COLLECTIVE MADNESS


“Soft despotism is a term coined by Alexis de Tocqueville describing the state into which a country overrun by "a network of small complicated rules" might degrade. Soft despotism is different from despotism (also called 'hard despotism') in the sense that it is not obvious to the people."

Monday, April 09, 2018

Hungary Update: Hungary's liberals brace for a torrid four years ( Sounds Good, Doesn't it ? )

Hungary's liberals brace for a torrid four years after Orbán's landslide

Crushing victory means PM now has power to remould Hungary and possibly even the entire EU

Viktor Orbán embarks on another four years in power newly emboldened, after winning a crushing victory in a parliamentary vote on Sunday that will give him the power to remould Hungary.

With most of the votes counted by Monday morning, a two-thirds majority looks likely for Orbán’s Fidesz party, which will allow the government to pass constitutional changes. The party won 49% of the vote in the national list and took the majority of constituency mandates, a far better performance than even Fidesz insiders were expecting.

For Hungary’s beleaguered liberals, who were unable to overcome internal divisions to unite against Fidesz and were trounced at the polls, a torrid four years are in store.

“This is the absolute worst-case scenario,” said Zsuzsanna Szelényi, a former independent MP. “This new majority coupled with the high turnout will mean Fidesz feels more legitimate, and Orbán will be able to use this new strength in its dealings with Brussels.”

Over the past eight years, Orbán has been accused of backsliding on democratic norms, appointing loyalists to head previously independent institutions, and taking indirect control of much of the media market. With Fidesz extremely strong in parliament, this is likely to continue. After a speech in March in which Orbán promised to seek “moral, political and legal amends” against his enemies after the election, nobody can say they were not warned. 

“Orbán does not like to have islands of autonomy around him, and so in this new term we can see further moves against those that are remaining, including NGOs and the judiciary, which is still fairly independent,” said Szelényi.

Orbán will see the result as a resounding endorsement of the single-issue campaignhe ran on immigration, using far-right rhetoric to claim the opposition would allow mass migration, and that this would bring more terrorism, rape and other crime to Hungary. The message was disseminated relentlessly by the state media and government-funded billboards. Now that he has won, it is unlikely that the rhetoric will be toned down.

First on the agenda could be the controversial “stop Soros” set of laws. Meant to combat the supposed nefarious plots of the Hungarian-American financier George Soros to undermine Hungary, they could be put before parliament in the coming weeks. The bill would subject all foreign funding for immigration-related advocacy or support to a 25% tax, and would also give the interior ministry the right to close down organisations it believed were a national security risk. 
“Many of those organisations who camouflage themselves as human rights groups that are trying to help people to get rid of their misery are actually helping to foster illegal migration,” said Orbán’s spokesman, Zoltán Kovács, before the vote.
Civil society representatives have said the bill is fundamentally different from previous pieces of legislation aimed at the sector, which were stigmatising but could be sidestepped. 

Even before the official results were announced on Sunday night, Kovács told the Hungarian website Index that “organisations interfering with politics need to be shut down”. On Monday morning, a Fidesz spokesman said on state television that parliament would pass the law in May. At risk are the few remaining NGOs who offer legal or humanitarian assistance for migrants and refugees.

Ákos Hadházy, co-chair of the liberal LMP party, said he was stepping down after the vote, and refused to congratulate Fidesz or Orbán, saying the election was neither fair nor honest. “There will be grave political and economic consequences to follow, and Hungary is close to no longer being part of the EU,” he said.

Many observers believe that rather than the EU changing Hungary, there is more chance of a newly emboldened Orbán winning ground in his battle to reshape the EU. Although Orbán’s political language is of the far right, his Fidesz party is part of the European People’s party bloc in Brussels, a centre-right grouping that includes Angela Merkel’s Christian Democratic Union party. 

Orbán’s new mandate will make it more unlikely that Brussels will be able to hold him to account over democratic backsliding. András Tóth-Czifra of the European Stability Initiative thinktank said European leaders will now feel there is no alternative to Orbán, which will make it harder to apply pressure and will give him more leeway to brush off criticism.

“This in turn will encourage parties like the Front National, Dutch Freedom party, Austrian Freedom party and the AfD [Alternative for Germany] to call for policies like Orban’s, and cow more and more EPP politicians into adopting these policies themselves,” said Tóth-Czifra.

126 comments:

  1. Any enemy of George Soros is a friend of mine.

    ReplyDelete
  2. First on the agenda could be the controversial “stop Soros” set of laws. Meant to combat the supposed nefarious plots of the Hungarian-American financier George Soros to undermine Hungary, they could be put before parliament in the coming weeks. The bill would subject all foreign funding for immigration-related advocacy or support to a 25% tax, and would also give the interior ministry the right to close down organisations it believed were a national security risk.

    :)

    ReplyDelete
  3. BobMon Apr 09, 07:34:00 AM EDT
    Diamond and Silk were fired up on Fox News this morning.

    Royally pissed, and for good reason.

    I hope Quirk caught it.

    He's often a year or two behind the times, but is capable of catching up.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies

    BobMon Apr 09, 07:36:00 AM EDT
    The topic came up as to who created Diamond and Silk ?

    In excited thunderous voices:

    "WE CREATED DIAMOND AND SILK WE CREATED US!!!!!!!!!"

    :)

    ReplyDelete
  4. .

    Diamond and Silk were fired up on Fox News this morning.

    OOPS!!!!!!

    “That is not the graphic we are looking for. Hold off. Take that down, please.” \

    Fox News accidentally displays graphic showing it is least trusted cable network

    Fox News has inadvertently posted a graphic showing it trails other cable news networks in trustworthiness.

    During a segment on Sunday on Media Buzz, host Howard Kurtz was discussing with the Republican pollster Frank Luntz a Monmouth University poll which asked respondents if the media regularly or occasionally reports fake news.

    The graphic that came up on screen showed results from another question, about what cable news outlets respondents trusted more. Fox News was last at 30%, behind CNN and MSNBC, both regular targets of attacks by President Donald Trump.

    Kurtz, the author of a recent, admiring book about the Trump White House, realized the mistake.

    “That is not the graphic we are looking for,” he said. “Hold off. Take that down, please.”


    .


    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Not surprising at all.

      Monmouth University students are widely recognized as brain dead snow flakes.

      Delete
    2. .

      And yet FOX quotes them when it suits them. What does that say about FOX?

      .

      Delete
    3. .

      In that sense, FOX and Douglissa are two peas in a pod.

      .

      Delete
  5. Check out Drudge Report right now.....there's Diamond and Silk with The Donald, all smiles !

    ReplyDelete
  6. John Bolton's first day on the job.

    He's in heaven, selecting Syrian targets as I type.

    ReplyDelete
  7. .

    Here's a conspiracy theory for you.

    Syria?

    False flag.

    Trump talks about getting out and the powers that be (Israel, the Neocons, the 'militants' we have been in bed with in Syria and Iraq, et al) can't have that.

    It's been all Israel up to this point but Trump is too dumb to stay out of it.

    .

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. The part about Israel. You may be right though that we ought to just stay out of it. It seems a little late for my No Fly Safe Zones, being Russians and their planes are all over the place.

      Delete
    2. Well, maybe not.

