As Trump distorts NFL players' messages, let's instead join together

BY JESSE JACKSON          July 30, 2018
As teams gear up for the NFL season, President Trump is reviving his destructive and diversionary attacks aimed at turning fans against players.

The league office stepped in it by unilaterally declaring that players who do not want to stand during the national anthem should stay in the locker room. The NFL players association had little choice but to force negotiations over that insult.

Jerry Jones, the owner of the Dallas Cowboys, is a decent guy. But he stuck his foot in it, too, recently announcing that the Cowboys had to stand for the anthem and couldn’t stay in the locker room – or else. The league wisely told him to zip it while the policy was under negotiation. So it goes.

So much of this is a false narrative. Fake news.

Trump dishonestly insists that the players are disrespecting the flag. In fact, the players kneeling during the anthem were expressing a silent protest not against the flag, but against police brutality and the reality of structural racial inequality.

Kneeling before the flag in silent, nonviolent protest is not disrespectful to the Stars and Stripes. Just the opposite. It is a sign of deference and respect, a call to honor what the flag is truly supposed to represent.

Burning the flag is constitutionally protected but is a desecration. Burning a cross is a desecration. It is violent. Kneeling before the cross, or during the anthem, on the other hand, isn’t a desecration; it is a call for help.

Colin Kaepernick was and is concerned about blacks being beaten and killed by police. He kneeled during the anthem to highlight how the values of the flag were being ignored on the streets. He wasn’t disrespecting the flag; he was protesting those who trample its values. He was being a patriot.

Now Trump wants to light the dynamite again. His politics prey and thrive on division. He hopes to divide us one against the other while his administration rolls back protections of consumers, workers and the environment, allows corporate lobbyists to rig the rules, and lards more and more tax cuts and subsidies on entrenched interests and the wealthy.

So, he purposefully peddles the false narrative that the players are disrespecting the flag.

Jones, who is a Trump supporter, isn’t a bad man. Beyond the playing field, beyond contracts, he has been a decent guy. He paid for the funeral of Cowboy great Bob Hayes. But Jones has allowed himself to be turned into Trump’s pawn in this diversion. The reality is that we would not have the Dallas Cowboys in Dallas were it not for those protesting for their rights.

The victory of the Civil Rights Movement opened the way to a New South. The nonviolent protests and resistance pulled down the old barriers and walls in the South, clearing the way for the Cowboys and the Spurs and the Rockets of the New South, where blacks and whites could play on the same team and wear the same colors, where fans root for the colors of their team, not the color of the players’ skin.

Successful protests – at the cost of far too many lives – finally ended slavery and apartheid in this society. We should be honoring the protesters, not distorting their message.

Kaepernick was right to protest what is going on in our streets. He has paid a heavy penalty for expressing his views in a nonviolent and dignified fashion. One of the best quarterbacks in the league, he has effectively been banned, a blatant conspiracy that ought to constitute a clear violation of anti-trust laws.

Kaepernick stands among giants. Curt Flood in baseball and Muhammad Ali during the prime years of his boxing life were also banned, but in the process, they changed sports and the country for the better.

There have always been politicians who profit by appealing to our fears. There have always been politicians who seek to divide us for political gain.

We’ve come a long way, but we still have a long way to go to fulfill the flag’s values of liberty and justice for all. The players expressing their views in nonviolent and dignified fashion aren’t disgracing the flag, they are expressing its values.

Let us turn against those who would divide us and join together to make America better.

Fox News confronts Rudy Giuliani over Michael Cohen 'liar' flip-flop

HuffPost US          NICK BAUMANN                July  29th 2018 
Rudy Giuliani can’t get his story straight on Michael Cohen — and even Fox News is calling him out on it.

On “Fox News Sunday,” host Chris Wallace confronted Giuliani, who serves as one of President Donald Trump’s attorneys, on his flip-flopping about Cohen, Trump’s longtime lawyer and fixer. 

In May, Giuliani called Cohen an “honest, honorable lawyer,” Wallace noted. “But now you say, quote, your words, ... ‘a pathological liar’ who’s been lying for years. So what happened?”

Giuliani said his shift stemmed from the revelation that Cohen had been “surreptitiously recording his clients” — referring to the tape of Cohen and Trump discussing a payment to former Playboy model Karen McDougal, who’s alleged she had a long-running affair with Trump before he became president. The tape was released last week and initially aired on CNN.

“Obviously if I knew that, I never would’ve said he was a reputable lawyer,” Giuliani said. “I would’ve said he was a scoundrel.”

“I knew nothing bad about Michael Cohen until all of this started to happen in the past couple weeks,” Giuliani insisted.

Giuliani must not have been following previous news accounts about Cohen, who served as Trump’s personal lawyer for more than a decade and was targeted by an FBI raid in April.

Cohen had reportedly compared himself to Tom Hagen, the fictional consigliere of the Corleone crime family in “The Godfather.” His business ventures are the subject of considerable interest from federal investigators, The New York Times reported in May, while Giuliani was still defending him.


And Giuliani months ago corrected a Cohen falsehood. Cohen claimed in February that he had paid Stormy Daniels, a porn actress who also has said she had a brief affair with Trump, $130,000 out of his own pocket, and Trump in April claimed he didn’t know about the payment. Giuliani later admitted that Trump had repaid Cohen.

Michael Cohen says Trump knew about Trump Tower meeting with Russians in advance: CNN

Lock him up ...I got the last laugh...lock him up

HuffPost US         NICK VISSER            July 26th 2018 10:03
Michael Cohen, the president’s former personal attorney, said Donald Trump knew in advance about a meeting during the 2016 campaign in which Russians were expected to offer negative information about his Democratic opponent, Hillary Clinton, according to a report by CNN.

Citing sources with knowledge of Cohen’s claims, CNN said the attorney is willing to share that information with special counsel Robert Mueller, who is investigating Russia’s attempt to influence the 2016 presidential election.

