FMOTUS: F***ing Moron of the United States (Trump) thread continued

[TheClaws]

As aptly dubbed by his own Secretary of State, Rex Tillerson.

Old thread:
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/3047195-Hello-Don-got-a-new-tax-cut-Trump-continued

And as I love giving you images to haunt your dreams, here’s another one, blasphemously titled ‘Our Lord and Saviour’.

Sorry, I’ve got ahead of myself and got carried away. They’re investigating his connections to trump so it doesn’t indicate they think his death was suspicious I’ll put away the tin foil headgear

Firm behind Trump dossier declines to respond to House panel's subpoena

mobile.reuters.com/article/amp/idUSKBN1CL2CK

Lawyers for Fusion GPS, which hired former British spy Christopher Steele to produce the Trump research, told the committee's Republican chairman, U.S. Representative Devin Nunes, in a letter that the subpoenas were flawed and that nothing in the subpoenas indicated the intelligence committee had authorized him to issue them.

The lawyers also questioned Nunes' role in signing the subpoenas since he had recused himself from the committee's investigation into alleged Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. presidential campaign.

White House brushes off House investigators over aides' use of personal email

www.politico.com/story/2017/10/16/white-house-email-congress-243838

In a terse letter to Reps. Trey Gowdy (R-S.C.) and Elijah Cummings (D-Md.) — leaders of the House oversight committee — President Donald Trump's congressional liaison Marc Short declined to indicate whether any administration officials had used personal email accounts or messaging services, despite reports suggesting such communications were common in the West Wing.

[...]The White House's limited responses set up a potential confrontation with Gowdy, a hard-nosed prosecutor with subpoena power and a track record that includes sharp criticism of Hillary Clinton's use of private email as secretary of state. Cummings said last week that he hoped the committee would subpoena any information that the White House declined to provide, as have other Democrats.

"These were bipartisan requests to the White House related to the Administration’s private travel and email usage, and the White House has completely blown off the Committee," said Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-Va.), a member of the oversight committee. "The Committee needs to assert its jurisdiction and authority immediately to get this information. If the White House won’t provide documents to permit basic oversight, the Chairman should send subpoenas.”

An aide to Gowdy said the lawmakers "are currently in the process of evaluating whether there has been compliance, partial compliance or non-compliance" by the White House and other administration officials.

"We expect full compliance," the aide added.

'If Only 'Being a Colossal Dick' Was an Impeachable Offense
We could avoid some of the constant embarrassment.'

www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/a13030298/trump-obama-military/

'Bribery, Treason, Other High Crimes And Misdemeanors, Including Ye Being A Colossal Dicke.'

I must be more tired than I thought, this is making me snigger a lot.

Okay, that's better.

www.nybooks.com/daily/2017/10/12/trumps-war-on-knowledge/

Oh boy, that Esquire article, lionheart... No wonder 45 isn't troubled by white supremacists in Charlottesville, given the white supremacists who put him in office (assuming those indirect quotes are accurate).

Link to article again:
Behind Trump, There's Bannon. Behind Bannon, There's the Mercers. And a new lawsuit is rather eye-opening.
www.esquire.com/news-politics/politics/a13027068/trump-bannon-mercers/
"At the moment, Robert Mercer is being sued by his former partner in Renaissance Technologies, a guy named David Magerman, who is not quite as enthusiastic about the Trump presidency* as the Mercers are. Documents are becoming public and, as Vanity Fair reports, some of those documents are well off the boy-howdy scale of revelatory."

Maybe the lawsuit will be the slow fuse.

edition.cnn.com/2017/10/16/politics/democrats-house-midterm-elections/index.html

This really made me laugh. The White House does Mean Girls.
www.washingtonpost.com/video/editorial/mean-boys/2017/07/28/a7c26124-73d6-11e7-8c17-533c52b2f014_video.html?utm_term=.a43c4bc4c976

You might also be interested in this additional Esquire piece. Might I suggest not reading it before bedtime?

The Constitutional crisis that no-one is talking about

Bloody hell, I should have listened when you said don't read it before bedtime.

Oh, I was serious.

I have a bit of a Pandora streak.

