Bullet point #3⌠is that the Masculine Toilet? Sheesh⌠and here it was just me thinking if you could look up dickhead in the dictionary his picture would be next to the defination.
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sorry definitionâŚ
Pulitzer prize winning Washington Post writer Eugene Robinson has never particularly liked T, but this Op-Ed goes FULL THROTTLE on him.
We are at a turning point, in fact waaaay past it for 3/5thâs of the country, who can not stand this man, and see a mad man telling lies, insulting our vaunted military personnel, and avoiding his commitments as Commander-in-Chief.
And weâre hearing a lot of âCome JanuaryâŚDemocrats willâŚâ and January can not come too soon. 
Read onâŚ
Like a television show that has jumped the shark, President Trumpâs frantic act grows more desperate and pathetic by the day.
Asked by Chris Wallace of âFox News Sundayâ to grade his presidency, Trump absurdly replied: âLook, I hate to do it, but I will do it, I would give myself an A-plus. Is that enough? Can I go higher than that?â
Much closer to the mark is the assessment by Republican lawyer and operative George Conway, the husband of one of Trumpâs closest White House aides, counselor Kellyanne Conway: âThe administration is like a sâshow in a dumpster fire.
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No wonder that multiple news reports describe the president as angry, frustrated and even less rational than usual. He has neglected his ceremonial duties, declining to join other world leaders at a ceremony in France commemorating the 100th anniversary of the end of World War I and failing to lay a wreath at Arlington National Ceremony for Veterans Day.
âI probably, you know, in retrospect I should have, and I did last year,â Trump told Wallace about going to Arlington. Fact check: He didnât. On Veterans Day 2017, Trump was in Vietnam.
It is mystifying why Trump, at a moment when he should be licking his wounds, seems intent on alienating veterans and the military. In that same interview with Wallace, who generally managed to keep a straight face, Trump went out of his way to attack retired Adm. William H. McRaven, who oversaw the raid that killed Osama bin Laden.
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Republicans who might be inclined to sign up for another season of Trumpâs fading reality show should pause and take stock. There should be no doubt, at this point, that the man is a giant loser who will drag the GOP down with him.
âI wasnât on the ballot,â he whined to Wallace. But he spent weeks on the campaign trail, begging supporters to vote as if he were. At almost every stop, he said that a vote for the GOP candidate would be âa vote for me.â The result? Millions more voted against Trump than for him. And this was just a warm-up for 2020.
Trump has already robbed the GOP of any coherent philosophy. The party that once supported the military now abuses it as a scapegoat. The party that once stood for fiscal responsibility now manages the nationâs finances in a manner that drunken sailors would find imprudent. The party that once claimed to champion personal rectitude and Christian morality now winks at payoffs to paramours and porn stars. The party that once valued order now celebrates Sybaritic chaos.
Come January, a Democratic House will begin performing the oversight duties that Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.) neglected. Does anyone believe that proper scrutiny of, say, the Trump familyâs international business dealings is likely to improve the presidentâs political standing? I donât.
In the Churchillian sense, the midterm election was the âend of the beginning.â My understanding is that rats tend to leave a sinking ship.
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Wes Clark - retired 4-star General, former NATO commander
I served under 8 commanders in chief. Trump doesnât grasp the role.
@GenClark
The problems with @realdonaldtrumpâs tenure as Commander in Chief go beyond just his petty insults of those who served. On almost every level, Donald Trump just does not âget itâ when it comes to leading our military and veterans. My op-ed: https://www.washingtonpost.com/outlook/2018/11/19/i-served-under-commanders-chief-trump-doesnt-grasp-role/?utm_term=.56b834f654f1
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The CIAâs announcement that it knows the MBS did in fact call for the murder of Khashoggi was meant to put a wedge between the T Admin and the Saudiâs. Other countries, Germany in particular have taken the stance of not selling arms to them, and now internally, Republican (T lacky and flip-flopper) Lindsay Graham now believes we should have nothing to do with MBS.