      Expect Trump To Strike Syrian Forces Again, With The Same Result

      ....All of this should compel civilized nations to band together and stop these fiends. But America at this moment has a special responsibility. Despite the gains from Assad and his Russian and Iranian patrons in Syria in the last two years, the war is far from over. For example, the territory east of the Euphrates River that the U.S. and its mainly Kurdish allies have liberated from the Islamic State is not yet under Assad’s boot.

      Here the U.S. has a chance to at least give these newly freed towns and cities a kind of safe haven. There is a precedent to do so. Like Trump, George H.W. Bush decided he wanted no part in trying to liberate Iraq after driving Saddam Hussein’s army out of Kuwait in 1991. After Saddam interpreted this policy as a green light to punish the Kurds in northern Iraq though, Bush changed course when Kurdish families were driven into the mountains. Bush established a no-fly zone and the U.S. began to protect this Iraqi minority in the period between the two gulf wars. While the Kurdistan Regional Government today is far from perfect, it is far better off because Bush changed his mind....


      https://hotair.com/headlines/archives/2018/04/expect-trump-strike-syrian-forces-result/

      Delete
    3. I surely hope Assad gets his one of these days. His old man was perhaps even worse. Hard to say.

      Delete
  8. There is no upside for the US in Syria. Had we left Iraq and Syria alone, there never would have been ISIS.

    We would have $5 trillion less debt.

    There would be 3 million less migrants in Europe.

    Saddam, Qadaffi and Assad all knew their own peopl. We didn't.

    We can't handle Honduras, California, Salvador, Hillary Clinton nor our southern border.

    We can't handle our FBI, NSA, DOJ and Chicago nor keep our ships from colliding or our training aircraft from crashing.

    We are no longer dependent on ME oil. We went from Know How to No Way in a generation and a half.

    ReplyDelete
  9. Our FBI is at war with our president.

    The F.B.I. on Monday raided the office of President Trump’s longtime personal lawyer, Michael D. Cohen, seizing records related to several topics including payments to a pornographic-film actress.

    Federal prosecutors in Manhattan obtained the search warrant after receiving a referral from the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, according to Mr. Cohen’s lawyer, who called the search “completely inappropriate and unnecessary.” The search does not appear to be directly related to Mr. Mueller’s investigation, but likely resulted from information he had uncovered and gave to prosecutors in New York.

    “Today the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York executed a series of search warrants and seized the privileged communications between my client, Michael Cohen, and his clients,” said Stephen Ryan, his lawyer. “I have been advised by federal prosecutors that the New York action is, in part, a referral by the Office of Special Counsel, Robert Mueller.”

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. That's totally outrageous and probably illegal.

      Delete
    2. Trump ought to send the Army to raid and seize everything in Mueller's office !

      (joking, I think)

      Delete
    3. Only God could make this nonsense up.

      Delete
    4. The writers for The Young and The Restless don't even come close.

      Delete
  10. WE know the FBI and DOJ used false documents to get FAISA warrants and have been hiding, lying and engaged in conspiracy. Congress has been talking about impeaching Rosenstein. This seems to me a desperate act to put Trump on defense and scare him from firing Rosenstein and Mueller. The FBI had no qualms about using false evidence, maybe now they are planting evidence. Who knows what to believe?

    ReplyDelete
  11. The only thing for sure is that Jeff Sessions had to be the single worst presidential appointment in US history.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Mr. Magoo ?

      NO, you jest.

      Magoo pics:

      https://www.google.com/search?q=mister+magoo+pics&rlz=1CAACAY_enUS780US780&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjHvrWvi67aAhUFDK

      Delete
    2. I think we call all agree it's time to bring in Inspector Quirkseau to get to the bottom of all this.

      Delete
    3. Trump should have moved Cohen and all his papers into the White House when first elected.

      Let the FBI try to raid that !

      From what I've read Cohen and Trump have been giving everything to Mueller asked of them.

      This seems to waft a foul aroma of desperation on Mueller's part.

      Delete
    4. Oh Boy: Feds Raid Michael Cohen’s Office, Seize Material Related To Payments To Stormy Daniels, Other Matters
      ALLAHPUNDITPosted at 4:45 pm on April 9, 2018


      Just an ordinary day in 2018, when FBI agents are rifling through the president’s lawyer’s papers to find out about a hush-money payoff to a porn star.

      Two things about this. One: It surely has to do with more than Stormygate. The FBI wouldn’t make a move this explosive because they’re worried about an undeclared two-year-old campaign contribution.

      TRENDING:
      Oh boy: Feds raid Michael Cohen's office, seize material related to payments to Stormy Daniels, other matters

      Two: Trump is going to blow a gasket, above and beyond his usual Russiagate indignation. With the possible exception of Keith Schiller, there may be no one in TrumpWorld who knows as many secrets about the president as Michael Cohen. If he’s done anything criminal in the past, Cohen not only would probably know about it, he might have the paperwork to prove it. I wonder who’s getting fired — Sessions, Rosenstein, or Mueller himself.

      Federal prosecutors in Manhattan obtained the search warrant after receiving a referral from the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, according to Mr. Cohen’s lawyer, who called the search “completely inappropriate and unnecessary.” The search does not appear to be directly related to Mr. Mueller’s investigation, but likely resulted from information he had uncovered and gave to prosecutors in New York…

      The payments to Ms. Clifford are only one of many topics being investigated, according to a person briefed on the search. The F.B.I. also seized emails, tax documents and business records, the person said.

      The seized records include communications between Mr. Trump and Mr. Cohen, which would likely require a special team of agents to review because conversations between lawyers and clients are protected from scrutiny in most instances.

      Trump warned Mueller early on not to cross the line by expanding his investigation into Russia-related matters in 2016 into a full-blown investigation of the president, his business, etc. Mueller’s answer appears to be, “Fine. If I stumble across anything unrelated to Russia, I’ll just hand that off to the relevant U.S. Attorney.” He won’t exceed the scope of his inquiry but others prosecutors will.

      How unusual is it for the feds to raise a lawyer’s office? Former Assistant U.S. Attorney Ken White:


      SubjectHatNotTargetHat
      @Popehat
      A federal search of an attorney's office is a Very Big Deal, requiring layers of approval, including at DoJ. See USAM 9-13.420 https://www.justice.gov/usam/usam-9-13000-obtaining-evidence …

      1:06 PM - Apr 9, 2018
      565
      350 people are talking about this
      Twitter Ads info and privacy

      Delete
    5. Imagine how many layers of approval it would require when it’s the president’s lawyer. At a minimum, notes White, U.S. Attorney Geoffrey Berman (a Trump appointee) would have signed off. I wonder if Rod Rosenstein was consulted. The politics are so explosive that it’s unimaginable lower-ranking DOJ officials would have ordered it without letting the higher-ups know. More from White:

      3. A Magistrate Judge signed off on this. Federal magistrate judges (appointed by local district judges, not by the President) review search warrant applications. A Magistrate Judge therefore reviewed this application and found probable cause — that is, probable cause to believe that the subject premises (Cohen’s office) contains specified evidence of a specified federal crime. Now, Magistrate Judges sometimes are a little too rubber-stampy for my taste. But here, where the Magistrate Judge knew that this would become one of the most scrutinized search warrant applications ever, and because the nature of the warrant of an attorney’s office is unusual, you can expect that the Magistrate Judge felt pretty confident that there was enough there.

