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Author | Topic: The Trump Presidency | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Percy Member Posts: 22489 From: New Hampshire Joined: Member Rating: 5.0
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More on the Michael Avenatti arrest on suspicion of domestic violence in today's Washington Post: Michael Avenatti arrested on suspicion of domestic violence, calls allegations ‘completely bogus’
I, like probably everyone else, assumed the complainant was Avenatti's wife. They are separated and getting a divorce. But Avenatti's wife denies she filed any complaint, and says that Avenatti never exhibited a violent side during their relationship. Avenatti says he wasn't with his wife on the night in question. And Avenatti's first wife posted on social media that Avenatti was a "loving father" who has "never been abusive." And though Avenatti was arrested on "suspicion of domestic violence" (whatever that is), no charges were filed. I originally assumed that Avenatti was arrested because a woman had reported him to the police for abusing her, but no victim filed a complaint. So who filed the complaint? Who was the abused woman? Where is the name, where are the pictures of black eyes and bruises. Nobody's talking, nobody has any hard information, so who knows. That Avenatti was arrested for "suspicion of domestic violence" instead of just "domestic violence" and that no victim has been named or evidence of any sort described raises suspicions. Is it possible that someone reported Avenatti to the LAPD for abusing a woman, and for some reason the LAPD acted on it? That seems strange, but recall that police departments have called out entire swat teams based on fake 911 calls. Avenatti has already suffered from this arrest. Stormy Daniels says she will drop him as her lawyer if there's any truth to the abuse complaint, and the Vermont Democratic Party has cancelled his upcoming scheduled appearances. I've shifted from condemning Avenatti to waiting for more news. --Percy
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Percy Member Posts: 22489 From: New Hampshire Joined: Member Rating: 5.0 |
Percy writes: I've shifted from condemning Avenatti to waiting for more news. Well, more news has finally arrived. We now know who the complainant is and the details of the complaint: Michael Avenatti accuser says he dragged her, left her with marks on skin Summarizing, the complainant is actress Mareli Miniutti. She's been in eight or so movies. Her website is down (http://www.mareliminiutti.com). She says she and Avenatti got in an argument over money, that he appeared threatening, hit her with pillows, yelled at her, grabbed her cellphone, then dragged her out of the apartment and out into the hallway in her underwear and T-shirt, during which she was scratched. She says it's not the first time he's been aggressive with her. She's taken out a restraining order against Avenatti. I believe the woman. Until proven otherwise Avenatti has disqualified himself as a politician. Stormy Daniels, Julie Swetnick and the unnamed complainants against Trump should fire him as their lawyer. --Percy
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Percy Member Posts: 22489 From: New Hampshire Joined: Member Rating: 5.0 |
Minnemooseus writes: I believe the woman. Until proven otherwise Avenatti has disqualified himself as a politician.
He may well be guilty, but this is a guilty until proven innocent system. In what conceivable way might Avenatti "prove himself innocent"? This isn't a courtroom. This is about the character of someone you might want to hire in some capacity, perhaps as a lawyer, perhaps as an elected official. He doesn't rise above the "unimpeachable character" threshold in my book. --Percy
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Percy Member Posts: 22489 From: New Hampshire Joined: Member Rating: 5.0
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What Trump is most thankful for this Thanksgiving is...himself: Trump Is ‘Most Thankful’ For His Own ‘Tremendous’ Work. Twitter’s Jaw Drops. I can just hear Trump at the Thanksgiving Day table:
quote: --Percy
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Percy Member Posts: 22489 From: New Hampshire Joined: Member Rating: 5.0
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Nancy Pelosi and John Sarbaines have published an opinion piece in today's Washington Post detailing the platform for the Democratic Party in the House (The Democratic majority’s first order of business: Restore democracy). It's ambitious and detailed. A summary:
--Percy Edited by Percy, : Formatting.
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Percy Member Posts: 22489 From: New Hampshire Joined: Member Rating: 5.0 |
Russia fired on three Ukrainian ships sailing off the coast of Crimea (which Russia annexed from the Ukraine in 2014) and then seized them, claiming they were in Russian territorial waters because Russia had temporarily closed an area of water for shipping. Details about how international waters became temporary Russian waters because Russia had closed an area of water were not in any article I read, but my guess is that does have some sort of legal basis that references treaties and/or international law.
Nicki Haley, the US representative at the UN, called the incident an "outrageous violation of sovereign Ukrainian territory." How will Trump deal with this, especially given his strong condemnation of Obama for allowing Russia to annex the Crimea? Sources:
--Percy
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Percy Member Posts: 22489 From: New Hampshire Joined: Member Rating: 5.0 |
From today's Washington Post: Trump on climate change: ‘People like myself, we have very high levels of intelligence but we’re not necessarily such believers.’