Some thoughts on what impact this may haveâŚ
There are some parallels with the Khashoggi murder. Officials, including President Donald Trump himself, seem keen to shield Prince Mohammed, better known as MBS, on the grounds that he is crucial to the administrationâs ambitions in the Middle East, and especially to the confrontation with Iran. An investigation in Riyadh has pointed to senior Saudi officials, including a close MBS aide. But on this occasion, the CIA has taken a few weeks to finger the prince himself for the killing of the Washington Post columnist.
This tells us a few things. First, the CIA must be sure it has powerful evidence of the princeâs alleged responsibility â tapes and phone intercepts included. Second, the agency must believe that MBS isnât essential to American security interests in the region. Had the spies agreed with the presidentâs assessment, it is unlikely they would have leaked their conclusion of MBSâs guilt. This is significant because the CIA works closely with its Saudi counterparts, and would not have made such a determination lightly. And third, the CIA is determined not to be involved in a shabby cover-up.
What now? Despite Trumpâs efforts to equivocate about the CIAâs conclusion (âWho can really know?â he said in a Fox News interview) MBSâs name is now firmly in the frame. In Congress, there is a growing bipartisan clamor for action against the prince. Republican Senator Lindsey Graham, long a vocal supporter of Saudi Arabia and a leading candidate to lead the Senate judiciary committee, has declared MBS âunhinged,â and has promised punitive measures. If the congressmen take their outrage to its natural conclusion, they could demand that the Trump administrationâs sanctions on 17 Saudi nationals over the Khashoggi murder be extended to MBS himself.
With the CIA and Congress now of one mind on MBS, other governments might feel emboldened to take action as well. German Chancellor Angela Merkel has already suspended arms sales to Saudi Arabia and made her opinion known directly to MBSâs father, King Salman bin Abdulaziz. Germany has also said it will bar 18 Saudis from entry, citing their alleged links to the Khashoggi murder. Expect more sanctions from Europe.
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There will undoubtedly be other, more unpredictable consequences of the CIAâs assessment of MBSâs responsibility. Unlike General Pinochet, the prince doesnât have Americaâs spies in his corner.
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Op Ed by the publisher of the Washington Post on WTF T is doing giving a âpassâ to MBS when we know from CIA that Kashoggiâs death was planned and oked by MBS.
Fred Ryan is publisher and chief executive of The Washington Post. He served as assistant to President Ronald Reagan.
A clear and dangerous message has been sent to tyrants around the world: Flash enough money in front of the president of the United States, and you can literally get away with murder.
In a bizarre, inaccurate and rambling statement â one offering a good reminder why Twitter has character limits â President Trump whitewashed the Saudi governmentâs brutal murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi. In the process, the president maligned a good and innocent man, tarring Khashoggi as an âenemy of the stateâ â a label the Saudis themselves have not used publicly â while proclaiming to the world that Trumpâs relationship with Saudi Arabiaâs 33-year-old crown prince was too important to risk over the murder of a journalist. Whatever objections people may have to our turning a blind eye to Khashoggiâs assassination, the president argued, they do not outweigh the (grossly inflated) revenue we can expect from U.S.-Saudi arms deals.
For many at The Post, Khashoggiâs murder is personal. He was a well-respected colleague, and his loss is deeply felt. But we are also mindful of our mission of public service. When officials here in Washington abandon the principles that the people elected them to uphold, it is our duty to call attention to it. For our part, we will continue to do everything possible to expose the truth â asking tough questions and relentlessly chasing down facts to bring crucial evidence to light.
Throughout this crisis, the president has maintained that heâs looking after our ânational interests.â But Trumpâs response doesnât advance the United Statesâ interests â it betrays them. It places the dollar values of commercial deals above the long-cherished American values of respecting liberty and human rights. And it places personal relationships above the United Statesâ strategic relationships. For more than 60 years, the U.S.-Saudi partnership has been an important one based on trust and respect; Trump has determined that the United States no longer requires honesty and shared values from its global partners.
Security, as Trump noted in his statement, is an important U.S. interest. But we do not make the world safer by setting a double standard for diplomacy under which the United States abandons our values for anyone who offers to buy enough of our weapons.
