Has U.S. Democracy Been Trumped?

[Winstonm]

In Trump's mind there are only two types of people: if you support him, you're a "really good people"; if you're against him, you're scum. And it's easy to go from one to the other -- Omarossa was one of his proteges for years, but now that she's written a tell-all book that insults him, she's persona non grata.

 

Too much credit - the two types he recognizes are 1) those to be used and 2) those to be discarded - and in neither case are they elevated to the status of persons.

[Winstonm]

Anyone who thinks this latest McGahn "bombshell" article in the NYT is anything but a sideshow instigated by the Dennison side to stop the presses from headlining each new Omarosa claim is naive.

[Winstonm]

Why is Rand Paul lobbying for Russia?

 

Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) says he will ask President Trump this weekend to lift sanctions against top Russian officials so they can visit the United States later this year.

 

This is totally unnecessary. If a meeting is warranted, a third nation neutral site can be used.

[Winstonm]

AP reported this: (emphasis added)

BRIDGEWATER, N.J. (AP) — President Donald Trump David Dennison insisted Sunday that his White House counsel isn’t a “RAT” like the Watergate-era White House attorney who turned on Richard Nixon, and he blasted the ongoing Russia investigation as “McCarthyism.”

 

It speaks volumes about this president's integrity when he considers being honest and doing the right thing as "being a rat".

[barmar]

It speaks volumes about this president's integrity when he considers being honest and doing the right thing as "being a rat".

Isn't that what criminals call insiders who inform on them? If you're not a criminal, the informant isn't a "rat". So guess what he's admitting to.

[PassedOut]

Finally, a Republican acknowledges the truth about Trump: Everything Trump Touches Dies

 

“Everything about Trump’s opening speech was moral poison to anyone who believed in any part of the American dream. Everything about his nationalist hucksterism smelled like … a knock on the door of authoritarian statism.”

 

The right is “merrily on board with a lunatic with delusions of godhood”.

 

“There’s an odds-on chance that our grandchildren will hear this tale while hunched over guttering fires in the ruins of a radioactive Mad Max-style hellscape.”

 

“Washington is the drug-resistant syphilis of political climates, largely impervious to treatment and highly contagious.”

 

The tax bill was a masterwork of “gigantic government giveaways, unfunded spending, massive debt and deficits, and a catalogue of crony capitalist freebies”.

 

Trump has surrounded himself with Wall Street alumni “who have behaved with weapons-grade venality … and Master of the Dick affects. They were there … only for the tax bill. Nothing else ever mattered to any of them.”

 

The Trump administration has been “a hotbed of remarkably obvious pay-to-play and corny capitalist game-playing. How obvious? Think 1970s Times Square hooker on the corner obvious … The degree to which this president has monetized the presidency for the direct benefit of himself, his soft-jawed offspring, and his far-flung empire of bullshit makes the Teapot Dome scandal look like a warm-up act in the Corruption Olympics.”

Trump and his enablers are working hard to force a Russian-style kleptocracy down the throats of the people of the US, and they've enlisted faux Christians to help them do it:

 

All the things evangelicals had said for generations that made a candidate anathema were suddenly just fine … Being a *****ed degenerate pussy-grabber with a lifetime of adultery, venality, and dishonesty is not, to my knowledge, one of the core tenets of the Christian faith … Trump has opened entirely new theological avenues … There is literally not one aspect of Trump’s behavior as a citizen, a husband, and as a man that shows the slightest scintilla of repentance for anything, ever.”

It's going to take some help from republicans to clean this up, and it's encouraging to see Wilson and some others start to speak up.

[kenberg]

Once again reading the WC introduces me to someone that I had not previously heard of. I looked up Rick Wilson and he is described as a Republican. We might need a new category: Disillusioned Republican.

