August 3, 2018

Rob Reiner: Every 4 yrs, when we vote for President, we're told it's the most important election...

@robreiner
Every 4 years, when we vote for President, we’re told it’s the most important election in our lifetime.
I’ve been alive for 18 presidential elections. They’ve all been important. But none are as important as this midterm. The life of Democracy is literally at stake. VOTE!!!

https://twitter.com/robreiner/status/1025341934892548098

August 3, 2018

"When I think of poor kids-caged so far from factories where they belong, it just breaks my heart"

Ivanka Trump Distraught After Learning Detained Migrant Children Completely Without Sewing Machines

WASHINGTON––While being briefed on the inhumane, unsanitary, often abusive conditions in facilities housing more than 700 immigrant children who have been separated from their families for months on end, White House advisor and first daughter Ivanka Trump was distraught to learn Thursday that none of the detainees from ages 1 to 12 had even the most basic access to sewing machines. “When I think of those poor kids, caged so far from the factories where they belong, it just breaks my heart,” said Trump, as her chin quivered at the mere thought of the hundreds of young children who had been stripped of their right to make designer bags, shoes, and clothing. “These poor little children have the ideal hand and finger size to make small, precise stitches in profitable designer clothing, and any decent sweatshop should be able to find more than enough room for them. It’s deeply upsetting to picture them just waiting on a cold, empty concrete floor without a single purse or jacket to sew. That any child, regardless of national origin, should be treated like this is an unthinkable waste, and I intend to personally see that these children are reunited with their sewing machines immediately.” Ms. Trump later announced the establishment of the Ivanka Trump Collection Foundation, which will donate thousands of dollars’ worth of garment-making equipment to ICE facilities.


https://politics.theonion.com/ivanka-trump-distraught-after-learning-detained-migrant-1828062128
https://twitter.com/TheOnion/status/1025189511578443776

August 2, 2018

"The FAR Left"

August 2, 2018

Trump knows he's screwed. He's just not sure whether Putin or Mueller presents the bigger threat.

“Putin obtained receipts at each stage of...Trump’s willing engagement in a conspiracy with Russians for help getting elected.“
https://twitter.com/lrozen/status/1025092881156120576

..............

People are looking in the entirely wrong place for the kompromat that Putin has on Trump, and missing all the evidence of it right in front of their faces.

Vladimir Putin obtained receipts at each stage of this romance of Trump’s willing engagement in a conspiracy with Russians for help getting elected. Putin knows what each of those receipts mean. Mueller has provided hints, most obviously in that GRU indictment, that he knows what some of them are.

For example, on or about July 27, 2016, the Conspirators attempted after hours to spearphish for the first time email accounts at a domain hosted by a third-party provider and used by Clinton’s personal office. At or around the same time, they also targeted seventy-six email addresses at the domain for the Clinton Campaign.

But Mueller’s not telling whether he has obtained the actual receipts.

And that’s the kompromat. Trump knows that if Mueller can present those receipts, he’s sunk, unless he so discredits the Mueller investigation before that time as to convince voters not to give Democrats a majority in Congress, and convince Congress not to oust him as the sell-out to the country those receipts show him to be. He also knows that, on the off-chance Mueller hasn’t figured this all out yet, Putin can at any time make those receipts plain. Therein lies Trump’s uncertainty: It’s not that he has any doubt what Putin has on him. It’s that he’s not sure which path before him — placating Putin, even if it provides more evidence he’s paying off his campaign debt, or trying to end the Mueller inquiry before repaying that campaign debt, at the risk of Putin losing patience with him — holds more risk.

.......

THE REST:
https://www.emptywheel.net/2018/08/02/lawfare-missing-the-kompromat-for-the-pee-glee/

August 2, 2018

Trump cannot lie about his obstruction, because there are many witnesses to it.

Here's the real reason Trump's lawyers fear an interview with Mueller.

Trump cannot lie about his obstruction, because there are many witnesses to it.

But Trump cannot *tell the truth* about it, because that would be incriminating as well.


https://twitter.com/ThePlumLineGS/status/1025017561858093056

.........