We do not make the world safer by abandoning our commitment to basic freedoms and human rights. Under Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, Saudi Arabia has committed atrocities that, if perpetrated by other countries, would draw a strong rebuke from the United States. Its intervention in Yemen has created a humanitarian disaster. Female activists have been imprisoned and brutalized simply for demanding the right to drive. Inconvenient Saudi business leaders were tortured inside a Ritz-Carlton hotel. Lebanonâs prime minister was kidnapped. The crown prince, in the role for barely 17 months, has led a reign of terror and has already established a dark legacy of opposing press freedom.
Failing to demand accountability for these crimes does not make the United States more secure. Stable, peaceful societies, governed by leaders who respect the rights of their people, need journalists who can expose wrongdoing and hold the powerful to account. It is no mere coincidence that many of the worst abusers of press freedom are also some of the worldâs most dangerous actors.
The CIA has thoroughly investigated Khashoggiâs murder and concluded with high confidence that it was directed by the crown prince. If there is reason to ignore the CIAâs findings, the president should immediately make that evidence public.
In the absence of such evidence, and given this failure of leadership from Trump, it now falls to Congress to truly put America first by standing up for Americaâs sacred values and lasting interests. As weâve seen from the strong support of both Republicans and Democrats, this is not a partisan or political interest; it is an American interest. Congress should demand more than scapegoating and slaps on the wrist. Instead, it should use its investigative and subpoena powers to press for an independent, thorough inquiry â no matter where it leads. It should use its power of the purse and authority to regulate foreign commerce to impose effective penalties on Khashoggiâs murderers and suspend the sale of U.S.-made weapons to the Saudis.
Presidents from John F. Kennedy to Ronald Reagan â and many before and after â took courageous stands for human rights and press freedom when much more than weapons sales were at risk. Through these acts of presidential leadership, the world has come to know that Americaâs power is derived from Americaâs principles.
On Thanksgiving Day, Americans can be grateful that we live under a Constitution that ensures the rule of law rather than the rule of one capricious man, and that it enables one branch of government to correct the failure of another. We are eternally thankful for the brave men and women whose military service has long preserved those rights, and for the courage of first responders who are there to protect us when disasters strike at home.
We can also be thankful that we have a vibrant press, protected by the First Amendment, that relentlessly seeks to hold the powerful to account. We can trust that they will fulfill this mission in the case of Jamal Khashoggi. This pursuit of truth and justice is what an innocent man, brutally slain, deserves â and what Americaâs real values demand.
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President Donald Trump has thus far had a very different experience. For the past two years, Republican control of Congress has protected him from the public exposure Nixon and his staff had to endure. Now that the Democrats have taken back the House, the Trump administration will face a challenge from which it has been immune thus far: a far-reaching, aggressive, and highly public investigation of the kind that brought down Nixon.
Trumpâs approval ratings stand at 40 percent overall and 89 percent among Republicans. In September 2017, we wrote, âIt is tough for a special prosecutor alone to bring down an administration. That feat is more readily accomplished in the court of public opinion, where an opposition-led Congress can rain hellfire and brimstone upon a troubled presidency.â
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Just came across this remarkable info-graphic about the U.S.-Mexico border. It allows you to âflyâ the entire length of the border and pick up facts about the geography and border crossing points along the way.
My biggest takeaway: While making the âvirtual flight,â it really sinks in that most of the border is comprised of vast tracts of empty land. What a criminal waste of taxes to build a wall across thousands of miles of desolation when air and vehicle patrols combined with high-tech sensors would be much more effective. Inevitably there will be debates about the need for barriers in urban locales, but that should be a separate discussion â when it comes to the wide open areas crossed by the border, there can be absolutely no doubt that building a wall in those regions is just plain stupid.
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Republicans and conservative media did their best Thursday to give the impression that the latest revelations in Special Counsel Robert Muellerâs investigation pose little threat to the administration and their party. But the signs are clear that thereâs one person who isnât buying this story: President Donald Trump.
The president tried to brush off the news Thursday morning that Michael Cohen pleaded guilty to lying to Congress about efforts to build a Trump Tower Moscow with Kremlin officials. Cohen said he did so out of loyalty to the president. In response to this plea, Trump called Cohen a âliarâ and âweak.â
Whenever threatened, itâs Trumpâs instinct to lash out. But this attack made little sense.
