Trump, July 2017: Tweet more

Chris Wray is kinda fucked after this q&a right? Why should they vote for anyone in law enforcement nominated by Trump?

ShariVari's "already in the public domain" reminds me of, uh, some guy I know, pointing to NIST SP 800-177 and saying "well we already told everyone to use DMARC, not sure why you're acting like it's news" after http://thehill.com/policy/cybersecurity/342598-dem-senator-wants-govt-wide-use-of-email-tool-to-thwart-impersonating

less international intrigue but similar concept imo

the president also seems to think the AG is his personal lawyer

yeah i can't imagine his actual lawyer is going to be thrilled with that

Every time I read Trump or someone else saying "just repeal the damn thing now, we'll sort it out afterwards", all I can think of is that alien in Futurama about to steal Fry's organs.

http://imgur.com/n7Y6P

"I take lungs now, gills come next week".

Threatening the investigator not to look into family finances is like telling the cop at the door not to look into the basement.

Also - lol at why would I be under investigation, since I've done nothing wrong?

would be fun if sessions resigned

1) lmao he quit a safe senate seat for this.
2) confirmation of his replacement would take ages all the while someone trump is openly contemptuous of is in charge
3) temporary reprieve from insane criminal justice policies coming out of the DOJ

whoa

Just in from Sen. John McCain's office: doctors have discovered a "primary brain tumor known as a glioblastoma." pic.twitter.com/RTl3fIFecy

— Andrew Desiderio (@desiderioDC) July 20, 2017

Surely talking about adoption with the Russian leader must triangulate off the Magnitsky Act? Did Don Sr just miss that too? He mentions talking about it in that NY Times article.

Well that explains you comey ramblings

Also quick google search says that his replacement is appointed by AZ GOV (mother of fucking hell...) and must be of the same party (fuckshit)

US in 2017 just a perfect storm of bullshit.

Little cash here, a little there

https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/pro-trump-tv-pundits-firm-took-undisclosed-payments-from-trump-campaign/2017/07/19/a7ae21f8-6bef-11e7-b9e2-2056e768a7e5_story.html?utm_term=.713c6eccbb4c&tid=sm_tw

Whoops!

MORE NEWS from the Times: Trump's finances are under investigation and Mueller may get Deutsche Bank records. https://t.co/fUIdtSHFOW pic.twitter.com/6WUGrCAc3M

— Kyle Cheney (@kyledcheney) July 20, 2017

It's a slow motion tipping point, ultimately, but I suspect it's happening.

I'm assuming every time a Russian official talks about adoption to a Trump associate it is in reference to Putin blocking US adoption of Russian children. It was one of his reactions to the expulsion of various Russians and imposition of sanctions by the Obama regime as a result of the election interference. I thought that adoption block was well known.
So an attempt to talk about adoption is also an attempt to talk about associated subjects such as the sanctions etc etc. & seems to be picked up by both Dons as only representing an area not of immediate interest to a family man. When that is just the codeword, synecdoche or whatever trope for a more widespread sensitive subject.

Great legal mind expressing great doubt Don Don will actually testify next week.

Minds. like Tribe and Bhahara.

Bharara.

It is, strictly speaking, an invite, not a command. Turning it down will leave what impressions it does.

Hm. Fun times!

ANOTHER break, this one from AP: Trump's advisors are venting about his overtures to Putin. https://t.co/76dLUOBJ6D

What a crazy night. pic.twitter.com/CL7liVoRrn

— Kyle Cheney (@kyledcheney) July 20, 2017

McMaster expressed his disapproval of Trump’s course to foreign officials during the lead-up to his trip to Germany. The general specifically said he’d disagreed with Trump’s decision to hold an Oval Office meeting in May with top Russian diplomats and with the president’s general reluctance to speak out against Russian aggression in Europe, according to the three foreign officials.

Guess he reread his book.

Maybe going forward I shouldn't stay up late watching the Diamondbacks night games. Or have an undiagnosed glioblastoma.

