Donald Trump Presidency-Day One

[Stavros]

Will the Commandante be asked to give evidence to the Senate Intelligence Committee? Only three sitting Presidents have given evidence to Congress, Lincoln, Wilson and Ford, and of those three, only two actually went to Congress, Wilson received the Committee in the White House, where they were invited to stay for lunch, and apparently not asked to swear an oath of loyalty to Woody beforehand...

https://www.senate.gov/artandhistory...eCommittee.htm

[Stavros]

And the latest to give Sunday more interest than Nadal trashing Wawrinka's attempt to win a tennis match-

Donald Trump has told Theresa May in a phone call he does not want to go ahead with a state visit to Britain until the British public supports him coming.

The US president said he did not want to come if there were large-scale protests and his remarks in effect put the visit on hold for some time.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/...in-put-on-hold

On that basis, put off for an eternity...

[Stavros]

Today, I came across Amy Suskin's Weekly List, in an article in The Independent (linked below). It is a remarkable record, with compelling links to follow. And yet, it strikes me that the President and his team seem to have worked out to the nearest micro-millimetre the limits of the law, and may just be on the right side, however suspicious the stories are, such as the two here which I took from Weekly List links via the Independent article

-Most Trump real estate now sold to secretive buyers
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/...02399558/?#_=_

-A company that owns buildings with Donald Trump and the family of Jared Kushner is a finalist for a $1.7 billion contract to build the FBI’s new headquarters.
https://apnews.com/0b8ee973efe047e4a...&utm_medium=AP

The Weekly List is here-
https://medium.com/@Amy_Siskind

Independent article is here-
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/wo...-a7808131.html

[broncofan]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/...=.47e9abd7c18c

If people are remotely honest we're about done here. I recommend moving immediately to Donald Jr's email in the middle of the page. He posted it on his twitter about an hour ago. He must be releasing it before someone else.

All the way back in June, before the DNC's emails were released, Trump Jr. got an email saying that the Russian government had incriminating info on Hillary and that the information is part of "Russia and its government's support for Mr. Trump." He concludes by saying "I can send this to your father". What are the chances, if this man was already talking about sending information to Trump about Russia's efforts on behalf of Trump that Trump did not know the Russian's hacked the DNC on his behalf. Recall that Donald Trump continuously denied the Russians did this on his behalf during the entire campaign and the semi-denials continue to the present.

Edit: I'm sure there are other shoes to drop, but you don't need anything else. This is more than Trump in half jest asking for the Russians to find Hillary's remaining emails. This is insider info that the Russians were working on his behalf to interfere with the election very early on. Consider this in light of his feigned ignorance about it later on and you have obvious consciousness of guilt and obvious guilt. The second purpose of Donald Jr's meeting with this Russian attorney was about the Magnitsky Act, so the Russians were trying to gauge very early on what they would get in return.

[broncofan]

My guess: They will subpoena Rhona Graff's emails. Rhona is Trump's secretary at Trump Towers and Goldstone said he can get in touch with Donald through Rhona. I bet if Mueller has not subpoena'ed them yet they will now and there is probably something incriminating in there.

[sukumvit boy]

Craig Unger , "Trump's Russian Laundromat" in the New Republic and Charlie Rose Show http://www.bloomberg.com/news/videos...ig-unger-video



http://newrepublic.com/article/14358...rime-syndicate

[Stavros]

If, as Harold Wilson once said, 'a week is a long time in politics', two weeks away in the fleshpots of the south could turn out to be an eternity, though it would appear that even the President of the United States of America has yet to exhaust his list of people and institutions to insult and abuse. A real American once presaged our present times and the present President:

The woods are lovely, dark and deep, But I have promises to keep, And miles to go before I sleep, And miles to go before I sleep.

Promises, Promises. On one day the instruction to Congress, with regard to the latest incarnation of American Health Care, was: Let it Fail.
I am not one to put words (or anything else, willingly or reluctantly) into President Obama's mouth, but just as he said nobody should want his successor to fail, one wonders if Let it Fail is not a dereliction of the duty of the incumbent President...? Maybe someone leaning on the nearest Ash tree suggested a different tack, hence : Holidays? Sort it first, guys, come on! Vamos! (Ok I made that one up).

I would repeat what the Senate Majority leader said if I could understand it. I am puzzled because I can understand Jennifer Lawrence when she speaks, but not Mitch, yet both are from Kentucky. Only an American can help with this conundrum, though I am biased and believe that whereas Mitch appears to be a waste of space, Ms Lawrence has yet to fill mine, even though an open-ended invitation nestles in her 'in-tray'...

Apparently the President just doesn't get it, after all, health insurance for the average working American is $12 a year, so what's the problem?