      That raises the question: What could be so terribly incriminating that Berman, Rosenstein, and a federal magistrate judge would risk embarrassing Trump by doing something like this? What do they think Cohen has but hasn’t turned over that’s worth a raid?

      Coincidentally, McClatchy published this story just three days ago:

      Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigators this week questioned an associate of the Trump Organization who was involved in overseas deals with President Donald Trump’s company in recent years.

      Armed with subpoenas compelling electronic records and sworn testimony, Mueller’s team showed up unannounced at the home of the business associate, who was a party to multiple transactions connected to Trump’s effort to expand his brand abroad, according to persons familiar with the proceedings.

      Investigators were particularly interested in interactions involving Michael D. Cohen, Trump’s longtime personal attorney and a former Trump Organization employee. Among other things, Cohen was involved in business deals secured or sought by the Trump Organization in Georgia, Kazakhstan and Russia.

      Maybe Mueller has information about a business deal not involving Russia and felt it’d be safer to refer that matter to the U.S. Attorney in Manhattan rather than pursue it himself and risk violating the boundaries of his Russiagate authority. The Stormy Daniels matter may be low-hanging fruit that Mueller’s interested in as a way to potentially flip Cohen. If he can find written evidence somewhere that Cohen made the payment with an eye to influencing the election, that would potentially make it easy to prove that it was in fact a campaign contribution for legal purposes — an undeclared one, for which Cohen could be punished. Unless he’s willing to cooperate.

      Delete
    6. Is he? The core, core, core duty of being Donald Trump’s “fixer,” one would think, is taking as many bullets as is necessary for the boss. If that means going to jail for a thousand years on contempt charges because you won’t testify against him, that’s what it means.

      His lawyer is outraged:

      View image on Twitter


      Monica Alba

      @albamonica
      New statement from Michael Cohen’s attorney confirming raid (via @carolelee)

      1:17 PM - Apr 9, 2018
      198
      268 people are talking about this
      Twitter Ads info and privacy
      It wasn’t just Cohen’s law office either:


      Steven Portnoy

      @stevenportnoy
      CBS's Pat Milton reports the FBI stormed not only Michael Cohen's office, but also his New York residence, seizing documents and other material, as authorized in a search warrant.

      1:25 PM - Apr 9, 2018
      1,194
      820 people are talking about this
      Twitter Ads info and privacy
      It was more than that! Vanity Fair says they raided his hotel room as well. I wonder if that’s standard practice or if they feared Cohen might start destroying evidence in other locations once he found out that they were raiding another.

      He’s now involved in two criminal investigations, one Mueller’s, the other the Manhattan U.S. Attorney’s. That’s extra pressure to cooperate with Mueller, as he could conceivably be indicted by the DOJ in two different jurisdictions if he doesn’t. This is Russiagate’s boldest squeeze play yet.

      Here’s Bill Kristol noting, correctly, that “This is war.” Stand by for updates.



      The Lead CNN

      @TheLeadCNN
      "This is war." @BillKristol thinks the FBI raiding Trump attorney Michael Cohen's office "shows that we are very close to the end game" regarding special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation https://cnn.it/2qimAXO

      1:33 PM - Apr 9, 2018
      165
      88 people are talking about this
      Twitter Ads info and privacy
      Update: How can the feds seize communications between a lawyer and client? Aren’t those privileged? They are, but see this Forbes piece from last summer about what happens when a prosecutor thinks an attorney is mixed up in crime. A separate team of lawyers that isn’t working on the case are brought in to review seized communications for privilege concerns; the privileged stuff is culled from the non-privileged stuff and only the latter is handed over to the prosecuting attorneys. A key point, though: Communications showing that the client intended to commit a crime or fraud are *not* privileged. Those would also be handed over to the U.S. Attorney’s prosecuting attorneys by the “taint team” in this case.

      Update: I asked White if it’s safe to assume that the triple raid — home, office, hotel room — means the feds feared Cohen would destroy evidence. Quote: “The search of a law firm means that the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, and someone high up in the Department of Justice, agreed that less intrusive methods like cooperation or a subpoena were not enough — and that almost certainly means they concluded that destruction of evidence or non-compliance were serious risks.”

      https://hotair.com/archives/2018/04/09/oh-boy-feds-raid-michael-cohens-office-seize-material-related-payments-stormy-daniels-matters/

      Delete
    7. What will Trump do ?

      Who will he fire first ?

      Delete


  12. .

    Good to live in a land of equal justice for all.

    .

    ReplyDelete
    Replies


    1. .

      Mueller should be authorized to use radioactive salts.
      ...like his partner in justice Pootie Poot.

      .

      Delete


    2. .

      Mueller seems to be doing a pretty good job.

      .

      Delete


    3. .

      He's a Republican.
      Like Comey.

      .

      Delete
  13. The FBI is trying to take down a US President. How is he to govern?

    ReplyDelete
  14. Who is going to want to serve him?

    ReplyDelete
  15. This will have to go to the streets.

    ReplyDelete
  16. I went over to MSNBC.

    Chris Matthews is gleefully masturbating live on air.

    Here's a good question - can The Donald fire the US Attorney for the Southern District of New York ?

    He can fire Rosey Rosenstein, Mueller, Sessions, but the US Attorney for the Southern District of New York ?

    What is really getting me is Hillary totally skating as she is doing.

    It stinks !

    ReplyDelete
    Replies


    1. .

      She was fully investigated by the FBI and DOJ !

      .

      Delete
    2. Judge Napolitano thinks this is going to touch off a big reaction by The Donald.

      YOU'RE FIRED !

      Listening to all the talk, this sucker has more sides to it than a seal.

      I have no idea.....

      Delete


  17. .

    Our Free Press will not let this stand !!!

    .

    ReplyDelete
  18. I know what I would do. Pardon Cohen, today, and Flynn and Manafort tomorrow.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Good idea.

      Break out the Pardon Pen.

      Pardon anyone that could flip on The Donald.

      Delete
  19. No way Trump is not going to react to this.

    ReplyDelete
  20. Trump to address nation in T-Shirt and Jeans.

    ...claims to be in same financial league as Zuck.

    ReplyDelete
  21. Trump will be by himself in January. The Republicans share DNA with aviary rectums and they will be ripping sheets all night for surrender flags.

    ReplyDelete
  22. Update: Since we’re well into anything-can-happen-now territory, I asked Ken White what effect an instant pardon would have on the Cohen probe. If Trump pardoned him tonight, would the feds be required to return all of the documents they just seized? After all, if the evidence was seized with probable cause that Cohen had committed a crime and Cohen is suddenly no longer prosecutable, what’s the point of retaining the evidence?

    White says they can keep it, though: “Search warrant is different than an arrest warrant. Only requires showing that the premises have evidence of a specified federal crime. Pardon wouldn’t require immediate turnover. He could file a motion for a return after a pardon, but that’s unlikely. Also: a pardon of Cohen doesn’t quash the broader investigation. Cohen’s not likely to be the only player.”


    https://hotair.com/archives/2018/04/09/oh-boy-feds-raid-michael-cohens-office-seize-material-related-payments-stormy-daniels-matters/

    ReplyDelete
  23. Who knew the role you'd play?

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HhiUoo6txqg

    (Stormy)

    ReplyDelete
  24. "This is the most biased group of people. These people have the biggest conflicts of interest I have ever seen ... Either Democrats or a couple of Republicans who worked for President Obama. They're not looking at the other side — Hillary Clinton ... They only keep looking at us. "

    ReplyDelete
  25. I don't know what to believe.

