Strong People Can Vote Against Trump Without Forcing Themselves To Wear Blinders About Who Joe Biden Is

Slimeball by Nancy Ohanian

In the early days of DWT, Paul Lakasiak occasionally graced this blog with guest posts. They were always among my favorite contributions. Paul was back yesterday with a response to a post-- Is The Tent So Big That The Party Has Become Meaningless As Anything MoreThan A Vehicle To Save The Country From Trump?. "The answer to your question is 'yes'," he wrote in the comment section. "And the Democratic Party is getting worse, not better."

Watching the convention over the first three days, I was actually working up some enthusiasm for helping the Dems win big in November. Then I saw the news that Pelosi had endorsed Joey With the Good Hair over reliable, principled progressive (and INCUMBENT) Ed Markey. And now I'm outraged.

I'll still crawl through broken glass laced with tetanus laden rusty tacks and fire ants to vote against Donald Trump in November. But don't ask me to tell anyone that things will get better with Democrats like Nancy Pelosi in charge of the House -- because all I can say is that, under Biden, things won't be as bad as under Trump.

And I suspect that this viewpoint will be shared extensively among real progressives. They know that the democratic party is completely corrupt-- and that Pelosi is thoroughly worthless. And we're most likely to see repeat of 2010 in another two years, as Biden, Pelosi, and Schumer betray the American people in favor of their corporate sponsors.

Biden's acceptance speech Thursday night was excellent. Whoever wrote it with him deserves a lot of praise. Biden delivered it very, very well too. I'm a big admirer of John Pavlovitz and share his thoughts here at DWT frequently. I've never disagreed with him-- until his post yesterday: Joe Biden Is Not The Lesser of Two Evils. Obviously, anyone could agree with his observation that "The only people still defending [Trump] are brainwashed Evangelicals, looney conspiracy theorists, and abject racists. The raking light of history is recording all of it, whether these people like it or not. The human rights violations and the assaults on our Constitution and the attacks on our institutions and the rampant criminality cannot be denied or explained away or buried in fake Fox News headlines." It's his next line, though, that merits some debate: "Joe Biden is not the lesser of two evils, because he is not evil by any measure."

For someone like myself, who doesn't vote for evil, whether it is lesser or not, that's an important assertion, and one I entirely disagree with. Politically-speaking, Biden is profoundly evil. Unlike Paul Lukasiac, let alone John Pavlovitz, I'm not even going to vote for him. On a relative basis of evil, he pales next to Trump. Trump's evil isn't normal political evil... Trump's evil comes from the bowels of hell and I pray that selfless and courageous Secret Service agents spend time meditating on a Satwant Singh and Beant Singh solution to what plagues our country and is bringing it to its knees.




I respect people who look at Trump and Biden and conclude that Trump is so much worse that they will... "crawl through broken glass laced with tetanus laden rusty tacks and fire ants to vote" against Trump in November. I haven interest in trying to persuade anyone to not vote against Trump and do what I can to remind everyone I know-- and readers of this blog-- that Satan has a servant in the White House.

But that doesn't change how I see the Joe Biden I've gotten to know since the mid-1970s, when he only had one issue he ran on as a newly-minted Democrat: racism. His campaign was based on dog-whistles vowing to protect white suburban voters from the horrors of integration. And once he got to the Senate, he was in a constant battle for the position of that body's worst Democrat, consciously-- no, literally, consciously-- fighting to present himself as a conservative. Like I said, I'm not trying to dissuade anyone from voting against Trump and I spent the last year talking about Biden's shortcomings. That said, this kind of drivel is not something I'm buying into, no matter the source:

He is a profoundly decent man: a man of faith, a man of compassion; a man who is willing to listen to different viewpoints, capable of evolving, and able to admit his mistakes. He is a man who loves deeply, mourns greatly, and gives fully. He is a man with actual meaningful, healthy relationships with other human beings. He is a humble man who sees others as more important than himself.

Biden is a corrupt conservative and he will head a corrupt conservative administration. Mainstream Republicans love him and they will love him more. He may even achieve their biggest goal-- and his own-- wrecking Social Security with some kind of bogus Grand Compromise he's been working on for his whole miserable career. Is he still better than Trump. Of course. One would be hard-pressed to see Trump as anything less than demonic. Biden is, admittedly, a "flawed human," as Pavlovitz put it. The Democratic Party is also very flawed, very, very, very flawed. There are no Republicans in Congress worth re-electing, not even one. The Democrats have many decent members of Congress-- certainly not a majority-- most congressional Democrats should be defeated-- but there are dozens and dozens of good ones too. Something to build on. The GOP? Needs to start over from scratch.

Pavlovitz is no dummy and only an imbecile would dismiss his thoughts. "It’s one thing to be a good-hearted but flawed human being who sometimes says something stupid or occasionally has an error in judgment or simply gets it wrong," he wrote. "Most of us fall under that category. We’re not any kind of evil, we’re just imperfect , emotional people, and so we fail and fall-- sometimes slightly and sometimes spectacularly. That’s who Joe Biden is. He is one of us. He is human. We need more human these days." How can anyone disagree with that? Especially when he offers the contrast: "It’s something else entirely to be an inherently malevolent creature: to be incapable of empathy, defiantly unwilling to admit mistakes; to wake up every day intending to do harm and feeling no remorse for it. If the word evil can apply to anyone, it’s the current President. He lacks a single noble impulse. Even his supporters know that."

Pavlovitz says he "would much rather be led by a well-intentioned human who sometimes misses the mark, than a purposefully cruel sociopath who has no concern for other people’s pain. False equivalencies are irresponsible here. These are fundamentally different people in every important way one can measure such things."

He should vote for Biden. He's going to. Most voters are going to. Nearly everyone I know and respect is going to. All my relatives-- except one seriously deranged one-- are voting for Biden. All my friends are voting for Biden. I am fairly certain that even my partners at Blue America are voting for Biden. I hope that on November 4th, I'll be thanking God for having defeated Satan the day before. And when Biden starts being Biden, I'll be interested to see how long it takes Pavlovitz to rethink his thoughts on relativity. For example, is Austerity evil? Not as evil as Trumpism, but... well, maybe I'm wrong and that nearly 50 years of Bidenism is suddenly going to change. But I doubt it.

One man pulls us toward unity, the other stokes division. 
One man speaks to our collective better angels, the other to the worst of who we are.
One man is burdened to inspire, the other compelled to engender fear.
One man is continually turned outward and the other is fully self-absorbed.
One man expresses his love for America, the other vilifies over half of it.

Stop telling me the choice isn’t clear.

I’m not voting for Joe Biden begrudgingly.

I’m not holding my nose or halfheartedly standing behind his campaign, and I’m not supporting him simply because he’s opposing Donald Trump.
I'm voting for Joe Biden because I know that he won’t deny the existence of a pandemic.
He won’t blame viruses on Republicans.
He won’t silence medical experts.
He won’t reject Science.
He won’t allow tens of thousands of Americans to die in order to protect his ego.
He won’t tweet demeaning nicknames for his opponents.
He won’t validate nonsensical conspiracies.
He won’t shout over female reporters.
He won’t shut down social media apps when teenagers hurt his feelings.
He won’t dismantle the Postal Service in order to deny Americans their essential liberties.
He won’t make fun of people with disabilities.
He won’t call racists fine people.
And on and on and on.

