I think they would in this case. Sessions was one of them for a long time and has allies in the Senate. They want leverage over Trump to keep him in check and this is one area where they have leverage over him.

Not really sure where else to put this, but here seems appros.


How are we not talking about this today?


https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/...iev/654823002/


Russia has it's hands dirty in this entire thing now. It's been no secret that they've been assassinating opponents for years, and it's no secret that Trump also views the media with similar disdain and would love the kind of power that Putin wields. Here now, a sting to catch Russia in the act. It's an incredible story.

I had heard about the journalist being killed, but not about his "rebirth" Not sure I have much problem with this-seen a few journalist group and of course Russia be critical, but what was he just supposed to let the assassin kill him?


It's made people in the West more aware of the lengths Russia will go to influence world events-can't say there's anything wrong with that either.

Cohen's lawyers/Avernatti appeared in court today to argue whether Avernatti should be admitted to the government's Cohen trial. Judge told him he would have to quit "his publicity tour" if he wanted to be admitted. About an hour later, he withdrew his request to be admitted.


Meanwhile the FBI is reconstructing documents from a shredder and expect to enter them to be reviewed by the Special Master.


FBI is reconstructing shredded documents from 'raid' on Michael Cohen: 'This will not end well for the defense'


https://www.cnn.com/2018/05/30/polit...our/index.html

1 million pieces and counting. Cohen is likely super fucked.

and here you go

Donald J. Trump on Twitter: "Bob Iger of ABC called Valerie Jarrett to let her know that “ABC does not tolerate comments like those� made by Roseanne Barr. Gee, he never called President Donald J. Trump to apologize for the HORRIBLE statements made and said about me on ABC. Maybe I just didn’t get the call?"

It's more the extent that the Ukraine went to prove that it was indeed Russia that is behind these hits. The fact that his wife wasn't in on it must have been a brutal thing and could have really hurt his marriage. Ukraine is the testing ground for Russia's new attacks on the west and the cyber war. I posted a great article about this earlier. That they caught the person responsible for making the payments and ordering the hit, and got more information pertaining to multiple planned hits on opposition journalists that makes it more damning.



This is the kind of government that is a direct threat to the Republic we have. You can make direct parallels between trump's desires and this style of strong man leadership where assassinations of opposition voices are a regular thing. How many times has trump suggested that anyone who opposes him should 'go away'?

It is always weird seeing Gowdy when he shows up in the interviews on some episodes of Forensic Files. Speaking how he sees it seems to be true to how he was on there as well.

Kind of crazy to see how far he fell. Navy sea, Rhodes Scholar, believe he received a Bronze Star, and was doing a bunch of charitable work. Guy could have been a Presidential candidate with that resume in 2024.

Also got some expert opinion on crucial subjects today:

Great meeting with @KimKardashian today, talked about prison reform and sentencing. pic.twitter.com/uOy4UJ41JF

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) 30. Mai 2018

At least someone is talking about it

Trump's steel tariffs provoke retaliation from biggest US allies

Can someone comfort me and tell me that this is good for the US?

Because we've been soft and sissy for the last 240 years and Trump is here to show them who is boss. And this is showing them. #MAGA

After meeting Kim Kardashian to discuss prison reform, Donald Trump reveals schedule for the rest of the week: pic.twitter.com/TYIcihnYKO

— Have I Got News For You (@haveigotnews) May 31, 2018

I am sure I am in the minority on this one, but it brings me such joy that the daughter of a member of OJ Simpson's Dream Team was in the White House discussing these issues.

It’s good if you own a steel producing business...not so much if you don’t.

It sounds like Kardashian was discussing a singular case. There is a 63 year old woman in prison for the rest of her life on her first drug offense. KK is trying to get her pardoned.

Not sure if it expanded out from there to what the tweet presents, but I wouldnt doubt it.

I don't see what the uproar is over Kardashian. She had an issue and talked about it.

