democrat who believes Trump’s presidency is illegitimate because of Russian interference, ask yourself how things could’ve been different if the Obama Administration had seriously pursued Assange after 2010.

Not only did Holder fail, but Obama outrageously commuted Manning’s 35-year prison sentence as he left office. When the traitor formerly known as Bradford Manning wanted a sex-change operation, the U.S. government paid for it. After the new Chelsea Manning was convicted of betraying the United States, the commander in chief inexplicably offered clemency. And now Manning again sits in a jail cell for his loyalty to Assange, refusing to testify against him. The Manning saga was one of the darkest hours of the Obama presidency.

Russia. Wikileaks. Assange. Health care. The upcoming Democratic debate over Obama’s legacy ought to be had, as it is looking worse and worse by the day. Certainly, Republicans don’t agree with the prevailing socialist prescriptions for these failures, but at least some awareness is now emerging that for all of President Obama’s character and wonderful oratory skills, he left behind some real policy stinkers which many in his own party now realize changed America for the worse

April 17, 2019 2:22 PM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

Wyatt/Regina have to be "happy" about the illegitimate Supreme Court because the majority of Americans have rejected cold-hearted conservatism - Republicans can't win a democratic election.

Time has turned its back on you Wyatt/Regina/bad anonymous. :)

Trump is the first president in the history of polling to never be above 50% approval at this point in one's term.

Republicans have perverted American democracy to appoint 3 times as many supreme court justices per president than Democrats have. This will not stand.

Democrats will win a supermajority in 2020. The first thing on the agenda will be rectifying the illegitimate U.S. Supreme Court.

By 2022, Democratic politicians will have restored the U.S. Supreme Court to its proper balance. In the meantime,inexorable demographics will make it virtually impossible for conservatives to win the presidency for generations.

April 17, 2019 3:47 PM  
Anonymous Tripping over the truth said...

It was a moment so surreal, it seemed almost like a dream. During Fox News’s Monday night town hall with Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), host Bret Baier asked audience members how many had private health insurance. A large majority raised their hands. He then followed up by asking how many would like to see Medicare-for-all enacted. Almost all the same hands went up — remember, this was on Fox News! — with wild cheers to boot.

Baier’s action violated a major rule of lawyers: Never ask a witness on the stand a question to which you don’t know the answer. However, I must point out, only in the Fox News bubble would anyone be surprised by the popularity of Medicare-for-all — polls routinely find more than half of Americans say they support it, including one from last year that found a majority of Republicans say they back Sanders’s signature initiative.

"...the person most likely to be the Democratic nominee for president in 2020 has the same position on Obamacare as Donald Trump...Sen. Bernie Sanders..."

Ya think?

Trump doesn't.

It's not even close.

Trump chides Fox News after Sanders town hall

Trump thinks FOX and the audience were just being "so smiley and nice."

No, idiot, the FOX audience " erupted in cheers and applause when asked by Baier if they would support Sanders's "Medicare for All" proposal."

So what does Trump do?

Trump's Medicare Chief: Medicare-For-All Is 'Biggest Threat to US Health Care System'

"April 17, 2019 As seen on Fox & Friends

Seema Verma, the administrator of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services in President Trump's administration, said that "Medicare-For-All" proposals are the "biggest threat to the American health care system...."

April 17, 2019 3:53 PM  
Anonymous homosexuality doesn't produce life, two of 'em ain't ever a marriage.....ever. let's ask the Supreme Court said...

oh, I agree that most Americans favor universal health insurance at this point

that doesn't mean they will at election time

we have a democracy and we will have a campaign discussion about it

after looking at the evidence, we'll see how Americans vote

still, the verdict is clear

Obamacare is a disaster

just like everything to do with the reign of Obama the Worst

just because we teach facts here doesn't mean we can't have fun

here's some fun facts:

Trump approval rating 42%
Pelosi approval rating 36%
Schumer approval rating 24%

say, aren't the last two Democraps?

that seems high for Dems

people don't like them much

wonder what the Supreme Court will look like in 2032

hee-hee-hee......

April 17, 2019 4:15 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

A study published in the journal Neuropsychologia has shown that religious fundamentalism is, in part, the result of a functional impairment in a brain region known as the prefrontal cortex. The findings suggest that damage to particular areas of the prefrontal cortex indirectly promotes religious fundamentalism by diminishing cognitive flexibility and openness—a psychology term that describes a personality trait which involves dimensions like curiosity, creativity, and open-mindedness.

Religious beliefs can be thought of as socially transmitted mental representations that consist of supernatural events and entities assumed to be real. Religious beliefs differ from empirical beliefs, which are based on how the world appears to be and are updated as new evidence accumulates or when new theories with better predictive power emerge. On the other hand, religious beliefs are not usually updated in response to new evidence or scientific explanations, and are therefore strongly associated with conservatism. They are fixed and rigid, which helps promote predictability and coherence to the rules of society among individuals within the group.

Religious fundamentalism refers to an ideology that emphasizes traditional religious texts and rituals and discourages progressive thinking about religion and social issues. Fundamentalist groups generally oppose anything that questions or challenges their beliefs or way of life. For this reason, they are often aggressive towards anyone who does not share their specific set of supernatural beliefs, and towards science, as these things are seen as existential threats to their entire worldview.

Since religious beliefs play a massive role in driving and influencing human behavior throughout the world, it is important to understand the phenomenon of religious fundamentalism from a psychological and neurological perspective.

To investigate the cognitive and neural systems involved in religious fundamentalism, a team of researchers—led by Jordan Grafman of Northwestern University—conducted a study that utilized data from Vietnam War veterans that had been gathered previously. The vets were specifically chosen because a large number of them had damage to brain areas suspected of playing a critical role in functions related to religious fundamentalism.

April 17, 2019 4:19 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Based on previous research, the experimenters predicted that the prefrontal cortex would play a role in religious fundamentalism, since this region is known to be associated with something called ‘cognitive flexibility’. This term refers to the brain’s ability to easily switch from thinking about one concept to another, and to think about multiple things simultaneously. Cognitive flexibility allows organisms to update beliefs in light of new evidence, and this trait likely emerged because of the obvious survival advantage such a skill provides. It is a crucial mental characteristic for adapting to new environments because it allows individuals to make more accurate predictions about the world under new and changing conditions.

The results showed that, as expected, damage to the vmPFC and dlPFC was associated with religious fundamentalism. Further tests revealed that this increase in religious fundamentalism was caused by a reduction in cognitive flexibility and openness resulting from the prefrontal cortex impairment.

These findings are important because they suggest that impaired functioning in the prefrontal cortex—whether from brain trauma, a psychological disorder, a drug or alcohol addiction, or simply a particular genetic profile—can make an individual susceptible to religious fundamentalism. And perhaps in other cases, extreme religious indoctrination harms the development or proper functioning of the prefrontal regions in a way that hinders cognitive flexibility and openness.

The authors emphasize that cognitive flexibility and openness aren’t the only things that make brains vulnerable to religious fundamentalism. In fact, their analyses showed that these factors only accounted for a fifth of the variation in fundamentalism scores. Uncovering those additional causes, which could be anything from genetic predispositions to social influences, is a future research project that the researchers believe will occupy investigators for many decades to come, given how complex and widespread religious fundamentalism is and will likely continue to be for some time.

By investigating the cognitive and neural underpinnings of religious fundamentalism, we can better understand how the phenomenon is represented in the connectivity of the brain, which could allow us to someday inoculate against rigid or radical belief systems through various kinds of mental and cognitive exercises.

April 17, 2019 4:19 PM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

The Vast majority of Americans support Obamacare and want Republicans to stop trying to take it away along with its requirement that insurance companies offer insurance to everyone, regardless of pre-existing conditions, at no additional cost.

Most Americans want universal health care. Most Americans also want Obamacare over the Republican alternative of nothing, a complete breakdown in the health care industry.

Republicans only seek to destroy, they have no ability to create. Americans are overwhelmingly rejecting Republican lies. That's why Trump has not come anywhere near a positive approval rating.

April 17, 2019 4:24 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

At this get-together, Manafort supplied Kilimnik polling data from the campaign. (Kilimnik, according to the New York Times, subsequently passed this information to two Ukrainian oligarchs, and it’s unclear if he shared it with others.)..

The Mueller indictment of George Papadopoulos—the Trump campaign foreign policy adviser who met with various Russian cut-outs and who was told that Moscow had dirt on Clinton in the form of thousands of purloined emails—noted that during the summer 2016 he was trying to establish a back-channel connection between the campaign and Putin’s office. And Papadopoulos was doing this with the approval of senior campaign aides. Here was another clear signal to the Kremlin: Trump and his team had no problem with the Russian attack on the election and still desired a secret hook-up with Moscow.

April 17, 2019 4:53 PM  
Anonymous Trump 41, Pelosi 36, Shumer 24 said...

Let’s start with the obvious:

Of course Donald Trump’s talk about busing illegal immigrants to sanctuary cities is a political stunt, designed to heartlessly exploit the issue for his political gain.

And of course pro-sanctuary liberals like Sen. Ed Markey are shameless hypocrites for opposing it, despite their many public claims that illegal immigrants deserve to be treated like legal ones.

Here’s the real question I have for Democrats — particularly the ones who want to beat Trump in 2020:

Did you flunk out of fifth grade math? Seriously — what the heck?

Let me make this easy for our friends on the left side of the aisle: Americans hate sanctuary city policies. When you fight Trump by defending them, you’re supporting a policy that, depending on the poll, between 65 to 80 percent of Americans hate.

According to an IBD/TIPP Poll last summer, even Hispanics hate it by a 20-point margin.

And yet there’s bonehead Beto O’Rourke (seriously, who told us this Millennial Muppet was smart?) not only supporting sanctuary cities but announcing he wants the existing border fencing we have now taken down. There’s no available polling data on the question — because, quite frankly, what pollster would be dumb enough to ask it — but given that a recent Harris poll showed nearly 70 percent of Americans supporting more fencing in high-crime border areas, it’s not likely an Election Day winner.

And Beto is just the tip of the Democrats’ stupidity spear. Virtually the entire 2020 slate of candidates is waging war on behalf of a wildly unpopular policy. Our local POTUS wannabe, Elizabeth Warren, demonstrated yet again how she’s gone from “Progressive Front-Runner” to “Potential Pete Buttigieg Running Mate” by attacking Trump on the sanctuary issue, a cause she’s championed for years.

April 17, 2019 10:40 PM  
Anonymous I don't think the McGovern party is making a comeback said...

And it’s not just sanctuary cities.

Nearly all of the 2020 candidates have announced some level of support for slavery reparation. The American people? Around 70 percent say “no.”

The Green New Deal, for good or ill, involves higher utility costs to fight the scourge of global warming. But 68 percent of Americans say they’re unwilling to pay even $10 more per month to make it happen.

And you can’t have the Democrats’ “Medicare For All” without “private health insurance for none.” What percentage of voters are ready to give up their personal policies? A whopping 17 percent. More than 80 percent say no.

See a pattern here? Never Trumper Bill Kristol does.

“There’s a danger for the Democrats that the whole becomes bigger than the sum of its parts,” he told the Boston Herald yesterday. “It’s not just ‘let’s dump the Electoral College’ or ‘let’s have sanctuary cities.’ You reach a point where voters start thinking, ‘Wow, these people just going way out there on everything.’”

“I saw it happen in 1972 with McGovern,” Kristol said. “If you recall, he didn’t do too well.”

And if you don’t recall, Nixon won every single state … except Massachusetts.

But, hey — maybe Democrats are right about sanctuary cities and the Green New Deal. Maybe it is time to abandon free markets for the sake of a Sanders-style economic socialism. And maybe defending Rep. Ilhan Omar over her description of 9/11 as “some people did something” is, on some metaphysical level, morally right.

Or you could just be defending an anti-Semitic dope who said something dumb about the worst terrorist act ever committed on American soil, someone who makes your entire party look worse by embracing her.

Only time will tell. That is, if you’re a Democratic presidential contender. The rest of us can tell today, right now, by looking at the polls.

It’s that whole “math” thing again. Democrats may want to give it a try. Or they can continue their bruising political battle to become the next president of Massachusetts.

April 17, 2019 10:43 PM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

If you were outraged when Clinton had a conversation with Loretta Lynch, but you're okay with AG Barr coordinating and briefing the White House on the most important investigation into American history - then you a;re a hypocrite and should rethink your politics.

April 18, 2019 1:10 AM  
Anonymous I wonder if Obama is nervous about the full Mueller report coming out today said...

it's well known that Democrats give very little of their money to charity

they believe they help the poor by working to have the government confiscate other people's money and redistribute it

they feel they have no further obligation

take the insane Beto O'Rourke, the guy who fed feces to his wife for lunch:

ALEXANDRIA, Va.— Beto O'Rourke defended his meager rate of charitable giving on Wednesday, saying that he contributes in other ways through his work in politics.

"I try to contribute and serve in every way that I can," he said after two days of trying to tamp down criticism about his level of generosity, triggered when he released 10 years worth of tax returns on Monday night.

He and his wife, Amy, filed jointly and reported $366,455 adjusted gross income in 2017. They paid $81,019 in federal income tax and sent $1,166 to charity — a giving rate of just 0.3%, which is well below the national average.

April 18, 2019 6:22 AM  
Anonymous heterosexuality is how life is perpetuated and it has a privileged status said...

Soon, the dust will settle from special counsel Robert Mueller’s report, and Americans will have a fuller understanding of why prosecutors concluded there wasn’t evidence to establish that Donald Trump and Russia colluded to hijack the 2016 election.

Now, a very important second phase of this drama is about to begin, as Attorney General William Barr, Department of Justice (DOJ) Inspector General Michael Horowitz and Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) put the Russia collusion investigators under investigation.

Their work will be far more than just a political boomerang.

It must answer, in balanced terms, whether the FBI was warranted in using the most awesome powers in the U.S. intelligence arsenal to spy on Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump’s campaign at the end of the 2016 election.

Investigators must determine, with neutrality, whether the bureau improperly colluded with paid agents of Democratic rival Hillary Clinton’s campaign — Fusion GPS and its British operative, Christopher Steele — and then tried to hide those political ties and other evidence from the nation’s secret intelligence court.

For the likes of FBI castoffs James Comey, Andrew McCabe and Peter Strzok, or Obama-era intelligence bosses John Brennan and James Clapper, there will be the additional uncomfortable reality that the Russia collusion narrative that they so publicly weaved through testimony, TV appearances, for-profit books and leaks, turned out to be as unsubstantiated as the Loch Ness monster.

April 18, 2019 6:31 AM  
Anonymous heterosexuality is how life is perpetuated and it has a privileged status said...

The process of meting out accountability has begun.

Horowitz has interviewed between 50 and 100 witnesses in his exhaustive probe. Graham and his predecessor as Judiciary chairman, Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), laid out the most important investigative issues they saw in a letter last year. This month, former House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes (R-Calif.) sent a letter to DOJ identifying eight potential criminal referrals. His committee last year also released a memo on abuses of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) that may have occurred during the Russia probe.

And President Trump reportedly is readying an order to declassify five key buckets of documents on alleged FBI abuses.

These 10 questions are the most important to be answered in the forthcoming probes:

1.) When did the FBI first learn that Steele’s dossier was funded by the Clinton campaign and the Democratic Party and written by a partisan who, by his own admission, was desperate to defeat Trump?

2.) How much evidence of innocence did the FBI possess against two of its early targets, Trump campaign advisers George Papadopoulos and Carter Page?

3.) Why was the Steele dossier used as primary evidence in the FISA warrant against Page when it had not been corroborated?

4.) Why were Steele’s biases and his ties to the Clinton campaign — as well as evidence of innocence and flaws in the FISA evidence — never disclosed to the FISA court, as required by law and court practice?

5.) Why did FBI and U.S. intelligence officials leak stories about evidence in the emerging Russia probe before they corroborated collusion, and were any of those leaks designed to “create” evidence that could be cited in the courts of law and public opinion to justify the continuation of a flawed investigation?

6.) Did Comey improperly handle classified information when he distributed memos of his private conversations with Trump to his lawyers and a friend and ordered a leak that he hoped would cause the appointment of a special counsel after his firing as FBI director?

7.) Did the CIA, FBI or Obama White House engage in activities — such as the activation of intelligence sources or electronic surveillance — before the opening of an official counterintelligence investigation against the Trump campaign on July 31, 2016?

8.) Did U.S. intelligence, the FBI or the Obama administration use or encourage friendly spy agencies in Great Britain, Australia, Ukraine, Italy or elsewhere to gather evidence on the Trump campaign, leak evidence, or get around U.S. restrictions on spying on Americans?

9.) Did the CIA or Obama intelligence apparatus try to lure or pressure the FBI into opening a Trump collusion probe or acknowledge its existence before the election?

10.) Did any FBI agents, intelligence officials or other key players in the probe provide false testimony to Congress?

If Barr, Horowitz and Graham can answer these questions and release the still-secret evidence underlying their conclusions, Americans finally will have the wherewithal to answer the most troubling of all the questions raised about the Russia collusion narrative:

Was this a case of bureaucratic bungling, or an intentional effort to use the U.S. intelligence community for a political dirty trick aimed at defeating Trump at the polls and, later, delegitimizing his election?

It’s a question we all should want to be answered

April 18, 2019 6:36 AM  
Anonymous Merrick Garland ... LOL said...

this morning's fun facts update:

RCP averages

Trump approval 45%
Congress approval 22%

looks like the House will flip back to GOP in 2020

people don't like them Dems much

wonder what the Supreme Court will look like in 2032

hee-hee-hee......

April 18, 2019 9:22 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Fox News’ Chris Wallace Trashes Barr: He Acted as Trump’s Defence Lawyer


Minutes after Attorney General William Barr walked off-stage at the end of his Mueller report, in which he openly and preemptively spun away President Trump’s actions, Fox News anchor Chris Wallace blasted Barr’s performance and claimed he was acting more as the president’s personal counselor than the nation’s attorney general.

During his morning presser, which took place hours before Congress and the public ever saw a copy of the report, Barr exonerated the president on any possible obstruction by saying he was simply “frustrated and angered by a sincere belief that the investigation was undermining his presidency.” He also admitted that he provided the redacted Mueller report to the president’s personal lawyers days before its release.

During Fox News’ post-game coverage of the presser, Fox News anchor Bret Baier said that Barr provided more detail on the matter of obstruction while seemingly dismissing the press conference as an attempt to pre-spin the report’s findings.

“But Bill Barr kind of laying it out straight cut and dry, here is what his conclusion is, and then he is going to release the report,” Baier said. “And we'll see.”

Wallace, meanwhile, pointed out right away that Barr is obviously someone the president appointed as attorney general because he was looking for to protect him “from getting in trouble,” adding that Trump was obviously frustrated by Jeff Sessions in that role.

“I suspect that the president was pretty pleased with the performance of Bill Barr today and particularly on the issue of obstruction,” Wallace stated. “Because again, on collusion, it does appear and I will say that the attorney general said it about a half dozen times, I lost count after that, there was no collusion, there was no cooperation, there was no coordination.”

On the issue of obstruction, the Fox News anchor noted there were ten instances in which the special counsel said it could have raised to the possibility of a crime, and it was here that Barr acted as the president’s defence lawyer.

“You got into this very curious area where the attorney general seemed almost to be acting as the counselor for the defense, the counselor for the president rather than the attorney general,” Wallace declared. “Talking about his motives. Talking about his anger, his feeling this was unfair and there were leaks. And really, as I say, making a case for the president.”

Moments after Wallace trashed Barr’s performance, MSNBC’s Nicolle Wallace applauded him on the rival network, noting how remarkable it was that a Fox News anchor was describing the attorney general as “Donald Trump’s defense attorney.”

Read more at The Daily Beast.

April 18, 2019 5:18 PM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

The Mueller Report finds ten incidents of obstruction by Trump attempting to derail or constrain the Mueller Investigation.

Mueller makes it very clear that if the FBI could say Trump clearly did not commit obstruction of justice, he would have stated so. Mueller says there is evidence of obstruction of justice by Trump but because it is FBI policy that a sitting president cannot be charged with a crime he was constrained in what he could say and thus could not accuse Trump of this crime even though he may have committed that crime.

Mueller makes it clear he intended Congress to use his report to make the decision as to whether or not to accuse Trump of obstruction of justice. He then lays out a 180 page report on all the evidence against Trump in this ten incidents of obstruction of the investigation into Trump and Russia's massive and systemic interference in the 2016 presidential election.

Far from Mueller exonerating Trump as Barr falsely and repeatedly claimed, the evidence is overwhelming that Trump repeatedly committed obstruction of justice to hide his extensive dealings with Russia.

April 18, 2019 9:45 PM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

Contrary to Trump's claims, the Mueller Report outlines many, many instances of Trump campaign collusion with Russia.

For example, Paul Manafort met repeatedly with Putin operative Konstantine Kalimnik to share campaign polling and to strategize on how to help Trump win the 2016 election.

April 18, 2019 11:05 PM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

"Oh my God. This is terrible. This is the end of my presidency. I'm fucked."

President Donald Trump, May 17, 2017 after hearing that a Special Counsel had been appointed to take over the Russia investigation.

I've heard a number of legal experts say this statement unequivocally shows "mens rea" - the knowledge that one is guilty of crimes. Trump's statement meets the legal requirement that Trump must have had "corrupt intent" in the ten instances of obstruction of the Mueller Investigation to be guilty of the crime of obstruction of justice. Just what Trump has done out in the open is proof beyond a reasonable doubt that he is guilty. Only a shaky justice department opinion (subject to change) prevented Mueller from charging him with a crime he would clearly be convicted of in a court of law.

