Senate Republicans' bad faith maneuvering has landed them in a no-win situation Kavanaugh-wise

   By Rebecca Pilar Buckwalter Poza

     None of us thought the GOP was going to attempt to hold an aboveboard nomination hearing for Brett Kavanaugh, much less investigate Dr. Christine Blasey Ford’s allegation of sexual assault. Just how little interest Republicans have in projecting a semblance of decency is still surprising.
Two women have come forward publicly, Dr. Ford, who alleges Kavanaugh assaulted her during high school, and Deborah Ramirez, a college classmate who says he assaulted her at Yale. Ramirez’s account is backed up by classmates’ emails. A third yet-to-be-named woman is being represented by Michael Avenatti, of Stormy Daniels fame. A fourth allegation of sexual assault is being investigated by investigated by Montgomery County.

Republicans were already flailing. Exhibit A: Ed Whelan’s painstakingly ridiculous mistaken-identity theory, wherein he used Google Maps and Zillow floor plans to claim Dr. Ford had confused Kavanaugh with another classmate.

[W]hat’s most shocking about this thread, which Whelan has since deleted, is that Kavanaugh’s defenders appear to have genuinely believed that it would exculpate the nominee. Whelan is no random crank: He is a Federalist Society power broker who has played a major role in the selection of Donald Trump’s judicial nominees—including his good friend Kavanaugh. 

Undeterred by fact, they’ve repeatedly launched attacks on women who share the same name as accusers. It’s not clear whether the misidentification was accidental or deliberate, as one tweet incorrectly linking Ramirez to George Soros was left up even after the right-wing perpetrator had admitted the error.
Republicans are growing ever more desperate, now truly worried about internal cohesion. It’s clear that Republicans should start over. Then again, they shouldn’t have selected Kavanaugh to begin with.
It was already a bad idea to push forward given the near certainty that Kavanaugh’s perjuries will be exposed (to an even greater degree) when his record becomes public, a three-year wait at most. Now, they’re faced with two credible allegations of sexual assault and a third TBD, along with prospective witnesses.
It’s truly become a no-win situation for Republicans. That said, it’s clear what the best of the bad options is.
If the Mitch McConnell-led Republicans who want to “plow ahead” with Kavanaugh succeed, he’ll be the most impeachable justice there ever was. They’ll also pay a hefty price. (Hey, Susan Collins.)
If the GOP cuts bait now, they’ll suffer less for attempting to force Kavanaugh’s confirmation, though that tack’s alienated the public and widened fault lines among Republicans. They’d also get a shot at another, less impeachable nominee.
Why haven’t they dumped Kavanaugh yet?
Ego, for one, and the need to enforce party discipline. Partisanship, for another: Kavanaugh’s the most political pick they could have made. His views on executive power are certainly the most favorable for Trump. Most of all, Republicans do not take sexual assault seriously. Let these factors be their downfall.
   Original From Daily Kos

America Suffers Net-Loss In Private Sector Jobs, First In 7 Years

    For the first time in 7 years  the United States has a net jobs-loss.  In Quarter 3 of 2017.  The U.S. lost 140,000 private sector jobs.

via the Bureau of Labor Statistics:

From June 2017 to September 2017, gross job losses from closing and contracting private-sector
establishments were 7.4 million, an increase of 268,000 jobs lost from the previous quarter, the U.S.
Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today.

Over this period, gross job gains from opening and expanding
private-sector establishments were 7.3 million, a decrease of 348,000 jobs gained over the quarter.

Trumps Tax Returns Would End His High Wealth Lie

  I have always been of the opinion that the reason why Trump will not show his tax  returns is because they would show exactly how rich that he is not. They would also more than likely show that he owes the Russian banks  and Russian mobsters much more than he is worth, as well as a few other things that he prefer stay hidden.

By Annieli

It does explain why 45* tweets so much trash about Jeff Bezos…

It was inevitable that more would be revealed about Trumpian fraud, and somehow that won’t make any difference when we reach the end of the Trump regime and US democracy is in shambles.