Republicans for Biden feel a lot like Pavlovitz. Below, on the Bulwark podcast-- a #NeverTrump outlet for conservatives-- two staunch conservative Republicans, Charlie Sykes and Tim Miller, had a discussion of the Democratic Convention. Tim Miller, a former RNC spokesman and Jeb Bush Communications Director, said "I wanted to share one thing that we discussed after the show was over. Both of us we were caught off guard by how emotionally attached we were last night to this candidacy. We had sort of expected to feel this reluctant, begrudging support for the Democratic nominee, to have been left in a tough spot between one normal bad choice and one existentially bad one. But that isn’t what happened. Joe Biden has me energized. And frankly, that he has both Charlie and I reflecting on whether maybe in the past we were just…in the wrong…"


In his wrap-up of the Democratic Convention for Politico yesterday, Ryan Lizza wrote that "Much of the week was spent by Democrats balancing praising Biden for his empathy and character and attacking Trump for-- well, just about everything. What was missing from the big speeches-- with the notable exception of Bernie Sanders-- was a clear articulation of the specific policies Biden would pursue to combat the pandemic and recession. Biden filled in those gaps clearly. He discussed, with some specificity, infrastructure, education, health care, climate change, and tax policy. He gave a detailed list of actions he would take to stop the spread of Covid-19. Overall this was a nimble speech that responded to the dramatically changed circumstances of the last few months, when Biden transformed from being the leader of a faction within his party to the leader of the most diverse electoral coalition in modern politics. In that span, the pre-existing crises he knew he would face as president-- climate change, the diminished standing of America in the world-- were shoved aside by three additional and equally urgent crises."

This morning, a trusted progressive leader in Congress suggested that if I could try to "take it easy on Joe until after the election that would be great-- have to beat the Nazis before we can worry about USSR (to torture an imperfect analogy)." I get it... and believe it or not, I have been "taking it easy" on Joe... relatively speaking.

Put Bernie Sanders' Face on those Joe Biden Photos, Then Imagine What Party Leaders Would Be Saying

Jon Stewart as Biden: "Hey girl, you seem tense. Is it the stress of me groping you for 28 straight seconds?"

by Thomas Neuburger

An interesting thing is happening around Joe Biden's #MeToo moment. Even though Al Franken was almost immediately rousted from the Senate by now-presidential candidate Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand and others for unwanted touching and kissing, handsy kissy Joe Biden is being held to a very different standard. Why?

The Democratic Party Reaction to Joe Biden

Let's start with Kirsten Gillibrand's reaction. Recently I asked, "Does Kirsten Gillibrand Consider Joe Biden's Behavior 'Disqualifying'?" We now have an answer. Here's Gillibrand on Hardball speaking with Chris Matthews (link; skip to 4:38 to listen to the entire Biden conversation). When Matthews asks "What should he do?" Gillibrand responds (my emphasis):

Gillibrand: Well you know, Chris, [sexual assault] is something I've taken very seriously over the last seven or eight years, fighting against sexual assault in the military, sexual assault on college campuses, and actually changing the rules in the House and Senate on harassment, so I think with these allegations specifically, I think it's something if Vice President Biden intends to run, he's just going to have to address directly with the American people.

And there you have it: Even though I've made it my brand to care about sexual assault, Biden can stay in the presidential race, so long as he explains himself. She continues with this: 

Matthews: What should he say?

Gillibrand: There's a conversation about do we value women. And when you allow the space for women to tell their truth and what they experienced, you have to not only receive and believe them, you have to investigate. 

Think back to Franken, who was forced out "without any real vetting of the allegations facing him," as Politico put it. Apparently, the "you have to investigate" rule applies only to Biden. Quite the inconsistency.

So Matthews asks about Gillibrand's position on Al Franken relative to her position on Biden. Gillibrand says the cases were very different because "there were eight credible allegations corroborated in real time" against Franken (whatever "real time" means). Then she repeats what she's said many times, that she needed to not "stay silent" about the Franken accusations because she had a duty to make sure her sons knew that "it's not OK to grope a woman anywhere on her body without her consent" (emphasis added).

This is a good time to watch the clip above. Not the Sam Bee part; the uncomfortable-to-watch Biden-groping-women part. Clearly some of those people do not consent.

Matthews then closes:

Matthews: Should he quit?

Gillibrand: It's something he's going to have to talk about and understand what's happening....

Matthews: Do you call on him to leave the race?

Gillibrand: No, I do not, and what I’m saying now is that it’s something he’s going to have to address. And the truth is, we as a country have to decide if we value women at all.

Read the two sentences immediately above. This is beyond shameful, and way beyond stupid. Does she think no one has ears?

Gillibrand is not the only Democrat to come to Biden's rescue. Nancy Pelosi: "I don't think it's disqualifying." Sen. Tammy Baldwin: "There’s a failure to understand how one’s actions impact others." Sen. Jeanne Shaheen: "I was surprised by the allegation.... All of us, including the vice president, need to continue to work on changing our culture."

From all of this, the path to forgiveness for Biden is clear: Say you "understand" and move on. The voters may not forgive him for his misdeeds, but the leaders of the Democratic Party already have.

Why Is Biden Defended? Explanation 1, It's Generational

Which leads us to ask, why is Biden so well defended by Party leaders and insiders? The reason most often offered is "it's generational." Let's call this Explanation 1.

Here's how EJ Dickson put it in Rolling Stone:

To an extent, this line of debate ["I don't think it's disqualifying"] is to be expected from old-school, establishment Dems like Feinstein and Pelosi, who have clear-cut reasons for standing behind a peer like Biden. But their refusal to outright condemn his alleged behavior is also representative of a generational gap in the #MeToo movement, between those who take quote-unquote “less egregious” violations seriously, and those who do not. Although the allegations against Biden are not of a criminal or even overtly sexual nature, they still involve the issue of consent, and whether or not a man invading a woman’s personal space qualifies as a career-ending transgression.

This generational gap is not specific to the political realm; indeed, there is substantial data to suggest that a chasm exists between the views of older and younger women across the board. A BuzzFeed survey in partnership with Ipsos, for instance, found that while 42% of people between the ages of 18 and 34 said that the #MeToo movement changed the way they thought about consent, only 29% of people over the age of 55 agreed. Similarly, while 64% of people between the ages of 18 and 34 said that women who accuse men of sexual assault and harassment should always be believed, 38% of people over the age of 55 said the same. An NPR poll found a significant gap between older and younger respondents who agreed with the statement that the #MeToo movement had gone too far, while nearly half of older Americans said they didn’t understand what crossed the line in terms of sexual harassment.