A more accurate Trump characterization would be venal, vindictive vengeful, autocratic, impulsive, secretive, inflaming, abusive, scheming, partisan, racist, xenophobic and misogynistic. But highly intelligent? No. He does have impressive verbal jousting skills. Hopefully the soon-to-be Democratic House can have a positive influence on the government's approach to climate change. --Percy
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Percy Member Posts: 22489 From: New Hampshire Joined: Member Rating: 5.0 |
I titled this message "Why Trump Will Be Impeached," but another good choice would be, "Why Trump Will Soon Fire Mueller." Yesterday Trump's former personal lawyer and fixer Michael Cohen pleaded guilty to lying to Congress. Last year he testified before Congress that the Trump Tower Moscow project was dead by January of 2016 when negotiations actually continued until June. Cohen said that during this period he briefed Trump and members of his family, including Donald Jr., on at least several occasions.
During the campaign for the Republican presidential nomination and during the presidential campaign itself Trump lied repeatedly and frequently about his involvement with Russia, issuing strong and unequivocal denials at every turn. And the Russians knew he was lying, including higher ups in the Russian government and especially including Vladimir Putin. This turned Trump into a Russian lackey, since they could hold the threat of revealing his lies over his head. Alan Dershowitz, one of Trump's lawyers, thinks the lying is a political but not a legal problem for Trump, but he's wrong, and here's why. Trump needed the Russians to keep his secret, and to insure this he had to operate in the Russians' best interests instead of America's. It explains all Trump's sucking up to Putin and his resistance to getting tough on Russia for their interference in the 2016 election and their adventurism around the world. Now that the lies are public and Trump no longer has any Russian secret-keeping hanging over his head (that we know of), perhaps he will take action against the Russian military threats against Ukraine. If he doesn't then we'll know the Russians still have dirt on him. So why do I think Trump be impeached? His actions regarding Russia over the past two years have threatened the security of the United States, and that is treason. Treason is one of the grounds for impeachment specifically mentioned in the constitution: "Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors." Because of this threat Trump will soon fire Mueller (he can't do it directly - he'll have Whitaker do it). Trump will put up a fight that will make Nixon's firing of Archibald Cox look like a pop-gun skirmish. It's going to get interesting. Bring your popcorn. --Percy PS: Giuliani claims that Trump's written answers to Mueller's questions include the same information as Cohen's guilty plea, so why is Trump calling Cohen a liar if they both provided the same information - contradictory much?
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Percy Member Posts: 22489 From: New Hampshire Joined: Member Rating: 5.0
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DrJones* writes: Impeachment would require the senate republicans to actually have spines. I should have mentioned that. I think the House could well decide to impeach once they see the Mueller report (if Mueller actually gets to produce a report and if the House ever gets to see it), but unless the evidence is unambiguously damning (as in the Republican party would go down in flames Watergate style if they ignored it) I don't think the Senate is likely to convict. That factor could have a strong influence on whether the House decides to actually pursue impeachment. --Percy
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Percy Member Posts: 22489 From: New Hampshire Joined: Member Rating: 5.0 |
Stile writes: But I wouldn't discount the possibility of Trump's idiocy. Wise words. Late last night it was revealed that Cohen consulted with Trump lawyers and White House staff to craft his testimony before Congress to hide the truth about the Trump Tower project in Moscow and Trump's level of involvement. Trump must have been aware and briefed about all this. The White House Counsel at the time was Don McGahn (resigned in October of 2018), and Trump's personal legal adviser for the Russian investigation was John Dowd, who quit in March of 2018 shortly after mock interviews with Trump revealed that his client couldn't talk without lying. I'm no lawyer, but I think that planning to lie before Congress constitutes conspiracy to commit a crime, and lying to Congress is a crime in itself (though apparently a rarely prosecuted one, only 6 in the last century or so). And isn't counseling someone to knowingly lie (to protect the interests of your client, namely Trump) grounds for disbarment? So aren't Don McGahn, John Dowd and other White House lawyers in big trouble, too? But did they know the testimony they were crafting for Cohen was false? Doesn't this mean that Mueller would want to put the White House lawyers before the grand jury? And wouldn't the White House fight that tooth and nail, except that McGahn and Dowd don't work in the White House anymore. I think many of us lived through the Nixon years - isn't this starting to feel familiar? The Moscow Trump Tower project is starting to feel Nixonian in some details, where the cover up of the project could cause more trouble than the project itself. --Percy
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Percy Member Posts: 22489 From: New Hampshire Joined: Member Rating: 5.0 |
An editorial in today's New York Times, Trump Is Compromised by Russia, describes Trump's problems with Russia much better than I have. Some excerpts:
quote: The Republicans who have been in control of Congress the past two years are complicit in all this malfeasance. If politicians had any shame then Republicans would be ashamed, but shame isn't in the politician's repartoir, from any party. Instead they will try to minimize the damage to their political careers. Which is nothing new. When Watergate investigations first began Gerald Ford (House R-MI) called it a "political witch hunt," and he did pretty well, appointed vice-president, then succeeding to the presidency, and then nearly defeating Jimmy Carter in the 1976 election. And Bob Dole (Senate R-KS) called the Watergate stories a barrage of unfounded and unsubstantiated allegations by George McGovern and his partner in mud-slinging, The Washington Post. Dole went on to a distinguished political career, including an unsuccessful run for the presidency in 1996. I guess shame's a waste of time when there's no penalty for being spectacularly partisan and wrong. --Percy