But whether Trump believes he said this or not, Giuliani plainly fears that Mueller will believe the testimony of other witnesses to Trump’s conduct over that of Trump himself. It bears pointing out that there is a lot of this conduct, far beyond what Trump said about Flynn. There was Trump’s demand for Comey’s loyalty. There was Trump’s decision to fire Comey when that loyalty wasn’t forthcoming. There was Trump’s repeated rage sessions at Attorney General Jeff Sessions for failing to protect him from the probe, which include a direct order from Trump to his White House counsel to stop Sessions from recusing himself, which failed, causing Trump to erupt in fury once again at Sessions for failing to shield him. There was Trump’s similar order (which also failed) for the firing of Mueller.

There are witnesses to Trump’s conduct in many of these cases. Trump reportedly had conversations with top White House officials that indicated he knew Flynn was under criminal investigation when he pressed Comey to drop the probe into him. There are reportedly written memos attesting to this. Comey kept extemporaneous, detailed notes of his conversations with Trump, and Comey confided in other officials about them at the time. And so on. Thus, when Giuliani says he fears Mueller will believe other witnesses, should they contradict Trump’s testimony about his conduct, there’s good reason for it. This is not a position of strength.

.........

Trump’s real problem is almost certainly that he can’t lie to Mueller about his conduct or tell him the truth about it. This does not mean Mueller will definitely find that Trump’s obstruction was criminal (which might not happen) or that Trump will be indicted for it (which certainly won’t). But either way, Mueller will still submit a report on Trump’s obstruction (and collusion as well), and anything Trump says will figure into that report. Meanwhile, looming in the background is the increasing possibility of a Democratic takeover of the House, and with it, the possibility of impeachment. Mueller’s report will depict Trump’s conduct in great new detail that we can only guess at.


https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2018/08/02/trumps-lawyers-fear-a-mueller-interview-the-reason-why-reveals-the-danger-trump-faces/?utm_term=.47c33060a910

August 2, 2018

It's not over. Families are still separated. We are still in the low point and no one has resigned

It’s not over. Families are still separated. We are still in the low point and no one has resigned or taken responsibility. No points for being sad when you actually hold power.

https://twitter.com/JenniferJJacobs/status/1025013924935229440

August 2, 2018

The Trump Grocery Store

https://www.sacbee.com/opinion/editorial-cartoons/jack-ohman/grikea/picture215937970/alternates/FREE_960/jo180802c

August 2, 2018

We need a day off!

August 2, 2018

RUDE PUNDIT: Summer Camp and Other Lies (and a Truth) About Our SANCTIONED Child Abuse

So the Justice Department and Homeland Security were warned they were going to deeply harm kids if they followed through with an unconscionable step in their delusional border enforcement attempts. They were going to do what every thug, every mobster, every warlord has always known: if you hurt their children, parents will fall in line. According to White, he had been told that such actions would not be taken, and he didn't learn about it until he saw it on TV. That's significant because if White and others had been given a heads up, they might have come up with a plan for how to make sure the kids were reunited with their families.

But the Trump administration didn't care. They just didn't care. They wanted to hurt migrants, no matter if they were refugees from violence or people looking for better jobs. They wanted to hurt them badly, and whether or not they ever saw their mothers again didn't figure into their equation.


..........


.....the Trump lovers will tell you that if they didn't want their kids separated, the migrants shouldn't have broken the law by crossing the border illegally. Except, again, taking kids is a choice that other presidents haven't made. Crossing the border without proper documents is a misdemeanor, like speeding. A city or county could declare "zero tolerance" for traffic laws and choose to arrest everyone who speeds. Then, like the migrant parents, any kids with them would be considered "unaccompanied" and sent to child services until family could be contacted (unless, you know, they lose track of them). But cities and counties don't do that because it's unnecessarily cruel and a waste of resources.

......................

In the quixotic, misguided, and willful attempt to make America white again, Donald Trump and his minions will do whatever they can to punish people who seek solace in the land of the conditionally free and the not-even-a-little brave, even breaking up families and torturing kids.



the rest:
http://rudepundit.blogspot.com/2018/08/summer-camp-and-other-lies-and-truth.html

August 2, 2018

The Great Unraveling

Now that he knows Mueller only needs one or two questions to make him self-incriminate - He'll blow even more.





https://twitter.com/stevebrodner/status/1024899525805309952
https://twitter.com/jaunte/status/1024872432920940544
http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/399975-trump-tweet-storm-came-after-learning-mueller-wants-to-ask-about