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… Vladimir M. Dzhabarov, first deputy chairman of the foreign affairs committee of the upper House of Parliament … “Trump should realize that the target of these true stories is us. If the American president will not stop this house-cleaning and will continue to surrender our assets, this will end very badly for him— because the overall aim of our enemies is to prevent the US from turning into a lawless kleptocracy aka managed democracy. Not only would he lose untold wealth and the opportunity to knife those ungrateful citizens but also we could, at any time, leak enough to ensure his impeachment. Did I mention what a beautiful family he has? All we want is half the world. I’m pretty sure that would appease our appetites."
Hope I am wrong but that’s what it looks like from here.
Right, we haven’t even got to that one yet. I read that last night on twitter. I’m trying to just deal with what’s already on the plate. The Cerberus guy? Very tight with Bannon.
“Stephen A. Feinberg, founder of Cerberus Capital Management, said to be in talks for a White House role examining the country’s intelligence agencies.” Reportedly very close with Bannon and Kushner.
You don’t stop a feeding frenzy in the middle of a spy scandal by appointing a spy overlord with zero experience whatsoever. What is wrong with these people? Don’t answer that.
… Bringing Mr. Feinberg into the administration to conduct the review is seen as a way of injecting a Trump loyalist into a world the White House views with suspicion. But top intelligence officials fear that Mr. Feinberg is being groomed for a high position in one of the intelligence agencies. …
But the potential White House role for Mr. Feinberg follows intense speculation among intelligence professionals that Mr. Feinberg is in line for a powerful position within the intelligence community.
“You have a select committee when you think you can’t handle it with the existing structure,” he told the Wall Street Journal.
Yertle McTurtle, the intel community is leaking to the press because they don’t believe the ‘existing structure’ is acting upon their information. How’s that’s working out for you?
Yertle, start picking our your shell for the treason trial. Also, a tip: you’re supposedly a check on power, so “I was only following orders” doesn’t work in your case.
Leavenworth is nice this time of – oh, who are we kidding? It’s fucking cold. As a reptile, you’re just flat out fucked.
I think this is quite possibly the best summation of the situation I’ve read so far. Because of his incompetence and 1,000 other issues with PP, it’s increasingly looking less and less likely Republicans will get much of their wish list passed. They may get a few tax cuts, some cuts to Obamacare, some stuff around the margins, but PP is emboldening Democrats and strengthening their resolve. He’s providing Democrats almost a mandate to oppose him while it simultaneously becomes tougher for Republicans to cover for him. And worse yet, he’s unintentionally creating a bipartisan alliance of senators looking to investigate him. As someone pointed out yesterday, his political capital has a negative balance and it only diminishes from here. In the end, Republicans may wind up wishing they’d taken their chances with Clinton.
And Stephen Feinberg is coming in to regulate the IC, yeah this totally can be handled under existing structures.
Finding someone guilty of a leak is one thing. These guys are potentially screwing us over for decades by giving away sources outside of America. They’ve been purging American assets in Moscow, if you believe press reports, for months.
Eichenwald had a great piece yesterday in Newsweek, then I saw him on MSNBC. He said that you don’t even have to do a lot of digging to get these stories anymore, the IC is leaking like their lives depend on it, probably because their lives depend on it.
Apparently, certain Russian individuals were being monitored because they were know to be enemies of these particular governments. Then these Trump people just wander into the frame, they start showing up in the phone intercepts, everything, back about last August, possibly as early as April 2016.
Now I see why McConnell so dearly wanted so dearly to make Obama a one-term President. He wants to run the country from his perch as Senate Majority leader, knowing he’ll never be President.
Unfortunately, his plans for the country are twisted and though unacceptable to the majority, he knows how to wield power ruthlessly.
Oh good lord…‘no reason at this time’ sounds about as ‘reasonable’ as ‘the Congress wasn’t dysfunctional for 8 years…what you talking about?’ from yesterday. He wants all the benefits of being in power with none of the blame. Really reprehensible.
“Flynn is a bit player in a much larger story regarding the president’s relationship with the Kremlin, and it’s this story the press needs to focus on.”
The logic is simple. That bill gets vetoed by a Republican president and the veto only gets overridden with Democratic votes. The very act of the veto sets up an institutional struggle between branches where partisanship gets subordinated to the self-interest of members and, worse still, in some cases, actual patriotism (because there’s nothing like a little threat to one’s self-interest to cause one to put one’s self-interest into a much larger context that ignites the fires–or at least the tiny candle flame–of patriotism).
In what universe is that a thing Mitch McConnell is ever going to let happen if it’s within his power to stop it?
I saw him in MSNBC last night making this very point. He basically said he doesn’t even have to prod for information, they’re freely giving it all up. Appointing some corporate hack to come in and “clean up” the IC just seems like an invitation for the IC to go harder after PP. He clearly doesn’t understand this is a battle he cannot win.
I agree about PP, but McConnell is a brilliant strategical thinker. That’s why I don’t understand this move unless it’s designed to hoist PP on his own petard.
I have so many problems with that it’s hard to know where to start. Is Bain Capital just going to sit back while Trump hands contracts to his friends without a bidding process?
Here’s what Jumps out at me from the first of the two Guardian articles:
In the 2008 suit the bank’s unhappy lawyers quote from Trump’s book Think Big and Kick Ass in Business and in Life. On his struggle with banks in the 1990s, Trump writes: “I figured it was the banks’ problem, not mine. What the hell did I care? I actually told one bank, ‘I told you you shouldn’t have loaned me that money’.”
Here’s Trump’s attitude in a nutshell, “It’s your problem, not mine, what the hell did I care; I actually told the country, I told you you shouldn’t have elected me!”.
At some point, if he’s not impeached first, I’m convinced, after sticking us with a huge bill, chaos and a broken system of government, Trump will just resign and tell us all to fuck off, that he told us who he was and if we don’t like what he’s done, we never should have elected him.
In November 2008 the German bank took the unusual step of suing Trump after he failed to repay $40m of a $640m real estate loan. Trump countersued. The tycoon argued that Deutsche had contributed to the global recession, which had depressed property prices. He demanded $3bn in damages.
Deutsche’s astonished lawyers described Trump’s lawsuit as frivolous and demanded immediate payment. The two parties settled in 2010. The bank then quietly re-established its relationship with Trump via Deutsche’s private bank. The private wealth division deals with ultra high-net worth individuals, typically with assets in excess of $50m.
There seem to be no rational, reasonable explanation why Deutsche put themselves into the same shit, no sane bank would have done that. Gotta strongly suspect there is some dirt on their hands as well.
Deutsche has refused to discuss its lending arrangements to the first family. Its clients also include Trump’s daughter Ivanka, her husband, Jared Kushner, and Kushner’s mother, Seryl Stadtmauer. Kushner is a senior White House adviser.
Just before the US election Deutsche refinanced $370m he owes against commercial property in Manhattan belonging to Kushner’s company.
Yeah, of course they refuse to discuss…
The internal review found no evidence of any Russia link, but Deutsche Bank is coming under pressure to appoint an external and independent auditor to review its business relationship with Trump.
Internal reviews by dirty hands are useless. Indy external reviews need to happen sooner rather than later.
May I also point out how ugly those PeePee photos are?