A new op-ed piece in WaPo covers the fakery that has been Trump’s financial empire. This comes with the release of the tapes of Trump in the 1980s pretending he’s John Barron, inflating his net worth to a Forbes reporter.

Then again we could have guessed that shortcoming, considering he tried to impress Stormy Daniels with a copy of Forbes’s 400 richest people list.

When he lost his appeal in 2011, a New Jersey appellate judge wrote, “The largest portion of Mr. Trump’s fortune, according to three people who had had direct knowledge of his holdings, apparently comes from his lucrative inheritance. These people estimated that Mr. Trump’s wealth, presuming that it is not encumbered by heavy debt, may amount to about $200 million to $300 million. That is an enviably large sum of money by most people’s standards but far short of the billionaires club.”

THE JOKE WAS ON ME — AND EVERYONE ELSE. TRUMP’S FABRICATIONS PROVIDED THE BASIS FOR A VASTLY INFLATED WEALTH ASSESSMENT FOR THE FORBES 400 THAT WOULD GIVE HIM CACHET FOR DECADES AS A TRIUMPHANT BUSINESSMAN.

But it took decades to unwind the elaborate farce Trump had enacted to project an image as one of the richest people in America. Nearly every assertion supporting that claim was untrue. Trump wasn’t just poorer than he said he was. Over time, I have learned that he should not have been on the first three Forbes 400 lists at all. In our first-ever list, in 1982, we included him at $100 million, but Trump was actually worth roughly $5 million — a paltry sum by the standards of his super-monied peers — as a spate of government reports and books showed only much later.

Anderson Cooper 360°

✔@AC360

A former Forbes reporter claims that Donald Trump, before he was president, called him posing as "John Barron," a purported executive with The Trump Organization, speaking on Trump's behalf and lied about his wealth in order to crack the Forbes 400 list https://cnn.it/2K1iX1v

9:02 PM - Apr 20, 2018

The next year I received two calls from “John Barron,” the fictitious Trump executive who told me that Donald had taken “in excess of 90 percent” ownership from Fred. He also suggested that Trump was on track to earn a $50 million profit every year from his first Atlantic City casino. And so, in 1984, we increased Donald’s net worth estimate to $400 million and left Fred in, for his last year on the Forbes 400, at $200 million. (Barron also bad-mouthed the competition, saying that developer George Klein had struck a “bad deal” to redevelop Times Square — a bid Trump had lost — and was “going to go down the tubes.”)

Although Trump, posing as Barron, asked Forbes to conduct the conversation off the record, I am publishing it here. I believe an intent to deceive — both with the made-up persona and the content of the call — released me from my good-faith pledge. In a 1990 court case, Trump testified that he had used false names in phone calls to reporters. In 2016, when The Washington Post published a similar recording, Trump denied it was him.

www.washingtonpost.com/...

Walter Shaub

✔@waltshaub

I’ve always wondered if the real reason he has worked so hard to monetize the presidency is that he‘s hard up for cash. This article puts his wealth at about 2%-3% of what he has claimed, and that’s generously assuming he’s not leveraged to the teeth. https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/trump-lied-to-me-about-his-wealth-to-get-onto-the-forbes-400-here-are-the-tapes/2018/04/20/ac762b08-4287-11e8-8569-26fda6b404c7_story.html …

8:35 AM - Apr 20, 2018

Perspective | Trump lied to me about his wealth to get onto the Forbes 400. Here are the tapes.

Posing as ‘John Barron,’ he claimed he owned most of his father’s real estate empire.

washingtonpost.com

View image on Twitter

Will Bailey@RepWillBailey

I’ve begun casting TRUMP: THE MOVIE
Elizabeth Shue: Stormy Daniels
David Schwimmer: Michael Cohen
The Late Phillip Seymour Hoffman: Steve Bannon
Vin Diesel: Michael Avenatti
How am I doing so far?

