James Hohmann of the Washington Post yesterday described Trump’s defense when his hand was caught in cookie jar in broad daylight:
The president is running the smashmouth playbook he learned from Roy Cohn, his mentor and Joe McCarthy’s hatchet man. It’s worked repeatedly for Trump, from fighting the Justice Department’s investigation of racial discrimination at his family’s rental properties in the 1970s to overcoming Bob Mueller’s investigation the past two years. Among other things, this strategy involves denying everything and counterattacking critics by accusing them of whatever you’ve been accused of.
The don’t-give-an-inch mentality is what prompts someone like White House policy adviser Stephen Miller to declareon “Fox News Sunday” that “the president of the United States is thewhistleblower, and this individual is a saboteur trying to undermine a democratically elected government.” And it is why Trump allows Rudy Giuliani, his ferocious personal attorney, to keep defending him on television despite the messes he seems to make each time he goes on the air.
Inother words, he did it, it was the right thing to do, who cares, so what, and anyone who says he did it is a liar and a traitor and should resign or be shot.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Reblogged this on Lloyd Lofthouse and commented:
Trump says anyone that says he “did it” is a liar and a traitor and should resign or be shot. But some of us will shoot back.
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Trump has no chance of winning in 2020. I think that even the dimmest of Republican Senators are starting to figure this out. He is going to lose, and lose badly, and he’s going to drag a lot of Republican Senators and Congresspeople down with him. For this reason, the smarter ones are starting to rethink participating in the Trump Limbo Party (how low, how low, how low can we go). Their only chance of winning in 2020 is to get him out of office as soon as possible and to fly with another candidate.
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So, Trump and the Democrats have given them a way out of this. LOL. Let’s see if they are smart enough to take it.
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“Trump has no chance of winning in 2020.” From your mouth to G-d’s ears. I said this in 2016, too though, so I’m inclined to think we were supposed to learn from this harrowing experience precisely how precarious our democracy really is, so that we don’t take it for granted and so we take steps to protect it.
I think Trump won’t win because more people today are onto him and aware of his lack of genuine empathy and compassion for other people, as well as his always self-serving motives and ongoing, insatiable quest for more power and more money.
Based on Trump’s behavior, I think. at bottom, he knows he can’t win, too, but he believes that, like last time, he could win if he cheats. He clearly thinks that’s okay to do and that he will get away with it, if he does it in plain sight, since that’s what he did before. I doubt it will work this time.
The biggest problem though, I think, is that Pence is really awful, too. Remember when he was governor of IN and the Tony Bennett scandal, as well as how Pence stripped democratically elected Glenda Ritz of her powers? https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/answer-sheet/wp/2016/07/15/how-mike-pence-tried-to-undermine-the-will-of-indianas-voters/ I think Pence will be the go-to guy for Republicans, but he is not a viable answer to this dilemma for Progressives.
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Support for impeachment increased by 10 percent, nationwide, in a single week. Trump has galvanized the left and will bring those reluctant voters to the polls. His own poll numbers continue to drop. They just reached an all-time low of 37 percent. It’s clear that he will lose. Pence will be the most lame of lame ducks. He won’t be the Party’s candidate in 2020.
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Trump has no choice but to go all out to try to retain his seat. The moment he leaves office, he will be subject to many, many, many state and federal criminal charges and civil lawsuits, many of them dealing with quite vile activities. And a Presidential pardon from Pence won’t protect him from the state ones. So, it’s stay in office or go to prison for Trump, and he knows this.
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“counterattacking critics by accusing them of whatever you’ve been accused of..”
Yes, this has been the (incredibly successful) Republican playbook for years. And it could not work if we did not have a so-called “liberal” media and some angry voices on the left who the Republicans use perfectly to give legitimacy to their counterattacks.
Remember that in 2000, it was Al Gore, not George W. Bush who was the liar. Remember that in 2004, it was John Kerry, not George W. Bush, who was the coward who used his connections to get out of fighting in Viet Nam. Remember in 2016, it was HRC, not Trump, who was the corrupt one who devoted her life to encouraging the government policies that would personally benefit her bank account because she did not care at all what happened to our country.
