An analysis piece, also satirical, on why Stormy’s story keeps hanging around. The legal mistakes noted in this piece are numerous.
Wtf
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OK, do yourself a favor and watch this brief, unintentionally hilarious interview with Keith Davidson, who formerly provided “legal representation” to Stormy Daniels and Karen McDougal, but all the while, was actually conspiring against them in cahoots with Trump’s attorney, Michael Cohen. It’s guaranteed to brighten your weekend.
If there were an Oscar for Best Performance by a Shifty Attorney, Davidson would be a shoo-in. I love that he’s so tongue-tied he can’t even decide if he believes his client. At another point, he’s doing such an abysmal job of defending himself, the exasperated interviewer blurts out, “What are you doing here?”
It’s no wonder that a short while after this interview, Davidson decided to start cooperating.
In the coming weeks, if you ever become discouraged about the course of the investigation, just return to this video and remind yourself – Our side: world-class prosecutors and ace attorneys like Robert Mueller and Michael Avenetti. Their side: the likes of this guy.
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As far as I can tell, the Guardian has not reported any financial misdealings related to Hannity’s shell companies, but has pointed out where Hannity should have been more forthcoming making disclosures to his viewers. Considering the intense scrutiny that this report is going to bring to his finances, I’m betting Hannity now wishes he’d never gotten mixed up with Michael Cohen.
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I suspect Hannity doesn’t care, he’s like the Nazis in Germany I mean they were “ making Germany great again.”
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Not really sure what this is all about – but it does confirm we live in strange times.
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Thank you WaPo for committing to dogged investigative journalism. This piece must represent hundreds of hours of research plus a huge effort to collate the data. We still don’t know all the facts, but this goes a long way towards shedding light on Trump’s financial dealings. Where in the world did he come up with all this cash? Now if we could only see those tax returns . . .
I thought this might make some intriguing, casual reading for the weekend – hence, the post in this thread.
Here’s the lead in:
In the nine years before he ran for president, Donald Trump’s company spent more than $400 million in cash on new properties — including 14 transactions paid for in full, without borrowing from banks — during a buying binge that defied real estate industry practices and Trump’s own history as the self-described “King of Debt.”
Trump’s vast outlay of cash, tracked through public records and totaled publicly here for the first time, provides a new window into the president’s private company, which discloses few details about its finances.
It shows that Trump had access to far more cash than previously known, despite his string of commercial bankruptcies and the Great Recession’s hammering of the real estate industry.
Why did the “King of Debt,” as he has called himself in interviews, turn away from that strategy, defying the real estate wisdom that it’s unwise to risk so much of one’s own money in a few projects?
And how did Trump — who had money tied up in golf courses and buildings — raise enough liquid assets to go on this cash buying spree?
And a couple eye-opening info-graphics:
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No collusion! Well, maybe just a little collusion, and just with Russia. OK, maybe with U.A.E, too. Oh, yeah, plus Saudi Arabia. But that’s it, honest, Scout’s honor.
Erik Prince, the private security contractor and the former head of Blackwater, arranged the meeting, which took place on Aug. 3, 2016. The emissary, George Nader, told Donald Trump Jr. that the princes who led Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates were eager to help his father win election as president. The social media specialist, Joel Zamel, extolled his company’s ability to give an edge to a political campaign; by that time, the firm had already drawn up a multimillion-dollar proposal for a social media manipulation effort to help elect Mr. Trump.
A few hours after The NYT published the above exposé, Politico reported that Erik Prince, who allegedly orchestrated the meeting, appears to have lied to congress. Prince’s involvement in the meeting contradicts his November, 2017, testimony before the House Intelligence Committee:
Here’s the relevant testimony from page 6 of the transcript:
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On Sunday morning, President Donald Trump tweeted. And tweeted. And tweeted. He said 11 false things in just 5 tweets Sunday morning Is it raining? No golf? @CNNPolitics https://cnn.it/2rZ3Mxy
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A Border Patrol agent detained two U.S. citizens at a Montana gas station convenience store in Havre, Montana after hearing them speak Spanish. Despite showing him their IDs he kept the two women in the parking lot for 35 to 40 minutes.
Chicago Tribune has the full story http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/ct-border-agent-montana-20180520-story.html
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That is such bullshit. Detained for speaking in a non-English language even WITH the appropriate IDs.
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The Handmaids Tale…comes to life.
My favorite quote out of this weekend’s disastrous G7 meeting.
“He’s like Heath Ledger’s Joker—but without the operational excellence.” That was the grim after-action assessment of one senior G7 official with whom I spoke in the shocked aftermath of President Donald Trump’s savage post-summit tweets.
The G7 was pretty much summed up with this photo. I’m shocked that our reality star president didn’t at just shout into the cameras, “I’m not here to make friends!” Could he be any more embarrassing?
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Jaw drop…
Tweet @Adamcbest
Fox & Friends accidentally said this about the Singapore summit: “regardless of what happens in that meeting between the two dictators.”
This gaffe is probably the most honest thing ever said in the program’s history. https://twitter.com/adamcbest/status/1005825231041323008/video/1
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The New Yorker replies to this Tweet from POTUS.