    I'm not even sure Assad used poison gas.

    It's now uncertain whether he did or did not last year. The Secretary of Defense said so himself.

    gotten from: Tucker Carlson

    ReplyDelete
  26. There is no way Assad used poison gas. It is too stupid to be believed by any sensible person that knows anything about Syria.
    Assad won. There is no advantage to him to do something so obviously absurd.

    If we need a war , let's attack Baja California.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. We could, at least, probably prevail in the Baja.

      Delete
    2. Mexico deserves it.

      They sided with Germany in World War I.

      Delete
  27. The only thing I'm unambiguously in favor of is building The Wall.

    ReplyDelete
  28. Lost in the hyper-politicized hullabaloo surrounding the Nunes Memorandum and the Steele Dossier was the striking statement by Secretary of Defense James Mattis that the U.S. has “no evidence” that the Syrian government used the banned nerve agent Sarin against its own people.

    This assertion flies in the face of the White House (NSC) Memorandum which was rapidly produced and declassified to justify an American Tomahawk missile strike against the Shayrat airbase in Syria.

    Mattis offered no temporal qualifications, which means that both the 2017 event in Khan Sheikhoun and the 2013 tragedy in Ghouta are unsolved cases in the eyes of the Defense Department and Defense Intelligence Agency.

    Mattis went on to acknowledge that “aid groups and others” had provided evidence and reports but stopped short of naming President Assad as the culprit.

    ReplyDelete
  29. How did we get to be such a stupid country?

    ReplyDelete
  30. We quit praying -

    What Prayer Is Good For — And The Evidence For It

    ....Prayer might make people feel better, but, as some critics have argued, does it direct their attention away from problems that need to be addressed? In other words, is prayer a distraction? Recent behavioral science experiments suggest that it isn’t, that prayer helps people focus their attention. In one study, research participants with varying levels of religiosity completed cognitive tasks that assess attention. After finishing these tasks, they were instructed to bring to mind one concern in their lives. One group of participants was then asked to spend ten minutes praying about that concern. Another group was asked to spend ten minutes thinking about that concern. A final group spent that time working on a puzzle. Then they repeated the attention tasks. Researchers looked for changes in their performance and found that among highly religious individuals, praying about a life concern, compared with thinking about it or being distracted with a puzzle, improved cognitive performance. No differences were observed among the less religious. These findings are consistent with the researchers’ proposal that prayer frees up cognitive resources needed to focus on mental tasks by reducing the extent to which people are distracted by negative emotions.

    Consistent with the theory that religious faith increases self-control, prayer has also been found to reduce unhealthy behavior. For example, across a series of studies, researchers found that the more people prayed, the less likely they were to drink heavily....


    https://hotair.com/headlines/archives/2018/04/prayer-good-evidence/

    ReplyDelete
  31. Dershowitz is up on Hannity right now.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Says Mueller has lost all perspective.

      Delete
    2. No he hasn't. I think there is the possibility that this is a sign of weakness and desperation, a diversion from what will happen if the FBI investigation gets blown wide open and it is every man for himself. This could be a Hail Mary pass to get the line to hold.

      Trump has been talking about cooperating with an interview. Mueller knows Trump would never agree after this. This is a diversion by Mueller to get to the election, get rid of the GOP in the House, tidy things up and impeach Trump.

      Delete

    3. And we're not even close to the punchline.

      The set-up is pretty funny, for a farce.

      You boys underesimated the dirt that Cadet Bone Spur had hidden in the closet.

      Delete

  32. ... the United States Embassy in Panama said that "matters related to the Trump Organization are sent directly to the White House,"
    according to the Panamanian newspaper La Prensa.

    "This is exactly what our Founding Fathers were concerned about when they wrote the Emoluments Clause—Presidents trying to use the levers of power to help themselves financially,"

    Rep. Elijah Cummings, D-Md. and Ranking Member of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, told Salon by email.
    "Panama should not give the Trump Organization special favors just because this involves the President’s company, and President Trump’s company should never ask for them. Why are U.S. embassies reportedly sending these matters to the White House if the President is supposed to be walled off? The President, the White House, our embassies, and our government should not be playing any role whatsoever in this dispute."


    I do believe the Congressman's perspective is accurate.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. https://www.salon.com/2018/04/09/donald-trumps-latest-conflict-of-interest-is-on-full-display/

      The 12% swing in educated white men 60 to 65 away from the GOP, all about health care costs skyrocketing under tbe reformation of Obamacare.
      Cost have not dropped


      Promises Made - Promises Broken

      Delete
  33. "Mueller Investigating Ukrainian's $150,000 Payment for a Trump Appearance... "

    .

    They held the Clinton's accountable, they damn well better do it with Trump.

    .

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. http://www.businessinsider.com/mueller-victor-pinchuk-trump-foundation-donation-michael-cohen-2018-4

      Delete
    2. Pinchuk has donated more than $13 million to the Clinton Foundation, per The Times.

      Delete

    3. Comparing apples to oranges.

      $320 million guaranteed by Cadet Bone Spur to Duetsche Bank for funds that will be shown to have flowed from Russia.

      Extremely funny stuff, but just part of the aet-up, not the punchline

      Delete
    4. Hillary is down to 25K now, and no takers lately.

      Delete
  34. The 12% swing in educated white men 60 to 65 away from the GOP, all about health care costs skyrocketing under tbe reformation of Obamacare.
    Cost have not dropped


    Promises Made - Promises Broken

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. By age 65 they're all on Medicare.

      Then they'll vote for Trump again.

      Delete
  35. China blinks.

    Promises to lower tariffs.

    The Donald winks.

    :)

    from Fox News

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. .

      No details?

      South Korea blinked too.

      They doubled the amount of cars that could be imported into the country from the US without any type of tariff. They upped it from 25,000 to 50,000. Sounds great except for the fact that no foreign car company (other than GM which has a plant there) is currently selling close to the previous lower limit there.

      Hyundai and Kia dominate the market there. What market is left is dominated by the Germans.

      The same applies in Japan. There aren't any tariffs there but Western suppliers play hell selling any cars there.

      South Korea offers up a nothingburger.

      Trump drops his tariff threats and brags of how he 'won'.

      It depends on what China is blinking about.

      What will be interesting is when the Chinese start cutting back on the rare earth materials they ship to the west.

      .

      Delete
  36. Alan Dershowitz: Today is a 'very dangerous day for lawyer-client relations'
    by Pete Kasperowicz
    | April 09, 2018 09:38 PM


    Harvard Law professor Alan Dershowitz on Monday laid into Robert Mueller's team investigating Russian interference in the 2016 election.
    (Screenshot via Fox News)

    Harvard Law professor Alan Dershowitz warned Monday that special counsel Robert Mueller's decision to raid President Trump's personal lawyer's office is an assault on the privileged lawyer-client relationship.

    Dershowitz said on Fox News that he believes the decision to raid Michael Cohen's office would be a sign that Mueller is trying to turn Cohen against Trump.

    "This may be an attempt to squeeze Cohen," he said. "He's the lawyer, he's the guy who knows all the facts about Donald Trump, and to get him to turn against his client."


