Donald Trump’s Reckoning Has Arrived: Not Impeachment but the FBI Will Bring Him Down

NorthReport wrote:

MSNBC News on Trump is the best comedy show in decades. It's hilarious. Their latest: he has fathered his housekeepers's child .

https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2018/08/24/donald-trump-allen-we...

He and Arnold have something in common.  

If my name were Pecker I would punish the world by buying the National Enquirer too!

From above:

"Here's the bottom line: There's a very good chance that the public will never know what it doesn't know. 'Those Americans out there who are waiting for Robert Mueller to give us the full truth of what happened in terms of the Russian attack on the US,' Corn warns, 'we're likely not to be satisfied."

LOL.  Big nothingburger. No 'collusion', no impeachment. Once again, thanks to a steady diet of mainstream corporate media bullshit on this for the past two years, you got played!

Be Careful What You Ask For: Wasting Time With Manafort, Cohen and Russiagate

https://www.counterpunch.org/2018/08/24/be-careful-what-you-ask-for-wast...

"...The Democrats much prefer to have Trump in office to kick around politically. The most likely scenario is that they will make a cloakroom agreement with Republicans not to go too far, while they continue to whip up Trump-Putin 'Russiagate' fever among their constituency. They will continue to stoke anticipation of a smoking 'collusion' gun from Mueller, which will probably never come. The Democrats are not really after impeaching Trump, they are after stringing along their progressive voters.

In the meantime, the delightful Trump-effect - his constant embarrassment of American political self-righteousness and discomfiting of both political parties - will continue apace.  We are now entering a turning point in the bizarre and flimsy 'Russiagate' narrative. I've been asked to comment on that a number of times over the past two years, and each time I or one of my fellow commentators would say, 'Why are we still talking about this?' It was originally conjured up as a Clinton campaign attack on Trump, but, to my and many others' surprise and chagrin, it somehow morphed into the central theme of political opposition to Trump's presidency.

Now, with the Manafort and Cohen convictions the Russiagate discourse is moving to a new stage, and it's unlikely that we will ever stop talking about it, as long as Trump is president. Nothing good can come of it. Our country is in, and on the verge of, multiple crises that threatens to destroy it. That Donald Trump is a Russian agent is not one of them. Political time is precious. 

What a waste."

If Trump Falls, the Testimonies of Cohen, Pecker and Weisselberg Could Spark an anti-Semitic Backlash

https://www.haaretz.com/us-news/.premium-if-trump-falls-some-testimonies...

"...The name of the lawyer who implicated Donald Trump in the commission of federal crimes is Cohen. The name of the publisher who has agreed to tell investigators how he turned his newspaper into a clearinghouse for Cohen's payments to women is Pecker. And the name of the accountant who has been granted immunity in order to testify about the role played by the Trump organization in Cohen's endeavors is Weisselberg. The common denominators of Cohen, Pecker and Weisselberg, beside their willingness to do whatever it takes for Trump in the past and their apparent willingness to inform on him now, is that all three are indisputably and recognizably Jewish.

American Jewish organizations were quick to call out Trump for the suspected anti-Semitic messages in his statements and campaign [ pre-election]...With the prodding of Netanyahu and the vouching of Sheldon Adelson...Trump's disturbing words were swept under the carpet of his decidedly pro-Israeli policies. The Jewishness of the three former Trump aides who have now decided to testify against him could mar the artificial tranquility and, in a worst-case scenario, spark a dangerous wave of anti-Semitism. American Jewish leaders would do well to prepare for such a stormy day, as would Netanyahu, who has placed all of his prestige on Trump and the American right. 

If Netanyahu is forced to choose between the adminisration's pro-settler, anti-Palestinian policies and his duty to fight anti-Semitism and stand up for beleagured American Jews, they would do well to start seeking their salvation elsewhere."

And I'll also say that I think it takes a bit of shoe-horning to describe Pecker as fitting the stereotype of a Jewish smut-peddler. The National Enquirer is considered low-brow, but not really the equivalent of Al Goldstein's Screw Magazine.

Why not write a letter to Haaretz and ask them if 'their pre-existing hatred of Jews caused them to latch onto a scandal involving Jews to further their agenda?' Perhaps also write to Washington Post or New York Times or CNN and ask them if they have also 'latched on to this scandal to further their agendas'? Seems like worthwhile questions to ask? I'd certainly be interested in the answers.

I'm not sure what your point is here. Can anything I've written be used to furher the idea that I think Haaretz and the NYT are among those who could be accused of anti-semitism? Even as an ad absurdum of my argument, that doesn't make any sense.

To reiterate, I agree with Haaretz that the case could provoke anti-semitism, though I'd qualify it by saying that the anti-semites would have to already be inclined that way. And I don't think the anti-semitism would invalidate the investigation itself.