Even if he’s impeached by a house led by the dems, will they be able to secure a two thirds senate majority to actually get him removed?

Wikipedia says there will be 33 contested seats, 23 of which are currently held by dems and two by independents that caucus with them. Currently the republicans hold 54 seats to the dems 44 (plus the two independents) so even if the dems will all 8 republican seats that are up for grabs, I think (and I’m really not sure about this) it means that the best case scenario is the republicans hold 46 seats and the dems 52. They’ll still need Republicans to vote to remove trump but maybe by then, there’ll be some that are brave enough.

This is all assuming that the elections are fair and free, which isn’t a given (and is more than likely not to be given the voter suppression that kobach’s reigning over and the impact it’s having on voter registration).

Regardless of whether he’s actually removed, it’ll still slow down the agenda which is good though!

And that’s also not taking into account that the republicans would call a constitutional convention under article V, as per cozie’s scary link, and massively change the rules in their favour

FFS

Q Earlier, you said that President Obama never called the families of fallen soldiers. How can you make that claim?

THE PRESIDENT: I don't know if he did. No, no, no, I was told that he didn't often. And a lot of Presidents don't; they write letters. I do --

Q (Inaudible.)

THE PRESIDENT: Excuse me, Peter. I do a combination of both. Sometimes it’s a very difficult thing to do, but I do a combination of both. President Obama I think probably did sometimes, and maybe sometimes he didn't. I don't know. That's what I was told. All I can do all I can do is ask my generals. Other Presidents did not call. They’d write letters. And some Presidents didn't do anything. But I like the combination of -- I like, when I can, the combination of a call and also a letter

And

Q Mr. President, in the wake of an avalanche of allegations made against Harvey Weinstein, your campaign is being subpoenaed for any documents relating to sexual harassment allegations made against you. Do you have a response to that?

THE PRESIDENT: All I can say is it’s totally fake news. It’s just fake. It’s fake. It’s made-up stuff, and it’s disgraceful what happens. But that's happens in the world of politics.

(It's a good thing he's not been caught on camera talking about women, is it)

Renato Mariotti
@renato_mariotti
THREAD: What does the memo that the Russian lawyer brought to the Trump Tower meeting with Trump Jr., Kushner, and Manafort tell us?

1/ Today @NatashaBertrand of @businessinsider published this article, which includes the memo she brought:
uk.businessinsider.com/veselnitskaya-memo-trump-tower-russia-meeting-2017-10?r=US&IR=T
2/ The memo mirrored a memo obtained by U.S. Congressman Dana Rohrabacher in Moscow last April from Russia's chief prosecutor.
3/ Rohrabacher is a Congressman who frequently advocates for Russia and recently met with Assange and tried to broker a deal to pardon him
4/ In the Trump Jr. emails, the Russian lawyer was described as a "Russian government attorney."
5/ Mueller can use the similarities in the memos to suggest that the attorney at the Trump Tower meeting was a Russian agent.
6/ But in and of itself, this memo doesn't establish that. It is merely another piece of evidence Mueller can use to prove his case.
7/ The memo also suggests what was discussed during the meeting. It contains the Russian government's position on the Magnitsky Act.
8/ The Magnitsky Act was passed to punish individuals believed to be behind Magnitsky's death.
9/ Russia banned U.S. adoption of Russian children in response. So the talk of "adoptions" by Trump Jr. refers to discussion of the Act.
10/ The fact that the memo indicates that the Act was discussed at the meeting doesn't mean other subjects weren't discussed.
11/ Trump Jr. and others at the meeting will point to this memo and suggest that it bolsters their account, but time will tell. /end

And

Q (Inaudible) -- Mr. President, people don't have drinking water.

THE PRESIDENT: Well, we've delivered tremendous amounts of water. Then what you have to do is you have to have distribution of the water by the people on the island. So we have massive amounts of water. We have massive amounts of food. But they have to distribute the food, and they have to do this. They have to distribute the food to the people on the island.

So what we've done is we now actually having military distributing food -- something that really they shouldn’t have to be doing.

But if you look at the governor, who is a good man, by the way, but if you look at the governor of Puerto Rico, he himself has said we've done an outstanding job. And most people have said we've done an outstanding job. But Puerto Rico is a very tough one.