    In This Job, You Get a Sinking Feeling Every Day
    Watch Full Screen to Skip Ads
    "This is a very dangerous day today for lawyer-client relations," he added.

    Dershowitz, who has drawn the ire of Democrats for defending Trump, said Mueller's move is also dangerous because it gives the FBI the option of deciding what information seized from Cohen to pursue.

    "I tell [clients] on my word of honor that what you tell me is sacrosanct," he said. "And now they say, just based on probable cause ... they can burst into the office, grab all the computers, and then give it to another FBI agent and say, 'You're the firewall. We want you now to read all these confidential communications, tell us which ones we can get and which ones we can't get.'"

    "If this were Hillary Clinton being investigated and they went into her lawyer's office, the ACLU would be on every television station in America, jumping up and down," he added.

    "The deafening silence from the ACLU and civil libertarians about the intrusion into the lawyer-client confidentiality is really appalling," Dershowitz said.

    The famed law professor said Mueller's move will only convince more people not to cooperate and said he believes Mueller has "lost perspective" in the case.

    Dershowitz recommended that Trump make a motion in court to take Cohen's materials away from the FBI and make a judge decide what evidence can be used and which cannot.

    https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/alan-dershowitz-today-is-a-very-dangerous-day-for-lawyer-client-relations

    ReplyDelete
  37. I've been listening to a lot of MSNBC and CNN today.

    They certainly have their line down pat, which is, The Donald has escaped from the Cuckoo's Nest, needs to be recaptured, and once captured, restrained.

    Very humorous once one gets used to it.

    ReplyDelete
  38. April 9, 2018
    Globalist pearl-clutching over nationalist Viktor Orban's sweeping victory in Hungary election
    By Thomas Lifson

    If you judge Hungary's Prime Minister Viktor Orbán and his Fidesz party by their enemies, then their sweeping victory yesterday, winning a third term, was a triumph for good. Reuters calls him a "strongman" in its report of his victory, a term usually reserved for undemocratic dictators. The Associated Press settles for "conservative" as its headline adjective – no compliment in its lexicon, but accurate. But the journalists are being outdone by globalist politicians in Western Europe.

    The AP reports:


    Luxembourg's foreign minister says Germany, France and others should weigh in against what he calls a "tumor" of scaremongering after Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban won a clear election victory.


    Viktor Orban, with no visible tumors (photo credit).

    The purported "scaremongering," of course, is over the invasion of Europe by millions of uninvited "migrants" who have no desire to integrate into their host culture, which, more accurately, makes them "colonists." Orbán explicitly ran against the efforts of George Soros, the Hungarian-born billionaire whose Open Society Institute has been pushing a "borderless" world, to the delight of globalists.

    The U.K. Guardian reports:

    After running a campaign almost exclusively focused on the apparent threat posed by migration, Orbán's Fidesz will have a majority in parliament and may even regain a two-thirds "supermajority" which allows constitutional changes.

    With around 93% of votes counted, Fidesz was projected to take 133 of the parliament's 199 seats, the minimum required for the supermajority. ...

    Since the refugee crisis of 2015, Orbán's rhetoric on migration has become increasingly sharp. His government has built a fence along the country's southern border to keep out migrants. Orbán has claimed he is fighting a conspiracy to destroy Hungary led by the Hungarian-American billionaire George Soros.

    Life in Western Europe is being fundamentally transformed by the arrival of migrants colonists, with skyrocketing rape rates, "no go" zones in Muslim neighborhoods for public safety officials, and women cautioned to avoid being out alone at night in formerly safe cities. But to the media grandees and globalist officials, protesting these changes is "dangerous" and "extremist."

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Orbán speaks in terms that in most countries would be the preserve of extreme rightwing fringe parties, telling Hungarians that "tens of millions" of migrants from Africa and the Middle East were waiting to kick down Hungary's door and warning that they would bring terror, crime and rape with them.

      "If the levy breaks, if they open the borders, if migrants enter the country, there is no way back," Orbán said in his final campaign speech on Friday.

      Tsk, tsk. In countries that already host millions of Muslims uninterested in assimilation, they already know what to do about such views: repress them.

      French conservative politician Nicholas Dupont-Aignan, who gave his support to anti-mass migration presidential candidate Marine Le Pen last year, has been given a suspended fine of 5,000 euros for speaking about a "migrant invasion".

      Hungarians in particular and Eastern European countries in general are not constrained by the existence of large communities of unassimilated colonists and do not have large voting blocs desiring to live by religious and moral systems that clash with indigenous cultural practices. The decades of economic stagnation and political isolation under Soviet rule prevented the importation of "guest workers" who brought families and settled in without assimilation.

      Hungary's language and culture are unique in Central Europe. The Magyars feel themselves, with some reason, to be outsiders and under threat from the Latin, Slavic, and Germanic cultures that surround them. Add Muslim, Arab, and African populations to the mix, and a certain degree of panic is understandable.

      It is clear that Western European elites regard nationalism as a relic of the past, a negative influence that caused two world wars and that hinders the development of a global economy that makes fabulous opportunities for wealth accumulation on an unprecedented scale, for those able to operate on a worldwide scale. The Hungarian elections are an unpleasant reminder to them that non-elites who live locally are not ready to jettison their way of life to enable the dreams of a borderless world to be realized.



      https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2018/04/globalist_pearlclutching_over_nationalist_viktor_orbans_sweeping_victory_in_hungary_election.html#ixzz5CFz08Ano

      Delete
  39. To hell with Facebook -

    April 10, 2018
    Racist Facebook: Black Conservatives Diamond and Silk 'Unsafe'
    By Daniel John Sobieski

    In the age before cable, there was an iconic sci-fi program called The Outer Limits whose opening featured a series of test patterns; flickering screens; and a narrator who solemnly intoned, "Do not attempt to adjust your television set. We will control all that you see and hear." Today, that is a chilling reality as social media giant Facebook censors what fans of social media icons Diamond and Silk, aka Lynette Hardaway and her sister Rochelle Richardson, see and hear from this dynamic pair of black conservative women on Facebook.

    Racism is a term too easily bandied about these days, particularly by social progressives seeking to silence conservative thought and opinion which they deemed inherently racist in their chants of "white privilege." Yet it is precisely the term liberals would use if, say, Michelle Obama or the likes of Maxine Waters were treated this way, their words censored because they were deemed "unsafe" to the community." Indeed, Diamond and Silk themselves haVE raised the possibility that racism might be afoot here:

    You are talking about two people here when you say Diamond and Silk. We are the brand. So, when you say things like we are 'not safe' for the community what are you trying to say? What are you trying to do? Are you trying to demonize us into something? Are you stereotyping us? What are you trying to do here? Because this doesn't feel right. This here feels like racism. The left always cries racism. I see racism right here.....



    https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2018/04/racist_facebook_black_conservatives_diamond_and_silk_unsafe.html#ixzz5CG09gMTJ

    ReplyDelete


  40. .

    I give a flying fuck about Diamond and Silk, disparate discrimination in law between gays and conservatives, etc. etc. etc.
    Shut the fuck up!

    .

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. .

      My, my, my.

      Douglissa is all atwitter again this morning. One could say verging on hysterical. Perhaps, she forgot to juice up her vibrator yesterday. Perhaps, she forgot to take her chamomile tea or her meds. Whichever that twist in her panties has got to hurt.

      .

      Delete
    2. .