And remember that every single one of those attacks was repeated ad nauseam by those on the left. The absolute joy the NY Times took in parsing every Al Gore statement for supposed “lies” and “exaggerations” until the public was certain the most honest candidate was George W. Bush. The absolute delight those journalists then took “investigating” the Kerry story so that the public was “informed” that Kerry’s Viet Nam service was very suspect and the most honest and brave candidate was George W. Bush. The celebratory headlines of HRC’s corruption and all the “new evidence” of her corruption and greed that continued non-stop so that the public was “informed” that the most honest candidate was Trump.
The NY Times was enabled to push the right wing propaganda because they had a ready line-up of voices on the left ready to amplify the right wing attacks. So instead of learning that the truly corrupt candidate was George W. Bush or Trump, all they heard was that many Democrats themselves agreed that the right wing mischaracterization of their candidate was 100% accurate and maybe they’d hold their nose and vote for him/her or maybe they would refuse “on principle” because of that Democrat’s corruption.
The one time that didn’t happen was with the Obama attacks when no one on the left played along. There were no disaffected and angry Democrats to give the media a soundbite expressing their “outrage” that Obama tried to cover-up that he followed the radical America-hating teachings of Jeremiah Wright and therefore had been lying to the American people all along and was not to be trusted. The fact that no Democrats or progressives were amplifying the far right attacks on Obama is likely why he won instead of being mischaracterized as a corrupt liar like Gore and Kerry had been.
The right wing modus operandi to “counterattack critics by accusing them of whatever you’ve been accused of” cannot work without those who call themselves Democrats or progressives amplifying it.
Will Trump get away with this? Let’s see how many articles we see where “even the left” says that the Democrats are just trying to take the focus off of their own corruption. Let’s see how many articles we see where someone on the left repeats the right wing talking points that Trump may be an ignorant oaf but anything Trump did has been done and is still being done by the very corrupt Democrats, and there is no evidence that Trump broke the law. These attempts by the far right to launch counterattacks will only be successful if people on the left give those counterattacks legitimacy instead of calling them out as the outrageous lies they are.
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“And remember that every single one of those attacks was repeated ad nauseam by those on the left.” “Those on the left” means media in your comment, especially the NYT, & you except the Obama smears re: Jeremiah Wright. I don’t remember things that way, am I dreaming? I browsed back NYT issues a bit, finding lots of positive stuff on Gore, Kerry, & HRC (in the eras you highlight), & well-balanced analyses of the Republican attacks.
In fact all the big nwspprs incl NYT immediately pointed out inconsistencies & lack of evidence in swiftboat vets’ attack. Didn’t find much against Gore other than style of delivery issues—but always balanced by his deeper grasp & experience in policy. He was hurt most by debates’ revelation that Bush was not an idiot vs Gore eye-rolling & condescending tone suggesting he was one. As for media coverage of HRC vs Trump, it was bipartisanly terrible, w/ [acc to this source https://shorensteincenter.org/news-coverage-2016-general-election/ ] identical 87% neg – 13% pos coverage for both candidates. J Wright/ Obama was presumably ignored because there was no there there. The one outrageous thing I noticed in 2016 was the inattention paid to Sanders’ positive campaign results, which you don’t mention.
I don’t think we can expect the “liberal media” to cooperate & universally praise liberal candidates; they are reporters/ analysts, not cheerleaders. IMO there is no liberal media per se. Fully factual reporting & analysis tends to sound liberal to conservative ideologues; “conservative” media has a bad rap among thinking people [& v.v.]. But of course there’s a nuance: big nwspprs will kowtow to big$-clouty neoliberals before grass-roots-supported ‘real’ liberals—and they’ll cover sensational dust-ups 2:1 over policy issues—because of govtl issues. There’s no more fairness doctrine, & govt support of neutral educationally-slanted news coverage died in the ‘80’s. Digital revolution put the kibosh on it: news”papers” are in a constant losing battle w/online dittoheads.