The meeting occurred at Trump Tower in June 2016 with Donald Trump Jr., son-in-law Jared Kushner and then-campaign manager Paul Manafort. They met with a lawyer linked to the Kremlin and a Russian businessman who initially had offered to disclose dirt on Clinton.

Trump has repeatedly denied having any knowledge about the meeting and told The New York Times in July 2017 that he “didn’t know anything” about it.

It’s the latest fracture between Cohen and his longtime client. Earlier this week, Cohen’s legal team released a secretly recorded conversation made in September 2016 in which the attorney and Trump discuss a payment to former Playboy model Karen McDougal. She has alleged that she had a months-long affair with Trump in 2006. 
This is a developing story. Check back for updates.
This article originally appeared on HuffPost.

*************** **************************************
Lets hear from Witchy :
tRUMP  is not to be believed.  Not to be trusted.  Not allowed to bring down the country further.  He is a scourge who must be relieved of his position.  Here is to hoping that the GOP finally puts their adult pants on and does the right thing, and support the country and dump the orange charlatan, carnival barker, snake oil sales guy.  
All this time I thought Mueller would sink  tRUMP....was I wrong, tRUMP 's attorney will sink him....'I LOVE IT'...Only the Trump zombies believed  Cheeto the rest of America knows that  tRUMP LIES 100% of the time.
I look forward to Sarah Sanders' informative answers to this at the briefing tomorrow--- oh who am I kidding. She's going to avoid that podium like a coward.  
I think the only way trump supporters will abandon him at this point is if he turns into a black man.
Dear Mr. Pu**y Grabbing tRUMP,
"When the full extent of your venality, moral turpitude, and political corruption becomes known, you will take your rightful place as a disgraced demagogue in the dustbin of history." 
Well I  guess this means Cohen won't be taking that bullet for  tRUMP....HeHe
I guess this means Cohen won't be taking that bullet for trump

To be continue "As The Stomach Turns"

Trump's a lousy general in the trade war he started with China

BY JESSE JACKSON                 July 23, 2018
President Trump has triggered what could be “the largest trade war in economic history,” the Chinese Commerce Ministry warns. Trump is threatening tariffs on $500 billion in Chinese goods, virtually all of our imports from China. He’s also hit Mexico, Canada and our European allies with punitive tariffs.

This week, the president of the European Community will meet with Trump in what is described as a “last ditch” attempt to avoid tariffs on car imports.  Inevitably, these countries have retaliated with tariffs on U.S. goods. Trump says “trade wars are good, and easy to win,” but this could get messy.

Needless to say, the free trade lobby is up in arms in protest. Light too often gets lost in the heat. As the rhetoric and posturing gets more extreme, a little common sense is needed.

First, the U.S. has been running unsustainably large trade deficits for years — as high as 6 percent of GDP in 2006-2007, down to 2.4 percent OF GDP last year. Much of these deficits come from internal transfers within American multinationals, with companies moving jobs abroad to take advantage of cheap labor or poor environmental standards and then shipping the products back here.

This has devastated communities where the plants closed and given CEOs a club to threaten workers with, contributing to wages losing ground and to obscene levels of inequality. Addressing U.S. trade deficits and their effects is long overdue.

Second, Trump is a lousy general for the war that he’s started. Our trade deficit with China is the largest bilateral deficit in history, nearly $376 billion last year. A sensible general would have engaged our allies to join in challenging China’s mercantilist trade policies that trample global trade rules, from manipulating their currency, to stealing or extorting technological secrets, to suppressing worker rights and environmental protections.  Instead, Trump has decided to open fire on everyone — ally and adversary — at the same time.

Third, Trump seems to get why we are in this hole.  He says prior U.S. negotiators were stupid, cut bad deals and that other countries are stealing us blind. In fact, U.S. negotiators — virtually all drawn from global corporations and banks or their law firms — rigged the rules to serve their interests.

These agreements work great for the CEOs, the multinational banks and corporations.  That they shafted American workers was intentional, not an oversight.

Tariffs are a crude club, one that invites retaliation. Trump’s use of them reveals that he sees the U.S. as weak, not strong.

A sensible strategy would have totally different priorities. It would start by guaranteeing greater security to U.S. working people in a global economy:  Medicare for all, free college and advanced training, a living wage, a full-employment economy.

That economic bill of rights should be bolstered by a cutting-edge industrial policy designed to ensure the U.S. leads in the emerging markets of the future. That would include public investment to rebuild our decrepit infrastructure, from transportation to water systems to public education and training.

It would include investing in advanced research and technology. It would lead in driving the green industrial revolution in alternative energy and energy efficiency. Trump’s tariffs won’t succeed in getting the Chinese to abandon their industrial policy, but we surely could compete if we organized our own.

These internal reforms should be accompanied by efforts to rewrite the rules of the global economy that have directly contributed to the widening gulf between rich and poor.  The U.S., the author of most of those rules, should lead the effort, with negotiators who represent the vast majority, not the executive suite.

According to reports, Trump’s negotiators in the NAFTA talks with Mexico and Canada have pushed sensible reforms —  an end to the investor-state dispute settlement system that gives corporations a privately rigged legal system, a $17 minimum wage across countries in the automobile sector, better rules and enforcement for union organizing.

For these reforms to survive, Trump will have to overcome the conservatives in his own party, which seems very unlikely.

Trump is a bombastic showman, with a conman’s sense of what sells. The trade wars help distract from the scandals that dog him at home, and let him drive the headlines while posturing as the champion of working people.

He’s addressing a problem that is real, but he displays neither the understanding of what needs to be done nor the instinct for the strategy needed to achieve it. And the very people he claims to be helping are likely to pay the highest cost for his follies.

