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THE MAGA PARTY!,,, the GOP is dead, republicans are going down with the dems,, get ready for THE MAGA PARTY lefty's
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2021-06-11 at 10:46 PM UTCThe following users say it would be alright if the author of this post didn't die in a fire!
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2021-06-12 at 4:24 AM UTCCNN
Opinion: Bill Barr's despicable conduct is now on full display
Opinion by Elie Honig
It was already a matter of record that William Barr abused his power as attorney general under former President Donald Trump. Turns out, it's even worse than we knew.
There's no question that Barr was fundamentally dishonest (to put it charitably). Federal judges nominated to the bench by presidents of both political parties have found that Barr "lack(ed) ... candor"; that his public and in-court statements were "disingenuous," "incomplete," "inconsistent" with truth and "called into question Attorney General Barr's credibility." Others, including former special counsel Robert Mueller, thousands of former Justice Department officials (including me), and members of Congress have expressed doubt or worse about Barr's truthfulness and integrity.
We already knew that Barr politicized the Justice Department. He used it defensively to shield Trump from potential criminal exposure by misleading the public about Mueller's findings, and by declaring, contrary to the evidence and the law, that Trump had not obstructed justice. (In his report, Mueller detailed extensive evidence of obstruction, but declined to clearly state whether he concluded that Trump had committed a crime). And Barr intervened in unprecedented fashion to undermine his own Justice Department's prosecutions of Trump's political allies Michael Flynn and Roger Stone.
But recent revelations -- that prosecutors in Trump's Department of Justice subpoenaed Apple for data from the accounts of Democratic members of Congress, their staffs and families -- are different in kind. According to The New York Times, Barr even moved a New Jersey-based attorney to the main Justice Department to work on a case related to Rep. Adam Schiff of California, one of the House Democrats whose data was sought. (Barr, the Justice Department and Apple declined to comment on the story to the Times, though the Justice Department's inspector general has said it will investigate.)
In taking such action, Barr used the staggering power of his position to selectively pursue Trump's perceived political rivals. This is eerily similar to former President Richard Nixon's "enemies list" and his efforts at retributive action.
Barr himself apparently understood the flagrant impropriety of his actions. In a memorable confrontation in May 2019, then-Sen. Kamala Harris -- plainly aware that Trump had publicly called for the Justice Department to lash back at Mueller and others by "investigating the investigators" -- asked Barr at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing, "Has the President or anyone at the White House ever asked or suggested that you open an investigation of anyone. Yes or no, please, sir."
This straightforward question should have elicited a straightforward response. Instead, Barr stammered, stalled for time, feigned as if he hadn't heard the question, asked Harris to repeat it and then pretended not to understand the meaning of the basic English word, "suggested."
Barr's response to Harris was telling. If nobody at the White House had asked (or "suggested") that he open an investigation, that's an easy "no" response. If somebody had asked, and there was nothing improper about it, then a simple "yes" would suffice. But Barr played dumb and engaged in semantic games. He seemed to know the answer was "yes" -- and that his conduct was too ugly to openly admit.
Indeed, we are now learning just how deep Barr's corruption ran. He reportedly reauthorized an investigation into purported leaks by Congress even after the investigative trail had gone cold (and it's not clear there was any basis for an investigation in the first place).
Prosecutors hold enormous power, including nearly unfettered discretion to obtain information through subpoenas. But ethical prosecutors use that power only where they have a good faith basis -- "predication," as prosecutors sometimes say -- to believe that the subpoena is necessary to uncover evidence of a specific crime. Yet Barr reportedly demanded that prosecutors redouble their efforts, absence of evidence be damned.
Making matters worse, Barr apparently authorized the extraordinary step of seeking to renew a "gag order" which prevented the recipients of the subpoenas (Apple and another service provider) from notifying the subjects of the subpoenas. The end result was an unfair fight, where the subjects -- including Schiff and Rep. Eric Swalwell of California -- did not even know their personal information had been obtained by law enforcement, and had no ability to fight for their own privacy and other legal rights in court.
