Trump enters the stage

“ABC late-night talk show host Jimmy Kimmel took the stage on Tuesday and jokingly suggested that his “compromise” to the battle of Brett Kavanaugh’s Supreme Court nomination is to chop off the judge’s “pesky penis,” should he be confirmed.”

Why these monsters so popular :frowning: :frowning: :frowning:

all these two years man, it has gone from hang and burn trump to attacking people in restaurants to calling for castration.
So many people think this is is okay. Probably war where 99 percent of us die is the only way for nature to take care of herself with the liberal disease running so rampant.

God I would NEVER stick my penis in a liberal.

Now this:;
Democracy Dies in Darkness

Politics

‘People actually laughed at a president’: At U.N. speech, Trump suffers the fate he always feared
The Debrief: An occasional series offering a reporter’s insights
By David Nakamura

September 25, 2018 at 5:14 PM

President Trump elicited laughter at the start of his address to world leaders Sept. 25 at the U.N. General Assembly in New York. (Reuters)
UNITED NATIONS —President Trump has long argued that the United States has been taken advantage of by other nations — a “laughing stock to the entire World,” he said on Twitter in 2014 — and his political rise was based on the premise that he had the strength and resolve to change that.

But at the U.N. General Assembly on Tuesday, Trump got a comeuppance on the world’s biggest stage. Delivering a speech that aimed to establish U.S. “sovereignty” over the whims and needs of other nations, the president’s triumphant moment was marred in the first minute when he was met by laughter — at his expense.

The embarrassing exchange came when Trump boasted that his administration had accomplished more over two years than “almost any administration” in American history, eliciting audible guffaws in the cavernous chamber hall.

The president appeared startled. “Didn’t expect that reaction,” he said, “but that’s okay.”

Members of the audience chuckled again — perhaps this time in sympathy.

President Trump prepares to address the 73rd session of the United Nations General Assembly on September 25, 2018 in New York City. (Photo by John Moore/Getty Images)
Trump continued his address, which lasted an additional 34 minutes, but the moment marked a pointed rejoinder from the international community to a president who has delighted in poking traditional U.S. allies and partners in the eye on trade, security alliances and general diplomatic bonhomie.

“He has always been obsessed that people are laughing at the president. From the mid-’80s, he’s said: ‘The world is laughing at us. They think we’re fools,’ ” said Thomas Wright, a Europe analyst at the Brookings Institution. “It’s never been true, but he’s said it about every president. It’s the first time I’m aware of that people actually laughed at a president. I think it is going to drive him absolutely crazy. It will play to every insecurity he has.”

For Trump, the moment wasn’t just embarrassing. It also punctured one of the core fabulist assertions of a president who has, according to Washington Post fact-checkers, made more than 5,000 false or misleading statements since taking office.

As the midterm elections approach, Trump has begun boasting of a long list of accomplishments for his administration, at one point reciting them at a recent campaign rally from two pieces of paper that he pulled from his suit jacket.

In doing so, the president typically has claimed sweeping success and placed himself favorably in historical comparison to the nation’s greatest leaders. At a rally in Springfield, Mo., last week, Trump was wrapping up an hour-long address to supporters with some flowery teleprompter prose about the courage of America’s founders when he strayed from the script to assert that his election in 2016 was “the greatest movement in the history of our country.”

At the United Nations, Trump’s claim to have done more in less than two years than most of the 44 previous administrations defied any bounds of reality — or hubris. The difference was that he was not talking to a room full of excited, red-hat-wearing “MAGA” supporters who cheer him on.

“On one hand, you feel, ‘Oh, God, how awful that the American president is being laughed at on the world stage,’ ” said Julie Smith, who served as deputy national security adviser to Vice President Joe Biden.

Germany’s delegation at the U.N. General Assembly appeared to laugh during President Trump’s speech when he suggested that Germany is becoming “totally dependent” upon Russian energy. (Reuters)
“But on the other hand, you kind of feel good that Trump was finally escaping the bubble of political rallies that continually gives him the impression that everyone agrees with the false claims he is making,” said Smith, who watched Trump’s speech from Berlin, where she is spending a year as a fellow at the Bosch Academy. “There was a moment I thought to myself, ‘This is good that the president is being exposed to how the rest of the world sees him.’ ”

Though the world leaders’ laughter at the United Nations was spontaneous, there might have been a bit of extra feeling behind it among some of the delegates in the room. TV cameras caught German diplomats chuckling — perhaps a form of release after relations between Trump and Chancellor Angela Merkel got off to a bad start and have continued to devolve.

Last year, Germans attending a conference at the Economic Council of the Christian Democratic Union in Berlin laughed and applauded after Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross’s microphone was cut off in mid-sentence after he spoke past his allotted time via video feed. Merkel then rebutted parts of his remarks in her own speech.

On social media, Trump’s critics quickly mocked him on Tuesday.

“American Presidents used to set the global agenda at the UNGA. Now Trump gets laughed at,” tweeted Ben Rhodes, who as a top national security aide to President Barack Obama helped craft U.N. speeches.

“The world just laughed @realDonaldTrump,” comedian Wanda Sykes tweeted. Referring to the famed theater in Harlem in which the audience boos and heckles bad performers offstage, she added, “Stay tuned, they might go full ‘Showtime at the Apollo’ on him.”

By the afternoon, Trump was projecting an air of nonchalance, telling reporters that his boast in the speech “was meant to get some laughter.” But most observers weren’t buying it from a president who seldom laughs at himself and whose default expression is an unsparing glare.

“It’s got to hurt,” said Wright, the Brookings Institution analyst. “It was on camera and it was spontaneous. It was on one of the biggest stages in the world.”

2.1k Comments
David Nakamura covers the White House. He has previously covered sports, education and city government and reported from Afghanistan, Pakistan and Japan.

© 1996-2018 The Washington Post


A former spy explains why Manafort is crucial to Mueller’s Russia investigation
Manafort’s guilty plea goes to the heart of Russia’s 2016 election interference plot.
By Alex Finley and Center for Public Integrity on September 26, 2018 6:00 am

Six years before Paul Manafort became Donald Trump’s campaign chairman, he advised another divisive politician: Ukraine’s Viktor Yanukovych. Javier Zarracina/Vox; Mark Wilson, Sasha Mordovets/Getty Images
Viktor Yanukovych, a Ukrainian politician, ran a divisive and ultimately successful presidential campaign in 2010.

Over the course of several months, he portrayed his political opponent, Yulia Tymoshenko, as corrupt and threatened to jail her. He warned that the election might be rigged and called on supporters to march in protest if he lost. He yelled about the corruption of the political elite and attacked his Western allies, calling instead for closer ties with Russia, with whom he had cultivated deep — and hidden — business ties.

Any of this sound familiar?

During his 2016 presidential campaign, Donald Trump had the same strategic adviser as Yanukovych did six years earlier: Paul Manafort.

Coincidentally or not, Manafort proceeded to implement a nearly identical political playbook to launch Trump into the most powerful office in the world.

On September 14, Manafort pleaded guilty to two counts of conspiracy — counts that include money laundering, failing to register as a foreign agent, and witness tampering — and agreed to cooperate with special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into whether the Trump campaign colluded with Russia during the presidential election.