Putin listens closely as Trump speaks... Why ? Read on

Russia's President Vladimir Putin listens while US President Donald Trump speaks during a press conference at Finland's Presidential Palace July 16, 2018 in Helsinki, Finland. - The US and Russian leaders opened an historic summit in Helsinki, with Donald Trump promising an "extraordinary relationship" and Vladimir Putin saying it was high time to thrash out disputes around the world. (Photo by Brendan Smialowski / AFP)        (Photo credit should read BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/AFP/Getty Images)
And there's really only one idiot in America stupid enough to fall for it.
 One of the few semi-concrete proposals to come out of the Trump-Putin Summit and Annual Performance Review was an ostensibly new willingness by the Putin regime to “help” the U.S. government further investigate the allegations against a dozen Russian military officers now under indictment for concrete acts of election tampering in the United States. Trump, again daring onlookers to suss out whether he was operating from staggering ignorance or active complicity, willingly agreed.

To make things clear, the Russian proposal is part of an ongoing effort by the Putin government to expose and murder U.S. sources. And they're not making much of an attempt to hide it.

The Russian government's primary response so far to the myriad indictments of Russian nationals to so far come out of the Mueller probe has been consistent; they have used the court proceedings to try to force the U.S. government to divulge just how much they know about Russian activities and—more critically—how they know it. This is the legal risk, for the Mueller team, in bringing charges against Russians implicated in the espionage efforts; our court system allows, and in fact largely insists on, the sharing of such information.

Mueller's indictment of Russian figures who that nation will never, ever allow to be extradited to stand trial is therefore seen by some critics as an error, if not pointless. His actions also, however, may largely be placeholders, incrementally fleshing out both the shocking scope and some of the key specifics of the Russian espionage and propaganda efforts aimed at altering the outcome of the U.S. elections. None of the most recently indicted Russians will likely ever stand trial—but those that they worked with in the United States might, and the indictments filed so far make it abundantly clear that there were almost certainly such U.S. co-conspirators.

The outrageous Putin "offer" to help Mueller's team sift through the evidence they've gathered against the Russian government’s own agents so that Russian intelligence officers can offer their own two cents on what the U.S. has learned is so obviously an effort to pry loose top-secret information on what the U.S. knows, what they don't know, and which specific Russian or American sources learned it that it's amazing even Donald Trump, a known idiot, so eagerly fell for it.

And when the other shoe dropped, it became even more transparent what Russia was after.

Glossed over by Trump in his own remarks, Putin's actual "offer" was, apparently, that they would provide this very generous support helping the FBI interpret their findings against Russian military hackers in exchange for another wee favor from Trump: giving Russian investigators access to those in the United States and Europe who exposed the massive Putin-linked campaign of embezzlement, money laundering and murder that led to the Magnitsky Act, a set of U.S. sanctions that targets the oligarchs surrounding Putin and severely curtails their ability to funnel their cash overseas.

Chief among those that Putin's government is demanding access to: the man responsible for the Magnitsky Act sanctions, Bill Browder.

Putin offered to allow American investigators to interview the 12 Russian intelligence agents just indicted by Special Counsel Robert Mueller in exchange for allowing Russians to have access to me and those close to me. This is no idle threat. For the last ten years, I’ve been trying to avoid getting killed by Putin’s regime, and there already exists a trail of dead bodies connected to its desire to see me dead. Amazingly, Trump stood next to him, appearing to nod approvingly. He even later said that he considered it “an incredible offer.”
Browder is, as he says, an apparent top enemy of the Putin regime. His lawyer, Sergei Magnitsky, was the one who exposed the corruption scheme that reached well into the circle of Putin loyalists; for this, he was murdered in a Russian jail cell. The Russian government has been furious about the resulting Magnitsky Act, penned in specific response to this murder, since the moment it passed. Lifting the sanctions was a subject of the now-infamous Trump Tower meeting between top Trump campaign officials and a team sent by the Russian government for the openly stated purpose of assisting the Trump campaign; it is likely to be one of the top reasons the Putin government preferred Trump, long accused of turning a blind eye to Russian money laundering in his own real estate holdings, to the hated Hillary Clinton.

The Putin government wants "access" to Browder and others who learned of the Russian corruption scandal for multiple reasons, none of them good. First, to ask them pointed questions about how they learned the things they learned about the Russian government and the specific sanctioned oligarchs—for example, to determine whether there are any leakers within the country that the Russian government hasn't yet identified.

Second, because many if not most of those individuals are now considered "security threats" by Russia; Browder has been the target of relentless Russia-promoted conspiracy theories of escalating degrees of lunacy since the sanctions were passed, all in a (again, transparent) effort to discredit the oligarchy's critics and, therefore, the tough international sanctions against them.

But third, because the Putin government has at this point a history of murdering its critics—and suspected leakers—outright. The Magnitsky Act came about precisely because of this. We should not be so gullible as to think that Putin's government, so soon after the poisoning of an ex-Russian spy using a nerve agent developed and used exclusively by the Russian government, is demanding to know the precise whereabouts of a list of top Putin enemies for mere bookkeeping reasons.

It is possible, barely, that Donald Trump is genuinely so stupid that he does not see a Russian proposal that they be allowed to both see the evidence gathered against their own spy operations and be granted access to meet with and grill those that uncovered rank corruption in the Putin government as an obvious effort to uncover the identity of the Russian sources who may have leaked such things—but none of the rest of us could possibly be.

Though Trump leapt eagerly at the proposal, an order to actually implement it, assisting the Putin government in identifying (and, afterward, murdering) sources responsible for telling the FBI and other law enforcement agencies what they know about the Putin government's actions and allies would be treason. It would be point-blank treason, and there seems little debate to be had over that.

If Trump does indeed order it, one imagines that it would be met both with widespread resignations and widespread fury. But if his staff cannot talk him down from committing that act of open treason, mere fury as he works his way through member of his party until he finds ones willing to assist him in such an act would be insufficient. His staff should themselves declare him unfit for office, and Congress should boot him before he can do such damage, rather than merely whining pitifully about it afterward.