And just to be clear, if I'm reading Haaretz correctly, it's the ANTI-Mueller side who are likely to harbour anti-semites, because they'd be mad at Cohen etc for tunring against their hero. 

voice of the damned wrote:

Kavanagh wrote:

Donald Trump is a horrid political specimen. I witnessed his flourishing into apex narcissism and corruption over decades in New York City, as chronicled by the dogged reporter, Wayne Barrett, and I would be surprised if there weren’t financial crimes in his closet that any competent prosecutor could ferret out. Anyone who knows his history knows that this is the kind of dirt the Mueller investigation was most likely to find on Donald Trump; anyone who’s honest knows that this is the kind of dirt it was meant to find. Russiagate was a pretext to dig around everywhere in his closet.

Wait a minute. Russiagate is a pretext for digging up other dirt from Trump's closet? I thought the anti-anti-Trump analysis was that Russiagate was the whole point of the investigation, with the geopolitical aim of kickstarting a new Cold War. Now, we're hearing that the end goal is really just demonizing Trump himself?

Since when is catching a crook demonizing?  Russian money is the fulcrum of the case.  Money laundering, bank fraud and tax evasion flows from it.

josh wrote:

voice of the damned wrote:

Kavanagh wrote:

Donald Trump is a horrid political specimen. I witnessed his flourishing into apex narcissism and corruption over decades in New York City, as chronicled by the dogged reporter, Wayne Barrett, and I would be surprised if there weren’t financial crimes in his closet that any competent prosecutor could ferret out. Anyone who knows his history knows that this is the kind of dirt the Mueller investigation was most likely to find on Donald Trump; anyone who’s honest knows that this is the kind of dirt it was meant to find. Russiagate was a pretext to dig around everywhere in his closet.

Wait a minute. Russiagate is a pretext for digging up other dirt from Trump's closet? I thought the anti-anti-Trump analysis was that Russiagate was the whole point of the investigation, with the geopolitical aim of kickstarting a new Cold War. Now, we're hearing that the end goal is really just demonizing Trump himself?

Since when is catching a crook demonizing?  Russian money is the fulcrum of the case.  Money laundering, bank fraud and tax evasion flows from it.

Yeah, I don't think Mueller is demonizing Trump at all. I'm just saying that Kavanagh's analysis in that article is the reverse of what is normally argued by the anti-anti-Trump crowd(by which I mean, left-wingers who think going after Trump is a red herring). They normally say that Trump is being targeted as a means to demonizing Russia; Kavanaugh says that Russia is being targeted as a means to demonizing Trump.

As I've said before, I think that if the "deep state" were simply trying to get a war drum going against Russia, they'd do something other than fabricate outright lies about a sitting president. There's all sorts of stuff you could concoct, that doesn't undermine the White House, if that were your agenda. 

The only other explanation for this being nothing more than a politically motivated witch hunt would be that Trump himself is such a threat to the powers-that-be, they'll do anything to bring him down. I don't find that one very credible either.

Trump Deathwatch, the Latest Edition

https://www.counterpunch.org/2018/08/31/trump-deathwatch-the-latest-edit...

"...And on and on, and on, it goes..."

NorthReport wrote:

https://thetyee.ca/Opinion/2018/08/29/David-Frum-Politics-Truth/

David Frum, much like his old boss George W. Bush (and the late John McCain), should not be allowed to rhetorically redeem himself by condemning Trump after helping the previous worst president ever launch the Iraq war. Soliciting his opinion on anything is like having Osama bin Laden appear on a talk show to condemn ISIS.

NorthReport wrote:

https://thetyee.ca/Opinion/2018/09/06/Internal-Soft-Coup-No-Answer-Trump/

An anonymous op-ed column in The New York Times, purportedly by a senior Trump official, claims that an internal “resistance” is keeping Trump from going completely off the rails and dragging the country with him.

Arriving the day after the first reports about Bob Woodward’s new book Fear: Trump in the White House, the op-ed seems almost too well timed. It confirms Woodward’s sources, who say much the same thing — that Trump’s aides despise him but hang on to save the Republic from their boss, and their boss from himself.

https://youtu.be/jaCdyuSt1Ps?t=3738

starting at around 1:03:00 here, obama makes the point that even if there are people in the white house "protecting" the republic from the worst of the trumpian madnes, that is not how checks & balances are supposed to work. it should be the congress holding the president to account; and if they won't then the people holding the congress to account.

that this is the reality we see unfolding is truly madness.

NDPP wrote:

I don't think the op-ed was written by a Trump official but by the NYT itself. It's what they do.

Everyone knows Trump's a stable genius!!!!!