In 2016, a Los Angeles Times editorial declared Donald Trump "temperamentally and intellectually unfit" for the Presidency. Today the Times looks at all the lies, threats, provocations, Twitter rants, denigration of minorities, mistrust of the judicial system and other aspects of Trump's first year in office.
A year in, Trump distracts while his appointees sledgehammer the government
http://www.latimes.com/opinion/edito...120-story.html
Anyone calling the White House public comment line, 202-456-1111, will now hear this message: "Thank you for calling the White House. Unfortunately, we can not answer your call today because congressional Democrats are holding government funding, including funding for our troops and other national security priorities, hostage to an unrelated immigration debate. Due to this obstruction, the government is shut down."
So the petulant whiny President, to no one's surprise, is blaming the Democrats. Of course the impasse that led to the government shutdown couldn't possibly have anything to do with his refusal to negotiate immigration reform or his demand for billions of dollars for his idiotic border wall. Oh, no no no -- it's the Democrats' fault. Perhaps Trump needs to read The Art Of The Deal.
As I just noted, Trump and the Republicans are blaming the Democrats for the government shutdown. Well, well, well -- looky here:
Democrats offer to accept border wall in exchange for DACA deal — but GOP won’t budge
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/poli...icle-1.3769776
While the President continues to deny any links between his campaign and Russia, more and more Trump-Russia connections are coming to light.
Congressman: Story of link between Kremlin and NRA could 'get bigger'
Michelangelo Signirole, HuffPost, Jan 22 2018 3:21 PM
Last Thursday, investigative reporters Peter Stone and Greg Gordon of McClatchy DC Bureau reported what could be another bombshell in the Russia probe: the FBI is investigating whether a Kremlin-linked banker illegally channeled funds to the National Rifle Association to aid Donald Trump’s presidential campaign.
On Friday, Rep. Ted Lieu (D-California), who sits on the House Judiciary Committee, told me on SiriusXM Progress that the word on Capitol Hill is that the story of a Russia-NRA-Trump link is going to grow. "FBI counter-intelligence investigators have focused on the activities of Alexander Torshin, the deputy governor of Russia's central bank who is known for his close relationships with both Russian President Vladimir Putin and the NRA," Stone and Gordon reported being told by two sources familiar with the matter. The journalists noted that it is "illegal to use foreign money to influence federal elections."
The same day their story ran, Gordon told me on SiriusXM Progress he and Stone are fairly certain the Torshin investigation is part of special counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia probe. "We're confident that this is Mueller," he said. "There’s no part of the FBI that is doing Trump and Russia and not working for Mueller." The Kremlin's alleged outreach to the NRA, Stone observed, "can be looked at as another part of the way that Russia is trying to build political links in the U.S. and that's what the suspicions are."
The NRA reported spending a record amount of money on the 2016 elections: $55 million. That includes more than $30 million pushing for the election of Trump, which is three times what the group spent to advance Mitt Romney’s campaign in 2012. Lieu, a former prosecutor who has been outspoken on Twitter about alleged collusion between Russia and the Trump campaign, said, "The rumors I’ve heard on Capitol Hill are that the NRA-Kremlin story is going to get bigger, particularly because we're talking about some potentially very large sums of money being involved."
https://www.aol.com/article/news/201...gger/23340402/
Hey, Donald, how is that "swamp draining" coming along?
Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke held onto undisclosed shares in gun company
HuffPost, Jan 22 2018 3:22 PM
Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke is a shareholder in a private Montana company that manufactures and sells firearms and advanced weapons materials, a financial interest he did not disclose when nominated last year. In response to inquiries from HuffPost, both Zinke and the company, PROOF Research Inc., confirmed the secretary’s holdings, though the dollar value placed on them varied. This previously undisclosed holding comes to light after numerous decisions in his first year in office that benefited the hunting and gun industries.
The company was first established in 2011 in Zinke’s hometown of Whitefish, Montana, under the name Extreme Precision Armaments Inc. The company specializes in the production of lightweight rifles with high-precision carbon fiber barrels for hunting and military applications. It later changed its name to PROOF Research Inc. and moved to the nearby town of Columbia Falls. Zinke provided consulting services for the company in 2012.
Presidential nominees for Cabinet positions must disclose all assets worth $1,000 or more on their executive branch financial disclosure report under the category "other assets and income." A review of Zinke’s disclosure submitted to the Office of Government Ethics in January 2017 found that Zinke did not disclose an interest in PROOF Research. His annual congressional financial disclosures from 2015 and 2016 also did not list stock in the company.
https://www.aol.com/article/news/201...pany/23340404/
Common Cause vice president Paul S. Ryan today filed complaints with both the Federal Election Commission and the Department of Justice, arguing that there should be a federal investigation into the $130,000 payment made to Stormy Daniels because it greatly exceeds the $2,700 per-person maximum allowed by campaign finance laws and because the payment, which ensured the public would not learn of Trump's affair with her, was made in order to influence the election. Trump is not above the law, even though he thinks he is.
Today we're learning that Attorney General Jeff Sessions is the first cabinet member to be interviewed by Robert Mueller's team. Sessions, who had to recuse himself from the Russia inquiry because he had neglected to tell Congress about his two meetings with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak during the campaign, was grilled for several hours last week about Russian meddling in the election, the firing of James Comey and whether Trump obstructed justice by trying to halt the Russia investigation. Several House conservatives are now calling on Sessions to resign.
No experience, no qualifications and he lied on his résumé -- but he was an aide in Trump's campaign so he was given a government job as a reward. Hey, Donald, how is that "swamp draining" coming along?
Taylor Weyeneth, a 24-year-old Trump appointee who held a top drug policy job despite having no relevant experience, quit after an investigation into his credentials
http://www.businessinsider.com/taylo...-resume-2018-1
I say to Michael Steele: "Amen!"
Former RNC Chair Michael Steele: Trump’s evangelical backers need to 'shut the hell up'
HuffPost, Jan 24 2018
Michael Steele, the former chair of the Republican National Committee, has just about had it with evangelical Christian leaders who support President Donald Trump no matter what. On Monday, Tony Perkins, head of the conservative Christian nonprofit Family Research Council, said Trump gets a"mulligan" or "do-over" over allegations that he paid porn star Stormy Daniels to keep quiet over their reported affair. Steele wasn’t having it.
"I have a very simple admonition at this point," Steele said on Hardball on MSNBC. "Just shut the hell up and don’t ever preach to me about anything ever again. I don’t want to hear it. After telling me how to live my life, who to love, what to believe, what not to believe, what to do and what not to do and now you sit back and the prostitutes don’t matter? The grabbing the you-know-what doesn’t matter? The outright behavior and lies don’t matter? Just shut up."
Video: https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry...b0e5630074aa39
In October 1973, Attorney General Elliot Richardson and Deputy Attorney General William Ruckelshaus resigned rather than obey Richard Nixon's order to fire Watergate special prosecutor Archibald Cox. Trump obviously has never heard the saying that those who do not remember the past are doomed to repeat it.
Trump ordered Mueller firing last June
The New York Times, Jan 25 2018
President Donald Trump last June wanted the Justice Department to dismiss Robert S. Mueller III, who is overseeing the Russia investigation but the top White House lawyer, Donald F. McGahn II, said he would resign rather than carry out the directive to ask for Mueller’s firing. President Trump backed down. Mueller, who is investigating allegations of Russian meddling in the 2016 U.S. election, learned of the incident in recent months as his investigators interviewed current and former senior White House officials in an inquiry into whether the president obstructed justice.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/25/u...el-russia.html
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