      Sure, she's my unwanted groupie and I've tried to discourage her from hanging around the stage door. Sure she looks a little like a crack ho after an especially rough night. But you have to admit when she gets all wound up and starts throwing around f-bombs and stamping her little foot, it is as cute as a button.

      .

      Delete
  41. Cleopatra Schwarz

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=73&v=OCTnmc-3P9Q

    ReplyDelete
  42. April 10, 2018
    Mr. Mueller, I'd like to know what you are doing
    By Silvio Canto, Jr.

    For almost a year, we've watched Mr. Mueller lead an investigation about collusion between Russia and the Trump campaign. It's time for Mr. Mueller to say something and tell us where he is going. For too long, it's leaks and more leaks, rather! I need to hear from Mr. Mueller.

    I agree with Michael Goodwin:


    The violent swings of the leaky pendulum make this an excellent moment to call timeout on the Mueller probe. What does he have, where is he going and when is he going to get there?

    Those are basic questions that need to be answered. The American people deserve facts instead of waters muddied by partisanship, innuendo and special access to biased big-media companies.

    Mueller's team includes some active Democrats, and whether they are behind the anti-Trump leaks is, for the moment, beside the point. The point is that the leaks are creating a reality all their own about the investigation and the president.

    It's time to clear the air of rumor and speculation and put the facts on the record. It's not as if the public has been impatient.

    Mr. Mueller needs to say something.

    Unfortunately, the leaks are driving the story. We get a leak that Mr. Mueller is investigating Mr. Trump's relations with a German bank. Then we get a leak about this or that. Now we have a leak saying the president is not the target of an investigation.

    Too much mystery. Too many leaks. Too much confusion. It's time for an update on what in the world is going on in Mr. Mueller's office.

    I have some questions for Mr. Mueller:

    First, who is getting fired for all of these leaks? In other words, somebody's leaking, and we know that's a crime. Why doesn't Mr. Mueller fire somebody to show that he won't put up with any more leaks?

    Second, why so many Democrats working in this investigation? Weren't there any Republican lawyers to balance the team?

    So we wait and wait. Mr. Mueller would do the country a lot of good to give us an update or conclude that there was no collusion between the Trump team and Russia.

    https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2018/04/mr_mueller_id_like_to_know_what_you_are_doing.html#ixzz5CG4kI493

    ReplyDelete
  43. Are there any articles at American Thinker that the b00b doesn't repost here? What a putz!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I just put up some of the better ones, pissheadashlikins.

      Delete
    2. I don't expect you'd be able to understand them.

      Delete
    3. They are, after all, for American thinkers, and not Canadian squirrels.

      Delete
    4. Here Ash, just for you -

      Those who’ve declared war on the elected president see this as the beginning of the end for him.

      Rumors have circulated for months that what will take Donald Trump down is not anything having to do with collusion with Russia but his business dealings before the election. Trump is compromised by all the deals he swung as a businessman, so the rumors assert. What may have flown under the radar in the private sector will come to light in public service and the scope of the Mueller investigation. Is the raid on Michael Cohen, Trump’s attorney, the beginning of the end for Trump?



      The offices of Michael Cohen have been raided, as has his home and his hotel room. At this writing, New York FBI field agents are still scouring his offices.

      The Never Trump wing is reveling in delight. The liberals are nodding sagaciously. Only Alan Dershowitz is sounding the alarm.

      No one has seen the search warrants. No one knows why Deputy Attorney General Rosenstein pushed this warrant to New York. What is known, according to the Washington Post, is that Cohen is being investigated for potential bank fraud and election fraud.


      Robert Barnes
      @Barnes_Law
      Bharara is now admitting this isn't really a referred prosecution, but is actually just a referred search warrant. #Mueller team still "retaining the Michael Cohen piece" & just using SDNY as temporary political cover. Remember: Bharara is ex-head of SDNY w/ many friends there. https://twitter.com/PreetBharara/status/983524421997604864 …

      7:20 PM - Apr 9, 2018

      To the lawyerly among the Twitterati, there must be a there, there. One commenter mused upon the “slow roll of the Nixon investigation” and saw an analogy. And he’s right. There is an analogy. The media hate Donald Trump just as they hated Richard Nixon. Democrats hate Donald Trump just as they hated Richard Nixon. And there are enough Republicans who cannot abide the shift in the demographics of the Republican electorate that they profoundly desire to see Donald Trump fail. And then, Donald Trump’s own pugnacious streak makes him frustrating enough that even his devoted followers grow exasperated at his behavior.

      But, Donald Trump is not Richard Nixon and America today is not the Vietnam-era times fraught with an unpopular foreign war. Today, the war being fought is cold and civil and cultural. In D.C. and cities around the country, elites are shocked and horrified that someone such as Trump even is in office. They hate him. They hate anyone who would support him. The fact that Donald Trump enjoys 86% approval among Republicans fills them with revulsion at him and them. Those people.

      Delete
    5. Many from Mueller on down believe they are doing God’s own work by investigating Trump and following the trail to wherever it leads, even though it’s leading away from Russian collusion and into the Siberia of business sleaze. They are going to cleanse America of this Trump stench, by God, and nothing will stop them, not even attorney-client privilege. Even if skating close to the edge of the law tosses all the evidence, the investigation will so mire the president in legal minutiae that he won’t have time to enact his mandate… and he did have a mandate. Everyone but his voters exhales in relief: the no-mind buffoon can get nothing done. Hallelujah!

      As Andrew McCarthy rightly points out, even something as stupid and trivial as a long ago ham-handled porn-star payoff can result in big trouble for a President. This is obviously true. A wrong doing, no matter how small, can spell the end for a politician with salivating prosecutors circling. But drops of truth in an ocean of deceit and corruption tend to get lost in the bigger truth: the system that allows for this kind of destruction and ignores the toxic system creates a populace who lose faith in the institutions that ostensibly seek truth. When the institutions are compromised, their elevating a small truth to cover for their big lies fail.

      Trump voters and even fair-minded middle-of-the-roaders consider the crimes committed by Hillary Clinton and wonder at the double standard. She and her team smashed phones and computers to bits after the evidence therein was subpoenaed. Oops. Hillary Clinton and her chief minion Cheryl Mills claimed attorney-client privilege when Mills, herself, was under investigation for obstruction. Did Hillary answer any of the FBI’s questions? We don’t know as they didn’t record the session. Oops. And then, classified emails showed up on Hillary’s assistant’s husband’s computer who is in prison for pornographic interaction with a minor online. Has the Clinton Foundation or Huma Abedin’s home or Hillary’s bathroom been no-knock raided yet?



      No.

      And then there’s the business of how this Russia investigation started: opposition research that turned out to be specious was used as evidence to wire-tap a Trump associate who had ticked off the number two at the FBI, Andrew McCabe. So the FISA system was used to harm political opposition — the leadership of the FBI, DOJ, and the FISA court were used as a way of “insurance” against Trump. And, boy, has it worked! The investigation prompted by a butt-hurt James Comey based on made-up evidence based on illegal leaks by Comey to the press now leads to scooping up all communications between Donald Trump and his attorney to be revealed to FBI investigators. Sounds fair!

      Delete
    6. Stipulate to the fact that Michael Cohen made some illegal payment to Stormy Daniels and it somehow entangles the President and the President is pressured to resign or face impeachment, what is this doing to the body politic?

