[johnu]

Dennison is outraged over Kentucky Derby reversal. Apparently he was angry about collusion between the officials and the eventual winner.

President Donald Trump is angry about the controversial Kentucky Derby result

Quote

Only in these days of political correctness could such an overturn occur. The best horse did NOT win the Kentucky Derby - not even close!

And the New Orleans Saints and their fans are big whiners for complaining about a horrendous missed pass interference call that prevented them from reaching the Super Bowl. Let's just have a no disqualification cage match and let the better team/horse/person win.

Is anybody surprised the Dennison did not bring up Russian interference in the 2016 (and 2018 elections) in his 90 minute phone call with Putin last week? According to a White House spokesman, the subject didn't come up because there wasn't enough time

[johnu]

 andrei, on 2019-May-05, 13:29, said:

LOL, I might be from Ukraine.

Were you angry or upset when Russia invaded Ukraine and annexed Crimea, or as Putin called it, self determination for Crimea (to join Russia)?

[Winstonm]

What kind of BS is this?

Quote

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Trump administration is deploying a carrier strike group and bombers to the Middle East in response to troubling "indications and warnings" from Iran and to show the United States will retaliate with "unrelenting force" to any attack, national security adviser John Bolton said on Sunday.

What exactly are these "indications and warnings"? Kind of like weapons of mass destruction in Iraq?

[barmar]

 johnu, on 2019-May-03, 14:06, said:

I heard this on MSNBC that Barr has an interesting "tell" when he is about to lie or deflect from the truth during questioning.

Trump also has a tell -- his mouth is moving.

[johnu]

 Winstonm, on 2019-May-05, 21:54, said:

What kind of BS is this?



What exactly are these "indications and warnings"? Kind of like weapons of mass destruction in Iraq?

Maybe they were planning to try to disrupt our 2020 elections like Russia did

[y66]

 johnu, on 2019-May-05, 13:48, said:

Dennison is outraged over Kentucky Derby reversal. Apparently he was angry about collusion between the officials and the eventual winner.

Gutsy call by the stewards and some amazing skill by horses and riders to keep Maximum Security's wide turn from producing a disaster like the horse race in 2016.

[barmar]

 johnu, on 2019-May-05, 13:48, said:

Dennison is outraged over Kentucky Derby reversal. Apparently he was angry about collusion between the officials and the eventual winner.

Perhaps if the Electoral College selected the winner, it would have gone the way he wanted.

[Winstonm]

What's the point of obstructing justice if there is nothing to hide?

Quote

More than 370 former federal prosecutors who worked in Republican and Democratic administrations have signed on to a statement asserting special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s findings would have produced obstruction charges against President Trump — if not for the office he held.

The statement — signed by myriad former career government employees as well as high-profile political appointees — offers a rebuttal to Attorney General William P. Barr’s determination that the evidence Mueller uncovered was “not sufficient” to establish that Trump committed a crime.

[barmar]

One of those former prosecutors, who had worked on the Clinton impeachment, was on Morning Edition this morning. He described the claim that there can be no obstruction if there's no underlying crime as the kind of excuse a defense attorney might use, but it's not typically considered an impediment by prosecutors. For instance, Clinton's affair with Monica Lewinsky was not a crime, but they considered his attempts to hinder investigation of it to be obstruction of justice.

[cherdano]

 barmar, on 2019-May-07, 08:04, said:

One of those former prosecutors, who had worked on the Clinton impeachment, was on Morning Edition this morning. He described the claim that there can be no obstruction if there's no underlying crime as the kind of excuse a defense attorney might use, but it's not typically considered an impediment by prosecutors. For instance, Clinton's affair with Monica Lewinsky was not a crime, but they considered his attempts to hinder investigation of it to be obstruction of justice.

This whole line of reasoning by Barr is absurd. If there is no "obstruction of justice" when you are successful in obstructing justice, there would be very strong incentive to vigorously obstruct justice! Moreover, covering up crimes by associates of you that would reflect badly on you is a perfectly fine motivation in the view of every reasonable human being. Sadly that excludes Barr and presumably Barr-is-a-straight-shooter rmnka.

[Winstonm]

I'm beginning to think the future of American democracy lies with the hope that the conservative judges being rammed through confirmation are more committed to the law than to the party. If party sycophants control the courts, who is left to enforce the laws?

To be effective, laws require two things: 1) a willingness to enforce, and 2) an ability to enforce. What we are seeing now with the president's refusal to allow the Treasure Department to release his tax returns is a blatant defiance of law. The issue now is whether or not there is a a genuine mechanism and willingness to enforce that law.

Any argument against Congress's ability to obtain tax returns is ludicrous as the reason for the law's creation was to allow Congress to investigate political corruption, bribery, and abuse of power.

The issue now is whether this country will allow a sitting president to refuse to comply with the law.

