Interesting (to me) turn in the Emoluments case
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Below are a couple more links to emoluments stories. The references to Mara-Lago and the Panama deal in the first one are very intriguing. Didn't Trump stay in a Trump hotel in his recent swing through Europe?
https://www.washingtonpost.com/amphtml/blogs/right-turn/wp/2018/07/26/emoluments-fall-out-continues/
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/ct-trump-panama-president-hotel-20180409-story.html
Of all the things that Trump might get hooked up for doing, violating this clause of the constitution is probably the surest bet. It’s not really debatable. One of the few things in the constitution that is black and white.
Realize that Jimmy Carter went through hell and had to divest himself from a damn peanut farm. And now we’ve got a guy that openly owns properties that anyone can buy or rent, including foreign government officials. And, as soon as he’s president, he raises the “buy in” to become a member at mar-a-lago, effectively allowing anyone to gain exclusive, undocumented access to him when he’s there. And, since he’s never released his tax returns, we have zero idea about who holds monetary leverage over him- and it’s clear from his son’s comments that “a disproportionate share of their assets” are tied to Russia.
It’s amazing that Trump has turned everything upside down and inside out, in such a way that things that happen right in front of your face go unnoticed. He’s a master at distorting reality, and changing the subject.
Another example is obstruction of justice. Trump flat out admitted to Lester Holt and Sergei Lavrov (at an undisclosed meeting with team Russia in the White House, you know, the one that we found about when Russian state media released photos) that he fired Comey because of the “Russia” investigation. Few things are so blatantly obvious and clear, and yet somehow everyone glosses over it. Obstruction involves the element of intent to prove it. But we’ve got essentially a guy that’s purely stream of consciousness in charge, and he let everyone know EXACTLY what he was thinking when he did it. It’s Usually hard to prove, due to the intent element, but he just largely made the prosecutor’s case for them.
Am I alone in saying that I desire “normalcy”at the top? Hell, at this point, I’d settle for “not unhinged”, “acts like an adult and not a toddler” and “competent”. Quite frankly, I’m embarrassed that this clown continues to do what he does. It’s ridiculous- and yet 90% of republicans approve. And they still support him despite all of the other qualities he displays (overt racism, misogyny, etc).
Hmm...so this could go to a republican Supreme Court and they’ll say it’s all good.
I'd like to see how the "texturalists" would weasel around the plain language involved.
The potential violation of the Domestic Emoluments Clause is fascinating. It’s technically not based on a violation of the lease but rather Trump’s firing of the person who asserted there was a lease violation and replacing him with someone who then declared that the lease was not being violated. It’s somewhat analogous to how a forgiveness of debt can be construed as income to the debtor.
Of course it also smacks of rank corruption.
Of course it also smacks of rank corruption.
They’ll just say if it’s not actual cash directly changing hands from one party to the president himself, it’s not a violation.
That aspect was what stood out to me. I don't think I knew about that chain of events before reading this particular article.
And on another unrelated but also interesting (to me) note, it appears that Wilbur Ross's insertion of a citizenship question in the census (no doubt at Trump's direction) is view by at least one judge to be bogus:
https://slate.com/news-and-politics...-animus-in-violation-of-the-constitution.html
In adding the citizenship question to the census, the judge wrote, the government departed “from the normal procedural sequence” in a number of alarming ways. “These departures include overruling career staff who strongly objected to including the citizenship question,” he explained, “failing to extensively test reintroduction of the question, and ignoring the recommendation of the Census Bureau’s advisory committee.” Every expert believed the question would be “very costly” while harming “the quality of the census count”—yet Ross overruled their objections.
Even worse, the “specific sequence of events leading up to” the insertion of the citizenship question indicates that Ross’ “sole proffered rationale … may have been pretextual.” Ross “initially (and repeatedly) suggested that the Department of Justice’s request triggered his consideration of the issue.” Yet “it now appears that the sequence of events was exactly opposite”: Ross pushed the Justice Department to make the request, then cited its letter to justify the addition of the question. This dissembling, pretextual process “spark suspicion” of discriminatory intent “at a minimum.”
Even worse, the “specific sequence of events leading up to” the insertion of the citizenship question indicates that Ross’ “sole proffered rationale … may have been pretextual.” Ross “initially (and repeatedly) suggested that the Department of Justice’s request triggered his consideration of the issue.” Yet “it now appears that the sequence of events was exactly opposite”: Ross pushed the Justice Department to make the request, then cited its letter to justify the addition of the question. This dissembling, pretextual process “spark
Do you think Trump even understands this issue? I mean he doesn't read much, emolument is a big word and it sounds a lot like:
Setting aside the legal technicalities for a moment...
Just piece together the whole Trump-Russia-Business-Etc. puzzle, and it's really difficult to come up with any picture that doesn't look like world record-breaking corruption. There just isn't another reasonable explanation.
