On the "cooperation" front, I don't know the legal terminology, but this sure sounds like a dude who is off Team Trump and on Team Mueller to me.

Do either of you honestly think his base cares? They will see a brown man from south of the border and go rabid.

Meanwhile Trump will parade around the memory of this poor girl as a symbol why we need this ridiculous wall built.

I don't care what his base thinks, nor have I ever been all THAT concerned with short-term outcomes, to be completely honest. It's doing/being right that matters. The consequences are largely irrelevant in the big scheme. *shurg*

The twitter tirade has begun :popcorn:

Cohen must be the worst attorney on the planet, and the judge in the case must be the worst judge for letting Cohen plead guilty to a felony that wasn't even a crime!

Michael Cohen plead guilty to two counts of campaign finance violations that are not a crime. President Obama had a big campaign finance violation and it was easily settled!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) August 22, 2018

Wow. I was friends on Facebook with the farmer that the guy who murdered Tibbetts worked at. His account is not there today. Interestingly, the guy was very pro-Trump.

What did he say? (that was taken down)

I didn't see anything after the arrest. The person that gave a statement to the media (I'm assuming his brother or father?), said the killer passed e-verify.

He probably took his own profile down due to the heat they are getting, even though they didn't break the law by employing the murderer.

I don't know anything about E-verify, but can I safely assume that it should have caught the fact that this guy was in the country illegally? I'm glad we have all of these processes in place to make sure our laws are being implemented correctly.

Cohen won't accept pardon from Trump, attorney says - POLITICO

I'm guessing Cohen's mind might change once the reality of prison sets in.

If E-verify was reliable, yes it would have raised a red flag. But from what I’ve seen/heard it’s pretty good at catching people that are eligible work and not very good at catching those that are not. Legally, this farm actually went above and beyond what is required by the federal government to determine employee eligibility.

Heh, knew Trump would seize on the fact that 10 of the counts against Manafort were a mistrial.



"A large number of counts, ten, could not even be decided in the Paul Manafort case. Witch Hunt!"

Im guessing he has extended executive time today so he can feel better watching trump friends on tv.

I'm actually starting to see GOP supporters acknowledge impeachment/resignation as a possibility now. I think it's still most likely that he finishes his term, declares victory, and doesn't run for reelection. I think the wild card will be Mueller's handling of Don Jr though. If Mueller moves to indict him I can see Trump doing something that effectively ends his Presidency.

Looks like the Dems have a plan in place in any attempt by Trump to stop the Mueller investigation:


https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/don...y-plan-n902526

Why do they ever let this guy on live tv. He is completely incapable of putting a coherent thought together.

Here is his answer when asked about the payments to the porn stars he had affairs with "allegedly".

“Later on I knew. Later on. But you have to understand, what he did -- and they weren’t taken out of campaign finance, that’s the big thing. That’s a much bigger thing. Did they come out of the campaign? They didn’t come out of the campaign, they came from me. And I tweeted about it. You know, I put -- I don’t know if you know but I tweeted about the payments. But they didn’t come out of campaign. In fact, my first question when I heard about it was did they come out of the campaign because that could be a little dicey. And they didn’t come out of the campaign and that’s big."

Here's my take on this whole thing...

I have no idea if Trump actually and specifically decided that he needed to pay off this woman in an attempt to "influence the election." I think, like in any situation involving tawdry allegations against a celebrity, payoffs through publishing companies who kill stories is the way these things get done. I think what happened here is that Trump didn't really understand the difference between being a celebrity and running for office. And in fact, he still doesn't understand the difference. But in this situation, he got caught up in violations of laws he is not smart enough to understand and no one thought to bring to his attention (or, since he loves being surrounded by YES MEN, no one wanted to bring to his attention). I think he totally believes that payoffs are fine as long as the money didn't come from the campaign because that wasn't necessarily his primary motivation - it was just to keep her quiet like he's done with all the others. Except, "tarnish my reputation" potentially becomes "influence the election" when you are running for office.