While these survey results didn’t differentiate between older and younger women specifically, anecdotally, many younger women report a stark contrast between their own views and the views their mothers and grandmothers share on the movement. In a Time piece on the so-called #MeToo generational divide, a 25-year-old woman says that “the women in my generation have been drawing a much harsher line for anything they consider even slightly inappropriate,” while her mother is quoted as saying that she believes Gen Y and Gen Z feminists like her daughter “are losing the high ground and allies through their absolutism.” Similarly, when discussing the allegations against Biden with her mother, a friend told me that her mother had responded “exactly the way I thought she would”: by saying, “’I think men of that age just do that and don’t mean it to be weird or sexual'” (essentially, the Feinstein/Pelosi school of thought toward inappropriate workplace conduct).

Shorter Rolling Stone: "The rules have changed for younger women." (Note the element of criticism of this view in the article: "Gen Y and Gen Z feminists like her daughter 'are losing the high ground and allies through their absolutism.'" In other words, holding men to this standard is a mistake.)

Explanation 2, He's Our Only Hope

The "it's generational" may explain some voters' responses to Biden, but I don't think it explains the defense of Biden we're reading about. Note that most of his defenders inhabit the same corner of the world — they are people with power and influence in the Democratic Party plus their strongest supporters within the media.

Reaction from those who are less Party-aligned has been more mixed. The Atlantic: "Don't Defend Him as a Flirt." Gawker: "Joe Biden, We Need to Talk About the Way You Touch Women." Even the New York Times: "He is a product of his time, but that time is up."

So why the defense coming from Party officials? The Gawker piece linked above provides a hint: "Try this," Sam Biddle writes, "look at all of those photos and imagine, say, Paul Ryan's face instead of Biden's."

Or Bernie Sanders' face.

So let's be plain. We're coming into the 2020 election season and on the Democratic side there's a lot at stake — in effect, control of the Democratic Party itself from its very top.

As he did in 2016, Bernie Sanders is threatening a palace coup, a takeover of the Party that bypasses all the layers below the presidency — the Speaker's chair, Senate caucus leadership, chair of the DNC, all of it. As the Party's presidential candidate, he will have nominal control of the levers of Party power. As president he will have as much control of the country as he wishes to exercise, even if the leaders of both parties try to block him.

In the past, progressives — and by that I mean real reformers in the Bernie Sanders mold — have been remarkably ineffective in their own #resistance to Party leadership. At every turn, in every local election through 2016 and into 2018, every contest that threatened to put an actual progressive in power was fought bitterly by Party leadership via their control of the donor network, the DCCC, the DSCC, and their allies in other institutions of mainstream Party power, including the media. Some of these resistance candidates succeeded, a great many did not.

The single strongest breakthrough occurred in 2018, when a small group of aggressive progressives, reformers like Occasio-Cortez and others, defeated Party-approved candidates then showed themselves capable as a group of challenging its leaders on their own turf — from inside the halls of power.

Thanks to those victories and their continued opposition to leaders, progressive office-holders have gained some momentum, but not nearly enough. The Green New Deal is now a "thing" being discussed by voters, as is Medicare For All. But the pushback by Nancy Pelosi and other entrenched Party leaders has been fierce, corrupt and underhanded. Even Barack Obama is getting into the act. So even with a Democratic Senate, neither of these proposals is likely to be enacted soon.

The message in all this to progressives is simple: Don't threaten the status quo. The reason: The status quo enriches and empowers us. We're inside and you're not. We mean to stay in charge. Go away.

Seen this way, a Sanders or Warren presidency threatens forty years of entrenched, neoliberal, insider-led and inbred Party power, the very power a great many voters want freedom from, if only they could manage it.

So where is Joe Biden in all this? If you examine all of the viable Democratic presidential candidates (including Biden himself, who hasn't declared yet), they fall neatly into two groups — those opposed to the Obama-era status quo, rebels or "change" candidates; and those whose future depends on returning to that status quo, "faux-change" or "no-change" candidates. If you're a "change" voter this time around, none of the non-rebels is even close to a choice, at least in the primary.

Beto O'Rourke? He wanted to cut Social Security. Kamala Harris? She sent poor mothers to prison because their kids skipped school. Pete Buttigieg? He's an "all lives matter" kind of guy. Also this. Joe Biden? There's too much wrong with him to begin to list.

It's a very neat grouping — Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren on the one hand, all the rest on the other — and the 2020 Democratic primary will be, as it already is, an epic battle between the forces behind these two groups. The forces behind the change candidates are mainly outside the Party — voters and a handful of rebellious elected officials. The forces behind all the others are inside the Party and close to its center — mainstream Democratic leaders and those who keep them in power.

It should therefore be obvious that mainstream Party forces badly need a "Sanders (or Warren) stopper" — or, to borrow their own language, a kind of "Sanders killer": As Axios writes, "One prominent [Biden] backer thinks Biden will run, and 'is ready to kill Bernie.'"

If you accept all this, now consider the polling:

Results of a March 5, 2019 Morning Consult poll (source)

One can almost hear their cries: "Who will save us from these meddlesome candidates?" The choices, at least so far, aren't promising. To date the only person positioned to knock off Sanders, or Warren should she surge, is Joe Biden. Kamala Harris, the nearest to either, is polling a quarter of what Sanders is polling, with the rest of the field well behind her.

Joe Biden, it would seem, is their strongest hope, perhaps their only one.

Are mainstream Democrats protecting him for that reason? From their lockstep defense of him, and the genuinely existential threat they face in the next election, I'd bet on it.

If you doubt me, put Bernie Sanders' face on those Biden photos — and imagine what Nancy Pelosi would be saying then.
  

Want To See Trump Impeached?

The Weekly Standard is a neo-con Republican publication founded by News Corp (Rupert Murdoch) in 1995. Many of their top writers are conservative ant-Trumpers. I'll bet some of them were watching Trump's favorite TV show Wednesday morning, Fox and Friends, when Brian Kilmeade explained how Omarosa "out-smarted" the obsessed Trump. Remember, while normal heads of state are dealing with issues of war and peace and issues impacting the lives of their countrymen, Trump is fighting childish twitter wars with random imbeciles like himself. Since he managed to worm his way into the White House with the help of the Kremlin, overdose deaths have increased to an all-time high, despite his campaign promises on the subject, and the White House was formed to apologize for lies about black employment figures Trump had just pulled out of his ass.

Trump is inadvertently help Omarosa sell her book and it is sending him into a dark rage. Kilmeade: "She has come out with a series of tapes and in many ways, seems to have outsmarted the president who has taken the bait and gone out and tweeted directly after her." Her strategy for using the senile "president" to accomplish her goals are stunning. You think Putin or Xi couldn't do it much better? This clown is a complete joke on the world stage.