Molly McKew
@MollyMcKew
Russia is funding the Taliban to kill NATO/US troops in Afghanistan.
Important read.

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/russia-funds-taliban-in-war-against-nato-forces-hvfl3cgrg

(It’s behind a paywall so here’s another newspaper’s take on the times reporting, although as I can’t see all of the original, I don’t know how accurate it is www.tolonews.com/afghanistan/russia-funding-taliban-war-against-nato-troops )

I struggle with reading/listening to what he says these days because it’s just all lies and all about him. He is indeed a colossol Dicke.

20 of America's top political scientists gathered to discuss our democracy. They're scared.

www.vox.com/platform/amp/2017/10/13/16431502/america-democracy-decline-liberalism

Which is sort of supported by this, which recaps the ways that it is not normal for the wh to behave

Sally Yates: White House Has Violated 'Important Norms

m.nationallawjournal.com/legaltimes/#/article/1202800423791/Sally-Yates-White-House-Has-Violated-Important-Norms?kw=Sally%20Yates:%20White%20House%20Has%20Violated%20'Important%20Norms'&et=editorial&bu=National%20Law%20Journal&cn=20171016&src=EMC-Email&pt=Legal%20Times%20Afternoon%20Update&_almReferrer=https:%2F%2Ft.co%2FSiuiozMnQe%3Famp%3D1

A thread about Russia funding the Taliban

Roger Sollenberger
@SollenbergerRC
Foreign policy wonks: Some notable things here. First, it's almost certain RUS authorized the Taliban to announce this on record. (1/13) 👇
2nd, RUS wants a weak NATO but in this instance is probably more worried about ISIS on its border: ISIS is losing in Syria/Iraq & it has 2/
told new recruits not to come to Syria but to wage jihad at home. Russia has been a target & Taliban is fighting 3/ www.newsweek.com/russian-spy-agency-foils-double-isis-bomb-plot-discovers-moscow-explosives-lab-650410?amp=1

ISIS in Afghanistan. Russia did the same thing in the 80s: Fund & arm the Taliban. This is because the Taliban do one thing well: 4/
Trap armies in winless wars. Trump committed the US only to "killing terrorists" in Afghanistan, not rebuilding or backing the gov't, 5/
and this includes fighting the Taliban. If RUS can help the Taliban dig in, RUS gets 2 things: 1, NATO & the US can't withdraw resources; 6/
which is basically the only way the Russian government & oligarchy can make money. But why would they authorize the Taliban 8/
to announce this? Most likely it's a response to Trump: A show of strength on the part of the Taliban, but also a not so subtle challenge 9/
to NATO's hegemony straight from Putin. RUS is weak but has proved capable of leveraging asymmetrical power & proxy wars: e.g. Syria and 10/
its history of covert supply to North Korea. Putin is NOT helping Trump. He doesn't give a shit about #MuellerTime or whatever. He just 11/
wants the West to ease up on him, so he's miring the US & NATO in these intractable conflicts. Trump is dividing the US on autoplay, 12/
and he's an incapable leader who isn't interested in the world. Trump is the person Putin is trying to distract - not people on Twitter. XX

Bill Browder
@Billbrowder
EU weighs in on the abuse of Interpol Red Notices for political purposes by dictatorships. The world is waking up

Interpol and the EU: don't play politics

euobserver.com/opinion/139446

Undocumented pregnant girl in Texas tests Trump policy to stop abortions

The policy marks a departure from the Obama administration, when an undocumented teen’s request was not reviewed unless she sought federal funds.

www.politico.com/story/2017/10/16/undocumented-pregnant-girl-trump-abortion-texas-243844?lo=ap_a1

[...]For the last seven months, the Health and Human Services Department has intervened to prevent abortions sought by girls at federally funded shelters, even in cases of rape and incest and when the teen had a way to pay for the procedure. The agency has instead forced minors to visit crisis pregnancy centers, religiously affiliated groups that counsel women against having abortions, according to documents obtained by POLITICO, interviews with sources involved in the Brownsville case and those familiar with the agency’s policy.

In some cases, a senior HHS official has personally visited or called pregnant teens to try to talk them out of ending their pregnancies.