Disagree. He only fools those who are willing to be fooled or those too stupid to know they're being fooled. Intelligent rational people see right through him.
The problem is that America has THE dumbest/least informed voter base in the world. We have idiots who when given the choice between a proven leader (Hillary) and a snake oil salesman, Donald Trump, chose to vote for a lunatic Libertarian candidate (Gary Johnson) and a Green Party candidate (Jill Stein). Someone would have to be completely out of touch with reality to think Hillary Clinton would have us in the mess we're in now. I would feel sorry for them, but because of where they've taken the country, I can't help but feel disdain.
Americans don't understand the importance of their vote.
Americans don't understand the importance of their vote.
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Ross lied to Congress about it. He said it was happening because of the recommendation of another department (believe it was the DOJ). And then emails came out later that showed that he lied, and that the DOJ wasn’t involved at that time.
Not surprising. But it is disappointing. I guess when your leader has less than zero ethics, those below him will follow his lead.
I’m really going to dislike Pence as president. But I doubt we’ll see the record levels of corruption and incompetence that we’ve seen under the current administration. Even though it would be tough to throw out a lot of the folks already in positions- it’s the same administration. I do think that Pence would actually not be overtly corrupt.
Why can’t people see all of this? Is it because of their preferred media bubble?
BTW, I didn’t have a chance to watch any cable news last night. Did Fox News cover the “Cohen + Trump Sr knowing about and approving the Trump tower” meeting? They’ve done their viewers and their county a great disservice- they’ve gone beyond spin, and created an environment where they can lie and sucker about a quarter or so of the country.
The Dems need to watch more Fox News and less other media. Within a few months of Trump’s inaugural, the mass media had most Dems believing the Russians hacked the vote tallies. The whole Russia thing rests on that fake news. No wonder the country is screwed up.
Nonsense. That was a fear...no doubt about it, but I don't know a single Dem that thought the votes were changed. That said, the Russians were able to hack voter registration databases. In Illinois alone, hackers got access to 90,000 voter registrations.
So, are we supposed to feel comfortable that hackers can seemingly readily access to those registrations? What if you showed up to vote and suddenly you aren't registered anymore? It's ridiculous. None of this is FAKE NEWS, unless you want Russia picking your congressmen and your president.
You are just naive.
So, are we supposed to feel comfortable that hackers can seemingly readily access to those registrations? What if you showed up to vote and suddenly you aren't registered anymore? It's ridiculous. None of this is FAKE NEWS, unless you want Russia picking your congressmen and your president.
You are just naive.
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I do watch Fox News, but I generally don’t believe a damn thing they say. Unless it’s straight news. Because Fox has effectively become the propaganda arm of the Trump administration. That isn't in dispute now. Of all the major news outlets on either side, Fox is the least credible. By far.
I’d suggest you watch less of Fox News. So you can receive actual truth, and not manufactured narratives designed to support the Trump adminstration.
And, from the sources on the left, I’ve never seen a source claim that the Russians actually changed the vote totals. That’s a whatabout argument, that’s not based in reality. The sources I saw on the left were careful to claim that we didn’t know whether they had changed vote totals, and that whether they did was an open question at the time.
So because you find one source that backs up your claim, ALL left wing media claimed the same thing? How very Clarence Thomas of you CO.
There’s a lot of intelligent people that have been sucked in, and have become very tribal in defending/acquiescing to everything Trump has done.
It’s not a matter of intelligence. It’s a matter of tribe. And Trump is a master of manipulating his tribe. Which sadly, now appears to be 90% of the Republican Party.
Take someone like CO. Clearly he’s intelligent- he’s just brainwashed. A victim of confirmation bias, to the highest degree. He starts from a position of wanting to absolve Trump- and finds a way to get there somehow. Usually through using a whatabout argument, he’s a master at those.
I don’t claim the media reported the Russians hacked vote tallies. I said the polling data shows the majority of Democrats believe that. I think a reasonable conclusion is that belief comes from the overwhelming coverage of Russia that far exceeds reality. Russia produces ratings. Talking about jobs and GNP does not.
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Complete nonsense. No sensible person believes (in absence of evidence) that actual vote counts were manipulated by GRU.
That poll is from May of 2017. Right after it became very clear that the Russians had really screwed with our election.
I’d bet if the question was worded as “were the Russians able to hack in to state voting systems & change votes within the system?”, that the vast majority of Dems right now would say “no” or that they aren’t sure. None of my left-leaning friends believe that actual votes were changed.
Got something more recent? And if so, I’d live to know how the question was worded. That can make a huge difference in the polling results.
Side note- it cracks me up that the news outlets that actually report facts are now called by many on the right either “mass media” or my favorite, “main stream media (MSM)”. You may not like the conclusions they reach, but these outlets report facts first. Unlike Fox News, which creates conjecture, and then tried to find things to fit that conjecture. For example, the Seth Rich saga w/Hannity. It was a farce that was unsupported by any objective facts.