[Winstonm]

Speaking of the president's tax returns, it seems to me the only two reasons to be truly frightened about their release would be if the cash expenditures (for things like the Scottish golf course, for which cash was paid) do not agree with income. That would tend to show either income tax evasion or money laundering, would it not?


Edit: Big story in the NYT about the taxes of Individual-1.

David Cay Johnston says this about the story:

Quote

There is not now and never has been verifiable evidence that Donald Trump has ever had a billion dollars,” he continued. “What we know from public records and his actions and now this report in The New York Times is that money flows in and it flows out faster than it flows in. “

“And one of the reasons we should all be concerned about that is someone in search for money to maintain the appearance that they’re wealthy is likely to commit crimes and be open to various actions and one of the things has been looked at — we don’t have a definitive answer — Donald Trump laundering money for Russians, Saudis, Emiratis and others through real estate deal, some of which I have written about, that make no sense as a business deal, but absolutely make sense as money laundering and pay off operations,” he explained.

[y66]

Guest post from Paul Krugman:

Quote

If you’re trying to understand why we may be on the brink of a full-scale trade war, with a huge expansion of U.S. tariffs on Chinese goods and, inevitably, Chinese retaliation, it may help to remember what happened a few weeks ago, while Notre Dame was burning.

As you may recall, Donald Trump decided to tell French firefighters how to do their job, tweeting that they should use “flying water tankers” to douse the flames. The French civil defense department responded with a tweet — in slightly fractured English — that didn’t mention Trump, but pointed out that water-bombing could cause the entire cathedral to collapse.

What does this have to do with trade? What the water-bombing incident shows us is that Trump has strong opinions on everything, even when he is completely ignorant of the subject. Fortunately, when it came to French firefighting, he couldn’t turn those opinions into action. Unfortunately, when it comes to trade policy, he can: U.S. trade law gives the president enormous discretionary authority to impose tariffs.

Trump’s tweets over the past few days may well be featured in future economics textbooks as perfect illustrations of how people misunderstand the basics of international trade and trade policy. In fact, I can pretty much guarantee it, since I’m the co-author of two textbooks.

First, Trump is still saying that because we run a $500 billion trade deficit with China — it’s actually $379 billion, but who’s counting? — that means we lose $500 billion. As some economists quickly pointed out, by this logic we all lose when we go shopping at our local supermarkets. After all, do the supermarkets buy anything from us in return? No!

Second, Trump keeps asserting that China is paying the tariffs he has already imposed. This could be true, if tariffs were driving Chinese prices down; in fact, the threat of more Chinese tariffs on U.S. agricultural exports is one reason grain prices have just plunged to a record low.

But enough time has passed for economists to look at the actual results of Trump’s trade policy so far, and the Chinese are not, in fact, paying the tariffs. As I wrote a couple of months ago, “to a first approximation, foreigners paid none of the bill, U.S. companies and consumers paid all of it.”

So if you’re trying to make sense of what’s happening on trade, you should start with the basic point that Trump has no idea what he’s doing, that there isn’t any coherent U.S. policy goal.

That still leaves the question of why what seemed to be a deal in the making may have fallen apart (or maybe not: this could all be theater.) Last week it looked as if China would mollify Trump by offering some “tweetable deliveries” — promises to buy U.S. products that would let him claim victory without leading to any substantive change in Chinese policy. Did the Chinese actually, as the administration claims, start to walk back some of their promises? Did a trade hard-liner get Trump’s ear? Did Trump hear that the likely deal would probably be panned by the news media? Nobody knows.

One thing is certain, however: If we do get into a full-scale trade war, for whatever reason, it will be very hard to end it, and the world economy will never be the same.

That also still leaves the question of why presumably rational people continue to support this guy.

[Winstonm]

 y66, on 2019-May-07, 11:32, said:

Guest post from Paul Krugman:


That also still leaves the question of why presumably rational people Only ignoramuses continue to support this guy.

FYP

[Winstonm]

I do not think this has been emphasized enough: do we all realize that the only thing at this point standing between the rule of law and a totally autocratic Individual-1 who ignores any law he doesn't like is the SCOTUS with new appointees Gorsuch and Kavenaugh with say-so about the unitary executive theory?

This is getting down to the nut-cutting. Are we going to retain this republic as it has been or allow a corrupt party and leader to steal it?

[Winstonm]

 Winstonm, on 2019-May-07, 11:12, said:

Speaking of the president's tax returns, it seems to me the only two reasons to be truly frightened about their release would be if the cash expenditures (for things like the Scottish golf course, for which cash was paid) do not agree with income. That would tend to show either income tax evasion or money laundering, would it not?


Edit: Big story in the NYT about the taxes of Individual-1.

David Cay Johnston says this about the story:

NYT:

Quote

Newly obtained tax information reveals that from 1985 to 1994, Donald J. Trump’s businesses were in far bleaker condition than was previously known.

