Wednesday, May 22, 2019

LATE BREAKING: Trump walks out on Pelosi/Schumer meeting


Trump walks out of Pelosi/Schumer meeting
Speaker Nancy Pelosi called it "very, very, very strange," adding, "sad" referring to a meeting at the White House with Donald Trump, which included Sen.Chuck Schumer. Pelosi described Trump's walking out of the meeting as "an orchestrated — almost to a 'poor baby' point of view" situation."

Here is Trump's tweet retort...
"So sad that Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer will never be able to see or understand the great promise of our Country."
 In another, he warns, "You can’t investigate and legislate simultaneously - it just doesn’t work that way."
Later trump heard Pelosi accused him of "engaging in a cover up," and apparently he went postal. One of his minions said...
"Bottom line: if Nancy Pelosi had not come out this morning and said what she said about "cover up," they would still be in there right now meeting on infrastructure." 
According to CNN, What Pelosi said: Pelosi on Monday night said the committees were on course to be successful and Democrats' message must be "No one is above the law," and that they are witnessing "the cover-up." The California Democrat also said they all agreed they needed to get to the truth, but that the public believes kitchen table issues must also be dealt with.


What's going on in left field


LIBERALS ARE BEAUTIFUL
You can deprogram Trump supporters? Let's do it now...Mike Pence bombs at commencement speech...What is rape if not rape?...Trump tells McGhan to be tardy for House...Ex-congressman calls Trump "dishonest tyrant," blasts "pathetic"Republicans...How long do they let Facebook getaway with this?...

Will Deutsche Bank be Trump's nemesis?


The culprit
It is pathetic that a bank would have an "anti-money laundering" department but in my naive moment there is the realization that these are the times and all we can do is cope with it. Deutsche Bank employees in that section reportedly...
"recommended turning over information about transactions by entities owned by President Trump and his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, to a government watchdog in 2016 and 2017, but the bank's executives apparently declined to do so."
It had to do with transactions connected to the now-dissolved Trump Foundation, discovered by the bank's computer system, designed to reveal illegal activity. Five current and former employees were involved, which led to a later report they thought should be sent to the Treasury Department for investigation. It wasn't. The transactions weren't spelled out...
"some of them involved money going between the entities and foreign companies or individuals."
The NYT says it ain't necessarily true because "sometimes complete large cash transactions that can cause a review to be triggered without any actual wrongdoing." Thus, the reason for no report. Apparently Deutsche Bank treads lightly on this kind of issue according to Tammy McFadden, a former Deutsche Bank employee who looked into some of the transactions. She continued, “It’s the D.B. way. They are prone to discounting everything.”

The Hill reported...
"McFadden told the Times that she was fired after she questioned the bank's practices and has since filed complaints to regulators about what she sees as its lack of enforcement."
Well now, that doesn't seem kosher, and is it just another example of the shady deals of the Trump family? The Hill also says...
"Deutsche Bank has loaned billions of dollars to the Trump and Kushner companies. Federal and state authorities are currently reviewing the bank's relationship with President Trump."
The NYT also revealed the...
"staff of Deutsche Bank were hired especially for their expertise of money-laundering."
Now doesn't that beat all. Trump biographer David Cay Johnston said...
“We know for a fact that Donald Trump has been involved in money laundering in the past, fined for it. We know that Deutsche Bank is fined over $600 million just for laundering money for Russian oligarchs and are nondenial denials. The Trump Organization said we never heard of this. Why would you? It was locked up in the bank. The bank said we didn’t stop anyone. The story makes it clear.”
Finally, from the Times...
“So, in addition, The Times has a pregnant line in it. It says that is there are other, ‘politically connected people’ who also were swept up,” Johnston said. 'It’s clear that David Enrich, a very good reporter at The New York Times has seen these documents and other people whose money laundering suspicion of money laundering activities were also apparently quashed by the people at the private banking unit of Deutsche Bank in New York. This is for Donald Trump a really serious problem.'”
We can only hope that David Cay Johnston's assessment is correct.

Tuesday, May 21, 2019

In private, Republicans want Trump impeached


Impeachment is in the air all around Washington with Speaker Nancy Pelosi saying that Donald Trump is just "goading" the House to impeach him. I did a recent blog post, "American public should be itching for Donald Trump impeachment?" that had high viewer appeal and has been typical of this issue all along. Now this...
"Appearing on CNN's "New Day," Sen. Chris Coons (D-DE) confided to host Alisyn Camerota that multiple Republican senators agree with Rep. Justin Amash (R-MI) that Donald Trump has committed impeachable offenses, but are afraid to go public at the moment."
This has been classic GOP reaction to pretty much everything Trump has done, working not for the American people, but only for the Republican Party protecting this idiot. AlterNet reported Coons saying...
“Those who have read the Mueller report cannot avoid the conclusion that the president and some of his advisers engaged in profoundly disappointing, reprehensible conduct that would rise to the level of obstruction of justice.“
As this same conclusion reverberates around Washington, Congress sits on its fat asses doing nothing. In another post, "Two valid reasons for Donald Trump's impeachment," the most crucial was the letter that 450 ex-prosecutors had signed to prosecute Trump for obstruction of justice. That number has now surpassed 800. But none of this seems to sway the Oval Office lunatic since he has recently blocked around 20 requests from the Democratic House for information.