In a famous 1940 speech, then-Attorney General Robert Jackson noted astutely that "the prosecutor has more control over life, liberty, and reputation than any other person in America. His discretion is tremendous." With that power comes unique public trust to exercise prosecutorial authority impartially and evenly. As Jackson said, "While the prosecutor at his best is one of the most beneficent forces in our society, when he acts from malice or other base motives, he is one of the worst." Barr's despicable conduct -- and the damage he has wrought -- proves that Jackson had it exactly right. -
2021-06-12 at 4:54 AM UTC
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2021-06-12 at 9:18 AM UTC
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2021-06-12 at 9:43 AM UTCI actually meant to put that in the retarded thread
close enough I guess -
2021-06-12 at 10:16 AM UTC
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2021-06-12 at 2:38 PM UTCMaking
America
Giggle over the great businessman
Again
Business Insider
Trump lost $40 million on his Scottish golf clubs by failing to implement a very basic financial practice, say experts
tcolson@businessinsider.com (Thomas Colson)
Trump's failure to hedge loans to his Scottish golf courses cost him tens of millions of dollars, say experts.
Accounts registered in the UK indicate that Trump issued loans from the US in British pounds.
The British pound has declined significantly in value, adding tens of millions to his already huge losses.
Donald Trump's international courses have racked up huge losses and rely on loans from various Trump-owned vehicles in the United States just to stay afloat.
However, the scale of Trump's losses may be even greater than it first appears, with experts pointing out that Trump appears to have lost tens of millions of dollars more by failing to implement a very basic financial practice.
First, some context: Trump has two golf resorts in Scotland.
One is the iconic Turnberry near Glasgow, which he bought in 2014, and the other is Trump Golf Links International in Aberdeenshire.
These resorts lose millions of dollars every year, and neither has turned a profit since Trump purchased them.
Both resorts are also dependent on loans from Trump and US-owned entities to stay afloat.
Turnberry's parent company Golf Recreation Scotland owes Trump, through various US-registered entities, a total of £113,425,000 (around $160,000,000), according to UK Companies House accounts filed in December.
Trump International Golf Club Scotland Limited, which owns his Aberdeenshire course, owes Trump £44,400,049, also issued in the form of interest-free loans, according to Companies House accounts.
The problem is that Trump appears to have created those loans in British pound sterling - as evidenced by the fact they are all displayed as sterling loans on Companies House. The Trump Organisation would not confirm or deny this.
Unfortunately for Trump, the British pound has declined significantly in value against the dollar in the period since Trump started issuing loans to his golf courses.
That means that, when and if those loans are eventually repaid to Trump in his native dollar currency, they are going to be worth considerably less than when he issued them.
Trump has 'incurred a significant loss'
His Aberdeenshire course started racking up debts from the beginning of its operation in 2006, when £1 was worth nearly $2. Now, £1 is worth just $1.42 (as of June 9).
Turnberry's parent company has also been taking large loans from US-registered entities owned by Trump since he purchased the resort in 2014.
Stephen Clapham, an investment analyst and founder of financial website Behind the Balance Sheet, who has written previously about Trump's business practices in Scotland, estimated in October last year that the value of those losses may be more than $40 million.
The pound was worth $1.27 made those calculations, and it has since risen to $1.42 (as of June 9), meaning some of those losses will have been mitigated - but the current figure would still represent a loss amounting to tens of millions of dollars.
Those losses, said Clapham, appear to have been the result of Trump's failure to "hedge" the loans he created. In simple terms, hedging is a common business practice that offsets the risk of price movements like a drop in the value of a currency by fixing the repayment rate for a loan when it is created.
There is no evidence in Companies House accounts that Trump's loans were hedged, although it is possible that Trump hedged the loan privately in the United States. Insider asked the Trump Organisation to confirm whether the loans had been hedged but did not receive a response.
"Hedging is what every business does unless there's a specific reason you can't do it - for example, you're investing in [...] somewhere where the capital markets aren't developed enough to allow you to hedge the currency," Clapham told Insider.
The prospect of Trump having lost tens of millions of pounds by failing to implement a common business practice raises further questions about the soundness of his business judgment.
"The most likely explanation is that Trump has made this loan and incurred a significant loss. It's the simplest explanation and probably the most likely," said Clapham. -
2021-06-12 at 2:43 PM UTCMost idiots actually think billionaire Trump handles his own finances and portfolio. That's how ignorant and clueless they really are.
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2021-06-12 at 2:52 PM UTCMaking
America actually
Great
Again
AFP
Biden's G7 charm offensive draws line under Trump era
"Everybody in the water!" President Joe Biden joked to his fellow G7 leaders at a family photo on the beach, underlining an assured transformation in tone from the antagonistic Donald Trump.
