1/ Trump began the 17th anniversary of the Sept. 11. 2001 terror attacks by tweeting a defense of himself in the Russia investigation while also attacking the FBI. In a string of tweets, appearing to quote from a segment on Fox News, Trump blamed FBI agents Peter Strzok and Lisa Page for employing a "media leak strategy" to undermine his administration. He then blamed the FBI and Justice Department for doing "NOTHING" about it. Almost two hours later, Trump tweeted: "17 years since September 11th!" (NBC News / Washington Post / CNN)
Update: I’m on chapter 14 and all I can say is wow. This book contains all the issues and policy we feared Trump would not and does not understand, plus so much more. A must read!
Now that Bob Woodward’s book is out…it is said that insiders at the WH use the term - TFA as short hand for Twenty-Fifth Amendment in any communication.
WOW…what world are we in now?
Here’s a tweet from former Obama DOJ head - Eric Holder to T.
@EricHolder
Eric Holder Retweeted Donald J. Trump
Really?! My DOJ would and did care. And continue to fight for protections for voting rights, health care, climate, LGBTQ rights, gun safety measures, criminal justice reform. Would stand up to Congressional hacks and for the career people at DOJ. Are you and Crazy Louie nuts? TFA
@realDonaldTrump
“ERIC Holder could be running the Justice Department right now and it would be behaving no differently than it is.” @LouDobbs
4:41 AM - 11 Sep 2018
Both Sen Susan Collins (ME-R) and Sen Lisa Murkowski (AK - R) are being bombarded by calls and resisters to insist they not vote in Kavanaugh.
Collins has indicated that she would re-consider her potential YES vote if she sees real evidence that there was perjury on Kavanaugh’s point.
Sen Murkowski also has her Native Alaskan constituency to be concerned about. The racial profiling memo that Cory Booker presented as well as Sen Hirono (HI-D) pointed to Kavanaugh’s disregard for Native populations might have helped to boost her interest in a NO vote for Kavanaugh.
These two Senators did block the ACA dismantling (along w/ McCain). Their NO vote is very important to defeating Kavanaugh potentially. The other undecided are the Red State Dems - Sen Claire McCaskill (MO-D), Sen Heidi Heitkamp (ND-D) and Sen Joe Manchin (WV-D).
Progressive groups are ratcheting up the pressure on Sen. Susan Collins of Maine, sending coat hangers to her offices; organizing rallies, social media, telephone and email campaigns; and raising nearly $1 million for a future opponent if she votes to confirm Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh.
There also are allegations circulating on Twitter that her staff is not making a record when constituents communicate their views on Kavanaugh’s nomination, based on a tweet by a visitor to her Bangor office Friday that had been retweeted more than 27,000 times as of Monday afternoon, including by celebrities such as Stephen King and George Takei.
Collins, who remains undecided on Kavanaugh’s confirmation, is a pro-abortion-rights Republican in a Senate with a 51-49 Republican majority. Collins and Alaska Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski are being targeted as possible “no” votes on Kavanaugh.
Salon Article
For Murkowski, who also supports abortion rights, her constituents are even more worried about what Kavanaugh’s appointment would mean for Native Alaskans — a demographic that was critical to her 2010 re-election campaign. Advocates and leadership from various native rights groups and tribal communities have raised their concerns to Murkowski and are coming forward in droves to urge her to oppose Kavanaugh’s confirmation. According to HuffPost, they have cited his record on voting rights and environmental protections, as well as the importance of a forthcoming Supreme Court case connected to Alaska Natives’ subsistence fishing rights.
> McCaskill, D-Mo., remains publicly undecided, and a spokesman says calls for and against Kavanaugh to her office have been running about even. But her public comments have been very similar to those she made as she announced she was voting against Trump’s first high court nominee, Neil Gorsuch, in April 2017.
Then she said: “I cannot support Judge Gorsuch because a study of his opinions reveal a rigid ideology that always puts the little guy under the boot of corporations. He is evasive, but his body of work isn’t.”
Last week, asked about Kavanaugh, McCaskill again raised what she said was a lack of transparency along with the little guy vs. corporations argument. >
But, significantly, she threw in an issue she has raised on the campaign trail: “dark money” in campaigns, the hard-to-trace big donations that pour into supposedly independent, nonprofit campaign coffers in attempts to influence elections.
Joe Manchin definitely supports ACA and will try to keep that provision available to his constituency. He is leading in the polls against his R opponent. (Am not sure how he voted on ACA last year, but I think he voted to get rid of it)
For an explanation, look no further than the issue Mr. Manchin has made No. 1 in his campaign: health care, specifically protections enshrined in the Affordable Care Act, a once-vilified law that has grown increasingly popular now that its benefits are woven deeply into a state with high poverty and poor health. West Virginia has the highest share of its population covered by Medicaid, 29 percent, including about 160,000 who became eligible in the Medicaid expansion under the law.
Mr. Manchin, a former governor and the state’s dominant politician for more than a decade, rarely cites the law’s formal name, much less its toxic-for-West Virginia nickname, “Obamacare.”
But he has relentlessly raised the alarm over the potential loss of coverage for people with pre-existing conditions, about one in three West Virginians.
Heidi Heitkamp (ND-D) does appear as someone who would vote for Kavanaugh.
