Search Results for: trump

Fred Kaplan discusses how Trump and those around him have decided to pretend that Article I of The Constitution doesn't exist or that Trump has the power to override it…or something. This is another one of those "If Obama had done that…" matters.

Most of the writers over at the American Conservative website seem pretty unhappy with Trump engaging Iran as he has, and also with the position that Congress has no right to declare or stop war, nor should they even be providing oversight over the Executive branch. Here's Daniel Larison, again saying a lot of the same things Fred Kaplan is saying. Also, read Rod Dreher.

Yet another investigation of Hillary Clinton — this one urged on by Mr. Trump — has failed to find any trace of those actual crimes that her detractors claim were so obvious and undeniable. I remember some of them, when Trump was elected, saying it was only a matter of weeks until Ms. Clinton would be doing hard time. And you have to kinda think there's nothing Donald would love better than Hillary in the slammer unless it was throwing Barack in there with her.

And you may remember that I've said here, probably on more than one occasion, that one of the phoniest, nastiest accusations anyone can make in the political world is to say that someone "hates America." It's like, "Never mind what he's said or done. I've looked into his heart and I know he hates America." And I think I also wrote about the similar hollow insult that was hurled at so many folks who opposed the Vietnam War and wanted to bring our troops home, soon and safe. That was the charge that "they hate our troops." Well, now we have Republican senators saying that "Democrats love terrorists." It's another thing you say about some opponent when you have nothing real to say about them.

William Saletan says that Mike Pompeo is lying about the lethal drone strike on Gen. Qassem Soleimani. Of course he's lying. That's in his job description.

Fred Kaplan suggests that the problem with finding a diplomatic solution to the situation with Iran is that no one around Trump wants that, perhaps because none of them has any idea how to do that.

Daniel Larison believes that "Congress must vote to cut off all funding for a war with Iran." They won't but they should.

Lastly: I don't usually find anything I think is linkworthy on Reason, the prominent Libertarian site, but you might want to read Matt Welch. He says, "The truth, which literally hurts, is that every administration lies about war, particularly (though not only) about its reasons for initiating deadly force." I think he may overstate his case a bit…but only a bit.

I had a nice week or so of pretending he wasn't there but eventually, we all have to get back to reality. Here are three reminders…

First up: Daniel Larison reviews how Trump's approach to Iran and North Korea has basically been to do almost nothing — and certainly nothing that's been effective — but to keep telling the American people he's solved those problems. But he hasn't. Money quote from Larison…

The problem here is not just that Trump gambled on bad policy goals and lost, but that he is determined to lie to the public about those policies for as long as he can. Trump has made sure that neither the Iranian nor the North Korean government can trust him, and he has proved to the American people that we can't trust him, either. His foreign policy initiatives fail in no small part because no one believes what he says and no one is willing to take a chance by trusting him to honor the commitments he makes.

Secondly: Jonathan Chait reminds us that Trump is still waging war against CNN because, as Chait puts it, "its message is not controlled by his loyalists." He also likes to lie about the ratings of anyone in that category. It reminds me of a blog post that famed zillionaire Richard Branson wrote back in 2016…

Some years ago, Mr. Trump invited me to lunch for a one-to-one meeting at his apartment in Manhattan. We had not met before and I accepted. Even before the starters arrived he began telling me about how he had asked a number of people for help after his latest bankruptcy and how five of them were unwilling to help. He told me he was going to spend the rest of his life destroying these five people. He didn't speak about anything else and I found it very bizarre. I told him I didn't think it was the best way of spending his life. I said it was going to eat him up, and do more damage to him than them. There must be more constructive ways to spend the rest of your life.

Finally for now, Steve Benen tells how Trump's claims and predictions about the stock market do not relate to reality or even to each other. Quote from Benen…

Part of the problem with Trump's boasts is that he often sees the market as a real-time political barometer tied directly to developments in D.C. If the major indexes are on an upswing, the president sees it as proof of his genius. If they're declining, he insists his political opponents are to blame for the downturn. The result is routine incoherence.