Trump won't protect our elections, so states must step up

BY JESSE JACKSON                 July 17, 2018
Russian President Vladimir Putin came late to the Helsinki Summit with Donald Trump on Monday and spoke first at the news conference afterward. He handed Trump a soccer ball from the World Cup, but he clearly walked away with the trophy for the World Cup of politics, largely because Trump, in a bizarre and unprecedented performance, kept scoring own goals on Putin’s behalf.

I have always supported dialogue and negotiations over conflict and isolation. I believe that good relations with the Russians, a nuclear power, are as Trump would say, “a good thing.” But Trump made it embarrassingly clear that he is more concerned about defending his own besmirched election campaign than he is about protecting American democracy.

The president apparently doesn’t understand that it isn’t all about him. Russian interference in our elections — which Trump’s own intelligence appointees warn is ongoing — isn’t just about the “collusion” that the president rushed to deny. It is about subverting our democracy. Trump can howl at the moon denying collusion, but it is simply grotesque that he could not bring himself to warn Putin publicly that continued interference with our elections is unacceptable and would be met with an immediate response.

Trump is outraged at the Mueller investigation of possible collusion of his campaign with the Russians, but he seems unmoved by the clear evidence of the subversion of our elections. He didn’t give Putin a red light or even a yellow warning one about future interference; he essentially gave him a free pass.

The reality is that a core of our democracy — free elections — is under assault. Given the administration’s failures, foreign interference is likely to spread. The home-grown systematic efforts by right-wing politicians and activists to suppress the vote, to make it harder to register and harder to vote, to purge voters from the lists, to gerrymander election districts to distort the outcome and to open the gates to a flood of unaccountable, secret corporate and private money continue to get more sophisticated.

Already experts suggest that Democrats will have to win the national vote by 6 to 8 percent in order to take the majority of the House, largely due to Republican partisan redistricting.

Trump is so focused on his own election campaign, so defensive about the legitimacy of his own victory that he has utterly failed to protect our democracy from subversion from abroad or at home.

It will be up to the states to make the reforms that are long overdue: automatic voter registration, longer early voting days, voting day holidays, an end to voter purges, nonpartisan redistricting, matching public funds for small donations, mandatory disclosure of all funding sources, returning the right to vote to felons that have served their time and more. The states should be taking measures to protect voting systems from outside interference, including moving back to paper ballots to eliminate the threat of cyber intrusions.

What is clear from Trump’s performance in Helsinki is that he won’t lead this effort. He is so fixated on defending himself that he is failing to defend our democracy and our elections.

The president should be applauded for meeting with Putin, hopefully reduced tensions and new impetus for reducing nuclear arsenals will follow. But his failure to defend our democracy both against Russian interference and against domestic subversion is a dangerous dereliction of duty.

Republicans in Congress won’t act because they seem to believe that their majorities may depend on suppressing the vote.

So, it is up to the states, and to an aroused citizenry, to insist that our election be open, free and fair. The shocking display that Trump put on in Helsinki makes that all the more imperative.

Top Senate Democrats double down on calls for Trump not to meet with Putin after Mueller indicted 12 Russian intel officers

Business Insider          ELLEN CRANLEY         July 14th 2018 
Top Senate Democrats are doubling down on calls for President Donald Trump not to meet one-on-one with Russian President Vladimir Putin on Monday.
Their urging comes one day after the special counsel Robert Mueller indicted 12 Russian intelligence officers on hacking charges.
In a letter sent Saturday, the senators said there "must be other Americans in the room" at the meeting and that Russia's election interference must be the "top issue" of the two leaders' discussion.
Top Senate Democrats sent a letter to President Donald Trump urging him not to meet one-on-one with Russian President Vladimir Putin at a planned summit in Helsinki, Finland on Monday.

The senators wrote there "must be other Americans in the room" at the meeting, where they also stated "Russia's attack on our election" should be a "top issue."

"[Russian President Vladimir Putin] is a trained KGB intelligence veteran who will come to this meeting well-prepared," the letter said.

Sens. Chuck Schumer, Dick Durbin, Mark Warner, Robert Menendez, Dianne Feinstein, Patrick Leahy, Sherrod Brown, and Jack Reed signed the letter. The signers sit on the Senate Armed Services, Appropriations, Banking, Foreign Relations, Judiciary and Intelligence committees.

Saturday's letter comes just afterthe  special counsel Robert Mueller indicted 12 Russian intelligence officers suspected of playing a role in the DNC before the election. The indictment was a monumental development in the ongoing Russia investigation because it marks the first time Mueller has directly pointed a finger at the Russian government for its efforts to meddle in the election.

"We hope that you will use the opportunity of a meeting with Mr. Putin to advance a well-coordinated US message, supported by senior leaders in your own administration, to hold Russia accountable for its unacceptable behavior," the letter said.

Lawmakers also urged Trump to act on the advice of other federal agencies, saying "you must rely on the expertise and the experts of the State Department Defense Department, CIA and other US government agencies — not wing it on your own."

This letter is the latest development in calls from lawmakers on both sides of the aisle for Trump to cancel the meeting.

Schumer, the top-ranking Senate Democrat, released a statement after the indictments were made public Friday, in which he said Trump's continuing friendliness with Putin "on the heels of these indictments would be an insult to our democracy."

Schumer's statement also took aim at Trump's refusal to acknowledge the special counsel's investigation, saying "these indictments are further proof of what everyone but the president seems to understand: President Putin is an adversary who interfered in our elections to help President Trump win."

Trump has repeatedly referred to the investigation as a "witch hunt" and sought to again discredit the proven Russian interference in the 2016 US presidential election in a Saturday morning tweet.

Arizona Sen. John McCain, a frequent Russia critic, also said in a Friday statement Trump should cancel the meeting if he "is not prepared to hold Putin accountable" for Russia's "ongoing aggression towards the United States and democracies around the world."

Despite the outcry from Congress, Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders said Friday the meeting would go on as planned .