And, outlets like CNN, MSNBC & ABC follow rigorous journalistic standards/protocols. And if they screw up, they own up. And, they also clean up- several outlets have fired journalists who were fed bad info, that was later proven to be untrue.
It’s not exactly easy to cover the Trump administration. So much craziness, and things that would’ve ended the service of people within it in any other time (Scott Pruitt hung on forever, should’ve been canned relatively early due to his unethical behavior. Ryan Zinke is another- he’s still being investigated. I could name more- there’s lots of examples). For the reporters, a week must feel like a month due to all the madness. And when there’s that much news, things will be screwed up more often. That’s not an excuse, but it does explain some of the screw ups (that we’re later corrected).
Meanwhile, on fox, Hannity and Tucker Carlson admit to being Trump cheerleaders, and could care less of what they’re saying has any basis in fact. Again, Fox is seriously off the rails. They’ve always been an outlier re:sticking to facts. But now they’re an extreme outlier. They’ve got republicans believing that a life long Republican (Mueller) and his team (mostly republicans) are democrats and part of a “deep state”. Instead of reporting on things that have happened, they’re hell bent on creating an alternate reality.
Trying to keep up will all the insanity coming out of this administration is like trying to drink from a fire hose. I can only imagine what it's like to try and report on it. It's like the weatherman standing outside in the hurricane -- yep, it's windy and rainy as shit, as everyone can see. The difficult part is getting across the true import and impact.
I was just reading an article by Martin Longman at Washington Monthly (with some help from Hunter S Thompson) called Donald Trump Has Almost Cashed His Check.
“Things are coming at Trump fast now, with emoluments reaching the charts for the first time yesterday, his former fixer looking to reprise John Dean’s role, his former campaign manager about to begin the first of two doomed trials, and the Southern District of New York hauling his finance chief before a grand jury. He’s getting caught in his big lies on an almost daily basis now, with his feigned ignorance of hush payments to ex-girlfriends and foreknowledge of collusion-rich meetings with Kremlin emissaries turning to ash in his mouth.”
“At least when Nixon went to China he didn’t tell the world that all our differences were due to stupid Americans and that Mao Zedong was far more credible than CIA director Richard Helms and the rest of the Deep State goons working in our intelligence and law enforcement agencies. Tricky Dick was a paranoid thug but half the country wasn’t convinced with good reason that he was a helpless agent of a foreign power.”
As Thompson said about Nixon towards the end, he’s “bleeding from all his extremities” that’s about where Trump is with the only thing saving him being the Republican Congress.
“Things are coming at Trump fast now, with emoluments reaching the charts for the first time yesterday, his former fixer looking to reprise John Dean’s role, his former campaign manager about to begin the first of two doomed trials, and the Southern District of New York hauling his finance chief before a grand jury. He’s getting caught in his big lies on an almost daily basis now, with his feigned ignorance of hush payments to ex-girlfriends and foreknowledge of collusion-rich meetings with Kremlin emissaries turning to ash in his mouth.”
“At least when Nixon went to China he didn’t tell the world that all our differences were due to stupid Americans and that Mao Zedong was far more credible than CIA director Richard Helms and the rest of the Deep State goons working in our intelligence and law enforcement agencies. Tricky Dick was a paranoid thug but half the country wasn’t convinced with good reason that he was a helpless agent of a foreign power.”
As Thompson said about Nixon towards the end, he’s “bleeding from all his extremities” that’s about where Trump is with the only thing saving him being the Republican Congress.
I love the bleeding from all his extremities quote used for Trump. Just karma, considering his Megyn Kelly remark.
That has nothing to do with Trump's policies, thus he's innocent. (I'm studying a three-minute youtube video on conservative Colorado legal theory.)
Nothing much to worry about if they got into the Illinois voter database... Two thirds of those names are attached to dead people
1982 called. They want their joke back.
Nothing much to worry about if they got into the Illinois voter database... Two thirds of those names are attached to dead people
Hilary, Bill, and Reagan, (and others no doubt), think Trump is doing it all wrong.
they just gave billions to the moneyed interests while in office, then waited till out of office and let said moneyed interests pay them back at $250,000 to a mil a speech.
they just gave billions to the moneyed interests while in office, then waited till out of office and let said moneyed interests pay them back at $250,000 to a mil a speech.
1982 called. They want their joke back.
Is this the “conservative” comedy tour? My favorite is the one about Obama playing more golf than Tiger Woods. That one absolutely kills at the church groups. Hopefully Clint Eastwood will do a little improv. That guy is so funny you might bruise your ribs from laughing too hard.
The "empty chair" bit went over like a lead balloon. Let's face it, conservatives don't do comedy (or any other entertainment besides country music). Well, the redneck comedy tour was okay I guess:
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