More from that NYT interview

Excerpts from the NYT interview with President Trumphttps://t.co/kDEN64uBE6

— The New York Times (@nytimes) July 20, 2017

And a good point

The main story says the only aide in the room for this interview was Hope Hicks. He has a platoon of personal lawyers, but they're absent.

— southpaw (@nycsouthpaw) July 20, 2017

JESUS TAPDANCING CHRIST.

Trump thinks the FBI reports directly to him and only started reporting to DOJ as "courtesy" after Watergate. pic.twitter.com/ZJxbwi5zTb

— Kevin M. Kruse (@KevinMKruse) July 20, 2017

Byron York's turned into a Trump lickspittle but he's got his contacts, and this thread is of interest -- matches with other things I've seen over the past couple of hours.

Hearing negative reaction from conservatives on Trump's comments re: Sessions… 1/

— Byron York (@ByronYork) July 20, 2017

Also, on the wonkier tip, but some interesting bits in here.

Here's my litigator's take on letters sent by the Senate Judiciary today to Junior and Manafort basically asking for the same thing. 1/ pic.twitter.com/VvhEpX1IQp

— Paul Dickinson (@prdickinson) July 20, 2017

man when you campaign on thinly veiled (or unveiled) white nationalism and you lose steve king, who do you have?

Did Trump's advisers think it was a good idea for him to do this interview with the Times?

Why would he care what they think

a lark

TRUMP: Not much. Not even that I remember. He was sitting, and I don’t remember even talking to him about any of this stuff. He said I asked people to go. Look, you look at his testimony. His testimony is loaded up with lies, O.K.? But people didn’t — we had a couple people that said —

ARABELLA KUSHNER: [enters room] Hi, Grandpa.

TRUMP: My granddaughter Arabella, who speaks — say hello to them in Chinese.

KUSHNER: Ni hao.

[laughter]

TRUMP: This is Ivanka. You know Ivanka.

IVANKA TRUMP: [from doorway] Hi, how are you? See you later, just wanted to come say hi.

lol @ Trump doing an interview for a paper he has tried so hard to delegitimize

It's so dumb.

Literally the only thing he cares about is positive attention paid to the wonder that is Donald Trump.

A+

pic.twitter.com/tnysdLK20y

— KRANG T. NELSON (@KrangTNelson) July 20, 2017

New interview with Randy Newman:

Your new album has a song on it called “Putin.” Did you ever toy with writing about Trump?

I did write about him. But the language was too vulgar. It felt too easy. The song was “My dick’s bigger than your dick / It ain’t braggin’ if it’s true / My dick’s bigger than your dick / I can prove it too / There it is! There’s my dick / Isn’t that a wonderful sight? / Run to the village, to town, to the countryside / Tell the people what you’ve seen here tonight.”

How’d the chorus go?

The hook was “What a dick!” Duh-duh-duh. “What a dick!” But I just didn’t want to add to the problem of how ugly the conversation we’re all having is, so I didn’t put it out.

http://www.vulture.com/2017/07/randy-newman-trump-putin-new-album.html

when I saw that tweeted out I was like 99% sure that was a @pixelatedboat thing

Wait a minute, what the hell.

(crosstalk)

TRUMP: Well, Napoleon finished a little bit bad. But I asked that. So I asked the president, so what about Napoleon? He said: “No, no, no. What he did was incredible. He designed Paris.” (garbled) The street grid, the way they work, you know, the spokes. He did so many things even beyond. And his one problem is he didn’t go to Russia that night because he had extracurricular activities, and they froze to death. How many times has Russia been saved by the weather? (garbled)

(crosstalk/unintelligible)

As always I will blame Alfred for this, in that I know he designed Paris.

He's going to be the first POTUS to appear on Drunken History.