How the Mueller News Is an Indictment of…Donald Trump and His GOP Enablers

The special counsel’s charges reinforce what we already know: Trump aided an attack on America.
DAVID CORNJUL. 13, 2018 
 The latest news from special counsel Robert Mueller is a stunning indictment of…President Donald Trump and his Republican minions. 

For almost two years, Trump and his defenders have dismissed, downplayed, and denied the Russian attack on the 2016 presidential election, and they have denigrated Mueller’s investigation as a “witch hunt” and a partisan hit job. Recently, Trump amplified Vladimir Putin’s claim that Moscow did not intervene in the campaign and declared that Putin was “fine.” That is, Trump gave the Oval Office seal of approval to Russian disinformation. And the day before Mueller charged 12 Russian intelligence officials with conspiring to intervene in the election and committing cyber fraud and money laundering, Trump’s GOP foot soldiers on Capitol Hill staged an absurd circus, spending almost 10 hours on a hearing attacking FBI official Peter Strzok in order to discredit the Mueller probe. Not once since Election Day 2016 have congressional Republicans devoted as much passion and time to a hearing focused on how Putin waged information warfare on the United States to help Trump become president. 

It is absurd that the Russian assault on American democracy has been a matter of debate. The US intelligence community, most of Trump’s own senior national security appointees, and the GOP-led House and Senate intelligence committees have each accepted the assessment that the hack-and-dump operation that targeted Hillary Clinton’s campaign was mounted by Russian intelligence under instructions from Putin. Still, Trump has repeatedly questioned Russian culpability, and his Republican enablers have generally let his assertions go unchallenged and applied their energy to promoting distractions and conspiracy theories that divert attention from the two core elements of the Trump-Russia scandal: Russia attacked the United States, and Trump and his lieutenants, during and after the election, aided that attack by joining with Moscow in denying Russia was the culprit. (Mueller’s new indictment contains this stunning allegation: Russian intelligence operatives tried to hack into email accounts used by Clinton’s personal office and her campaign on the same day—July 27, 2016—that Trump publicly said, “Russia, if you’re listening, I hope you’re able to find the 30,000 emails that are missing.”)

For some of us, this indictment of the Russian cyber spies comes as no surprise. It has long been expected. Government bodies, media outlets, and cybersecurity firms have documented the Russian operation and described it as part of a wide-ranging Russian assault on the US political system. Many reporters—including me—have been fixated on all this for nearly two years. Michael Isikoff and I wrote an entire book on the subject: Russian Roulette: The Inside Story of Putin’s War on America and the Election of Donald Trump. My colleagues at Mother Jones have maintained an extensive Trump-Russia timeline. The New York Times and the Washington Post shared a Pulitzer Prize for their coverage of the Russia connection. Yet many Republicans and conservatives have continued to avert their eyes from the matter—arguably the greatest political scandal in American history. Instead, Trump, Fox Newsers, and lapdog congressional GOPers claimed that tangential and phony issues—unmasking, surveillance warrants, Trump being wiretapped—and a nefarious deep-state plot against Trump comprised the true scandal. And, too often, media outlets have taken the bait and chased after these concocted narratives. 

Yet the new indictment is a reminder—unfortunately, a much-needed reminder—of, well, reality. In detail, it depicts how the (alleged) attack transpired. The specifics are revelatory. The indictment quotes messages WikiLeaks (identified in the document as “Organization 1”) allegedly sent to Guccifer 2.0—the internet entity set up by Russian military intelligence to disseminate the Democratic National Committee emails stolen by Moscow’s hackers—as WikiLeaks tried to obtain these documents so it could post them shortly before the Democratic convention to hurt Clinton and benefit Trump. It confirms that Roger Stone—identified as “a person who was in regular contact with senior members of the presidential campaign of Donald J. Trump”—was in contact with Guccifer 2.0 during the campaign. (In August 2016, he and Breitbart published a piece in which Stone insisted Guccifer 2.0 was indeed what this persona claimed to be: a lone Romanian hacker. The bottom line: Stone and Breitbart actively assisted a Russian disinformation operation conducted to camouflage an attack on the United States.)

Though the indictment does not address this particular issue, it does indirectly cast light on the sin that Trump and his henchmen have been trying to hide: They helped this Russian operation by repeatedly insisting it wasn’t happening. The main question in this scandal is not whether there was outright collusion between Trump and the indicted Russian intelligence operatives. (Who seriously believes that Trump told Viktor Borisovich Netyksho or the 11 other indicted Russians what DNC documents to pilfer or how to release them?) Trump’s already proven transgression is that during the campaign he kept insisting Russia was not engaged in this wrongdoing—even after he was told in a briefing by US intelligence that Moscow was mounting this assault. Trump’s echoing of Moscow’s own denials helped a foreign adversary as it sought to covertly influence an American election. 

For a long time, I and others have contended this is the foundation of the Trump-Russia affair. (Over a year ago, I went through how Trump and his crew assisted and encouraged Moscow.) Yet Trump and his acolytes have sought to draw notice away from this profound act of betrayal. Their mission: to prevent thorough consideration of the Russian attack and Trump’s role in the cover-up. After all, these are misdeeds that do raise questions about Trump’s legitimacy as president—or, at least, his ability and willingness to fulfill his No. 1 responsibility: protect the nation. 

Mueller’s indictment, perfectly timed for Trump’s upcoming summit with Putin, inhibits Trump’s self-serving effort to make the Trump-Russia scandal vanish. It undercuts his attempts—and those of his amen chorus—to move past his treachery.  It places the Russian attack in the spotlight and rings a bell on Trump. In between the lines, the indictment presents a grave charge: Trump abetted a serious Russian operation to undermine an American election. It also conveys an important message: This story is not over yet. 

Freidrich Drumpft ?? ... Who the heck is that ?

He looks a lot like Don Trump Jr...No?
 