The plea agreement came after Manafort was found guilty on charges of tax fraud, bank fraud, and hiding foreign bank accounts in a separate trial last month. The charges Manafort pleaded guilty to concern his influence-peddling on behalf of Yanukovych and his pro-Russian political party, the Party of Regions, in Washington and elsewhere — all of which occurred years before Manafort joined the Trump campaign.

The day the plea agreement was announced, White House press secretary Sarah Sanders issued a statement emphasizing that fact — that Manafort’s crimes happened long before he ever worked for the campaign — saying that the plea deal “had absolutely nothing to do with the president or his victorious 2016 presidential campaign. It is totally unrelated.”

But while she’s right that the crimes Manafort pleaded guilty to predate his work with the Trump campaign, his decision to plead guilty brings us closer to resolving questions surrounding possible cooperation between the Trump campaign and Russian interests.

For Mueller, Manafort is a way to gain detailed insight into the campaign’s most controversial inner machinations, including the June 2016 Trump Tower meeting billed in advance by Russians as a way to collect damaging information on Hillary Clinton, and the decision to weaken the Republican Party’s support for Ukraine (which Russia had invaded) in its official platform.

Manafort may also provide new details about who knew what and when about WikiLeaks’ dissemination of Hillary Clinton’s stolen emails at a key moment during the election.

As a former spy, I know that Manafort was a vulnerable target
Manafort’s guilty plea makes it clear that his actions on behalf of Ukraine’s pro-Russian leader were in lockstep with the larger interests of Russian President Vladimir Putin, who sought to undermine democracy not only in Eastern Europe but in America as well.

So why did this convergence of interests occur? My experience as an intelligence officer tells me that Manafort’s unmitigated greed and his business practices — including money laundering and his frequent use of offshore accounts — highlight vulnerabilities that Russian intelligence officers could have exploited to their advantage, including while he was working for Trump.

At the CIA, where I worked in the Directorate of Operations, we assessed a potential asset’s vulnerabilities using the acronym MICE: money, ideology, coercion, and ego. Any good intelligence officer finds a way to use those vulnerabilities to leverage the asset to work on her or his behalf.

Manafort, it was clear, had multiple vulnerabilities. He liked money, and he hid a lot of it. Prosecutors at his first trial highlighted Manafort’s extravagant lifestyle, trotting out exhibits showing he spent a million dollars on clothing at a single store, bought a $21,000 watch, spent a million dollars on Oriental rugs, used millions to buy and renovate real estate, and shelled out $15,000 on an ostrich leather jacket.

Yanukovych, the Ukrainian president, lived an opulent lifestyle as well — particularly for a lifelong public servant.

After he was forced out of office in February 2014, Ukrainians stormed his residence and discovered luxury cars, an 18-hole golf course, a presidential sauna, and a private exotic zoo, which included several ostriches (no word yet on how Yanukovych, or his ostriches, felt about Manafort’s jacket). Elsewhere, investigators for the new government found a ledger outlining $12 million in unofficial payments to Manafort.

So we know that Manafort had extensive ties to important people, some of whom were in their own compromising situations. Any intelligence officer would recognize the opportunity. Manafort was, quite simply, a ripe target to be exploited.

But what does lobbying for Ukraine have to do with Russia?
Yanukovych and his political party, who were both Manafort’s clients, had a political agenda aligned with Russia and influenced by a flow of Russian money.

The most glaring example of this occurred in November 2013, when Yanukovych decided not to sign an agreement with the European Union — despite popular support in Ukraine for it — and to push, instead, for closer ties with Russia.

The move set off a series of protests in Ukraine that nearly led to a civil war and ended with Yanukovych’s ouster in February 2014. He fled the country and remains in exile, notably, in Russia.

What’s notable as well is that Manafort and his partners pushed that same pro-Russia political agenda with US policymakers and the American press.

Manafort tried to clean up Yanukovych’s image in the West, convincing policymakers that his jailing of Tymoshenko was not politically motivated, for example, and that Yanukovych was the best leader to forge Ukraine’s relationship with Europe — exactly as Putin wanted.

Manafort also did other things to promote Putin’s agenda. According to the Associated Press, Manafort signed a contract in 2006 with Russian oligarch and Putin friend Oleg Deripaska. Deripaska agreed to pay Manafort $10 million a year to develop and execute an influence plan that Manafort promised would “greatly benefit the Putin Government.”

The Wall Street Journal has reported that Manafort carried out similar pro-Russian influence operations in Georgia and Montenegro, two other countries Putin has been keen to keep on a tight leash due to their geographic proximity and historic ties to Russia.

This type of lobbying shares many similarities with espionage.

Both focus on gathering information, and influencing and manipulating people to do one’s bidding. The only real difference is deniability: Intelligence agencies like to hide the fact that they are behind the influence.

Lobbyists often don’t — but Manafort did.

In fact, Manafort’s correspondence, included as evidence in court filings, is littered with spy lingo depicting his efforts at deniability. In a June 2012 email to his associates Rick Gates and Konstantin Kilimnik outlining plans to put together a high-level group of former European leaders to push Ukraine’s agenda, for example, Manafort notes “some informal and covert interaction is possible.”

He also pushed news stories denigrating Yanukovych’s political opponent in the American press. Those, too, needed to be “push[ed]” “[w]ith no fingerprints,” according to court filings.

As the charging documents state, Manafort hid that he and the government of Ukraine were behind efforts “to influence both American leaders and the American public.” He viewed “secrecy for himself and for the actions of his lobbyists as integral to the effectiveness of the lobbying offensive.”

Manafort and his partners even used other companies and individuals as cutouts, allowing them to influence policymakers “without any visible relationship with the Government of Ukraine,” according to the statement of offenses.

This all brings us to the question of collusion
Why did Manafort, a man who loved money, agree to work for Trump for free?

Was someone else paying him secretly? Were the loans he received from Deripaska or others connected to pro-Russian interests, whether business executives or organizations, really meant to be paid back? Or was Manafort in debt to these people, and thus vulnerable to coercion?

Manafort’s lawyers have denied he colluded with the Russian government. But his relationship with Deripaska, the Russian oligarch, included financial debt — which Deripaska wound up pursuing in the courts, and Manafort has denied.

This raises the question of what exactly Manafort owed to people close to Putin.

Of particular note is an email exchange — published by the Washington Post and the Atlantic — in which Manafort offered to brief Deripaska on developments in the Trump campaign.

This was an intriguing offer considering Deripaska’s relationship with Putin, and the fact that Manafort had received millions of dollars from Deripaska to do something. (They have each said the funds were for consulting or business deals that fell apart.)

Mueller may soon learn the answers to some of these questions, and perhaps the American public will learn the answer to the most important question of all: When Manafort worked on the Trump campaign, whose interests was he serving?

And here is an article which shows how badly murked the underbelly of the what is happening in the investigation

POLITICO

Mueller cooperator fears retribution from Russia
By JOSH GERSTEIN 09/27/2018 12:05 AM EDT
Robert Mueller
n a bid for leniency, defense attorney Jeremy Lessem argued that Richard Pinedo has experienced harassment and death threats over his walk-on role in special counsel Robert Mueller’s probe. | Mark Wilson/Getty Images

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A California man who admitted to unwittingly facilitating Russian interference in the 2016 election and later cooperated with special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into the subject now fears for his safety, the man’s attorney said in a court filing Wednesday,

Richard Pinedo, 28, is set to be sentenced next month for selling bank account numbers to Russian internet trolls who used the numbers to buy web ads aimed at advancing President Donald Trump’s campaign and fomenting strife among Americans during the contentious election.