Camerota asked, “You don’t think Republicans are thinking that privately, do you?” The conversation continued...
“Yes,” the Democratic senator replied without hesitation.“
What makes you say that?” the CNN host asked.
“Conversations,” the now hesitant Coons replied.

“So it’s not so private,” Camerota continued, before adding, “You have spoken to Republicans who think it is impeachable?”

“There is a difference between thinking the Mueller report reveals conduct that is deeply disappointing, inappropriate, borderline or actually illegal and saying they would vote to remove the president,” Coons admitted. “Many revealed concerns privately about the Mueller report in part because of the gap between what Attorney General [Bill] Barr characterized as being in the report and what was actually in the Mueller report for those who have taken the time to read through it.”
Okay, there is general consensus that Donald Trump obstructed justice. It apparently exists across both aisles, non-partisan, so what are the ramifications of this charge. First, obstruction of justice is a felony. Second, it is punishable by up to five years in prison.  Third, there is no statute of limitations. I'm good with all three but let's not wait, the maniac is constantly at work.

Washington Merry-go-Round political wrap-up


POLITICAL MAYHEM TAKES A LEFT TURN
This idiot likes robocalls...Bernie Sanders and AOC want lower interest on loans...Nobody wants to work at Facebook...Is Trump believable on Iran?...Trump staffers ignore boss on outrageous demands,until he forgets them...SCOTUS pick Kavanaugh confirmed with dark money...GOP 
Rep. Justin Amash says Donald Trump "has engaged in impeachable conduct"

Biden depends on unity to beat Trump's "divider in chief"


Joe Biden-Unity in 2020
It's not enough that Democrats are angry with Donald Trump's election and the direction he has taken the country in. There also has to be an influx of Republicans who have made a left turn and feel the same way. In a former blog I quoted a reliable source that said 20% of Trump's 2016 voters have soured on him. I closed the post saying, 'Hold that thought.' Joe Biden avoids the anger for Trump approach with an appeal for unity in America. Will it win in 2020?

Joe Biden doesn't believe anger will win in 2020, even when T-rump used " it to win over the Republican base in 2016, saying he gladly carries the 'mantle of anger.'" He's been mad ever since and just look at what shape he has put the country in. A good economy does not excuse the Oval Office lunatic's white nationalism, bigotry, blatant racism and women's abuse, to name only a few. I did a post yesterday that explains it: "Less than half of Trump supporters like him."

Rebecca Traister, author of the book "Good and Mad: The Revolutionary Power of Women's Anger," retorted, "Biden is 'deeply wrong' that 'Anger at injustice has catalyzed transformative change; 'unity' has not.'" Another voice...this a writer from Rolling Stone, Jamil Smith added, "Women, people of color, and other Democratic constituencies aren't angry like Trump and his followers. They've been pissed off in a whole different way. "She doesn't explain how.

Biden also mentions reaching across the aisle as an approach to unifying Congress, something that many Democrats have criticized. With people like Senate head, Mitch McConnell, sitting on the other side of the aisle, I can understand the reluctance of the Dems. And then there's Barack Obama, to back or not to back. To begin with, the former president hasn't offered and second is whether this would help or hurt Biden.

Lee Drutman of Vox speaks of the Joe Biden “epiphany” theory "that Republicans will have an epiphany about the power of bipartisanship once Trump is gone and start working with Democrats again." Drutman says no way, and I wholeheartedly agree, at least as long as the ogre of the Senate is still around. Drutman argues...
"The problem with Biden’s theory is that Republicans’ hostility to Democrats did not begin with Donald Trump (see, the Obama administration). 
Today, as in 2012, the partisan hostility is highly transferable. It is based neither in opposition to one president nor loyalty to another. It is based in the underlying zero-sum electoral logic that defines the American two-party system and the winner-take-all elections that make the two-party system possible."
Not said, but certainly not forgotten, is racist Mitch McConnell's hatred of President Barack Obama, with his vow that he would make Obama a one-term president if it was the last thing he ever did. He didn't, which shows what a lowlife this jerk is, and the fact that he may not be as powerful as he thinks he is, perhaps just a fat blowhard. Biden talks about Trump's divisiveness while we regularly see the maniac's favorability improve, still holding on to his loyalists.

In one case in Pennsylvania, Joe Biden jumps back and forth between his unity issue and the put-down of Donald Trump. This state is important to Biden in 2020, where Trump barely won in 2016; part of the "blue wall" of Democratic industrial states. The former V.P. is headquartered in Philadelphia and in rallies continued to call Trump the 'divider in chief.' Biden spent time on the issues, including climate change and health care, making comparisons with Obama.

If there is anything this country needs it is unity, something we haven't seen for years, back through many presidents. We need it on the local level, between states, and most of all in Washington. The U.S. Congress is in a complete state of diversity, inconsistency, division, discord, strife, disarray, hostility, almost all-out warfare. There aren't enough antonyms of unity to show the disunion of that body of outright incompetent morons. Maybe Joe has the right idea.
 

When conservatives turn against their own

 I have followed Wm. Kristol for years and it wasn’t very long ago that I considered him an ultra conservative that would never chastise the...