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Percy Member Posts: 22489 From: New Hampshire Joined: Member Rating: 5.0 |
This message should be subtitled "Trump lies and contradicts himself," which occurred during his helicopter comments before leaving for summit in Argentina. Many of you have probably already seen excerpts from this interview, here's a YouTube video of the whole thing, only the first five minutes are about Cohen. It's not necessary to watch it because I'm going to excerpt just a couple portions that show Trump lying and contradicting himself:
First excerpt, from right at the beginning of Trump's comments:
quote: Trump is referring to Cohen's recent plea deal revealing that Cohen worked on a deal to build Trump Tower Moscow up until mid-June of 2016, also stating that he briefed Trump and family on the Russia deal's status at least three times during the period from January of 2016 (when Trump began his campaign for the Republican presidential nomination) to mid-June of 2016. During this period Trump denied all involvement with Russia at every turn. When Trump says that it was a well known project covered by the news media he is telling particularly blatant lies. Nobody knew about it until well after Trump became president when in October of 2017 Cohen testified before the Congressional intelligence committees. And the reason nobody knew about it before this is because Trump and everyone in his circle lied about Trump's involvement with Russia. But the Russians definitely knew about it and knew that Trump was lying to the American people, so they had leverage over Trump because Trump knew the Russians could create political turmoil for him at any time by revealing this secret. They wouldn't reveal it directly, of course, but through Wikileaks or some similar group.
(Speaking of Wikileaks, I wonder if Julian Assange, holed up now in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London for six years, realizes that he could have faced the music, served his time, and been out of jail by now. Same for Edward Snowden, he of the leaking of classified information about NSA surveillance programs, including domestic ones. He's been holed up in Moscow since 2013. If he'd faced the music he'd possibly be getting out of jail around now or the next few years. I wonder how he likes life in Moscow. Of course it must be much better than Assange's situation, who is restricted to a single room with his cat.) Next excerpt:
quote: Trump contradicts himself here. First he says that Michael Cohen is lying about there being a Russian deal during the campaign, then he confirms that there was a Russian deal during the campaign, just as Cohen said, so Cohen isn't lying. What's important here is that Trump lied to the American people about his dealings in Russia from the beginning of his campaign up until just a few days ago. Would he have won the Republican nomination if instead of denying any Russian involvement he was truthful about it and had to defend it? --Percy Edited by Percy, : Bolivian => Ecuadorian
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Percy Member Posts: 22489 From: New Hampshire Joined: Member Rating: 5.0 |
Gee, so close - Ecuador and Bolivia are only a thousand miles apart. Ah, well, at least I got the embassy location right. I'll correct it, thanks!
--Percy
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Percy Member Posts: 22489 From: New Hampshire Joined: Member Rating: 5.0
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Many know about the Washington Post's Pinocchio rating system, but here it is for those unfamiliar with it:
One Pinocchio Some shading of the facts. Selective telling of the truth. Some omissions and exaggerations, but no outright falsehoods. (You could view this as mostly true.) Two Pinocchios Significant omissions and/or exaggerations. Some factual error may be involved but not necessarily. A politician can create a false, misleading impression by playing with words and using legalistic language that means little to ordinary people. (Similar to half true.) Three Pinocchios Significant factual error and/or obvious contradictions. This gets into the realm of mostly false. But it could include statements which are technically correct (such as based on official government data) but are so taken out of context as to be very misleading. The line between Two and Three can be bit fuzzy and we do not award half-Pinocchios. So we strive to explain the factors that tipped us toward a Three. Four Pinocchios Whoppers. There are a few other categories, see their rating page, but they have just introduced a new category, the Bottomless Pinocchio: Bottomless Pinocchio The bar for the Bottomless Pinocchio is high: the claims must have received three or four Pinocchios from The Fact Checker and they must have been repeated at least 20 times. Twenty is a sufficiently robust number that there can be no question the politician is aware his or her facts are wrong. The list of Bottomless Pinocchios will be maintained on its own landing page. Examples of claims receiving the Bottomless Pinnochio, all from Trump (no one else has achieved the necessary criteria:
I also suggested they create a gif that is much less blurry. --Percy Edited by Percy, : Replace animated gif with the better version the Washington Post just put up. Remove comments about the non-working links that they've already fixed.
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Percy Member Posts: 22489 From: New Hampshire Joined: Member Rating: 5.0
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Many have probably seen the New York Post headline about Trump's terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day, but for those who haven't here's a very short YouTube video showing the headline:
The headline is a play on the children's book Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day, but for Trump it was much worse than just a bad day. It was an entire bad week. Here's a brief recap.
--Percy
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