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In a bid for leniency, defense attorney Jeremy Lessem argued that Pinedo has experienced harassment and death threats over his walk-on role in the Mueller probe. Lessem also suggested that Pinedo has curtailed his activities because fears he could be the victim of attack by Russia, Russian sympathizers, or their opponents.

“The mere act of providing publicly incriminating evidence against Russian nationals accused of undermining an American presidential election is not an undertaking one embarks on lightly, no matter what potential benefits may result,” Lessem wrote in a sentencing filing Wednesday. “Indeed, in a time when those critical of Russia are being murdered, and those who defend Russia in the United States are threatened with violence, Mr. Pinedo’s cooperation with the investigation was an act that directly undermined his, and his family’s, safety.”

The defense submission says Pinedo, who lives in rural Santa Paula, California, had never been out of the state before being contacted by investigators. But Lessem said Pinedo now won’t consider traveling abroad.

“Due to safety concerns related to this case, Mr. Pinedo wouldn’t even consider traveling outside the country, and often suffers severe anxiety simply driving through his own neighborhood,” the defense attorney said.

Lessem is asking that Pinedo get no prison time for the felony identity theft offense he admitted to in February. Prosecutors say sentencing guidelines call for him to receive from 12 months to 18 months, although part of that time could be served in home confinement. Mueller’s team is not recommending any specific sentence.

Pinedo’s conduct “recklessly enabled other criminal activity that may have otherwise been prevented,” prosecutors wrote. However, they gave him credit for owning up to his actions and they say he “saved the government significant time and resources in the investigation.”

U.S. District Court Judge Dabney Friedrich, a Trump appointee, is scheduled to sentence Pinedo in Washington on Oct. 10. He faces a maximum of 15 years in prison, but is likely to get a much shorter sentence in accord with federal sentencing guidelines.

Pinedo is set to become the third person sentenced in the Mueller probe.

In April, Dutch attorney Alex Van Der Zwaan was sentenced to 30 days in federal prison after admitting he lied to investigators about his activities while working for law firm Skadden Arps on matters related to Ukraine. He served his sentence and was deported in June.

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Earlier this month, former Trump campaign foreign policy adviser George Papadopoulos received a 14-day sentence after conceding he lied to the FBI about his interactions with pro-Russian figures during the 2016 campaign.

Papadopoulos is free pending an order to surrender.

POLITICO

Democrats prepare to force vote on Mueller protection bill
By KYLE CHENEY 09/27/2018 12:19 PM EDT
Jim McGovern
Rep. Jim McGovern (D-MA) with the backing of Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee, intends to introduce a proposal that would force Republicans to decide whether to consider the Mueller-protection proposal or sideline it. | Alex Edelman/AFP/Getty Images

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House Democrats are preparing to force a vote Thursday on a plan to protect special counsel Robert Mueller’s probe from interference or unilateral removal by President Donald Trump.

Massachusetts Rep. Jim McGovern, with the backing of Democrats on the House Judiciary Committee, intend to introduce the proposal as an amendment ahead of expected consideration of three tax-related bills. The proposal would force Republicans to decide whether to consider the Mueller-protection proposal or sideline it.

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For Democrats, the effort is a chance to force Republicans on the record on an issue that has generated some bipartisan support in the House and Senate. It’s a matter Democrats have described with increasing urgency as Trump has ratcheted up his attacks on Mueller and the investigation of his campaign’s contacts with Russia.

Republicans, though, have shown little urgency to support the measure, even as most have expressed support for Mueller being allowed to complete his work. They’ve argued that they don’t believe Trump will try to remove Mueller, despite his rhetoric describing the investigation as illegitimate and a “witch hunt”

The measure, which has the backing of six House Republicans in addition to more than 120 House Democrats, would prohibit a special counsel from being removed without “good cause,” such as a violation of Justice Department policy. The proposal would also prohibit removal by anyone other than the attorney general or the most highly ranked Justice Department official who oversees the special counsel.

In addition, the measure must provide written notice of any removal decision, including a detailed explanation, and provide the special counsel an opportunity to appeal to a three-judge panel. The court would also decide whether the special counsel would remain active while any appeal is pending – and would guarantee that all documents, resources and materials are preserved.

Two Republican senators, Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and Thom Tillis of North Carolina, backed an identical measure in the Senate.

McGovern intends to introduce an amendment to a House rule to govern debate on three tax bills. The amendment would require Republicans to add the special counsel legislation to the list of bills to be considered.

Rep. Jerrold Nadler (D-N.Y.), top Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee, has long sought the committee’s consideration of the legislation but has been stymied along partisan lines.

And yet, Trump’s popularity among Republicans remain high.

This political schism, one commentator noted, is unprecedented in the recent history of the United States. In substance, its beginning to resemble the rationalism of the Civil War.

Deontological certainty:

Have still not read the visible and the invisible, despite setting it on my early spring reading list.

Trumpism is set to fail for the following reasons:

Nationalis , as much as aspiring to retain borders, fail on many levels, particularly on metaphysical, metapsychologocal and quantum-real levels. The basic force of entropy, the fall, cannot sustain the increasingly heavy forces pressing on internal and external forces on the architecture of decaying presumptions which try to reconstruct equally odious memories of ideograms.

The question is, will the final reckoning be a slow or a sudden climax.

POLITICO

Mueller defends authority, hearkens back to Garfield administration
By DARREN SAMUELSOHN 09/28/2018 09:11 PM EDT
Robert Mueller
At issue is the case of Andrew Miller, a former aide to Trump confidante Roger Stone who has so far failed in his bid to knock special counsel Robert Mueller out of his post. | Brendan Smialowski/AFP/Getty Images

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Special counsel Robert Mueller cited more than a century’s worth of presidential scandal on Friday as part of a sweeping legal defense of his own authorities.

The lead Russia prosecutor made the historical references — that attorney generals have needed special investigators dating back to the 1870s — in a legal brief to a federal appeals court considering the case of a reluctant witness tied to a longtime supporter of President Donald Trump who is seeking to have Mueller’s appointment thrown out on constitutional grounds.

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“These instances—involving appointments by Attorneys General under Presidents Garfield, Theodore Roosevelt, Truman, Kennedy, Nixon, Carter, George H.W. Bush, and Clinton—span nearly 140 years and include some of the most notorious scandals in the Nation’s history, including Watergate,” wrote Michael Dreeben, the deputy solicitor general on loan to the Mueller team.

At issue is the case of Andrew Miller, a former aide to Trump confidante Roger Stone who has so far failed in his bid to knock Mueller out of his post by challenging the legitimacy of several subpoenas seeking his documents and testimony in connection to the Russia probe.

A federal district court judge rejected Miller’s bid last month to quash the string of grand jury subpoenas, and the ex-Stone aide was later held in contempt of court — a precursor to his current appeal.

In Friday’s brief, Dreeben ticked through the history of Mueller’s appointment — including Attorney General Jeff Sessions’ recusal from all investigations tied to the 2016 presidential election because of his work on the Trump campaign — in arguing that special counsel was indeed properly appointed under Justice Department regulations.