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Of course what I say here about general media problems plays right into Trump’s ‘Roy Cohn’ methodology. Categorical denial, then attacking critique as having the same flaws critiqued is… news. Trump plays the big nwspprs’ need to sell copy like a fiddle. I really think if we had a resurrected non-commercial, govt-supported NPR/PBS news-wing, it could move the pendulum. CSPAN is the closest we’ve got, but you have to do the analysis yourself…
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Trump’s modus operandi has always been that of the dumb mobster. Threaten, cajole, blackmail, stiff people, demand loyalty oaths but show no loyalty to anyone but one’s self, deny, deny, deny, deflect, erect cover, hide behind a lot of shifty lawyers. Teflon Don, the Sequel.
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So TRUE.
Dump is totally repulsive. He has NO redeeming features whatsoever.
He’s a traitorous LIAR.
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NYT: “Mr. Trump has used the term to accuse people of disloyalty and signal to his supporters that his political opponents are un-American.”
I believe that because the Democrats are now investigating impeachment possibilities that Trump is increasingly becoming unhinged.
He uses freely ‘traitor’ to describe the whistleblower and Representative Adam B. Schiff, the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee. Because of his narcissism, he CANNOT take any criticism.
I believe Trump, in all of this confusion, is becoming more and more frustrated because not everyone bows. He now has put out the ridiculous idea that alligators and snakes should be put along the southern border and that it’s okay to shoot immigrants.
He has no idea of where the law stands and his beliefs randomly take over.
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Trump thinks he is king and any criticism of him is treason.
That’s why #IAmtheWhistleblower is trending on Twitter
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Have any of these people accomplished anything other than when they gave one another a tax cut three years ago?
Does it bother any of their supporters that they never seem to do any WORK, other than promoting their own political/private sector careers?
Weren’t they supposed to get infrastructure and trade deals and a replacement for Obamacare? Where is that stuff?
Is this what we’re paying them for? To appear on cable news shows and give speeches to Right wing think tanks? What a huge waste of money. They’re completely irrelevant to the vast majority of the country. There isn’t a person in this country who would notice if all of the Trump political appointees stopped showing up for work, except there would be less shouting and cable tv would have to fill 23 hours of dead air, which would be a net PLUS.
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Here’s a GREAT summary of the life of one of Trump’s mentors (in addition to Vladimir Putin), Roy Cohn. It concludes with the line that will also be used of Trump:
“He got away with it–until he didn’t.”
https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2019/09/19/roy-cohn-donald-trump-documentary-228144
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It seems as if Roy Cohn got away with it for a long time! If he hadn’t died of AIDS, he would have probably been doing his dirty tricks much longer even if he was disbarred.
The posts about Roy Cohn inspired me to read more, and I had no idea he had been among those responsible for getting John Anderson on the ballot in New York state during the 1980 Presidential election. Reagan won New York against Carter, thanks to John Anderson being in the race (and of course, the successful propaganda that Jimmy Carter was an awful, corrupt man — I fell for that myself but I was very young and learned my lesson.)
I’m still wrapping my head around Reagan winning all of New York’s electoral college votes in 1980. I had forgotten that and did not realize that Roy Cohn was part of that. Poor maligned Jimmy Carter.
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He was a brilliant, evil man. Cohn, that is.
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A Trump advisor-
From the bio at the Federalist Society-
“Managed the judicial selection process for the President…during Don McGahn’s tenure, a historic number of judges were appointed to the federal bench.”
There are many federal positions unfilled but, not on the courts, thanks to Catholics, Don McGahn and Leonard Leo.
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Pasquale Cipollone replaced McGahn as WH counsel. He’s a graduate of Covington Catholic High School in Kentucky. He’s a founding member of the National Catholic Prayer Breakfast and a board member of the Catholic Information Center in D.C. The Information Center is giving an award to the religious right’s favorite professor, Robert George, who has many critics for his 1950’s views about contraceptives.