The other day, I saw a clip of John McCain in something on CNN and I couldn't help think the following: That if he was still alive, he would already have been the first Republican senator to support the impeachment. Just a thought.

First of all, as a proud half-Jewish person, I'm looking at this…

President Donald Trump will sign an executive order on Wednesday to interpret Judaism as a nationality and not just a religion, a move that the Trump administration believes will fight what they perceive as anti-Semitism on college campuses, a White House official said.

I understand neither the reasons nor the possible ramifications for this and as far as I can see on the Internet, that quandary's kind of unanimous. The folks in favor of it are in favor of it because Trump's in favor of it. The ones opposing it are opposing it because Trump's in favor of it. And an insufficient number of Jews seem to have been consulted before the decision was made.

Meanwhile, you may have heard that two articles of impeachment are in Mr. Trump's future. Daniel Larison of the American Conservative explains why they are not only valid but necessary. Here's an excerpt…

The case for Trump's impeachment seemed quite strong more than two months ago, and the evidence provided to the House's impeachment inquiry has strengthened it further. The president's abuse of power is not in dispute. It is clear that he used the powers of his office in an attempt to extract a corrupt favor for his personal benefit, and this is precisely the sort of offense that impeachment was designed to keep in check. It doesn't matter if the attempt succeeded. All that matters is that the attempt was made. It is also undeniable that he has sought to impede the investigation into his misconduct. The president has committed the offenses he is accused of committing, and the House should approve both articles of impeachment.

No, they probably have no chance of passing the Senate…but then the articles voted against Bill Clinton had no chance of passing that Senate and were about a lesser matter and not one Republican thought that was a reason not to go to trial. My guess is this is not the only time this president will be impeached. My guess is the narrative will become "He commits crimes, Republicans protect him, he commits more crimes…" And the 2020 election becomes about only whether the country is fine with that.

As Jonathan Chait points out, when the charges against Trump were first made, prominent Republicans assumed they could never be proven with any certainty so they said, "That would be troubling if true." Now that the charges have been proven with as much certainty as there is about anything in Washington, they've had to switch to "No, that is not troubling."

Meanwhile: The Justice Department has released a 434-page inspector general's report on the origin of the FBI probe into the Trump campaign's possible ties to Russia. It's a something-for-everyone bonanza and everyone's out there spinning whatever they can spin to their advantage. It's amazing how one report could be so right about everything bad it says the other side did and so wrong when it says my side did anything bad. Glenn Kessler straightens out a lot of the spin for us. And so it goes…

I'm not sure which I'm getting more tired of: People who are sure Donald Trump will win a second term or people who are sure he won't. One group will see their expected outcome but I think the "being sure" part is foolish.

This is such an unconventional, volatile presidency that I wouldn't wager he'll even be president by my birthday, which is next March. You know what I do feel certain of? That the current Ukraine mess won't drive him from the White House but that there will be more scandals of equal or greater magnitude that will emerge before Election Day…probably many more if/when some arm of government gets its mitts on his tax records. There was a time we never thought Nixon supporters would abandon him but eventually, it looked like he'd bring down his entire party…and they did.

Here are a few articles worth reading, starting with Daniel Larison, who notes that for all his self-promoted rep as a "great negotiator," Trump has done nothing in the area of foreign relations but fail, fail, fail. Here's an excerpt in case you're too feeble to click on the link…

He has no respect for diplomacy, and he doesn't understand how diplomacy works, so it is not surprising that he is so bad at it. Instead of securing new agreements, he has squandered a real opportunity with North Korea, and he has deliberately stoked tensions with Iran. He foolishly took ownership of a regime change effort in Venezuela that has yielded nothing but more suffering for people in Venezuela. For all of his empty blather about building a better relationship with Russia, he has scuttled one arms control treaty with Moscow and seems determined to scrap New START as well. His signature move of reneging on agreements in an attempt to force more concessions from other parties has consistently backfired and left the U.S. in a worse position than when he started. Trump has shown that he can burn down the diplomatic achievements of others, but all that the U.S. has to show for his efforts is ashes and smoke.