The Blagojevich thing would be bad. He was treated fairly and committed those crimes.

Good old Ted Cruz using his influence to get a racist felon pardoned.

NEW: @DineshDSouza tells me the backstory of his pardon. @tedcruz told him at dinner approx 1 month ago he would pitch it to Trump and that it all came together in recent days. Trump called him last night to tell him "you got screwed" and pardoned him. https://t.co/xNPk3UJ2xy pic.twitter.com/ZSJtvFq5in

— Saagar Enjeti (@esaagar) May 31, 2018

Because American society respects Kim Kardashian's intellect on prison reform or any other issue?

Public opinion must have changed on her. If that is the case, I stand corrected.

Did you see the candidate for congress running in VA? He is an admitted pedophile, and said he raped his wife and there is a grain of truth about an incestuous relationship with his daughter.
He called Hitler a "White supremacist hero."
His platform includes legalizing incest and child pornography.

Where is a our society going?

wow how did he get past the primary? Sounds more like he should be in jail than Congress.

He is running as an independent

This has got to be one for the record books. Oil industry joins with solar and wind industry to condemn Trump admin plan to prop up coal industry by forcing electric grid to buy coal power. Oil/wind/solar as allies? Fascinating times. pic.twitter.com/PmTRyw70SK

— Eric Lipton (@EricLiptonNYT) June 1, 2018

lol Trump folks are trying to find a low visibility way to pay for Kim's 5 star hotel in Singapore.

To be fair, the oil companies are investing heavily in alternative energy.

The government is really holding this country back. What happened to free enterprise/ Why is government propping up a 2 century old industry when their are energy ideas that would be fantastic.

Sometimes I wonder.

Oh boy, I bet Paul Ryan is furious too!

Elites in Washington should NOT be picking winners & losers—that’s a recipe for a closed economy—for cronyism.https://t.co/AcHJfVRwTE

— Paul Ryan (@SpeakerRyan) July 28, 2016

Same reason why politicians never get frank about many things, including in this case the direction economics are inevitably going to go in with globalization. You just aren't, in any modern political environment, going to win by telling people unfriendly truths. It's much easier by comparison to prop up their particular sector with myopic policy.

There are many flaws relatively unique to Trump, but this isn't one of them.

Holy sh*t

Pedophile can run for Congress, thanks to McAuliffe decision restoring felons' rights | Fox News

This is such a fallacyof thinking. As long as there has been government this has existed. In fact, the American west would never have been explored, settled and developed without substantial subsidies from the government. They did choose, for the benefit of the nation. Private enterprise, would have taken decades longer. There was simply no incentive to do it outside of the already developed areas. The government is responsible to help technology get off the ground if it's advancing humankind. It can't all be done though a profit motive.

Now, what I said doesn't really go with what you said though. In this case, coal is on the outs. I was more addressing the government's need to help pick winners and losers and the fallacy that it's somehow new or socialist, when it's in fact, what helped this country evolve as quickly as it did.

I agree. Im not saying the federal government has always been a roadblock. But these days it seems to be more of a roadblock than an enhancer.

I love the alternative energy people trying to poin that out.

There can't possibly be nearly as many people/voters in the US still attached to or dependent from the coal industry as are other branches of energy production ?* I know that minority is more likely to vote for him, but it still seems weird that he seems to concentrate on niche industries so persistently (i mean, the whole steel tarrif thing is similar, isn't it ? In that it benefits a comparatively small number of businesses compared to those projected to struggle due to this)

* Honestly curious. I lived throught a pretty major process of deindustrialization in my home region (Ruhr region, around Dortmund), which was one of the biggest coal mining and steel producing regions in the World for a long time and those industries absolutely dominated live around here until pretty much the 1970s/80s but then got shut down bit by bit until like the early 00s. So i know how much of a hot button issue this can be. Heck, i went on protest marches with my dad and grandfather who both worked in coal mining.