Mueller is subject to routine supervision and oversight — from Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein because of Sessions’ recusal — on everything from his budget to hiring personnel and other key decisions.

“The Attorney General receives a regular flow of information about the Special Counsel’s actions; he can demand an explanation for any of them; and he has power to intervene when he deems it appropriate to prevent a deviation from established Departmental practices," Dreeben explained.

Miller’s lawsuit isn’t the first to challenge Mueller’s authority.

Two federal judges earlier this year rejected efforts by former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort to have Mueller’s appointment invalidated. A Trump-appointed federal judge last month also rejected a bid by the Russian company Concord Management that challenged Mueller’s jurisdiction after it was charged in connection to a Kremlin-linked online troll farm accused of targeting the American elections.

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Miller’s appeal leans on many of the same arguments raised by Concord, including that Mueller’s appointment was flawed at multiple levels — and at its core remains unconstitutional. They say Mueller’s power is so vast that he should have been subject to presidential nomination and Senate confirmation, rather than treated as an “inferior” officer who may be appointed and supervised by the attorney general.

While Mueller reports to Rosenstein, Miller’s lawyers argue that Justice regulations prevent the deputy attorney general from overturning many of the special counsel’s decisions. That authority, they argue, should only be permitted for individuals appointed by the president.

Miller’s defense team has an October 9 deadline to file its reply brief. Oral arguments are scheduled for November 8 — just two days after the upcoming midterm election.

Judge Says Democratic Lawmakers Can Sue Trump On Emoluments
September 28, 20188:37 PM ET
Peter Overby 2010
PETER OVERBY

Twitter

Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn. (right) and Elizabeth Wydra, congressional Democrats’ attorney in a case accusing President Trump of violating the Constitution’s Foreign Emoluments Clause, speak to reporters in June.
Jacquelyn Martin/AP
About 200 Democrats in the House and Senate have won a judge’s approval to go ahead with their anti-corruption lawsuit against President Trump.

U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan, in Washington, D.C., said the lawmakers have standing to sue Trump. They allege he violates the Foreign Emoluments Clause of the Constitution, as his hotels and other establishments around the world profit from spending and favors by foreign governments.

Justice Department lawyers, representing Trump, contended that only Congress, not its members acting individually, could deal with the emoluments clause.

The Foreign Emoluments Clause bars U.S. officials from accepting gifts or payments from foreign governments unless Congress consents. It’s a visible issue, as some foreign dignitaries pay to stay at Trump’s hotel while on official visits to the White House.

Trump began his presidency by choosing — unlike other presidents in recent decades — to keep ownership of his businesses. He hasn’t asked Congress for consent under the Foreign Emoluments Clause, and the Republican-controlled House and Senate haven’t raised the issue with him.

Article continues after sponsorship

DOJ argued in court that Trump doesn’t have to ask — that Congress can act on its own. The plaintiffs said they need a court order to make Trump obey the Constitution.

Federal Lawsuit Against President Trump’s Business Interests Allowed To Proceed
POLITICS
Federal Lawsuit Against President Trump’s Business Interests Allowed To Proceed
The lawmakers are the second set of plaintiffs to gain standing in an emoluments case against Trump.

A federal judge in Maryland granted standing in July to the attorneys general of the District of Columbia and Maryland, in a suit focused on the hotel near the White House and citing both the foreign and domestic emoluments clauses. Now the attorneys general are seeking documents from the White House and the Trump Organization in the document discovery stage that precedes a trial.

In a third case, the watchdog group Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington and plaintiffs from the hospitality industry were denied standing by a federal judge in New York. CREW has filed an appeal.

Note: Brief commentaries will be posted, between more important political milestones. The above merely describes movements which appear to veer right or left of the center.

It looks like Trump is trying to center himself, especially his approving a Kavanaugh FBI investigation. , only done because of said Democratic and partial Republican insistence, but almost immediately downgrading such a move.

Trump entered the stage
The Kings and Emperors fell off
and got angry.

That’s interesting but if they actually knew ahead of time , can it be found in some wizard’s prophecy? Maybe in the last hidden 7th Seal of the church explaining its hidden significance at the 'end time’s? Just a thought

And besides , the fall can be thought as a foreshadowing. But relax, what we know so far of quantum consciousness, there really is no beginning or end, and Nietzsche was on point with recurrence eternally.

The picture is beginning to reveal much, but fear pervades the land.

The Emperors were given the means to know and prepare and adapt but as emperors go and do, they preferred to believe they would reign forever, and chose to interpret the secret knowledge in that way.

Now fear pervades them and their “little ones”, those that relished their bed time stories (the news); and courage and fire pervades those that now are called. The beautiful ones, the innocent, the true.

Never before was the human world so true. This is our awakening. Now love is born into our species.

That is put exquisitely, and almost poetically, really, kudos!

Except, they have to know what it is, before they can understand its meaning. That’s the hard part.

POLITICO

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President Donald Trump and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau of Canada
President Donald Trump and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau of Canada had been at odds over trade. | Leon Neal/Getty Images

TRADE

U.S. reaches trade deal with Canada and Mexico, providing Trump a crucial win
The new pact is a major step toward completing one of the president’s signature campaign promises.

By ADAM BEHSUDI, ALEXANDER PANETTA and DOUG PALMER 09/30/2018 07:42 PM EDT Updated 10/01/2018 12:47 AM EDT
Trade ministers from the U.S., Mexico and Canada have reached a deal to revamp the North American Free Trade Agreement, the Trump administration announced late Sunday night.

The new pact, which is being called the U.S.-Mexico-Canada Agreement, is a major step toward completing one of Trump’s signature campaign promises and gives the president a concrete policy win to tout on the campaign trail this fall. It also sets the stage for what is sure to be a high-stakes fight to get the agreement passed by Congress before it can become law.

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The Trump administration already formally notified Congress at the end of August of its plans to sign a new pact and faced a deadline of the end of September to provide a draft of the agreement.

U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer said in late August that officials are planning to sign with their Canadian and Mexican counterparts by the end of November — a date that would also satisfy Mexico, which is eager to have current President Enrique Peña Nieto sign the deal before his successor takes over Dec. 1.

“It’s a great win for the president and a validation for his strategy in the area of international trade,” a senior administration official said on a call with reporters late Sunday.

People briefed on the outlines of a revamped deal described changes in language governing dairy imports, dispute resolution between countries, limits on online shopping that can be done tax free, and limits on the U.S. threat of auto tariffs.

“It’s a good day for Canada,” Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said as he left the office late Sunday night. He said he would save other comments for an official announcement on Monday.

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A formal vote in Congress won’t be held until 2019, and it is still an open question whether lawmakers — including members of the president’s own party who have often clashed with him on trade — will fall in line to support the deal.

Republicans are expected to pay close attention to the final details regarding dispute settlement and intellectual property issues, while Democrats will likely be looking for stricter labor and environmental standards.

Lawmakers from both parties, along with powerful business and industry groups, are also examining whether new provisions, such as stricter automotive rules, may end up making life more difficult for domestic companies rather than easier.

A senior administration official highlighted the “great result” on dairy issues that was achieved. The pact opens up the Canadian dairy market to U.S. exports at a level higher than the 3.25 percent market share the Obama administration negotiated under the Trans-Pacific Partnership.