Mocked by Trump as 'Sleepy Joe', Biden has shown no lack of vim in his public appearances at the G7.
Where Trump alienated and exasperated, undermining the Western alliance at every turn, Biden declared that "America is back!" after starting his first foreign tour as president in Britain.
France's President Emmanuel Macron, who endured a years-long battle of wills with Trump, enjoyed a good-natured chat with Biden at the G7.
US service personnel were standing stiffly to attention in respect for their commander-in-chief as Biden addressed them on Wednesday at an air force base in eastern England.
'Please, at ease,' Biden told US service personnel upon his arrival in England. 'I keep forgetting I'm president.'
It was hard to imagine such an avuncular line ever coming from Trump, and G7 leaders have been equally at ease in the company of the 78-year-old former senator and vice president.
Britain's Prime Minister Boris Johnson, one of the few foreign leaders praised by Trump, called Biden "a big breath of fresh air".
French President Emmanuel Macron, after contesting a years-long battle of wills with Trump, eagerly grabbed Biden by the arm for a good-natured chat after Friday's G7 photo at Carbis Bay in southwest England.
With Britain going ahead with the elite club's first in-person summit in nearly two years, Biden is back in his element having amassed decades of foreign policy experience: glad-handing on the world stage.
The oldest president yet, he has sometimes stumbled over his words in the initial stages of a gruelling eight-day tour that will climax in showdown talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Switzerland.
But while mocked by Trump as "Sleepy Joe", Biden has shown no lack of vim in his public appearances at the G7.
"He has been getting ready for 50 years," White House press secretary Jen Psaki said.
"He's known a number of these leaders for decades... and there's nothing like face-to-face engagement in diplomacy," she said, as Biden corrals Western leaders into a tougher line on China and Russia.
On the eve of the G7 summit in Cornwall, southwest England, President Joe Biden calls a US donation of 500 million Covid vaccine doses to poorer countries a "historic step" in the fight against the global pandemic.
- Rebuilding Brand America -
He is on solid ground at the G7. The leaders of Canada, France and Germany all endured tongue-lashings from Trump, and there is palpable relief at the reversion to traditional diplomatic modes.
It is a stark contrast to Trump's first presidential trip to Europe, in May 2017, for a NATO summit in Brussels and a G7 in Sicily. At one point he unceremoniously shoved aside Montenegro's leader at a family photo.
But while the mood music has turned more harmonious, Biden's tour will be judged on results, according to Stephen Pomper, interim chief of policy at the International Crisis Group.
"Of course the G7 crowd will prefer 'America is back' and 'democracy delivers' to Trump's tirades and shakedowns," he said.
"The big question is whether this meeting can help generate the kind of energy, vision and unity that Washington wants to project given the competitive challenges it now faces."
Looming large among those challenges is confronting Putin at next Wednesday's lakeside summit in Geneva, and the G7's European members are not quite as gung-ho in taking on either Russia or China.
But for the time being, Biden can boast of having restored some of America's popularity abroad after it plunged to historic lows during the Trump years.
According to a survey carried out in 16 countries by the Pew Research Center, 62 percent of people now have a "favourable image" of the world's leading power, compared with only 34 percent in 2020.
Biden's rapid moves to take the United States back in to the World Health Organization and the Paris climate accord met with strong approval among those surveyed in Canada, Europe and the Asia-Pacific.
But the scale of the rebuilding task faced by Biden after Trump is also apparent: a majority of those polled no longer see America as a model democracy. -
2021-06-12 at 2:57 PM UTCAll the treasonous rats licking each other's buttholes, thrilled they don't have to deal with the Big Bad Trump right now. So heartwarming.
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2021-06-12 at 3:12 PM UTCNOBODY LIKES TRUMP.
Deal with it. -
2021-06-12 at 3:22 PM UTC
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2021-06-12 at 4:59 PM UTC
Originally posted by stl1 Making
America
Giggle over the great businessman
Again
Business Insider
Trump lost $40 million on his Scottish golf clubs by failing to implement a very basic financial practice, say experts
tcolson@businessinsider.com (Thomas Colson)
Trump's failure to hedge loans to his Scottish golf courses cost him tens of millions of dollars, say experts.
Accounts registered in the UK indicate that Trump issued loans from the US in British pounds.