Speaking of the steel tariffs...interesting coincidence:

Trump’s 10% tariff increase on Canadian aluminum (among other metal tariffs on US allies) comes weeks after he saved Russia’s aluminum giant, Rusal, from disaster by granting a sanctions reprieve to its oligarch owner, Oleg Deripaska. https://t.co/C1dnJhy9k5

— Zev Shalev (@ZevShalev) May 31, 2018

By the way, after seeing this, and yesterday's pre-job report tweets, I'm wondering if Trump is doing some "insider trading" from the White House. He knows the markets will raise and lower based off what he says and does so why not put money into it ahead of time.

It's been 22 days since there was a public sighting of Melania Trump. She was supposed to go to Camp David this weekend with Trump but did not go. Everybody come up with their best Trump-like conspiracy story about where she is now.

Sticking with my overdose assumption, followed by rehab.

I guess the whole thing about her husband banging a porn star while she was pregnant is really hitting her hard.

Since the moment we were told on a Monday that she was going to spend the rest of the week in the hospital, I've been operating on the assumption that whatever medical issue she had in mid-May was significantly worse than we were led to believe. Seemed fairly obvious that it was more than a routine procedure on a benign problem.

Ben, you're doing it wrong. CONSPIRACY! (You're explanation is probably dead-on, though.)

She tried to cut off Cheeto Mussolini's ding-dong, got shot by the SS and has been in recovery ever since. Orange Julius has already given her a pardon so there won't be any investigation. Now that's how you do a conspiracy! ;)

(Sorry for all the food references...I'm hungry.)

Carter for the win

New internet accounts are Russian ops designed to sway U.S. voters, experts say
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/nati...212299529.html

Didn't think of this but good possibility.

I'm surprised nothing has leaked yet.

yeah given the huge amount of people who would have to keep the "conspiracy" quiet, hard to believe really that its anything but harmless/not a story. But then given we are talking about the Trumps...

How long do bruises typically take to heal?

We got a weekend at donald's type situation.


I bet she tried to kill herself, which is really sad

In tofay’s version of Trump logic, the FBI is to blame for him hiring Manafort 🤦🏻‍♂️

With our Gov resigning and the talk of him giving clemency and pardons on hos last day in office, I was wondering if a Gov or President could pardon themselves? I assume no looking back at Nixon and the Illinois governors, but Im wondering if they could.

No, Nixon's own people in the justice department told him he couldn't.

There's a strong constitutional argument that he could not, but, nobody's ever tried it. So, Trump certainly could pardon himself, then it's just a matter if it got in front of the Supreme Court and what they thought (and he could appoint another justice or two by then).

Trump is certainly going to try it if charges are brought.

His arguments for is inability to obstruct or to pardon himself seem like they fail the checks and balances arguments for government itself. That kind of power makes it seem like he has power that is answerable to no one. That simply doesn't exist in our government.

Melania has been found:


http://thehill.com/homenews/administ...lies-on-monday

Let me be the first to suggest that the next Dem President shoot Gorsuch and replace him with Garland.

#trumplegal

yes yes because according to Rudy that he/she can't be indicted, and Rudy is always right. Right?

Senator Merkley (Oregon) went to inspect a federal facility where they are keeping immigrant families and was denied entry and had the police called on him:


Sen. Jeff Merkley denied entry to immigrant detention center

I don't think this is really the case. Nobody is saying he can't be impeached -- the argument is just about whether that's the only remedy or whether there are others. Clearly the POTUS is answerable to the electorate(2020 elections) and Congress(via impeachment). For situations like the Comey firing, I think the President is legitimately in a unique position. He can't recuse himself a la Sessions because he's the only one with the constitutional authority to take action. It's really a thorny area IMO, because if the President terminates a legitimate investigation that's definitely abuse of his power, but possibly not in that specific case obstruction. On the other hand if he can't terminate what he finds to be a baseless investigation, or fire an inept cabinet member/law enforcement official/etc. because of such accusations then he can't carry out his proper constitutional duties of the office he holds.