 

From e. e. cummings:

Olaf(upon what were once knees) does almost ceaselessly repeat "there is some sh*** I will not eat"

 

[Winstonm]

Another one bites the dust: Michael Cohen

 

NYT:

 

Aug. 21, 2018

 

Michael D. Cohen, President Trump’s former lawyer, on Tuesday reached a plea agreement with prosecutors investigating payments he made to women on behalf of Mr. Trump, a deal that does not include cooperation with federal authorities, two people familiar with the matter said.

 

Mr. Cohen is expected to plead guilty to multiple counts of bank and tax fraud charges and campaign finance violations. For months, prosecutors in New York have been scrutinizing him for those crimes and focusing on his role in helping to arrange financial deals to secure the silence of women who said they had affairs with Mr. Trump.

 

Update: The Cohen plea directly implicates Dennison in a felony - the first of many high crimes and misdemeanors.

 

WaPo:

 

When it came to the campaign finance violations, Cohen implicated the president directly. He told the court that that he worked with Trump pay off two women to keep their stories of alleged affairs with Trump from becoming public before election day.

[hrothgar]

Another one bites the dust: Michael Cohen

 

More significantly

 

1. Michael Cohen in a courtroom in SDNY, under oath, declared that the President directed him to commit a federal crime.

 

2. There are signed receipts documenting that Trump authorized and paid for this

[Winstonm]

More significantly

 

1. Michael Cohen in a courtroom in SDNY, under oath, declared that the President directed him to commit a federal crime.

 

2. There are signed receipts documenting that Trump authorized and paid for this

This is how the NYT is reporting it:

 

Michael D. Cohen, President Trump’s former fixer, pleaded guilty on Tuesday to breaking campaign finance laws and other charges. He made the extraordinary admission that he arranged payments to two women “at the direction of the candidate,” referring to Mr. Trump, to secure their silence about affairs they said they had with Mr. Trump.

 

Mr. Cohen told a judge in United States District Court in Manhattan that the payments were “for the principal purpose of influencing the election” for president in 2016.

 

Also, Manafort was found guilty of 8 felonies.

[hrothgar]

FWIW

 

I understand that the last dumpster fire is but a prelude to the real story

(There is no way that Cohen was allowed to plea with out either sealed cooperation agreement or a confidential understanding which means MONEY LAUNDERING charges)

 

Still, it feels really really good

 

This is why the word #schadenfreude is so very necessary!

[y66]

Once again reading the WC introduces me to someone that I had not previously heard of. I looked up Rick Wilson and he is described as a Republican. We might need a new category: Disillusioned Republican.

 

From e. e. cummings:

Olaf(upon what were once knees) does almost ceaselessly repeat "there is some sh*** I will not eat"

Clearly, Olaf is not a member of the WC Trump cult.

[hrothgar]

Once again reading the WC introduces me to someone that I had not previously heard of. I looked up Rick Wilson and he is described as a Republican. We might need a new category: Disillusioned Republican.

 

From e. e. cummings:

 

Anna Marie Cox has an decent enough podcast called

 

"With Friends Like These"

 

Wilson is on fair often (one a month or so). You can get a pretty good idea who he is and what his background is listening to any of the episodes.

The latest one is pretty good.

 

He also has a new book out

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07BK9M949/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1

[Winstonm]

Michael Cohen's lawyer was on Rachel Maddow show tonight and he claimed Cohen had information that would be of grat interest to Mueller, including whether Dennison knew about the Russian hack prior to it being public information, and he was happy to provide the special counsel whatever help he could.

 

This has to be the worst day of Dennison's life - he became an un-indicted co-conspirator today in the Cohen crime of campaign finance violations.

 

Edit:

 

Wheeler reports:

once he (Cohen) pleads on the Stormy Daniels charge, he loses his Fifth Amendment rights, so the Daniels suit against him can go forward — and with it the deposition of Trump.

 

This should make Michael Avenatti happy.

[jjbrr]

FWIW

 

I understand that the last dumpster fire is but a prelude to the real story

(There is no way that Cohen was allowed to plea with out either sealed cooperation agreement or a confidential understanding which means MONEY LAUNDERING charges)

 

Still, it feels really really good

 

This is why the word #schadenfreude is so very necessary!