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I’ve lived long enough now to remember a great many instances like these:
People and institutions that vehemently supported the Vietnam War who now universally admit that it was a grave mistake.
People and institutions that vehemently claimed that Ronald Reagan knew nothing of those pesky arms sales to Iran, made in exchange for hostages and money to run his covert wars in Central America, who now universally claim that they knew all of this all along.
People and institutions that vehemently supported the Wars in Iraq to rid the country of WMDs who now admit that there were no WMDs and that the war was an insanely expensive boondoggle that simply watered and fertilized the little plants of terrorism.
And once Trump is gone, there will be, after a time, no Trump defenders, except among some complete wackos. And the many, many, many, many, many, many vile, sordid truths about Trumps life and career will become almost universally known and acknowledged. People like Sean Hannity and Tucker (spell that with an F) Carlson will be saying that they knew something wasn’t right with that guy all along.
LOL. This is inevitable.
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Trump’s legacy lives on well into the future in his judge appointees.
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In the judicial appointees waived under his nose for signature by the sycophants using the dim bulb “boss” to achieve the ends of the oligarchs they represent
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Trump’s M.O. is not only ad hominem bluster. He assails the very institutions of democracy themselves. The attack is on all fronts – using right wing propaganda (Murdoch media, Fox punditry), Kremlin psychology techniques (disinformation, misinformation), and the constant drumbeat of increasingly angry division. He won’t leave the office voluntarily… we’ll have to wait to see which scenario leads to that inevitability.
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Theocrats stacking judgeships with conservative lawyers of the religious right- prosperity Catholics and evangelicals assail democracy and will, well into the future. (If the shoe fits, Don McGahn, Leonard Leo, Pasquale Cipollone)
The National Catholic Reporter has a good profile of Tim Busch and in another article they tie Frank Hanna III and Sean Fieler to school privatization.
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The Cohn “deny and deflect” and “use the media to attack your opponent and accusing him or her of the same sort of wrongdoing,” is emphatically NOT genius. It works with morons with with shifty, unscrupulous types who want to ride the coat tails of the one with that cult of personality. Inevitably, most of the breathtakingly sordid truths about Trump will come out, and they will be universally known and accepted. But equally inevitably, there will be people who claim that Trump had a “kind of genius” for being able to pull it off for so long. They claimed this about the other Teflon Don, Gotti. And then the transcripts came out of the FBI wiretapes of Gotti’s conversations, and it was clear to everyone that Gotti was simply a thuggish moron.
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Roy Cohn and Old Joe McCarthy had a good thing going for awhile. Their Reign of Terror named names, angling for power by frightening everybody into silence. Then came the supposed list of names McCarthy waved as his popularity began to fade. Soon he was a discredited shell of a man, almost pitiful had he not pulled so many promising men into the pit with his deceit.
Will modern counterparts be brought to ruin? What about the gutting of the EPA and the stacking of the courts? Will these conservative debacles be abandoned by their purveyors?
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And the whole time, McCarthy was a closet drug abuser–morphine and cocaine.
And no. It’s going to take a long, long time and a lot of work to undo the dramatic damage that the Don the Con misadministration has done.
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Pompeo accuses Democrats of bullying in impeachment probe
WASHINGTON (October 1, 2019) — Taking a defiant stance in the impeachment inquiry, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo on Tuesday declared that House Democrats are trying to “intimidate, bully and treat improperly” five current and former career officials in seeking information in the Ukraine investigation.
Pompeo said in a letter to the House Foreign Affairs Committee (read below), as part of the chamber’s impeachment inquiry into President Donald Trump, that the requested dates for the officials to voluntarily appear for depositions were “not feasible.”
“I am concerned with aspects of your request,” Pompeo wrote to Rep. Eliot Engel, D-N.Y., chairman of the panel. “I will not tolerate such tactics, and I will use all means at my disposal to prevent and expose any attempts to intimidate the dedicated professionals.”