Cohen is admitting that he lied â and now he says heâs telling the truth. Meanwhile, Trumpâs lawyer Rudy Giuliani is saying that the presidentâs answers about Trump Tower Moscow given to Mueller âmatchâ Cohenâs. But if thatâs true (which is highly doubtful), then that means itâs the Trump teamâs official position that Cohen is being honest now when he gives his account of the Trump Tower Moscow project â which means he was lying to Congress earlier, at a time when he was still working for Trump and serving his interests. So in their desperation to respond to this story, the Trump team is providing incoherent and damaging answers.
And after the news broke about Cohenâs guilty plea, Trump left for Argentina to attend the G-20 summit. He had had plans to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin at the summit, but announced on the Twitter that he was canceling those plans because of Putinâs aggression in Ukraine. Many argued it was more likely that he was avoiding the bad optics of meeting with Putin in the light of the new developments in the probe.
Trump later also canceled formal meetings with South Korea and Turkey â suggesting he is truly scrambling. Clearly, the latest Mueller news is not sitting well with Trump.
Michelle Kosinski, a CNN diplomatic correspondent, reported on Twitter that a source told her Trump was in a âterrible moodâ and âspooked and completely distractedâ.
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Charles M Blow makes some excellent points in his column this week.
Nixon had no propaganda arm. Trump has one. Itâs called Fox News. There is little daylight between the networkâs programming and the White Houseâs priorities. If Trump goes down, so too does Fox, in some measure. So the network has a vested interest in defending Trump until the bitter end, and that narrative-crafting could impede an otherwise natural and normal disaffection with Trump.
Furthermore, Trump does not strike me as a man amenable to contrition or one interested in the health and stability of the nation.
I expect Trump to admit nothing, even if faced with proof positive of his own misconduct. There is nothing in the record to convince me otherwise. He will call the truth a lie and vice versa.
I also donât think that Trump would ever voluntarily leave office as Nixon did, even if he felt impeachment was imminent. Iâm not even sure that he would willingly leave if he were impeached and the Senate moved to convict, a scenario that is hard to imagine at this point.
I donât think any of this gets better, even as the evidence becomes clearer. I donât believe that Trumpâs supporters would reverse course in the same way that Nixonâs did. I donât believe that the facts Mueller presents will be considered unassailable. I donât believe Trump will go down without bringing the country down with him.
In short, I donât believe we are reaching the end of a nightmare, but rather we are entering one. This will not get easier, but harder.
The country is about to enter the crucible. This test of our republic is without a true comparison. And we do not have a clear picture of how the test will resolve. But, I believe damage is certain.
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Well, this explains why Putin and Salman are high-fiving each other. They own a mole and a sycophant in Trumpâs inner-circle at the White House. It also explains why Trump has been so soft on the Saudiâs heinous torture and dismemberment of Khashoggi. Hard to stay mad at a guy whoâs BFF with your favorite daughterâs husband.
Senior American officials were worried. Since the early months of the Trump administration, Jared Kushner, the presidentâs son-in-law and Middle East adviser, had been having private, informal conversations with Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the favorite son of Saudi Arabiaâs king.
Given Mr. Kushnerâs political inexperience, the private exchanges could make him susceptible to Saudi manipulation, said three former senior American officials. In an effort to tighten practices at the White House, a new chief of staff tried to reimpose longstanding procedures stipulating that National Security Council staff members should participate in all calls with foreign leaders.
But even with the restrictions in place, Mr. Kushner, 37, and Prince Mohammed, 33, kept chatting, according to three former White House officials and two others briefed by the Saudi royal court. In fact, they said, the two men were on a first-name basis, calling each other Jared and Mohammed in text messages and phone calls.
The exchanges continued even after the Oct. 2 killing of Jamal Khashoggi, the Saudi journalist who was ambushed and dismembered by Saudi agents, according to two former senior American officials and the two people briefed by the Saudis.
And so on, and so on. Appalling. How many of our nationâs vital secrets has Kushner leaked to Salman who has then passed them to Putin? Hard to imagine it isnât happening in light of these revelations.