Of course I don't trust Trump as far as I can throw him to make the proper ethical call on any of these issues, but it's quite interesting as a matter of constitutional law.


I'm curious what this argument is. I've never ready anything in the Constitution that limits in the slightest who the president can pardon and who he can't.

There's definitely nothing in the constitution that expressly forbids a self-pardon, and nobody's ever tried it so there's no caselaw. But law professors who have weighed in talk about how the constitution has to be interpreted in the context of the common law, a fundamental tenant of which is that one cannot stand judgment of themselves. And, the concept of a pardon, as traced back through the common law, going back to England, assumes a grantee and a grantor, and that they must be different people.

And there's a few examples of this kind of thing scattered throughout the constitution. Like the Vice President presides over impeachments, unless it's the president being impeached, then the Chief Justice presides. So if a Vice President is impeached, could he preside over his own impeachment? It seems like that's a no - if he can't preside over the president's impeachment, it's hard to argue that the constitution permits him preside over his OWN impeachment, even though the constitution does not expressly forbid it. It would just be contrary to the legal world as the framers understood it under the common law. That general concept is why most of Nixon's lawyers thought he couldn't self-pardon.

There's also historical evidence that there was a lot of debate about the pardon power generally when it came to the constitution. Specifically, whether anyone should have that power, and if so, which branch should have it, and should there be any checks by other branches. There was some documented argument that the president alone should hold the power, and the check on that power is impeachment and prosecution. Which was sold as a crazy new idea in the U.S., as the British pardon power upon which our pardon power is based didn't even conceive of a self-pardon because the King by definition could not commit a crime in the first place. So, if there was no self-pardon in England, then there could only be a self-pardon in the U.S. if the framers ADDED that provision. And there's no evidence that they intended to do that. Especially considering how we know that they did not view a president like a King, it was a much more limited position, so presumably the pardon power would also be, if anything, more limited than it was in England - but definitely not a STRONGER power.

So obviously it's all a little convoluted and based upon historical sources, but, that's the only way to analyze a constitutional provision which has never been weighed in on by the appellate courts.

That was great. Thanks, molson.

Yep, that was a fantastic breakdown, molson.

Howard Schultz to step down as executive chairman at Starbucks - reportedly considering a 2020 presidential run. Now that would be interesting, IMO.

Uh what?

As part of the absurd assertion to the lack of any limits on Presidential Power, Rudy Giuliani said that President Trump could shoot James Comey and not be prosecuted for it.

Trump and Giuliani are a good match for each other. Do you think he comes up with this stuff on his own or Trump tells him to say it.

Absurd stuff for anyone to say.

So the Eagles have been disinvited to the White House tomorrow. So as not to disappoint their fans, they are going to hold a ceremony for them instead, "one that honors our great country, pay tribute to the heroes who fight to protect it, and loudly and proudly play National Anthem."


https://www.cnn.com/2018/06/04/polit...nfl/index.html

That moron really needs to go.

Good. I'd rather they not go anyway.

Rumor is that only about 10 were going to go anyway.

Don't have a link yet, but Mueller has asked a judge to raise Manafort's bail or put him in jail over using "encrypted messaging apps to tamper with witnesses


Link: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/04/u...tampering.html

...and now it makes sense why Trump drudges up the ol’ anthem stuff on a Monday evening.

And tweeted about Manafort too.

Unless Brady is there to suck him off, Trump isn't inviting a professional football team to the White House while he's there.

They're all soooo damned stupid.

Can't wait to hear what a great American Ovechkin is when the Caps visit the White House.

None of the Eagles kneeled last year.

DOLA:

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/04/w...imes&smtyp=cur

Wait, did the Eagles win the Superbowl or fend of an Invasion by NK ?

But there was one guy who did it in the preseason (eventually got cut) so this is still totally justified.