I was struck by his size in that interview. He looks like he's put on a hundred pounds since the election. If he makes it to the end of even one term he may give Taft a run for his money.

But admitting the payoffs DIDN'T come from the campaign means he now has trouble with his sworn federal financial disclosures.

That's the problem with consistently lying about everything. Eventually they catch up to you as one thing will always lead to another.

Yeah it was owned by a prominent GOP family. They claim they used e-verify but as you mentioned, it's garbage.

It still goes to show that neither party really wants to stop illegal immigration.

I'm pretty sure the party of Trump and a fair percentage of his 38-42% want to stop illegal immigration (and probably reduce legal too).

Voters might but the politicians in office and their donors don't.

Okay, I can agree with this.

There's a legal and DOJ policy question about whether a sitting president can be indicted for a crime. If Giuliani and Trump believe he can't, then, maybe that could be motivation to run again. Then he has 4 years to figure out how to get a 3rd term

Now I'm hearing that they didn't use e-verify. Regardless, e-verify sucks.

Personally, we're to the point where Congress should be calling for t-dumb's resignation. It costs nothing to call for him to resign. The R's would be much better off as a party with that outcome, than a drawn out impeachment. Frankly, there's enough here, that calls for resignation would be completely warranted.

They'll wait out the mid-terms to see how they go. If those lose house you'll probably see more republicans willing to go against Trump and try to take back the party. If they lose House and Senate that's probably enough of a wake up call to get republicans on board with impeachment talks and try to reset the landscape by 2020.

My personal horror show will be all of this coming to a head right as we skate into the holidays, so that I can look forward to separate "vacations" with my parents and in-laws, during which it will take all I have in me to not kick all of them out of the house (or go stay in a hotel) as they rant and rave about how this is a travesty and Hillary should be the one whose political career ends in disgrace, not Trump's.

For my own sanity, I hope everything blows up shortly after the ball drops in NYC.

The time to start calling for resignation is actually between the end of the election and the start of the new session of Congress. I mean it takes a majority of votes to approve a vice president. But I mean we probably should just wait and see who the voters want to be the vice president in 2020.

I'm basically using Mitch McConnell logic, but they should not vote on a replacement vice president if the Democrats control both houses and Trump resigns or something

When 1st page threads collide...

michael cohen
post malone
azealia was in elon’s home
nazi prison guard deport
verdict time for manafort

🎶 we didn't start the fire 🎶

— julia reinstein 🚡 (@juliareinstein) August 21, 2018

Losing an election to this fucking lunatic is about as disgraceful an ending to a political career than one can have without ending up dead or in prison.

David Pecker, publisher of the Enquirer was subpoened and admitted that Cohen paid hush money to the two women on Trump's behalf, and Trump knew about it.

The other question is whether a sitting President can be indicted for a crime committed before he took the oath of office.

DOJ has typically taken the stance that the appropriate response for crimes in office is impeachment, followed by indictment (as appropriate) after removal from office. So that would cover the potential obstruction of justice stuff involved with his repeated attempts to depth charge the Russia investigation.

But if the investigation were to uncover crimes committed during the campaign (or earlier)? That's when the Constitutional crisis shit really hits the fan, IMO. The Trump Administration would argue that you can't impeach for crimes committed prior to his Presidency while simultaneously arguing that you can't indict a sitting President for any crimes committed, ever.

And I'm not at all certain the Congressional GOP has the stomach to take on that fight no matter HOW much smoke is coming from the barrel of that gun.

Looks like it was one holdout on those 10 charges he got off on.

Manafort juror reveals lone holdout prevented Mueller team from convicting on all counts | Fox News

Truth. Any kind of sane campaign or a little more humility and realism and this never would have happened.

With that being said, a Hillary presidency with Republicans controlling both houses in the current political climate probably wouldn't have been a utopia either.