So, getting back to the Weekly Standard. yesterday, one of the editors, Jonathan Last, was fretting about Omarosa's tapes and explaining the uniquely dangerous ground Trump is now on. "I hope," wrote Last, a solid Republican, "there isn’t a tape of Donald Trump using the N-word in a manner that’s clearly meant to be offensive, bigoted, and derogatory. We’ve now reached the stage where the existence of such a tape is not proven, but is more than theoretically possible. We have a recording of Trump campaign aides talking about the potential of such a tape in a manner that suggests they find it within the realm of possibility. And we now have Penn Jillette saying that he was in the room when Trump said-- frequently-- 'racially insensitive things.' (Jillette won’t say exactly what he heard Trump say.) Lastly, we have the bizarre spectacle of President Trump insisting that his former business partner, TV producer Mark Burnett, called him to say that no such tapes exist-- while Burnett himself remains publicly silent." Can you imagine how leaders in other countries are looking at Trump fighting with-- spending all his energy on-- some random person from his old TV reality show?

This is insane... and everyone inside the White House knows it. Trump's base, of course, for whom this is all one great big reality show to take them out of their miserable hateful existences, absolutely loves it. And, no, "hard evidence" in the way of tapes means absolutely nothing to them. Anything can happen on TV to alter reality, right? Last asked about what will happen when the tapes get played publicly. "Do you think he’d lose support from his base? Do you think he’d pay a price for lying about the tape’s existence? Or for using the N-word? I do not. Everything we know about the president's base supporters suggests that there is no straw that will break the camel's back-- only goalposts, receding constantly to the horizon. This is a comment on the character of his base, certainly. But it’s more about how narrow his base already is to begin with. Trump’s approval rating among strong Republican partisans is extremely high: 93 percent of the people who voted for him in 2016 approve of him to this point. His approval among everyone else is dismal: 39 percent among independents; 9 percent among Democrats. Just as a structural matter, he doesn’t have very far to fall with either of these groups. And if the last two years are any guide-- Stormy Daniels, tariffs, denigrating America while praising Russia, the fluffing of Kim Jong-un, personnel scandals-- then Trump is already resting on his foundation.

The Trump presidency is oddly dependent on tapes. Trump’s entire existence is so strange and outside the norms of decent behavior that many of his foibles simply cannot be believed, absent hard evidence. Who would believe that Donald Trump would call reporters pretending to be a publicist in order to brag about himself? If you didn’t have the tapes, no one would. Who would believe that Trump would admit-- almost to a total stranger, while wearing a microphone-- to grabbing women by their genitals and forcing them to do whatever he wanted? Without the tapes, no one would. People have speculated for almost two years about a Russian pee tape that almost certainly doesn’t exist. And everyone will continue to view it as a fantasy. Unless it surfaces. At which point we will all shake our heads and say, “Actually, we should have known...”

The other factor in why you need documentary materials is that the president, his advisers, and his supporters in the media use gaslighting as their primary means of defense. They make frictionless transitions from “no one ever met with Russians,” to “the meeting with Russians was about adoption,” to “of course they met with Russians about getting oppo on the Clintons and why do you have have a problem with that?”

Without tapes, or emails, or hard evidence, Trump World simply denies everything as a matter of course.

The N-word tapes occupy a middle ground in the public consciousness between the Access Hollywood and the Russian pee tape. There is circumstantial evidence to suggest they might exist-- and people within Trump World have privately acted as though they believe the tapes might exist. But so far they remain mythical.

Last made the point that Trump's moron fans won't care if the tapes are released but he worries that when they do come out Trump will be like a cornered rat, refusing to resign, with a cowardly, partisan Senate that won't impeach him. "What then?... The only way Trump leaves is if he loses re-election in 2020. For both good and ill, President Trump is our reality and he will continue to affect the world around him. So now we must imagine what a weakened Trump would be like for the next two years. Do you think he’d knuckle down, start acting like a statesman, and try to unite the country? Or do you think he’d push for more chaos and division in the hopes of somehow drawing to an inside straight (again)? Assuming he does, the only possible downside of such a strategy, from Trump's perspective, would be salting the ground of American political life for any potential successor. And he would view this not as a bug, but as a feature. If you look at the Trump administration and think it can’t get worse, then you haven’t contemplated what a scorched-earth Trump might be like."

But the worst outcome is the one that requires the least speculation and imagination. As things stand right now there are still a handful of norms left in public life. Not saying the N-word is one of them. It would be nice if we could hold on to that norm. If we have a tape of the president of the United States saying it and he suffers no proximate consequences, that norm will be shattered.

Think of it this way: The Access Hollywood tape didn’t break Donald Trump. It broke the Republican party’s willingness to insist that character matters.

How about obstruction of Justice? Yesterday Trumpanzee admitted to the Wall Street Journal that he took away Brennan's security clearance because of his involvement in the Putin-Gate probe. This morning the John Brennan OpEd in the NY Times, President Trump’s Claims of No Collusion Are Hogwash, was pretty conclusive. "Russian denials are," he wrote, "in a word, hogwash."

Before, during and after its now infamous meddling in our last presidential election, Russia practiced the art of shaping political events abroad through its well-honed active measures program, which employs an array of technical capabilities, information operations and old-fashioned human intelligence spycraft. Electoral politics in Western democracies presents an especially inviting target, as a variety of politicians, political parties, media outlets, think tanks and influencers are readily manipulated, wittingly and unwittingly, or even bought outright by Russian intelligence operatives. The very freedoms and liberties that liberal Western democracies cherish and that autocracies fear have been exploited by Russian intelligence services not only to collect sensitive information but also to distribute propaganda and disinformation, increasingly via the growing number of social media platforms.

...The already challenging work of the American intelligence and law enforcement communities was made more difficult in late July 2016, however, when Mr. Trump, then a presidential candidate, publicly called upon Russia to find the missing emails of Mrs. Clinton. By issuing such a statement, Mr. Trump was not only encouraging a foreign nation to collect intelligence against a United States citizen, but also openly authorizing his followers to work with our primary global adversary against his political opponent.

  Such a public clarion call certainly makes one wonder what Mr. Trump privately encouraged his advisers to do-- and what they actually did-- to win the election. While I had deep insight into Russian activities during the 2016 election, I now am aware-- thanks to the reporting of an open and free press-- of many more of the highly suspicious dalliances of some American citizens with people affiliated with the Russian intelligence services.

  Mr. Trump’s claims of no collusion are, in a word, hogwash.

...[H]ow many members of “Trump Incorporated” attempted to defraud the government by laundering and concealing the movement of money into their pockets.

Is there a way to persuade Republican senators that it is in their own best interest to disassociate themselves from Trump? Self-interest. The Democrats are likely to win over 50 House seats in November, perhaps many more than that. But the Senate map for this year is very favorable for Republicans. There is one Senate seat-- one-- that would send Republican senators scurrying: Texas. If Beto O'Rourke beats Ted Cruz, Trump is D.O.N.E.-- done. There is no excuse Republicans can come up for in their minds to write that off. And this week Beto actually came in first in a poll; he's been gaining on Cruz consistently. In 2020, the Senate map is much more favorable to Democrats. At the very minimum, we'll be looking at Cory Gardner (R-CO), Joni Ernst (R-IA), Mitch McConnell (R-KY), Susan Collins (R-ME), Steve Daines (R-MT) and Thom Tillis (R-NC) all looking over their shoulders and doing the calculus about how much damage Trumpism will do to them. If Last's scorched earth scenario plays out Dan Sullivan (R-AK), David Perdue (R-GA), Pat Roberts (R-KS), Bill Cassidy (R-LA), Ben Sasse (R-NE), Lindsey Graham (R-SC) and Shelley Moore Capito (R-WV) are suddenly in play as well. Most of those people hate Trump's guts. Almost all of them would vote "guilty" when the House impeaches him-- if they think their careers are on the line. But it all starts with Beto O'Rourke. That's what that Senate thermometer in all about.