Then, interrupting my persistent visits to King's Cross- on the plaza of which at lunchtime you can buy, as street food, a delicious Polish snack which may be called Pierogi but don't quote me on that- was the news, Part One, that Skittles at an intriguing moment in the Presidential Campaign, 2016 had been invited to meet a Russian lawyer with links to the Kremlin, to share information damaging to Mrs Hillary Clinton, and replied he would love to hear it. We were told, in Part One, that the meeting took place in the Tower of Choice for corrupt Russian oligarchs, and indeed, involved a Russian as well as the Foreign Secretary, Jared Kushner, and the then campaign manager Paul 'Ukraine Millions are Mine'- Manafort. In Part Two, there was another Russian, there may yet be a Part Three with another Russian, who knows?

Russians were all over the place. Not least in Germany, where the President of the United States of America met the President of the Russian Federation -first a hearty handshake, then a formal meeting. And so it went. Only it later transpired there had been another meeting at which the President of the United States of America, who does not parlez-vous as they say in Luxembourg, spent nearly an hour with Vladimir but nobody (outside Moscow and Wikileaks) knows what they talked about -orphans? Perhaps. Money? Surely not! -?

On my return to Bardland, I now find that the President of the United States of America, having spent the last 18 months insulting and abusing the CIA, the FBI, the Supreme Court, Congress, the Democrat Party and its candidates, the Republican Party and its 'candidates'; POW's, the disabled, women, the Media, the Media and the Media, the Mexicans, the Mayor of London, Meryl Streep, China, the French, Iran- well, the list seemed to go on and on- is now denouncing the people he has appointed to conduct the business of government, even if that is merely the Attorney General.

With Skittles and the Foreign Secretary due to appear before a Congressional Committee next week, the opportunity now presents itself for the President of the United States of America to rake over his relatives if they don't polish his insatiable ego and kick the Russian ball into the grass.

Problem is the Dutch are producing a fascinating set of films- Zembla- the first of which underlines the extent to which, in the late 1990s, a failed businessman desperate for capital loans American banks would not agree to lend, sought and received financial assistance from Russia, and let's just say the kind of Russians who are pushy rather than Pushkin, more 'borrow to him' than Borodin, keen to live in Manhattan and Florida, and, in a manner of speaking, 'clean their laundry' in interesting American propositions...so while the Boss may not have any business in Russia, and no investments or loans there -the Russians got plenty on him...

But let's be fair and balanced. In a week when it emerged that the famous American entrepreneur Rupert Murdoch is alleged to have 'suggested' to Prime Minister May that Michael Gove should be part of her governing team (it is of course entirely coincidental that Mr Gove was one of the first European 'journalists' to interview the President of the United States of America after his inauguration and that Mr Murdoch was also in the room); the Leader of the House of Commons, responsible for the management of the government's agenda in Parliament, told the Mother of, that Jane Austen, is
'One of our greatest living authors'...

hmmm....the resurrection of dead American voters determined to vote Democrat, the resurrection of Emma's mum...and the President thinks he has problems...

Americans, your guv'nor thinks your health insurance cost $12 a year-
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/wo...-a7851611.html

Andrea Leadsom, Leader of the House of Commons, take a bow:
https://www.theguardian.com/books/20...-living-author

And for the aficionados, the Dutch films:

[sukumvit boy]

Great post Stavros , nice to see you back.

[sukumvit boy]

Trump declares "Made in America Week" yet Ivanka's line of products are made in Indonesian sweat shops and Donald hires foreign workers for his hotels . This guy has an absolute genius for shooting himself in the foot !
http://www.democracynow.org/2017/7/2...ade_in_america

[broncofan]

The calls from Republican hacks to fire Sessions and Rosenstein so that they can be replaced by puppets who will fire Mueller almost makes one completely lose faith in the ability of people to be rational. Both Mueller and the man who appointed him, Rosenstein, could not have had more bipartisan respect until they decided to make principled decisions. Rosenstein, despite his complicity in the firing of Comey, acted appropriately when he appointed independent counsel and Mueller has done nothing but run a professional investigation.

Now we are beginning to hear from hacks that Mueller has conflicts, none of which were worth mentioning until he assembled a competent investigative team and that Rosenstein is really a Democrat dressed as a Republican because he's from Baltimore.

One can almost predict with certainty that every time incriminating information is discovered about Trump and his associates there will be a fabricated accusation against Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, or Susan Rice. Mueller is a man who has done nothing but take his role as independent counsel seriously and for that there are fabricated charges that he's not really independent or that his team is leaking even though they've been incredibly opaque.

If you type "fire Mueller" into the search box on twitter, whether you have an account or not, you will be exposed to the most mind-numbingly dishonest and deranged comments you will ever see. There is literally no man or woman who could have been hired as independent counsel, taken the job seriously and not been subjected to a campaign of slander. The rule of law doesn't die simply because a small cabal decides it should, but because millions of people decide for reasons of their own that they will allow it. I have no doubt that hardcore supporters of Trump want Mueller gone not because he is acting improperly but because of the risk that he will be effective.