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Good point @Keaton_James âŚJared only was able to shore up that 666 Fifth Ave debt in the last 6 monthsâŚand his security clearance was not fully cleared until perhaps the same last 7 months. But we know that Kushner was digging into a lot of top secret intel, and I believe he was all to happy to pass it along as you say. This more than suspicious alliance with MBS is very dishearteningâŚaligning himself with power and money sources, despite MBSâs immoral character.
Same can be applied to the ChineseâŚwith Jared being very friendly with Wendi Deng, who is Chinese and the ex-wife of Murdoch.
Early in 2017 US officials urged Kushner, who is a senior adviser to the US president, to exercise caution around Murdoch, according to the Wall Street Journal. Murdoch is a close friend of Kushnerâs wife, Ivanka Trump.
Concerns were raised by US officials about a counter-intelligence assessment that Murdoch was lobbying for a high-profile construction project in Washington funded by the Chinese government, anonymous sources told the US paper.
Wendi Deng Murdoch is former wife of Rupert Murdoch, who owns the Wall Street Journal.
The construction project was a proposed $100m (ÂŁ73m) Chinese garden, which was reportedly declared a national security risk because the design included plans for a tall tower that officials were concerned could be used for surveillance. The garden was planned to be built less than five miles from both the Capitol and the White House.
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Here it comesâŚa plea from former Senators, albeit mostly Democratic are sending out a SOS for the current Senate to take heed and protect our democracy. They are asking them to stand up and fight for it.
Opinion
We are former senators. The Senate has long stood in defense of democracy â and must again.
Dear Senate colleagues,
As former members of the U.S. Senate, Democrats and Republicans, it is our shared view that we are entering a dangerous period, and we feel an obligation to speak up about serious challenges to the rule of law, the Constitution, our governing institutions and our national security.
We are on the eve of the conclusion of special counsel Robert S. Mueller IIIâs investigation and the Houseâs commencement of investigations of the president and his administration. The likely convergence of these two events will occur at a time when simmering regional conflicts and global power confrontations continue to threaten our security, economy and geopolitical stability.
It is a time, like other critical junctures in our history, when our nation must engage at every level with strategic precision and the hand of both the president and the Senate.
We are at an inflection point in which the foundational principles of our democracy and our national security interests are at stake, and the rule of law and the ability of our institutions to function freely and independently must be upheld.
During our service in the Senate, at times we were allies and at other times opponents, but never enemies. We all took an oath swearing allegiance to the Constitution. Whatever united or divided us, we did not veer from our unwavering and shared commitment to placing our country, democracy and national interest above all else.
At other critical moments in our history, when constitutional crises have threatened our foundations, it has been the Senate that has stood in defense of our democracy. Today is once again such a time.
Regardless of party affiliation, ideological leanings or geography, as former members of this great body, we urge current and future senators to be steadfast and zealous guardians of our democracy by ensuring that partisanship or self-interest not replace national interest.
Max Baucus (D-Mont.), Evan Bayh (D-Ind.), Jeff Bingaman (D-N.M.), Bill Bradley (D-N.J.), Richard Bryan (D-Nev.), Ben Nighthorse Campbell (R-Colo.), Max Cleland (D-Ga.), William Cohen (R-Maine), Kent Conrad (D-N.D.), Al DâAmato (R-N.Y.), John C. Danforth (R-Mo.), Tom Daschle (D-S.D.), Dennis DeConcini (D-Ariz.), Chris Dodd (D-Conn.), Byron Dorgan (D-N.D.), David Durenberger (R-Minn.), Russ Feingold (D-Wis.), Wyche Fowler (D-Ga.), Bob Graham (D-Fla.), Chuck Hagel (R-Neb.), Tom Harkin (D-Iowa), Gary Hart (D-Colo.), Bennett Johnston (D-La.), Bob Kerrey (D-Neb.), John Kerry (D-Mass.), Paul Kirk (D-Mass.), Mary Landrieu (D-La.), Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.), Blanche Lincoln (D-Ark.), Richard Lugar (R-Ind.), Barbara Mikulski (D-Md.), Ben Nelson (D-Neb.), Sam Nunn (D-Ga.), Larry Pressler (R-S.D.), David Pryor (D-Ark.), Don Riegle (D-Mich.), Chuck Robb (D-Va.), Jay Rockefeller (D-W.Va.), Jim Sasser (D-Tenn.), Alan Simpson (R-Wyo.), Mark Udall (D-Colo.), John W. Warner (R-Va.), Lowell Weicker (I-Conn.), Tim Wirth (D-Colo.)