2:17 PM - Apr 22, 2018

Monday, Apr 23, 2018 · 1:40:38 PM EDT · annieli

Ari Melber

✔@AriMelber

These bizarre Trump recordings only leaked now because the reporter realized the “off the record” agreement was itself a lie, since it was made with a person who doesn’t exist (Trump pretending to be his own made up spokesperson)... https://twitter.com/thebeatwithari/status/988079745169592320 …

9:16 AM - Apr 23, 2018

Trump’s Ratings Fail Again,and He’s Still Delusional

annieli    Thursday April 05, 2018 ·

Flipping off America until he can be removed legally, 45* taunts a majority of Americans.

John O. Brennan

✔@JohnBrennan

I served 6 Presidents, 3 Rs & 3Ds. I directly supported Clinton, Bush 43, and Obama. While I didn't agree with all their policy choices, I admired and respected all of them, as they put country above their personal interests. Not so with you, as your self adoration is disgraceful

Still Rising: Rasmussen Poll Shows Donald Trump Approval Ratings Now at 51 Percent

President Donald Trump’s latest approval ratings just keep rising, according to the latest Rasmussen poll.

breitbart.com

t’s a signature Trump move: Don’t just deny the charge but declare yourself to be the polar opposite (while accusing your opponents of whatever you were accused of: You’re the puppet!). He can’t be a racist, or soft on Russia, or anything bad — because he’s the furthest possible thing from that.

It’s all terribly reassuring.

Pedro da Costa

✔@pdacosta

"Nobody has been tougher on Russia than I have."
"I am the least anti-Semitic person that you’ve ever seen."
"I am the least racist person you have ever interviewed."
"Nobody knows more about trade than me."
"Nobody respects women more than I do."https://wapo.st/2EkVa8x

Budding despot.

Woman who was fired for flipping off Trump's motorcade sues former employer

Laurence Tribe

✔@tribelaw

When a federal contractor, in order to keep the government’s business, fires someone for giving the finger on her own time to a passing presidential motorcade, the contractor is undermining freedom of speech and must be held accountable for unlawful discharge https://twitter.com/protctdemocracy/status/981681248413343744 …

In two-party systems, they threw out the one major party that had a poor record and instead voted for politicians who, in both cases, presented themselves as moderate mainstream conservatives. The latter never revealed — or won an electoral mandate for — their real agenda, of perpetuating themselves in power by attacking the institutions that underpin democracy.

Is all this just a matter of words? Thinkers like George Orwell and Hannah Arendt never tired of warning that the political catastrophes of the 20th century began with euphemisms and imprecise language. A democracy can have illiberal policies, but it cannot do without basic political liberties and protections.

...The designation “democracy” still remains the most coveted political prize around the world. In what can only be called an unforced error, we are giving that prize to leaders who not only devalue it, but are also busy destroying the thing itself.

Roger Lowenstein, F**k Your Stock Portfolio

   The value of the stock market does not equal the country’s economic well-being.