Meanwhile, as Republicans come up with new explanations of how Trump did nothing wrong vis-à-vis Ukraine, William Saletan keeps pointing out how these explanations are themselves damning to the guy in the Oval Office. The new justification for his actions is that Ukraine was out to bring him down. And how were they doing that? By cooperating with legitimate U.S. investigations of the Trump administration. Quote…

The revenge theory starts with a May 23 meeting at the White House. A delegation of Trump appointees and a Republican senator, Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, had just returned from Ukraine. They told Trump that Zelensky, who had just been inaugurated, was launching an unprecedented campaign against corruption. If Trump had cared about corruption, the delegation's report would have moved him. It didn't. He fixated instead on the idea that Ukraine was out to get him.

Lastly, Rudy Giuliani may have stopped inflicting friendly-fire damage on his client Donald Trump by staying off TV talk shows but "America's Mayor" still has a Twitter account. As Aaron Rupar notes, the Bizarro version of Perry Mason is doing Trump damage with his latest tweets. Lovely.

Matthew Yglesias provides an overview of what Donald Trump has accomplished in his first three years in office. It's not a bad list if you think the purpose of the government is to make things better for the rich and powerful at the expense of the poor and defenseless.

Politifact itemizes six key findings in the public impeachment hearings.

Here's a report from another Fact Checker. Trump keeps claiming that whatever election tampering and mail-hacking was done in the 2016 election came from Ukraine, not Russia, and involved a Ukrainian company called Crowdstrike. Even his closest aides have told him this is wrong in so many ways, including the fact that Crowdstrike is an American company. The Washington Post's Glenn Kessler would like to award sixteen of his paper's non-coveted Pinocchios to Trump but must settle for the maximum of four. This is a good item to forward to any friends who'll tell you that Trump never tells lies. They'll probably argue that it's not a lie if he really believes it.

Is Trump really trying to dial back U.S. involvement in foreign wars? If you go by his speeches, the answer is yes. But as Daniel Larison notes, if you look at what Trump actually does, you get a very different picture.

And Bob Cesca lays out how the defense of Trump's actions in the quid pro quo matter is crumbling as more and more facts undermine it. Enoy.

William Saletan blows a gaping hole in Trump's defense. His defenders have been pointing to two conversations he's been reported to have had, both stating that he wanted no quid pro quo for releasing the money to Ukraine. "See?" they say. "He told his associates the opposite of what you're charging him with wanting!" Okay…but as Saletan points out, those statements were both made after Trump learned that the Whistleblower had blown his whistle and reported Trump was demanding the quid pro quo. It's like Charlie Manson, after he learned he'd been fingered for the Tate-LaBianca killings, telling everyone, "I told Tex not to murder anyone in that house!"

This will matter a lot to the Trump backers who are willing to accept evidence he committed a crime. I'm guessing that in this great country of ours, there must be at least ten or eleven such people.

This revelation by the press of when Trump knew the jig was up and it was time to start lying about his orders would qualify as the latest Bad News for Donald Trump. I would guess our latest Donald Trump Outrage would be his new insistence that there's a plot among Liberals to rename Thanksgiving. Actually, there is such a plot but it's among Big Retail Companies to rechristen it "The Opening Day of Christmas Shopping."

Well, at least Trump can take comfort in one thing. He may not be in as much trouble as Rudy Giuliani. But then Rudy must need the money. Have you any idea what it costs these days to live under a bus?

A couple of times on this site, I've suggested that Trump might not make it to the final presidential ballot. That's not a real prediction on my part but doesn't it seem a wee bit more possible this week? This whole business with Ukraine won't knock him off but a few more of these scandals could do it. So could a total meltdown/breakdown that convinces much of America he's mentally unstable and he seems to be getting ever-closer to that. So could a lot of things.