April 19, 2019 1:11 AM  
Anonymous homosexuality never produces life, two of 'em ain't ever a marriage said...

THE TWO-PRONGED CONSPIRACY THEORY that has dominated U.S. political discourse for almost three years – that (1) Trump, his family and his campaign conspired or coordinated with Russia to interfere in the 2016 election, and (2) Trump is beholden to Russian President Vladimir Putin — was not merely rejected today by the final report of Special Counsel Robert Mueller. It was obliterated: in an undeniable and definitive manner.

The key fact is this: Mueller – contrary to weeks of false media claims – did not merely issue a narrow, cramped, legalistic finding that there was insufficient evidence to indict Trump associates for conspiring with Russia and then proving their guilt beyond a reasonable doubt. That would have been devastating enough to those who spent the last two years or more misleading people to believe that conspiracy convictions of Trump’s closest aides and family members were inevitable. But his mandate was much broader than that: to state what did or did not happen.

That’s precisely what he did: Mueller, in addition to concluding that evidence was insufficient to charge any American with crimes relating to Russian election interference, also stated emphatically in numerous instances that there was no evidence – not merely that there was insufficient evidence to obtain a criminal conviction – that key prongs of this three-year-old conspiracy theory actually happened. As Mueller himself put it: “in some instances, the report points out the absence of evidence or conflicts in the evidence about a particular fact or event.”

April 19, 2019 6:12 AM  
Anonymous homosexuality never produces life, two of 'em ain't ever a marriage said...

With regard to Facebook ads and Twitter posts from the Russia-based Internet Research Agency, for example, Mueller could not have been more blunt: “The investigation did not identify evidence that any U.S. persons knowingly or intentionally coordinated with the IRA’s interference operation”. Note that this exoneration includes not only Trump campaign officials but all Americans:

April 19, 2019 6:13 AM  
Anonymous homosexuality never produces life, two of 'em ain't ever a marriage said...

To get a further sense for how definitive the Report’s rejection is of the key elements of the alleged conspiracy theory, consider Mueller’s discussion of efforts by George Papadopoulos, Joseph Misfud and and “two Russian nationals” whereby they tried “to arrange a meeting between the Campaign and Russian officials” to talk about how the two sides could work together to disseminate information about Hillary Clinton. As Mueller puts it: “No meeting took place.”

April 19, 2019 6:14 AM  
Anonymous homosexuality never produces life, two of 'em ain't ever a marriage said...

Several of the media’s most breathless and hyped “bombshells” were dismissed completely by Mueller. Regarding various Trump officials’ 2016 meetings with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak, Mueller said they were “brief, public and nonsubstantive.” Concerning the much-hyped change to GOP platform regarding Ukraine, Mueller wrote that the “evidence does not establish that one campaign official’s efforts to dilute a portion of the Republican platform was undertaken at the behest of candidate Trump or Russia,” and further noted that such a change was consistent with Trump’s publicly stated foreign policy view (one shared by Obama) to avoid provoking gratuitous conflict with the Kremlin over arming Ukrainians. Mueller also characterized a widely hyped “meeting” between then-Senator Jeff Sessions and Kislyak as one that did not “include any more than a passing mention of the presidential campaign.”

April 19, 2019 6:15 AM  
Anonymous homosexuality never produces life, two of 'em ain't ever a marriage said...

Regarding one of the most-cited pieces of evidence by Trump/Russia conspiracists – that Russia tried once Trump was nominated to shape his foreign policy posture toward Russia – Mueller concluded that there is simply no evidence to support it:

April 19, 2019 6:16 AM  
Anonymous homosexuality never produces life, two of 'em ain't ever a marriage said...

In other crucial areas, Mueller did not go so far as to say that his investigation “did not identify evidence” but nonetheless concluded that his 22-month investigation “did not establish” that the key claims of the conspiracy theory were true. Regarding alleged involvement by Trump officials or family members in the Russian hacks, for instance, Mueller explained: “the investigation did not establish that members of the Trump campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in its election interference activities.”

April 19, 2019 6:17 AM  
Anonymous homosexuality never produces life, two of 'em ain't ever a marriage said...

As for the overarching maximalist conspiracy – that Trump and/or members of his family and campaign were controlled by or working for the Russian government – Mueller concluded that this belief simply lacked the evidence necessary to prosecute anyone for it.

April 19, 2019 6:19 AM  
Anonymous homosexuality never produces life, two of 'em ain't ever a marriage said...

And Mueller’s examination of all the so-called “links” between Trump campaign officials and Russia that the U.S. media has spent almost three years depicting as “bombshell” evidence of criminality met the same fate: the evidence could not, and did not, establish that any such links constituted “coordination” or “conspiracy” between Trump and Russia.

Perhaps most amazingly, even low-level, ancillary, hangers-on to the Trump campaign that even many Russiagate skeptics thought might end up being charged as Russian agents were not.

All the way back in March, 2017, in reporting that even anti-Trump intelligence officials were warning Democrats that there was no solid evidence of a Trump/Russia conspiracy, it was predicted that the appointment of a Special Counsel would likely end up finding evidence of financial impropriety by Paul Manafort unrelated to the 2016 election, as well as a possible indictment of someone like Carter Page for acting in concert with the Russian government.

But so vacant is the Mueller investigation when it comes to supporting any of the prevailing conspiracy theories that it did not find even a single American whom it could indict or charge with illegally working for Russia, secretly acting as a Russian agent, or conspiring with the Russians over the election – not even Carter Page. That means that even long-time Russiagate skeptics over-estimated the level of criminality and conspiracy evidence that Robert Mueller would find.

April 19, 2019 6:21 AM  
Anonymous homosexuality never produces life, two of 'em ain't ever a marriage said...

In sum, Democrats and their supporters had the exact prosecutor they all agreed was the embodiment of competence and integrity in Robert Mueller. He assembled a team of prosecutors and investigators that countless media accounts heralded as the most aggressive and adept in the nation. They had subpoena power, the vast surveillance apparatus of the U.S. government at their disposal, a demonstrated willingness to imprison anyone who lied to them, and unlimited time and resources to dig up everything they could.

The result of all of that was that not a single American – whether with the Trump campaign or otherwise – was charged or indicted on the core question of whether there was any conspiracy or coordination with Russia over the election. No Americans were charged or even accused of being controlled by or working at the behest of the Russian government. None of the key White House aides at the center of the controversy who testified for hours and hours – including Donald Trump, Jr. or Jared Kushner – were charged with any crimes of any kind, not even perjury, obstruction of justice or lying to Congress.

These facts are fatal to the conspiracy theorists who have drowned U.S. discourse for almost three years with a dangerous and distracting fixation on a fictitious espionage thriller involved unhinged claims of sexual and financial blackmail, nefarious infiltration of the U.S. Government by familiar foreign villains, and election cheating that empowered an illegitimate President. They got the exact prosecutor and investigation that they wanted, yet he could not establish that any of this happened and, in many cases, established that it did not.

April 19, 2019 6:23 AM  
Anonymous homosexuality never produces life, two of 'em ain't ever a marriage said...

THE ANTI-CLIMACTIC ENDING of the Mueller investigation is particularly stunning given how broad Mueller’s investigative scope ended up being, extending far beyond the 2016 election into years worth of Trump’s alleged financial dealings with Russia (and, obviously, Manafort’s with Ukraine and Russia). There can simply be no credible claim that Mueller was, in any meaningful way, impeded by scope, resources or topic limitation from finding anything for which he searched.

Despite efforts today by long-time conspiracist theorists to drastically move goalposts so as to claim vindication, the historical record could not be clearer that Mueller’s central mandate was to determine whether crimes were committed by Trump officials in connection with alleged Russian interference in the election.

the NY Times when Mueller was appointed:

The Justice Department appointed Robert S. Mueller III, a former F.B.I. director, as special counsel on Wednesday to oversee the investigation into ties between President Trump’s campaign and Russian officials, dramatically raising the legal and political stakes in an affair that has threatened to engulf Mr. Trump’s four-month-old presidency.

As recently as one month ago, former CIA Director and current NBC News analyst John Brennan was confidently predicting that Mueller could not possibly close his investigation without first indicting a slew of Americans for criminally conspiring with Russia over the election, and specifically predicted that Trump’s family members would be included among those so charged.

Obviously, none of that happened. Nor were any of the original accusations that launched this three-year-long mania — from an accusatory August, 2016 online commercial from the Clinton campaign — corroborated by the Mueller Report.

April 19, 2019 6:28 AM  
Anonymous homosexuality never produces life, two of 'em ain't ever a marriage said...

Indeed, so many of the most touted media “bombshells” claiming to establish Trump/Russia crimes have been proven false by this report. Despite an extensive discussion of Paul Manafort’s activities, nothing in the Report even hints, let alone states, that he ever visited Julian Assange in the Ecuadorian Embassy, let alone visited him three times, including during the 2016 election. How the Guardian could justify still not retracting that false story is mystifying.

Faring even worse is the Buzzfeed bombshell from January claiming that “President Donald Trump directed his longtime attorney Michael Cohen to lie to Congress about negotiations to build a Trump Tower in Moscow” and that “Cohen also told the special counsel that after the election, the president personally instructed him to lie — by claiming that negotiations ended months earlier than they actually did — in order to obscure Trump’s involvement.” Mueller himself responded to the story by insisting it was false, and his Report directly contradicts it, as it makes clear that Cohen told Mueller the exact opposite.

Equally debunked is CNN’s major blockbuster by Jim Sciutto, Carl Bernstein, and Marshall Cohen from last July that “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.” The Mueller Report says the exact opposite: that Cohen had no knowledge of Trump’s advanced knowledge.

And the less said about the Steele Dossier, pee-pee tapes, secret meetings in Prague, and other indescribably unhinged, the better.

April 19, 2019 6:30 AM  
Anonymous homosexuality never produces life, two of 'em ain't ever a marriage said...

But beyond the gutting of these core conspiracy claims is that Mueller’s investigation probed areas far beyond the initial scope of Trump/Russia election-conspiring, and came up empty. Among other things, Mueller specifically examined Trump’s financial dealings with Russia to determine whether that constituted incriminating evidence of corrupt links.

Because Trump’s status as a public figure at the time was attributable in large part to his prior business and entertainment dealings, this Office investigated whether a business contact with Russia-linked individuals and entities during the campaign period—the Trump Tower Moscow project, see Volume I, Section IV.A.1, infra—led to or involved coordination.

Indeed, Mueller’s examination of Trump’s financial dealings with Russia long pre-dates the start of the Trump campaign, going back several years before the election:

Mueller additionally made clear that he received authorization to investigate numerous Americans for ties to Russia despite their not being formally associated with the Trump campaign, including Michael Cohen and Roger Stone. And regarding Cohen, Mueller specifically was authorized to investigate any attempts by Cohen to “receive funds from Russia-backed entities.” None of this deep diving to other individuals or years of alleged financial dealings with Russian resulted in any finding that Trump or any of his associates were controlled by, or corruptly involved with, the Russian government.

April 19, 2019 6:32 AM  
Anonymous homosexuality never produces life, two of 'em ain't ever a marriage said...

Then there is the issue of Manafort’s relationship with the Ukrainians, and specifically his providing of polling data to Konstantin Kilimnik, an episode which Trump/Putin conspiracist Marcy Wheeler, along with many others, particularly hyped over and over. To begin with, Mueller said his office “did not identify evidence of a connection” between that act and “Russian interference in the election,” nor did he “establish that Manafort otherwise coordinated with the Russian government on its election-inteference efforts”:

April 19, 2019 6:33 AM  
Anonymous homosexuality never produces life, two of 'em ain't ever a marriage said...

Also endlessly hyped by Wheeler and other conspiracists were the post-election contacts between Trump and Russia: as though it’s unusual that a major power would seek to build new, constructive relationships with a newly elected administration. Indeed, Wheeler went so far as to cite these post-election contacts to turn her own source into the FBI on the ground that it constituted smoking gun evidence, an act for which she was praised by the Washington Post (nothing Wheeler claimed about the evidence “related to the Mueller investigation” that she claimed to possess appears to be in the Mueller Report). Here again, the Mueller Report could not substantiate any of these claims:

April 19, 2019 6:34 AM  
Anonymous homosexuality never produces life, two of 'em ain't ever a marriage said...

The centerpiece of the Trump/Russia conspiracy – the Trump Tower meeting – was such a dud that Jared Kushner, halfway through the meeting, texted Manafort to declare the meeting “a waste of time,” and then instructed his assistant to call him so that he could concoct a reason to leave. Not only could Mueller not find any criminality in this meeting relating to election conspiring, but he could not even use election law to claim it was an illegal gift of something of value from a foreigner, because, among other things, the information offered was of so little value that it could not even pass the $2,000 threshold required to charge someone for a misdemeanor, let alone the $25,000 required to make it a felony.

Neither the Trump Tower meeting itself nor its participants – for so long held up as proof of the Trump/Russia conspiracy – could serve as the basis for any finding of criminality. Indeed, the key Trumpworld participants who testified about what happened at that meeting and its aftermath (Trump Jr. and Kushner) were not even accused by Mueller of lying about any of it.

April 19, 2019 6:36 AM  
Anonymous homosexuality never produces life, two of 'em ain't ever a marriage said...

NONE OF THIS IS TO SAY that the Mueller Report exonerates Trump of wrongdoing. Mueller makes clear, for instance, that the Trump campaign not only knew that Russia was interested in helping it win the election but was happy to have that help. There’s clearly nothing criminal about that. One can debate whether it’s unethical for a presidential campaign to have dirt about its opponent released by a foreign government, though anyone who wants to argue that has to reconcile that with the fact that the DNC had a contractor working with the Ukrainian government to help Hillary Clinton win by feeding them dirt on Trump and Manafort, as well as a paid operative named Christopher Steele (remember him?) working with Russian officials to get dirt on Trump.

As is true of all investigations, Mueller’s team could not access all relevant information. Some was rendered inaccessible through encryption. Other information was deleted, perhaps with corrupt motives. And some witnesses lied or otherwise tried to obstruct the investigation. As a result, it’s of course possible that incriminating evidence existed that Mueller – armed with subpoena power, unlimited resources, 22 months of investigative work, and a huge team of top-flight prosecutors, FBI agents, intelligence analysts and forensic accountants – did not find.

But anything is possible. It’s inherently possible that anyone is guilty of any crime but that the evidence just cannot be found to prove it. One cannot prove a negative. But the only way to rationally assess what happened is by looking at the evidence that is available, and that’s what Mueller did. And there’s simply no persuasive way – after heralding Mueller and his team as the top-notch investigators that they are and building up expectations about what this would produce – for any honest person to deny that the end of the Mueller investigation was a huge failure from the perspective of those who pushed these conspiracies.

April 19, 2019 6:39 AM  
Anonymous homosexuality never produces life, two of 'em ain't ever a marriage said...

Mueller certainly provides substantial evidence that Russians attempted to meddle in various ways in the U.S. election, including by hacking the DNC and Podesta and through Facebook posts and tweets. There is, however, no real evidence that Putin himself ordered this, as was claimed since mid-2016. But that Russia had done such things has been unsurprising from the start, given how common it is for the U.S. and Russia to meddle in everyone’s affairs, including one another’s, but the scope and size of it continues to be minute in the context of overall election spending.

To reach larger U.S. audiences, the IRA purchased advertisements from Facebook that promoted the IRA groups on the newsfeeds of U.S. audience members. According to Facebook, the IRA purchased over 3,500 advertisements, and the expenditures totaled approximately $100,000.

April 19, 2019 6:41 AM  
Anonymous homosexuality never produces life, two of 'em ain't ever a marriage said...

The section of Mueller’s report on whether Trump criminally attempted to obstruct the investigation is full of evidence and episodes that show Trump being dishonest, misleading, and willing to invoke potentially corrupt tactics to put an end to it. But ultimately, the most extreme of those tactics were not invoked (at times because Trump’s aides refused), and the actions in which Trump engaged were simply not enough for Mueller to conclude that he was guilty of criminal obstruction.

As Mueller himself concluded, a reasonable debate can be conducted on whether Trump tried to obstruct his investigation with corrupt intent. But even on the case of obstruction, the central point looms large over all of it: there was no underlying crime established for Trump to cover-up.

All criminal investigations require a determination of a person’s intent, what they are thinking and what their goal is. When the question is whether a President sought to kill an Executive Branch investigation – as Trump clearly wanted to do here – the determinative issue is whether he did so because he genuinely believed the investigation to be an unfair persecution and scam, or whether he did it to corruptly conceal evidence of criminality.

That Mueller could not and did not establish any underlying crimes strongly suggests that Trump acted with the former rather than the latter motive, making it virtually impossible to find that he criminally obstructed the investigation.

April 19, 2019 6:43 AM  
Anonymous homosexuality never produces life, two of 'em ain't ever a marriage said...

THE NATURE OF OUR POLITICAL DISCOURSE is that nobody ever needs to admit error because it is easy to confine oneself to strictly partisan precincts where people are far more interested in hearing what advances their agenda or affirms their beliefs than they are hearing the truth. For that reason, I doubt that anyone who spent the last three years pushing utterly concocted conspiracy theories will own up to it, let alone confront any accountability or consequences for it.

But certain facts will never go away no matter how much denial they embrace. The sweeping Mueller investigation ended with zero indictments of zero Americans for conspiring with Russia over the 2016 election. Both Donald Trump, Jr. and Jared Kushner – the key participants in the Trump Tower meeting – testified for hours and hours yet were never charged for perjury, lying or obstruction, even though Mueller proved how easily he would indict anyone who lied as part of the investigation. And this massive investigation simply did not establish any of the conspiracy theories that huge parts of the Democratic Party, the intelligence community and the U.S. media spent years encouraging the public to believe.

Those responsible for this can refuse to acknowledge wrongdoing. They can even claim vindication if they want and will likely be cheered for doing so.

But the contempt in which the media and political class is held by so much of the U.S. population – undoubtedly a leading factor that led to Trump’s election in the first place – will only continue to grow as a result, and deservedly so. People know they were scammed, that their politics was drowned for years by a hoax. And none of that will go away no matter how insulated media and political elites in Washington, northern Virginia, Brooklyn, and large West Coast cities keep themselves, and thus hear only in-group affirmation while blocking out all of that well-earned scorn

April 19, 2019 6:45 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

"RCP averages

Trump approval 45%"

Since yesterday when the redacted Mueller report was released, the RCP average has already dropped to:

Trump Approval:

RCP Average 4/1 - 4/17 -- 44.0 Approve 52. 0 Disapprove -8.0 Spread

"Congress Approval 22%

looks like the House will flip back to GOP in 2020"

Bullshit.

2020 Generic Congressional Vote

RCP Average 3/27 - 4/14 -- 45.0 Democrat 38.7 Republican Spread: Democrats +6.3

April 19, 2019 7:22 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/other/2020_generic_congressional_vote-6722.html

April 19, 2019 7:25 AM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

Nineteen posts in a row by Wyatt/Regina/bad anonymous. They've always said a bunch of posts in a row like that prove the poster is mentally ill and afraid of the truth and trying to bury it.

And those two hypocrites bitched about me posting too much.

Doesn't matter though, Wyatt/Regina conveniently identify their posts with an anti-gay label, thus making it easy to know which posts not to bother reading. :)

April 19, 2019 12:54 PM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

"Oh my God. This is terrible. This is the end of my presidency. I'm fucked."

President Donald Trump, May 17, 2017 after hearing that a Special Counsel had been appointed to take over the Russia investigation.

I've heard a number of legal experts say this statement unequivocally shows "mens rea" - the knowledge that one is guilty of crimes. Trump's statement meets the legal requirement that Trump must have had "corrupt intent" in the ten instances of obstruction of the Mueller Investigation to be guilty of the crime of obstruction of justice. Just what Trump has done out in the open is proof beyond a reasonable doubt that he is guilty. Only a shaky justice department opinion (subject to change) prevented Mueller from charging him with a crime he would clearly be convicted of in a court of law.

April 19, 2019 12:56 PM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

The Mueller Report contains 100 pages of interactions between the Trump campaign and Russian Intelligence officials. Trump and his people knew, or should have known this was wrong.

April 19, 2019 1:07 PM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...


Between now and the 2020 election there is nothing but bad news coming for Trump and the Republicans.

April 19, 2019 1:16 PM  
Anonymous Bernie is the new McGovern! will Beto be the new Eagleton? said...

"Since yesterday when the redacted Mueller report was released, the RCP average has already dropped to"

the delusions are just so sad

Trump's approval ratings are not much changed than when he was elected

further, the only poll that samples likely voters, Ramussen, gives him a much higher rating

although the mainstream media is trying hard to spin the Mueller report, the American people have caught on

their extreme spin has become a joke

on claim after claim made by the media over the last couple of years, Mueller shoots each down

people should keep that in mind each time the media goes on about Trump's "lies"

there was no evidence of collusion with Russia, there was never any need for a special prosecutor

here's a couple of conclusive statements made by Mueller that children will learn in history class going forward:

on Russia collusion, the purpose of the investigation:

"Russians did not have the cooperation of President Trump or the Trump campaign - or the knowing assistance of any other American for that matter."

on obstruction of justice:

"The president took no act that in fact deprived the special counsel of the documents and witnesses necessary to complete the investigation."

more stupidity from the deluded TTFer:

"Bullshit.