by   Dean Baker

I realize it would be too much to ask that people who write on economics for major news outlets have any clue about how the economy works. I say that seriously; I have been commenting on economic reporting for more than two decades. Being a writer on economics is not like being a custodian or bus driver where you have to meet certain standards. The right family or friends can get you the job and there is virtually no risk of losing it as a result of inadequate performance.
But Roger Lowenstein performs a valuable service for us in the Washington Post this morning when he unambiguously equates the value of the stock market with the country’s economic well-being. It seems that Mr. Lowenstein is unhappy that Donald Trump’s recent tariff proposals sent the market plummeting. The piece is titled, “when the president tanks your stock portfolio.” It holds up Trump’s tariff plans as a uniquely irresponsible act because of its impact on stock prices.
Okay, let’s step back for a moment ask what the stock market is supposed to be telling us. The stock market is not a measure of economic well-being even in principle. It is ostensibly a measure of the value of future corporate profits, nothing more.
Suppose the successful teacher strike in West Virginia spills over into strikes in other states, as now appears likely. Suppose this increased labor militancy spills over to the private sector and organized workers are able to gain back some of the money lost to capital in the last dozen years. That would not be good news for Mr. Lowenstein’s stock portfolio, but it would certainly be good news for the vast majority of the people in the country.
But this is the result of private actors, Lowenstein is upset about a president’s action’s tanking the stock market. Well, let’s give another one that would likely have an even larger negative impact on Mr. Lowenstein’s stock portfolio.
Suppose the next president announces that she will raise the corporate income tax rate back to 35 percent from its current 21 percent level. Any bets on what this does to stock prices?
Let’s take another step back. In principle the market is supposed to reflect expected future profits, but as we know, the big bucks folks on Wall Street are subject to bouts of irrational exuberance from time to time. We saw this in the 1990s stock bubble and then again in the last decade with the housing bubble.
Suppose that President Clinton had used his State of the Union address in 1998 or 1999 to carefully explain (with data and charts) why current market valuations did not make sense and that prices were likely to fall back to earth in the not distant future. Alternatively, suppose President Bush had done the same with the housing market in any of the years from 2003 to 2007.
In both cases, this sort of analysis coming from the White House likely would have sent markets tumbling. In the first case, Clinton would have been showing that unless stockholders were willing to hold stock for returns that were far smaller than had been the case historically (and were roughly the same as the returns available on government bonds at the time) or future profits rose way faster than anyone economists were projecting, stock prices at the time could not be justified.
Bush would have been showing how nationwide house prices had diverged from a century long pattern in which they had just kept pace with inflation. He could have also pointed out that this did not appear to be driven by the fundamentals of the housing market since rents continued to rise pretty much in step with inflation and we were seeing record vacancy rates. He also could have talked about the explosion of bad loans, which were widely talked about in the business press even before the collapse of the bubble.
In both cases, the Lowensteins of the world could have blamed the president for tanking their stock portfolios and they would be right. Their truth telling would have destroyed trillions of dollars in paper wealth and it would have been a very good thing.
Illusory wealth has a habit of disappearing in any case, and it is generally better that it happens sooner rather than later. To see this point, imagine there is some master counterfeiter who, along with his conspirators, is able to slip trillions of dollars of phony money into circulation.
As long as this gang of counterfeiters is able to get away with it, they are creating trillions of dollars of wealth. This money is generating demand in the economy, although the money is going first and foremost to meet their needs and desires.
When the counterfeiters get uncovered and their money is destroyed, the economy has lost trillions of dollars of what it had considered wealth. Will this be a big hit to the economy?
It certainly could be, but if the folks in policy positions respond appropriately then it need not be. Congress should pass fiscal stimulus and the Fed should lower interest rates to sustain demand. The destruction of the counterfeiters’ money should allow us to have demand in areas that meet the needs of the rest of us rather than the counterfeiters.
The same story applies to a drop in stock prices. If it turns out that stockholders have less wealth, and therefore spend less money, Congress and the Fed could take steps to boost demand so that needs of people who don’t own so much stock can be met. Of course Congress and the Fed may not take such action, which is a really big problem, but that is not a reason to blame the folks who caught the counterfeiters.
None of this justifies Trump’s tariff policies, which I have argued are half-baked at best. But the basis for the criticism is not the potential hit to the stock market.
As long as we are talking big picture economics, there is one other important point to make in this context. Like other folks writing on this topic, Lowenstein just assumes the country as a whole has an interest in forcing China and other developing countries to respect U.S. patent and copyright protections.
This is not true. While it is clear that folks who have large amounts of stock in Pfizer, Microsoft, and other companies with large stakes in intellectual property claims, it does not follow that the country as a whole benefits from making these claims longer and stronger and applied to our trading partners.
When these forms of protectionism (yes folks, patent and copyright protection is protectionism) are applied domestically it means that we pay more for prescription drugs, medical equipment, software and a wide range of other products. Think of them like tariffs of many thousand percent, since these government-granted monopolies can raise the price of the protected items by factors of tens or hundreds.
Applying patent and copyright protection internationally means that foreigners have to pay more money for their drugs (often making the unaffordable for people in developing countries) and software. It means they have less money to buy our cars and planes. Every trade economist knows this, but for some reason they rarely feel the need to make this point. (Unlike the irrepressible need to point out that higher U.S. steel prices mean that U.S. made cars will be less competitive.)
We do have an interest in ensuring the research and development costs will be shared internationally in an equitable manner. Our trade economist types tell us how hard this would be to arrange, apparently having not been told of all the disputes over the terms and enforcement of intellectual property rules in recent trade pacts. Anyhow, we should be looking for more modern mechanisms of financing innovation and creative work, not endlessly shoring up a relic of the Medieval guild system. (See also chapter 5 of my [free] book, Rigged: How Globalization and the Rules of the Modern Economy Were Structured to Make the Rich Richer.)