By RUSS BUETTNER and SUSANNE CRAIG

May 7, 2019
By the time his master-of-the-universe memoir “Trump: The Art of the Deal” hit bookstores in 1987, Donald J. Trump was already in deep financial distress, losing tens of millions of dollars on troubled business deals, according to previously unrevealed figures from his federal income tax returns.

Mr. Trump was propelled to the presidency, in part, by a self-spun narrative of business success and of setbacks triumphantly overcome. He has attributed his first run of reversals and bankruptcies to the recession that took hold in 1990. But 10 years of tax information obtained by The New York Times paints a different, and far bleaker, picture of his deal-making abilities and financial condition.

The data — printouts from Mr. Trump’s official Internal Revenue Service tax transcripts, with the figures from his federal tax form, the 1040, for the years 1985 to 1994 — represents the fullest and most detailed look to date at the president’s taxes, information he has kept from public view. Though the information does not cover the tax years at the center of an escalating battle between the Trump administration and Congress, it traces the most tumultuous chapter in a long business career — an era of fevered acquisition and spectacular collapse.

The numbers show that in 1985, Mr. Trump reported losses of $46.1 million from his core businesses — largely casinos, hotels and retail space in apartment buildings. They continued to lose money every year, totaling $1.17 billion in losses for the decade.

In fact, year after year, Mr. Trump appears to have lost more money than nearly any other individual American taxpayer, The Times found when it compared his results with detailed information the I.R.S. compiles on an annual sampling of high-income earners. His core business losses in 1990 and 1991 — more than $250 million each year — were more than double those of the nearest taxpayers in the I.R.S. information for those years.

[y66]

Guest post from Jonathan Bernstein at Bloomberg:

Quote

I apologize in advance, but I’m going to do some old-fashioned cranky blogging today. Because Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell repeated something on Tuesday that I’ve heard one too many times.

In a speech on the Senate floor, McConnell was describing Democratic attitudes toward special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation. He called it a "Groundhog Day spectacle" that amounted to "endlessly relitigating a two and a half-year-old election result" and a "last hope that maybe they'd never have to come to terms with the American people’s choice of a president."

It's true, of course, that the core subject of Mueller's probe involved the 2016 campaign; it’s also true that many Democrats have speculated that Russian interference in the election may have changed the result (and given the very close outcome, that's at least a plausible guess).

But, to be blunt, the only political actor who is obsessed with relitigating the 2016 election is President Donald Trump. Democrats certainly don't think that anything they do now can change that result. Even those who are set on impeaching and removing Trump presumably understand that Vice President Mike Pence would move into the Oval Office.

More to the point, for the purposes of judging the president’s conduct, it shouldn’t matter whether the election was close or whether any alleged misbehavior might have changed the result. That’s obvious from Watergate. No one seriously thought in 1974 that the crimes committed by President Richard Nixon’s campaign were responsible for his landslide victory over George McGovern. But the crimes were still taken seriously by all sides. No one claimed that Nixon’s victory somehow mitigated his misconduct.

Although Trump doesn’t appear to have committed any crimes during the campaign with respect to Russia, it does seem likely that he obstructed justice and otherwise abused his power while in office. Should Democrats – should citizens in general – not care about that because he won? And y et I see many Republicans, McConnell included, basically saying: The election is over, Trump is president, get over it – as though that’s a good reason to ignore serious accusations of wrongdoing.

Want to defend Trump? Go for it. Nothing wrong with that. Just defend him on the merits. Plenty of criticism of any president is partisan, and plenty of it is dead wrong – but you can't argue that it's wrong in principle to hold the president accountable for his actions. Perhaps my memory is distorted, but I don't remember similar defenses of previous presidents, Democrats or Republicans.

[Winstonm]

To the sycophants of Individual-1: you know, don't you, that Individual-1 is not acting tough right now; he is scared shiteless.

[barmar]

 Winstonm, on 2019-May-09, 08:30, said:

To the sycophants of Individual-1: you know, don't you, that Individual-1 is not acting tough right now; he is scared shiteless.

Why would someone who believes he's totally innocent and has been exonerated be so adamant about not turning over documents? If he's correct, they should support his case.

[johnu]

A Republican-led Senate committee subpoenaed Donald Trump Jr., and GOP members are furious

After Lying Mitch the Hypocrite McConnell declared the Dennison/Russia investigation was closed, the Republican majority Senate Intelligence Committee subpoenaed Don Jr. back to the Hill to testify, presumably about his role in the Moscow Tower project and maybe the secret meeting with the Russians, both of which he apparently lied about and committed perjury in his last appearance.

Quote

"Apparently the Republican chair of the Senate Intel Committee didn't get the memo from the Majority Leader that this case was closed …," Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul wrote on Twitter.

I didn't expect any better from whackjob Paul. Finding the truth, trying to protect the country from Russian election interference, trying to protect the country from the Manchurian President and Putin Puppet? 100% not important. Protecting a liar and corrupt Dennison who is working for Putin? Priceless!