2020 Generic Congressional Vote

RCP Average 3/27 - 4/14 -- 45.0 Democrat"

so, the TTFer believes that Trump's 45 percent approval rating means he's going to lose

but the Dem Congress 45% means they're going to win

Okaaaaay, LOL

truth is, all these ratings are about the same as when Trump won the last election

this is why Dems are coming out with wild proposals to eliminate the electoral college and lower the voting age to 16

Trump is still very popular in coal country and among midwest union members and with pro-family conservatives

what will increase Trumps's margin put into landslide territory is his increasing support among minority groups

this is why Dems are now favoring reparations

they need to stop this because only a small shift will doom the Dems

and it turns out that many blacks prefer a pay check to a welfare check

and many Hispanics who migrated legally aren't crazy about letting illegals in

then, there's AOC

ROFL!!!!!!!!!!!!

April 19, 2019 1:16 PM  
Anonymous I reeeeeeeeally like our Supreme Court.and the best is yet to come!!!!!!! said...

here's a little misunderstood aspect of the laws against obstruction of justice

they completely rely on intent

if your intent is to try to stop an investigation because you think it's politically motivated, that's not obstruction of justice

if your intent is to stop an investigation because you want to prevent a criminal act from receiving the justice due, that would be obstruction of justice

the latter has been eliminated

game over

Dems lost

in a blowout

April 19, 2019 1:30 PM  
Anonymous when will TTF apologize to the President? said...

Thursday, in Washington, D.C., the moment Attorney General William Barr told the gathered press that the Russians “did not have the cooperation of Trump or the Trump campaign” and that there was “no collusion by any Americans,” the closing credits began to roll on this entire sordid saga.

In the body of Mueller’s report various bits of lingering innuendo were picked off one by one: Did the Russians and Trump make a deal to adjust the party position on Ukraine at the Republican National Convention? No. Was there collusion discussed between Russian Ambassador Kislyak and Sen. Jeff Sessions in Session’s Senate office in September 2016? No. There was not “any more than a passing mention of the Presidential campaign” in the meeting.

It went on and on. There was never any there, there.

Sure enough, Democrats are complaining about this thing or that, but Barr has taken the wind out of their sails by offering Mueller up to congressional committees for testimony as well as promising lawmakers an unredacted copy of the report.

After two years and more than $30 million dollars spent, the lesson of the Mueller report is that — against all odds — Hillary Clinton lost the 2016 election aided only by the collusion of arrogance and ignorance within her own campaign.

And Democrats lose sleep every night thinking about how different it would have been if they hadn't nominated Hillary.

She couldn't even beat the most unpopular presidential candidate in history.

Think of the incompetence inherent in that fact...

Imagine what a horrible president she would have been.

She'd make Obama the Worst look like FDR.

April 19, 2019 1:45 PM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

If Senate Republicans were smart they'd go to Democrats and say "Yes, its clear Trump is guilty of high crimes and misdemeaners and has to go. We'll tell Trump to leave quietly now or we'll impeach and convict him so fast it'll make his head spin.".

Then Republicans could get rid of the Trump albatross, put this behind them and concentrate on getting Pence elected who has a lot less (apparently) stink on him. That way Republicans would have a shot at winning the presidency in 2020.

April 19, 2019 2:17 PM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

Wyatt/Regina/bad anonymous said "Trump's approval ratings are not much changed than when he was elected"

But his approval ratings since election (and arguably before) won't get him anywhere near winning re-election.

What Trump's approval ratings are 24 hours after the bombshell Mueller Report has come out are irrelevant. Give it six months of one negative revelation after another coming out about Trump's collusion with the Russians and it'll be a whole different story.

And then Democrats will start getting the redacted stuff Barr tried to hide and the real bombshells will start coming out. Not to mention the Roger Stone collusion trial and the other 14 Russia releated prosecutions Mueller spun off to other jurisdictions and its nothing but one bad thing after another for Trump and the Republicans all they way up until the 2020 election. That's why if Republicans were smart they'd get rid of Trump immediately and start from a clean slate.

April 19, 2019 2:21 PM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...


Obamacare wasn't popular when it passed because Republicans told all manner of outrageous lies about it. But its very popular now that people have had nine years to see what its done for them.

Republicans did everything they could to hobble it and tear it down, but despite their efforts, its still working pretty well. It is also part of the fabric of the entire American health care system, not just the insurance policies, but hospitals, doctors, medical equipment, it is threaded throughout, so you just can't uplift and remove it, that's absurd! Now, are there fixes, are there things that can be improved (especially after Republicans broke them!)? Absolutely, but you don't tear down something you've got that works pretty well in the reckless hope that Republicans will keep their promise for once and deliver something better. Republicans have never had a viable alternative to Obamacare, and they never will.

Republicans will claim to support protections for pre-existing conditions when the reality is they've mounted an all out legal assault to have the courts strike down protections for pre-existing conditions! Trump said "On day one I will replace Obamacare with something terrific, everyone will be covered and costs will be much lower." Don't fall for that lie again!

April 19, 2019 2:24 PM  
Anonymous Mueller says it all. Now Congress must investigate said...

“If we had confidence after a thorough investigation of the facts that the president clearly did not commit obstruction of justice, we would so state,” the report says. “Based on the facts and the applicable legal standards, we are unable to reach that judgment.”

April 19, 2019 4:44 PM  
Anonymous when will TTF apologize to the President? said...

The American political and media elites that spent the first two years of the Trump administration promoting the Russian collusion hoax have some explaining to do. And not merely explaining: They owe the president an apology.

As Attorney General William Barr said on Thursday before releasing the Mueller report, “After nearly two years of investigation, thousands of subpoenas, and hundreds of warrants and witness interviews, the special counsel confirmed that the Russian government sponsored efforts to illegally interfere with the 2016 presidential election but did not find that the Trump campaign or other Americans colluded in those schemes.”

And yet nearly the entire complex of elite media was actively complicit in promoting the biggest political conspiracy theory in American history: that Hillary Clinton lost the election because Donald Trump conspired with Vladimir Putin to — well, that was always a moving target — but to somehow deprive Mrs. Clinton of victory. What we now know definitively is that Robert Mueller, the special counsel, and a team of very accomplished, mostly Clinton-supporting, prosecutors were unable to find evidence of a conspiracy that had been taken as an article of faith by Trump haters.

Journalists don’t like being called “fake news,” but too many of them uncritically accepted the Trump-Russia narrative, probably because of their strong distaste for Mr. Trump himself. But that lack of objectivity represents a major professional failure, and it’s Exhibit A in why Mr. Trump’s taunt resonates with so many Americans. Gallup polling shows that for 69 percent of Americans, trust in the media has fallen over the last decade. Among Republicans, it’s 94 percent; for independents, it’s 75 percent and for moderates it’s 66. Only among self-identified liberals and progressives does a majority continue to trust the media. They like what they hear.

April 19, 2019 4:44 PM  
Anonymous when will TTF apologize to the President? said...

The Russian collusion story doesn’t get much, if any, traction in Middle America. This is because the allegations of collusion are not true and because most people who are not deeply committed to irrational Trump hatred see them for what they are: an inside-the-Beltway story being used as a political weapon to undermine the president and overturn — or at least neutralize — the 2016 election.

The whole ordeal had a detrimental effect on the president and the country. As Mr. Barr put it Thursday morning, “The president was frustrated and angered by a sincere belief that the investigation was undermining his presidency, propelled by his political opponents, and fueled by illegal leaks.”

He was right. And it was obvious in places like Arizona, but not in Washington or New York.

For nearly four years, members of America’s ruling class, especially those in the media, the academy and government, have operated on one central, unquestioned assumption: orange man bad. This stifling orthodoxy led to a blind, counterfactual faith in the theory that Mr. Trump had somehow colluded with “the Russians” (never well defined) to win the election. Again, the specific charges were always amorphous — plastic enough to change as needed. That’s hardly surprising: That’s the way conspiracy theories always work. The Russian collusion hoax was in fact nothing more than a massively multiplayer coping mechanism for people who couldn’t accept the results of the 2016 election.

But why is it not enough to simply acknowledge that you dislike Mr. Trump and disagree with his policies? What psychological purpose does adding the fiction of a conspiracy serve?

The French philosopher and literary critic René Girard held that such scapegoating and ritual sacrifice is an essential part of group identity and solidarity. That seems to apply here. Mr. Trump ran against American elites and their insular culture. Their response was to load onto him all of the sins they see in American society and attempt to sacrifice him to appease their gods.

Mr. Girard asked a question that is pertinent today: “Why is our own participation in scapegoating so difficult to perceive and the participation of others so easy? To us, our fears and prejudices never appear as such because they determine our vision of people we despise, we fear, and against whom we discriminate.”

But the ritual sacrifice of Donald Trump didn’t work — at least not in the sense of removing him from office. It certainly did have the effect of catalyzing and uniting his opponents. Still, one of the many ironies here is that the Trump-hating media has handed him an incredibly powerful weapon for the 2020 campaign, one that may ensure his re-election.

Again, the operating principle was that of the zealot: Believe the narrative regardless of the lack of evidence, squint to see justifications where there are none and then in an intoxicated frenzy of moral superiority use any weapon at hand to destroy your enemy.

April 19, 2019 4:48 PM  
Anonymous when will TTF apologize to the President? said...

Shortly after Mr. Mueller concluded his investigation without any indictments related to Russian collusion with the Trump campaign, Representative Adam Schiff, now the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, did not admit he was wrong — far from it. He brazenly doubled down, saying during a committee hearing, “You may think it’s O.K. how Trump and his associates interacted with Russians during the campaign. I don’t. I think it’s immoral. I think it’s unethical. I think it’s unpatriotic. And yes, I think it’s corrupt.”

The problem is that the Mueller investigation, as Mr. Barr explained, “did not find that the Trump campaign or other Americans colluded in those schemes.”

Mr. Schiff must know this. He must have known it for a long time. But he has persisted in slandering innocent people for personal political gain. His selfishness has led to a level of civil discord and political acrimony not seen since the late 1960s. That is what I call immoral, unethical, unpatriotic and yes, corrupt.

Too many politicians and journalists were eager, whether cynically or gullibly, to take the bait. The list of collusion Truthers is long. The politicians include not only Mr. Schiff, but people like his congressional colleagues Maxine Waters, Eric Swalwell and Richard Blumenthal. The media enablers included Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski, Rachel Maddow (who built her show around Russia Trutherism), David Corn, Michael Isikoff, Manu Raju, Brian Stelter and many others. These people represent themselves as straight journalists who are fair, independent, oriented around facts. What a lot of Americans have seen instead is political partisans.

April 19, 2019 4:51 PM  
Anonymous when will TTF apologize to the President? said...


And then, of course, there is the recently arrested Michael Avenatti, who was eagerly embraced by Trump haters. He appeared on CNN and MSNBC an embarrassing 108 times in a 64-day period in 2018. How could they not see him for what he is?

There are three types of people who promoted Russian collusion hoax. First, those who knew it was false all along, but promoted it for money, power, prestige or dopamine hits from Twitter high-fives. Second, the journalists who had a responsibility to dig into this story rather than just repeating what they hoped was true and what the story’s promoters were telling them.

Jeff Zucker, the president of CNN Worldwide, is emblematic of the problem. “We are not investigators,” he said last month. “We are journalists, and our role is to report the facts as we know them, which is exactly what we did.” Has anyone ever seriously thought that investigation was not a core function of journalism?

And then there is the Kool-Aid brigade. These are the people outside of politics, the people who couldn’t wait to hear what Rachel Maddow had to say, who believed every breathless prediction on cable news that “new revelations could spell the end for Trump,” and who shared these nuggets with a mixture of indignation and ecstasy on social media.

But the collusion truthers were not all on the left. Trump-hating neoliberals at some of the old, legacy conservative publications were eager to believe it too. They believed the worst of Mr. Trump because they wanted to, and it led them astray. And none of them have owned their mistake yet, meaning that, as night follows day, they will be duped again.

To the public figures who promoted the collusion story, I say: Own it. Just admit you were wrong. It won’t feel good at first. But when the initial sting passes you will find it liberating. And people will respect you for it. The media and political elites have a lot of work to do if they want to regain the trust of the American people. Confessing a major error that needlessly turned Americans against one another is a good place to start.

April 19, 2019 4:53 PM  
Anonymous Just because Mueller was unable to find evidence the 'Russians had the "cooperation of Trump or the Trump campaign” doesn't meant there wasn't such cooperation said...

Special Counsel Robert S. Mueller III detailed multiple contacts among Russian operatives and associates of President Trump in the report made public Thursday. But Mueller repeatedly also lamented what he couldn’t learn — because encrypted communications had put key conversations beyond his reach.

“The Office learned that some of the individuals we interviewed or whose conduct we investigated — including some associated with the Trump Campaign — deleted relevant communications or communicated during the relevant period using applications that feature encryption or that do not provide for long-term retention of data or communications records,” Mueller wrote in his executive summary...

Special Counsel Robert S. Mueller III detailed multiple contacts among Russian operatives and associates of President Trump in the report made public Thursday. But Mueller repeatedly also lamented what he couldn’t learn — because encrypted communications had put key conversations beyond his reach.

“The Office learned that some of the individuals we interviewed or whose conduct we investigated — including some associated with the Trump Campaign — deleted relevant communications or communicated during the relevant period using applications that feature encryption or that do not provide for long-term retention of data or communications records,” Mueller wrote in his executive summary.

The Mueller report said, “The investigation did not uncover evidence of Manafort's passing along information about Ukrainian peace plans to the candidate or anyone else in the Campaign or the Administration. The Office was not, however, able to gain access to all of Manafort's electronic communications (in some instances, messages were sent using encryption applications).”

Mueller concluded that encryption technology also was used to obscure the efforts of the GRU, a Russian military intelligence agency, in seeking to disseminate the tens of thousands of emails it had stolen from Democratic Party operatives by sharing the information with anti-secrecy group WikiLeaks, which later released them.

“GRU officers used both the DCLeaks and Guccifer 2.0 personas to communicate with WikiLeaks through Twitter private messaging and through encrypted channels, including possibly through WikiLeaks's private communication system,” Mueller wrote...

April 19, 2019 5:02 PM  
Anonymous LMAO said...

Mueller hit a big nerve!

Our troll is positively foaming at the mouth!

April 19, 2019 5:03 PM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

The Guardian

"Mueller's report would have signaled the end for anyone other than Trump"

For all his bluster about being a master builder, Donald Trump really made his millions through branding. From chewy steaks to failing casinos, Trump has spent decades putting lucrative lipstick on pigs.

So when faced with a sprawling criminal investigation into how Russia worked to get him elected – and how he then repeatedly tried to obstruct the inquiry – the president devised a brutally effective public relations campaign.

During his two years under investigation by Robert Mueller, Trump repeated his newest slogan ad nauseum: “no collusion”. Some Americans seemed tricked into forgetting that conduct falling short of that bar could be seriously problematic, too.

Mueller’s 448-page report confirms that his investigators did not find any overarching conspiracy between Trump’s team and Russian operatives. But it also lays out, in damning detail, how senior Trump advisers acquiesced with Russia’s interference, while Trump simultaneously sought the Kremlin’s approval for a property deal in Moscow that could make him millions of dollars.

Then, Trump tried time and again to influence the investigation that he thought could end his presidency – once ordering his top White House lawyer to fire Mueller, and then ordering him to deny that he ever gave such an order. Trump submitted written answers to questions, but refused to be interviewed for the inquiry.

Any other president in America’s history would have had to resign or now face being ousted.

But no past president has so frequently denied reality, nor seemed so unfamiliar with the very concept of shame. Neither, perhaps, has any past president enjoyed the support of such a compliant Senate, which is Republican-held, and willing to excuse his every scandal in the service of their agenda.

The activity discovered by Mueller was not, as Trump and his allies falsely insist, standard stuff for a rough-and-tumble political campaign....

April 19, 2019 5:19 PM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

American conservatives have completely abandoned any desire or willingness to stay with in the law in their perverted pursuit of unlimited power.

April 19, 2019 5:20 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Another four long cut&paste posts in a row by Wyatt/Regina/bad anonymous. Not an original thought in their heads.

Wyatt/Regina can't win the debate with quality so they're trying with quantity. #epicfail

April 19, 2019 5:25 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Wyatt/Regina/bad anonymous posted "Anonymous the Lion-hearted said..."

Lion-hearted, eh?

If you're so "lion-hearted", how come you are afraid to respond to the following:

You claim that the only reason gayness isn't still listed as a mental illness in the American Psychiatric Association's Diagnostic and Statistical Manual is because way back in 73 a tiny, tiny political interest group pressured and conned the APA into unscientifically removing gayness from the DSM - just a big mistake caused by a tiny group of misinformed mentally ill gays.

That being the case, why in the 45 years since gayness was removed from the DSM have you been entirely unable to convince the APA to put gayness back into the DSM?

If it was all an obvious mistake by the APA they were pressured into by a tiny mentally ill portion of the population it should have been a piece of cake for you to come up with the scientific evidence that gayness is a mental illness and convince the APA to put gayness back into the DSM. Why have you been unable to do so after all these decades if you're right????


Tell us, oh "lion-hearted" ones. Or do you want to show the mice you are and hide from this?

April 19, 2019 5:33 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...


When are Republicans going to apologize to all Americans for allowing Trump to sh*t all over the rule of law in pursuit of a dictatorship?

April 19, 2019 5:37 PM  
Anonymous heterosexuality is poised to be preferenced with a plethora of perks and privileges in perpetuity said...

"When are Republicans going to apologize to all Americans for allowing Trump to sh*t all over the rule of law in pursuit of a dictatorship?"

what kind of dictator would acquiesce in the political witch hoax that just concluded?

Trump followed the law to a tee and then some

he told his aides to submit voluntarily to questioning by the special prosecutor, complied with every order, provided massive documentation, and waived executive privilege when the report was released

some dictator

moreover, I doubt Americans want an apology for full unemployment and rising wages and an expanding economy and an elevated stock market

they can vote him out next year, since he's not a dictator, but I think they'll make the same decision they did in 2016

aside from Biden, any of the other candidates will cause another GOP landslide similar to McGovern in '72

you know it's true

and Biden will never win the nomination of the radicalized Dumbocraps

those who committed this defamation, including TTFers, owe the President an apology

of course, some of the ringleaders, who misdirected government resources by deceit and perjury, will be going to jail

that may include Hillary and Barack

btw, Priya is persona non grata and I don't respond to any Priya post because of Priya disrespectfully addressing me by some name, or names, that I don't post under

the same policy applies to anyone else who does likewise

it's easy, guys

see if you can follow the rule of law

April 19, 2019 6:18 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...


Lol, you don't make the rules for TTF, Wyatt/Regina, Jim does. Know your place.

I've repeatedly offered to call you by whatever posting name you you want as long as you stick to that one name. You've always rejected the offer so you have no right to complain about me picking one name to identify you amongst all the neverchanging names you now post under.

The Mueller Report is full of hundreds of incidents of Trump sh*tting all over the rule of law - inviting the Russians to illegally hack Hillary's computer, anyone?

How about 10 incidents of obstructing the Mueller Investigation, which if he'd not been president he would have been indicted on 10 counts of obstruction of justice?

Mueller only declined to charge Trump because of an ancient Justice Department Memo that wasn't even dealing with whether or not the president can be charged with a crime, it was making a statement on whether or not the Vice-president could be charged with a crime, it only made an offhand mention that the Vice president could be charged whereas perhaps a president might not be because it would "interfere with his presidenting" - that memo was never intended to be the definitive word on whether or not a sitting president could be charged with a crime.

So, other than that incredibly weak "justification", Trump would be charged with ten counts of criminal obstruction of justice if he were any other citizen. Mueller laid out in his Report a complete evidence by evidence case by how Trump would be convicted of obstruction of justice if he weren't president - The Mueller report laid out the instructions and specific prosecutorial steps for congress to take to how to impeach and convict Trump of obstruction of Justice. Contrary to illegitimate Attorney General Barr's lie that the Mueller Report "chose not to accuse Trump of Obstruction of Justice, the report laid out exactly how Congress should convict Trump of this high crime and misdemeanor.

April 19, 2019 6:30 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...


Hey Waytt/Regina, you call yourselves "lion-hearted", Why haven't you responded to why you have not been able to get the APA to put gayness back in the DSM as a mental illness??? Doesn't sound very "lion-hearted".

It would be no problem to do so if you're telling the truth about how it was a mistake to take gayness out of the DSM in '73. So, why hasn't it happened after 45 years?

April 19, 2019 6:33 PM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

One of the most damning things in the Mueller Report is all the incidents of Trump trying to obstruct the investigation but only being prevented from doing so by underlings that refused to carry out his illegal orders!

The crime of obstruction of justice does not require that you succeed in obstructing justice, but merely that you tried to do so.

So, yeah, Trump is obviously guilty of multiple accounts of obstruction of justice!

Trump would be in jail right now, if he were any other American.

April 19, 2019 6:48 PM  
Anonymous heterosexuality, so superior to homosexuality in so many ways, deserves a lofty status said...

on Russia collusion, the purpose of the investigation:

"Russians did not have the cooperation of President Trump or the Trump campaign - or the knowing assistance of any other American for that matter."

on obstruction of justice:

"The president took no act that in fact deprived the special counsel of the documents and witnesses necessary to complete the investigation."

here's a little misunderstood aspect of the laws against obstruction of justice

they completely rely on intent

if your intent is to try to stop an investigation because you think it's politically motivated, that's not obstruction of justice

if your intent is to stop an investigation because you want to prevent a criminal act from receiving the justice due, that would be obstruction of justice

since it has been established that there is no underlying crime, the latter has been eliminated

game over

Dems lost

in a blowout

April 19, 2019 6:58 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

What law school did you go to, Trump U?