Common Dreams

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License

Fox News Propaganda Machine

April 1, 2018

Whatever their motivation:  Trump worship, profit, greed, conspiracy-theory induced brain rot, and/or decision makers who are themselves kompromat—the results are the same:  The Fox propagandists are betraying their country, and directly or indirectly encouraging—or helping--a hostile foreign power to continue their attacks on America.            

   Fox got away with spewing their lies and propaganda, when they were taken to court, by insisting they were not a “News” station, but rather an “Entertainment” station.  So, how is it that they can tack “News” onto their name?  They made it clear in court they were not interested in news but entertaining their viewers.  I think we need a law that if a station claims News in their title they can’t broadcast lies.

  Also,the only ones watching Fox News these days are low IQ level die hard Republicans.  Most of Fox News advertisers have stopped running their advertisement on Fox News.  Independents and Democrats have stopped watching Fox News because they realize that Fox News is nothing than a Propaganda machine spewing fear, hatred and racism.

  I will go one further and say that people who have not followed the news but have right wing views happen to tune into Fox News (an oxymoron) and see their views reinforced.  So they join the 60% of Republicans who say Fox News is the most objective source of news.  In other words they are ignorant, not necessarily stupid, and have closed minds.

Russia Aiding GOP in 2018 Elections

Why is America letting Russia get away with meddling in our democracy?
  The most remarkable thing about Russia’s meddling in our democracy is that resident trump has done nothing about it. There are plenty of steps that he could have taken. There are people, including some working just steps away from the Oval Office who could have—and may have—advised him what to do. But trump chose inaction.
   trump and the republican party know that without the help of Russian trolls and bots, that their asses will get kicked on election day.
   I will not get into the fact that Russia owns trump and probably at least a 1/3 of the republicans in Congress.

Facebook Getting Many “unfriends” and People Don’t Like Zuckerberg Either

The Cambridge Analytica scandal appears to have taken a toll on public opinion of Facebook, as a new poll shows that love for the social media site has tanked in recent weeks.
The new survey (pdf) of 577 registered voters conducted by Public Policy Polling for the Factual Democracy Project (FDP) took place March 23-25—right after the public learned of the massive data breach.
Sixty-seven percent of those surveyed, it should be noted, said they have a Facebook account.
Thirty percent of respondents said they have a favorable opinion of Facebook compared to 48 percent who have an unfavorable opinion about it. Twenty-two percent, meanwhile, said they are not sure.
That adds up to a net favorability rating of -18—a drop of 19 points since September (pdf) when FDP last polled for that information. At that time, 37 percent said they had a favorable opinion, and 36 percent said their opinion was unfavorable.
As for Facebook chief executive Mark Zuckerberg, just 24 percent expressed a favorable opinion about him, while 35 percent had an unfavorable opinion. Forty-one percent said they are not sure.
Like Zuckerberg, Facebook COO Sheryl Sandberg had a net favorability rating of -11; ten percent said they have a favorable opinion of her and 21 percent had an unfavorable one. The majority—69 percent—said they are not sure of their opinion of her.
The poll also shows that majority—58 percent—had heard about Cambridge Analytica's unauthorized harvesting of some 50 million Facebook users' data, and an even greater percentage—71 percent—think Zuckerberg should have to appear before Congress to explain how that massive breach was able to occur.
Based on what they now know, just 12 percent say they're going to delete their account, and 36 percent said they'll use Facebook less.
"We are watching a historic moment of reckoning unfold in real time," said FDP founder Melissa Ryan. "Americans have been playing close attention to story after story involving Facebook's failure to protect our elections from foreign interference, and now its failure to protect our personal data."
"The stakes for Mark Zuckerberg's testimony are clear from the polling data. If he wants to turn things around at Facebook, it will start in the halls of Congress," Ryan said.
Zuckerberg has been facing calls to testify before Congress, and, according to media reports this week, is expected to do so.
  From   Common Dreams
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 License

Trump's legal troubles are about to get worse, A LOT worse

By Murfster35         Sunday  Mar 25,2018

What's wrong with this picture?