 

I strongly suspect these aren't the only two options for Cohen's situation. The guy hoarded evidence in a manner that demonstrates some pretty amazing carelessness. Recordings of conversations, cell phones, mountains of documents. I am willing to bet prosecutors have so much evidence against Cohen specifically that 1) they don't need to cut him any breaks for testimony, 2) Cohen, himself, is less of a reliable witness than what prosecutors can demonstrate through paper documentation, and 3) defense can save some time/money/energy/jail time via this route.

 

I am curious if we'll see headlines of the FBI raiding Allen Weisselberg soon. Seems like an interesting next step. Cohen might have some interesting information for us, but I think we all understand that following the money is the thing that will solve this case, minus a smoking gun (or constitutional crisis that derails everything).

[Winstonm]

Vanity Fair has this:

 

Another theory for what’s motivating Trump’s increasingly unhinged tweets is that Mueller may be closing in on his son Don Jr. “A lot of what Trump is doing is based on the fact [that] Mueller is going after Don Jr.,” a person close to the Trump family told me. “They’re squeezing Don Jr. right now.”

 

Don Jr.’s lawyer said, “I’m not going to comment.” Another person briefed on the investigation disputed the term "squeeze," but said the Mueller team continues to ask for documents.

[Winstonm]

This Lawfare take makes plain the problem we face:

 

That Trump himself continues to express sympathy with Manafort, not outrage at his conduct, further undermines confidence in his judgment of character.

 

Presidential judgment matters. In a week dominated by headlines about the president’s real and threatened revocation of security clearances of current and former officials who have criticized him, take a moment to consider the individuals the president has favored with trust and confidence, as well as those to whom he has denied it.

 

And now that Dennison has been named in Cohen's plea deal, where is the Republican party, its voices, its shame?

 

And from the Birds of a Feather Department:

 

Isn't it oddly fitting that the first two Congressmen to endorse Dennison have both, as of today, been indicted? Yes, both Chris Collins and Duncan Hunter are now charged with crimes - and it couldn't happen to more deserving candidates.

[hrothgar]

And now this

 

MAJOR BREAKING NEWS: Lanny Davis, Cohen Attorney, Says Michael Cohen Will Tell Robert Mueller of a "Conspiracy to Collude" With Russia That Trump Participated In, Which Conspiracy Involved Him Having Advance Knowledge of Russian Hacking of the DNC

[awm]

Does any of this matter? The chance of Trump resigning is basically zero, and while the Democrats might take over the house and impeach him, the 2/3 senate vote for removal seems like a stretch.

 

Do you see any writers or news organizations or non-retired politicians who supported Trump before and are now changing their minds? Any evidence Trumps electoral “base” is deserting him?

 

I guess these convictions might fire up some voters to come vote against Rs in the midterms or against Trump in 2020, but they also might fire up Trump supporter to vote because of all the “unfair persecution.”

 

While I agree that the amount of criminality is quite high, most of us suspected this about Trump anyway and it’s sort of already priced into our opinions?

 

For me the biggest impact is how bad our government is at white collar crime, considering that these serial tax fraudsters were getting away with it for years and probably could’ve continued indefinitely if not for the special prosecutor. Who knows how many other scumballs not connected to Trump are getting away with the same stuff? Of course “there are other criminals on the world” doesn’t excuse Trump, but I can’t help feel that both the Democrats and the country as a whole would be better off now if Obama had prosecuted a few banksters and other rich lawbreakers after the economic crash.

[hrothgar]

Does any of this matter? The chance of Trump resigning is basically zero, and while the Democrats might take over the house and impeach him, the 2/3 senate vote for removal seems like a stretch.

 

From my perspective, there is actually a shadow impeachment already in progress.

 

The big money contributors on the far right + Rupert Murdoch are constantly evaluating whether or not Trump has started doing more harm than good.

At that point in time, they'll turn on Trump, the Republicans in congress will see the writhing on the wall, we'll be rid of this idiots, and some new idiot will wander in to 1600 Pennsylvania avenue and mindless sign tax cut legislation.

[kenberg]

Does any of this matter? The chance of Trump resigning is basically zero, and while the Democrats might take over the house and impeach him, the 2/3 senate vote for removal seems like a stretch.

 

Do you see any writers or news organizations or non-retired politicians who supported Trump before and are now changing their minds? Any evidence Trumps electoral "base" is deserting him?

 

I guess these convictions might fire up some voters to come vote against Rs in the midterms or against Trump in 2020, but they also might fire up Trump supporter to vote because of all the "unfair persecution."

 

While I agree that the amount of criminality is quite high, most of us suspected this about Trump anyway and it's sort of already priced into our opinions?

 

For me the biggest impact is how bad our government is at white collar crime, considering that these serial tax fraudsters were getting away with it for years and probably could've continued indefinitely if not for the special prosecutor. Who knows how many other scumballs not connected to Trump are getting away with the same stuff? Of course "there are other criminals on the world" doesn't excuse Trump, but I can't help feel that both the Democrats and the country as a whole would be better off now if Obama had prosecuted a few banksters and other rich lawbreakers after the economic crash.

This last paragraph is something that has been bothering me as well. It takes time and resources, and of course willingness, to get these guys. Manafort and Cohen got caught up in something bigger, so their crimes were uncovered and prosecuted. It is hardly cynical to believe that there are a great many others who cheat their way to greater wealth but survive because the close detailed look that would be required simply never happens. We really need to address this, I think properly funding the IRS would be a good start. It isn't just the money, although the money is important. More important, we really don't want people thinking that only stupid people pay taxes. That view leads down a very bad path.

 

As to the general question of what it all means, I think you might be underestimating it. Trump has been very destructive, and he has been successful at it because there are still many who believe in him. At some point this will stop. It's easy to find the Cohen plea agreement on line, but here is a link: http://apps.washingt...2Fstory-ans . Even ardent supporters might choke a bit at calling this fake news.

 

Trump has suggested that we compare the Mueller investigation to the days of Joe McCarthy. I remember Joe McCarthy. I came home from a Boy Scout meeting in 1952, and my parents were watching television. There was this guy, McCarthy, explaining that Adlai Stevenson was a communist. I was 13 but I saw this guy as someone not to be trusted. In fact the only other politician who has ever produced such immediate instinctual feelings of revulsion is Donald Trump. The country eventually came to see things my way in the 1950s and I think the country will come to see things my way about Trump in the not too distant future. Of course I know what happened to Cassandra so maybe I should shut up.

[Winstonm]

Does any of this matter? The chance of Trump resigning is basically zero, and while the Democrats might take over the house and impeach him, the 2/3 senate vote for removal seems like a stretch.

 

Do you see any writers or news organizations or non-retired politicians who supported Trump before and are now changing their minds? Any evidence Trumps electoral “base” is deserting him?

 

I guess these convictions might fire up some voters to come vote against Rs in the midterms or against Trump in 2020, but they also might fire up Trump supporter to vote because of all the “unfair persecution.”

 

While I agree that the amount of criminality is quite high, most of us suspected this about Trump anyway and it’s sort of already priced into our opinions?

 

For me the biggest impact is how bad our government is at white collar crime, considering that these serial tax fraudsters were getting away with it for years and probably could’ve continued indefinitely if not for the special prosecutor. Who knows how many other scumballs not connected to Trump are getting away with the same stuff? Of course “there are other criminals on the world” doesn’t excuse Trump, but I can’t help feel that both the Democrats and the country as a whole would be better off now if Obama had prosecuted a few banksters and other rich lawbreakers after the economic crash.

 

The size of his ardent supporters is not so great as we are led to believe. This maniac was elected by many people other than his ardent admirers, people who wanted significant change in Washington politics - and what they have received is more of the same with a side order of criminality. There will be a point when the polls will reflect this. Remember, even at resignation Nixon still had favorable poll ratings around 25%.

 

Congressmen and Senators react to their re-election chances. Those Congressmen in severely gerrymandered Republican districts with lots of tea party constituents will probably have to support Dennison all the way to survive - but there are many who will need to change their position to win re-election.

 

The coming mid-terms will tell us a lot - if there is a massive blue wave, you will see many of the remaining Republicans start to distance themselves from this president. If there is no giant blue wave, then it will take a serious finding of conspiracy with Russia in order to see them change positions.

 

The most likely scenario is we have this guy until 2020, at which point his 25% of ardent admirers will not be enough to re-elect him, and the information about him will disgust enough people to vote him out of office.

 

Edit: I just read that Dennison tweeted, "Don't retain Michael Cohen," but said about Paul Manafort, "I feel bad for Paul Manafort, such a courageous man." Guess which one kept silent. <_<

 

Unless you like and want your politicians to be the living embodiment of Vito Corleone, it is difficult to understand how the man's own words don't pierce the bubble his supporters have stuck in their ears. After all, Paul Manafort is a "stand-up guy" while Michael Cohen is a "rat".

[Winstonm]

This ought to have a chilling effect on any supporters of Dennison - Lanny Davis, a Cohen lawyer, said this on the Rachel Maddow show:

 

"I can tell you that Mr. Cohen has knowledge on certain subjects that should be of interest to the special counsel and is more than happy to tell special counsel all that he knows -- not just about the obvious possibility of a conspiracy to collude and corrupt the American democracy system in the 2016 election, which the Trump Tower meeting was all about, but also, knowledge about the computer crime of hacking and whether or not Mr. Trump knew ahead of time about that crime and even cheered it on."

 

The big issue here for Mueller is whether or not this information can be verified with documents or confirmed by other witnesses or a combination of both. If it can be confirmed, that's the show, and the curtain will come down on the criminal enterprise currently occupying the West Wing of the WH.

[barmar]

From my perspective, there is actually a shadow impeachment already in progress.

 

The big money contributors on the far right + Rupert Murdoch are constantly evaluating whether or not Trump has started doing more harm than good.

At that point in time, they'll turn on Trump, the Republicans in congress will see the writhing on the wall, we'll be rid of this idiots, and some new idiot will wander in to 1600 Pennsylvania avenue and mindless sign tax cut legislation.

I don't know. They wanted the tax cuts, he got it for them. As far as many of them are concerned, all this corruption and collusion stuff is just a side show -- his policies are still really good for rich businessmen.

[y66]

Does any of this matter? The chance of Trump resigning is basically zero, and while the Democrats might take over the house and impeach him, the 2/3 senate vote for removal seems like a stretch.

 

Do you see any writers or news organizations or non-retired politicians who supported Trump before and are now changing their minds? Any evidence Trumps electoral “base” is deserting him?

 

I guess these convictions might fire up some voters to come vote against Rs in the midterms or against Trump in 2020, but they also might fire up Trump supporter to vote because of all the “unfair persecution.”

 

While I agree that the amount of criminality is quite high, most of us suspected this about Trump anyway and it’s sort of already priced into our opinions?

 

For me the biggest impact is how bad our government is at white collar crime, considering that these serial tax fraudsters were getting away with it for years and probably could’ve continued indefinitely if not for the special prosecutor. Who knows how many other scumballs not connected to Trump are getting away with the same stuff? Of course “there are other criminals on the world” doesn’t excuse Trump, but I can’t help feel that both the Democrats and the country as a whole would be better off now if Obama had prosecuted a few banksters and other rich lawbreakers after the economic crash.

I suspect Obama regrets not having prosecuted a few banksters and will have even more reason to do so when the financial system comes under pressure in the next wave.

 

The Manafort indictments matter. The corrupting effect he and his ilk have had on the lobbying business (see Atlantic story that passedout posted), on Congress and our entire system of government is way scarier than having a pig in the White House. The pigs are everywhere. They have had their day. It's time to make bacon.