I’ve said it before on here, there was smoke in the Hillary camp as well. Not sure if there was fire, but give; her history, I would not be surprised if there was.

I also believe that the Republican establishment is not unhappy to see things heading this way. I am very interested to see if any one contests Trump for the nomination.

All that said, if the Democrats run a center left candidate, they will win in a landslide. The problem is, they will run someone just to the right of Bernie which will make it an actual race.

It doesn't matter what happens in the next 2 years, there's a race to be had. The propaganda machine that is Fox has moved JiMGa's statements like "liberals are a bigger threat to our nation than ISIS" dangerously close to the mainstream. Sprinkle in a little DNC incompetance and who knows where we end up two years from now.

The only thing I remain convinced of is that we're never going back to "normal". We're all fucked.

That's kinda what I'm worried about, that if the left of the left has their way, they're going to say "See, the Republicans jammed the court by stealing Gorusch's seat, so we're going to add a bunch of seats to the Supreme Court, it's only fair! (since they can't REMOVE people from the Supreme Court without a supermajority, but they can sure add seats"

(Now, I'm pretty sure the Conservatives will blame it on Obama forcing through the ACA with just Dem votes, but not sure that's a good argument")

So, what we'll see is the two parties, firmly in thrall to what the other side would call "their lunatic fringe" will wildly swing between the poles, and swings will just see basically one side spending all their time undoing what the other side did and inserting their own brand of insanity.

"Illegal to Ban Gays. Medicare for All!"

versus

"Illegal to be Gay. Medicare for NONE!"

edit: I guess a better analogy would have been "JoninMiddleGA" vs "SuperLiberal Poster I can't think of right Now", but yeah, since I couldn't think of who the second was, it wouldn't work.

Or that's what the label will be on whomever is nominated. When was the last far left Dem nominee? Clinton, Gore, Kerry, Obama, Clinton? The history of the last thirty years or so is to nominate a center left candidate.

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics...-worse/568135/

If you don't know who the SuperLiberal in the room is, it's probably you. :cool:

https://www.cnn.com/2018/08/22/polit...ted/index.html


Just some amazing things in this Duncan Hunter indictment.

"I need shorts"
"Just buy them at a golf pro shop and will say it was golf balls that we bought to give to Wounded Warriors"

bingo

What do they do in college football when they found out that the champion team broke recruiting rules and had violations again?

If you were on the BoD for a company, and the board had 4 members, who had been appointed by the Chairman, who had been arrested and convicted on various crimes related to, but not directly associated with the company, do you think that you'd be all for letting it go and trusting the Chairmen to keep making decisions for your company?

FWIW, I don't think that Cohen has much on Trump that the prosecution does not already have from seizing his files.

If he did, they would not be having him and his attorney making the media circus rounds.

Also, if I am a defense lawyer (Wait, I am!), then I am SALIVATING at getting to cross-examine him. I doubt he ever testifies in Court.

(If the Dems take a house of Congress, I could see him testifying before a committee because that is more political than legal).

I have a feeling that we really only are at the tip of the iceberg too on what we think we know in regards to trump and his associates. I think there's a lot more that we're in the dark on, that will come out in time. I don't think the government really needed Cohen as a major player. They had him by the balls as it was. His guilty plea allows him to get back to his family in as short a time as they will allow. He knows full well what they have on him. The question now, is whether or not, they can pinpoint, how much trump was involved in his affairs and how much they can prove.

If the Democrats run Center Left/Republican light then their base will go 'meh' ... Trumps base will be fired up by his continuous rhetoric of fear and we'll be stuck with him for another 4 years ... frankly I'm half expecting to be stuck with him regardless it amazes me but the core of his base don't seem to care about anything he does or has done so far and I don't see why that will change.