Is this why Trump hates immigrants?
"Friedrich Drumft was swept to the United States in one of the biggest waves of mass migration in history. During the 1880s and early 1890s, 1.8 million Germans emigrated to various European and overseas destinations. When young Friedrich arrived in New York in 1885, at 16 years of age, he joined around 200,000 of his compatriots who had already settled in the metropolis, forming a distinct “Little Germany”.  He found work as a barber, and for six years, he shared a small apartment with his sister and brother-in-law.
In 1891, at 22, he decided to go west to seek his fortune. Friedrich anglicized his name to Frederick  Trump and became a US citizen. He moved to Seattle and opened a small late-night restaurant that catered to the clientele of the local saloons, brothels, and opium dens.
When the Klondike Gold Rush began, Trump left the red-light district and moved to the edge of town, where he opened a new eatery to serve the thousands of fortune-seekers on their way to the gold fields.
In 1898, he and a partner followed the gold rush north to British Columbia, Canada. They set up a tent on the heavily-traveled Dead Horse Trail and served hot meals to the prospectors. Business was so good that they moved to a two-story building in the boom town of Bennett and opened the New Arctic Restaurant and Hotel. The building, it is said, loomed tall among a sea of tents.

The New Arctic was the best facility around, offering unaccustomed luxuries: excellent accommodations, a saloon that never closed, and a restaurant featuring a wide range of game, fish, fowl, and fresh fruits and vegetables.
When a new railroad bypassed Bennett, Trump relocated to Whitehorse, a larger boom town, and opened the Whitehorse Restaurant and Inn. The new facility was open around the clock and served 3,000 meals a day.

In 1901, after gold was discovered in Alaska and the wave of prospectors surged north-west, Trump cashed out. He sold his Canadian investments and returned to Kallstadt Germany with a small fortune.. (Incidentally, the Heinz family of Ketchup fame has its origins in the same town.) Frederick married his childhood sweetheart, Elisabeth, in Kallstadt and planned to settle down.

The Bavarian Palatinate authorities, however, would not let him.  When they discovered that he had emigrated when young to avoid fulfilling his military service, ( Does that remind you of someone?) he lost his Bavarian citizenship.
 They claimed he had left Germany as an illegal immigrant, evading taxes and the compulsory two-year military service. Frederick pleaded that he and Elisabeth were, “loyal Germans and stand behind the high Kaiser and the mighty German Reich”. It was all to no avail. The Trumps were evicted and scuttled back to the USA to resettle in New York where they raised a family … one of whom was Frederick Trump, the father of the sitting president of the United States.

The acorns never fell very far from that tree...

 

 I wonder what Freidrich would think of his grandson

I am beginning to wonder if we can honestly say anything is actually Trumpty-Dumpty's fault, given how inept he is at, well, everything.
Sure, he said it was fine to put kids in cages and now he says it isn't, but then he said that "Little Rocket Man" was a threat to US security and now they're buddies. Oh wait, they're mortal enemies, again. During the election he was all for free trade but now he's for protectionism, at least of his own tax-returns.
The real problem isn't the Tangerine Tantrum, who changes his "mind" more frequently than he changes his underwear, it's the enablers. Trump is beyond reason, but surely there are some grown-ups around the White House or the Congress or the Senate who can control, or at least, reason with  the 'Mango Monster'.  But they don't. They give in to his every whim or racist, xenophobic, dumb-ass idea. Why? Because they like the power after such a long absence from any kind of significance . They like controlling all three branches of government and keeping the Democrats under their thumb and destroying  every good thing that previous presidents put in place.  The last time the Republicans controlled all three branches was in 1928. They will certainly leave their stamp on their country. It may take decades to clean up after them.
Maybe Americans should all learn Russian.

Trump says the 20-foot-tall angry trump baby blimp flying in London makes him feel 'unwelcome

DAVID CHOI         July 13th 2018 
London mayor Sadiq Khan permitted a 20-foot-tall angry "Trump Baby" blimp depicting President Donald Trump to be flown during his visit to the UK.
Trump said it made him feel "unwelcome."
Trump also said he was going to steer clear of the protests in London, which was said to reach up to 200,000 protesters.
President Donald Trump said he felt "unwelcome" in London after its mayor, Sadiq Khan, permitted a 20-foot-tall angry "Trump Baby" blimp depicting him to be flown during his visit to the UK.

"I guess when they put out blimps to make me feel unwelcome, no reason for me to go to London," Trump said in an interview with The Sun.

Khan described the blimp as a "peaceful protest."

Trump said he would try to avoid the crowd in the capital during his four-day visit to the country.

"I used to love London as a city," Trump said. "I haven't been there in a long time. But when they make you feel unwelcome, why would I stay there?"

An activist group was given permission to fly the blimp over London during Trump's visit, which will reportedly be met with up to 200,000 protestors in the streets. The group launched a crowdfunding project and has since raised over $40,400.

"Donald Trump is a big, angry baby with a fragile ego and tiny hands," the group's crowdfunding page said. "He's also racist demagogue who is a danger to women, immigrants and minorities and a mortal threat to world peace and the very future of life on earth."

"Moral outrage is water off a duck's back to Trump," the group added. "But he really seems to hate it when people make fun of him."

Trump's visit spurred other activists to create their own political displays. One artist carved "F--- Trump" into a crop circle that was reportedly visible on Trump's flight path to British Prime Minister Theresa May's country estate.

In explosive interview, Trump says Theresa May's Brexit plan will 'kill' a US-UK trade deal

Americans should never accept the human rights catastrophe on our border

BY JESSE JACKSON               July 9, 2018
 Around the world our attention is riveted on the plight of the boys and the coach of the Wild Boars soccer team trapped in a cave in northern Thailand. As of this writing, eight have been saved.

Courageous scuba divers volunteer at no small risk to their lives. One was killed when he ran out of oxygen on his way out of the cave. Doctors, hospitals and child psychiatrists stand at the ready to help those who are saved. Our hearts go out to the parents, hoping against hope that a miracle will happen.