      Very Righteous Republicans claim that the moral high road demands justice or else justice is mocked. Really? This whole dog and pony show doesn’t seem like it’s mocking justice? When all of America knows, even the most delusional Democrat, that no Democrat would be subjected to this circus, justice is a joke. (The inevitable mocking response by Republicans keen on calling out hypocrisy doesn’t change the warped justice: “But Hillary!” Two sets of rules is not justice.)

      There is no winning here. The cheerleaders for the investigation pull, pull, pull at the ever finer thread holding the states united. They seem to have no idea what fearsome forces they play with. Americans rightly see this fiasco as the intent to undo an election that nearly everyone “important” finds revolting.

      Revolt is exactly what the “betters” may find. They play a game and Americans see it. This is not Vietnam. This is America. The cold civil war is about who gets to define what America means. The DC PC police don’t want Trump voters running things. A job so important should be in the hands of the Smart Set™, and they’re going to take the country back, no matter the cost.

      The Mueller investigation is a pretense at justice. What it is, is the first shots in a war against American voters who rejected them.

      https://spectator.org/cohen-raid-mueller-madness/

      Delete
  44. .

    The media, the Dems, the GOP, oh my. Birds do it, bees do it, even educated fleas do it. They all hate Trump. The Big Whine continues.

    To the lawyerly among the Twitterati, there must be a there, there. One commenter mused upon the “slow roll of the Nixon investigation” and saw an analogy. And he’s right. There is an analogy. The media hate Donald Trump just as they hated Richard Nixon. Democrats hate Donald Trump just as they hated Richard Nixon. And there are enough Republicans who cannot abide the shift in the demographics of the Republican electorate that they profoundly desire to see Donald Trump fail. And then, Donald Trump’s own pugnacious streak makes him frustrating enough that even his devoted followers grow exasperated at his behavior.

    Interesting to note the referral went to a Trump appointee in New York. The U.S. attorney who drew up the request for the warrant was actually interviewed by Trump before he was appointed.

    When you lay down with mutts you get up with fleas. I'll leave it to you to determine whether that applies Trump or to Cohen.

    .

    ReplyDelete
  45. .

    Ingraham returns. Slams boycott as 'Stalinist'.

    :o)

    I'm sorry but you just can't make this stuff up.

    Can you call the Godwin Rule on comparisons to the proto commie?

    .

    ReplyDelete
  46. .

    Oh, the humanity!

    Yesterday, Trump set the stage for US attacks in Syria. He said it was all about the 'humanity'.

    This is the same guy who said he likes torture, thinks water-boarding is great, wants to see more of it only tougher.

    The man is a real bleeding heart.

    .

    ReplyDelete
  47. .

    While Trump twiddles in the 'Shithole' countries of the ME, China expands throughout Asia commercially and now militarily

    Canberra needs to get very serious, very quickly, to counter this move by a master strategist

    China plans on opening up only the second foreign military base in its 5000 year history in Vanuatu in the South Pacific. They opened up the first last year in Djibouti.

    And while it is uncertain whether we will ever get that totally inadequate $200 billion for infrastructure Trump keeps talking about, China has committed to spending multiple $ trillions on their massive 'Belt and Road' initiative.

    What's wrong with this picture?

    .

    ReplyDelete
  48. Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign was caught hiding the sources of 1,300 large campaign donations, aggregating to nearly $2 million. The campaign also accepted more than $1.3 million in unlawful donations from contributors who had already given the legal maximum.

    Under federal law, such campaign-finance violations, if they aggregate to just $25,000 in a calendar year, may be treated as felonies punishable by up to five years’ imprisonment — with offenses involving smaller dollar amounts punishable by incarceration for a year or more. (See Section 30109(d) of Title 52, U.S. Code, pp. 51–52 of the Federal Election Commission’s compilation of campaign laws.)

    The Obama campaign did not have a defense; it argued in mitigation that the unlawful donations constituted a negligible fraction of the monumental amount it had raised from millions of “grass-roots” donors. Compelling? Maybe not, but enough to convince the Obama Justice Department not to prosecute the Obama campaign — shocking, I know. During the Christmas holiday season right after the 2012 campaign, with Obama safely reelected and nobody paying much attention, the matter was quietly settled with the payment of a $375,000 fine.

    Is the $130,000 in hush money Donald Trump’s personal lawyer paid to porn star Stormy Daniels on the eve of the 2016 election a campaign-finance violation? Probably, although it’s a point of contention. Even if we stipulate that it is, though, we’re talking comparative chump change.

    Yet, as that lawyer, Michael Cohen, has discovered, what was not a crime in the Obama days is the crime of the century now.

    https://www.nationalreview.com/2018/04/the-cohen-searches-and-trumps-de-mini-mess/

    ReplyDelete


  49. .

    A different set of rules for Obama and Hillary makes perfect sense, and a healthy thing for our country.

    .

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hillary's non-lawyer was given privilege!

      Delete
  50. It only took Sen. Ted Cruz about 30 seconds to nail that slumbucket Zuckerberg to the cross of political censorship and disseminating political propaganda.

    All Z-man could mumble was some stuff about Silicon Valley being an uber lefty place....

    Actually one of the very few interesting and informative Congressional hearings I've ever listened to....as you can do to right now on Fox.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Zuckerberg is definitely a highly intelligent guy.

      Delete
    2. FACEBOOK big contributor to committees that question...
      Members with stock shares set to quiz....DRUDGE


      :):)

      Delete
    3. Zuckerberg sounds like that young kid in the ad who is telling his parents in their bedroom that he has crashed the car at the drive-in window....

      If you've seen that humorous ad you'll know what I mean...

      Delete
    4. Zuck didn't want to commit to support passing a law to protect kids under 16 from predatory advertisers....

      Delete
    5. ....would like to discuss the idea though....

      Delete
    6. LOWRY: Tech giant always been big swindle....DRUDGE

      My view exactly.

      Delete
  51. ABC: Trump Souring On Idea Of Talking With Mueller After Cohen Raid
    ED MORRISSEYPosted at 12:01 pm on April 10, 2018


    Perhaps the raid on Michael Cohen’s office yesterday had a substantial benefit for Donald Trump. According to ABC News, the president has begun to realize that providing investigators a golden opportunity to set off perjury traps may not be a great idea after all:

    SEE ALSO: The gig economy continues to expand, frustrating the old guard

    In the wake of an early morning FBI raid on his personal attorney, sources close to President Donald Trump and his legal team say the president is “less inclined” to sit down for an interview with Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s team. …

    Yet in the wake of Monday’s FBI raid on the home and office of Michael Cohen, the president’s longtime personal counsel, multiple sources tell ABC News things might be changing and that the president per one source is “understandably less trusting” of Mueller and his team.

    Multiple sources say advisers don’t know how to deal with the president’s frustration and are bracing for what he may do next. One source in close contact with the White House says any and all possibilities are in play.