The muscular response from Pompeo came one day after it was disclosed that he was among those listening in on Trump’s July phone call with the Ukraine president that helped trigger the impeachment inquiry. The pushback signals a stiffening in the confrontation between the executive and legislative branches over impeachment, and could both slow the probe and expose Trump to charges that he is obstructing Congress…
https://onenewsnow.com/ap/politics/pompeo-accuses-democrats-of-bullying-in-impeachment-probe#.XZPADiy7XL8.gmail
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So, who will be the Republican presidential candidate in 2020? Romney again? Nikki Haley?
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Haley’s positions: opposition to abortion rights, strong support for Israel, opposition to transgender bathroom bill, opposition to gay marriage and support of defining marriage as solely “between a man and a woman,” complete elimination of corporate income taxes (!!!), support for current “war on drugs” approach to drug problem, dramatic expansion of charter schools, making teacher pay dependent on evaluations by administrators, students, and parents
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A report today in the NY Times tells of an immigration meeting in March in which Trump demanded an immediate border closure, called for border patrol agents to shoot would-be immigrants, called for trenches along the border filled with alligators and snakes, demanded that the wall be painted “flat black” (by which he meant “matte black”), and got furious when he was told that much of this he could not do. The man is totally unhinged, and the people who work for him spent a lot of their time trying to explain to him why he can’t do this crazy stuff while, at the same time, not angering him so much that they lose their jobs. He’s an idiot and a nutcase. A total loon.
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Just how crazy is he? Well, check this out: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/01/us/politics/trump-border-wars.html
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Bob Shepherd: This says a lot about the Orange Buffoon.
By the end of the week, the seat-of-the-pants president had backed off his threat but had retaliated with the beginning of a purge of the aides who had tried to contain him.
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This looks a lot like actual madness/insanity.
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Wow. This is crazy. Crazy, in the worst sense of the word.
How are Republicans standing by and letting this happen? What a shameful chapter in our nation’s history.
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If the Republicans don’t cave and oust Trump, they are in real trouble in 2020. Because of the man’s various obvious disorders and his severe cognitive decline, can anyone even imagine him getting through a single debate? And what would it look like if he refused to debate because of this? He won’t have a teleprompter, in these, to read from. The whole country will see the raw truth of his derangement and lack of mental acuity. And given his personality–his malignant narcissism and lack of self-reflection or self editing–he’s not going to be able to refrain, in such debates, from talking the crazy talk that he does in private. This could be very, very bad for the Republicans. Surely many can see this. It’s a train wreck.
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So, I think that the question is whether the Republicans will be smart enough to get off that train.
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When it comes to public opinion and the unknowns lurking ahead in the impeachment inquiry, the GOP is staring at multiple warning signs. As Niall Stanage writes in his latest memo:
“President Trump is in new and dangerous territory this week, as some Republicans and administration veterans express unease about his actions, and polls show rising support for impeachment. Voices that are normally supportive of the president have fallen silent, partly out of fear that new revelations could be around the corner.”
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House Dems Probe Trump Hotels ‘Ghost Bookings’ by Foreign Governments, Groups
Barbie Latza Nadeau
Correspondent-At-Large
Updated 10.02.19 5:55AM ET /
Published 10.02.19 5:30AM ET
Amr Alfiky/Reuters
House Democrats are reportedly looking into allegations that groups, including at least one foreign government, have booked blocks of Trump Hotel rooms with no intention of using them. Politico reports the hotel probe is part of a broader investigation by the House Oversight Committee into whether the president is breaking the law by accepting money from the U.S. or foreign governments through his properties. House investigators are looking into the allegations that powerful groups tried to please the president by booking rooms at his hotels, but never staying in them. “Now we’re looking at near raw bribery,” Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-VA) said, according to Politico. “That was the risk from day one—foreign governments and others trying to seek favor because we know Trump pays attention to this…. It’s an obvious attempt to curry favor with him.”
Read it at Politico
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“Trump’s informal farm team” – American Enterprise Institute
Board members- Dick Cheney and Richard DeVos. John Bolton formerly worked at AEI.
The new head of AEI attended private schools – St. Ann’s, Phillips Academy, in other words knows nothing about Americans who generate the nation’s GDP. nor their schools.