The most interesting revelation for me this week was not that Trump ordered the deal to release the funds in exchange for an investigation of the Bidens. We all knew that…or thought we did. I was surprised it was proven as decisively as it was, leaving his defenders with precious little wiggle room to insist it had never happened. I was also surprised that it came out that what Trump wanted was not the investigation so much as an announcement that they'd launch an investigation. It wasn't necessary for them to actually investigate. He knew they'd never find anything. What he wanted was to be able to refer to "the corrupt Joe Biden whose whole family is under investigation." And then he'd allude to damning dirt he'd seen that was being uncovered but we'd never see it. As this article reminds us…

During the height of Donald Trump's relentless birtherism in 2011, the reality TV star claimed he had personally sent investigators to Hawaii to uncover information about President Barack Obama's birthplace and boasted that they couldn't "believe what they're finding."

Of course, we never saw all the dirt they found. We never even saw evidence that Trump has ever sent anyone to investigate…but that's his playbook. Ukraine would have investigated the Bidens the same way. It would be great irony if Trump got himself impeached trying to destroy Biden…and then Biden wound up not being his opponent and he had to start ginning up stories about the corrupt Elizabeth Warren, the corrupt Bernie Sanders, the corrupt Pete Buttigieg…

I'm starting to think launching this feature was a mistake on my part. Three-fourths of the news sites on the Internet have turned into little Trump Dumps, listing Yesterday's Bad News for Donald Trump and Yesterday's Outrage by Donald Trump. Doing it daily also forces me to spend time reading those sites and there are some days when I'd rather just forget he's there and he has so many people hating each other. The last few days I've had an intermittent headache and while he's not the cause of it, he sure ain't helping.

I couldn't follow all of the hearings today but my impression is that this is the game he and his defenders are playing. If it feels familiar, that may be with how much it resembles the way O.J. Simpson's lawyers made it possible for him to walk. They couldn't argue the facts of his case. They offered no alternate theory of who'd killed those two people if it wasn't Simpson. In fact, after the case was over and O.J. was acquitted, several of those lawyers and others who supported him said they would blow the case wide open with books revealing who really dunnit.

None of them did. Well, F. Lee Bailey eventually published one that was high on conjecture and devoid of facts…but the point is that no one had an even semi-credible argument that someone else killed Nicole Brown and Ron Goldman. Simpson got away because they convinced the jury that there was "something wrong" with all the evidence. They couldn't really say what it was they made that jury generally distrust the whole prosecution and they set O.J. free because to those jurors, a frame-up felt highly likely. It was feelings over facts.

The way this parallels what we're seeing now — and I'm not claiming this is an exact match — is that Trump's defenders are attacking the process and the witnesses saying "something's wrong." No matter how many fact witnesses (and even the not-a-transcript that Trump released) corroborate what The Whistleblower said, they argue that he is evil, he is biased, he is a Never-Trumper, he has always had it in for Donald, etc., and so he's tainted everything that followed. (A "Never-Trumper," by the way, now seems to be anyone who has ever indicated that he or she thinks D.J.T. has ever done anything that wasn't brilliant and perfect and more successful than everyone else.)

In other words, if the process proves Trump committed an impeachable offense, the process cannot be trusted because it involves people who think Trump committed an impeachable offense.

Anyway, there are ten bazillion sites where you can read what was said in the hearings today and why it's so damning to anyone who cares about facts over feelings. I'm going to go lie down and I won't think about Trump except to come up with a new name for this feature without the word "Daily" in it.

Yesterday's Bad News for Donald Trump
Well, there are sure plenty of items to pick from…

• Former U.S. ambassador to the Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch was pretty effective in her testimony Friday. She blew up the G.O.P. talking point that when Trump pressed Ukraine for investigations, he was trying to root out corruption, rather than dig up dirt on a political opponent.
• And when Trump tweeted attacks on her during her testimony, he opened himself up to charges of trying to intimidate a witness.
• Meanwhile, Trump buddy-enabler Roger Stone was found guilty on seven criminal counts mostly relating to helping Donald Trump…you know, by doing things like trying to intimidate witnesses.
• And you have state department officials going around saying that Trump damaged Ukrainian national security, U.S. national security, and U.S. international credibility.
• And David Holmes, an aide to William Taylor, said in private testimony that he heard the phone conversation where Trump asked Gordon Sondland how things were going with the push to get the president of Ukraine to investigate the Bidens.  According to Holmes, Sondland told Trump that Ukraine President Zelensky "loves your ass" [meaning Trump's ass] will do anything he's asked to do.
• Plus, there's now some evidence indicating Trump and Rudy Giuliani directly ordered Lev Parnas and Igor Fruman (the two Soviet-born businessmen arrested last month at Dulles Airport) to undertake what Parnas described as "a secret mission" to pressure the Ukrainian government to investigate Joe Biden and his son Hunter.

