Donald! Trump!

I cant post links from my phone, but according to the Independent at the trade talks with the EU, trade had to be explained to him with flash cards containing simple brightly coloured diagrams and short words.

I image during lunch he was given one of those kids menus with a dot to dot of a soya bean and a pack of crayons. He chose to eat nuggets and chips.

Worth a read, article about the US attitude to Germans living in America after the start of WW1, and how those attitudes are relevant to America today.

https://www.salon.com/2018/07/27/german-american-history-largely-erased-has-lessons-for-todays-anti-immigrant-sentiment/

Not good enough for trumps america

https://www.stripes.com/news/us/immigrant-phd-candidate-rocked-by-sudden-us-army-discharge-1.536440

Wow bit like Starship Troopers,  I never realised you could get in by joining the army.

Well it all kicks off tomorrow

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/29/us/politics/paul-manafort-trial.html

First go at one of the caught ones, not the collusion stuff yet but a nice warm up for Manafort to contemplate how long he wants to stay in prison for.

Giullinas interview on CNN is full of some golden nuggets

so kushner was at the russia meeting & now trump just didnt attend (but we assume knew about it & was there on speakerphone?) but its fine coz collusion is not a crime

Man he needs a shovel, 30 mins to be played back the next time he has to flip and spin….

Well at least the Donald brought a great deal, the best deal, to Korea, he is one hell of a deal maker, there is no doubting that

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-45015343

Good old Rudy…..

I think that his real problem is his client keeps lying to him, he should probably tape him for his own safety.

No Collusion !!!

So. Much. Facepalm.

Collusion is not a crime, but that doesn’t matter because there was No Collusion (except by Crooked Hillary and the Democrats)!

That’s easy for you to say!

Bit of a long read but some interesting background on the election disinformation campaign and the link back to an IT guy in the UK.

https://www.computerweekly.com/news/252445769/Briton-ran-pro-Kremlin-disinformation-campaign-that-helped-Trump-deny-Russian-links?asrc=EM_EDA_98305612&utm_medium=EM&utm_source=EDA&utm_campaign=20180731_Briton%20ran%20pro-Kremlin%20disinformation%20campaign%20that%20helped%20Trump%20deny%20Russian%20links

Politics Podcast: Four Theories About The Trump-Russia Connection

And a good listen where each of the regular contributors gets a view point to present from nothing happened through to full pee tape

Each argument had some merit, from. What is presented a bit of too dumb/arrogant to spot it and then caught in it does seem most plausible until more is released (or you hear Ruddy defending him)

So AIUI under the US system the Democrats don’t have an single person as leader until 2020 when their next presidential candidate takes over?

Feels a bit weird to me, you’d think a leader would be pretty much essential.

@outofbreath – the US system is, deliberately, different to ours. The president isn’t “leader” of his party in the way that Theresa May is leader of the Conservatives.

The closest would be the “Floor leaders” in Congress and the Senate.

Different system

https://www.democrats.org/about/our-leaders

Chuck Schumer leads them in the Senate

Nacy Pelosi Leads them in the house

They are the key voices in government for them at the moment but won’t get much coverage in the UK media.

In the cycle of things, this November is the mid term elections, once that is done and dusted the process for getting a candidate for president will probably begin but they are being lead at this time by those 2 (simplistically)

Manafort potentially spilling the beans has Trump very worried

The minute the recording of his conversation about paying off his affair was leaked Trump started worrying what else was recorded

..This is a terrible situation and Attorney General Jeff Sessions should stop this Rigged Witch Hunt right now, before it continues to stain our country any further. Bob Mueller is totally conflicted, and his 17 Angry Democrats that are doing his dirty work are a disgrace to USA!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 1, 2018

Ironically given how he has pretended he has recorded so many conversations, I guess a few were laughing about that one for a while!

Cohens gotta have the dirt, but Manafort is the warning

he took a ton of cash from ukranians & is being labeled an enemy actor/agent/dupe for it

Property mogul trump will have definitely taken cash from some dodgy russian oligarchs at some point & as every oligarch knows that they have to report back to Putin or its polonium/novichok time thats going to compromise trump

Totally in control there, totally…. He could try one about setting up tubeless too

Why is he going to all these lengths in both defending and attacking collusion?

its not a crime, remember…

Liking the whataboutery there.

he’s been reading ninfans book “The art of the Troll how to win on the internet”

I do like his driving of narrative the “discredited dossier” ,Not sure that’s quite true and er manafort sorta mentioned in it something unplausible of him taking money from some Ukrainians.