The official also said that Canada agreed to eliminate a recent milk-ingredient pricing program that U.S. farmers complained had dried up demand for their exports of the product.

In exchange, Canada was able to preserve dispute settlement language. Canada has historically insisted on an international panel to judge whether the U.S. improperly uses duties as a commercial weapon.

Canada also agreed to an “accommodation” to its auto exports in response to tariffs Trump is expected to impose on vehicle imports for national security reasons, the senior administration official said. That arrangement will likely involve Canada agreeing to a side deal that would restrict its auto exports to a level well above the current volume of trade that flows south of the border, sources close to the talks said.

Lighthizer had hoped to reach an agreement by the end of 2017, a timeline that was extended until the end of March. The three nations failed to make that deadline but have been meeting almost continuously in Washington since as they sought to reach compromises on issues that have been both technically and politically challenging for all three countries.

Now, depending on the outcome of November’s midterm elections, control of the House of Representatives may well turn over to Democrats, who may have little incentive to work with a president from the opposite party to ratify a deal that they may not like.

One strategy that circulated earlier this year was a plan to force a vote by withdrawing from the existing NAFTA agreement before the new one takes effect — thus forcing members of Congress to choose between the renegotiated deal or no deal at all.

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Trump indicated last month that he would pursue such tactics, telling reporters in the Oval Office that he would “be terminating the existing deal and going into this deal.”

Several prominent lawmakers, however, expressed cautious optimism with the new pact.

“Maintaining a trilateral North American deal is an important prerequisite to preserving and extending those gains and the Trump administration has achieved that goal,” said Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), chairman of the Senate Finance Committee. “I look forward to reviewing this deal to confirm it meets the high standards of Trade Promotion Authority.”

Under the TPA, Congress will take a straight up-or-down vote without amendments. Those rules also have a series of other steps that also must be followed before the deal can be passed.

Even without congressional approval, having the preliminary deal in hand will give the administration and vulnerable Republicans up for reelection at least the skeleton of a policy achievement to use on the trail.

Officials have said that changes made to automotive rules to increase the amount of content that must be sourced from within NAFTA countries should play well in manufacturing states concerned about the offshoring of jobs.

Meanwhile, leading congressional Democrats say they’re not yet convinced that the new deal represents a significant shift from past trade policies that have rarely earned their support.

“The bar for supporting a new NAFTA will be high,” said Rep. Richard Neal (D-Mass.), the ranking member on the House Ways and Means Committee.

Democrats and their backers in labor unions and environment groups will be looking for a deal they feel can be adequately enforced in terms of upholding worker rights and environmental protections.

Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) said the ability of the deal to enforce those provisions will be a “crucial test” for a new agreement.

The country’s largest organized labor group also stressed that it will be studying the labor language closely.

“The text we have reviewed, even before the confirmation that Canada will remain part of NAFTA, affirms that too many details still need to be worked out before working people make a final judgment on a deal,” AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka said in a statement.

It remains unclear at this point what the preliminary deal means for the steel and aluminum tariffs the Trump administration has put in place as well as the retaliatory duties Canada and Mexico imposed. Many industry sources and others close to the talks have long expected that reaching a deal would lead the U.S. to lift the tariffs, a move that would lead Canada and Mexico to follow suit.

A senior U.S. administration official said a possible exemption for Canada remains on a separate track from the broader trade negotiations and there was no agreement yet on that issue.

Mexican Economy Secretary Ildefonso Guajardo said in late August that those tariffs — as well as Mexico’s retaliatory duties on $3 billion in U.S. products like agricultural goods — would be enforced until the countries are closer to signing an agreement later this year.

Later:

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Biden: Nation’s Core Values at Risk in Midterms
Former Vice President Joe Biden.
(Photo by Mark Wilson/Getty Images)

By Brian Freeman
Sunday, 30 Sep 2018 10:07 PM

Join in the Discussion!

Stressing that “the core values that built this nation are at risk,” former Vice President Joe Biden on Sunday said the upcoming midterm elections are “bigger than politics,” The Hill reported.

During a speech for the Rhode Island Democratic Party, Biden emphasized that his declaration was not hyperbole, because “our institutions are under assault,” and the “invisible moral fabric that holds up a society, a democracy, is being shredded."

Tearing into the Trump administration, Biden said, “We can’t be the generation that let the core values of our institutions and this nation and our standing in the world be destroyed,” arguing that “our Republican colleagues are complicit by their silence."

He also slammed the GOP’s handling of the sexual assault allegations against Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh, saying “we witnessed from Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee a degree of invective, blind rage and brute partisanship that threatens not only the Senate and the Supreme Court - it threatens the basic faith the American people have in our institutions."

Biden, who chaired the Senate Foreign Relations Committee for years, also criticized Trump for his handling of foreign policy.

Biden said he received calls from world leaders who asked him, “‘What’s happened, Joe?.. What’s going on? What happened to that shining city on the hill?’”

“I understand the president said in West Virginia that he loves the president of North Korea because they’ve exchanged letters,” he said, referring to Trump’s remarks on Saturday that he and North Korean leader Kim Jong-un have fallen “in love.”

“Look, I’m not looking for a war but I’m looking for some reality,” Biden said.

Why do you use this thread as a blog?

Why do you use this thread as a blog?

-because it will be helpful to look back and perhaps see how the different pieces fit, ex post facto; and besides, politics is a form of art.

[quote=“Meno_”]
Why do you use this thread as a blog?

-because it will be helpful to look back and perhaps see how the different pieces fit, ex post facto; and besides, politics is a form of art.[/quote

Does this constitute a real charge or, was it dreamed up on a propaganda machine?

Congressional investigators have confirmed that a top FBI official met with Democratic Party lawyers to talk about allegations of Donald Trump-Russia collusion weeks before the 2016 election, and before the bureau secured a search warrant targeting Trump’s campaign.

Former FBI general counsel James Baker met during the 2016 season with at least one attorney from Perkins Coie, the Democratic National Committee’s private law firm.

That’s the firm used by the DNC and Hillary Clinton’s campaign to secretly pay research firm Fusion GPS and Christopher Steele, a former British intelligence operative, to compile a dossier of uncorroborated raw intelligence alleging Trump and Moscow were colluding to hijack the presidential election.

The sign preceded the signal -that incurses the backward look even before before Descartes’ cogito, as a social reflection of identity.
Can’t sleep because of jet lag .

The cogito as am identifiable self on a social basis, tries to predate the answer to the failure of the will, and the developer of the sign as: bubble, sign as the failure of the eye, in the shot to -under lying motif- in esse eat percipii, becomes the ontological necessity .

As if space time was pre tempted of a lasting identifiable sign, and needed to incorporate its signal, a more complex social deviemce, a deviance understood by Leibnitz.

Intentionality tried filling the gap between being and nothingness, and failed miserably. The signs were taken as signals , based on nothing but archytipical essences, mysteriously appearing , Steiner reduced it to such, and probably saw the need of a new ideal , a new reformation. In that effort, along with Blavatsky, and other mysterious compensations.

The mirror of identifiable traits, as odious and mistaken as it has become, necessitated a test, a societal conflict of which the result became a horror show.

A test of will raised by the intentional use of a ladder, which became too much for the heavy load upon which such transmission overbore its capacity.