The British pound has declined significantly in value, adding tens of millions to his already huge losses.
Donald Trump's international courses have racked up huge losses and rely on loans from various Trump-owned vehicles in the United States just to stay afloat.
However, the scale of Trump's losses may be even greater than it first appears, with experts pointing out that Trump appears to have lost tens of millions of dollars more by failing to implement a very basic financial practice.
First, some context: Trump has two golf resorts in Scotland.
One is the iconic Turnberry near Glasgow, which he bought in 2014, and the other is Trump Golf Links International in Aberdeenshire.
These resorts lose millions of dollars every year, and neither has turned a profit since Trump purchased them.
Both resorts are also dependent on loans from Trump and US-owned entities to stay afloat.
Turnberry's parent company Golf Recreation Scotland owes Trump, through various US-registered entities, a total of £113,425,000 (around $160,000,000), according to UK Companies House accounts filed in December.
Trump International Golf Club Scotland Limited, which owns his Aberdeenshire course, owes Trump £44,400,049, also issued in the form of interest-free loans, according to Companies House accounts.
The problem is that Trump appears to have created those loans in British pound sterling - as evidenced by the fact they are all displayed as sterling loans on Companies House. The Trump Organisation would not confirm or deny this.
Unfortunately for Trump, the British pound has declined significantly in value against the dollar in the period since Trump started issuing loans to his golf courses.
That means that, when and if those loans are eventually repaid to Trump in his native dollar currency, they are going to be worth considerably less than when he issued them.
Trump has 'incurred a significant loss'
His Aberdeenshire course started racking up debts from the beginning of its operation in 2006, when £1 was worth nearly $2. Now, £1 is worth just $1.42 (as of June 9).
Turnberry's parent company has also been taking large loans from US-registered entities owned by Trump since he purchased the resort in 2014.
Stephen Clapham, an investment analyst and founder of financial website Behind the Balance Sheet, who has written previously about Trump's business practices in Scotland, estimated in October last year that the value of those losses may be more than $40 million.
The pound was worth $1.27 made those calculations, and it has since risen to $1.42 (as of June 9), meaning some of those losses will have been mitigated - but the current figure would still represent a loss amounting to tens of millions of dollars.
Those losses, said Clapham, appear to have been the result of Trump's failure to "hedge" the loans he created. In simple terms, hedging is a common business practice that offsets the risk of price movements like a drop in the value of a currency by fixing the repayment rate for a loan when it is created.
There is no evidence in Companies House accounts that Trump's loans were hedged, although it is possible that Trump hedged the loan privately in the United States. Insider asked the Trump Organisation to confirm whether the loans had been hedged but did not receive a response.
"Hedging is what every business does unless there's a specific reason you can't do it - for example, you're investing in […] somewhere where the capital markets aren't developed enough to allow you to hedge the currency," Clapham told Insider.
The prospect of Trump having lost tens of millions of pounds by failing to implement a common business practice raises further questions about the soundness of his business judgment.
"The most likely explanation is that Trump has made this loan and incurred a significant loss. It's the simplest explanation and probably the most likely," said Clapham.
loans denominated in pounds are now cheaper to forgave. -
2021-06-12 at 5:03 PM UTC> man gives unsolicited financial advice to Trump
how can that possibly be considered news -
2021-06-12 at 5:33 PM UTCBusiness Insider
Rep. Paul Gosar learned the hard way: supporting the insurrection has consequences in Congress
insider@insider.com (Raúl Grijalva)
Representative Paul Gosar has supported the January 6 insurrection from the beginning.
He has since found that it's tougher for him to get things done in Congress.
Let this be a lesson to Republicans: undermining our democracy has consequences.
Raul Grijalva is the US representative for Arizona's third district.
When armed insurrectionists broke into the US Capitol on January 6, I had just finished speaking on the floor of the House of Representatives. My colleagues were debating a motion to reject the results of Arizona's election for president, which had been resolved in favor of President Biden.
I spoke against the motion - the challenge was not based on any evidence - and took my seat. I was followed briefly by Republican Rep. Paul Gosar, who has played a leading role in the insurrectionist cause from the beginning. He was, somewhat ironically, the last person to speak before security officials ordered an evacuation.