So take your choice. And by the way, you know that it wasn't absolutely necessary that Ukraine uncover actual dirt on the Bidens. Trump would probably have been satisfied with anything so long as the Bidens weren't cleared and he could say the investigations were ongoing. Then all through the election, Trump would have said, "Oh God, I'm hearing from sources in Ukraine that they're finding so much corruption…they can't even finish the investigation, there's so much of it."

Yesterday's Outrage by Donald Trump
Again, many to pick from but I'm going to go with Trump's attacks on Marie Yovanovitch, not just because because they were ill-timed but because, like most Trump smearing of anyone, it was factually incorrect.

An Article of Interest
Daniel Larison discusses Trump's misuse of the President's power to pardon war criminals. He's a lot nicer to those who commit atrocities than he is to the ones who perform genuine acts of heroism and merit.

Today's Bad News for Donald Trump
Republicans continue to argue that whatever deal was made to withhold aid to the Ukraine until the leadership there agreed to investigate Joe and Hunter Biden was made without Trump's knowledge. According to Jonathan Chait…

Yesterday, however, William Taylor testified that a member of his staff heard [Gordon] Sondland, in Kiev on a cell phone, speaking with President Trump, and that Trump asked about Ukraine opening "investigations." After the call, Sondland told the staffer, David Holmes, that Trump's highest priority in Ukraine was securing an investigation of the Bidens. Today, the Associated Press reports a second staffer, Suriya Jayanti, also heard the call.

Today's Outrage by Donald Trump
Trump continues to believe that the main thing going well in the Middle East is that "we" (presumably meaning the United States) is somehow getting the oil in the Syrian fields. The Department of Defense insists this is not so but Trump either doesn't care what they think or just likes saying it.

An Article of Interest
Matthew Yglesias and Andrew Prokop have compiled what they call "The ultimate guide to the Donald Trump impeachment saga." I don't know how ultimate it is but it will certainly answer a lot of questions you may have about the whole messy business.

It does not however answer one of mine. In large part, these hearings revolve around the phone conversation that Trumph had with Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky on July 25, and what was said in a "transcript" of that conversation that was released by the White House. Trump said it was an "exact" transcription of the conversation "done by very talented people that do this." But right there on the transcript is this disclaimer:

CAUTION: A Memorandum of a Telephone Conversation. TELCON is not a verbatim transcript of a discussion. The text in this document records the notes and recollections of Situation Room Duty "Officers and-NSC policy staff assigned to listen and memorialize the conversation in written form as the conversation takes place. A number of factors can affect the accuracy of the record, including poor telecommunications connections and variations in accent and/or interpretation. The word "inaudible" is used to indicate portions of a conversation that the notetaker was unable to hear.

So my question is: Is there a better transcript or a recording of the call? And if the White House doesn't have one, does Ukraine? If not, why not? And if so, am I missing demands that it be produced? Especially after Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman testified that there were important things said that were omitted from the "transcript?" It seems to me this would matter.

Today's Bad News for Donald Trump
Trump's lawyers keep fighting in the courts over a New York law that, if you just read it, says that his tax returns can be subpoenaed. And they keep losing.

Today's Outrage by Donald Trump
As the House Intelligence committee continues to release transcripts of its in-secret hearings, Trump continues to complain that chairman Adam Schiff is doctoring the transcripts. But lawyers for some of the witnesses whose testimony has been released don't seem to think that, nor do Republican members of the committee who participated in those interrogations. Will Trump stick with his charge and refuse to retract it? Hey, does a goose go barefoot?