On August 5, 2018, precisely forty-four years after the collapse of the Nixon Presidency, another President, Donald Trump, made his own public admission. In one of a series of early-morning tweets, Trump addressed a meeting that his son Donald, Jr., held with a Russian lawyer affiliated with the Russian government. “This was a meeting to get information on an opponent, totally legal and done all the time in politics - and it went nowhere,” he wrote. “I did not know about it!”
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The President’s Sunday-morning tweet should be seen as a turning point. It doesn’t teach us anything new—most students of the case already understand what Donald Trump, Jr., Paul Manafort, and Jared Kushner knew about that Trump Tower meeting. But it ends any possibility of an alternative explanation. We can all move forward understanding that there is a clear fact pattern about which there is no dispute:
The President’s son and top advisers knowingly met with individuals connected to the Russian government, hoping to obtain dirt on their political opponent.
Documents stolen from the Democratic National Committee and members of the Clinton campaign were later used in an overt effort to sway the election.
When the Trump Tower meeting was uncovered, the President instructed his son and staff to lie about the meeting, and told them precisely which lies to use.
The President is attempting to end the investigation into this meeting and other instances of attempted collusion between his campaign staff and representatives of the Russian government.
—
Our nation can now focus on another question: What do we do when a President has openly admitted to attempted collusion, lying, and a coverup?
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Excellent analysis of the upcoming bellwether special election in Ohio (just two days away!). If the Republicans lose this on the heels of Trump’s desperate Saturday rally, it will be a massive loss of face for the President and his Party. And, leading up to the mid-terms, it will represent a tectonic shift to the left. Go Danny O’Connor!
P.S. Don’t forget ActBlue! There’s still time to make a difference in this race. 
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This is interesting.
Apple has removed the entire library for five of Infowars’ six podcasts from its iTunes and Podcast apps, BuzzFeed News has learned. Among the podcasts, which were removed from Apples’ iTunes directory (the company only indexed the show and did not it) are the show “War Room” as well as the popular Alex Jones Show podcast, which is hosted daily by the prominent conspiracy theorist.
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In a statement Sunday evening to BuzzFeed News, Apple confirmed removing the five shows under its hate speech guidelines. “Apple does not tolerate hate speech, and we have clear guidelines that creators and developers must follow to ensure we provide a safe environment for all of our users,” a company spokesperson said. "Podcasts that violate these guidelines are removed from our directory making them no longer searchable or available for download or streaming. We believe in representing a wide range of views, so long as people are respectful to those with differing opinions.”
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Races to watch on Tuesday. . .
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Interesting development in the DNC this weekend
CHICAGO — The Democratic National Committee voted Saturday to significantly curtail the power of superdelegates and make presidential caucuses more accessible, overcoming objections from a vocal minority of its membership.
The reform package, pushed by DNC Chairman Tom Perez and allies of Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, among others, passed overwhelmingly by voice vote at the DNC’s summer meeting here — two years after the process started.
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The change will prohibit superdelegates from voting for president at the party’s 2020 convention, unless the outcome is already assured or it deadlocks, which hasn’t happened in decades. The vast majority of superdelegates sided with Hillary Clinton over Sanders in their primary fight two years ago.
The new rules will also make caucuses more accessible by requiring state parties to accept absentee votes, addressing concerns that the caucuses are less democratic than primaries because they require people to physically attend the events in order to participate in the presidential nominating process in their state.
A number of state parties are already considering replacing their caucuses with primaries, with some state party chairs here predicting the 2020 nominating contest will feature many fewer caucuses than in 2016.—
Some of the strongest opposition to the change came from black delegates, especially in the older generation, who said it would “disenfranchise” African-American and Latino party leaders and make their convention less diverse.
“Are you telling me that I’m going to go to a convention, after my 30 years of blood, sweat, and tears for this party, that you’re going to take away my right to appease a group of people?” said DNC Vice Chair Karen Carter Peterson, a black Louisiana State Senator, presumably referring to white Sanders supporters.
Author of How Democracies Die cited in 2017, that superdelegates act as party gatekeepers against a rising populist candidate.
ZIBLATT: Yeah. I would add to that what’s an interesting - differences exist between the Democratic Party and the Republican Party. The Democratic Party has superdelegates. And so there is built into the Democratic Party presidential selection process - continues to exist - this kind of element of gatekeeping. The Republican Party does not have superdelegates. And so one of the interesting kind of things to think about is, you know, had there been superdelegates in the Republican Party, would have Donald Trump actually won the nomination?
Would’ve he run? Would’ve he won? And so, you know, I think that’s kind of an interesting thing to think about. And, you know, superdelegates are now up for debate within the Democratic Party after the Bernie Sanders-Hillary showdown. And so there’s a lot of people who think superdelegates should be eliminated so that - this is kind of an ongoing issue of debate.
Have Democrats overcorrected or undercorrected How do you feel about superdelegates? Gatekeepers or unnecessary obstacle to democracy? I’m honestly torn. What is missing from this debate?
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@JakeTapper
The two people who defeated him in his presidential runs —
CNN reporting John McCain requested that both George W Bush and Barack Obama deliver eulogies at his funeral.
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