16 May 2017

What a week...

Extended excerpts from the "Weekly Review" column in Harper's Magazine:
May 16, 2017
By Joe Kloc

U.S. president Donald Trump, whose attention span NATO officials announced they will accommodate by limiting their speeches to four minutes, fired FBI director James Comey, who had been overseeing one of multiple federal investigations into whether Trump's campaign colluded with the Russian government. The president stated that he made the decision based on the recommendation of his deputy attorney general, Rod Rosenstein; Rosenstein threatened to resign because he had never made any such recommendation; and Trump said that "regardless of recommendation" he was going to fire Comey because "Trump and Russia is a made-up story."

Trump's principal deputy press secretary, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, who once tweeted [re Hillary Clinton] that "you're losing" when "you are attacking FBI agents because you're under criminal investigation," said that "the rank and file of the FBI had lost confidence" in Comey, and the acting director of the FBI told Congress that Huckabee's statement was "not accurate" and that Comey "enjoyed broad support within the FBI."...

Trump held a meeting in the Oval Office with Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov, inviting one Russian photographer, but no U.S. journalists, to attend; a White house official said the Russians had "tricked" them into allowing the photographer in; and the photographer published a photo revealing that Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak was also at the meeting, despite not being on the White House schedule, not being shown in any official White House photographs, and not being mentioned in any subsequent White House accounts of the meeting. It was later reported that during the meeting Trump revealed "highly classified" information concerning the Islamic State to Kislyak, whom current and former U.S. intelligence officials have described as a top spy, and whom several Trump campaign surrogates and administration officials have falsely claimed not to have communicated with...

One senior Trump aide said, "We all know how this looks," while others hid from reporters in their offices, and a former KGB spy said he was "shaking" his head at "the incompetence" of the White House staff. A German lawmaker said that if Trump shared classified information with "other governments at will" he would become "a security risk for the entire Western world"; a European intelligence official said that his country may stop sharing intelligence with the United States; Trump's deputy national-security adviser, Dina Powell, said that reports about the president sharing classified information were "false"; a spokeswoman for the Russian foreign ministry described the reports as "yet another fake"; and Trump, who once called for the execution of Edward Snowden because the former NSA contractor had "given serious information" to Russia, tweeted that he did in fact "share with Russia." A former U.S. intelligence official referred to the situation as a "nightmare," and Public Policy Polling found that more Americans now support than oppose impeaching Trump, who once told a reporter that, when he isn't having a nightmare, the content of his dreams is "always fucking."
Jon Stewart, please come back and put a humorous spin on this, because it's not really funny anymore.

6 comments:

  1. something over 100 days into this administration and I run across a rather evenhanded article that goes into extensive detail to confirm that the sitting president has NOT committed acts that can be tried as treason. I must say, that is setting the bar rather low. http://foxtrotalpha.jalopnik.com/treason-an-explainer-1795261416

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    Replies
    1. Washington Post published something very similar in February. https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/five-myths-about-treason/2017/02/17/8b9eb3a8-f460-11e6-a9b0-ecee7ce475fc_story.html

      Delete
  2. I am SO horrified and disgusted...

    Mostly disgusted ~

    ReplyDelete
  3. I understand that an advisor to Pres. Trump has suggested that a "Reichstag Fire" event might be useful as a distraction from all his problems.

    If that happens, it's going to really piss off the Germans.

    Lurker111

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  4. "Crooked Hillary Clinton and her team 'were extremely careless in their handling of very sensitive, highly classified information.' Not fit!"
    -Donald Trump

    It's simple: Individuals who are ‘extremely careless’ w/classified info should be denied further access to it. -Paul Ryan

    That said, if this latest allegation proves true regarding The Donald's 'request' to dissolve an FBI investigation... no ands, ifs or buts- obstruction of justice, ie- Impeachable Offense. And the only remaining question- "Want fries with that?"

    ReplyDelete
  5. Apparently this forum has become a every other thing I post will be trump hate.

    I started this presidency disliking trump but I have to say all this I hate trump crap has made me like him more and more.

    At this point I will outspokenly defend the man that I internally dislike.

    All this does is show how childish people are when they don't get there way.

    I saw a comment of blindly following bla bla, no I agree with them support the president.

    Truly disgusting how some people will grasp at everything they can to make it an issue.

    ReplyDelete
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