Koch Brothers Network In The Age Of Trump-- Confused, Hypocritical And As Evil As Ever

The weekend's Koch brothers biannual 3-day conclave of wealthy right-wing political donors, featured a video of Charles Koch blasting Trump's trade agenda. In Colorado Springs they got to hear Charles explaining that "the urge to protect ourselves from change has doomed many counties throughout history. This protectionist mindset has destroyed countless businesses." Isn't the definition of conservatism "the urge to protect ourselves from change?" In any case, there was lots of Trump criticism going around. The Koch network co-chair Brian Hooks came right out and said that "The divisiveness of this White House is causing long-term damage" and also chided elected officials who are "following" Trump's lead. That would be every single Republican the Koch network is funding this cycle. Talk about mixed messages, hypocrisy and confusion!

The Koch network's influence, even among Republicans, has come into question in the conventional-wisdom-shredding era of Trump. The network has during the past year and a half fruitlessly pushed for comprehensive health care and immigration reform; and like other leading conservative groups, the network has been powerless to persuade the President to rethink his strategy on trade generally and tariffs specifically.

The weekend conference comes with fewer than four months until the midterm elections, as the network, led by billionaire Charles Koch, gears up to spend millions to protect Republican majorities in Washington. Yet the networks' leaders did not sound like they were on war footing on Saturday, instead highlighting bipartisan cooperation.

"It is radical, particularly given the divisive climate that we're in right now and how polarized and factionalized the country is in many ways," said James Davis, a spokesperson for the network. "But we want to focus on aggressively finding areas of common interest where we can make progress on some issues, even if we disagree on other issues."

Although the Koch network has not adjusted its spending projections for the midterms, its thematic shift suggests the GOP-aligned group could be contemplating a new power dynamic in Washington and its place in it. Indeed, in spite of significant investments by the Koch network and like-minded groups, Democrats have maintained an advantage in generic polling and appear as well positioned to compete for majorities in Congress now as they did earlier this year.

The Koch network has dabbled in working with and supporting Democrats when their interests have aligned, and the network alarmed some Republicans earlier this year when it funded a digital ad campaign applauding North Dakota Sen. Heidi Heitkamp's support for rolling back bank regulations. Heitkamp is one of the most vulnerable Democratic incumbents this year, and her race could help decide partisan control of the Senate.

...The group remains unambiguously pro-Republican by reputation. Only Republican elected officials plan to attend the Koch network's meeting over the course of the weekend, as is standard-- including a few, like Rep. Marsha Blackburn, a candidate for Senate in Tennessee, who will count on the deep pockets of Koch network donors in competitive races this fall. Florida Gov. Rick Scott, who is also running in a marquee Senate race, will also be on hand, as will the No. 2 Senate Republican, John Cornyn, among others.

But the administration's tariffs have stung uniquely for this group, which traces its roots to 2003, when Charles Koch and a group of like-minded business leaders grew alarmed at the rapid growth of government programs and the implementation of steel tariffs under President George W. Bush.

"So, we find that there are some similarities to where we are today," said Davis.

In a video message that will be shown to the network's donors during this weekend's meeting, set on the lush grounds of the Broadmoor hotel here in Colorado Springs, Charles Koch warns that "protectionism is perverting the key institutions of our society."

The Koch network has pledged a "multi-year, multi-million dollar" commitment to fighting tariffs and other policies they believe are protectionist. "We see this as a long-term endeavor," said Davis.

Even beyond some glaring policy disagreements, the Koch network has not exactly enjoyed a cozy relationship with Trump, having voiced stark concerns about him during the presidential election and recoiled at his brand of Republicanism. Once Trump won, however, the network resolved to work with him where they could, and following his first year in office, their public view turned rosier. In January, Tim Phillips, the president of the network's political arm, Americans for Prosperity, touted the network's "partnership" with Trump and cheered the administration's work to roll back regulations and nominate conservative judges.

As the political ground shifts, the network is also grappling with a fundamental transformation of its own. The shorthand for the network was once the "Koch brothers," a reference to Charles and David Koch, its patrons and figureheads. But David Koch, 78, formally resigned from his role with the network earlier this year, citing declining health.

Steve Bannon was certainly not invited out to Colorado Springs. As Politico's Alex Isenstadt reported earlier today, he was hurling feces from the sidelines. He was bitching that the billionaires have to "get with the programs" and finance a "ground game [and] to support Trump’s presidency and program."

Bannon argued, the Kochs need to rally behind the president. Democrats, who he said want to halt Trump’s agenda and launch impeachment proceedings, are energized and focused-- and out-hustling Republicans.

He described the Koch political operation as ineffective, saying it had wasted untold dollars on losing past elections. And he argued that voters had rejected the free-trade approach the Kochs embrace in favor of Trump’s brand of economic populism.

“We can have a theoretical discussion later, OK? This is why they don’t know what it means to win, OK? We don’t have time to have some theoretical discussion and to have their spokesman come out and say the president is divisive,” Bannon said.

He said it was unacceptable “for them to come out and talk about divisiveness” given their long-running lack of support for Trump.

“They were the first people to put the knife in his back,” he said.

..."Charles Koch is a good man, but 100 days before an election that will determine the direction of the country is not the time to tell us that you are prepared to work with Democrats that support parts of your progressive agenda,” Bannon said.

“It's wrong, it's stupid and it shows contempt for the hardworking grassroots folks that delivered the victory that got your tax cut,” he added.

Meanwhile, who did the Kochs invite to their shindig? Mostly very extreme, hard right whackadoodles like Matt Bevin (R-KY), Marsha Blackburn (R-TN), Rick Scott (R-FL), John Cornyn (R-TX) and Doug Collins (R-GA), not mainstream conservatives, let alone moderates. Maybe they should have gone outside the box and invited Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez to speak at their dog-and-pony show. They would have learned something important for a change. Listen; she sounds good, doesn't she? And she's part of the future of this country, not the octogenarian Koch brothers.

[S]ocialism lost its sting at the end of the Cold War. In 2009, when Rep. Spencer Bachus (R-AL) told a reporter he had a secret list of 17 “socialists” then working in Congress, the Beltway press and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) responded not with McCarthy-era outrage but gentle amusement. When Rep. Steve King (R-IA) called same-sex marriage a socialist plot that same year, he couldn’t even convince conservative Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy.

Millennials are the first generation to come of age without all of this Cold War brain baggage. They also entered adulthood around the 2008 financial crisis, a period in which the word “capitalism” was having a rough go: double-digit unemployment, mass foreclosures, unaffordable rent, crushing student debt, deepening economic inequality, bailed-out bankers swallowing six-figure bonuses, tech billionaires who literally can’t figure out how to give away their money.