— CavsKermit (@JbkJbk1234) July 20, 2017

http://m.huffpost.com/us/entry/us_59702f8be4b0aa14ea7711b7 baaaaad feeling about this

ShariVari's "already in the public domain" reminds me of, uh, some guy I know, pointing to NIST SP 800-177 and saying "well we already told everyone to use DMARC, not sure why you're acting like it's news" after http://thehill.com/policy/cybersecurity/342598-dem-senator-wants-govt-wide-use-of-email-tool-to-thwart-impersonating

less international intrigue but similar concept imo

Not to get too hung up on this, as it is pretty tangential, but the framing of the story as new and important is a bit of a stretch in the context of how the coverage of Deripaska has evolved.

The first wave was reporting on a memo that Manafort was alleged to have written saying that he would loyally look to advance Putin's interests if Deripaska took him on as a publicist / lobbyist for his companies. This was another of the big smouldering, if not smoking, gun releases.

iirc Deripaska's side's response basically boiled down to 'not only is the memo fake, and the relationship long over, the little fucker ripped me off for $19m before he started working for Trump'.

In that context, 'Manafort owes $17m to pro-Russia interests (i.e, a Russian)' needs a bit more meat on the bones to be hugely interesting but ymmv.

I'm gonna go out on a limb and assume, Shari, the interest is because ym never varies.

What, out of curiosity, would actually raise your eyebrows? Like, money laundering, bizarre behavior, monies owed, 'secure facilities' etc., do seem weird to those of us who don't traipse around Eurasia and the Middle East.

I really don't mean to be trite. It's just that your comments carry the weight of someone very familiar/insidery re: us/euro/russian/money everywhere relations. From my view, it's tough to imagine this is what happens when your average plutocrats history gets combed over re Russia (which isn't to say I wouldn't expect to see skeletons, if just assume the undisclosed meetings were in Geneva or the Turks & Caicos). For Americans, Cyprus ain't a go-to.

It depends what you're looking to show. There has been ample evidence for 30+ years that Manafort is a crook and that should have stopped Trump from employing him. 'Manafort as a crook' and 'Manafort as a Russian agent of influence' would require different evidence though.

You're right that i am much more inured than most people to the intersection of criminality and business wrt Eastern Europe/Central Asia/ the Middle East but i genuinely think the root of that is Western business people of all backgrounds - from big tech companies to shady real estate brokers - being encouraged to make hay in markets where corruption and kleptocracy are rife. In a UK context, the country has benefited enormously from money laundering, pandering to criminal oligarchs, etc but there is at least some pretense at keeping party politics at arms length.

I might be overly cynical but i would imagine if you went through the connections of any major London / NY / Dubai real estate project, you'll find money linked to state-sponsored theft and corruption or organised crime, either directly or one or two steps away. Trump has shined a light on that but this stuff has not just been tolerated, it has been borderline encouraged for years by successive western governments.

I'd be very happy to see Trump nailed for it - but i'd be happier still to see a more root-and-branch clean-up of our interaction with dirty money.

Last summer, I was having a drink with my wife/inlaws at the American Hotel in Sag Harbor. We'd just walked out of a movie with Norman Braman (Rubio's personal debt-payer, car dealer, billionaire, tall man). Out of the back of the hotel come Bloomberg, Ronald Perelman and Leonard Lauder (all short, especially Mike), and it's like all the non-tech American money in a couple blocks, anyway I'm thinking fuck that's a lot of net-worth, and I keep thinking now, had any of those dipshits been President/backed a president, you could sift through their underwear drawers and still: nothing as b-movie, thriller without a hero bullshit as happens everyday with these nitwits. Like I hate conspiracies, bad-plotting, etc. so for all the malignant narcissists, why the one who's comically shady?

btw they all looked like ugly, tired men.

That's all i guess. There's a lot of people who have things they don't want other people to know own property through shell companies in London and NYC. Why stick your neck out?

Also, that was two summers ago (point stands). These folk all know each other, but I'm not a Billderburger believer. If you're so inept/compromised then why ever get involved in a way that invites scrutiny?There's a huge part of me that believes Trump is simply inept, simply needy, simply dumb. That all those Gold Marquees (like the one they took down in Toronto this week) were all he wanted and that this one would be the biggest.

That NYT transcript is fascinating: how the reporters treat him like a bad boy who needs a hug, but the damage is real.