This global empathy for the young children’s lives in peril is remarkable. It also raises the obvious question: Why is the same human response less intense for the 2,300 children who were separated from their parents and housed in cages across this country? We are fixated on the 12 stranded in a cave on the other side of the world, yet pay less attention to the 2,300 who were locked in cages around the corner.

The 2,300 suffer not because of a natural disaster but because of an arbitrary change in policy designed to punish and terrorize. The Trump administration — reflecting the temper of the boss — traumatized these children and their parents with the abrupt and mindless proclamation in May of “zero tolerance” for undocumented immigrants, even those seeking asylum. The forcible separation of children from their parents followed.

The human rights catastrophe keeps getting worse. In late June, Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar assured distraught migrant parents that there was “no reason” that they couldn’t find their toddlers. But HHS, in charge of the children’s welfare, apparently doesn’t have a clue about how many children it has under its authority, where the children are, or where and who their parents are.

Under court order to unite the children under 5 with their parents by Tuesday and all other children by July 26, Azar is now pleading for more time from the court.

The New York Times reported that U.S. Customs and Border Protection officials deleted records that would enable officials to connect parents with children who had been ripped from them.

This is an unspeakable and inexcusable violation of innocent children. Child experts warn that the children may well be scarred for life. How can we not weep with the father distraught that his little boy could have no chance of protecting himself in a mass cage?

Yesterday, the Washington Post reported that demonstrators in Louisville, Ky., accosted Mitch McConnell when he came out of a restaurant (after being a no-show at a demonstration about the children). “Where are the babies, Mitch?” they asked. The administration that McConnell slavishly defends is now scrambling to figure out the answer to that simple question.

President Donald Trump slurs undocumented immigrants as criminals, rapists and gangsters. In fact, even as immigration has increased, the national rate of violent crime today is well below what it was in 1980.

Parents don’t risk a perilous journey from their homes lightly. They come out of desperation, leaving villages racked by hunger and threatened by violence. Seeking asylum, they have rights under international law that the U.S. still nominally respects.

The administration’s callous treatment of these children and their parents is not only shameful, but also an indefensible violation of basic human rights.

The young boys trapped in a cave on the other side of the world deserve our prayers. The toddlers locked in cages in this country should spark our outrage.

Continue to pray for the Wild Boars soccer team, and the courageous heroes seeking to save the remaining ones from the cave. Let us also keep in our hearts the 2,300 children ripped from their parents, transported to various parts of the country and locked in cages. We need heroes to help save them and reunite them with the families.

We need judges who will ensure that those who violated their rights are held responsible. And we need citizens to exercise their democratic rights to show that this is a better nation and we are a better people than this.

Donald Trump , fearing massive protests (and Trump Baby blimp(,will spend almosy no time in London

Donald Trump is a narcissist. He’s a liar but must believe his lies enough that his fragile ego doesn’t shatter into a million tiny pieces. Next week, Britain’s Prime Minister Teresa May is set to host our white supremacist in chief on British soil. As in the states, Brits are—for the most part—not big fans of what Donald Trump represents to humanity. The plan for Trump was to go right to London, go to the seat of British power, so to speak. There are big protests planned for his visit, including an enormous Trump Baby blimp, that has received the proper permits to fly over London and the Parliament building, during the orange human rights violator’s visit.

Trump Baby

                             
 @TrumpBabyUK
 Of course I'm aware of myself! I'm more aware of myself than any other President in history! Very Aware - very very aware!


Stuart Millar
✔
@stuartmillar159
Replying to @stuartmillar159 @woodyjohnson4
The ambassador also said Trump was aware of the baby blimp, and refused to say whether the president will play golf during his weekend visit to Scotland.


Trump’s itinerary for the four-day visit has just been released and it seems Trump will spend a whole lot of time avoiding England’s capital and most populated city. Teresa May’s spokesperson told the Guardian that there was nothing to see here.

“Prime ministers frequently make use of Chequers for meetings with foreign leaders,” she said. “It offers a more informal setting for important bilateral discussions. We’re looking forward to making sure the president has a chance to see and experience the UK beyond London and the south-east.”

She said: “We are a free and open democracy, and we believe in the right to peaceful protest. But I would also say that I think the majority of British people understand the importance of the UK-US alliance.”


Everybody but our elected officials seem to understand the “important of the UK-US alliance.” That’s why they are protesting.
Listen up :  
'Trump Baby Blimp' : will be allowed to fly as long as Trump is there ... Trump's fragile ego will shatter in a million pieces .
HeHe   

Arrogant Supreme Court justices trample the law in service of the rich

BY JESSE JACKSON             July 3, 2018
We are witnessing an astounding attack on democracy by the five male right-wing majority of the Supreme Court — “black robed rulers,” Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan called them, “overruling citizens’ choices” in a series of 5-4 decisions.

These are right-wing lawless judges ignoring the laws and will of our elected representatives and trampling the dictates of legal precedent. Their arrogance seems to have no bounds. The damage that they have already done to our democracy is profound.

The most recent 5-4 decision of the Supreme Court was the case of Janus v. AFSCME. The majority, throwing out the laws of state legislatures and legal precedent, ruled that state legislatures cannot authorize public employee unions to collect a fee for the cost of bargaining and representing workers who benefit from the negotiations but don’t want to join the union.

Protecting freeloaders seems bizarre, but the court’s ideologues are interested less in upholding the law and far more in weakening the workers’ voice as represented by unions. Now in states across the nation, right-wing corporate funded groups will launch campaigns to get workers to quit their unions in the hope of dramatically weakening the voice of teachers, sanitation workers, police officers and firefighters.

The decision is but one of many undermining our democracy. A right-wing majority gutted the Voting Rights Act in Shelby v. Holder. This term, the five upheld Texas redistricting that lower courts found discriminated against minority voters. In Citizens United, five conservative judges — again ignoring law and precedent — held that corporations could not be prohibited from spending money in elections. Somehow corporations, they suggested, had the same political rights as citizens.