It broke , and the triad of national, social and and material dialectic came to a crashing halt, when intentionality and the social will to overcome its obstacles lost the transmission of signs of information , and could not connect with any meaningful social signifier signature, with which to indemnify the reason d’etre for its very composite picture of its social significance.

The result was a retro-cultism of the kind Levi Strauss talks about, projected into the ultra modern post understood social contract.

It’s social understanding exhibits negative symptoms of cultist, mixed with national boundaries, so as to create a myopic individual bubbling of sources, the social mirror filled with the doubt manufactured by an evil genius, presenting a misunderstood fear of a lack of substance in a material world, leading to ideological vampires, to replace the processes of democracy.

The richest man in the world is approaching the wealth of Solomon, and Amazon, the allegory used to shield vast primitive forests possibility,
creates representations of major uneven distribution.

Trumpism is a.cover for am original regression to the Cogito ergo Sum, but only for the lonely, the ones on the pyramid, whose only method is by way of a hidden social control.

Trump knows it, and all bow to the hope of the machine, the love machine that was meant to change the very genetic make up of human life, upon which alter we must oblige , for fear of extinction.

The oligarch habe narrowed their view of intentional wielding of.power to a constant shortening of term, not because they want to, but they have to.

They are our last hope.

Oh to still believe in scapegoats. …

Forever young eh?

In a next life you will learn to scrutinize your sources.

We have agreed son some level that this post contains no real opinion or slant but creates a modicum of impartiality sans an absence of any real dialectical synthesis, but it adheres tacitly on some level by a philosophical leaning toward an empirical approach to a kind of neo~kantism, a futility of, evident to more sophistry then substance.

That this is what’s happening is not anxhoixe it is based on a consumer need to. Ompenaate for a xhangingnworld which needs compensating forces.

Trumpism is not a consist ent stream of thought, it is not a functional apparatus but a required body-politic to deal with what materialism post dialectics can consistently contain.

At the end of the road, which really is no end looking back in an era post history, it is said, the pieces will need aethestic distance gleaned from a point of view of appreciating function, of this apparatus .

Until then, it can not be said of a postmodern process ofnthoufj eitjwr be this or that.

Right now the most that can be said is: it is what it is.

ABCNews
Is Russia playing a double game in Mueller court battle?
By Lee Ferran
Oct 5, 2018, 5:00 AM ET

WATCH: Special counsel Robert Mueller said they allegedly set up campaign-style rallies in US battleground states.
When special counsel Robert Mueller announced indictments in February targeting 13 Russian individuals and three Russian business entities for their alleged roles in a Kremlin-directed election influence campaign, legal experts thought the case had little chance of going forward.

After all, each of the defendants was believed to be safely in Russia, which does not have an extradition treaty with the U.S.

“When those indictments dropped I think it was widely assumed that it was unlikely that any of those defendants would ever appear in a U.S. court,” April Doss, a former attorney for the National Security Agency, told ABC News.

But then the Russians did something unexpected. In April, an American law firm told the court it was representing one of the accused businesses entities, Concord Management and Consulting, LLC, that wished to fight the case. Unlike cases against individuals, the American legal system allows for corporate defendants to be represented by an attorney even if no individual from that company is physically present in court. The quirk in the system meant that Concord could fight the charges from Russia without any of its officials actually standing in front of an American judge.

After pleading not guilty to a fraud-related charge, Concord, through the Pittsburg-based law firm Reed Smith, has mounted a spirited defense, challenging the special counsel’s office every legal step of the way. Eric Dubelier, the lead attorney for Concord, declined to discuss the case.

Doss, who recently served as senior minority counsel for the Senate Intelligence Committee’s Russia probe, said Concord could be fighting back for “reputational” reasons – in order to clear its name – but she and other national security and legal experts told ABC News that Concord, and ultimately the Kremlin, could be up to a more concerning double game: using the U.S. legal system to gather intelligence or undercut the broader Russia probe.

In the same way U.S. officials said Russia pursued different goals in the alleged 2016 election interference campaign to set itself up for what Doss called a “win-win-win” regardless of the election’s outcome, she said it’s “entirely possible that something similar is happening inside this Concord litigation.”

Yevgeny Prigozhin gestures at the Konstantin Palace outside St. Petersburg, Russia, Aug. 9, 2016.

An intelligence operation, run through an American court

To Matthew Olsen, a former senior official in the Justice Department’s national security section and an ABC News consultant, Concord’s legal strategy raised a concerning question: what if the Russians were attempting to force an American court to play host to an ongoing intelligence-gathering operation?

Olsen described what could be a new twist on an old espionage and legal tactic known as graymail, in which a defendant argues that their defense requires the disclosure of sensitive information. It could be a legitimate request, or it could be designed to force the U.S. government to make “hard choices” about dropping charges or pursuing them at the risk of exposing sensitive intelligence, Olsen said.

“It definitely comes into play in many if not most espionage cases,” he said. A representative for the Russian government in Washington did not respond to ABC requests for comment.

In an early discovery request, Reed Smith requested access to detailed information about special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigative methods, including all electronic surveillance of the defendants and identities of any informants involved in the case. It also asked for evidence of any time the U.S. has interfered in a foreign election since the end of the Second World War, a period covering more than 70 years of potential U.S. secrets.

Mark Zaid, a Washington, D.C., attorney who specializes in national security cases, said in August he suspected Concord’s goal was to “expose what the government knows.”

“They’re digging. They’re fishing,” Zaid said.

Due to Concord’s purported ties to the Kremlin – the firm is owned by Yevgeniy Prigozhin, often referred to as “Putin’s chef” – prosecutors appeared concerned that any sensitive information they turned over to the defense could take a detour to Moscow. In a court filing in June, they argued that the judge should impose restrictions on the handling of discovery information because of the “risk of exposing this material to the Russian government.”

After some back and forth, the special counsel’s office and the defense eventually agreed to use special measures first developed decades ago to deal with cases involving classified information, including a “firewall counsel” who will help decide what information can be shared by defense attorneys with other parties and strict rules about where documents and other materials can be stored.

New York defense attorney Alexei Schacht, whose cases often run into classified information, said the protective system generally works, but is dependent on all parties “playing by the rules.”

A view of the four-story building known as the “troll factory” in St. Petersburg, Russia, Feb. 17, 2018. The U.S. government alleged the Internet Research Agency started interfering as early as 2014 in U.S. politics, extending to the 2016 presidential election, saying the agency was funded by a St. Petersburg businessman Yevgeny Prigozhin.
Another angle of attack on Mueller

In June, lawyers for Concord deployed another tactic – filing a motion to dismiss the case by taking aim at Mueller directly and questioning the constitutionality of his appointment.

Doss, the former NSA attorney, said that while a dismissal would be at odds with the intelligence-gathering tactic, either would further Russia’s broader interests.

“It doesn’t have to be a single choice,” she said.

If the legal attack on Mueller had been successful, Doss said the resulting political fallout would “sow discord” in the U.S., which was “the whole goal of the 2016 active measures campaign.”

So far Mueller has managed to fend off Concord’s and other similar legal challenges, including one by Andrew Miller, an American who defied a subpoena from Mueller by arguing the constitutionality question. In August two judges rejected Concord’s bid to formally join in an appeal launched by Miller after his argument was also struck down in a lower court.