It's not even so much of a SuperLiberal bounce back that is worrisome, as much as it is, anyone who is elected who isn't of your party. I mean. Take someone like Heitkamp, a D, but with broad support of the midwest, who acts more like an R a lot of the time, but with lots of crossover, and being a woman seems like she would be a valuable asset to cover all that middle ground. Even if she were elected, with all that middle ground, she would still be treated as if she were Hillary's right hand woman.

Trump's base is pretty fragile. Nearly everyone that I know that voted for him is looking for another option. That said, if the democrats go hard left, they will go back to Trump if there is no other viable option.

I am not sure if another candidate can beat Trump in the primaries though. I do think Trump's base is a solid 25-30% of the electorate. I am not sure you can beat that in the primary, barring some exemplary candidate.

If we're all worried about the lurches to the left and right after elections, maybe it is better that we get some milquetoast candidates.

I find it amazing that people deny things like the proven narrative here:
There were no hush payments
There were hush payments but I didn’t know about them
I did know about the payments, but they weren’t my money
I paid hush money

Whether you think it’s important or not is personal opinion, but it seems like people are denying the previous stages ever happened - that’s the scariest part to me, people are completely brainwashed.

You have a significant portion of a party's base that lives in fear. Fear of illegal immigrants, fear of their guns being taken, fear of homosexuals, fear of Muslims. You have party leaders that either live with the same fears or do their best to stoke those fears. I strongly believe this is largely why Trump's base will not abandon him. Their fear outweighs how much they care about any crimes he may have committed.

They ran a center-left candidate against Trump and lost.

...with considerable baggage and a target on her back...

Pecker has Immunity now, which is probably part of the reason Trump was up to 1 am this morning tweeting.

Curious as to why Pecker would need immunity. What crime could he have broken?

Helping Trump covering up the women's stories by buying their silence?

Chief Content Officer at the Enquirer Dylan Howard also granted immunity.

Is that a crime to take money to not report a story?

I guess maybe it's that he provided some value to Trump during his campaign which would need to be reported. So it would count as an illegal campaign contribution. Just a thought.

It's a crime to be involved in a conspiracy to break campaign finance laws.

dola

GOPers start to lay the groundwork for firing Sessions:

$1500 on Steam games! Who has the time to play that much? Also wait for the sales!

Rep. Duncan Hunter spent over $1,500 of campaign funds on @steam_games according to a copy of the indictment. pic.twitter.com/DJsthprm8w

— Jeff Landa (@JeffLanda) August 21, 2018

Waiting until after mid terms because they know that doing so prior will ensure a flip in both house and senate, which is likely anyway. Graham is such a fucking lap dog.

***modified from Twitter*** A lot of people have been wondering about his possible fiip. Would he? Would Pecker?

Clinton wasn't running as center left. She tacked hard to the left during the primaries. I am not sure what she was doing during the actual campaign.

If it's not your money why delay the gratification?

Also from Twitter:

"Feds Use Pecker to Probe Trump"

My point exactly.

It doesn't matter who the Dems nominate, they will by default be far left.

dola

This is totally fine.

https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2018...-michael-cohen


Article about why they flipped-Pecker hasn't spoken to Trump in about 8 months, and the other guy is mad at him too.

Can't wait until reporters find out why Graham has flipped so much on Trump. John McCain would not be happy with him right now.

What was "hard to the left" about her campaign?

is he on this site?
I still don't think he has more than mckerney

I mean Hillary campaigned to the right of Trump on foreign policy, trade, budget, and military. Almost all her positions were moderate with maybe a twinge to the left.

Does that include campaigning for $15/hr minimum wage? Free tuition for public colleges? Keeping the Iran deal? Supporting Unions? Taxing the rich? Supporting AWB?

Her positions were often in the left column even if they weren't far left.

I don't think those positions are far left by global standards. It's pretty center-left to me. When you mix that in with the other positions I mentioned that were on the right, she's a moderate.