Just a few hours earlier, Rep. Gosar had challenged the certification of Arizona's electoral votes during a joint session of Congress, receiving a standing ovation of nearly 30 seconds from his House and Senate Republican colleagues for his efforts. That morning, he led a crowd of Trump supporters in chants of "Stop the steal" at the now-infamous rally near the Capitol, and tweeted a demand that Biden concede the race, concluding ominously, "Don't make me come over there."
Rep. Gosar has only doubled down since then. At a May 12 hearing of the Committee on Oversight and Reform, he called the insurrectionists "peaceful patriots" who have been maligned only because of their support for Donald Trump.
It's not unsurprising that his tune hasn't changed. Whatever you may think of his political sentiments, they are clearly genuinely held. But like all extremists, he should be prepared to accept the consequences of his actions, and now that his colleagues are starting to impose those consequences, he is deflecting and making excuses rather than confronting them honestly.
This came to a head on May 24, when a panel of the Natural Resources Committee, which I chair, held a hearing on a politically uncontroversial bill called the Public Lands Renewable Energy Development Act. As the name suggests, the bill - sponsored by Democratic Rep. Mike Levin - creates incentives and eliminates barriers to develop clean energy projects on certain federally managed lands. It has been a popular and bipartisan piece of legislation for years.
Rep. Gosar knows the bill would benefit his own constituents tremendously, and he had been its leading Republican cosponsor in previous sessions of Congress. Unfortunately, his name carries negative weight among his Democratic colleagues, and having him play a leadership role in this Congress would hurt the bill's chances of passage. As a result, Rep. Levin informed Rep. Gosar in mid-May that he could not serve as lead cosponsor of the bill this year and made it clear that this was a consequence of his role in the insurrection.
Rather than accepting this as a relatively small price to pay for his convictions, Rep. Gosar immediately introduced his own bill - with language identical to Rep. Levin's - and told a reporter this was happening because of his "vocal criticisms of the Biden administration and its focus on climate change as it relates to the use of federal lands." His own press release went so far as to suggest, disingenuously, that his bill would be the one discussed on May 24. It was not.
This is worse than COCKodile tears. This is rewriting history. Rep. Gosar pretending on the one hand that a violent attack on the US Capitol is all much ado about nothing and, on the other, that he isn't facing pushback for his leading role that day, suggests that he isn't as ready to sacrifice for his cause as he wants his supporters to believe. If he is proud of his record, he should forthrightly say as much. Instead, we are seeing a deliberate effort to muddy the waters by a member of Congress who seems incapable of dealing with the real consequences of his actions before, during, and after January 6.
Those who try to sanitize what happened during the attack on the Capitol are free to do so, but outside their bubble, they have destroyed their credibility. Federal law enforcement agencies continue to make arrests in connection with a multitude of crimes committed that day. The big lie - that Donald Trump really won in the 2020 election - continues to wreak very public havoc, both in Arizona and elsewhere, and will unfortunately take a long time to die.
As a lifelong Democrat, I'm not in the habit of quoting Richard Nixon, but as he once observed, "The best and only answer to a smear or to an honest misunderstanding of the facts is to tell the truth." I have no doubt that Rep. Gosar continues to believe himself the victim of smears and misunderstandings. But he needs to remember that his colleagues were there that day on the floor of the House, heading for the exits at the very moment his supporters broke into the building because of the false and dangerous story he was telling.
It's time for him - and his like-minded colleagues who are similarly avoiding responsibility - to start telling the truth, not least of all to themselves. Their actions are unpopular, and with Democrats in the majority in Congress, there will continue to be consequences. -
2021-06-12 at 6:55 PM UTCNewsweek
Vladimir Putin Returns Compliments to Donald Trump Ahead of Joe Biden Meeting
Darragh Roche
Russian President Vladimir Putin offered praise for former President Donald Trump in an interview with NBC News ahead of his June 16 bilateral summit meeting with President Joe Biden.
Trump issued a statement on Thursday praising his relationship with Putin and touting a 2018 meeting between the two in Helsinki, Finland. He also mockingly offered Biden good luck, saying "don't fall asleep during the meeting."
On Friday, Putin praised Trump and compared him favorably to Biden, highlighting the president's long career in politics and saying his predecessor was an "extraordinary" person.
"Well even now, I believe that former U.S. president Mr. Trump is an extraordinary individual, talented individual, otherwise he would not have become U.S. president," the Russian president told NBC News' Keir Simmons.