Paul Kamenar, Miller’s attorney, told ABC News he couldn’t speak to Concord’s motivations, but he praised Reed Smith’s work on the constitutionality argument and said the firm was doing a “professional and excellent job of making their defense.”

Since the unsuccessful argument against Mueller, Concord has challenged the case on other legal grounds, including claiming “selective prosecution,” a charge with which the court is now grappling. Doss said that any dismissal would “undermine the effectiveness of the prosecution” in the wider Russia probe and weaken arguments against Russian election meddling internationally – another “strategic goal” for Moscow.

As the case continues on, seven months after Mueller’s original indictments, Concord has not shown any sign of letting up in the legal siege.

“There’s no downside,” Zaid said. Even if Concord loses its case, “they can just disappear. It’s a corporation, and they’re not here.”

iinteresting twist on primacy of illusive Russian tactics.


A leading Holocaust historian just seriously compared the US to Nazi Germany
“If the US has someone whom historians will look back on as the gravedigger of American democracy, it is Mitch McConnell.”
By Zack Beauchamp on October 5, 2018 11:21 am

Adolf Hitler at the 1936 Berlin Olympics. Getty Images
Usually, comparisons between Donald Trump’s America and Nazi Germany come from cranks and internet trolls. But a new essay in the New York Review of Books pointing out “troubling similarities” between the 1930s and today is different: It’s written by Christopher Browning, one of America’s most eminent and well-respected historians of the Holocaust. In it, he warns that democracy here is under serious threat, in the way that German democracy was prior to Hitler’s rise — and really could topple altogether.

Browning, a professor emeritus at the University of North Carolina, specializes in the origins and operation of Nazi genocide. His 1992 book Ordinary Men, a close examination of how an otherwise unremarkable German police battalion evolved into an instrument of mass slaughter, is widely seen as one of the defining works on how typical Germans became complicit in Nazi atrocities.

So when Browning makes comparisons between the rise of Hitler and our current historical period, this isn’t some keyboard warrior spouting off. It is one of the most knowledgeable people on Nazism alive using his expertise to sound the alarm as to what he sees as an existential threat to American democracy.

Browning’s essay covers many topics, ranging from Trump’s “America First” foreign policy — a phrase most closely associated with a group of prewar American Nazi sympathizers — to the role of Fox News as a kind of privatized state propaganda office. But the most interesting part of his argument is the comparison between Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and Paul von Hindenburg, the German leader who ultimately handed power over to Hitler. Here’s how Browning summarizes the history:

Paul von Hindenburg, elected president of Germany in 1925, was endowed by the Weimar Constitution with various emergency powers to defend German democracy should it be in dire peril. Instead of defending it, Hindenburg became its gravedigger, using these powers first to destroy democratic norms and then to ally with the Nazis to replace parliamentary government with authoritarian rule. Hindenburg began using his emergency powers in 1930, appointing a sequence of chancellors who ruled by decree rather than through parliamentary majorities, which had become increasingly impossible to obtain as a result of the Great Depression and the hyperpolarization of German politics.

Because an ever-shrinking base of support for traditional conservatism made it impossible to carry out their authoritarian revision of the constitution, Hindenburg and the old right ultimately made their deal with Hitler and installed him as chancellor. Thinking that they could ultimately control Hitler while enjoying the benefits of his popular support, the conservatives were initially gratified by the fulfillment of their agenda: intensified rearmament, the outlawing of the Communist Party, the suspension first of freedom of speech, the press, and assembly and then of parliamentary government itself, a purge of the civil service, and the abolition of independent labor unions. Needless to say, the Nazis then proceeded far beyond the goals they shared with their conservative allies, who were powerless to hinder them in any significant way.

McConnell, in Browning’s eyes, is doing something similar — taking whatever actions he can to attain power, including breaking the system for judicial nominations (cough cough, Merrick Garland) and empowering a dangerous demagogue under the delusion that he can be fully controlled:

If the US has someone whom historians will look back on as the gravedigger of American democracy, it is Mitch McConnell. He stoked the hyperpolarization of American politics to make the Obama presidency as dysfunctional and paralyzed as he possibly could. As with parliamentary gridlock in Weimar, congressional gridlock in the US has diminished respect for democratic norms, allowing McConnell to trample them even more. Nowhere is this vicious circle clearer than in the obliteration of traditional precedents concerning judicial appointments. Systematic obstruction of nominations in Obama’s first term provoked Democrats to scrap the filibuster for all but Supreme Court nominations. Then McConnell’s unprecedented blocking of the Merrick Garland nomination required him in turn to scrap the filibuster for Supreme Court nominations in order to complete the “steal” of Antonin Scalia’s seat and confirm Neil Gorsuch. The extreme politicization of the judicial nomination process is once again on display in the current Kavanaugh hearings. …

Whatever secret reservations McConnell and other traditional Republican leaders have about Trump’s character, governing style, and possible criminality, they openly rejoice in the payoff they have received from their alliance with him and his base: huge tax cuts for the wealthy, financial and environmental deregulation, the nominations of two conservative Supreme Court justices (so far) and a host of other conservative judicial appointments, and a significant reduction in government-sponsored health care (though not yet the total abolition of Obamacare they hope for). Like Hitler’s conservative allies, McConnell and the Republicans have prided themselves on the early returns on their investment in Trump.

This is the key point that people often miss when talking about Hitler’s rise. The breakdown of German democracy started well before Hitler: Hyperpolarization led Hindenburg to strip away constraints on executive power as well as conclude that his left-wing opponents were a greater threat than fascism. The result, then, was a degradation of the everyday practice of democracy, to the point where the system was vulnerable to a Hitler-style figure.

Now, as Browning points out, “Trump is not Hitler and Trumpism is not Nazism.” The biggest and most important difference is that Hitler was an open and ideological opponent of the idea of democracy, whereas neither Trump nor the GOP wants to abolish elections.

What Browning worries about, instead, is a slow and quiet breakdown of American democracy — something more much like what you see in modern failed democracies like Turkey. Browning worries that Republicans have grown comfortable enough manipulating the rules of the democratic game to their advantage, with things like voter ID laws and gerrymandering, that they might go even further even after Trump is gone:

No matter how and when the Trump presidency ends, the specter of illiberalism will continue to haunt American politics. A highly politicized judiciary will remain, in which close Supreme Court decisions will be viewed by many as of dubious legitimacy, and future judicial appointments will be fiercely contested. The racial division, cultural conflict, and political polarization Trump has encouraged and intensified will be difficult to heal. Gerrymandering, voter suppression, and uncontrolled campaign spending will continue to result in elections skewed in an unrepresentative and undemocratic direction. Growing income disparity will be extremely difficult to halt, much less reverse.
I’ve observed this kind of modern authoritarianism firsthand in Hungary. In my dispatch after visiting there, I warned of the same thing as Browning does here: The threat to the United States isn’t so much Trump alone as it is the breakdown in the practice of American democracy, and the Republican Party’s commitment to extreme tactics in pursuit of its policy goals in particular.

We are living through a period of serious threat to American democracy. And Browning’s essay, a serious piece by a serious scholar, shows that it’s not at all alarmist to say so.

Is this a collusive piece of propaganda as well? Rember Nazi sympathizers within the rank and file of leading induatrial magnates in this country prior to WW2, most notable among them : Henry Ford.