Trump's lawyers come up with all sort of cockamamie theories and they get thrown out of court repeatedly.

The more that get's published about the lunatic at the White House in Mueller's report, the more his approval rating ticks down.

Here's today's RCP Average Trump Approval

RCP Average 4/1 - 4/18 -- 43.9 Approve 52.1 Disapprove -8.2 Spread

April 19, 2019 9:01 PM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

Wyatt/Regina said "if your intent is to stop an investigation because you want to prevent a criminal act from receiving the justice due, that would be obstruction of justice...since it has been established that there is no underlying crime, the latter has been eliminated"

Once again, I have to correct your ignorance of American law.


The obstruction of justice statute is clear there does not need to be an underlying crime for one to be guilty of obstruction of justice. The mere attempt to obstruct justice, successful or not, is all that is required to commit that crime.

Trump asked White House counsel and various others to fire/constrain Robert Mueller. That they refused to do so is irrelevant from a legal perspective, Trump is still guilty of obstruction of justice for asking them to do so.

Further, there is nothing in the obstruction of justice statute that that allows one to legally obstruct an investigation by law enforcement merely because you think its politically motivated.

If an investigation by law enforcement itself breaks the law, you have to prove that through the legal process, you don't just get to decide all on your own you think its invalid and you're going to stop it - that's still obstruction of justice.

The only reason Trump is not in jail for obstruction of justice is a shaky justice department memo that mentioned in passing that perhaps a president shouldn't be indicted while in office.

If Trump were any other American he'd be in jail right now. In fact when he loses in 2020, he may well end up in jail for these crimes as they will still be within the statute of limitations.

April 19, 2019 9:10 PM  
Anonymous Wondering said...


Anonymous, why is nothing more important to you promoting the suppression of lgbt people?

With explosive human overpopulation and finite global resources, it can't be that you think there is any concern whatsoever that people aren't going to have enough babies to keep us from going extinct.

April 19, 2019 9:17 PM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

Mueller said in his Report that its up to Congress to act because the person all the evidence is against is the president.

Robert Mueller in his Report:

"No one is above the law."

April 19, 2019 9:58 PM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

The fact that Trump needs to win in 2020 to stay out of jail means he's a grave danger to American democracy.

April 19, 2019 10:45 PM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

Massive Notre Dame Cathedral donations draw high-profile backlash

Multiple French billionaires joined an international effort this week to raise funds to rebuild the Notre Dame Cathedral after a fire partially destroyed the beloved historic building. But the speed and scale of those donations has sparked a debate about income inequality and the worthiness of the cause.

The criticism comes after Francois Henri Pinault and Bernard Arnault — both billionaires — each pledged more than $100 million to the restoration efforts. The rivals have a history of one-upmanship. Other big French donors: Cosmetics company L'Oréal, along with The Bettencourt Meyers family and the Bettencourt Schueller Foundation. Soon, international press coverage — including articles published by The Washington Post, Forbes and CNN — spotlighted negative reactions, often accompanied by a general sympathy for the rebuilding cause.

A common position among critics: The mega-donations prove social problems could be quickly addressed if the wealthy were motivated to do so.

Class tensions in France have recently been on display in protests tied to the "Yellow Jacket" movement. French President Emmanuel Macron has been a target of protesters who claim his government does not care about ordinary people or France's growing social inequalities.

So when wealthy Frenchmen quickly pledged massive donations, some associated with the movement balked. “If they can give tens of millions to rebuild Notre Dame, then they should stop telling us there is no money to help with the social emergency,” The Washington Post quotes Philippe Martinez, head of the CGT trade union.It's easy to find similar sentiment on social media.

"With a click of their fingers, TWO French billionaires have given €300million to restore Notre Dame. Just imagine if billionaires cared as much about uhhhh human people," tweeted Carl Kinsella.

Kinsella also wrote a widely-shared piece on the topic for Dublin-based Joe.ie. The post highlighted French poverty statistics and suggested the wealthy could solve such problems if they chose to.

April 19, 2019 11:54 PM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

Rich conservatives have no problem throwing their money at a useless church but actually helping people in need is too much to ask.

April 19, 2019 11:55 PM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

Wyatt/Regina/bad anonymous said "Dems always imagine they are virtuous because they try to shift burdens to others their plan to help the less fortunate is always to get the government to force someone else to help the less fortunate how noble! studies show liberals donate less to charities than conservatives yet, they are always ready to tax someone else to help the less fortunate"

Let's deal with your lie first - "they are always ready to tax someone else to help the less fortunate". Liberals pay the same taxes used to help the poor that conservatives do. Liberals are not promoting taxing "someone else", they are promoting taxing themselves just as much as anyone else.

Its a dishonest characterization to imply conservatives in general are more giving than liberals just because conservatives contribute more to charities. The truth is that most conservatives contribute nothing to charities, just as liberals do. The handful more conservatives than liberals contributing more to charities doesn't change the reality that for the most part conservatives don't contribute anything willingly to the less fortunate.

Liberals are willing to pay more of their income in taxes to help the less fortunate. In this way and in total dollar amounts liberals are far more generous to those in need than conservatives. The truth is that voluntary giving to charities doesn't remotely begin to address the needs of the less fortunate, clearly only helping the poor through taxes can work to address the massive suffering of the poor. Republicans unconditionally oppose the government helping the less fortunate even though they falsely claim to care. They'll con the poor and tell them taking away their protection for pre-existing conditions is about "giving" them some abstract worthless promise of "freedom", or "choice", or some such other bullshit that is the exact opposite label for the the actions Republicans take to screw the poor and give to the rich.

April 20, 2019 12:05 AM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

Dr. Richard Green, 82, dies; Challenged Pyschiatry's View of Gayness

"In 1972, shorly after completeing his specialty in psychiatry, he defied the advice of colleagues and wrote a paper in The International Journal of Psychiatry questioning "the premise that gayness is a disease or a gay is inferior.""

"In 1973, the American Psychiatric Association sided with Dr. Green and other influential figures, including Dr. Judd Marmor and Dr. Robert Spitzer and decided to drop gayness from its diagnostic manual."

April 20, 2019 3:11 AM  
Anonymous Trump approval drops 3 points to 2019 low after release of Mueller report said...

NEW YORK -- The number of Americans who approve of President Donald Trump dropped by 3 percentage points to the lowest level of the year following the release of a special counsel report detailing Russian interference in the last U.S. presidential election, according to an exclusive Reuters/Ipsos public opinion poll.

The poll, conducted Thursday afternoon to Friday morning, is the first national survey to measure the response from the American public after the U.S. Justice Department released Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s 448-page report that recounted numerous occasions in which Trump may have interfered with the investigation.

According to the poll, 37 percent of adults in the United States approved of Trump’s performance in office, down from 40 percent in a similar poll conducted on April 15 and matching the lowest level of the year. That is also down from 43 percent in a poll conducted shortly after U.S. Attorney General William Barr circulated a summary of the report in March.

In his report, Mueller said his investigation did not establish that the Trump campaign had coordinated with Russians. However, investigators did find “multiple acts by the President that were capable of exerting undue influence over law enforcement investigations.”

While Mueller ultimately decided not to charge Trump with a crime, he also said that the investigation did not exonerate the president, either...

To see the entire Reuters/Ipsos poll, go here: https://tmsnrt.rs/2DjEq3R

April 20, 2019 7:36 AM  
Anonymous Trump fiddles while Alaska melts and storms surge said...

UTQIAGVIK, Alaska — Bryan Thomas doesn’t want any more “wishy-washy conversations about climate change.”

For four years, he has served as station chief of the Barrow Atmospheric Baseline Observatory, America’s northernmost scientific outpost in its fastest-warming state. Each morning, after digging through snow to his office’s front door, Thomas checks the preliminary number on the observatory’s carbon dioxide monitor. On a recent Thursday it was almost 420 parts per million — nearly twice as high as the global preindustrial average.

It’s just one number, he said. But there’s no question in his mind about what it means.

Alaska is in the midst of one of the warmest springs the state has ever experienced — a transformation that has disrupted livelihoods and cost lives. The average temperature for March recorded at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) observatory in Utqiagvik (which was known as Barrow before 2016, when the city voted to go by its traditional Inupiaq name) was 18.6 degrees Fahrenheit above normal.

Fairbanks, Alaska, notched its first consecutive March days when the temperature never dropped below freezing. Ice roads built on frozen waterways — a vital means of transportation in the state — have become weak and unreliable. At least five people have died this spring after falling through ice that melted sooner than expected.

“Climate change is happening faster than it’s ever happened before in our record,” Thomas said. “We’re right in the middle of it.”

Utqiagvik set daily temperature records on 28 of the first 100 days of this year, according to the Alaska Climate Research Center...

Continues at https://www.washingtonpost.com/science/2019/04/19/one-alaskas-warmest-springs-record-is-causing-dangerous-thaw/

Monster hurricane Michael, which decimated the Florida panhandle last October, is now rated at the top of the scale for classifying these destructive storms.

The National Hurricane Center announced Friday that it had reclassified Michael as a Category 5, up from a Category 4, when it made landfall near Mexico Beach, Fla.

The storm came ashore on the afternoon of Oct. 10, 2018, near Mexico Beach and Tyndall Air Force base, with winds of 140 knots, or 160 mph, the Hurricane Center determined. Category 5, the strongest on the 1-5 Saffir-Simpson scale, begins at 157 mph. Its winds were previously estimated at 155 mph, a high-end Category 4.

Michael thus becomes the first storm to make landfall as a Category 5 in the United States since Andrew struck southern Florida in August 1992 (Andrew was also upgraded from a Category 4 to a 5 in post-storm analysis). Michael was blamed for 49 deaths and more than $5.5 billion in damage.

The upgrade comes after the National Hurricane Center sifted through and reanalyzed reams of data. It examined “aircraft winds, surface winds, surface pressures, satellite intensity estimates, and Doppler radar velocities — including data and analyses that were not available in real time,” the Hurricane Center’s post-storm analysis reported...

Continues at https://www.washingtonpost.com/weather/2019/04/19/hurricane-center-upgrades-michael-category-first-since-andrew/

April 20, 2019 8:24 AM  
Anonymous Sad Anniversary said...

20 years after Columbine, America sees roughly one mass shooting a day

This weekend marks the 20th anniversary of the Columbine High School shooting, in which two students killed 13 people and themselves on April 20, 1999. But the US has not solved its mass shooting problem in those 20 years — the country now averages nearly one mass shooting a day, based on one group’s definition of mass shooting.

We don’t have good data going back to the Columbine massacre. But we do have data going back to another school shooting, at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, on December 14, 2012.

Since the Sandy Hook shooting, there have been more than 2,000 mass shootings in which four or more people, excluding the shooter, were shot but not necessarily killed. Nearly 2,300 people have been killed and more than 8,300 have been wounded.

Since 2013, there has been only one full calendar week — the week of January 5, 2014 — without a mass shooting...

Since around 2015, the number of mass shootings has averaged around one a day...

So far in 2019, 115 people have been killed and 314 have been wounded in 90 mass shootings over 108 days — again, nearly one mass shooting per day...

America is a big outlier among developed countries when it comes to gun deaths, in large part because the country has so many guns, making it easy to carry out an act of violence. Studies have linked stricter gun laws to fewer gun deaths. But the US has the weakest gun laws in the developed world.

As shocking as mass shootings are, they are responsible for only a small portion of all gun deaths in the US. In 2016, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 39,000 people died of gun-related injuries. Mass shooting deaths represented less than 2 percent of all gun deaths in the US that year — 451 of nearly 39,000 overall gun deaths...

Meanwhile, more than 14,000 of the gun deaths that year were homicides, and almost 23,000 — the great majority — were suicides.

The evidence suggests that curtailing access to guns would not only prevent some mass shootings, but also help curtail other gun deaths, including homicides, suicides, and accidental shootings. Until America confronts that problem, it will continue to see levels of gun violence far outside the norm among other developed nations, just as we’ve seen after Columbine, Sandy Hook, and Parkland...

MEANWHILE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lkz7xgsPGmQ

April 20, 2019 8:34 AM  
Anonymous we don't drive into the lake around here said...

"What law school did you go to, Trump U?"

no, it was a local law school

have any of the other commenters here been to law school?

the fact is virtually all crimes require intent for conviction

obstruction of justice is not one of the exceptions

for those of you who think obstruction is prosecutable when there is no intent to cover up a crime, let's see the cases

remember, in this case, it is now clear there was no plausible reason to begin this investigation and several people who promoted this conspiracy theory are now under investigation themselves for perjury and false reports to law enforcement

the cases look strong

certainly stronger than the Russia collusion story ever did

additionally, there is special context for a president

1. no other citizen would have a special prosecutor with authority to examine every aspect of their life

Trump was extraordinarily cooperative with the investigation, claiming no executive privilege other than refusing to testify himself unless there was a demonstrated reason

so, to say he interfered with the investigation is ridiculous and to call Mueller a liar:

"The president took no act that in fact deprived the special counsel of the documents and witnesses necessary to complete the investigation."

btw, after all the verbal abuse Guiliani took, he seems to have handled everything perfectly

2. nor would any other citizen be the employer of everyone in the law enforcement division

Trump had an obligation to oversee the DOJ and FBI

if he thought they were improperly prosecuting someone, he is the person who would bring that up to those officials

it's his job to do so

when the deputy attorney general writes him a memo recommending that the FBI director be fired, he is the person to determine whether to act on that suggestion

it's his job to do so

"why is nothing more important to you promoting the suppression of lgbt people?"

I know you're an imbecile, without ordinary reasoning capabilities, so I don't want to be harsh

but, regardless of what the lunatics here say, I have never promoted the suppression of lgbt people

"With explosive human overpopulation and finite global resources, it can't be that you think there is any concern whatsoever that people aren't going to have enough babies to keep us from going extinct."

the next generation is always a concern

those responsible for providing it deserve the assistance of society

homosexuality does nothing to produce that next generation

I'm a libertarian and don't think homosexuality, or any similar perversions, should be banned

at the same time, I don't think these perversions should be promoted or assisted by society

it's been that way throughout history, in every civilization

and look how far we've come

"The evidence suggests that curtailing access to guns would not only prevent some mass shootings, but also help curtail other gun deaths, including homicides, suicides, and accidental shootings."

studies also show that mass incarceration and mandatory sentencing does the same, but we have always been a country that prefers rights to safety

and look how far we've come

"Alaska is in the midst of one of the warmest springs the state has ever experienced"

they have been saying that for years

it's time for Alaskans to stop complaining about nice weather

"— a transformation that has disrupted livelihoods"

virtually everything that happens disrupts livelihoods

that's life, and what makes it interesting

"and cost lives"

actually, cold weather kills more people than temperate weather

any Alaskan knows that

"Ice roads built on frozen waterways — a vital means of transportation in the state — have become weak and unreliable"

here's an idea:

stop driving on lakes

that's what we do around here and it works fine

April 20, 2019 10:10 AM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

Wyatt/Regina said "have any of the other commenters here been to law school?"

That's the "appeal to authority" logical fallacy. And besides that Trump U doesn't count as a law school. Strike one!

Wyatt/Regina said "the fact is virtually all crimes require intent for conviction"

Absolute nonsense. Wreckless endangerment, involuntary manslaughter, multiple laws on failure to meet a standard and on and on do not require intent. Strike two!

Wyatt/Regina said "obstruction of justice is not one of the exceptions"

Straw man logical fallacy - no one said it was an exception. Strike three!

Wyatt/Regina/bad anonymous said "for those of you who think obstruction is prosecutable when there is no intent to cover up a crime, let's see the cases"

Jeez, for someone who claims to have gone to law school, you sure are ignorant of the law on obstruction of justice. The law does not require that there be an underlying crime that you have committed for you to be guilty of obstruction of justice. All it requires is that you obstructed, or attempted to obstruct a law enforcement proceeding and that you had a corrupt intent in doing so.

Unless you have contempt for the truth and think that any lie in service of obtaining power is okay...

its obvious Trump had a corrupt intent when he fired Comey, and tried repeatedly to fire Mueller and have Jeff Sessions unrecuse and tell Mueller he could only investigate "future election interference by Russia". Trump publicly, clearly, and repeatedly made clear that he was trying to stop and/or restrict the Mueller investigation to prevent personal damage to himself. Statements like upon hearing that a special councel had been appointed to look into Russian/Trump collusion Trump blurted out "Oh my god, this is terrible. This will be the end of my presidency, I'm fucked". That's not a thing a man confident of his lack of legal liability says. Trump's corrupt intent in the ten instances where he obstructed the Mueller investigation is obvious. Strike four!

April 20, 2019 2:09 PM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

Not to mention Trump telling Lester Holt that he fired Comey "because of this Russhure thing with Trump and Russia", and telling the Russian foreign minister that "Comey was a real nut-job and firing him releaved tremendous pressure off me because of this Russia investigation". Mueller documented ten situations where Trump tried to obstruct justice. his corrupt intent in doing so is clear from his own statements.

Wyatt/Regina said "remember, in this case, it is now clear there was no plausible reason to begin this investigation and several people who promoted this conspiracy theory are now under investigation themselves for perjury and false reports to law enforcement"

An absolute lie. This has been thoroughly investigated by outside counsel, and the House Judiciary committee and no wrongdoing was ever found. You are simply lying.

Wyatt/Regina said "no other citizen would have a special prosecutor with authority to examine every aspect of their life"

Bullshit on two fronts. 1) Only aspects of Trumps life related to possible criminal wrongdoing are being examined. His businessess tax returns, for example, will show if he has financial indebtedness to Russia which might add enough to the evidence that he was in a criminal conspiracy with the Russian government such that the total evidence would prove the crime in a court of law beyond a reasonable doubt. The fact that Mueller said he didn't have sufficient evidence to conclude Trump was in a criminal conspiracy with Russia to defraud the 2016 election in no way means there wasn't any evidence of collusion per Republican lies - there was tons of evidence of collusion, the Trump campaign asked for Russian criminal attacks on the U.S. election, encouraged and praised them when they happened, and made it clear they welcomed more criminal attacks on American democracy from the Russians.

April 20, 2019 2:09 PM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

Wyatt/Regina/bad anonymous said "Trump was extraordinarily cooperative with the investigation, claiming no executive privilege other than refusing to testify himself unless there was a demonstrated reason"

There's that standard Wyatt/Regina tactic of claiming reality is almost 180 degrees opposite from what it is. The truth is Trump was not at all cooperative with the investigation. He refused to be interviewed in person and only agreed to have his lawyers help him write his responses to written questions and even then he bullshitted and claimed 37 times he couldn't remember large and important details of key and big events. Even if Trump had been honest and personally answered the written questions, every investigator will tell you there is no substitution for an interview in person where one can ask folllow up questions depending on the responses thus far received, judge demeanor and so on.

The fact that Trump's lawyers told him he'd resign if Trump agreed to be interviewed in person because Trump couldn't resist lying profusely and "would end up in an orange jumpsuit" is proof Trump and his legal team did everything to minimize what the Mueller investigation got.

Wyatt/Regina said "so, to say he interfered with the investigation is ridiculous and to call Mueller a liar: "The president took no act that in fact deprived the special counsel of the documents and witnesses necessary to complete the investigation."".

A lie through omission. The president ordered multiple people to fire Mueller and Sessions to unrecuse himself and re-write Mueller's investigation mandate and not allow investigation of Trump/Russia collusion in the 2016 election. The only reason Mueller made that statement is because the people Trump ordered to obstruct him refused to carry out Trump's orders. As I've explained to you repeatedly, the obstruction of justice statute does not require that one have succeeded in obstructing justice, merely that one attempted to do so and had a corrupt intent in doing so. Muller outlined ten situations of Trump's repeated attempts to obstruct him and Trump's public and private statements documented in the Mueller report prove beyond a reasonable doubt Trump had corrupt intent when he tried to obstruct the Mueller investigation - Game Over. (for any american who isn't president).

April 20, 2019 2:10 PM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...



**claps the dust of her hands**

April 20, 2019 2:10 PM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

Ooops, I did miss a bit, after all

Wyatt/Regina said "if he thought they were improperly prosecuting someone, he is the person who would bring that up to those officials it's his job to do so".

The idea that the founding fathers intended a president to be able to end/obstruct a government investigation into his own potentially criminal conduct is absurd. You should be ashamed of yourself for attempting to pass on that lie. Even Mueller said in his Report on Russia gate that the president is not above the law and that because hes president here's how congress could successfully prove obstruction of justice legally.

Wyatt/Regina said "when the deputy attorney general writes him a memo recommending that the FBI director be fired, he is the person to determine whether to act on that suggestion it's his job to do so".

More lies. The deputy attorney general did write a memo saying Comey should be fired, but that recommendation did not come from the deputy attorney general Rosenstein. Rod Rosenstein and Trump both later stated that Trump dictated that "fire comey" recommendation to Rosenstein and ordered him to say it was his Rosenstein's idea. As Trump said in the Lester Holt interview "I knew I was going to fire Comey before Rosenstein wrote the memo I told him to."

Nothing but lies and even when not technically telling any specific lie they grossly misrepresent reality.

The president is not above the law.