An Article of Interest
Trump and his minions continue to demand that the Whistleblower be identified and cross-examined. It's pretty obvious that they want to smear the guy (and scare off other potential whistleblowers) and that if they can in any way discredit him — say, if he voted for a Democrat in the last twenty years — then they'll argue that that voids his allegations and proves them to be phony. Never mind that most of them have been independently corroborated, in many cases by Trump appointees and associates. William Saletan discusses how much corroboration there has been.

Sorry I skipped a couple of days here. Every so often, I need some Trump-free time in my life.

Today's Bad News for Donald Trump
There are a number to pick from but I'm going to go with the one that brings the headline: "Court Fines Trump $2 Million for Diverting Money From Veterans Fundraiser to His Campaign." Remember when stealing from Veterans was a bad thing?

Today's Outrage by Donald Trump
Apparently, we're leaving the phase where Trump describes his quid pro quo arrangements as "a perfect call" and insisting that if you "read the transcript" (the one which says right on it that it isn't a transcript), you'll see clearly that no crime was committed. The new phase is that, yes, there may have been a crime but Trump is innocent and the ones to blame are U.S. Ambassador Gordon Sondland, Trump's lawyer Rudy Giuliani, and maybe even the acting White House chief of staff, Mick Mulvaney. Trump is already claiming that he barely knew Sondland.

An Article of Interest
Derek Thompson reports — surprise, surprise! — that the big G.O.P. tax cuts for wealthy folks that were supposed to grow the economy for all failed to do this. As they do every time it's tried…

Donald Trump's signature legislative achievement was the corporate-tax cut he signed in 2017. Republicans said it would grow the economy by up to 6 percent, stimulate business investment, and pay for itself. None of those promises have come to pass. GDP growth has declined to less than 2 percent according to the latest report, released yesterday. Business investment has now declined for two straight quarters, dragging down economic growth. And the federal deficit exceeds $1 trillion.

There's some good news about the economy in there too but when Trump brags how great he's been for business investment, someone oughta throw those numbers in his face.

Today's Bad News for Donald Trump
…and there's plenty of it, starting with Gordon Sondland, the U.S. ambassador to the EU, flipping his previous testimony to say that, by golly, he suddenly remembers that there was a clear quid pro quo in the Ukraine deal. It's getting harder and harder for Trump and his supporters to deny, though they'll find a way. You also have reporters and others diving into the newly-released testimony in the impeachment probe and to top it all off…election results! Trump campaigned hard for Matt Bevin, the Repub governor of Kentucky and even beseeched the crowd, "You can't let it [Bevin's defeat] happen to me!" They did and meanwhile, Democrats now control both the House and Senate in Virginia.

Today's Outrage by Donald Trump
We don't know for sure Trump's behind it but an awful lot of Republicans are suddenly demanding that everyone ignore a certain law.  It's the one that protects the anonymity of whistleblowers like the one who blew the whistle on The Great Ukrainian Quid Pro Quo.  You know…that unfair law written by Republicans and passed with Republican votes.  They don't like their own handiwork when the whistle that's blown is blown for thee…

Today's Bad News for Donald Trump
From New York magazine: "A federal appeals court ruled on Monday morning that President Trump must turn over eight years of personal and corporate tax returns, financial information that he has thus far successfully shielded from the public since he entered political life." Actually, I think that's a tiny bit wrong. The forms were subpoenaed from Mazars USA, Trump's accounting firm and it's they who would turn over the forms, not Trump. As I understand it, Trump's argument is that he is immune from prosecution so he is therefore immune from investigation. The whole matter's destined to wind up at the U.S. Supreme Court whose members will rule however they want to rule. As I look at how bad Supreme Court watchers have been doing the last few years in predicting how votes will go, I wouldn't want to hazard a guess.

Today's Outrage by Donald Trump
From Vox: "The Trump administration on Monday started the official process of pulling the United States out of the Paris climate agreement. The U.S., currently the second-largest emitter of greenhouse gases and responsible for the largest share of historical emissions, is now the only country in the world to back out of the accord." I still don't understand the reason for this except for Trump's insistence that any agreement not negotiated by Donald Trump is a terrible, lousy, bad, stinky deal and that any agreement negotiated by Donald Trump will be a great, wonderful, perfect deal.