Friday Reads: Scumbag Blues

Posted: July 20, 2018 | Author: | Filed under: Afternoon Reads | Tags: , | 25 Comments

Good Afternoon Sky ancers!

The New York Times pinged me with this choice morsel this morning!  I don’t often quote malicious dictators, but when I do, I make certain it’s because they are colluding with what has slunk in to the oval office on the wings of vultures and their obviously brain dead carrion.

President Vladimir Putin of Russia on Thursday with his foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov. President Trump said he looked forward to a second summit meeting with Mr. Putin “so that we can start implementing some of the many things discussed.”

Let me just remind you of a quote yesterday.  This one being from the Director of Intelligence, former Indiana Senator Dan Coates.

Coats made it clear he was totally in the dark about Trump’s meeting with Putin: “I don’t know what happened in that meeting. I think as time goes by and the President has already mentioned some of the things that happened in that meeting, I think we will learn more. But that is the President’s prerogative.”

He also said Trump hadn’t asked him for advice before the meeting: “If he had asked me how that ought to be conducted, I would have suggested a different way, but that’s not my role. That’s not my job. So it is what it is.”

He made clear he had no doubt about the Russian President’s role in the country’s interference efforts. “I think anybody who thinks that Vladimir Putin doesn’t have his stamp on everything that happens in Russia is misinformed,” he said.

We should all just mail our pass codes the Russian Federation Spy Agency and hang it up. He’s selling us out.

So, the debate continues over if KKKremlin Caligula is malevolent towards the United States and commiting Treason, so stupid he doesn’t get that what he’s doing is commiting Treason against the United States, or that his fee fees and self-identity cause him to commit Treason against the United States because he’s just one big raging malignant narcissist who can’t get beyond his Id.

Why?  And a bigger WTF is the behavior of elected Republicans and their shrinking, ever-more-stupid base of religious extremists and angry white men.

Does it even do any good to ask Why anymore when the germane question is how do we get the fuck out of this assuming Republicans are the party of Enablers.

‘Why the President is so nice to Putin, even when Putin might not want him to be?’   Adam Parker–writing for the New Yorker–interviewed Keith Darden, an international-relations professor at American University who has studied the Russian use of kompromat and believes Trump acts like one of its targets.

But, Darden explained to me, kompromat is routinely used throughout the former Soviet Union to curry favor, improve negotiated outcomes, and sway opinion. Intelligence services, businesspeople, and political figures everywhere exploit gossip and damaging information. However, Darden argues, kompromat has a uniquely powerful role in the former Soviet Union, where the practice is so pervasive, he coined the term “blackmail state” to describe the way of governance.

Kompromat can be a single, glaring example of wrongdoing, recorded by someone close to the Kremlin and then used to control the bad actor. It can be proof of an embarrassing sex act. Darden believes it is unlikely that sexual kompromat would be effective on Trump. Allegations of sexual harassment, extramarital affairs, and the payment of hush money to hide indiscretions have failed to significantly diminish the enthusiasm of Trump’s core supporters. But another common form of kompromat—proof of financial crimes—could be more politically and personally damaging.

Trump has made a lot of money doing deals with businesspeople from the former Soviet Union, and at least some of these deals bear many of the warning signs of money laundering and other financial crimes. Deals in Toronto, Panama, New York, and Miami involved money from sources in the former Soviet Union who hid their identities through shell companies and exhibited other indications of money laundering. In the years before he became a political figure, Trump acted with impunity, conducting minimal corporate due diligence and working with people whom few other American businesspeople would consider fit partners. During that period, he may have felt protected by the fact that U.S. law-enforcement officials rarely investigate or prosecute Americans who engage in financial crimes overseas. Such cases are also maddeningly difficult to prove, and the F.B.I. has no subpoena power in other countries. If, however, someone had evidence that proved financial crimes and shared it with, say, the special counsel, Robert Mueller, other American law-enforcement officials, or the press, it could significantly damage Trump’s business, his family, and his Presidency.

There is already inkles of kompromat coming from the Michael Cohen camp today.  It’s the the Trump paid off hookers sort of evidence that is sitting in the busy hands of the Mueller team. Trump beat the “grab ’em by the pussy” revelation easily so it’s unlikely the kind of thing that triggers Trump.

Investigators discovered recordings made by Michael Cohen that include then-candidate Donald Trump talking about making a payment to a former Playboy model, sources familiar with the matter confirmed to ABC News.

The recordings were found as part of the raid on Michael Cohen’s home office and hotel carried out earlier this year in New York, the sources told ABC News.

The New York Times first reported the news of the recordings.

The Playboy model in question is reportedly Karen McDougal, who has previously claimed that she had an affair with Trump. The White House previously denied McDougal’s claims.

Cohen is under criminal investigation by New York federal prosecutors in a case that’s separate from the one that Special Counsel Robert Mueller is pursuing.

Sources said that investigators were looking into Cohen’s personal business dealings as well as those with Trump’s alleged mistresses and media organizations as well as the 2016 campaign.

Guiliani is talking about it so who knows if it really bugs the Hair Furor?

Rudolph W. Giuliani, Mr. Trump’s personal lawyer, confirmed in a telephone conversation on Friday that Mr. Trump had discussed payments to Ms. McDougal with Mr. Cohen on the tape. He said the recording was less than two minutes long and claimed that the president had done nothing wrong.

Mr. Giuliani said there was no indication on the tape that Mr. Trump knew before the conversation about the payment from the Enquirer’s parent company, American Media Inc., to Ms. McDougal.

“Nothing in that conversation suggests that he had any knowledge of it in advance,” Mr. Giuliani said.

The men discussed a payment from Mr. Trump to Ms. McDougal — separate from the Enquirer payment — to buy her story and ensure her silence, Mr. Giuliani said. That payment was never made, Mr. Giuliani said, adding that Mr. Trump had told Mr. Cohen that if he were to make a payment related to the woman, to write a check rather than send cash, so it could be properly documented.

Mr. Cohen’s lawyers discovered the recording as part of their review of the seized materials and shared it with Mr. Trump’s lawyers, according to three people briefed on the matter.

What did trigger D’oh Drumpfen Fuhrer was Dan Coates, Andrea Mitchell, and audience uttering nervously laughs over the news that no one has debriefed the two people at the Helsinki “Spy going home to his Master” Summit.

“Coats has gone rogue,” one senior White House official told the Post.

The optics are particularly damaging. Coats appears to be laughing at the president, along with an audience of intellectual elites. Plus, since the moment is only 35 seconds long, it’s likely to get a lot of play tomorrow on cable news — a venue Trump is obsessed with.

Thus, White House aides are worried that Trump will see the remark as a personal betrayal, which he cares far more about than the scandals that plague many staffers. Axios reported that sources close to Trump are “already speculating about whether Trump ends up firing Coats. Per a source with knowledge, Trump has never had much affection for Coats.”

Firing Coats, a respected two-time Republican senator from Indiana who tends to stay out of the headlines, would turn the Helsinki debacle into an even bigger scandal (though it’s hard to imagine most Republican lawmakers doing anything to counter Trump).

For what it’s worth, Coats suggested that he wants to stay on the job, and the interview wasn’t some effort to provoke Trump into firing.

“Are there days when you think, ‘Well, what am I doing?’ Yeah,” he said, when asked if he’s ever considered resigning. “But there’s lot more days saying, “You know, the mission here is critical. And to be able to be a part of it, be able to feel like you’re giving something back to your country — it’s a reward … As long as I’m able to have the ability to seek the truth and speak the truth, I’m on board.”

Still, we have to ask the big question:  WTF is wrong with Republicans?  What are they all covering up and why? Michelle Goldberg answers the question.

Perhaps, rather than covering for Trump, some Republicans are covering for themselves.

Last Friday, Robert Mueller, the special counsel, indicted 12 members of Russian military intelligence for their interference in the 2016 election. The indictment claims that in August 2016, Guccifer 2.0, a fictitious online persona adopted by the Russian hackers, “received a request for stolen documents from a candidate for the U.S. Congress.” The Russian conspirators obliged, sending “the candidate stolen documents related to the candidate’s opponent.” Congress has, so far, done nothing discernible to find out who this candidate might be.

Then, on Monday, we learned of the arrest of Maria Butina, who is accused of being a Russian agent who infiltrated the National Rifle Association, the most important outside organization in the Republican firmament. Legal filings in the case outline a plan to use the N.R.A. to push the Republican Party in a more pro-Russian direction.

Butina, 29, appears to have worked for Alexander Torshin, a Russian politician linked to organized crime who is the target of U.S. sanctions. She developed a romantic relationship with Paul Erickson, a conservative operative close to the N.R.A. (Court filings cite evidence it was insincere on her part.) Erickson, in turn, wrote to a Trump adviser in May 2016 about using the N.R.A. to set up a back channel to the Kremlin.

The young Russian woman clearly understood the political significance of the N.R.A. In one email, court papers say, she described the central “place and influence” of the N.R.A. in the Republican Party. Through her pro-gun activism, she became a fixture of the conservative movement and was photographed with influential Republican politicians. A Justice Department filing quotes Torshin as comparing her to another young, famous Russian agent: “You have upstaged Anna Chapman. She poses with toy pistols, while you are being published with real ones.”

If the N.R.A. as an organization turns out to be compromised, it would shake conservative politics to its foundation. And this is no longer a far-fetched possibility. “I serve on both the Intelligence Committee and the Finance Committee,” Senator Ron Wyden, Democrat of Oregon, told me. “So I have a chance to really look at this through the periscope of both committees. And what I have wondered about for some time is this whole issue of whether the N.R.A. is getting subverted as a Russian asset.”

The events of the last week or so are convincing Russiagate skeptics even. Something is desperately wrong here.  This is Blake Hounshell writing for Politico.

And why does Trump inevitably return to questioning the irrefutable evidence that Russia meddled in the 2016 election? We can dispense with the explanation, conveyed anonymously by senior administration officials, that “his brain can’t process that collusion and cyberattacks are two different things.” We can also forget about the widely held theory that he views the various Russia investigations as a threat to the legitimacy of his election, and therefore a devastating blow to his sense of self-worth.

Or, at least, neither offers a sufficient explanation for why Trump consistently parrots Russian talking points on NATO, the American media, U.S. troop deployments, Ukraine and the legitimacy of the postwar liberal order. What does any of that have to do with his tender ego? Do we really think Trump has an informed position on, say, Montenegro’s history of aggression? Could Trump find Montenegro on a map?

Nor is it credible to point to actions his administration has taken that are “tough on Russia.” Trump has questioned proposals to supply the Ukrainian government with anti-tank missiles and sniped at Congress for wanting to impose fresh sanctions on Moscow.

What about my argument that Trump was constitutionally incapable of keeping a secret? That, too, is no longer operative. Since I first wrote, we’ve learned that Trump—a skinflint who once had his own charity pay a $7 fee to register his son for the Boy Scouts—was willing to shell out $130,000 of his own money to hush up a fling with a porn actress, Stormy Daniels. And he still hasn’t copped to sleeping with her, despite the discovery of their nondisclosure agreement and contemporaneous evidence that the affair really happened. None of this leaked out until well after the election, proving that Trump is indeed capable of keeping his yap shut when he wants. Not convinced? How about the fact that Brett Kavanaugh’s name didn’t leak out as Trump’s latest Supreme Court pick until minutes before the announcement?

The FT has even drug out the decayed old Kissinger to scare us. This from a lunchtime interview with Edward Luce.

We are both drinking Badoit sparkling water, which Kissinger has specifically requested. I sense I am losing my battle to get him on to Trump — or failing to detect his hidden message. Is he saying we are underestimating Trump — that, in fact, Trump may be doing us the unacknowledged service of calming the Russian bear? Again, there is a pause before Kissinger answers. “I don’t want to talk too much about Trump because at some point I should do it in a more coherent way than this,” Kissinger replies. But you are being coherent, I protest. Please don’t stop. There is another pregnant silence. “I think Trump may be one of those figures in history who appears from time to time to mark the end of an era and to force it to give up its old pretences. It doesn’t necessarily mean that he knows this, or that he is considering any great alternative. It could just be an accident.”

By now Kissinger has abandoned his halfhearted stabs at the fish. I know he has briefed Trump. He has also met Putin on 17 occasions. He reports the contents of those meetings to Washington, he tells me. I try a different tack. To whom does Trump compare in history, I ask. This also fails to do the trick. Kissinger goes off on a tour d’horizon of the health of European diplomacy

 

 

I got a bad case of the Scumbag Blues.  What’s on your reading and blogging list today?

Monday Reads: Spy Unattended

Posted: July 16, 2018 | Author: | Filed under: morning reads | Tags: , , | 67 Comments

‘Amazing moment as French President Emmanuel Macron embraces each member of the #FifaWorldCup2018 championship team…in the pouring rain. ‘ Via/ Jim Roberts @nycjim

Good Morning Sky Dancers!

I hope your morning is going better than mine. My day has been a metaphor for our country’s ongoing demise.  Rain poured onto my bed last night after a downpour and finally getting my neighbor to saw off all the trees covering my roof.  Then, I woke this morning to find my front bumper and a headlight on the ground in front of my car. The TV shows nothing but the Kremlin Asset occupying the White House via a Russian and White Nationalist Coup meeting all by his ignorant ass self with his Spy Master.

Today I am borrowing pictures of other countries that have real presidents behaving like presidents. I’m also lifting a few from our past when no one was rude enough to leave in a 92 year old Queen of England waiting in the heat only to push in front of her at the earliest possible moment.

And, inflation has already hit a six year high and basically eliminated any gain in income or taxes made by the “Average American”. Plus, the Fed is worrying about stagflation now which is generally and is the worst economic set up possible. High inflation and high unemployment simultaneously. Nixon did it to us last time. It’s purely the result of bad policy which is the hall mark of the Trump/Ryan/McConnell dumpsterfire that used to be the United States.  This is where all those tax dollars went:  “Worker wages drop while companies spend billions to boost stocks”.

Six months after the Tax Cut and Jobs Act became law, there’s still little evidence that the average job holder is feeling the benefit.

Worker pay in the second quarter dropped nearly one percent below its first-quarter level, according to the PayScale Index, one measure of worker pay. When accounting for inflation, the drop is even steeper. Year-over-year, rising prices have eaten up still-modest pay gains for many workers, with the result that real wages fell 1.4 percent from the prior year, according to PayScale. The drop was broad, with 80 percent of industries and two-thirds of metro areas affected.

“Now, economic confidence has been good, we’re in a strong economy, GDP is growing, but the question has been, where’s the paycheck?” said Katie Bardaro, vice president of data analytics at PayScale.

The answer is, largely, in the companies’ coffers. Businesses are spending nearly $700 billion on repurchasing their own stock so far this year, according to research from TrimTabs. Corporations set a record in Q2, announcing $433 billion worth of buybacks — nearly doubling the previous record, which was set in Q1.

When a company buys back some of its outstanding shares, the effect is usually to boost the value of the rest of its stock, sometimes making the company appear more valuable on paper. Because many senior executives are paid in company shares, buybacks temporarily boost their pay (as well as other shareholders’ portfolios), sometimes at the expense of investments in infrastructure or workers.

The popularity of stock buybacks in the wake of the corporate tax cuts has drawn lawmakers’ attention. A group of senators wrote to the SEC late last month, asking the agency to review the rules around buybacks. “The explosion of stock buybacks has funneled corporate profits to wealthy shareholders and corporate executives instead of workers and long-term investments that spur sustained economic growth,” they wrote.

Queen Elizabeth dancing with then President Gerald Ford.

But meanwhile, The Traitor-in-Chief considers the EU to be our “foe” and China and Russia to be our “competitors”. North Korea has jump started its nuclear weapons program while Trump tweets that every thing is peachy keen. There is a glimpse of congresssional oversight appearing on that front but for the most part, Congress is enabling the destruction of the country.

President Donald Trump is “gaslighting” the planet about North Korea’s nukes, according to a well-connected analyst. So Congress is moving on multiple fronts to force the White House to come clean on its negotiations with Pyongyang.

A bipartisan group of lawmakers has introduced a bill that would, in the words of an aide involved in the process, give the administration some diplomatic “training wheels” and ensure that officials don’t agree to give away more concessions before North Korea’s nuclear capabilities are fully evaluated.

Meanwhile, the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee is demanding an official assessment from the nation’s top intelligence chief on whether the president’s positive outlook on the negotiations holds water.

Trump claimed after his summit with North Korean leader Kim Jong Un in Singapore that the nuclear threat from North Korea is “no longer”—despite his own White House’s claims to the contrary.

Jeffrey Lewis, a nonproliferation expert at the Middlebury Institute of International Studies, compared the administration’s recent declarations of success regarding the negotiations to “gaslighting.”

Canada’s Justin Trudeau dressed as Clark Kent, Superman, with his daughter for Halloween

Moscow has rolled out all the usual state propaganda for the Traitor-in-Chief as Putin gets his blowjob from his Be Best Spy.

U.S. President Donald Trump is no fan of American journalists, but he might love what the Russian media are saying about him ahead of his meeting Monday with Russian President Vladimir Putin.

A political maverick who is being unfairly targeted by his own compatriots — that’s the common portrayal of Trump on Russia’s largely Kremlin-friendly TV networks, websites and newspapers.

Newspaper Komsomolskaya Pravda dismissed the U.S. investigation into Trump’s “mythical work for the Kremlin,” and praised Trump for meeting Putin “despite opposition from his own elite and the hysterics of the media.”

Panelists on popular Sunday night talk show “Vecher,” or “Evening,” said Putin goes into Monday’s summit in Helsinki as the clearly stronger figure, notably coming off his hosting of the World Cup.

Universally sympathetic to Trump, they described him as hobbled by domestic political challenges — a problem Putin doesn’t face after 18 years of stifling political opposition — and by special investigator Robert Mueller’s probe of alleged Russian election interference.

Arrival North Portico. Reception Line. Dinner and Toast for Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II

All those indictments against Russians in the Federation’s Spy Agency just haven’t made it to Russian State News.  From CBS: ‘Trump predicts “extraordinary relationship” with Russia at summit — live updates.’

Following slight delays in schedule,- Presidents Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin have begun their day of meetings in Helsinki, Finland amid increasing tensions between the two nations.

“The world wants to see us get along,” Mr. Trump remarked during the leaders’ first formal meeting, adding, “I think we’ll end up having an extraordinary relationship.”

Following their first appearance together, the two leaders sat down for a private one-on-one discussion that lasted over 2 hours long. Mr. Trump told reporters at a working lunch afterwards that the meeting was “a very good start for everybody.”

Mr. Trump kicked off his day by tweeting that U.S.-Russia relations were being soured by U.S. “foolishness” including the ongoing probe into Russian interference in the 2016 election.

Then President Barrack Obama greets Prince George.

Russian Asset-in Chief tweeted out that the Mueller investigation was a “rigged witch hunt”.   Oh and THIS:

Trump holds call with Turkey’s Erdogan prior to summit

Amid news of the summit, the national security council confirms that Mr. Trump held a call with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

According to a Turkish readout of the call held on Monday, the leaders discussed topics raised at last week’s NATO summit, including developments Syria. President Erdogan also extended his wishes of success for the summit between Putin and Mr. Trump.

The Tangerine Wank  Maggot loves fellating DickTators.

As usual, Axios sums it up: 

The big picture: At today’s Trump-Putin summit in Helsinki, you have an American president huddling alone with an enemy of the United States who infiltrated our election system.

  • They’ll do it on the first weekday after the president’s own government indicted a dozen Russian intelligence agents for carrying out the cyberattack. Also Friday, Trump’s top intel official declared that the current danger of more Russian cyberattacks is akin to warning signs before 9/11, when 3,000 were killed and terrorism reshaped the core of our country and lives.
  • You have an American president who publicly shrugs at the threat, and claims most of the coverage is fake — even as it echoes the precise warnings and conclusions of his own government officials.
  • When the meeting concludes, Vladimir Putin will postgame with a Fox News interview (Chris Wallace), while Trump will hit two Fox News shows (Sean Hannity and Tucker Carlson) to give his own spin.
  • Trump will surely amplify his take on Twitter. This morning, he began Summit Day by tweeting: “Our relationship with Russia has NEVER been worse thanks to many years of U.S. foolishness and stupidity and now, the Rigged Witch Hunt!”
  • The post-summit sit-downs will be with the same Fox News many expected would be tempered — or even fade — after Roger Ailes was ousted. Instead, it’s now the most powerful White House visual stage in history, thanks to Trump.
  • And the same Twitter that was the playground for reporters and news junkies is now the most powerful presidential messaging system in history, thanks to Trump.

Be smart: Sitting silently back in D.C. will be the one man who can pull all these strings together, sort through the fact and fiction, and tell a tale no one will ever forget — Robert Mueller.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel with Queen Elizabeth

The tete-a Dick lasted more than 2 hours this morning.  WTF did he surrender to Putin and when will we ever know?

And while U.S. officials say they will maintain sanctions against Russia for seizing Crimea from Ukraine in 2014, Trump himself hasn’t ruled out recognizing that annexation of territory that Putin believes is rightfully his.

“We’re going to have to see,” Trump told reporters on Air Force One late last month.

Anna-Liisa Heusala, a Russian Studies professor at the University of Helsinki, said Putin wants “actual recognition or de facto acceptance” of his military action in Ukraine, Syria and other regional hotspots and affirmation of his view of Russia as a “superpower, above international norms and law.”

“From Russia’s perspective, its actions in Ukraine and the Crimea, which it partially justified with humanitarian causes, were a demonstration of its strengthened role and ability to set boundaries for the actions of other parties when these are deemed to seriously threaten Russian national interests,” she said.

May all the Wisdom Being save the Queen and rescue the USA from the Orange Plague!