"He is a colorful individual," Putin said. "You may like him or not. And, but he didn't come from the U.S. establishment. He had not been part of big-time politics before, and some like it, some don't like it but that is a fact."
Putin said Biden "is radically different from Trump because President Biden is a career man. He has spent virtually his entire adulthood in politics."
"That's a different kind of person, and it is my great hope that, yes, there are some advantages, some disadvantages, but there will not be any impulse-based movements on behalf of the sitting U.S. president," he said.
In his Thursday statement, Trump said that as president: "I had a great and very productive meeting in Helsinki, Finland, with President Putin of Russia. Despite the belated Fake News portrayal of the meeting, the United States won much, including the respect of President Putin and Russia."
Trump lowers expectations for Biden's summit with Putin: "Good luck to Biden in dealing with President Putin—don’t fall asleep during the meeting."
At a press conference following his 2018 meeting with Putin, Trump denied that Russia had interfered in the 2016 presidential election, directly contradicting the conclusions of the U.S. intelligence community, saying he believed Putin on the matter. He again suggested he trusted Putin over the U.S. intelligence community in his statement this week.
"Good luck to Biden in dealing with President Putin — don't fall asleep during the meeting, and please give him my warmest regards!" Trump said.
Biden will meet Putin in Geneva, Switzerland on June 16 and has strongly suggested he will take a tough line with the Russian president. On Wednesday, he told the press the reason for his trip was to "make it clear to Putin and China that Europe and the U.S. are tight."
In comments to NBC News, Putin appeared to dismiss Biden's comments in a March interview where he agreed that the Russian leader was a "killer." He called the remark "Hollywood macho."
"Over my tenure, I've gotten used to attacks from all kinds of angles and from all kinds of areas under all kinds of pretext and reasons and of different caliber and fierceness, and none of it surprises me," Putin said. -
2021-06-12 at 9:44 PM UTCtl/dr
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2021-06-13 at 2:01 AM UTCMaking
Assholes
Go
Away
The Hill
Message to Trump: This is why you lost the election
Douglas MacKinnon, opinion contributor
There is a compelling scene in the 2014 blockbuster movie "Guardians of the Galaxy" in which the Peter Quill character, played by Chris Pratt, is threatened by the Yondu character, played by Michael Rooker. Yondu looks menacingly into Quill's eyes and declares, "When I picked you up as a kid, these boys wanted to eat you. ... I saved your life." Quill screams back in his defense, "Oh, will you shut up about that? ... Normal people don't even think about eating someone else, much less that person having to be grateful for it."
Cut to the 2020 presidential election and, according to a forthcoming book by Wall Street Journal reporter Michael Bender titled "Frankly, We Did Win This Election," then-President Trump angrily interrupted a policy meeting in the Oval Office to vent about Joe Biden by allegedly asking, "How am I losing in the polls to a mental retard?"
That's how, to begin with. To paraphrase Peter Quill, "Normal people don't even think about calling someone else a 'mental retard.'"
Normal people don't, but egotistical bullies who favor 1970s insults might have no problem spewing out a demeaning label that has made most people cringe for decades now. That's one of the most important answers to Trump's reported question: Live by the insult sword, die by the insult sword.
While this may come as a shock to Donald Trump, there are millions of Americans - including a large number of his supporters - who believe that a president should conduct himself with class, dignity and grace, if not for himself, then most certainly out of respect for the highest office in the land.
If he indeed asked such a revolting question in the White House, he insulted the presidency and those Americans who believe the office should represent the best in all of us.
If Trump truly wants to know why he lost, he must become self-aware enough to point a finger at himself. He has to be willing to accept some of the blame. And if he can get that far - against all evidence to the contrary at the moment - then he must ask himself what percentage of the 2020 vote he might have cost himself.
You can have the best policies in the world, but if you continually insult and demean other people, sooner or later that is going to become like the scratching of fingernails on a blackboard to many voters. They're going to cover their ears and turn away from the source of the screeching noise.
Most Americans on the left will never admit that Trump is an intelligent person, someone whose instincts often proved correct in business and in politics. Knowing that, it defies reason and common sense not to believe that, seven months after the election, Trump at some point has looked inward and realized that - in an election in which more than 155 million Americans voted - it can be argued he lost to President Biden because of just more than 42,000 votes. Those votes were from Georgia with 16 Electoral College votes, Wisconsin with 10 electoral votes and Arizona with 11 electoral votes. These were all states that Trump won in 2016. Biden flipped them in 2020.
Leaving aside his histrionics regarding Pennsylvania and "stolen votes," Trump knows that if he had simply won Georgia, Wisconsin and Arizona, the Electoral College result might have been 269 to 269. If that had been the case, Trump or Biden would have needed the backing of 26 state delegations to be declared president. At that time, Republicans controlled most of the state delegations - can we assume they would have confirmed Trump's reelection?
But it never got that far.
A number of Republicans with whom I've spoken believe that Trump's bombastic, bullying, unpresidential antics probably cost him as much as 10 percent of the vote. Let's give Trump the benefit of the doubt and say it was only 1 percent. That still equals about 1.5 million votes. And, again, he lost Georgia, Wisconsin and Arizona by a total of just more than 42,000 votes.
Nobody likes a bully, and few people like an insult comic as a president. It's quite logical to imagine that Trump's churlish, unpresidential demeanor caused at least 1 percent of the electorate to flip its votes.
Because of my own experience growing up in poverty and often being homeless as a child, I have been fortunate enough to speak to a number of poor or disenfranchised students over the years. My main message to them always has been "Life is incredibly hard. Don't make it harder by making the person in the mirror your No. 1 enemy."
In 2020, Trump made the person in the mirror his No. 1 enemy. Because of self-sabotage, he surely knows who and what cost him reelection. He needs to accept that answer and move on with his life. -
2021-06-13 at 2:12 AM UTCBusiness Insider
Watergate figure John Dean described the Trump DOJ's surveillance of House Democrats as 'Nixon on stilts and steroids'
insider@insider.com (John L. Dorman)
John Dean described the Trump DOJ's surveillance of Democrats as "Nixon on stilts and steroids."
Dean criticized Bill Barr, alleging that the former attorney general was committed to serving Trump.
Rep. Adam Schiff of California has called for "a full accounting of the Trump DOJ's abuse of power."
John Dean, the former White House counsel under the late President Richard Nixon, on Friday described the Justice Department seizing the smartphone data of Democrats on the House Intelligence Committee as "Nixon on stilts and steroids."
The comments came after The New York Times reported that the DOJ under former Attorneys General Jeff Sessions and William Barr subpoenaed Apple to gain access to the records of members of the committee.
During an appearance on CNN's Erin Burnett OutFront, Dean, who helped bring down Nixon over the Watergate scandal, said the actions of former President Donald Trump's DOJ went further than that of his former boss.
"Nixon didn't have that kind of Department of Justice," he said.
Dean then remarked on how the Nixon administration handled the 1971 leak of the Pentagon Papers, the classified documents that detailed the history of the US military and political involvement in Vietnam.
"I got a call from the Oval Office the day after he learned that, and could the Department of Justice bring a criminal action for this? Called over, found out the short answer was they could, but they won't," Dean said. "So Nixon couldn't use the department as he wanted to."
Burnett asked Dean if the actions of Trump's DOJ went "beyond what Nixon did."
"It is beyond Nixon, yes," Dean said. "It's Nixon on stilts and steroids."
Dean then laced into Barr, alleging that the former attorney general was long committed to serving Trump.
"The memo he wrote to get the job says 'I'm ready to execute your presidency like a unitary executive presidency should be,' which means no bars hold," he told Burnett. "And he did that. It's quite clear he didn't have to be told on many things."
He added: "We now know there are countless examples of norms he was willing to break."
The DOJ's Inspector General, Michael Horowitz, said in a statement Friday that his office would investigate the incident, after receiving queries from Democratic lawmakers in Congress.
"The review will examine the Department's compliance with applicable DOJ policies and procedures, and whether any such uses, or the investigations, were based upon improper considerations," the statement read. "If circumstances warrant, the OIG will consider other issues that may arise during the review."
Democratic House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff of California, a longtime political adversary of Trump who was one of the subpoena targets, on Friday called for a thorough review of the matter.
"We need a full accounting of the Trump DOJ's abuse of power targeting Congress and the press," he tweeted. "An IG investigation is just the start. The full range of the misconduct must be examined, including Barr's efforts to protect those who lied to cover up, and go after Trump's enemies." -
2021-06-13 at 2:58 AM UTCtl/drThe following users say it would be alright if the author of this post didn't die in a fire!