    Gee, who could have told Trump not to trust federal prosecutors in an interrogation? John Dowd, for one, who left Trump’s legal team last month reportedly because he was reluctant to have Trump sit down for a chat with Mueller’s team. If the ABC News report is accurate, does Dowd get invited back onto the team and others hit the road? Recall what Robert Costa and Carol Leonnig wrote about the internal debate a week ago after Mueller told the White House that Trump wasn’t a “target” of his probe:

    TRENDING:
    Confirmed: Rod Rosenstein signed off on the Michael Cohen raid

    Mueller’s description of the president’s status has sparked friction within Trump’s inner circle as his advisers have debated his legal standing. The president and some of his allies seized on the special counsel’s words as an assurance that Trump’s risk of criminal jeopardy is low. Other advisers, however, noted that subjects of investigations can easily become indicted targets — and expressed concern that the special prosecutor was baiting Trump into an interview that could put the president in legal peril.

    John Dowd, Trump’s top attorney dealing with the Mueller probe, resigned last month amid disputes about strategy and frustration that the president ignored his advice to refuse the special counsel’s request for an interview, according to a Trump friend. …

    Dowd told the president the case against him was weak, but warned Trump he could create criminal jeopardy for himself if he agreed to an interview and misspoke under oath, the friend said. Dowd repeatedly pointed to the Trump campaign advisers who have pleaded guilty to making false statements in the Mueller probe — including Flynn, adviser George Papadopoulos and former campaign official Rick Gates.

    “Mueller hasn’t hesitated to [charge] people for lying on some pretty tangential stuff,” said Solomon Wisenberg, a former deputy independent counsel in the probe of President Bill Clinton.

    However, Sekulow and Cobb gave the president the opposite advice as Dowd: that it would be politically difficult for Trump to refuse to answer questions after insisting for months there was no collusion or crime, according to three people familiar with their advice.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. If Trump has changed his mind about sitting down for an interview, it’s a smart move that has been a long time coming — at least legally, if not politically. Politically it would have been smarter to refrain from making public promises to sit down for an interview in the first place. That’s water under the bridge by now, but Trump might finally realize that it’s better to cut one’s political losses rather than doubling down on potential legal liabilities. Mueller’s playing for keeps, and he has a lot less to lose than Trump does.

      Both Allahpundit and I have written repeatedly about why it would likely be a disastrous move to conduct the interview, as has Andrew McCarthy at National Review. In his most recent explanation this weekend, the former federal prosecutor again emphasized that Trump remains in legal jeopardy with or without the “target” tag, and that there would be almost no chance of an interview turning out well for the “subject” of a probe either:

      There are many legal experts who believe, as I believe, that Mueller has no obstruction case as a matter of law unless he can prove that Trump did something that was inherently illegal to influence an investigation — e.g., bribing witnesses or suborning perjury. To the contrary, based on what we currently know, Trump recommended (but did not direct) that the investigation of Flynn be dropped, and fired the FBI director three months later. Those are legal acts — i.e., acts that are within a president’s constitutional authority — even if we may judge them unwise or unsavory.

      If I am right, legal acts cannot predicate an obstruction charge. Why should the president of the United States risk exposing himself to false-statements charges to help a prosecutor explore something that is not a crime?

      On the other hand, let’s say I am wrong about obstruction law. Some experts theorize that a president could be liable based on acts that, though ostensibly legal, are carried out with corrupt intent (e.g., a president pardons someone as inducement not to testify against the president). If, for argument’s sake, we accept this theory, corrupt intent would be an essential element of the obstruction offense. That means it would be the prosecutor’s burden to prove it beyond a reasonable doubt.

      Even if Trump is utterly convinced that he did not have corrupt intent, how is it in his interest to consent to an interview on this point?

      It is highly unlikely that the special counsel will ever have a witness, other than Donald Trump, who can fill this hole in the case — someone who can convincingly testify that Trump told him, “Yeah, I had to get rid of Comey because the FBI was closing in on me over that deal I cut with Putin.” Keep in mind: If Mueller had such a witness, he would not have told Trump’s lawyers that Trump is not a target.

      No, to prove Trump’s state of mind, Mueller needs testimony from Trump. If the president were to tempt fate and provide it, this would be where the expertise of Mueller’s team comes in.

      Be sure to read it all, as McCarthy goes on to make a number of salient points in his free legal advice to Trump. Bottom line is that this is like the lesson from War Games and global thermonuclear war — the only way to win is not to play. If the DoJ’s raid on Cohen’s offices finally made that clear, then perhaps it will have done more good than damage to Trump in the long run.

      https://hotair.com/archives/2018/04/10/abc-trump-souring-idea-talking-mueller-cohen-raid/

      Delete
    2. . Bottom line is that this is like the lesson from War Games and global thermonuclear war — the only way to win is not to play. If the DoJ’s raid on Cohen’s offices finally made that clear, then perhaps it will have done more good than damage to Trump in the long run.

      Delete
  52. The West’s Defeat In Syria Is Complete

    ....Obama was right to see the Syria crisis as a proxy war between Sunni Islamists and Shia imperialists, framed by the regional ambitions of a neo-Ottoman Turkey and an opportunist Russia. He was wrong to trust that, if he surrendered Syria to Iran, then the Iranians would agree to forfeit their nuclear ambitions. This was folly of the highest order. Rather than stabilising the region, it set the terms for all-out regional war. The shrinking number of people who can recall anything that happened before last week might be reminded of the Spanish Civil War. But that, like the Obama years, is ancient history. This is now Donald Trump’s problem. The Syrian military might pay a “big price” for the attack on Eastern Ghouta, but nothing can now stop Assad from winning the war. Tweeting about “Animal Assad” will not change anyone’s calculus.

    This is another meaning to be found in the images from Eastern Ghouta. The end of the Syrian civil war means the start of the bigger regional conflict for which Syria has been a proxy battlefield. The Russians are guaranteeing Syria’s airspace, and the Iranians are all over the ground. The Revolutionary Guards are at the foot of the Golan Heights. The Israelis have been bombing Syrian air bases and Hezbollah supply columns since 2011. The Saudis are buying a new air force....


    https://hotair.com/headlines/archives/2018/04/wests-defeat-syria-complete/

    ReplyDelete

  53. :)

    DERSHOWITZ: COHEN RAID UNCONSTITUTIONAL...

    HAVING DINNER WITH TRUMP....DRUDGE


    :)

    :)


    YOU'RE HIRED !

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. 'This is bigger than the Presidency'

      Delete
    2. Dershowitz told DailyMail.com that 'if the government improperly seizes private or privileged material, the violation has already occurred, even if the government never uses them.'

      'Remember who comprises the firewall and taint teams,' he explained, quoting in an email from what he said was a forthcoming column. It's 'other FBI agents, prosecutors and government officials who have no right under the Fourth and Sixth Amendments, even to see private or confidential materials, regardless whether it is ever used against a defendant.'




      http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5601007/Mueller-violated-Michael-Cohens-constitutional-rights-just-seizing-records-says-Dershowitz.html#ixzz5CJmsDIPP

      Delete
  54. Cohen has more recently attracted attention for his acknowledgment that he paid Daniels $130,000 out of his own pocket shortly before the 2016 election. Cohen has said neither the Trump Organization nor the campaign was a party to the transaction with Daniels and he was not reimbursed.

    Several former officials at the Federal Election Commission (FEC) have said the payment appears to be a violation of campaign finance laws, and multiple Washington-based groups have filed complaints with the FEC urging it to investigate.

    There have been few signs that Mueller was interested in investigating the payment, though. One Mueller witness, former Trump aide Sam Nunberg, recently connected the special counsel with the payment, saying in an interview on MSNBC last month that prosecutors had asked him about payments to women.

    ReplyDelete
  55. This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete