What stupid shit has Trump done today?

[Don Troooomp]

Please let this be true - it seems it's on tape so I'm hopeful

Cohen claims Trump knew in advance of 2016 Trump Tower meeting - CNNPolitics


Cohen claims Trump knew in advance of 2016 Trump Tower meeting


(CNN)Michael Cohen, President Donald Trump's former personal attorney, claims that then-candidate Trump knew in advance about the June 2016 meeting in Trump Tower in which Russians were expected to offer his campaign dirt on Hillary Clinton, sources with knowledge tell CNN. Cohen is willing to make that assertion to special counsel Robert Mueller, the sources said.

 

[Don Troooomp]

Will Trump get the war he's after and how much will Israel pay him for starting it?

Trump could be prepared to strike Iran, Australian Government sources say

Senior figures in the Turnbull Government have told the ABC they believe the United States is prepared to bomb Iran's nuclear facilities, perhaps as early as next month, and that Australia is poised to help identify possible targets.

 

[Don Troooomp]

This has returned to delight us
If he does know where the dirty money went, he has the choice of protecting Trump and doing serious time or giving Trump up for a deal.
Bet he goes for a deal.

Federal jury move could have Trump feeling a bit nervous

A federal jury investigating Mr Cohen has subpoenaed the chief financial officer of his company, Allen Weisselberg, to testify.

Mr Weisselberg, who has worked closely with the Trump Organisation for decades, is considered a witness in the probe of Mr Cohen, The Wall Street Journal reported.

A former Trump Organisation employee told CNN his being subpoenaed is the “ultimate nightmare scenario for Trump”, because Mr Weisselberg knows “anything and everything” about the financial details of the organisation.

“Allen knows where all the financial bodies are buried.

 

[krtek a houby]

Please let this be true - it seems it's on tape so I'm hopeful

Cohen claims Trump knew in advance of 2016 Trump Tower meeting - CNNPolitics


Cohen claims Trump knew in advance of 2016 Trump Tower meeting


(CNN)Michael Cohen, President Donald Trump's former personal attorney, claims that then-candidate Trump knew in advance about the June 2016 meeting in Trump Tower in which Russians were expected to offer his campaign dirt on Hillary Clinton, sources with knowledge tell CNN. Cohen is willing to make that assertion to special counsel Robert Mueller, the sources said.

It's getting closer. But you can just see the spin on this, especially when it's CNN. Trump and his apologists will scream, once again, "fake news".

What does it take to bring the fucker down?

 

[Don Troooomp]

He doesn't see any value in service industries, arts and culture, public services. He's sought to cut funding, opportunities and workers' rights in those. Funnily enough, they seem to employ a higher proportion of women, and people of colour, and quite likely, Democratic Party voters.

Art is lovely, but Trump is not.

 

[MightyTibberton]

What does it take to bring the fucker down?

A non-Republican Congress.

 

[MightyTibberton]

I keep seeing that these stories - the tapes, Cohen confirming the "Russian adoptions" meeting - are not coming from Cohen. That they are being leaked by the Trump side. And I don't get it.... Am I wrong? I can't see the utility for Trump...? Five-dimensional ultra chess?

 

[Tankus]

Theres something worse in the background ?

 

[Tankus]

Meanwhile ...Avenatti claims that he is now representing 3 other women who were paid "hush money" just before the elections. ....one of whom was pregnant at the time of payment

Trumps "issues" seem to be escalating

 

[TomUS]

Trumps "issues" seem to be escalating

Which makes this very plausible...

The United States is reportedly prepared to bomb Iran’s nuclear capability as early as next month — and Australia will have a role to play....
According to senior figures in the Turnbull Government, the US is almost ready to pull the trigger on sites related to Iran’s nuclear program, in a move that would no doubt impact the wider region....The unnamed sources told the ABC that Australian defence facilities would likely help identify targets in Iran, as would British intelligence agencies.

Donald Trump prepared to bomb Iran’s nuclear capability

 

[Don Troooomp]

It's getting closer. But you can just see the spin on this, especially when it's CNN. Trump and his apologists will scream, once again, "fake news".

What does it take to bring the fucker down?

No idea, but I hope whatever it is happens soon.
Think happy, if Trump is on tape confirming he knew about the meeting and what was really going on, that has to do the job.... shit, not for republicans.

 

[Don Troooomp]

Which makes this very plausible...

Donald Trump prepared to bomb Iran’s nuclear capability

I gather Iran has been collecting Chinese anti aircraft and anti ship missiles.
One hopes the US will fuck up if they attack.

 

[Don Troooomp]

I keep seeing that these stories - the tapes, Cohen confirming the "Russian adoptions" meeting - are not coming from Cohen. That they are being leaked by the Trump side. And I don't get it.... Am I wrong? I can't see the utility for Trump...? Five-dimensional ultra chess?

Muddy the water.
Team Trump leak, blame the investigators, then claim the investigation is flawed because of politically motivated leaks.

 

[Don Troooomp]

A non-Republican Congress.

I have two words, "Mid" and "Terms". Let's hope.

 

[Yuwipi Woman]

Meanwhile ...Avenatti claims that he is now representing 3 other women who were paid "hush money" just before the elections. ....one of whom was pregnant at the time of payment

Trumps "issues" seem to be escalating

The frightening thing is that there might be yet another Trump out there somewhere. All the world needs is another Eric or Ivanka.

 

[teqniq]

 

[MightyTibberton]

Also floating the idea of a "credibility" contest between him and Cohen.

Hahahahaha haha hahaha ahaha hahahhah ahahaha ahahah ahahahahaha hahah ahahahah aahahahahahah ahahahahahah hahahah.

 

[CRI]

Interesting thread about Trump's connection with "certain people" in Moscow, related to the Miss Universe pageant. Also suggestion back in 2014 he was going to run for president in 2016.

 

[CRI]

No surprises here.

Companies used Trump's tax cut for record stock buybacks, not wages

President Donald Trump signed the bill in December last year, saying the corporate tax cut would make it favorable for companies to bring back into the U.S. cash stashed in foreign operations.

"More than 70 percent of this [tax cut] will be returned to workers," said White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders at a January press conference after the bill came into effect.

However, companies have instead used the extra cash to spend billions of dollars buying back their own stock, boosting the value of shares held by investors. Buybacks reduce the number of shares on the market, immediately increasing the value of the shares that investors already hold.

Over the past year, S&P 500 companies have given their shareholders a record $1 trillion in the form of buybacks and dividends, led by Apple, Cisco Systems, and other technology giants.

 

[Don Troooomp]

Restricting the press is generally bad news, but removing reporters for asking the 'wrong' questions is way out of order.


- The Washington Post

 

[CRI]

This is plausible.

How Vladimir Putin will take down Donald Trump when he’s no longer useful

 

[Nylock]

Restricting the press is generally bad news, but removing reporters for asking the 'wrong' questions is way out of order.


- The Washington Post

Paywalled.... Any chance of a synopsis?

 

[CRI]

Paywalled.... Any chance of a synopsis?

Here's the whole thing, over a couple posts as it's long.

If you have Firefox, you can create several different "containers," and you can have your allocation of free articles opened in each container. WashPo gives you I think 4 free, so if you have 4 containers, that's 16 free articles. They also have a special Facebook container that blocks all the tracking shit.

President Trump has sought repeatedly to punish journalists for the way they ask him questions, directing White House staff to ban those reporters from covering official events or to revoke their press credentials, according to several current and former administration officials.

At various moments throughout his presidency, Trump has vented angrily to aides about what he considers disrespectful behavior and impertinent questions from reporters in the Oval Office and in other venues. He has also asked that retaliatory action be taken against them.

“These people shouting questions are the worst,” Trump has said, according to a current official. “Why do we have them in here?”

Until this week, the officials said, Trump’s senior aides have resisted carrying out his directives. They convinced him that moves to restrict media access could backfire and further strain the White House’s fraught relationship with the press corps, whose members the president routinely derides as “fake news” and “dishonest people.”

On Wednesday, however, newly installed Deputy Chief of Staff Bill Shine and press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders took action against CNN correspondent Kaitlan Collins, telling her she could not attend Trump’s open-media event in the Rose Garden because they objected to her questioning of the president earlier in the day.

The move revealed a fresh willingness inside the West Wing to execute the president’s wishes to punish reporters. It immediately drew a chorus of protest throughout the media, including from Fox News Channel, Trump’s favorite network and Shine’s former employer.

Sanders defended the administration’s approach to the press.

“President Trump is the most accessible president in modern history,” she said Friday. “He has done almost three times as many question-and-answer sessions with reporters as his predecessor, and we continue to provide access to the press in a number of venues and formats every day.”

Olivier Knox, president of the White House Correspondents’ Association, said the group would challenge any further efforts by Trump to curtail the access of reporters who offend him.

“In keeping with the spirit of the First Amendment, reporters who cover the White House should be free to do their jobs without the specter of reprisal from the government,” he said in a statement. “The White House Correspondents’ Association will pursue its mission of advocacy on behalf of a free and independent news media’s ability to chronicle the American Presidency.”

Trump often expresses fury with the way his actions and behavior are covered in the media. He tweets critiques of news coverage almost daily and has openly contemplated cutting off press access.

“Why do we work so hard in working with the media when it is corrupt? Take away credentials?” the president tweeted May 9.

During his campaign, Trump barred reporters from about a dozen media organizations — including The Washington Post, Politico and BuzzFeed — from being credentialed at his rallies, news conferences and other events, and from flying on the press charter plane.

The blacklisted outlets continued to cover Trump’s campaign, with reporters obtaining general-admission tickets to his rallies and traveling on commercial flights. The ban — an unprecedented action by a major-party presidential candidate — was lifted in September 2016, during the general election’s home stretch.

Trump told Time magazine in 2015 that if elected, he would allow news outlets he thought were unfair to him to keep their White House credentials, but he added, “It doesn’t mean I’d be nice to them.”

“I tend to do what I do,” he said. “If people aren’t treating me right, I don’t treat them right.”

As president, Trump has not stripped any news organization of its credentials at the White House, which is a public institution rather than a private campaign. But throughout his 18 months in office, he has privately discussed with aides retaliating against individual journalists, officials said.

Among those who have angered Trump are reporters from CNN, NBC News and The Post, officials said. Two reporters in particular have drawn the president’s ire on multiple occasions: Jim Acosta, CNN’s chief White House correspondent, and April Ryan, Washington bureau chief for American Urban Radio Networks and a CNN contributor.

Trump’s irritation has flared the most when he has been peppered with questions from reporters on formal occasions, such as Rose Garden announcements, or during what are known as press pool sprays, when a handful of journalists representing the White House press corps covers meetings or events in the Oval Office, Cabinet Room or Roosevelt Room. He also has taken issue with the questions posed to Sanders and other officials at White House press briefings.

Behind closed doors, Trump often has vented about these types of encounters. He has asked, “Is there nothing that we could do?” according to a former White House official.

Trump has told aides to revoke credentials, deny access to upcoming events or contemplate other punishments, but it was not always clear to them whether he was issuing an order or merely letting off steam.

In past instances, top advisers, including Sanders and former communications director Hope Hicks, would try to talk Trump out of taking action, according to officials with knowledge of the conversations. They argued that doing so would only give more attention to the questions he did not like and suggested that if he did not want to answer those questions, he should simply ignore them.

Furthermore, aides warned Trump that the press corps, made up of scores of news organizations with competing interests, would band together in protest.

Sanders and Hicks declined to comment about their interactions with the president.

Continues below

 

[CRI]

Part two

Reporters routinely ask Trump questions about the news of the day, and many times the president answers — sometimes engaging in a lengthy back-and-forth on multiple topics. When he does not want to answer, he typically says “Thank you,” and staffers hurry reporters out of the room.

White House officials say Trump objects more to the tone of questions than the substance, saying he feels disrespected when reporters pepper him with questions in front of guests, particularly when a foreign dignitary is visiting.

“This president obviously isn’t afraid of questions,” counselor Kellyanne Conway told a gaggle of reporters Thursday. “We answer them routinely.” Rather, she said, the president objects to “the shouting and the pouting long after the press corps has been politely asked to leave the room.”

Earlier this month, as The Post has previously reported, Trump grumbled to aides about a question he was asked by Associated Press reporter Jonathan Lemire at his Helsinki news conference with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Lemire asked whether Trump would, “with the whole world watching,” denounce Russia’s interference in the 2016 presidential campaign. The president demurred and later complained to aides that Lemire had been called on, rather than someone more likely to lodge a softball question. Aides told the president that most journalists would have asked a similarly tough question.

In Wednesday’s incident, Collins was the pool reporter representing the five major television news networks in the Oval Office for Trump’s meeting with European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker. As the two presidents sat in armchairs, Collins asked Trump whether he felt betrayed by Michael Cohen, his former lawyer and fixer, who had released an audio recording of one of their conversations. She also asked about his invitation to Putin to visit Washington.

Collins later said on CNN, “Those questions were questions any reporter would have asked, and I was there to represent all of the networks and therefore ask about the questions of the day.”

In the past, aides have argued to Trump that retaliating against a reporter would end up elevating that journalist to stardom, an argument that carries special resonance for a president loath to share the spotlight or help others profit.

That is what has happened with Acosta, whose frequent tangles with Trump and administration officials have helped raise his profile.

This month in England, Trump snapped at Acosta when he tried to ask a question during his joint news conference with British Prime Minister Theresa May.

“I don’t take questions from CNN,” Trump said. “CNN is fake news.”

Trump then called on John Roberts of Fox News, saying, “Let’s go to a real network. John, let’s go.”

Acosta replied, “Well, we’re a real network, too, sir.”

 

[CRI]

Sanctions on Russia's Rusal could be lifted, Mnuchin says - CNNPolitics

The Trump administration is looking into lifting sanctions against a major Russian aluminum company founded by one of Vladimir Putin's closest allies.

The Treasury Department is considering relieving Rusal of penalties even though its former owner, oligarch Oleg Deripaska, was sanctioned this year by the US in an attempt to punish the Kremlin for interfering in the 2016 US presidential election.

The possible relief for Rusal comes as President Donald Trump continues to deal with the fallout from his Helsinki summit with the Russian president. Democrats and Republicans urged Trump to ramp up sanctions -- not dial them back -- and strike at even more sectors of the Russian economy.

The US imposed sanctions on Rusal in April because of its ties to Deripaska. But the Treasury Department said a few weeks later that it was considering removing sanctions against the massive aluminum company after a surge in aluminum prices.

 

[Don Troooomp]

MAGA, but buy your MAGA flags in China

Trump 2020 campaign denies reports of Chinese flag manufacturing - CNNPolitics

Yep, the great defender of US jobs gets his campaign shit from China.

 

[Don Troooomp]

That’s next level trollism!

Classic. Two "Russian" guards are protecting Trump's star.

https://nypost.com/2018/07/28/russian-soldiers-stand-guard-at-trumps-walk-of-fame-star/

 

[Don Troooomp]

A couple of weeks old, but back in the news.
Putin has openly said he helped Trump.

White House updates online transcript of Trump-Putin news conference

"Q: President Putin, did you want President Trump to win the election? And did you direct any of your officials to help him do that?"

"PRESIDENT PUTIN: (As interpreted.) Yes, I did. Yes, I did. Because he talked about bringing the U.S.-Russia relationship back to normal."

 

[SheilaNaGig]

^This. I've been saying for a while that he's not really stupid or crazy. He's fucking with his opposition to keep us off balance. It's a variation on "if you can't dazzle them with facts, baffle them with bullshit." It's all meant as a distraction to hide his actions under the table.

BTW, I once thought that it would be best if he stayed in office because Pence is pretty much the same, except a competent politician as well. I've changed my mind. Trump has to go, and as soon as possible. He's doing damage (socially, economically, and politically) we may not be able to recover from.

I had a conversation with someone who works in the State department about three weeks ago. He said that in his opinion it would be better if Trump stayed, for exactly the reason you state: Trump is breaking up and destroying the machinery of government and causing fundamental and irrecoverable damage to the nation. If he gets a second term (and he probably will) there will be nothing left to inherit. There will be a vast vacuum, into which any kind of danger can flow. At least Pence is a career politician, and will use the machine to further his own ends. At the end of his tenure there will at least be some kind of system that can be utilised.

The person I spoke with has worked under Bush, Obama and now Trump. His work is to talk to foreign governments about American foreign policy. I said “Wow.... so what exactly are you doing all day long?” and he said. “We read books, lots of books, long books. America currently has no foreign policy. There’s nothing to do in the office, not even admin. We can’t be sacked because were government officials. So we read books.”

He talked about how evil Pence is, and how dangerous, but how in his opinion Trump is more dangerous exactly because he’s so inept as a politician.


ETA He also said that it feels like he’s working for a kingpin mobster.

 

[AnnO'Neemus]

Which makes this very plausible...

Donald Trump prepared to bomb Iran’s nuclear capability

This kind of Wag the Dog scenario would be a good distraction that would benefit Trump at this stage.

And for bonus points it would please Netanyahu tremendously.