AEI gave an award to the religious right’s favorite professor, Robert George, who infamously linked promiscuity to contraceptives.
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OH NO! I have a Bernie sicker taped on the back window of my car. Hope he is okay. I actually sent him some money a few days go.
……………………………………
Bernie Sanders Hospitalized For Artery Blockage, Cancels Events after Surgery
The Vermont senator experienced some chest discomfort at an event on Tuesday evening. His campaign said he will be resting for several days.
“During a campaign event yesterday evening, Senator Sanders experienced some chest discomfort,” Jeff Weaver, a longtime adviser to Mr. Sanders, said in a statement. “Following medical evaluation and testing he was found to have a blockage in one artery and two stents were successfully inserted. Senator Sanders is conversing and in good spirits. He will be resting up over the next few days. We are canceling his events and appearances until further notice, and we will continue to provide appropriate updates.”
One campaign aide, referring to Mr. Sanders, told The Times on Wednesday morning: “He feels better than ever because that’s how people feel after they get a stent and there’s more blood flow.”
Mr. Sanders has kept up a brutal schedule on the campaign trail, typically holding multiple events in several cities a day.
The Sanders campaign had planned to go on air with his first television ads of the campaign this week in Iowa, announcing a two-week $1.3 million buy on Tuesday. An ad tracking service, Medium Buying, said on Wednesday that Mr. Sanders began cancelling those ads. The reason for the cancellation was not immediately known. Even as late as Tuesday night, Faiz Shakir, Mr. Sanders’s campaign manager, was talking excitedly about the ad buy on a call with supporters.
This is a developing story and will be updated. Shane Goldmacher contributed reporting.
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Trump’s transparency in releasing the transcript of calls between him and the Ukraine prove he is a traitor who wants to make deals to hurt his political opponents. So much for hailing this move.
Here is the newest blather from the WH:
West Wing Reads
Trump’s Transparency is Driving the Left Nuts (and Messing Up Their Impeachment Dreams)
“He wasn’t supposed to release the transcripts. Or the whistleblower report. He was expected to do what any president would have done – what President Obama always did. Hide the evidence,” former Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-UT) writes in Fox News.
“As House Democrats rolled out their latest meticulously choreographed, perfectly timed, and broadly coordinated attack on President Trump, they weren’t counting on the president’s unprecedented transparency. Nobody releases a transcript of calls between heads of state. But Donald Trump did.”
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Trump is becoming more and more hostile.
…………………………….
Donald J. Trump
✔
@realDonaldTrump
The Do Nothing Democrats should be focused on building up our Country, not wasting everyone’s time and energy on BULLSHIT, which is what they have been doing ever since I got overwhelmingly elected in 2016, 223-306. Get a better candidate this time, you’ll need it!
81.3K
10:48 AM – Oct 2, 2019
Twitter Ads info and privacy
66.7K people are talking about this
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Trump is CRAZY. Why do government people follow this lunatic?
Government Plans to Begin DNA Testing on Detained Immigrants
The Department of Homeland Security said it would begin testing on hundreds of thousands of immigrants in federal detention facilities.
The Trump administration is moving to begin collecting DNA samples from hundreds of thousands of people booked into federal immigration custody each year for entry into a national criminal database, an immense expansion of the use of technology to enforce the nation’s immigration laws.
Senior officials at the Department of Homeland Security said Wednesday that the Justice Department was developing a federal regulation that would give immigration officers the authority to collect DNA in detention facilities that are holding more than 40,000 people.
The move would constitute a major expansion of the use of a database maintained by the F.B.I., which has been limited mainly to genetic data collected from people who have been arrested, charged or convicted in connection with serious crimes.
Immigrant and privacy advocates said the move raised privacy concerns for an already vulnerable population that could face profiling or discrimination as a result of their personal data being shared among law enforcement authorities. The new rules would allow the government to collect DNA from children, as well as those who seek asylum at legal ports of entry and have not broken the law…
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He is a very angry lunatic. Unhinged.
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