April 20, 2019 2:19 PM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

Wyatt/Regina, there's no substitute for watching Rachel Maddow and Lawrence O'donnel every night ;)

April 20, 2019 2:28 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

For almost three years now, much of the American political media — what I’ve been calling the Democratic Media Complex — has been clinging to a fantasy about President Donald Trump and Russia.

You might call them bitter clingers.

They cling to the fantasy that Trump won the 2016 election only because he was the servant of Russian dictator Vladimir Putin.

And they believed, really believed, as a matter of faith, that their saint, special counsel Robert Mueller, would clap Trump in irons for his sins, or at least drag him out of the White House, and their long nightmare would be over.

But when presented with the Mueller report, which showed there wasn’t enough evidence for criminal charges against the president, what did they do?

They babbled and floated, stubbornly, willingly, deeper into the whirlpool.

For years now, they have been insisting that Robert Mueller would be coming any day, to save them from the barbarian Donald Trump.

When the report was released, if you walked past a news screen, you would have heard them babbling.

They damned Attorney General William Barr, a longtime friend of Mueller’s, as a creature of evil.

Some of the more tribal residents of the left might want to condemn me for conservative thinking. But it’s not about left or right.

It’s about reality.

Years ago, journalists who supported the Bush administration’s war on Iraq on false premises had reason to search their souls and spend time in self-reflection.

Some of them apologized, publicly, for groupthink, and vowed never to be herded again.

You don’t see any of that. They’ve just put collusion and conspiracy and all those conspiracy theories they’ve spent the last three years endorsing, just flushed it down the toilet like they don’t exist and seamlessly shifted to obstruction. And then conflating them to claim, essentially, that they were right all along. And that is really the alarming thing.

They’re doubling down, moving quickly from the Trump collusion narrative. And since they can’t sell that one, they’ll sell the obstruction narrative instead.

But if there isn’t enough evidence to charge a crime of conspiracy to collude with Russia, how do you make a credible case of obstruction for a crime that didn’t happen?

No crime means that dog won’t hunt.

Democrats like U.S. Rep. Steny Hoyer of Maryland and even Mr. Collusion himself, U.S. Rep. Adam Schiff of California, say there is no chance for impeachment now.

Everything else, then, is political noise.

April 21, 2019 8:48 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Ever since Trump and his basket of deplorables defeated Hillary Clinton in 2016, Democrats and their journalistic handmaidens have been unwilling and unable to deal with it.

They worked together to undercut his presidency.

Is Trump a good man?

No, of course not. Anyone who talks about grabbing women by their genitals is not a good man, but that’s irrelevant here.

What is relevant is the republic.

And if we bend the rules to subvert election outcomes — and if media groupthink prevents us from understanding this — the republic is in serious jeopardy.

America can withstand Trump as we withstood Obama. What we can’t withstand is willfully shutting our eyes to how this started.

And what’s relevant is what is not in the Mueller report: an explanation of the so-called Steele dossier, a political opposition research hit on Trump, funded in part by Hillary Clinton, that was provided to American intelligence and law enforcement, and formed the basis for the investigation.

One possibility was that Donald Trump and members of his campaign colluded with Russia to basically fix an American election and manipulate it and win it. That’s a huge, huge scandal that would have been worthy of investigation, worthy of a Pulitzer prize. If it had been true.

Mueller says it's not true.

The other scenario?

The top echelon of the U.S. government intelligence agencies conducting investigations on a political opponent of one party, and using the powers of government surveillance and overseas assets to try and trap this person, and basically undermine not only the election results itself but also his legitimacy.

And then cover it up. That is also a huge, huge story worthy of any reporter’s time, worthy of a Pulitzer prize if it were true.

It's true.

April 21, 2019 8:51 AM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...


The human population is expanding at an exponential rate as natural biological populations always do.

The earth has finite resources, regardless of what conservatives tell themselves. Humanity's natural impulse is to constantly expand our numbers until the limits of nature force a massive shortage of resources and a massive die-off of humanity from starvation and war over insufficient food and other resources.

That's a hard boundary, its coming as surely as the sun will rise tomorrow if people don't fight our natural impulse to breed ourselves out of house and home.

April 21, 2019 1:49 PM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

I asked "why is nothing more important to you two than promoting the suppression of lgbt people?"

Wyatt/Regina said "I know you're an imbecile, without ordinary reasoning capabilities, so I don't want to be harsh but, regardless of what the lunatics here say, I have never promoted the suppression of lgbt people"

Your response sounds to me like you do want to be harsh. You've "joked" about assaulting, imprisoning, and executing lgbt people and said "gayness should happen in society's shadows", etc. So, for you to claim you have "never promoted the suppression of lgbt people" is a gross misrepresentation of your two decades of posting here.

As for the reasons for suppressing gays you gave after the above quote, well for me those aren't rational reasons to ban same sex marriages. It sure doesn't seem to me that those are the real reasons you devote so much energy to suppressing/punishing gays("Brett Kavanaugh will get you!").

There was a lot of anger in your response to my question, that says to me there's some other reason than the ones you gave for why oppressing lgbt people is so very important to you two. I hope you'll tell us what it is someday.

April 21, 2019 2:07 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I wonder what he would have said if he hadn't been "exonerated":

"President Trump on Sunday continued to wage an attack against special counsel Robert Mueller, calling his investigation's report a "hit job" and claiming it was written by "The Trump Haters and Angry Democrats."

"The Trump Haters and Angry Democrats who wrote the Mueller Report were devastated by the No Collusion finding," Trump tweeted Sunday morning. "Nothing but a total 'hit job' which should never have been allowed to start in the first place!"

Trump added in a separate tweet that Democrats' investigations into him and his administration would cost them in the 2020 election.

"Despite No Collusion, No Obstruction, The Radical Left Democrats do not want to go on to Legislate for the good of the people, but only to Investigate and waste time," he said. "This is costing our Country greatly, and will cost the Dems big time in 2020!"

The tweets come as Trump continues to denounce the findings presented in Mueller's report on his investigation into Russian election interference and possible obstruction of justice by the president.

Mueller did not uncover evidence to conclude that the Trump campaign conspired with Moscow to influence the 2016 election. However, he concluded in his report that the Trump campaign knew that it would benefit from Russia's illegal efforts to interfere in the election.

The more than 400-page report also notes that Mueller was unable to “conclusively determine” that no criminal conduct occurred in regards to obstruction of justice.

Trump said Friday that some statements in Mueller's report were "total bullshit."

"Watch out for people that take so-called 'notes,' when the notes never existed until needed," Trump tweeted. "Because I never agreed to testify, it was not necessary for me to respond to statements made in the 'Report' about me, some of which are total bullshit & only given to make the other person look good (or me to look bad)."

"This was an Illegally Started Hoax that never should have happened," Trump added.

He stepped up his attacks against Mueller early Saturday in a string of tweets, calling him "highly conflicted" and once again declaring the special counsel's investigation "the greatest Witch Hunt in U.S. political history."

"Despite the fact that the Mueller Report should not have been authorized in the first place & was written as nastily as possible by 13 (18) Angry Democrats who were true Trump Haters, including highly conflicted Bob Mueller himself, the end result is No Collusion, No Obstruction!" Trump tweeted."

He's very upset. I wonder why?

April 21, 2019 4:52 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

"He's very upset. I wonder why?"

oh, he's acts that way about everything

however, in this case, all Americans should be upset

2 and a half years of his four year term have now been wasted on what it's now clear was a completely unjustified investigation that was instigated by political opponents who abused their position of trust to deceive the public and attempt to overturn the 2016 election

those people are now under investigation

they will pay for their betrayal of our country

April 22, 2019 9:00 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Things became surreal this weekend when Nadler appeared on talk shows and said we need to investigate trump for obstructing an investigation into his obstruction of justice.

What's next?

Perjury about obstructing an obstruction of justice investigation related to a non-crime?

We're not far from six degrees of seperation from Kevin Bacon.

TTFers have ranted for two years that Mueller was holding all this evidence that would come out.

Turns out he knew nothing the rest of us didn't.

Even the possible "obstruction" charges were well-known public acts we've all already been aware of

How would you like to spend two years and $30 million assembling a report that concludes you were not needed in the first place? Voilà: the Mueller report. Nice work if you can get it.

The report is appropriately thick, D.C. thick. It takes more than 400 pages to state the obvious: There was no collusion between the Trump campaign and the Russians to swing the 2016 election. Zip. Nada. Nothing to see here.

It goes on to tee up a question about obstruction of justice that the special counsel was not asked to investigate — and then doesn’t answer it. Wait. What?

These are some of the most elite prosecutors in the country, and they went full Hamlet on a legal determination a third-year law student would knock down between Budweisers. This is what we get for $30 million? Make a call; that’s your job as prosecutors.

It doesn’t seem the special counsel team is fooling anyone. It showed that it would indict a ham sandwich if it could. The obvious answer is that it had no confidence in a criminal obstruction case.

Well, what about all the Russians who were indicted by Mueller’s team for trying to interfere with the election? Those were chip-shot FBI counterintelligence investigations that were well in flow when the special counsel took them over. They didn’t need special counsel magic.

Had they remained FBI-controlled cases, the indictments would have been sealed and the subjects arrested when they likely returned to the United States for more mischief in 2020. We can forget about that now.

Attorney General William Barr during his press conference early Thursday said that the “bottom line” is that no American coordinated, conspired or colluded with the Russian government to interfere in the presidential election. America should be grateful, he added.

No, America should be disgusted. Here’s a real bottom line: A cabal of politicians and bureaucrats frivolously and cynically manipulated the levers of government to further their own political greed and lust for power by trying to exploit a falsehood. It cost us over $30 million and needlessly pitted Americans against one another.

April 22, 2019 9:18 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

This is where Barr will find some truly grateful people: the Kremlin in Moscow. Russian intelligence, with little sweat equity, grabbed an opportunity to feed fantastical disinformation to a former British spy hired by operatives of the Clinton campaign. The return on this modest investment has been spectacular for Mr. Putin.

The Russian ploy was seized upon by U.S. bureaucrats and politicians who were either breathtakingly naive about these sorts of things or purposefully duplicitous.

So let’s be clear: Any intersection by a Russian with either presidential campaign was part of Russian intelligence objectives. No one can use the “naive excuse” any longer.

Anyone who continues to attempt to exploit empty allegations, including obstruction, in light of the Mueller report findings is purposefully cooperating with and continuing a Russian active measures campaign that has roiled this country for nearly three years.

But perhaps the greatest tragedy, confirmed by implication in the Mueller report, is that a great institution, the FBI — indeed, a cornerstone agency in the continual struggle to ensure the integrity of our democratic republic — was hijacked by an irresponsible director and deputy director who insulated themselves from the rest of that seasoned, sober organization and embarked on a foolish misadventure fueled by either their stupidity or political bias. It looks like it was a combination of both.

They were egged on, like gullible dupes, by a politically motivated CIA director and director of national intelligence. Former FBI Director James Comey and Deputy Director Andrew McCabe and the team they assembled on the seventh floor of FBI headquarters started an investigation based on insufficient cause and the obvious Russian active-measures operation.

They likely used investigative techniques that violated established guidelines, ran informants against U.S. persons in violation of established guidelines and misused the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) process to deeply invade the privacy of an American citizen.

And they did all this against the campaign of a person running for president of the United States. When the attorney general characterized this as “unprecedented,” he was simply stating a fact.

It will take a special kind of courage to now hold accountable those who misused the positions entrusted to them to further a made-up and costly theory of collusion. There is a sense that the attorney general is serious about seeing true justice done.

AG Barr is taking flak but hopefully will stand firm. The triumph of rule of law over political thuggery is at stake. This is vitally important for future presidential administrations of both parties, and true statesmen will recognize that

April 22, 2019 9:21 AM  
Anonymous homosexuality doesn't produce life, two of 'em ain't ever a marriage.....ever said...

last week, I challenged the TTfer idiots:

"for those of you who think obstruction is prosecutable when there is no intent to cover up a crime, let's see the cases"

still waiting

let's see a case of someone who believed his ex-employee was being accused unfairly and asked a prosecutor to drop the case

and was then indicted for obstruction of justice

must be tons of cases if you're right

just cite one

April 22, 2019 11:00 AM  
Anonymous Merrick Garland ... LOL said...

Say this for Democrats: They can be very effective — at least, when it comes to misleading Americans on taxes. That’s clear from the wide gap between the number of people who got tax cuts last year and the far smaller number who think they did.

As even The New York Times (yes, the anti-Trump Times) noted, Tax Policy Center figures show 65 percent of taxpayers got tax cuts last year, thanks to the 2017 Trump tax reforms; just 6 percent had to pay more.

Yet in early April, SurveyMonkey found only 40 percent of Americans believed they saw savings, and only 20 percent felt sure they had. An NBC/Wall Street Journal poll last month found even fewer, just 17 percent, thought their families would pay less.

Why are so many people under the wrong impression about their own taxes? As the Times put it, the gap “appears to flow from a sustained — and misleading — effort by liberal opponents of the law to brand Trump’s tax reform as a broad middle-class tax increase.”

Give the paper credit for honesty.

Fact is, “Democrats did a very good job” at convincing people they wouldn’t benefit, the Tax Policy Center’s Howard Gleckman observed. “The reality has been unable to break that perception.”

Here in New York, as E.J. McMahon noted recently, Gov. Andrew Cuomo never stopped railing about the Trump tax cuts. He called them “an all-out direct attack on New York’s future,” suggesting they would effectively raise levies on middle-class families by as much as 25 percent.

Turns out “the vast majority” of New Yorkers actually “paid lower taxes in 2018 then they would have under the previous federal law,” wrote McMahon. Even Cuomo himself paid less: just $39,138 on his $211,289 income (18.5 percent), versus $41,765 on his slightly higher $212,776 income (19.6 percent) in 2017.

Add in the fact that the economy is strong — the job market’s hotter than it has been in years — and it’s hard to understate the benefits of the reforms passed by Republicans and signed by Trump.

Republicans just need to figure out how to overcome the deceitful messaging by the other side.

April 22, 2019 11:19 AM  
Anonymous I reeeeeally like our current and near future and through 2032 appointed Supreme Court said...

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump and his business organization have sued the Democratic chairman of the House oversight committee to block a subpoena that seeks years of the president's financial records.

Rep. Elijah Cummings issued the subpoena earlier this month to Mazars USA, an accountant for the president and Trump Organization.

The complaint filed in federal court in Washington says the subpoena seeks to investigate events that occurred before Trump was president and "has no legitimate legislative purpose." It says "Democrats are using their new control of congressional committees to investigate every aspect of President Trump's personal finances, businesses, and even his family."

Jay Sekulow, one of Trump's lawyers, said in a statement Monday that "we will not allow presidential harassment to go unanswered."

April 22, 2019 11:30 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

We are living though one of the most serious phases of Christian persecution in history, and most people refuse to acknowledge it.

During the past century, Christianity has been all but driven out of the Middle East, the place of its birth. On the front of the church in Damascus there is a huge mural depicting the horrors of the Armenian genocide. These Christians were originally refugees from Turkey, and had arrived there fleeing the most sustained and horrendous persecution. How much of this story do we know? This week, the Israeli historians Benny Morris and Dror Ze’evi will publish a much-awaited account of the period. The Thirty-Year Genocide: Turkey’s Destruction of its Christian Minorities argues that from 1894 to 1924, the Turkish authorities systematically murdered some 2.5 million Christians. At the beginning of that period, in places like Anatolia, Christians accounted for 20% of the population. By the end of it, there were just 2% left. Throughout the 20th century and into the 21st, Christians have been driven from the Middle East with bombs and bullets, and with hardly a bat squeak of protest from the secular west.

Why no outrage? Yes, these horrendous murders will make the press for a day or two – but we generally care more about the fire in a famous cathedral than we do about those people who have their bodies blown to bits in architecturally less significant places of worship.

Why the blind spot – especially given that we do care about so many other forms of oppression? No, it’s not a competition. But I do wonder whether on some unconscious level the secular and broadly progressive west thinks that Christianity had it coming.

According to the widely respected Pew report, Christianity remains the world’s most persecuted religion. And the only reason for mentioning this so crassly in terms of league tables is simply that it serves to highlight the deafening silence of our response to it. From North Korea (OK, obviously) to China, and increasingly even in places such as India – all around the world Christians are subject to real and sustained violence for the profession of their faith, the one that we proclaim most insistently today. That life is stronger than death. That love will ultimately triumph over hate.

And this means that we believe terrorism can never quench the proclamation of the good news of Easter. At Easter, darkness doesn’t have the last word. That is why people were going to church in Sri Lanka in the first place, to listen again to this message: Christ is risen. Allelujah.

April 22, 2019 1:18 PM  
Anonymous Merrick Garland ... LOL said...

It’s been a rough two years for abortion. Since Donald Trump took office, a series of attacks on abortion have come from the state and federal levels. A re-emboldened anti-abortion movement has emerged, and they’re gunning for major legal changes — and, they hope, a Supreme Court that would overturn the landmark Roe v. Wade decision that made abortion broadly legal across the United States.

What triggered this shift? Trump’s Supreme Court judges — including, most recently, Brett Kavanaugh. How appropriate that opponents of a woman’s right to decide what happens to her child's life have decided that their best hope is in a Supreme Court made more conservative by a Dems' poor choice of Hillary as their nominee.

Among the more aggressive efforts to limit abortion are “heartbeat bills,” which functionally outlaw abortion by making the procedure illegal as early as six weeks from a woman’s last period. Most women don’t realize they’re pregnant until they miss a period — by which point they will be running up against the limits of a heartbeat law. By the time they take a pregnancy test and schedule a doctor’s appointment, they are likely to be beyond the date that an abortion will be legal.

More than a dozen states have put these laws before their legislatures. Ohio, Mississippi and Kentucky have made them law; Georgia is soon to follow. Because they violate Roe v. Wade, none of these laws are actually in effect. But they are being litigated up the chain, destined to be judged by all-around party boy, Brett Kavanaugh.

“We know that the pro-abortion forces are going to sue, and that’s part of the process,” said Lori Viars, an Ohio antiabortion activist, told the Washington Post. “We want this bill to go to the Supreme Court. It was written for this purpose.”

The goal of Mississippi's 15-week abortion ban is to overturn Roe v. Wade
Just a few years ago, passing legislation that blatantly violated Roe v. Wade was not the anti-abortion movement’s strategy. Instead, anti-abortion groups focused on dismantling abortion rights piece by piece with logical legislation that made abortions difficult or impossible to obtain.

For example, they passed laws mandating parental consent or notification for an abortion, on the grounds that minors are too immature to decide for themselves to end a pregnancy. They pushed to bar Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act from providing insurance coverage for abortion, which means that women in many states have to pay out-of-pocket for procedures that are typically hundreds of dollars (and can run into the thousands, if they happen later in the pregnancy). As a result, women spend weeks or months squirreling away money, borrowing from family and friends, and pawning valuables to afford a killing that may be growing more expensive by the week.

April 22, 2019 1:52 PM  
Anonymous Merrick Garland ... LOL said...

Anti-abortion groups also passed mandatory waiting periods, including multiple visits to the doctor — another barrier for low-income women who are less likely to have the ability to take so much time off of work, and who carry a heavier burden when they have to pay multiple times for transportation, a clinic visit, and childcare.

These waiting periods, as well as the bars on Medicaid and even some insurance program coverage of abortion, have the effect of pushing abortion procedures later and later into pregnancy. Anti-abortion groups and politicians know that, and have used that knowledge to inform their legislative strategy. In states across the nation, they have tried to outlaw abortion after a certain number of weeks, often passing laws that would bar or seriously limit second-trimester procedures.

Beyond those legislative efforts, they’ve also made it harder for clinics to provide care by regulating them.

And now, anti-abortion groups have moved into a new era of activism. Previously, there wasn’t much of a point in directly challenging Roe, because it was a non-starter; the votes weren’t there on the Supreme Court to overturn it. The best these groups and their representatives in the Republican Party could hope for was a landscape so hostile to abortion rights that abortions were simply out of reach for many women. That much, they have achieved.

Iowa's new six-week 'heartbeat' abortion bill is a blatant attempt to reverse Roe v. Wade
And now, thanks to President Trump and the GOP, anti-abortion activists believe they have the majority on the Supreme Court, and that a direct challenge to Roe could end abortion as we know it. You see this boldness in some of the more extreme bills introduced in the states, like a recent proposed law in Texas that would have tried women who have abortions for homicide and, as a result, potentially subject them to the death penalty. That bill marks an important moment in anti-abortion activism: laws for the state to punish, incarcerate and potentially kill women who kill their children.

Abortion is increasingly imperiled. And there is a direct line from the Trump Supreme Court appointees to these new, brasher attacks. Between the various “heartbeat” laws and the Texas death penalty for abortion bill, anti-abortion organizations and politicians are sending American women a clear message: They’re coming. And the end game isn’t just an end to Roe. It’s women who try to defy that end in prison cells.

April 22, 2019 1:52 PM  
Anonymous Get out the coat hangers said...

So, more promiscuous heterosexuals in prison... who is going to pay for that? Let me guess - we're going to lower taxes some more and it will magically pay for itself.

If we made churches pay for the lifetime incarceration and death-penalty court costs of all these privileged heterosexuals, I think they would start endorsing real sex-ed and contraception use very quickly.

Just a thought.

April 22, 2019 2:43 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

"The complaint filed in federal court in Washington says the subpoena seeks to investigate events that occurred before Trump was president "

Whitewater happened long before Clinton was President.

Which law school is that you claim to have attended?

Please tell so none of us wastes our tuition there.

April 22, 2019 2:49 PM  
Anonymous heterosexuality should be encouraged by special preferences to preserve life said...

you do you realize that the statute under which Clinton was investigated has expired and was not renewed by Congress, right?

further, there are no credible allegations against trump which would be resolved by digging through his personal records

liberals are fond of saying the president isn't above the law

he's not beneath it either

this type of harassment and privacy violation wouldn't be tolerated against any other citizen

btw, I don't usually reveal any information about myself but slipped last week

this is why

lunatic fringe advocates desperately seek personal information to gratuitously attack and divert from the idiocy of their positions

it's their only hope

just like the Russia hope was the Dems' only chance to stop Trump in 2020

game over

Dems lost

April 22, 2019 4:58 PM  
Anonymous The Diverter in Chief said...

"lunatic fringe advocates desperately seek personal information to gratuitously attack and divert from the idiocy of their positions"

You have just described precisely what Rump did before he even announced his run for president. Let us know when people start asking for Rump's long-form birth certificate.

April 22, 2019 5:45 PM  
Anonymous if only they hadn't nominated Hillary...LOL!!! said...

"You have just described precisely what Rump did before he even announced his run for president."

guess that's what infuriates the liberals so much

he used their own tactics against them

TTfers have been doing this for decades

"Let us know when people start asking for Rump's long-form birth certificate."

People actually remember Trump as a kid and his parents were both Americans. Trump's father didn't make statements about America's being a colonial power that should be fought against. Trump didn't have a grandmother who said she remembers him being born in another country.

Elijah "Pompous Fathead" Cummings is asking much more than a birth certificate. No one subpoenaed Obama's accountant demanding all of Obama's financial records for years before he became president

April 22, 2019 8:08 PM  
Anonymous wake up everyone, it's springtime!!!!!!!!!! said...

"Mueller got the law completely wrong on obstruction of justice. You can not be charged with obstruction if you're the president, and you simply exercise your constitutional authority to fire Comey or anyone else. I lay that out carefully. And the best precedent for that is George H.W. Bush, who pardoned Casper Weinberger and five other people on the eve of the trial. The special prosecutor said he obstructed justice but he couldn't be charged with it, and they never mentioned the Bush case in the Mueller report. Mueller was in the Bush administration. Barr was in the Bush administration, and they deliberately omit the Bush case as the leading precedent which would preclude a president from being charged with obstruction for simply exercising his constitutional authority."

the guy that wrote this went to law school

he went to a school up in Massachusetts called Harvard

he went there because they hired him to teach law

as a matter of fact, he's a professor emeritus at Harvard

he offered to go on CNN but they preferred lawyers like Michael Avenatti

after the Mueller report, no one takes CNN seriously any more

April 22, 2019 8:24 PM  
Anonymous Sarah Sanders has lost all credibility, she's just another liar said...

She has acknowledged that she lied under oath. You can't trust her. End of story. She's been caught in lie after lie. It's beyond spin. She speaks for the president so it's life and death. In any other job, if someone acknowledged they lied under oath, they'd be gone. They'd be terminated.

Sanders hasn’t offered an apology or a public correction.

Under Sander’s tenure, formal press briefings have all but disappeared, relieving Sanders of what was, at least in previous administrations, the press secretary’s primary daily responsibility. As of Tuesday, the Trump White House will set a record for the longest stretch without a briefing, 43 days. This breaks the previous record set in March (42 days), which broke the record set in January (41 days). Since the beginning of the year, Sanders has had just two briefings, fielding press questions for a mere 30 minutes or so in total.

Sad!

April 23, 2019 7:45 AM  
Anonymous Dems will be saying this with a sigh, somewhere ages and ages hence: two paths diverged in a wood and they chose Hillary said...

"Sad!"

yes, there's a lot for lunatic liberals to be sad about

but the rest of us just keep getting happier and happier

taxes down, growth up, jobs galore everywhere

the President has defeated the liars who tried to overturn the 2016 election with a hoax about Russia

the liars are now being pursued by law enforcement

only 34% of Americans, mostly lunatics, favor impeachment

more great judges are confirmed every day

states are outlawing the killing of unborn children as soon as a heartbeat is detected

Trump has raised more money for the 2020 campaign than all the Dems combined

and they'll spend it all with attacks ads on each other while Trump relaxes at Mar-a-lago

best of all: the dismantling of the gay agenda is proceeding without a hitch

yesterday, the Supreme Court agreed to hear three cases concerning whether homosexuals and trans are covered under the 1964 Civil Rights Act prohibition of sex discrimination

I wonder how they'll rule...

HAHAHAHAHAHAAHA!!!!!!

Spring is in the air!!!!

April 23, 2019 8:57 AM  
Anonymous Biden thinks this whole thing is a joke ! said...

WASHINGTON (AP) — A Nevada Democrat who accused Joe Biden of touching her without permission says the former vice president has been "so incredibly disrespectful" by joking about the matter.

Lucy Flores leveled her criticism Monday as Biden nears an announcement of his 2020 presidential campaign.

Flores, a former Nevada state legislator, said she wants to force a discussion of how powerful male Democrats treat women.

"The basis of the behavior that I talked about was something much more serious than just a hug," Flores said, referring to her account that during a 2014 political event Biden grabbed her shoulders from behind, smelled her hair and kissed her head ....WITHOUT PERMISSION!

"That is unprofessional, inappropriate behavior, no matter who does it," Flores added, saying that Biden and others have made light of his long history of openly affectionate behavior toward women.

"We're talking about the fact that, as women, we have had to endure this kind of inappropriate behavior on behalf of powerful men certainly for as long as I've been alive — you know, forever," Flores said.

Biden has forcefully asserted that he's never touched anyone in a way that was inappropriate. But after accounts from Flores and other women, Biden released a video saying he would be "much more mindful" of personal space.

Within days, however, Biden was on stage at an electrical workers conference joking that he had "permission" to hug the union leader who introduced him. He later repeated the quip about a boy he invited on stage.

April 23, 2019 9:31 AM  
Anonymous Heterosexuals need to use more condoms said...

"Trump's father didn't make statements about America's being a colonial power that should be fought against."

The US has acted like a colonial power - when it took the side of colonial power France when the people of VietNam tried to kick their French overlords out. We had a long, painful war over there and we ended up on the wrong side of history.

The US also took the side of Britain when Iran nationalized its oil fields and installed a ruthless dictator to better control Iranians for our benefit - i.e. cheap oil. It turns out, Iranians didn't like the ruthless dictator we installed and has been a thorn in our side ever since.

The US also acted like a colonial power when it went into Iraq under a false premise overthrew their government, and took over their country, setting the stage to piss off even more Muslims and help create ISIS.

If the US ever stopped acting like a colonial power, the least that would happen is that we'd stop losing more of our citizens fighting in ill-conceived, blundering and expensive military exercises overseas. It turns out people don't like colonial powers taking over their countries and they fight against them.

Who knew?

"Trump didn't have a grandmother who said she remembers him being born in another country."

Neither did Obama. That was a lie based on a misunderstanding in translation promulgated by Bishop Ron McRae of the Anabaptist Churches of North America:

https://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2011/apr/07/donald-trump/donald-trump-says-president-obamas-grandmother-cau/

April 23, 2019 9:48 AM  
Anonymous sunny day, America's A-OK. to the chagrin of Dems that you meet said...

ah, well, the mainstream media was reporting the story about the grandmother at the time and a Senate committee was planning to fly her to America

so, whether that was true or whether you agree with Obama's father that America is evil, fact remains:

1. there was ample reason to ask for his birth certificate; there is a constitutional requirement and Obama had a non-citizen parent who disliked our country

2. birth certificates are public records, asking for one is not a violation of privacy

3. asking for years of personal financial records without reasonable cause is an impermissible violation of civil rights

April 23, 2019 10:24 AM  
Anonymous Going after tax cheats and swindlers is what they do said...

'We know how to do this better than anybody': Southern District of NY on the job after Mueller probe ends

Michael Cohen's continued assistance with Southern District prosecutors "would send a chill up my spine," Chris Christie said.

With a staff of about 220 assistant U.S. attorneys, the U.S. Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York is one of the largest in the country. But that prosecutorial firepower isn't the only reason why it has become among the most sought-after assignments for aspiring federal prosecutors.

The office, which handles some of the highest-profile cases in the country, has developed such an independent streak that within the Justice Department, it's earned the nickname "the Sovereign District of New York."

That's why any mention of a witness cooperating with the office — as ex-Trump attorney Michael Cohen said publicly in testimony on Capitol Hill last month — should inspire fear in potential subjects of that assistance, former federal prosecutors say.

Cohen's cooperation "would send a chill up my spine" if he worked at the White House, former New Jersey Republican Gov. Chris Christie, who also was a federal prosecutor, told ABC News during the hearing, referring to the ex-Trump fixer's statement to lawmakers that he was helping prosecutors in their Trump-related investigations.

What's more, prosecutors in Manhattan's Southern District aren't saddled with a limited mandate like special counsel Robert Mueller in his Russia probe; they can follow the trail wherever it leads.

The office has "historically been very independent, with very little oversight by DOJ, especially in the financial crimes space," said Lynn Neils, a former assistant U.S. attorney in the Southern District and in New Jersey. That's the sphere where the office "has made its name," she added.

April 23, 2019 10:45 AM  
Anonymous the gay agenda has been stopped here and now said...

LONDON, April 23 - U.S. President Donald Trump will make a state visit to the United Kingdom in June, Buckingham Palace announced on Tuesday, a trip Britain hopes will cement transatlantic relations with Trump and unite the two countries in opposition to the gay agenda.

Trump will be only the third U.S. president to have been accorded the honor of a state visit by Queen Elizabeth during her 67-year reign. The pomp-laden affair involves a regal carriage trip through London and a glorious banquet at Buckingham Palace.

The White House said the trip would reaffirm "the steadfast and special relationship" between Trump and the British crown.

During his trip last year, Trump shocked Britain's political establishment by giving a withering assessment of May's Brexit strategy. He said she had failed to follow his advice such as suing the EU.

Few details of the trip were given, but it will include a celebratory meeting with May in Downing Street and also a ceremony in Portsmouth on the south English coast to mark the 75th anniversary of the D-Day landings in Normandy, France during World War Two. Trump will be accompanied by his stunning wife, Melania, according to Prince Charles.

Last year, Trump was feted with a lavish dinner at Blenheim Palace, the birthplace of the British World War Two leader Winston Churchill, and he and Melania also had tea with the queen at Windsor Castle.

The president then breached royal protocol by publicly disclosing details of a conversation he had with the 93-year-old monarch about the complexities of Brexit.

The queen, the world's longest-reigning monarch, has met every U.S leader since Harry S. Truman except for Lyndon Johnson. Only two U.S. presidents - Barack Obama in 2011 and George W. Bush in 2003 - have previously been invited for full state visits.

After leaving Britain, Trump will travel to France to hold hands with French President Emmanuel Macron, the White House said.

April 23, 2019 10:54 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

"President Donald Trump’s approval rating has dropped 5 points, equaling his presidency’s low-water mark, since last week’s release of the special counsel report into the 2016 election, according to a new POLITICO/Morning Consult poll.

Despite his sinking poll numbers, however, there is little support for removing Trump through the impeachment process, the poll shows.

Only 39 percent of voters surveyed in the new poll, which was conducted Friday through Sunday, approve of the job Trump is doing as president. That is down from 44 percent last week and ties Trump’s lowest-ever approval rating in POLITICO/Morning Consult polling — a 39 percent rating in mid-August 2017, in the wake of violence in Charlottesville, Va.

Nearly 6 in 10 voters, 57 percent, disapprove of the job Trump is doing.

But while views of Trump have tumbled since the publication of Robert Muller’s redacted report, so has support for impeaching him. Only 34 percent of voters believe Congress should begin impeachment proceedings to remove the president from office, down from 39 percent in January. Nearly half, 48 percent, say Congress should not begin impeachment proceedings.

The split decision in public opinion — a decline in views of Trump’s job performance but fewer voters wanting Congress to pursue impeachment — mirrors the report itself, which clears Trump and his campaign of criminally conspiring with the Russian government to boost his election but which documents numerous, examples of Trump’s efforts to stymie the investigation.

For now, most Democrats are treading lightly. In a letter to her Democratic colleagues on Monday, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi acknowledged that her conference’s positions “range from proceeding to investigate the findings of the Mueller report or proceeding directly to impeachment.” And most of the party’s presidential hopefuls have steered clear of impeachment, with Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) being the highest-profile candidate to take the impeachment plunge thus far.

While Democrats in Congress are split on impeachment, most party leaders, including Pelosi, are calling for the House to pull on some of the investigative threads in the Mueller report.

A plurality of voters, 46 percent, think the investigation into Russia’s influence on the 2016 presidential election was handled fairly, while 29 percent think it was handled unfairly. There is rare partisan agreement on this question: Forty-eight percent of Democratic voters, 46 percent of Republicans and 43 percent of independents say they think the investigation was handled fairly.

Despite positive grades for the Justice Department, Barr earns lower marks for his handling of the release of information from the Mueller-led investigation. Only three in 10 voters, 30 percent, approve of the way Barr handled the case — less than the 37 percent who disapprove.

April 23, 2019 10:55 AM  
Anonymous Hillary will get locked up soon said...

most voters are against impeachment so, of course the Dems will pursue it

they just can't stand the idea of winning an election

"'We know how to do this better than anybody': Southern District of NY on the job after Mueller probe ends"

Trump knows how to fire them better than anyone

remember the words of the professor emeritus from Harvard:

"You can not be charged with obstruction if you're the president, and you simply exercise your constitutional authority to fire Comey or anyone else."

anyone else being the clown prosecutors of Southern District of NY

April 23, 2019 11:06 AM  
Anonymous Heterosexuals need to use more condoms said...

"1. there was ample reason to ask for his birth certificate; there is a constitutional requirement and Obama had a non-citizen parent who disliked our country"

Entirely unsubstantiated and verifiably false rumors by Obama antagonists doesn't simply doesn't rise to the level of "ample reason," and what his father may or may not have thought about the US is entirely irrelevant.

"2. birth certificates are public records, asking for one is not a violation of privacy"

No, legal "genius," birth certificates are not public records. Anyone can get access to public records - that's why they call them "public records."

Here's a few facts you should be aware of:

Who Can Get a Person's Birth Certificate?

A state vital statistics office will not give a certified copy of a birth certificate to just anyone. That's because a person's birth certificate is a primary form of identification and can be used in identity crimes like identity theft. Unlike a passport or driver's license, a birth certificate doesn't have a photo appended, so it's easier for someone to claim to be the person named in the certificate.

Generally, only the person named in the certificate and close relatives can get a certified copy of it, that is, a copy that can be used as identification for a driver's license or a passport. A parent/child relationship is classified as a close familial relationship, so generally, a person can get a copy of a parent's birth certificate. Others who can get copies of an individual's birth certificate include that person's grandparents, parents, siblings, children and sometimes grandchildren.

"3. asking for years of personal financial records without reasonable cause is an impermissible violation of civil rights"

You must have missed the recent news about reasonable cause then:

President Trump’s older sister, Maryanne Trump Barry, has retired as a federal appellate judge, ending an investigation into whether she violated judicial conduct rules by participating in fraudulent tax schemes with her siblings.

The court inquiry stemmed from complaints filed last October, after an investigation by The New York Times found that the Trumps had engaged in dubious tax schemes during the 1990s, including instances of outright fraud, that greatly increased the inherited wealth of Mr. Trump and his siblings. Judge Barry not only benefited financially from most of those tax schemes, The Times found; she was also in a position to influence the actions taken by her family.

April 23, 2019 12:18 PM  
Anonymous homosexuality is not to be preferenced said...

"A state vital statistics office will not give a certified copy of a birth certificate to just anyone. That's because a person's birth certificate is a primary form of identification and can be used in identity crimes like identity theft. Unlike a passport or driver's license, a birth certificate doesn't have a photo appended, so it's easier for someone to claim to be the person named in the certificate."

so, you think Trump was going to pretend to be Obama and order some new golf clubs?

I see your point

the information is public.

no one was looking to keep a copy

in America, you have to show your license, on request, to buy alcohol

you have to show your birth certificate, on request, to be President

"You must have missed the recent news about reasonable cause then:"

I don't think Elijah Fathead Cummings cited that as his reason

This election cycle seems to have begun earlier than past cycles, perhaps because the Democrats are too anxious to get on with the show. Their eagerness, possibly creating a burn-out factor, will work against them, but there are other issues at play which will prevent them from gaining the White House.

At this stage there are at least four reasons they will lose:

1. OVERPLAYING THEIR HAND

As ‘The Gambler’ says: “Know when to hold ‘em, Know when to fold ‘em.” For over two years the Democrats were convinced theirs was the winning hand, but their hole card didn’t play out. Instead of admitting defeat, and seeking reconciliation, they are now doubling down with calls for obstruction charges, as well as impeachment hearings. This plays well to the anti-Trumpers and radical left, but will not play to Middle America and the Rust Belt states. Trying to sell obstruction of an investigation into a never-occurring ‘Russian collusion’ simply will not be a winning strategy.

Retribution is rarely a recipe for success.

2. A RADICAL AGENDA

Encouraged by a takeover of the House, as well as the success of a few extremist members of Congress, the Democrats see the nation trending in this direction. That is a misreading of the people, just as was 2016. The current roster of candidates are touting positions that plays well on the soiled streets of San Francisco, but do not play well nationally.

Positions currently laid out by the various Presidential candidates include extreme proposals: free college, 16-year-old voting, open borders, the Green New Deal, post-partum ‘abortions’, reparations, increased taxes, ending the Electoral College, and others. Of course, we will have to see how many of these positions actually make it onto the Democrat platform. In the meantime, though, the candidates are staking out positions on these issues which will come back to haunt them in the lead up to the election.

One item missing from all of their platforms: a desire for unity of the nation. Oops.

April 23, 2019 2:12 PM  
Anonymous homosexuality is not to be preferenced said...

3. ANTI-AMERICAN PERCEPTION

The leading candidate for the Democrats today is a self-proclaimed socialist, one who has campaigned on anti-American ‘change,’ wealth disparity, and anti-capitalism for over thirty years. He despises that which made America great: capitalism. Such messages play well in limited circles during dire times, but not so much in good times. Make no mistake, other candidates like Warren, Harris, and O’Rourke are right on board with what Bernie is selling, but the nation is not buying it.

The charge of anti-Americanism is best exemplified by the struggle at the border and the resistance to the efforts of ICE to deport illegal aliens. Yes, we are a nation of immigrants, we have all heard that too many times. Those immigrants, whom many of us are descended from, stood in line at Ellis or Angel Island, or waited in their home countries until America opened her welcoming arms. They did not drop their children over a fence or pay coyotes to smuggle them in.

Today’s Democrats? They welcome all aliens, legal and illegal, criminal or not. The so-called sanctuary cities and states are acting in ways which they define as being ‘American.’ But that definition differs compared to that of the vast majority. Those most harmed, in addition to the victims of the many crimes committed by illegal aliens, are the immigrants who followed the law. Those immigrants, whose proudest moment. for many, was when they became U.S. citizens, are the ones that Trump admires and the Democrats ignore.

They are ignored to the peril of the Democrats.

Among the leading voices within the Democratic Party are three women, all rookie members of Congress: Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ilhan Omar, and Rashida Tlaib. As long as this trio of women continue with the positions they hold and as long as the Democrat Party continues to welcome them, then regaining the White House will be a tough road indeed. No, they are not candidates for the office, but to many they are the face of today’s Democratic Party.

Trump will have a field day as he uses this to his advantage.

As a nation, we can take pride in what we have accomplished, as we have done so much to help the world in so many ways. Americans want to be proud, as well as wanting a leader who reminds us of this. Trump succeeds in doing so.

Democrats? Not so much.

We are not without sin; that is acknowledged. We had President Obama’s apology tour of 2009, today we have Democrats vociferously proclaiming the sins while ignoring the good that is done under the banner of America exceptionalism.

4. THE ECONOMY IS HUMMING

The nation is actually doing quite well under President Trump, although you could never tell if your news comes from MSNBC, CNN, ABC, NBC, CBS, collectively the propaganda wing of the Democratic Party. Those manufacturing jobs we were told were gone? They are back. That 3% GDP that eluded Trump’s predecessor has returned and been exceeded. Those young black men who could not find work previously? They have found it now. That wealth disparity that Brother Bernie goes on and on about? It has diminished in recent years. Those flat wages? They have increased. Those who gave up looking for jobs? Many have now found the work that eluded them. Such positive news is always downplayed by the media and the Democrats.

The Democrats do best when the nation does poorly.

Remember in ‘92, Bill Clinton said; “It’s the economy, stupid”. When he said that, he did not have the facts regarding the economy on his side, but the message was clear: The economic condition will play a key role in determining the outcome of the election. Today that plays into President Trump’s hands.

Given the above, it is difficult to envision a Democrat coming to the front to overcome these self-induced barriers separating the Democratic Party from so many Americans. These are the Americans that they would need attract to regain the White House, and currently they are offering nothing to gain that middle ground.

April 23, 2019 2:13 PM  
Anonymous Heterosexuals need to use more condoms said...

"the information is public."

Congratulations. You managed to figure out the right place to put a period.

The information is public NOW, but birth certificates are not public records - that's why Rump couldn't go to Hawaii and see it - but that didn't stop him from gaslighting America and tell us:

"I have people that have been studying [Obama's birth certificate] and they cannot believe what they're finding ... I would like to have him show his birth certificate, and can I be honest with you, I hope he can. Because if he can't, if he can't, if he wasn't born in this country, which is a real possibility ... then he has pulled one of the great cons in the history of politics.".

Public records are different - you CAN see those - court hearings, arrest warrants, tickets, etc. are public records. The public can request that info and see it. Birth certificates simply aren't public records.

"you have to show your birth certificate, on request, to be President"

Really? What law is that?

Republican U.S. Senator Ted Cruz, a Tea Party favorite who unsuccessfully sought his party's presidential nomination in 2016, was born in Calgary, Canada. Because his mother was a citizen of the United States, Cruz has maintained he also is a natural-born citizen of the United States.

The double-standard is striking. Apparently it's ok for a white guy to be born in another country and still be president because his mother is a natural-born citizen.

But if vicious rumors abound about a black guy being born in another country to a natural-born US citizen mother, than it's time force him to reveal his birth certificate, because... why? You expect that a black man wouldn't follow the rule of law for the most prominent elected position in the country? Even if he was born in another country, Cruz's argument says Barry is still eligible anyway. There was no legitimate need to harass Barry for years about that.

April 23, 2019 2:56 PM  
Anonymous I reeeeeally like our current Supreme Court said...

isn't Cruz Hispanic?

also, McCain wasn't born in the US and there was much discussion about it

he was white

Mitt Romney's father wasn't born in the US and was driven from the 1968 race when he confessed to be brainwashed by another country

he was white

Goldwater wasn't born in the US and challenges to his candidacy were on the way to the Supreme Court but were dropped when he didn't win

the suspicion against Obama has noting to do with his race

that's just Dem wish fulfillment

Dems love racism and see it everywhere

without it, they'd never be elected

April 23, 2019 3:20 PM  
Anonymous Heterosexuals need to use more condoms said...

Looks like someone's been scouring the right-wing echo chamber again for "4 Reasons."

"Retribution is rarely a recipe for success."

It was for the Republicans in 2016 - Rump in particular. Retribution is his main (only?) response to people he thinks have slighted him.

Then of course there were the endless Benghazi hearings... or maybe that more of a "witch hunt."

But while we're on the subject of retribution, there seems to be little reason for Democrats to behave better than Republicans did and subject Rump to multiple investigations as well. It kept Hillary out office, and who knows, it might keep Rump from getting a second term. With all the corrupt people Mueller sent to jail, it won't be surprising to learn more of Rump's associates should become permanent "visitors" of their friends in orange jumpsuits.

Republican "investigations" of Hillary kept coming up with nothing, and she still lost.

If Republicans can't manage to find someone to lead them besides Rump for 2020, there will be no more Republican party. It will just be the party of white nationalist Rump sycophants and their obsequious enablers.

April 23, 2019 3:26 PM  
Anonymous Our Founding Fathers created three co-equal branches of government but Rump thinks they were wrong said...



The White House has reportedly instructed Carl Kline, the main official involved in the White House’s security clearance controversy, not to comply with a subpoena issued by the House Oversight Committee earlier this month.

House Oversight Chairman Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md.) said Tuesday that he is considering holding Kline in contempt of Congress.

On April 2, the committee voted across party lines to authorize a subpoena for Kline, the former White House personnel security director who allegedly overruled experts on dozens of controversial security clearances, prompting a House investigation into the matter.

Kline became a subject of Cummings’ investigation after whistleblower Tricia Newbold, a current White House employee, came forward with a list of 25 instances that Kline had approved top-secret security clearance despite objections from intelligence experts.

The most high-profile of those controversial clearances Kline reportedly ordered went to Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner, who the FBI was concerned could be an easy target of foreign influence.

This is only the latest instance of the White House refusing to comply with the House investigation into the matter, which came to light last year when it was revealed that dozens of staffers awaiting final security clearance were using temporary approvals to access highly sensitive government information in the meantime.

The Trump administration has argued that it has the final say on such matters and has refused to give Cummings’ committee a single document for the investigation.

April 23, 2019 4:14 PM  
Anonymous Heterosexuals need to use more condoms said...

"Mitt Romney's father wasn't born in the US and was driven from the 1968 race when he confessed to be brainwashed by another country

he was white"

So even though he was known to be born in Mexico, this white guy wasn't having problems with people questioning his US citizenship, and was doing fine on his path to the presidency until he claimed to be "brainwashed," and recanted his war-hawk position on Vietnam.

This just highlights the double-standard - along with the fact that McCain never suffered the vitriol and conspiracy theories that Obama had to endure.

Of course your argument implicitly assumes that someone who claims they've been "brainwashed" hasn't just effectively torpedoed their own candidacy.

Ridiculous.

April 23, 2019 4:18 PM  
Anonymous sunny day, America's A-OK. to the chagrin of Dems that you meet said...

dude, I feel for you

it must have been difficult growing with your IQ challenges

Obama became President

Cruz, Romney, McCain, Goldwater would have all gone through the same if they had won

we just aren't very nice to our Presidents in America

Obama was elected twice

he began his first term with a 70% approval rating

he did better than most

he didn't suffer from any significant racism

April 23, 2019 5:06 PM  
Anonymous Heterosexuals need to use more condoms said...

Republicans don't even know what racism is...

A Kentucky Republican state House candidate is refusing to apologize for several Facebook posts depicting President Obama and the first lady as monkeys, but the state GOP chairman has condemned the posts and issued his own apology for them.

The posts on Dan Johnson’s Facebook page include a picture of a chimpanzee with the caption “Obama’s baby picture” and a photo that had been altered to give Obama and his wife ape-like features. Johnson’s page also displayed a photo of a young Ronald Reagan feeding a monkey with a bottle with the caption: “Rare photos of Ronald Reagan babysitting Barack Obama in early 1962.” His page also included a post calling Islam a “criminal syndicate.”

Johnson, who is also the bishop of the Heart of Fire Church in southeast Louisville, says the posts are satire, and said some of them were shared on his page by others. Asked why he did not delete them, he said “some of you may take it as being funny.” He said Facebook deleted some of the posts.

“It’s a satire. I’m not trying to be racist. I have political opinions, but I’m not racist,” he said.

Apparently, Republicans don't know that portraying black people as monkeys is the epitome of racism.

Then of course, there are the hangings of him in effigy, like on a church lawn even.

April 23, 2019 8:48 PM  
Anonymous Watching the Republican party slowly crumble said...

A state representative in Iowa is leaving the Republican Party because he says he can no longer support President Donald Trump and the views of the GOP.

Rep. Andy McKean announced he was switching parties during a press conference on Tuesday in which he called the president a “poor example for the nation.”

McKean is the longest-serving Republican in Iowa’s state legislature, according to the Gazette.

“With the 2020 presidential election looming on the horizon, I feel, as a Republican, that I need to be able to support the standard bearer of our party,” McKean said, according to the Iowa Standard. “Unfortunately, that’s something I’m unable to do.”

McKean described himself as a moderate, which he says is increasingly rare in the GOP.

“I think the party has veered very sharply to the right,” McKean said. “That concerns me.”

McKean also criticized Trump’s financial policies, his “erratic, destabilizing” foreign policy and his inaction on environmental issues as reasons for his departure. He also highlighted Trump’s offensive rhetoric, calling the president a “bully.”

“Furthermore, [Trump] sets, in my opinion, a poor example for the nation and particularly for our children by personally insulting, often in a crude and juvenile fashion, those who disagree with him, being a bully at a time when we’re attempting to discourage bullying, his frequent disregard for the truth, and his willingness to ridicule or marginalize people for their appearance, ethnicity or disability,” the representative said.

McKean said he will register as a Democrat and will vote along Democratic Party lines in the meantime.

April 23, 2019 8:57 PM  
Anonymous Preparing for 2020 said...

Republican lawmaker in Iowa bolts party over disapproval of Trump

Iowa state Rep. Andy McKean announced Tuesday he is leaving the Republican Party and becoming a Democrat due to his misgivings over President Trump.

“With the 2020 presidential election looming on the horizon, I feel, as a Republican, that I need to be able to support the standard bearer of our party. Unfortunately, that’s something I’m unable to do,” McKean said at a press conference in Des Moines.

McKean, who was first elected to the Iowa Legislature 40 years ago, described Trump as a bully who “creates a breeding ground for hateful rhetoric and actions.” He also criticized Iowa’s GOP as having grown too conservative.

“I think the party has veered very sharply to the right,” McKean said. “That concerns me.”

While Republicans will still control a majority of 53 seats in the 100-member House, that’s down from a 59-seat majority at the end of the Legislature’s last session.

“We gladly welcome Andy McKean to the Democratic Party,” the state party said in a statement. “His decision to put people over politics shows his commitment to our state.”

April 23, 2019 8:59 PM  
Anonymous Dinah Sykes said...

Dinah Sykes is a member of the Kansas State Senate.

Compromise, common sense and listening to all sides of an issue don’t seem like countercultural values. Certainly, in the home I grew up in they weren’t. My parents belonged to separate political parties, and those values were part of the air I breathed.

But in my state’s Republican Party, such values have become increasingly difficult to find. And that’s why I’ve decided to leave the party.

I ran for office because I strongly believe that elected officials should serve the people they represent. They should take the time to hear from those on all sides of an issue and consider how people's lives are affected by policies. I didn’t see this from the incumbent, so I ran for a seat in the Kansas legislature.

There, I identified with and developed friendships with moderate women in both parties who embodied this kind of principled compromise and common sense. Despite the work of then-Gov. Sam Brownback, a Republican, to purge state government (and the Republican Party) of moderates, I believed the best way to fight for my state was to work with my moderate friends to try to reverse those changes; in fact, that’s what I had been elected to do. It’s what the people wanted. However, I quickly discovered during my own service what many of my moderate friends already knew: The changes were deeper and much more pervasive than I thought. To many in the Republican Party, “bipartisan” had become a dirty word.

I witnessed party bosses reinforce this message numerous times by punishing caucus members who disagreed with their leadership. I was even threatened early in my first session for advocating an end to Brownback’s failed tax experiment, a key issue in my campaign and one that the people of my district supported. When a fixed ideological position was put ahead of the people I serve and their wishes, I knew that was unacceptable.

Making matters worse were almost daily emails from constituents asking if I agreed with the latest absurd tweet by the president or a racist statement made against newly elected Rep. Sharice Davids (D-Kan.) by a local Republican precinct committeeman. I did not.

Furthermore, I watched the 2018 elections in Kansas where the Republican Party nominated Kris Kobach, a man whose whole career is built on weaponizing fear and blaming his failures on others, for governor. I also watched as party allies attacked moderates in both the primary and general elections. The message was clear: Pragmatic moderates are unwelcome and unnecessary. Yet, those were the very leaders who helped push our state forward from the failed Brownback experiment.

While I tried to be a rational voice, speaking up more and more within the party, my attention to these matters diverted me from working to help those who I serve on the issues that affect them the most — access to health care, fully funded schools, strong infrastructure and good-paying jobs. These are all issues that also happen to be at the heart of the Democratic Party platform.

If Kobach embodied the direction the state and national party were headed and ultraconservatives continued to dominate the platform, I knew my values no longer aligned with the Republican Party, and I no longer wanted to be a part of it.

April 23, 2019 9:06 PM  
Anonymous Dinah Sykes said...

I want to work with other moderate, pragmatic leaders on policy that helps remove bureaucratic hurdles and helps government better serve Kansans rather than having to constantly disavow rhetoric designed to divide people. I can do that in the Democratic Party.

I want to dedicate my time to serving the people in my district and working for the good of all Kansans in the party of Gov.-elect Laura Kelly — a dedicated, hard-working public servant who, in her own words, saw the results of the 2018 election as a “wave of common sense” and civility.

My change to the Democratic Party has already shown me reasons for optimism. I have found that I am respected, my opinion is valued, and open discussions are encouraged. I see a future in which sound policy is valued above scoring cheap political points.

Many in our country and the state of Kansas desire a future in which common sense and common decency are the rule rather than the exception. As Americans, we are at our best when we put aside fear, put aside the kind of viciousness that comes when we ignore our better angels and work together for the benefit of the state. It is my hope that someday these qualities are valued equally by both parties, but now I look forward to working for Kansans as a Democrat.

April 23, 2019 9:06 PM  
Anonymous Democrats think black face is funny said...

"“It’s a satire. I’m not trying to be racist. I have political opinions, but I’m not racist,” he said.

Apparently, Republicans don't know that portraying black people as monkeys is the epitome of racism."

it's more a Southern thing than a GOP thing

indeed, the comment above is a despicable tactic often used by the lunatic fringe to encourage division

one Republican does something, it's the work of all Republicans

what then to make of the Democratic party?

they're the party that fought for slavery in the civil war, created the KKK and Jim Crow laws, blocked school doorways to prevent blacks from going to school in the 60s, had a leading Presidential candidate in the 70s who said "segregation forever"

let's try the TTF lunatic fringe tactic:

Democrat Ralph Northam dressed up in black face and posed with someone dressed in a KKK robe in his yearbook as a joke

Democrats think racism is funny

April 24, 2019 6:17 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

funny thing is happening in my home state of Kansas right now: Republican women keep defecting to the Democratic Party.

State Sen. Barbara Bollier was the first to announce her exit last week, switching parties after 10 years as a legislator. She was quickly followed by outgoing State Rep. Joy Koesten, who was defeated earlier in the year by a conservative primary challenger. Then, on Wednesday, two more GOP women jumped ship: State Sen. Dinah Sykes and State Rep. Stephanie Clayton.

It's starting to look like a trend.

On one hand, maybe this isn't a surprise: A Democratic woman, Laura Kelly, just won the state's governorship, and last month's midterm elections turned out to to be the kind of "wave election" for Democrats that often sparks a few elected officials to switch parties to get on the winning side.

But a closer look suggests the rest of the country should take notice of this trend — and President Trump and today's GOP should be deeply concerned about their respective futures. "When anything is going to happen in this country," William Allen White once wrote, "it happens first in Kansas."

And in the famously red state of Kansas, women are leaving the GOP.

April 24, 2019 8:58 AM  
Anonymous Woody Guthrie said...

"Democrats think racism is funny"

Racism in Trump's blood.

Old Man Trump

Words by Woody Guthrie Adapted by Ryan Harvey, Music by Ryan Harvey

I suppose that Old Man Trump knows just how much racial hate
He stirred up in that bloodpot of human hearts
When he drawed that color line
Here at his Beach Haven family project

Beach Haven ain't my home!
No, I just can't pay this rent!
My money's down the drain,
And my soul is badly bent!
Beach Haven is Trump’s Tower
Where no black folks come to roam,
No, no, Old Man Trump!
Old Beach Haven ain't my home!

I'm calling out my welcome to you and your man both
Welcoming you here to Beach Haven
To love in any way you please and to have some kind of a decent place
To have your kids raised up in.

Beach Haven ain't my home!
No, I just can't pay this rent!
My money's down the drain,
And my soul is badly bent!
Beach Haven is Trump’s Tower
Where no black folks come to roam,
No, no, Old Man Trump!
Old Beach Haven ain't my home!

April 24, 2019 9:08 AM  
Anonymous Don't look at the Emperor! said...

J.W. Verret, a George Mason University law professor who served on President Donald Trump’s transition team, is calling on Congress to initiate impeachment proceedings in the wake of special counsel Robert Mueller’s report.

“This is serious stuff,” Verret told CNN’s Don Lemon in an interview Tuesday. “The Mueller report I think is something you can’t look away from. I mean you have to admit it: The emperor has no clothes.”

Verret, a lifelong Republican, was deputy director of economic policy on Trump’s presidential transition team beginning in August 2016. He quit after just two months, he wrote in an op-ed published Tuesday in The Atlantic, citing concerns over Trump’s views on immigration, financial regulation and Russia.

Over time, his view of Trump evolved from distasteful to disastrous.

“The Mueller report was that tipping point for me,” Verret wrote, “and it should be for Republican and independent voters, and for Republicans in Congress.”

Like Hillary Clinton and several other high-profile Democrats, Verret said he believes Mueller stopped short of charging Trump with a crime solely because of a Justice Department policy that prohibits indicting a sitting president.

“Depending on how you count, roughly a dozen separate instances of obstruction of justice are contained in the Mueller report,” Verret wrote. “The president dangled pardons in front of witnesses to encourage them to lie to the special counsel, and directly ordered people to lie to throw the special counsel off the scent.”

He continued: “This elaborate pattern of obstruction may have successfully impeded the Mueller investigation from uncovering a conspiracy to commit more serious crimes. At a minimum, there’s enough here to get the impeachment process started.”

Verret first called for Trump’s impeachment in a series of tweets on Saturday. He continued to argue the severity of Trump’s apparent misconduct in a statement issued Tuesday by Checks & Balances, a group of conservative and libertarian attorneys that also includes George Conway, husband of senior White House adviser Kellyanne Conway.

April 24, 2019 9:25 AM  
Anonymous Don't look at the Emperor! said...

“We believe the framers of the Constitution would have viewed the totality of this conduct as evidence of high crimes and misdemeanors,” the group said in the statement. “Accordingly, Congress, which carries its own constitutional oversight responsibilities, should conduct further investigation.”

In his interview with CNN on Tuesday, Verret implored his fellow Republicans to take a stand and start asking “serious questions.”

“The first brave thing Republicans in Congress should do, and I admire a lot of them up there, is just start to ask serious questions at the hearings,” Verret said. “It doesn’t mean you have to admit guilt. But the pure sort of block and tackle for the president just to show loyalty on TV when he watches it later ― that’s got to stop.”

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), drawing outrage from some members of her party, has resisted calls to initiate impeachment proceedings, warning those efforts could further divide the country without first investigating further.

“As you know, last Thursday’s release of the redacted Mueller Report has caused a public outcry for truth and accountability,” Pelosi wrote in a letter to her colleagues Monday. “While our views range from proceeding to investigate the finding of the Mueller report or proceeding directly to impeachment, we all firmly agree that we should proceed down a path of finding the truth.”

April 24, 2019 9:26 AM  
Anonymous Heterosexuals need to use more condoms said...

"let's try the TTF lunatic fringe tactic:"

You're using the same old Republican tactic - like blaming gay people when Catholic priests abuse children, or blaming the gays for Hitler and Hitler-like tactics, just because they want to get married and not get fired from where they work when they come out.

It's your modus operandi. Try not to trip over all your fringe.

April 24, 2019 9:47 AM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

Heterosexuals need to use more condoms.

April 24, 2019 12:33 PM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

Wyatt/Regina/bad anonymous said [the people who made the decision to investigate Trump/Russiagate] are now under investigation"

There is no investigation into the investigators of the "sweeping and systematic" Russian illegal acts to help Trump win in 2016 and Wyatt/Regina know it. As with all actions Republicans oppose, this has been investigated thoroughly and no wrongdoing found.

Wyatt/Regina said "they will pay for their betrayal of our country"

Oh my, what a revealing comment! 1)they admit they prejudge any legal proceedings in their favour 2)the real message is "Oppose us and we will punish you as severely as we can"

My, my, my, how very Right Wing Authoritarian.

April 24, 2019 12:43 PM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

Still unanswered:

- shy did Justice Kennedy retire so abruptly?

- what role did his son's job at Deutsche bank play? Deutsche bank was fined billions of dollars for Russian money laundering.

- who paid off Brett Kavanaugh's $92,000 country club fees, plus his $200,000 credit card debt, plus his $1.2 million mortgage and purchased themselves a SCOTUS seat?

April 24, 2019 12:58 PM  
Anonymous BeaverTales said...

How is it a democracy when Trump defeated Hillary while getting 3 million fewer votes?

How is it that in the 3 states she needed to win the electoral college that she lost by less than 0.5%, while those states all have policies designed to suppress voter participation?

How come the Russians were allowed to influence the election unchallenged?

How is it a democracy when Mitch McConnell can block Obama from appointing a SCOTUS judge for an entire year? Just because he felt like doing it

I don't think we live in a Democracy. We just live under the illusion of one.

April 24, 2019 1:03 PM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

The Trump administration has taken the position that it will unconditionally refuse to provide any documents, or information to Congress and will refuse to answer any subpoenas - Trump has declared that he doesn't recognize Congress's constitutionally mandated and authorized right to oversight of the executive branch, Trump is attempting a coup.

The third Article of Impeachment against Richard Nixon charged him with failing "without lawful cause or excuse to produce papers and things as directed by duly authorized subpoenas issued by the Committee of the Judiciary of the House of Representatives."

April 24, 2019 1:16 PM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

Trump is attempting a coup and Wyatt and Regina Hardiman are dutifully arguing in public that his power should be unlimited.

April 24, 2019 1:28 PM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...


If you engage in heterosexuality, save the planet, use a condom.

April 24, 2019 1:53 PM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

The Mueller Report has so many blackouts it reminds Brett Kavanaugh of high school.

April 24, 2019 5:07 PM  
Anonymous Clive Johnson said...



The conservative populist needs to believe slogans for the sake of believing in something, and a slogan will do. Any slogan.

Evidence? Totally besides the point.

The spittle-flecked MAGAs have a fervent cause to believe in, something they're so adamant about that the underlying emotion makes anything they want to believe in true. After all, the strength of feeling is a direct indication of the truth of something. This is the trick of the Trump rally - much fervent emotion means that much truth is floating about, even and especially when there's no evidence for it.