/sarcasm

No problem though, Fox News has just decided that they'll show Eagles kneeling in prayer when spinning this for Trump.

Like Donald Trump, Fox News gets caught lying about Eagles | NJ.com

Now that they realize how badly they've been played, now would be a fantastic time for the owners to come out and say "you know what? We messed up. The players can do whatever they want."

I think it's pretty clear he decided to cancel after he figured out how few people were actually planning on showing up. They didn't quit, I fired them!

I think they bought a hotel somewhere in California?

Sadly we now have to wait 10 days for the hearing on revoking Manafort's bail.

So Trump bungles God Bless America at his celebration of patriotism or whatever the hell he called it.

Dennis Rodman will be attending the summit in Singapore.

Summary of the Trump Presidency: I have NO idea if this is serious or a joke. I have to go check it.

This whole Eagles thing is so bizarre ... It is exactly the sort of thing you see in dictatorial regimes.


Excluding how weird it is that Rodman essentially seems to have made it his life choice to do a Hasselhoff here (well, only real), the guy likely has infinitely more knowledge on North Korea and Kim than Trump will ever (bother to) aquire.

Alan Dershowitz: “The President wasn’t wrong when he said I want loyalty from my Attorney General. It’s the constitution that’s wrong for allowing that kind of a division to occur.”

The White House aide who mocked John McCain and never apologized for it publicly was let go from the White House:


https://www.cnn.com/2018/06/05/polit...use/index.html

TBF she did try to apologize to daughter.

It was certainly dis-respectful and unprofessional but don't think that rises to a termination (unless there's a pattern). But those are the breaks in a Trump WH.

I actually like this.

Rodman has had the relationship with the crazy kid for now so I think it helps and not hurt.

Plus, he's likely smart enough not to think of him as crazy.

Touche ... or he is getting all the NK women he wants from a fan who happens to be the supreme leader of NK.

yeah that's what I meant by publicly. Apparently she was told her job was safe. Oh look another lie coming from this White House.

Something big must be coming down the pipe VERY soon from Mueller and team. Trump’s twitter fingers are all over the place and in abundance the past few days. Even more so than usual.

That Rodman story is built on a single anonymous quote. Maybe it's true, but there isn't much there.

About 120,000 names were somehow left off voter rolls in LA for the primaries tonight. They are given people provisional ballots and calling for polls to stay open past closing. Going to be an extra-long week or two to get those results. Cue a Trump voter fraud tweet in 3,2,1,,,

Looks like Ivanka's trademarks went through.

EXCLUSIVE: ZTE has signed an agreement in principle with U.S. that would lift Commerce Department ban; U.S. will claim penalty of as much as $1.7 billion - sources pic.twitter.com/GGgWnqsWl9

— Reuters Business (@ReutersBiz) June 5, 2018

The Dems just flipped another seat in Missouri, a State Senate District Trump won in 2016 by 5%, the Dem tonight won by 20%. For all those saying blue wave was dwindling, this is evidence to contrary. 42nd red to blue flip since Trump elected.

— Matthew Dowd (@matthewjdowd) June 6, 2018

Ithink that is related more to the Grietens controversy than Trump

Mitch McConnell eliminating the August recess means that he thinks that it is at least possible (maybe not likely, but possible) that the GOP will lose the House or Senate in November.

If the GOP internals were showing that they'd lose seats but keep the chambers, I think he'd be more likely to let his people off to campaign.

It's just one data point, but I do find it telling.

On the flip side, you look at House seats in CA and under pressure incumbent republicans like Nunes were still well over 50% on the primary and I didn't see any indication of a blue wave happening.

I still think it's typical Dem smugness that will come back to bite them, unless there's a big hit the economy takes between now and then.

It seems that as long as a celebrity speaks out for you, you can get a pardon.

https://www.cnn.com/2018/06/06/polit...nce/index.html

ETA: Actually it's commutation.