Selling off our future for financial gains for the 1%. Appalling.
The U.S. deficit grew by $222 billion from this time last year — reaching a total of $895 billion, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office.
Why it matters: This increase was due mostly to the new Republican tax law and Congress’ routine decision to increase spending, which grew by 7% compared to revenue growth of only 1%. The CBO now says the deficit will approach $1 trillion by the end of this fiscal year, but in April the agency didn’t expect the deficit to reach $1 trillion until 2020.
More confirmation that Manafort had been talking w/ Mueller about a possible plea bargain. Not certain if this scenario will result in Manafort pleading guilty, making a plea…but it puts forward that indeed Manafort has been in negotiations.
His 2nd trial begins Sept. 24th.
Days before in-person jury selection is set to begin in his second trial, President Trump’s former campaign chairman Paul Manafort is in talks with the special counsel’s office about a possible plea deal, according to two people with knowledge of the discussions.
The people, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe the conversations, cautioned that the negotiations may not result in a deal with special counsel Robert S. Mueller III, who is prosecuting Manafort for alleged money laundering and lobbying violations.
But the discussions indicate a possible shift in strategy for Manafort, who earlier this year chose to go to trial in Virginia, only to be convicted last month in Alexandria federal court on eight counts of bank and tax fraud. He had derided his former business partner, Rick Gates, for striking a deal with prosecutors that provided him leniency in exchange for testimony against Manafort.
@dragonfly9
Excellent question.
I beleive these deficits are an unfortunate byproduct. From what I’ve read so far of the Woodward book, Trump doesn’t understand basic economics, including trade deficits and the national deficit.
He literally thinks he can just print more money and that will solve the problem.
“Just run the presses — print money,” Trump said, according to Woodward, during a discussion on the national debt with Gary Cohn, former director of the White House National Economic Council.
“You don’t get to do it that way,” Cohn said, according to Woodward. “We have huge deficits and they matter. The government doesn’t keep a balance sheet like that.”
Cohn was “astounded at Trump’s lack of basic understanding,” Woodward writes.
For the shame of it all, he knows not what he does.
Yes…that’s now blatantly clear with these snippets I am hearing from Woodward’s book.
Hearing that T is so stuck in all previously ill-constructed thoughts about economics, foreign relations…etc. It is uncovering his imbecility big time. And his stubborn adherence to the fact that he is the one with power, and is non-negotiable.
Glad you got your copy of Fear today. I realized that Amazon will take forever, so I am going to Plan B, go local.
Wish these questions had been asked in the open hearing, but at least they are being asked in the “written exam.” I’m glad to see that Whitehouse is asking the questions in a very specific way – he’s not allowing much wiggle room here.
Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) wants to know if Judge Brett Kavanaugh, President Donald Trump’s nominee to the Supreme Court, has a gambling problem.
“Have you ever sought treatment for a gambling addiction?” Whitehouse asks pointedly as part of a series of questions submitted this week about Kavanaugh’s unexplained personal debts.
In 2016, Kavanaugh reported credit card and personal loan debts of between $60,000 and $200,000. The Trump White House said these debts were the result of Kavanaugh buying baseball tickets for friends who later paid him back, as well as some spending on home improvements. The 2016 debts did not appear on Kavanaugh’s 2017 disclosure form because they were either entirely paid off or fell below the reporting threshold. Kavanaugh also reported between $60,000 and $200,000 in debt in 2006.
Whitehouse’s gambling questions stem, in part, from a publicly disclosed email from 2001 where Kavanaugh apologizes to his friends for “growing aggressive after blowing still another game of dice” on a weekend vacation in the Chesapeake Bay.
Whitehouse wants to know whether Kavanaugh has gambled at any point since 2000, how many times, with whom, where and how much money he has won or lost. The senator is also asking the nominee whether he plays in a regular or periodic poker game and if he has ever gambled in the state of New Jersey ― likely a reference to Atlantic City. Finally, Whitehouse wants to know if Kavanaugh has ever received or filed a W-2G tax form with the IRS reporting gambling earnings or losses. . . .
Additionally, Whitehouse wants Kavanaugh to explain exactly how many tickets he purchased and at what price, and to list the names of the people for whom he bought the tickets.
The last question is especially important because it addresses the story Kavanaugh has put forward to explain large debts he accrued in 2016 that were rapidly paid off. (A White House spokesperson claims Kavanaugh bought baseball tickets for friends and they paid him back.) If this story is true, Kavanaugh’s answers here would help put the matter to rest, but if it’s a fabrication, will the friends he lists be willing to lie to cover up for him?
To me, the suspicious thing is that Kavanaugh himself has not explained the debts; only a White House spokesperson has. It’s crucial for Kavanaugh himself to give us an explanation under oath (or, in this case, a signed, written statement to the Senate) – that’s the only way he can truly be held accountable if it turns out the story is false. I, for one, will be reading his answers to these questions very carefully!
I’d be curious to know how many of the last 600 WTFJHTs start with that sentence form “Trump began ________________________ by tweeting a defense of himself in the Russia investigation”.
@kylegriffin1 (nbc)
The deficits being run up now aren’t an accident, or some unfortunate byproduct, they are the point. They politically constrain the other party when and if it takes power.
That last string of profanity included the phrase, mother fucker, just in case you were wondering.