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hsq7CuaLoaw
This is a very powerful and moving tribute to journalists around the globe who risk their lives and freedom to act as the guardians of truth and who protect us from oppressive, totalitarian regimes. I highly recommend taking five minutes to view this â it is stirring and inspiring.
(Shoutout to @dragonfly9 who drew attention to the Time Person of the Year issue in another post today. Without that informative link, I would not have experienced this remarkable video.)
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Yes, guilt by action and association - whoever T attracts, they keep the bar very low.
NY Times Editorial board
In pleading for mercy, Mr. Cohen told the judge a sad tale of a starry-eyed man led astray by âa blind loyalty to this man that led me to choose a path of darkness over light.â
âTime and time again,â he said of his ex-employer, âI felt it was my duty to cover up his dirty deeds rather than to listen to my own inner voice and my moral compass.â
Lest a tear come to your eye, letâs be clear that Mr. Cohenâs âpath of darknessâ began with a sleazy legal practice years before meeting Mr. Trump. Prosecutors have made a persuasive case that the moral compass of Mr. Cohen, who also pleaded guilty to tax evasion and bank fraud, didnât locate true north until he was caught and his home, office and hotel room were raided by the F.B.I.
Mr. Cohen, once just an example of one kind of person Mr. Trump draws close to him, is now also a case study in where that association can leave them.
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How do you handle lies on top of liesâŚ? You donât.
Check, please.
Trump has been walking a tightrope of lies all his adult life, and now he is teetering. He has inflated his wealth. He has aggrandized his business acumen. He has managed to convince supporters that he is a respected businessman who brilliantly commanded a vast real estate empire. In a fanciful 2015 statement of his net worth, he claimed that his brand alone â just the name Trump â was worth $3 billion.
In reality, Trump has never come anywhere near the top rank of New York real estate developers. He ran not a huge, sprawling enterprise but a small family firm in which he and his children had direct control. He was seen as so unreliable that genuine moguls refused to have anything to do with him. When he tried to go big â risking everything on casino development in Atlantic City â he failed miserably despite his fatherâs efforts to bail him out. His bankers were left holding the bag, and now most major financial institutions wonât lend the Trump Organization a dime. It was Trumpâs undeniable skill as a television performer on âThe Apprenticeâ that saved him from total ruin.
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Now the law is beginning to squeeze him from all directions. His former consigliere, Michael Cohen, was sentenced Wednesday to three years in prison. One of the crimes Cohen confessed to was violating federal campaign finance laws by orchestrating six-figure payments to a Playboy model and an adult-film star, in the weeks before the 2016 election, to ensure their silence about sexual encounters they say they had with Trump. Cohen says he did this at Trumpâs direction.
Trumpâs see-no-evil allies dismiss Cohen as a proven liar about other matters. But also Wednesday, the company that owns the National Enquirer â American Media Inc. (AMI), which is run by Trumpâs close friend David Pecker â admitted playing a major role in that same hush-money scheme. The aim, according to the company, was to help Trump win the election.
Trump responded by tweeting that âI never directed Michael Cohen to break the law.â But in the past, the president has also said that there werenât any hush-money payments; that if such payments were made, he didnât know about them; and that the payments, which totaled $280,000, were a âsimple private transaction.â
The bottom line is that two witnesses, Cohen and AMI, independently now implicate the president of the United States in the commission of two felonies.
The campaign finance case is being brought by federal prosecutors in the Southern District of New York. Back in Washington, meanwhile, special counsel Robert S. Mueller III has been busy, as well.
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Incensed Judge Emmett Sullivan was galled enough at Flynn and his lawyers suggestion that Flynn was ambushed into his guilty plea to delay the sentencing because there still may be some more compliance that Flynn can be providing to Mueller.