Is he getting worried or is it the usual gibberish?

Is he getting worried or is it the usual gibberish?

Well his former campaign chairman is facing the rest of his life in prison, Muller has a deal ready for him and a second crack with another set of charges coming up. I’d say he is worried as he knows what he knows. Muller won’t be looking for new info just confirmation that Trump was involved or knew about something.

As unreliable as Cohen is there are tapes and he knows where the bodies are buried and again in a lot of trouble.

Id say worried and preparing to fight this in the networks and on the talk shows not the courts.

I love the way he is demanding that this investigation be stopped, like that will happen…

So if I get done for littering or some other offence, can I start a twitter campaign to get the charges dropped? Or does it only apply to election rigging?

“before it continues to stain our country any further”.

Er… stain what (or who)?

I read an article yesterday that suggested a reason for all the noise he’s making about the Mueller investigation just now. It is apparently unlikely that the Mueller investigation will indict the president, as Robert Mueller does not believe that’s something that can be done. Instead some minions will be indicted (Manafort already being on trial) but otherwise eventually a report will come out that may list what bad stuff Trump’s been up to.

At that point, no matter what Trump’s done, it becomes a matter of politics as much as everything else. Trump and Giuliani will have been banging on for months about how the investigation is biased and how Trump’s supposed crimes aren’t actually crimes. If the Republican party reckon enough of their voters are on Trump’s side on this then they’ll not impeach him to avoid losing those votes.

Unfortunately while Trump’s been playing this defensive game for several months, Mueller has had no real ability to reply, as he has to concentrate on performing his investigation and producing his report.

It was always a matter of politics. Mueller will report on what a bad boy Donald has been, and then it is up to Congress/Senate to get on with it or not, or the electorate to deliver their verdict – which is why most of Trump’s efforts are to convince republican voters that it is a witch hunt/deep state plot etc.

Could still see some indictments for Don Jr and little Jared, though, at which point we can expect him to utterly lose his shit.

IMHO  They will probably have issues as he’s a standing president but once he’s out of his presidency he’s fair game for money laundering if they can prove it.

If he starts dishing out pardons to friends and family it’s going to awfully start looking like the USA is a bit of a banana republic and  his own(ish) party may have enough .

They’re are also certain things he can’t pardon so it’s a bit of a chess game and public opinion.

its the OJ Simpson type thang.

its the OJ Simpson type thang.

He’ll be asked to try on a tiny pair of gloves? Hmmm – I can see why he might be worried.

IMHO They will probably have issues as he’s a standing president but once he’s out of his presidency he’s fair game for money laundering if they can prove it.

The issues will depend on what has been found really and who he takes down with him. The republicans will have the option to surgically remove him if they are too scared of what a full melt down will bring

This was quite an interesting read

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fact-checker/wp/2018/08/01/president-trump-has-made-4229-false-or-misleading-claims-in-558-days/?noredirect=on&utm_term=.77761c3fb8ca

We all know he’s a bit ‘alternative’ with his facts but its fascinating to see the volumes when you take to the time to add up all the lies. And the strain it puts journalists under to try and sift through the volume of crap.

We all knew that as a political outsider Trump would be crap when he started as he would be learning on the job – I think even if you were sympathetic to him (as opposed to his cap-wearing, hoo-har shouting core) you’d imagine there’d be gaffs, and embarrassments and failures to follow particular protocols. But what he’s actually getting better at is being bad.

The Al Capone reference is very telling. Capone – one of America’s biggest gangsters was convicted of tax evasion and sent to Alcatraz after a very creative FBI investigation. The lesson is to go for the fine detail and convict on ‘minor’ charges. Trump sees this tactic in the current investigation and is clearly worried.

I see the D is in full ‘I know you are but what am I?’ mode now, claiming that in fact, Queen Lizzy kept him waiting (despite TV evidence to the contrary).

Situations like this are why we keep the nukes, right?

As an aside, chatting to my dad while he visited yesterday, I’d managed to tune out though all his gammonesque ‘project fear’ rant, but then came the ‘I know Trump is a horrible man, but at least he is getting things done’. My response was swift and robust…