Plenty of reformers have insisted that these signs of social breakdown were offenses against capitalism rather than products of capitalism. But they are losing the semantic battle. Polling in recent years has consistently shown a majority of millennials are enthusiastic about “socialism,” often preferring it to “capitalism.” For millennials, “capitalism” means “unaccountable rich people ripping off the world,” while “socialism” simply means “not that.”

Indeed, when the newest star on the left, soon-to-be Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York discusses her vision for “democratic socialism,” her agenda sounds a lot like old-school New Deal liberalism, or basic, functional, small-d democracy.

“In a modern, moral and wealthy society, no American should be too poor to live,” Ocasio-Cortez told NBC’s Chuck Todd earlier this month. “Every working-class American in this country should have access to dignified health care, should actually be able to see a doctor without going broke. It means you should be able to send your kids to college and trade school if they so choose, and no person should feel precarious or unstable in their access to housing.”

No gulags, just dignity. Boomers of the world, calm down. You have nothing to lose but some words.

A Crumbling Regime... Built On A Thin Tissue Of Compulsive Lies

“Many Americans have become accustomed to President Trump’s lies,” wrote David Leonhardt in today’s NY Times. Does that statement seem odd, coming on the pages of one of the country’s most prestigious, and even staid, newspapers? But that was just the beginning. Leonhardt continued by warning that “as regular as they have become, the country should not allow itself to become numb to them. So we have catalogued nearly every outright lie he has told publicly since taking the oath of office.” I’ve never seen coverage like that of a president by the media. But, of course, there’s never been a president like Trump, an inveterate liar incapable of being truthful. It would be safe to assume that everything he ever says is a lie meant to manipulate his audience. That’s who close to a majority plurality of Americans put into the White House. And even today something like 35% of American voters still fail to see his utter unfitness for the presidency… which says an awful lot, uncomfortably, about just over a third of our fellow citizens. What followed was the longest paragraph in the history of the New York Times: a chronological catalogue of Señor Trumpanzee’s presidential lies:

JAN. 21 “I wasn't a fan of Iraq. I didn't want to go into Iraq.” (He was for an invasion before he was against it.) JAN. 21 “A reporter for Time magazine-- and I have been on their cover 14 or 15 times. I think we have the all-time record in the history of Time magazine.” (Trump was on the cover 11 times and Nixon appeared 55 times.) JAN. 23 “Between 3 million and 5 million illegal votes caused me to lose the popular vote.” (There's no evidence of illegal voting.) JAN. 25 “Now, the audience was the biggest ever. But this crowd was massive. Look how far back it goes. This crowd was massive.” (Official aerial photos show Obama's 2009 inauguration was much more heavily attended.) JAN. 25 “Take a look at the Pew reports (which show voter fraud.)” (The report never mentioned voter fraud.) JAN. 25 “You had millions of people that now aren't insured anymore.” (The real number is less than 1 million, according to the Urban Institute.) JAN. 25 “So, look, when President Obama was there two weeks ago making a speech, very nice speech. Two people were shot and killed during his speech. You can't have that.” (There were no gun homicide victims in Chicago that day.) JAN. 26 “We've taken in tens of thousands of people. We know nothing about them. They can say they vet them. They didn't vet them. They have no papers. How can you vet somebody when you don't know anything about them and you have no papers? How do you vet them? You can't.” (Vetting lasts up to two years.) JAN. 26 “I cut off hundreds of millions of dollars off one particular plane, hundreds of millions of dollars in a short period of time. It wasn't like I spent, like, weeks, hours, less than hours, and many, many hundreds of millions of dollars. And the plane's going to be better.” (Most of the cuts were already planned.) JAN. 28 “The coverage about me in the @nytimes and the @washingtonpost has been so false and angry that the times actually apologized to its dwindling subscribers and readers.” (It never apologized.) JAN. 29 “The Cuban-Americans, I got 84 percent of that vote.” (There is no support for this.) JAN. 30 “Only 109 people out of 325,000 were detained and held for questioning. Big problems at airports were caused by Delta computer outage” (At least 746 people were detained and processed, and the Delta outage happened two days later.) FEB. 3 “Professional anarchists, thugs and paid protesters are proving the point of the millions of people who voted to MAKE AMERICA GREAT AGAIN!” (There is no evidence of paid protesters.) FEB. 4 “After being forced to apologize for its bad and inaccurate coverage of me after winning the election, the FAKE NEWS @nytimes is still lost!” (It never apologized.) FEB. 5 “We had 109 people out of hundreds of thousands of travelers and all we did was vet those people very, very carefully.” (About 60,000 people were affected.) FEB. 6 “I have already saved more than $700 million when I got involved in the negotiation on the F-35.” (Much of the price drop was projected before Trump took office.) FEB. 6 “It's gotten to a point where it is not even being reported. And in many cases, the very, very dishonest press doesn't want to report it.” (Terrorism has been reported on, often in detail.) FEB. 6 “The failing @nytimes was forced to apologize to its subscribers for the poor reporting it did on my election win. Now they are worse!” (It didn't apologize.) FEB. 6 “And the previous administration allowed it to happen because we shouldn't have been in Iraq, but we shouldn't have gotten out the way we got out. It created a vacuum, ISIS was formed.” (ISIS has existed since 2004.) FEB. 7 “And yet the murder rate in our country is the highest it’s been in 47 years, right? Did you know that? Forty-seven years.” (It was higher in the 1980s and '90s.) FEB. 7 “I saved more than $600 million. I got involved in negotiation on a fighter jet, the F-35.” (The Defense Department projected this price drop before Trump took office.) FEB. 9 “Chris Cuomo, in his interview with Sen. Blumenthal, never asked him about his long-term lie about his brave ‘service’ in Vietnam. FAKE NEWS!” (It was part of Cuomo's first question.) FEB. 9 Sen. Richard Blumenthal “now misrepresents what Judge Gorsuch told him?” (The Gorsuch comments were later corroborated.) FEB. 10 “I don’t know about it. I haven’t seen it. What report is that?” (Trump knew about Flynn's actions for weeks.) FEB. 12 “Just leaving Florida. Big crowds of enthusiastic supporters lining the road that the FAKE NEWS media refuses to mention. Very dishonest!” (The media did cover it.) FEB. 16 “We got 306 because people came out and voted like they've never seen before so that's the way it goes. I guess it was the biggest Electoral College win since Ronald Reagan.” (George H.W. Bush, Bill Clinton and Barack Obama all won bigger margins in the Electoral College.) FEB. 16 “That’s the other thing that was wrong with the travel ban. You had Delta with a massive problem with their computer system at the airports.” (Delta's problems happened two days later.) FEB. 16 “Walmart announced it will create 10,000 jobs in the United States just this year because of our various plans and initiatives.” (The jobs are a result of its investment plans announced in October 2016.) FEB. 16 “When WikiLeaks, which I had nothing to do with, comes out and happens to give, they’re not giving classified information.” (Not always. They have released classified information in the past.) FEB. 16 “We had a very smooth rollout of the travel ban. But we had a bad court. Got a bad decision.” (The rollout was chaotic.) FEB. 16 “They’re giving stuff-- what was said at an office about Hillary cheating on the debates. Which, by the way, nobody mentions. Nobody mentions that Hillary received the questions to the debates.” (It was widely covered.) FEB. 18 “And there was no way to vet those people. There was no documentation. There was no nothing.” (Refugees receive multiple background checks, taking up to two years.) FEB. 18 “You look at what's happening in Germany, you look at what's happening last night in Sweden. Sweden, who would believe this?” (Trump implied there was a terror attack in Sweden, but there was no such attack.) FEB. 24 “By the way, you folks are in here-- this place is packed, there are lines that go back six blocks.” (There was no evidence of long lines.) FEB. 24 “ICE came and endorsed me.” (Only its union did.) FEB. 24 “Obamacare covers very few people-- and remember, deduct from the number all of the people that had great health care that they loved that was taken away from them-- it was taken away from them.” (Obamacare increased coverage by a net of about 20 million.) FEB. 27 “Since Obamacare went into effect, nearly half of the insurers are stopped and have stopped from participating in the Obamacare exchanges.” (Many fewer pulled out.) FEB. 27 “On one plane, on a small order of one plane, I saved $725 million. And I would say I devoted about, if I added it up, all those calls, probably about an hour. So I think that might be my highest and best use.” (Much of the price cut was already projected.) FEB. 28 “And now, based on our very strong and frank discussions, they are beginning to do just that.” (NATO countries agreed to meet defense spending requirements in 2014.) FEB. 28 “The E.P.A.’s regulators were putting people out of jobs by the hundreds of thousands.” (There's no evidence that the Waters of the United States rule caused severe job losses.) FEB. 28 “We have begun to drain the swamp of government corruption by imposing a five-year ban on lobbying by executive branch officials.” (They can't lobby their former agency but can still become lobbyists.) MARCH 3 “It is so pathetic that the Dems have still not approved my full Cabinet.” (Paperwork for the last two candidates was still not submitted to the Senate.) MARCH 4 “Terrible! Just found out that Obama had my ‘wires tapped’ in Trump Tower just before the victory. Nothing found. This is McCarthyism!” (There's no evidence of a wiretap.) MARCH 4 “How low has President Obama gone to tapp my phones during the very sacred election process. This is Nixon/Watergate. Bad (or sick) guy!” (There's no evidence of a wiretap.) MARCH 7 “122 vicious prisoners, released by the Obama Administration from Gitmo, have returned to the battlefield. Just another terrible decision!” (113 of them were released by President George W. Bush.) MARCH 13 “I saved a lot of money on those jets, didn't I? Did I do a good job? More than $725 million on them.” (Much of the cost cuts were planned before Trump.) MARCH 13 “First of all, it covers very few people.” (About 20 million people gained insurance under Obamacare.) MARCH 15 “On the airplanes, I saved $725 million. Probably took me a half an hour if you added up all of the times.” (Much of the cost cuts were planned before Trump.) MARCH 17 “I was in Tennessee-- I was just telling the folks-- and half of the state has no insurance company, and the other half is going to lose the insurance company.” (There's at least one insurer in every Tennessee county.) MARCH 20 “With just one negotiation on one set of airplanes, I saved the taxpayers of our country over $700 million.” (Much of the cost cuts were planned before Trump.) MARCH 21 “To save taxpayer dollars, I’ve already begun negotiating better contracts for the federal government-- saving over $700 million on just one set of airplanes of which there are many sets.” (Much of the cost cuts were planned before Trump.) MARCH 22 “I make the statement, everyone goes crazy. The next day they have a massive riot, and death, and problems.” (Riots in Sweden broke out two days later and there were no deaths.) MARCH 22 “NATO, obsolete, because it doesn’t cover terrorism. They fixed that.” (It has fought terrorism since the 1980s.) MARCH 22 “Well, now, if you take a look at the votes, when I say that, I mean mostly they register wrong-- in other words, for the votes, they register incorrectly and/or illegally. And they then vote. You have tremendous numbers of people.” (There's no evidence of widespread voter fraud.) MARCH 29 “Remember when the failing @nytimes apologized to its subscribers, right after the election, because their coverage was so wrong. Now worse!” (It didn't apologize.) MARCH 31 “We have a lot of plants going up now in Michigan that were never going to be there if I-- if I didn’t win this election, those plants would never even think about going back. They were gone.” (These investments were already planned.) APRIL 2 “And I was totally opposed to the war in the Middle East which I think finally has been proven, people tried very hard to say I wasn’t but you’ve seen that it is now improving.” (He was for an invasion before he was against it.) APRIL 2 “Now, my last tweet-- you know, the one that you are talking about, perhaps-- was the one about being, in quotes, wiretapped, meaning surveilled. Guess what, it is turning out to be true.” (There is still no evidence.) APRIL 5 “You have many states coming up where they’re going to have no insurance company. O.K.? It’s already happened in Tennessee. It’s happening in Kentucky. Tennessee only has half coverage. Half the state is gone. They left.” (Every marketplace region in Tennessee had at least one insurer.) APRIL 6 “If you look at the kind of cost-cutting we’ve been able to achieve with the military and at the same time ordering vast amounts of equipment-- saved hundreds of millions of dollars on airplanes, and really billions, because if you take that out over a period of years it’s many billions of dollars-- I think we’ve had a tremendous success.” (Much of the price cuts were already projected.) APRIL 11 “I like Steve, but you have to remember he was not involved in my campaign until very late. I had already beaten all the senators and all the governors, and I didn’t know Steve.” (He knew Steve Bannon since 2011.) APRIL 12 “You can't do it faster, because they're obstructing. They're obstructionists. So I have people-- hundreds of people that we're trying to get through. I mean you have-- you see the backlog. We can't get them through.” (At this point, he had not nominated anyone for hundreds of positions.) APRIL 12 “The New York Times said the word wiretapped in the headline of the first edition. Then they took it out of there fast when they realized.” (There were two headlines, but neither were altered.) APRIL 12 “The secretary general and I had a productive discussion about what more NATO can do in the fight against terrorism. I complained about that a long time ago and they made a change, and now they do fight terrorism.” (NATO has been engaged in counterterrorism efforts since the 1980s.) APRIL 12 “Mosul was supposed to last for a week and now they’ve been fighting it for many months and so many more people died.” (The campaign was expected to take months.) APRIL 16 “Someone should look into who paid for the small organized rallies yesterday. The election is over!” (There's no evidence of paid protesters.) APRIL 18 “The fake media goes, ‘Donald Trump changed his stance on China.’ I haven’t changed my stance.” (He did.) APRIL 21 “On 90 planes I saved $725 million. It's actually a little bit more than that, but it's $725 million.” (Much of the price cuts were already projected.) APRIL 21 “When WikiLeaks came out … never heard of WikiLeaks, never heard of it.” (He criticized it as early as 2010.) APRIL 27 “I want to help our miners while the Democrats are blocking their healthcare.” (The bill to extend health benefits for certain coal miners was introduced by a Democrat and was co-sponsored by mostly Democrats.) APRIL 28 “The trade deficit with Mexico is close to $70 billion, even with Canada it’s $17 billion trade deficit with Canada.” (The U.S. had an $8.1 billion trade surplus, not deficit, with Canada in 2016.) APRIL 28 “She's running against someone who's going to raise your taxes to the sky, destroy your health care, and he's for open borders-- lots of crime.” (Those are not Jon Ossoff's positions.) APRIL 28 “The F-35 fighter jet program-- it was way over budget. I’ve saved $725 million plus, just by getting involved in the negotiation.” (Much of the price cuts were planned before Trump.) APRIL 29 “They're incompetent, dishonest people who after an election had to apologize because they covered it, us, me, but all of us, they covered it so badly that they felt they were forced to apologize because their predictions were so bad.” (The Times did not apologize.) APRIL 29 “As you know, I've been a big critic of China, and I've been talking about currency manipulation for a long time. But I have to tell you that during the election, number one, they stopped.” (China stopped years ago.) APRIL 29 “I've already saved more than $725 million on a simple order of F-35 planes. I got involved in the negotiation.” (Much of the price cuts were planned before Trump.) APRIL 29 “We're also getting NATO countries to finally step up and contribute their fair share. They've begun to increase their contributions by billions of dollars, but we are not going to be satisfied until everyone pays what they owe.” (The deal was struck in 2014.) APRIL 29 “When they talk about currency manipulation, and I did say I would call China, if they were, a currency manipulator, early in my tenure. And then I get there. Number one, they-- as soon as I got elected, they stopped.” (China stopped in 2014.) APRIL 29 “I was negotiating to reduce the price of the big fighter jet contract, the F-35, which was totally out of control. I will save billions and billions and billions of dollars.” (Most of the cuts were planned before Trump.) APRIL 29 “I think our side's been proven very strongly. And everybody's talking about it.” (There's still no evidence Trump's phones were tapped.) MAY 1 “Well, we are protecting pre-existing conditions. And it'll be every good-- bit as good on pre-existing conditions as Obamacare.” (The bill weakens protections for people with pre-existing conditions.) MAY 1 “The F-35 fighter jet-- I saved-- I got involved in the negotiation. It's 2,500 jets. I negotiated for 90 planes, lot 10. I got $725 million off the price.” (Much of the price cuts were planned before Trump.) MAY 1 “First of all, since I started running, they haven't increased their--you know, they have not manipulated their currency. I think that was out of respect to me and the campaign.” (China stopped years ago.) MAY 2 “I love buying those planes at a reduced price. I have been really-- I have cut billions-- I have to tell you this, and they can check, right, Martha? I have cut billions and billions of dollars off plane contracts sitting here.” (Much of the cost cuts were planned before Trump.) MAY 4 “Number two, they’re actually not a currency [manipulator]. You know, since I’ve been talking about currency manipulation with respect to them and other countries, they stopped.” (China stopped years ago.) MAY 4 “We’re the highest-taxed nation in the world.” (We're not.) MAY 4 “Nobody cares about my tax return except for the reporters.” (Polls show most Americans do care.) MAY 8 “You know we’ve gotten billions of dollars more in NATO than we’re getting. All because of me.” (The deal was struck in 2014.) MAY 8 “But when I did his show, which by the way was very highly rated. It was high-- highest rating. The highest rating he’s ever had.” (Colbert's “Late Show” debut had nearly two million more viewers.) MAY 8 “Director Clapper reiterated what everybody, including the fake media already knows- there is ‘no evidence’ of collusion w/ Russia and Trump.” (Clapper only said he wasn't aware of an investigation.) MAY 12 “Again, the story that there was collusion between the Russians & Trump campaign was fabricated by Dems as an excuse for losing the election.” (The F.B.I. was investigating before the election.) MAY 12 “When James Clapper himself, and virtually everyone else with knowledge of the witch hunt, says there is no collusion, when does it end?” (Clapper said he wouldn't have been told of an investigation into collusion.) MAY 13 “I'm cutting the price of airplanes with Lockheed.” (The cost cuts were planned before he became president.) MAY 26 “Just arrived in Italy for the G7. Trip has been very successful. We made and saved the USA many billions of dollars and millions of jobs.” (He's referencing an arms deal that's not enacted and other apparent deals that weren't announced on the trip.) JUNE 1 “China will be allowed to build hundreds of additional coal plants. So, we can’t build the plants, but they can, according to this agreement. India will be allowed to double its coal production by 2020.” (The agreement doesn’t allow or disallow building coal plants.) JUNE 1 “I’ve just returned from a trip overseas where we concluded nearly $350 billion of military and economic development for the United States, creating hundreds of thousands of jobs.” (Trump’s figures are inflated and premature.) JUNE 4 “At least 7 dead and 48 wounded in terror attack and Mayor of London says there is ‘no reason to be alarmed!’” (The mayor was specifically talking about the enlarged police presence on the streets.) JUNE 5 “The Justice Dept. should have stayed with the original Travel Ban, not the watered down, politically correct version they submitted to S.C.” (Trump signed this version of the travel ban, not the Justice Department.) JUNE 21 “They all say it's 'nonbinding.' Like hell it's nonbinding.” (The Paris climate agreement is nonbinding-- and Trump said so in his speech announcing the withdrawal.) JUNE 21 “Right now, we are one of the highest-taxed nations in the world.” (We're not.)