I'll be the first to admit it, I love hunches. Which is one of the main reasons I don't gamble, even living in Vegas. Plunking down $100 every time you get a wild hair up your ass about a team is not a fiscally sound way to make sure that the rent gets paid every month.

But people who have followed me for a while know that actually, I have a pretty good track record. Obviously, my "greatest hit" was predicting in print, on the Daily Kos, that Trump would go on to win the GOP nomination even before the first primary was held.

And now my prophesy nerve is twitching again, and it itches like hell. We won't know whether or not I'm right for at least another week, but we shall see what we shall se.

Here's my prediction. I think we've seen Melania Trump officially as the First Lady of the United States for the last time, especially in close proximity to her husband. There are a few good reasons for this.

First of all, did you see them come down the stairs of Air Force One in Florida? Forget about them holding hands, Melania has slapped his paw away for months now. But usual, the Citrus Caesar comes down the steps first, with Melania a step or so behind. In normal times they also stood together at the top and waved. Not anymore. This time, Melania was a full two steps ahead of Trump, with Barron in tow, and both of their heads looked straight down. When they got to the bottom of the stairs, they immediately headed for the car, eyes still downcast, while His Lowness clowned around behind them.

Second, this has finally become "real" for Melania. This isn't an audio tape of her husband bragging about "moving on her like a bitch," or bragging about sexual assault, and it isn't 19 women accusing Trump of groping them on airplanes, or ramming his tongue in their mouths by elevators. These are two women, credible as hell, telling tales of their romantic liaisons with Trump, and not just one night stands, months long affairs, with payoffs at the end to ensure their silence. I have no doubt that she watched the Karen Mcdougle interview, and she'll watch the Stormy Daniels interview tonight. She'll want to hear it, so see it, to compare their intimate details with things she personally knows about Trump, to know it's true for herself. And she'll be done.

There is also Barron to consider. Even if the story had broken as it occurred, in 2006 Barron was only months old. Even if In Touch magazine had published the Stormy Daniels interview in 2011, Barron was only 5, and still ignorant of sexual matters, and marital strife. Now, Barron is 12, with friends at school. And all of their parents are going to be glued to the TV tonight, quite possibly with the kids within earshot. For the second time in a week, his father will be exposed to the world as a selfish philanderer, and Barron is going to hear about it in school. I believe Melania is more protective than to willingly allow that to happen.

But most importantly of all, Stormy Daniels has exposed a weakness in Trump that has nothing at all to do with sex. Daniels and her lawyer, Michael Avenatti, have bounced Trump and Michael Cohen around on their knees in the media like the two year old that Trump emotionally still is. Given the opportunity to slam dunk the President, and the resulting fame, I have little doubt that Melania can find the divorce equivalent of Michael Avenatti, and that he can tear that pre-nup to shreds. Hell,if the Daniels NDA is anything to go by, a third year law student could find holes big enough to drive a truck through. And for as long as Melania has been this close to Trump, just think about what she could testify to in a divorce case. Trump can't afford to have her either being deposed or testifying in open court, especially if Mueller is still sniffing around. And although I can't find an actual article, in my own mind I am 100% sure that I heard a panel guest on either CNN or MSNBC commenting at the time of the Access Hollywood video that the Trump-Melania pre-nup had a 10 year sunset clause. If that's true, then Donald Trump is the marital equivalent of Elwood Blues' "dry, white toast" in The Blues Brothers.