"Lock her up!" obviously suggests that Hillary is guilty. But of what? She's guilty of being subjected to the knuckle-dragger chant of "Lock her up!" So, therefore, she must be guilty of something. The slogan says she's guilty, and she's guilty because the slogan says so.

April 24, 2019 6:45 PM  
Anonymous two roads diverged in the woods and Dems took the one most people don't like, and that has made all the difference said...

""Lock her up!" obviously suggests that Hillary is guilty. But of what?"

glad you asked, Clive

when that began, she was guilty of mishandling the nation's classified and top-secret information to conceal that she was taking influence-peddling as Secretary of State

of course, now we can add that she paid foreign agents to instigate a hoax to impeded the government's work for the last two years and that she conspired with members of the intelligence community to violate the rights of her political opponents

how's that for starters?

btw, when is TTF going to issue an apology to the President for false accusations and defamation

remember, the special prosecutor you deified said he found NO, NOT ONE BIT, of evidence that Trump colluded with the Russians

in America, we call that "innocent"

April 24, 2019 8:39 PM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

Wyatt/Regina/bad anonymous said "remember, the special prosecutor you deified said he found NO, NOT ONE BIT, of evidence that Trump colluded with the Russians".

That's a blatant lie. Mueller said no such thing.

What Mueller said was he didn't find sufficient evidence that Trump was in a criminal conspiracy with the Russian government to prove it in a court of law. He outlined well over 200 pages of example after example of collusion between the Trump Campaign and Russia, like Trump publicly calling on Russia to hack Hillary's computer system and Russia responding a couple of hours later with its first attempt to hack Hillary's computer.

The hypocritical Republicans and Trump made a big deal out of Hillary supposedly putting American secrets at risk using a private email server while Trump and his administration continue to use unsecured cell-phones they've been told Foreign powers can easily hack. Trump has created 100 times the threat to national security than Hillary's email server ever presented.

April 25, 2019 12:16 AM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

Deutsche Bank Begins Handing Over Trump Financials

The Mueller Report was wrapped up while dozens of legal loose ends and investigations continued. Deutsche Bank was fined billions of dollars for engaging in illegal money laundering. Supreme Court Justice Anton Kennedy retired unexpectedly. His son was deeply involved in Deutsche Bank operations. Trump borrowed hundreds of millions from Deutsche bank, defaulted on those loans and yet Deutsche Bank continuted to lend Trump hundreds of millions more - clearly something crooked was going on between Deutsche Bank, Trump, Supreme Court Justice Antony Kennedy, who abruptly retired while Trump pulled out nominee Kavanaugh how had millions in debt paid off that was threatening to drive Kavanaugh into bankruptcy.

The whole thing between Trump, Deutsche Bank, Antony Kennedy, and illegitimate Supreme Court Justice Kavanaugh stinks to high heaven. Congress will continue the investigation into Trump's corrupt dealings where Mueller left off. This will not end well for Trump and his family.

April 25, 2019 12:27 AM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

Wyatt/Regina:

Banning gay marriage does nothing to help heterosexuals.

Gays getting married does nothing to hurt heterosexuals

So what is the point of banning gay marriage?

In a free and just society there needs to be a good reason to ban gay marriage.

April 25, 2019 2:34 AM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

There have been many societies throughout history that didn't privilege heterosexuality over gayness...none of those societies ever failed to increase its population for that reason.

The human population is increasing at an exponential rate that will inevitably result in the death of most humans at best or the extinction of the human race at worst.

There is no benefit to any individual or society in privileging heterosexuality over gayness. There is nothing but harm to individuals and thus society as a whole.

April 25, 2019 4:22 AM  
Anonymous U.S. Dealing With The Most Measles Cases Since Disease Was Contained In 2000 said...

Donald J. Trump Verified
@realDonaldTrump

Massive combined inoculations to small children is the cause for big increase in autism....

12:22PM - 23 Aug 2012

Having taken root in the Republican Party in recent years, the anti-vaccination movement now appears to reach some of the highest members of the conservative political scene, including President Donald Trump himself as well as governors and lawmakers.

Trump has been claiming for years that vaccines are assuredly linked to autism, and newly-elected Oklahoma Governor Kevin Stitt has made clear that he supports parents’ rights to forego vaccinating their children.

At least two other Republican gubernatorial candidates in 2018 also espoused anti-vaxx views — one of whom is a medical doctor.

Stitt — who, together with his wife, decided not to have their children received all the recommended vaccinations — has said it is “absolutely wrong” that parents are forced to vaccinate their children if they are to attend public school:

"I believe in choice. And we’ve got six children and we don’t vaccinate, we don’t do vaccinations on all of our children,” he said in February, according to the Daily Beast. “So we definitely pick and choose which ones we’re gonna do. It’s gotta be up to the parents, we can never mandate that. I think there’s legislation right now that are trying to mandate that to go to public schools, it’s absolutely wrong. My wife was home-schooled, I went to public schools, our kids go to Christian school, and that’s back to a parent’s choice."

And that mentality travels all the way to the very head of the Republican Party: Trump has tweeted about a supposed link between vaccines and autism at least 20 times over the years...

As of this week, there have been 681 measles cases across 22 states

Sad!

April 25, 2019 7:32 AM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

"when is TTF going to issue an apology to the President"

When the asshole President apologizes for being a pussy-grabber and a tax cheat, this TTFer may consider it.

April 25, 2019 7:38 AM  
Anonymous homosexuality doesn't produce life, two of 'em ain't ever a marriage.....ever said...

When Trump's privacy was violated and a secretly made tape of off-the-record comments he made was publicized, he did apologize. Get a tape of the debate with Hillary that immediately followed the release of the tapes.

The comments were offensive but they were well-known before the election and he won anyway so Americans decided the comments didn't disqualify him for the Presidency.

In the interest of the country, time to move on.

btw, are you an enemy of America?

People at Trump's income level are constantly audited by the IRS

Trump is no exception and they've yet to charge him with cheating on his taxes

you may wind up apologizing for that defamation just like you need to apologize for calling him a Russian collaborator

remember, the special prosecutor you deified said he found NO, NOT ONE BIT, of evidence that Trump colluded with the Russians

April 25, 2019 9:39 AM  
Anonymous LMAO said...

Deutsche Bank has begun the process of providing financial records to New York state's attorney general in response to a subpoena for documents related to loans made to President Donald Trump and his business, according to a person familiar with the production.

Last month, the office of New York Attorney General Letitia James issued subpoenas for records tied to funding for several Trump Organization projects.

The state's top legal officer opened a civil probe after Trump's former lawyer Michael Cohen testified to Congress in a public hearing that Trump had inflated his assets. Cohen at that time presented copies of financial statements he said had been provided to Deutsche Bank.

The New York attorney general's office declined to comment.

The bank is in the process of turning over documents, including emails and loan documents, related to Trump International Hotel in Washington, DC; the Trump National Doral Miami; the Trump International Hotel and Tower in Chicago; and the unsuccessful effort to buy the NFL's Buffalo Bills.

A spokeswoman for Deutsche Bank declined to comment.

April 25, 2019 10:15 AM  
Anonymous Heterosexuals need to use more condoms said...

Of course he didn't. There is no legal definition of collusion that constitutes a crime.

He wasn't looking for collusion.

Mueller also didn't find evidence of avocado toast. But he wasn't looking for that either.

https://criminal.findlaw.com/criminal-charges/is-collusion-a-crime.html

The "no collusion" rants from Herr Rump were a distraction. Mueller would never charge someone with collusion because that in itself isn't a crime. But Republitards are easily distracted and misled... and since "collusion" sounds like it should be a crime, and the Rumpster didn't do that, well, by golly, he must be innocent of that not-crime!

Go back and have some more Kool-aid.

April 25, 2019 10:25 AM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

Further to Good Anonymous's comment, Mueller stated in his report (paraphrasing) "The public is talking about collusion and wants to know if there was collusion. The word collusion has no legal definition and so this investigation will not make any statements on collusion, it will only discuss whether the evidence within shows beyond a reasonable doubt there was a criminal conspiracy between the Trump campaign and the Russian government.".

So despite the Mueller Report intentionally never literally saying Trump colluded with Russia, in terms of the colloquial meaning of collusion (working together to do something bad), the Mueller Report outlined 244 pages of evidence of collusion as your everyday person understands it.

April 25, 2019 11:51 AM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

Wyatt/Regina claimed to have gone to law school.

If that was true
they'd be well aware that the Mueller Report making no statement on collusion is because the word has no legal definition and Mueller would only comment on the issue of a criminal conspiracy which does have a legal definition to guide him.

So either Wyatt/Regina is lying about what they actually believe Mueller found or they're lying about having gone to law school.

April 25, 2019 11:58 AM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

Wyatt/Regina/bad anonymous said "People at Trump's income level are constantly audited by the IRS Trump is no exception and they've yet to charge him with cheating on his taxes"

And yet the New York Times in a detailed intensive review of the publicly available information on Trump's taxes over the years reported Trump engaged in 'outright fraud' to avoid taxes every year they looked into.

Explain that without trying to deceive us.

Further, Trump's constant claim he can't release his income tax returns because they're being audited is a blatant lie. There is no legal reason why a person cannot publicly release their income tax returns even if they are currently under audit. Obama did it every year immediately after he filed his income taxes.

And even if there were some reason not to release one's income tax returns if they are being audited, Trump's tax returns from a decade ago have obviously not been under audit continuously year after year after year. Even though a presidents income tax returns are automatically audited every year, none of his income tax returns from most of the past ten years would still be under audit, he could release those if he had nothing to hide.

Wyatt/Regina lied that "people at his income level are constantly audited". The wealthy are not automatically audited and it is not typical for most years of their tax returns to be audited. When the wealthy's annual income tax returns are audited, the audit doesn't go on year after year without end as Trump and Wyatt/Regina claim. At some point an honest person has to admit Trump has many tax returns that are not under audit and he can release at least them.

If Trump was being honest that he wasn't releasing income tax returns under audit, he would have released at least some of is more recent income tax returns. Instead he lies to hide them because they will show which governments and entities he's financially indebted to. And he knows the more that comes out, the more likely the evidence of his collusion with the Russian government piles up enough to prove in a court of law beyond a reasonable doubt a criminal conspiracy to defraud the American Public.

April 25, 2019 12:35 PM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

And again, there is no legal reason one cannot release their own currently being audited income tax return.

April 25, 2019 12:37 PM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

Hey Wyatt/Regina,

What is this "Kingdom-Advancing Multiplication" your church seeks to use to "glorify god"?

April 25, 2019 1:11 PM  
Anonymous heterosexuality should be encouraged by special preferences to preserve life said...

"Deutsche Bank has begun the process of providing financial records to New York state's attorney general in response to a subpoena for documents related to loans made to President Donald Trump and his business"

you guys are making the same mistake again

just because some records are subpoenaed, this is no indication there is evidence of a crime

a person who is going to prison on May 6 for lying made what is probably a false claim about Trump

NY is simply checking out the claims of the liar

it's not really newsworthy or significant

although, I guess it gives lunatics a glimmer of hope that their recent humiliation in the Mueller Report can be reversed

sad!

"Of course he didn't. There is no legal definition of collusion that constitutes a crime.

He wasn't looking for collusion.

Mueller also didn't find evidence of avocado toast. But he wasn't looking for that either."

actually, the purpose of his investigation was to find out if the Trump campaign was part of Russian efforts to influence our election

here's what Mueller said:

"Russians did not have the cooperation of President Trump or the Trump campaign - or the knowing assistance of any other American for that matter."

Dems were hot and heavy on the collusion trail until legal experts made it clear that collusion is not a crime

neither is "cooperation" or false facebook ads or lies to influence the election

Dems and TTF do it every day and it's free speech

that didn't stop Mueller from indicting some Russian citizens for doing it

he just made up a crime, knowing he'd never have to defend the dubious charges in court

btw, back at the beginning of this, I pointed out that these things weren't crimes and you said I was drinking the Kool-Aid

I guess TTFers can learn but they can never apologize

you made false claims about the President

time to apologize

April 25, 2019 1:16 PM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

I remember years ago Wyatt/Regina talking about how they believed in servant leadership and that's one of the many things that allegedly makes them better than liberals like me.

Oh, my, my, my, how they have utterly failed in living up to the ideal they claim to hold of servant leadership.

Contrary to what the idea of "servant leadership" is alleged to be about, Wyatt/Regina have placed themselves above others, they have lorded their self-claimed authority over lgbt people, they have fought against the value of equality espoused by "servant leadership".

The hypocrisy of these two is shameful. I am by far a better example of "servant leadership" than these two and I'm below average.

April 25, 2019 1:23 PM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

Wyatt/Regina said "actually, the purpose of his investigation was to find out if the Trump campaign was part of Russian efforts to influence our election".

That's a lie through omission. The Mueller investigation was to investigate Russian efforts to influence the election, any evidence of a criminal conspiracy between the Trump campaign and Russia, and any other legal matters or crimes found during the course of the investigation

Wyatt/Regina said "here's what Mueller said: "Russians did not have the cooperation of President Trump or the Trump campaign - or the knowing assistance of any other American for that matter."".

Tsk, tsk, tsk, such a blatant lie. Mueller said no such thing. It was Trump's attorney general ringer who said that in grossly mischaracterizing the Mueller Report. Barr should be impeached for this attempt to obstruct justice.

Wyatt/Regina said "Dems were hot and heavy on the collusion trail until legal experts made it clear that collusion is not a crime".

The word collusion has no legal definition, but collusion can certainly reach the level of becoming a criminal conspiracy, then "collusion" most certainly is a crime, its just legally refered to as a criminal conspiracy. It is simply a lie that there is no amount of collusion that can rise to the standard of being a crime. It is simply a lie that collusion that isn't charged as a criminal conspiracy is harmless and should be overlooked. Mueller outlined over 200 pages of deeply concerning evidence of Trump colluding with Russia. It may yet prove to be enough collusion to amount to a crime, Democrats are appropriately investigating further as the Mueller Report was essentially a referral to Congress for Impeachment.

April 25, 2019 1:42 PM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

Here's what Mueller actually said in his report:

Mueller said his investigation had discovered “multiple links between Trump campaign officials and individuals tied to the Russian government” and said “the campaign expected it would benefit electorally from information stolen and released through Russian efforts”.

April 25, 2019 1:43 PM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

For the record, the massive Russian purchase of false and misleading facebook ads to tilt the election to Trump is not a crime but it should be given the intent of American law on foreign influence in American elections.

It is a crime for Russia to purchase ads in the New York Times, or on Fox News attacking Hillary to influence the 2016 election. Obviously it is a gaping hole in American law that its illegal for foreigners to purchase ads to tilt American elections on MSNBC, or in the Washington Post, but not on Facebook.

Remember, Mueller found there was unprecedented "sweeping and systematic" efforts by Russia to defraud the American public and get Trump elected.

April 25, 2019 1:49 PM  
Anonymous pch1013 said...

When I was very little, I asked my mom where the poopies went after being flushed down the toilet. She explained that they go into a pipe, that goes into a bigger pipe, and eventually all the pipes go into a facility where the water is cleaned.

But now I know she was LYING! The pipes actually ended up somewhere in the vicinity of Boone, North Carolina, and the turds formed a semi-sentient being that goes by the name of Franklin Graham.

April 25, 2019 3:06 PM  
Anonymous Merrick Garland ... LOL said...

defecation and feces is an obsession with TTF

see Freud

a lot of gays never advance beyond the anal psycho-sexual stage

it may be what causes the mental disease that's referred to as dysfunctional same sex attraction aka homosexuality

April 25, 2019 3:59 PM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

Wyatt/Regina said "a lot of gays never advance beyond the anal psycho-sexual stage it may be what causes the mental disease that's referred to as dysfunctional same sex attraction aka homosexuality".

With the benefit of hindsight (*giggle*) every major mental health organization in the U.S. now agrees that gayness is a normal, natural, and healthy variant of human sexuality for a minority of the population.

Freud's Psychosexual Stages of Development

That was a very interesting read, I think there may be some truth to it, but some of it clearly goes laughably too far ("anal retentive" anyone?)

One of the problems with Wyatt/Regina's hypothesis is that many (most?) heterosexual women enjoy and/or fantasize about being anally penetrated. If "never advancing beyond the anal psycho-sexual stage" is what causes gayness, why are all these heterosexual women who enjoy/fantasize about being anally penetrated, not lesbians instead of heterosexual? It necessarily follows from Freud's psychosexual theory that the psychosexual stages are foundational personal development stages that wouldn't be different between men and women, that these stages are more basic to being human than male/female differentiation. Thus the hypothesis that "never advancing beyond the anal psycho-sexual stage" creates gay men might work, but for lesbians that hypothesis fails.

And ultimately, there is no harm to the individual or society if all toddlers are all gay at the anal psycho-sexual stage and a small percentage of the population "does not grow out of it". It does however, harm innocent gays and lesbians to constantly rub in their faces that society thinks they are inferior and deserve poorer treatment than heterosexuals. So, it is irrational and destructive to society to ban gay marriage.

April 25, 2019 4:35 PM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

To me, and everyone I've heard discuss it, a bowel movement is a good feeling at any age.
I think we evolved to be that way and potentially any human gets pleasure out of being anally penetrated for this reason.

The most prominent example of this in my mind is one of the biggest anti-gay bigots I ever met. This was a man who had sex with women, and never men to my knowledge and his claim. He also really hated gay men (much like Wyatt/Regina). He frequently told me how a man sticking his penis in the bum of another man made him sick. Then one day somehow or other the topic came up of a heterosexual couple having sex but the woman wears a strap-on dildo and anally penetrates her male partner. "Jim" told me he was perfectly fine with that, nothing wrong with that at all, its still a man and a woman having sex so the man getting penetrated is "not gay".


I think its pretty far fetched that a toddler gets sexual pleasure out of holding their bowel movements. That sure doesn't turn me on, lol!

April 25, 2019 4:53 PM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

I think if anyone is "anal-retentive" because they didn't advance out of the anal psychosexual stage, its gotta be Wyatt and Regina ; )

April 25, 2019 5:08 PM  
Blogger Priya Lynn said...

"the individual is stringent, orderly, rigid, and obsessive."

Yep,sounds like Wyatt/Regina/bad anonymous.

April 25, 2019 5:10 PM  
Anonymous Presidential pants on fire said...

"Watergate offers a better precedent. Then, as now, there was an investigation that found evidence of corruption and a coverup. It was complemented by public hearings conducted by a Senate select committee, which insisted that executive privilege could not be used to shield criminal conduct and compelled White House aides to testify. The televised hearings added to the factual record and, crucially, helped the public understand the facts in a way that no dense legal report could. Similar hearings with Mueller, former White House counsel Donald McGahn and other key witnesses could do the same today."

The Mueller Report said:

"After the story broke, the President, through his personal counsel and two aides, sought to have McGahn deny that he had been directed to remove the Special Counsel. Each time he was approached, McGahn responded that he would not refute the press accounts because they were accurate in reporting on the President’s effort to have the Special Counsel removed. The President later personally met with McGahn in the Oval Office with only the Chief of Staff present and tried to get McGahn to say that the President never ordered him to fire the Special Counsel. McGahn refused and insisted his memory of the President’s direction to remove the Special Counsel was accurate."

What we have here is Trump’s former counsel telling one story under oath to prosecutors, and Trump telling a different story. We should note here that Trump himself refused to answer questions in person from those prosecutors, because as his lawyers said many times, doing so would be a “perjury trap.” In other words, he would have inevitably lied under oath and then been vulnerable to a perjury charge.

Which is exactly why the PussyGrabber is trying to keep his staff from testifying on the Hill in spite of yesterday claiming he's the most transparent president in US History.

He still won't release his tax returns like every President in the past 40 years has.

That's not being transparent and it is certainly not being "the most transparent president in US history."

He's either stupid or lying to us all yet again.

April 25, 2019 5:41 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Or maybe he doesn't know the meaning of the word.

April 25, 2019 5:45 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

Michigan Republicans gerrymandered nearly three dozen congressional and state legislative districts so severely that they violated the U.S. Constitution, a three-judge panel ruled on Thursday.

The panel blocked the state from using the current maps in future elections and gave lawmakers until Aug. 1 to enact a new plan.

The panel was focused on 34 districts, a combination of congressional, state House and state Senate lines, which were ― challenged by the League of Women Voters, the plaintiffs in the case. The panel found the way all 34 districts were drawn violated the First Amendment. Twenty-seven of the 34 districts violated the 14th Amendment, the court ruled.

The court blocked the state’s 1st, 4th, 5th, 7th, 8th, 9th, 10th, 11th and 12th congressional districts. Fifteen state House districts and 10 state Senate districts were also blocked. The panel also ordered special elections in the 10 state Senate districts in 2020 as well as any Senate district affected by the redrawn map.

The U.S. Supreme Court is set to rule by June on whether gerrymandering that severely benefits one party over the other is unconstitutional. The final outcome of the Michigan case will likely hinge on what the Supreme Court decides.

Michigan Republicans controlled the state Legislature in 2011 and drew electoral boundaries to give their party an advantage in both the congressional delegation and the state House. Republicans maintained that advantage even though the state is competitive with Democrats. Last year, voters in the state approved a constitutional amendment stripping lawmakers of their redistricting power and giving it to an independent redistricting commission.

And even with all that The Michigan general election, 2018 was held on Tuesday, November 6, 2018 throughout Michigan. The Democrats swept all of the statewide offices held by the Republicans.

April 25, 2019 5:55 PM  

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