I know there's some revisionist history that goes on during elections to paint a candidate to one extreme or the other, but she was one of the most (if not the most) conservative Democrat Senators during her time. Her run as SoS carried on most of the same policies the Bush Administration started.

She is and always was a moderate Democrat.

Should also add that she wasn't calling for a $15/hour minimum wage. She called for it to be $12/hour. She said she supported those people who were fighting for $15 in certain cities but that wasn't her policy position. It was one of the biggest moments of the primary debates.

From Labor and workers' rights - The Office of Hillary Rodham Clinton


ETA: Yeah I know I'm splittin hairs here, but Hillary was definitely on the left and not center-left.

So this lone juror was a die hard Trump fan? That's rich.

The key word is "over time". She added that to appease the Bernie supporters. Her proposal was to get it to $12/hour. She wrote a piece on it during the campaign.

Organizing to raise wages – Hillary for America – Medium

The whole point of pushing for a $15 minimum wage is that you are willing to settle for like 10-12$. I think the federal minimum wage is still under $8. You always aim higher then what you are willing to settle for.


That being said I fully acknowledge that a lot of people are way overpaid making minimum wage

Bullshit. The point of raising minimum wage is to get those that are under the poverty line and working up to a acceptable standard of living while also driving middle class wages up.

If middle class wages were rising $12 or even $15 per hour wouldn't seem so ridiculous. Saying anyone making minimum wage is overpaid when we have people in our society making millions doing nothing but having other people move their money around is absurd.

ping: Critch

Ha ha ha HA ha!

In addition to the Enquirer flipping on Trump, there's this gem:


Ken Thomas‏Verified account @KThomasDC 5h5 hours ago




NEW YORK (AP) — The National Enquirer kept a safe containing documents on hush money payments and other damaging stories it killed as part of its cozy relationship with Donald Trump leading up to 2016 presidential election, people familiar with the arrangement told The AP.

Hillary didn't lose because of her positions, she list because of her personality. Nominate someone younger & more charismatic, it's not rocket science... but yet we still hear about HRC, Kerry, Bernie & Joe Biden.

It's a big part of it. They need a new standard of leadership. This going back to the well of retreads it bullshit.

Oh fun!

Still (probably) not impeachable offenses but looking forward to hearing about the salacious details.

Political nominations have a lot in common with hiring of professional sports managers/coaches.

I think you're seeing the information (the real backbone of Mueller's probe and raid on Cohen's office) starting to flow out, and like a ship taking on water, there are some who are getting out now, while the getting is good. It may not sink, but they are guaranteed to make it if they leave now.

:popcorn:

To be honest, I don't think anyone is clamoring for Hillary to run again. Maybe not even her.

I do think a fresh face would be good. And let's have a new Speaker of the House if the democrats take control.

trump straight out calls on the head of the Department of Justice, to openly investigate political foes, and calls each of them out by name. The funny thing is that it almost sounds like begging.

Who was the last president to brazenly, openly, call for Justice to be used to go after people who disagreed with the president. Is this how the government was intended to be run? Is the Justice Department now just the 'capo' of the Don?

Talking about unprecedented:

https://www.vox.com/policy-and-polit...rmers-violence

Longtime Trump Organization CFO Weisselberg granted immunity in Cohen probe

The CFO of the Trump Organization has been granted immunity.

Pretty soon they will only have Trump and his family left to give immunity to :)

Looks like the end for John McCain might be sooner rather than later now:


http://thehill.com/homenews/senate/4...ncer-treatment

I don't think any family members are ever getting any immunity. :D

:( A true patriot, even if I frequently disagree with him.

BREAKING: President Trump tweets that he has asked Sec. Pompeo to not go on his planned next trip to North Korea "because I feel we are not making sufficient progress with respect to the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula." https://t.co/kdrUxk2XiK

— NBC News (@NBCNews) August 24, 2018

While this may not sound great, I'm not exactly sure why we'd need to make progress on a situation Trump had already solved.