All Trump sees is green. All we see is a traitorous orange menace. Who is right? Place bets now!! (Trump continued)

[badbadhusky]

A nod to Banzai there for old timers like me.

Old thread here.

Question is, is it Mueller time yet? Anyone fancy placing a bet on when Trump will exit the POTUS role?

My bet: 20 March 2019.

Oh yes, of course I would attend Comey’s course for professional development reasons.

(Do you think Comey might be a bit earnest and too straight-laced in real life? He and his wife are pretty religious.)

That might be consided a part of the challenge appeal.

True.

Ooh, I say! His Twitter profile pic is quite twinkly.

Perking I think this is a huge concern that is being completely over looked. Whilst the focus is on SM and the MSM, these really are just all on the surface.
There seems little media or public interest in discussing the propaganda that drops directly into individual mailboxes, and the impact that direct interaction could have.

I think I’m not concerned about the base because, well, a third of America’s population seemed to have always occupied an alternative reality. See beliefs about: faked moon landings, flat earthers, birthers, vaccinations being harmful, evolution being wrong etc.

I know ethically and morally it’s something to be reviled but I think I’m not so bothered because nothing’s actually changed - the people who reject evidence-based approaches would probably never been convinced to engage with reality and those that do wouldn’t be swayed by them in tbe first place.

Which isn’t to say that it should be ignored, as it’s a huge abuse of the office of POTUS, but actually I don’t think it changes people’s opinions. I might be underestimating it though!

Alternate realities continued

Leader McConnell
@SenateMajLdr
#Senate Democrats have a choice to make. This should be a no-brainer...

The Daily Beast
@thedailybeast
Mark Corallo, a former spokesman for the legal team representing President Trump, has lawyered up in anticipation of being called as part of the special counsel’s Russia probe

www.thedailybeast.com/flack-for-trump-lawyers-now-lawyers-up-himself?via=twitter_page

And the Bannon saga:

'But two days later, it was clear who really told Bannon to shut it—it was Donald Trump. And Republicans may have finally reached the point where Trump has burned his executive privilege bridge.'

www.dailykos.com/stories/2018/1/19/1734171/-The-Silence-of-the-Bannon-Executive-privilege-obstruction-and-Trump-s-fear-of-the-truth

Here’s what I don’t understand about the bannon testifying shenanigans: if trump ordered bannon, however obliquely, to keep his mouth shut so as not to implicate trump, then why did the republicans treat bannon so differently to lewandowski and others? Some people have surmised they subpoenaed bannon (after letting everyone else get away with claiming false privileges) so they could compel him to spill what he would talk about with mueller and then relay that straight to trump so he could gain insight as to how to counter that, be it through legal defense or controlling the narrative. This would obviously be to shield trump from mueller as mueller wouldn’t have the element of surprise were he to interview trump and co. But trump apparently didn’t want bannon to say anything at all.

The gop haven’t abandoned trump yet so why the apparant clash over bannon’s testimony? Lack of communication between the two? It feels as though I’m missing something

You're missing what Bannon may have said?

That it might have been incriminating to trump, do you mean? So the republicans on the committee weren’t subpoenaing him to be able to gauge what he would tell mueller but actually didn’t care about protecting trump and were just infuriated that bannon wasn’t cooperating?

After all the interference they’ve run (particularly nunes) it’s seems strange that they’d suddenly be so enraged that they didn’t care about protecting trump and just wanted to exert their power over bannon. I can’t reconcile the two different tactics taken by trump and the republicans on the committee satisfactorily - they seem at odds when the parties involved don’t yet appear to be.

I don't know either.

foreignpolicy.com/2018/01/18/trump-ordered-bannon-to-limit-testimony/

Elizabeth de la Vega
‏

@Delavegalaw
2m2 minutes ago
The California AG will prosecute employers who voluntarily provide ICE with confidential information about their employees in violation of the Immigrant Worker Protection Act, signed into law last year. Good! twitter.com/JuddLegum/status/954435655798480896 …

Yea, California.

As far as Bannon/Scrotus, one never knows exactly what 'dirt' they have on each other. Everyone thinks (accurately, I think) that Bannon really knows and can prove the juicy impeachable shit on Scrotus. But one reason for him not to spill is that perhaps Scrotus knows a few things about Bannon that might land him in hot water or even put in prison. I think this may be more likely than that Bannon is hushing up because he's trying to worm his way back into Scrotus' (or the Mercer's) good graces. Blackmail is a nasty but effective tool in powerful circles and I'm sure it's one that Scrotus is very familiar with.

Not quite, Pain. I meant that we've been told a great deal about what 45 and RM have said is their position, but we know almost nothing about Bannon's............

Bill Maher
‏
Verified account

@billmaher
10m10 minutes ago
More
Excited to be going back to work tonight! And with govt shutdown looming! All vital services of Trump admn will stop: rallies in red states, fake news awards, payoffs to porn stars...

www.npr.org/2018/01/19/578858897/turnover-in-trumps-white-house-is-record-setting-and-it-isn-t-even-close

www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2018/01/18/one-year-after-trumps-inauguration-no-one-say-how-they-spent-extra-money/1043804001/

Not so long ago.

www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/jan/19/trump-travel-ban-homeland-security-court-order

www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/jan/19/trump-hails-his-conscience-protections-plan-in-speech-at-march-for-life

Ah ok. Sadly bannon’s strategy is equally opaque to me!

Social media:

The New York Times
@nytimes
Facebook said it plans to prioritize high-quality news by allowing users to rank news sources they see as the most credible and trustworthy

www.nytimes.com/2018/01/19/technology/facebook-news-feed.html?smid=tw-nytimes&smtyp=cu

And

Twitter says that 677,775 U.S. users followed, liked, or retweeted fake Russian accounts during the 2016 election.

blog.twitter.com/official/en_us/topics/company/2018/2016-election-update.html

Citizens for Ethics
‏
Verified account

@CREWcrew
5h5 hours ago
Deutsche Bank is investigating suspicious money transfers by Jared Kushner.
www.ibtimes.com/deutsche-bank-investigating-jared-kushner-his-companies-suspicious-money-transfers-2643091 …

There is also the campaign by Sleeping Giants (contacting businesses to let them know their ads have been placed on Breitbart):

Sleeping Giants
‏
Verified account

@slpng_giants

More
.@facebook doesn’t just have a news problem ON their platform, they have one OFF of it. Facebook continues to serve their customers’ ads on Breitbart despite breaking their Community Standards.