And now am antithesis:

Read more news from CNN
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President Donald Trump’s winning streak
Analysis by Stephen Collinson, CNN
Updated 2:27 AM EDT, Sat October 06, 2018

(CNN) Donald Trump may have never had a better time being President.

Only a re-election party on the night of November 3, 2020, could possibly offer the same vindication for America’s most unconventional commander in chief as the 36 hours in which two foundational strands of his political career are combining in a sudden burst of history.

Trump will become an undeniably consequential President with the Senate due to vote Saturday to confirm Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court, consecrating the conservative majority that has long been the impossible dream of the GOP.

On Friday, Trump had celebrated the best jobs data for 49 years as the unemployment rate dipped to 3.7%, offering more proof of a vibrant economy that the President says has been unshackled by his tax-reduction program and scything cuts to business regulations.

While his 2016 election campaign was most notable for swirling chaos and shattered norms, Trump’s vows to nominate conservative judges to the Supreme Court and to fire up the economy were the glue for his winning coalition.

The struggle to confirm Kavanaugh split the country, deepened mistrust festering between rival lawmakers and threatens to further drag the Supreme Court into Washington’s poisoned political stew. But Trump stuck with it and ground out a win.

So he has every right to return to voters in the next four weeks ahead of the midterm elections to argue he has done exactly what he said he would do. He now has a strong message to convince grass-roots Republicans that it’s well worth showing up at the polls.

Testing the new message
He will get his first chance to road-test his new, improved message at a campaign rally in Topeka, Kansas, on Saturday night.

It’s ironic that it was Trump, a late convert to conservatism – not authentic Republicans like President Ronald Reagan, both Bush presidents and beaten GOP nominees Mitt Romney and John McCain – who finally delivered the Supreme Court majority.

If he is confirmed as expected, Kavanaugh will be Trump’s second nominee to reach the court in less than two years, following Neil Gorsuch.

Of course, the Supreme Court win is the culmination of decades of work by conservative activists and was masterminded by the cunning of Senate Majority leader Mitch McConnell. But Presidents get credit when they are in the Oval Office when things go well and Trump, whether it is his fault or not, has taken more than his share of criticism.

Trump has so far been uncharacteristically quiet about his banner day – perhaps to avoid any last upsets before Saturday’s scheduled Senate vote on Kavanaugh’s confirmation.

He did pump out two short tweets.

“Very proud of the U.S. Senate for voting ‘YES’ to advance the nomination of Judge Brett Kavanaugh!” he wrote.

Earlier, he had tweeted: “Just out: 3.7% Unemployment is the lowest number since 1969!”

A President of consequence
There is more evidence than the soon-to-be reshaped Supreme Court and the roaring economy to make a case that Trump is building a substantial presidency that in many ways looks like a historic pivot point, despite its extremely controversial nature.

Largely unnoticed in the Washington imbroglio over sexual assault allegations against Kavanaugh, the Trump administration is engineering significant changes at home and abroad that often represent sharp revisions of direction from traditional American positions.

This week, for instance, the White House initiated a potentially momentous shift in the US approach to China, recognizing the Asian giant as a global competitor and a threat to American security, prosperity and interests – reversing decades of policy designed to manage Beijing’s ascent as a major power and eventual partner.

The administration is also tightening a vise around Iran in a strategy that threatens to escalate into open confrontation with the Islamic Republic. Elsewhere in the Middle East, a bolstered anti-ISIS strategy has blasted the radical group from its strongholds in shattered Syria. And Trump has rejected decades of US orthodoxy in managing the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, which could have uncertain results.

Trump’s bullying approach to trade negotiations has recently yielded remodeled agreements with Canada, Mexico and South Korea. While he exaggerates how much he changed existing deals, he can still boast that his “Art of the Deal” negotiating strategy – another core component of his appeal to his supporters – is working.

An announcement of a deeper slashing of refugee admissions by the United States further cements the “America First” philosophy that has changed global strategic assumptions.

At home, Trump’s assault on regulations at agencies like the Environmental Protection Agency is accelerating, in a blitz against what Steve Bannon once called the administrative state that fulfills another long-dreamed-of goal of the conservative movement.

The case against the President
Many of Trump’s perceived achievements are hugely controversial, and his opponents will argue that they stain America’s image, reverse a march toward human progress and justice, and will ultimately exert a price the nation will be paying for many years to come.

And Democrats carp that Trump is only building off the far more significant economic work of his predecessor Barack Obama in the wake of the Great Recession and argue that his tax cuts sharply worsened inequality and exploded budget deficits in a way that will haunt the economy for decades.

Trump’s critics say his approach to the world threatens to buckle the international system of alliances and a rule-based trading system that made America the richest and most powerful nation in US history and a beacon of democracy.

They say his presidency is in fact most notable for a culture of corruption, falsehood and demagoguery.

There is a case to be made that Trump’s constant twisting of truth, invention of false political realities and strategy of tearing at the country’s racial, gender and societal divides in order to capture and wield power threaten the eternal values and institutions of the nation itself.

This week, the President stood accused of tax fraud after a New York Times investigation into his family finances in the 1990s. And, though special counsel Robert Mueller has gone quiet in election season, Trump’s campaign is under investigation to see whether it conspired with a foreign power to win his election.

The voters will choose
Most credible pollsters have the President at only around 40% approval, a level that is rarely conducive to successful congressional elections. Republicans are in danger of losing the House of Representatives, a scenario that could cripple Trump’s White House with relentless committee investigations and even the specter of impeachment.

Often the chaos and discord the President sows distracts from more successful aspects of his presidency, and his raging temperament and insistence on waging perpetual political warfare exhaust many voters.

It will be up to voters in November and in 2020 to decide which of the two interpretations of Trump’s presidency – an era of conservative achievement or a disastrous national distraction – becomes dominant.

But it already seems that Trump’s grand design will be difficult for a future President to quickly reverse.

Less than two weeks ago, foreign diplomats at the United Nations laughed at Trump when he boasted about the historic sweep of his presidency – and there was no doubt that he was, as usual, exaggerating.

But it’s also no longer possible to credibly argue – despite the distracting blizzard of controversy, busted decorum and staff chaos constantly lashing Washington – that there is not something significant taking place that is changing the political and economic character of the nation itself.

The filthy Meno is wrong, by opinion of the wise.

What species, however meager, can the dog offer of her intelligence? Her detractors are 9000. And no one supports her. And the rest of the world does not know her name.

Now, this long crude harangue of a thread, stolen from the what the web sight allows, has found me disgusted by the stench.


let it be said, Trump is clearly, in one respect, the apex of democracy, notwithstanding he lost the popular vote by a vast portion, it is that his crassness is most close to vulgar speech, closer than any man ever to come to office

What is indicated is this hundreds of years long coming of simplified, ergo, democratized speech. For instance, at the time of the unveiling of the New Deal Roosevelt had to excise the word provided by his speech writer, with no one “excluded”, and place in: no one left out. As quite a few persons would not understand, or have no use for, the word “excluded”. Interestingly, in some ways, the dumb public has bent slightly upwards, as compulsory primary education ha given most of us command of such words as excluded these days. Perhaps Trump is the exact meaning of Aristotle’s notion of golden mediocrity.

In short, the sage Meno, with her sententious manner, is once again mistaken utterly.