So, there it is. If I', wrong, I'm wrong. But this is just one of those times when the feeling that Trump has shit in one more kitchen is just so strong that I can't ignore it. We should pretty well know if Melania and Barron aren't on that big silver bird a week from now.

It’s here! The moment you’ve been dreading looking forward to. My new e-book President Evil. A common man looks at Trump and the 2016 primaries. You can get it now on Amazon. And please feel free to leave a review at either Amazon or goodreads, every review helps, positive or negative.

Cross posted on The Trump Impeachment.

Saudi Prince Mohammed bin Salman Claims Jared Kushner is “in his pocket”.

   This would come as no surprise as it seems that all of the trump’s and their  in-laws are owned by some foreign countries.

   RawStory

“Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman reportedly bragged about having White House senior counsel Jared Kushner “in his pocket” and may have used highly sensitive intelligence from the President’s Daily Briefing in his violent crackdown on dissent in Saudi Arabia, The Intercept reported Wednesday.

Three sources told The Intercept that Kushner had revealed names of Saudis disloyal to the crown prince.

“The Saudi figures named in the President’s Daily Brief were among those rounded up; at least one was reportedly tortured,” The Intercept explained.

Mohammed bin Salman also was said to have told UAE Crown Prince Mohammed bin Zayed that Kushner was “in his pocket.”

    Naturally, Kushner’s mouthpiece is denying any such thing, but if selling the PDB to MBS makes a  mortgage payment for the 666, do we doubt it?

The Trump White House

Donald Trump (coward), Bob Mueller (HERO)

Donald Trump’s 1968:

But after he graduated from college in the spring of 1968, making him eligible to be drafted and sent to Vietnam, he received a diagnosis that would change his path: bone spurs in his heels.

The diagnosis resulted in a coveted 1-Y medical deferment that fall, exempting him from military service as the United States was undertaking huge troop deployments to Southeast Asia, inducting about 300,000 men into the military that year.

Robert Mueller’s 1968:

Mueller would earn the Bronze Star, the Purple Heart and the Vietnamese Cross of Gallantry in his time in Vietnam. The citation for his Bronze Star said that during an attack on his rifle platoon, "2nd Lt. Mueller fearlessly moved from one position to another, directing the accurate counterfire of his men and shouting words of encouragement to them."

During the firefight on Dec. 11, 1968, Mueller "personally led a fire team across the fire-swept terrain to recover a mortally wounded Marine who had fallen in a position forward of the friendly lines," the citation said.

Friday Trump Memes

House Republicans Whitewash Trump-Russia Collusion , and End Probe

   Now, who would have ever thought that a Republican run House investigation would end with no finding of criminal activity purportedly committed by another Republican? I’m shocked, I tell you!

   In a draft report, which Republicans haven’t shared with the Democrats on the committee, Republicans wrote that Russia carried out an “active measures” campaign in the 2016 election and was likely to do so again in future elections, but said they saw no sign that Moscow was seeking to help Trump, said Rep. Mike Conaway, R-Texas. That finding is at odds with a January 2017 intelligence community report, which concluded that Russian President Vladimir Putin had ordered a campaign to influence the outcome of the 2016 U.S. presidential election in Trump’s favor.  

More from Marketwatch

Republicans Become Enemies of the State

“ Simply put, Donald Trump is more than just intellectually and emotionally unfit to be president—he's a danger to our republic and our sovereignty on every level. And Republicans' continued efforts to insulate him from investigation is a betrayal of our country.”   Read More...

That Mueller/trump Russian Thingy

Mueller is not going to remove the president for lying to him. Its just not politically tenable. Obstruction maybe.
  Trump is only removed if you have real proof that he knew of explicit quid pro quo.                             

   That being said, the quid pro quo is known as this point. Lift the sanctions, and we’ll cut you in on the oil drilling money in Siberia and put up a trump tower in Moscow. trump stood to make many millions from Trump Tower Moscow, and the 19.5% stake of Rosnett would be worth 100s of billions of dollars once oil drilling started. Its about the money. Obstruction and money laundering and tax evasion is what will sink trump. After Mueller’s done, the trump kids won’t have a plugged nickel to split between them, those of them who escape prison, and that’s their worst nightmare — having to work for a living.

'Don't Be Evil?': Outrage Over Google's Secret Program to Bolster Pentagon's Drone War

Published on Wednesday, March 07, 2018  by Jessica Corbett, staff writer

Human rights advocates, tech experts, and critics of the United States' vast drone warfare program are outraged over the Google's secret agreement with the Pentagon—revealed in a pair of reports by Gizmodo and The Intercept—to develop artificial intelligence, or AI, that quickly analyzes drone footage.

Some critics pointed to Google's old motto, "Don't Be Evil," and the replacement, "Do the Right Thing," introduced in 2015 by Google's parent company, Alphabet.

The reports, published Tuesday, outline details of the partnership between Google and the U.S. Department of Defense's Project Maven that were recently disclosed on a company mailing list. The internal discussion reportedly angered some Google employees, who Gizmodo reports "were outraged that the company would offer resources to the military for surveillance technology involved in drone operations" and pointed out that "the project raised important ethical questions about the development and use of machine learning."

The DOD's Project Maven—also known as the Algorithmic Warfare Cross-Functional Team (AWCFT)—launched last April, and "was tasked with using machine learning to identify vehicles and other objects in drone footage, taking that burden off analysts" who haven't been able to keep up with the amount of footage collected by U.S. drones.

A  spokesperson for Google said the company provides the Pentagon with "open source TensorFlow APIs that can assist in object recognition on unclassified data," and insisted "the technology flags images for human review, and is for non-offensive uses only."

However, The Intercept noted—pointing to earlier reports about the project—that the purpose of the AI tech is "to help drone analysts interpret the vast image data vacuumed up from the military's fleet of 1,100 drones to better target bombing strikes against the Islamic State."

While Google's spokesperson added that the company is "actively discussing this important topic internally and with others as we continue to develop policies and safeguards around the development and use of our machine learning technologies," The Intercept also noted that "the military contract with Google is routed through a Northern Virginia technology staffing company called ECS Federal, obscuring the relationship from the public"—at least until it was revealed in Tuesday's reports.

Both reports also pointed out that Eric Schmidt, who recently stepped down as chairman of Alphabet, heads the Defense Innovation Board, a federal advisory committee established in 2016 "to encourage the military adoption of breakthrough technology," and which has developed recommendations for how the Department of Defense can better utilize tools from Silicon Valley to wage war abroad.

Gizmodo, citing meeting minutes, noted that "some members of the Board's teams are part of the executive steering group that is able to provide rapid input" on Project Maven, whose Pentagon director has expressed hope that the project will be "that spark that kindles the flame front of artificial intelligence across the rest of the [Defense] Department."    Common Dreams

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Trump and Republicans Aiding Russia In 2018 Election Meddling

Why is America letting Russia get away with meddling in our democracy?

  The most remarkable thing about Russia’s meddling in our democracy is that resident trump has done nothing about it. There are plenty of steps that he could have taken. There are people, including some working just steps away from the Oval Office who could have—and may have—advised him what to do. But trump chose inaction.

   trump and the republican party know that without the help of Russian trolls and bots, that their asses will get kicked on election day.

   I will not get into the fact that Russia owns trump and probably at least a 1/3 of the republicans in Congress.

donald trump

   One thing that I should point out to you is that you will NEVER see the “d” in donald or the “t” in trump capitalized on this blog.

Gary Cohn Just Quit The White House

By ursulafaw     Tuesday Mar 06, 2018 Via Daily Kos

   Gary Cohn, President Trump's top economic adviser, is going to leave the administration in the coming weeks, The New York Times reports. The paper says "no single reason" is prompting Cohn to quit but the decision comes after the struggle inside the White House over tariffs over steel and aluminum imports.

Why it matters per Axios' Jonathan Swan: There’s now a grand total of zero people inside the West Wing with heft to take the anti-tariff fight to the president. Trump has cancelled a meeting with companies that use steel and aluminum that Cohn was arranging.