The gang of five has also systematically favored corporate rights over women’s rights, gay rights, consumer and environmental protection. That the Congress — elected by the people — passes laws expressing different values doesn’t deter them. They have elevated themselves as “black robed rulers,” legislating their own choices from the bench.

Now Justice Anthony Kennedy has chosen to resign, apparently timing his announcement so President Trump can use the fight over his successor to rouse his base in the upcoming elections. (That suggestion gains credibility with the revelation that Kennedy’s son, working at Deutsche Bank, lent Donald Trump and his operations nearly a billion — with a b — billion dollars at a time when U.S. banks wouldn’t go near him because of his record of bankruptcies and scams.)

Kennedy gained a reputation as a “moderate” because of his votes on abortion and on gay marriage, but he has been a leader in the assault on democracy and the elevation of corporate rights over worker rights. Now, his resignation is timed so that Trump can name, and the Republican majority in the Senate confirm, a younger right-wing zealot to carry on the assault on democracy.

In the Civil Rights movement, we looked to the Supreme Court to enforce the Constitution against the Jim Crow laws of the apartheid South. Now we must take back the Congress and the statehouses and rally the democratic bodies against the usurpations of the ideological majority of the court. Only if the pressure is constant will one or more of the Justices realize the dangers and errors of their course.

The pushback can start with our election laws and come from the bottom up. Localities and states should be passing laws to make voter registration automatic, to extend the days for voting, to expand the franchise, and rollback restrictions on voting. Districts and states can pass laws matching small donations three or four to one, to encourage independence from the corruptions of big money. Localities might pass legislation demanding that candidates get their “oats and their votes” from the district itself – limiting funds to those provided by those who live in the district.

Nonpartisan citizen panels can put an end to partisan gerrymandering, ensuring the voters pick their representatives rather than politicians designing districts to pick their voters.

It is long past time that we recognize what the right-wing Supreme Court gang of five is doing.

They claim to be simply enforcing the laws, but they overturn legislation and ignore legal precedent. They are lawless in the service of the rich and the corporations. They are expanding the corrupting rule of big money even as they limit the rights of workers, consumers, women and people of color.

George Wallace stood in the schoolhouse door defying the dictates of the Constitution and the unanimous decision of the Supreme Court. Now a shameless majority of five stands in that door against the laws of the Congress and states, eroding the democracy they are sworn to protect. Just as it took a movement to challenge George Wallace and segregation, it will take a movement to reclaim our democracy from these “black robed rulers.”

Progressive activists should demand that every Democratic candidate for elected office at the local, state or national level make empowering workers a central part of his or her platform. They should demand support for measures that will make it easier for workers to organize and crack down on labor law violations. Companies that violate basic worker rights should be penalized in public procurement decisions.

At the same time, progressives need to expose the reality that the right wing gang of five in the Supreme Court is trampling the will of the people and overturning established precedents to serve the interests of the plutocrats and the right. These “black robed rulers” are legislating from the bench, scorning even an effort to find common ground with their own colleagues.

In a time of deep polarization, the lawless majority of court has chosen to stand with the powerful few against the vast majority.

That too will not stand.

Michael Cohen May Flip on Trump

Michael Cohen just made a move that Michael Flynn made days before sealing a deal with Mueller, and he could be 'preparing the way to flip' on Trump
 Business Insider          ALLAN SMITH              July  2nd 2018 
President Donald Trump's longtime lawyer Michael Cohen will soon end a joint defense agreement with the president.
Former national security adviser Michael Flynn did the same just days before he reached an agreement with the special counsel Robert Mueller.
A former federal prosecutor told Business Insider the move "makes complete sense in the world where Michael Cohen flips."

President Donald Trump's longtime lawyer Michael Cohen will soon end a joint defense agreement with the president, ABC News reported Monday.

That would echo a move from former national security adviser Michael Flynn just days before he reached an agreement with the special counsel Robert Mueller.

Many legal experts consider this the latest sign that Cohen, who is under federal criminal investigation, is readying to "flip" and cooperate with the government.

"Michael Cohen is preparing the way to flip on POTUS," said Mitchell Epner, an attorney at Rottenberg Lipman Rich who was previously an assistant US attorney for the District of New Jersey. 

"Ending the joint defense agreement with POTUS and the Trump Organization makes no sense in the world where Michael Cohen is going to fight," he told Business Insider. "It makes complete sense in the world where Michael Cohen flips."

ABC News reported that once Cohen's new legal team, headlined by attorney Guy Petrillo, takes over the case, the joint defense agreement that allowed lawyers of both parties to share information and documents will come to an end.

In June, Cohen hired Petrillo, a partner at Petrillo Klein & Boxer who has extensive experience in the Southern District of New York. Experts told Business Insider Petrillo was the kind of lawyer a person would choose if he or she were seeking to cut a deal with prosecutors.

"Once I understand what charges might be filed against me, if any at all, I will defer to my new counsel, Guy Petrillo, for guidance," Cohen told ABC News.

In late November, Flynn notified Trump's legal team that he would end a similar agreement. Roughly a week later, he pleaded guilty in the Mueller investigation to lying to the FBI and agreed to cooperate with the Russia inquiry.

Cohen, who worked for Trump over the past decade, is the focus of an investigation in the Southern District of New York into whether he violated campaign-finance laws or committed bank fraud, wire fraud, illegal lobbying, or other crimes. The FBI seized roughly 4 million documents from the lawyer in the April raids.

Trump has distanced himself from Cohen, suggesting that the investigation has far more to do with Cohen's business dealings than anything Cohen did for the president. Trump has also said he is not worried about Cohen giving the government anything damaging on him because he hasn't done anything wrong.

Cohen, meanwhile, split with the president in the ABC News interview, saying he would "put family and country first" when considering what he should do regarding that criminal investigation. When ABC's George Stephanopoulos pressed Cohen about his past vow to "take a bullet" for Trump, Cohen doubled down.

"To be crystal clear, my wife, my daughter, and my son, and this country have my first loyalty," he said.