Michael Flynn learned that incorporating crackpot Trumpersâ conspiracy theories in your legal brief can get you jailed. Flynnâs lawyer, by including in his sentencing brief the suggestion that President Trumpâs former national security adviser had been entrapped or tricked into making false statements to the FBI, put his client at risk of serving real jail time. Thatâs the difference between spouting nonsense on state TV and doing so in the realm of the law: In the latter, facts and truth matter, and people are held accountable for what they do and say.
We should remember that Flynn was given no guarantee that he would avoid jail time. Former federal prosecutor Joyce White Vance tells me: âA plea agreement always explicitly states that the agreement is not binding on the judge. And although judges typically go along with the termâs of a plea agreement . . . itâs not impossible for a judge to disagree with the deal the parties have struck and try to insert his own judgment in its place.â
One way to incite a judge to disregard a plea is to convey the sense the defendant is pleading guilty, but isnât really accepting his guilt. Thatâs what happened in court. Judge Emmet G. Sullivan, however, concluded that the crimes Flynn was prosecuted or, if not treason as he inquired, were of such seriousness that jail time might be appropriate.
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Dragonfly, only this week of 12/16+ has it seemed like Trump is starting to get âbad pressâ from FOX (due to court hearings and other news which I suppose is where I should be posting - cut/paste post and repeat?) and I think he is finally getting the vetting now he should have had pre-election. This is a comment I heard but it really seemed to resonate. As the market continues to take a dump I think his negative ratings will continue. But as in all things Trump - who can say when or how the âbaseâ might actually figure it out or believe it. I think the doubt factor has to higher (than 40%) but people are not owning up to it. Max
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This short profile on Mattis from 2011
Back in 1998, he was making his final delivery to Marine Corps Combat Development Command headquarters at Quantico when he asked the Marine on duty who the officer of the day was.
âThe young Marine said, âSir, itâs Brigadier General Mattis.ââ
Krulak thought the Marine had misunderstood him, so he asked again, but he got the same answer.
âI looked around the duty hut and in the back, there were two cots: One for the officer of the day and one for young Marine. I said, âOK, let me cut through all of this: Who was the officer who slept in that bed last night?â
âAnd the Marine said, âSir, Brigadier General Mattis.ââ
At that moment, Mattis walked around the corner.
âSo I said to him, âJim, what are you standing the duty for?â âAnd he said, âSir, I looked at the duty roster for today and there was a young major who had it who is married and had a family; and so Iâm a bachelor, I thought why should the major miss out on the fun of having Christmas with his family, and so I took the duty for him.â â
Never before or since has Krulak run into a general officer standing duty on Christmas Day.
âI think it says volumes about Jim Mattis and his leadership style,â Krulak said. âHe did it very unobtrusively. He just took the duty.â
I posted this as an example of the image that General James Mattis cultivated with his style of leadership. And then Trump happenedâŚ
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NYTimes: The Ghost of Trump Chaos Future
The Ghost of Trump Chaos Future
Two years ago, after the shock of Donald Trumpâs election, financial markets briefly freaked out, then quickly recovered. In effect, they decided that while Trump was manifestly unqualified for the job, temperamentally and intellectually, it wouldnât matter. He might talk the populist talk, but heâd walk the plutocratic walk. He might be erratic and uninformed, but wiser heads would keep him from doing anything too stupid.
In other words, investors convinced themselves that they had a deal: Trump might sound off, but he wouldnât really get to make policy. And, hey, taxes on corporations and the wealthy would go down.
But now, just in time for Christmas, people are realizing that there was no such deal â or at any rate, that there wasnât a sanity clause. (Sorry, couldnât help myself.) Put an unstable, ignorant, belligerent man in the Oval Office, and he will eventually do crazy things.
To be clear, voters have been aware for some time that government by a bad man is bad government. Thatâs why Democrats won a historically spectacular majority of the popular vote in the midterms. Even the wealthy, who have been the prime beneficiaries of Trump policies, are unhappy: A CNBC survey finds that millionaires, even Republican millionaires, have turned sharply against the tweeter in chief.
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