Every poll that has asked the question in the last 3 months has found that most Americans consider Trump a liar. And Leonhardt continued by pointing out that Trumpanzee’s “political rise was built on a lie (about Barack Obama's birthplace). His lack of truthfulness has also become central to the Russia investigation, with James Comey, the former director of the F.B.I., testifying under oath about Trump's ‘lies, plain and simple.’”

There is simply no precedent for an American president to spend so much time telling untruths. Every president has shaded the truth or told occasional whoppers. No other president-- of either party-- has behaved as Trump is behaving. He is trying to create an atmosphere in which reality is irrelevant.

We have set a conservative standard, leaving out many dubious statements (like the claim that his travel ban is “similar” to Obama administration policy). Some people may still take issue with this standard, arguing that the president wasn't speaking literally. But we believe his long pattern of using untruths to serve his purposes, as a businessman and politician, means that his statements are not simply careless errors.

We are using the word “lie” deliberately. Not every falsehood is deliberate on Trump's part. But it would be the height of naïveté to imagine he is merely making honest mistakes. He is lying.

Trump Told Public Lies or Falsehoods Every Day for His First 40 Days

The list above uses the conservative standard of demonstrably false statements. By that standard, Trump told a public lie on at least 20 of his first 40 days as president. But based on a broader standard-- one that includes his many misleading statements (like exaggerating military spending in the Middle East)-- Trump achieved something remarkable: He said something untrue, in public, every day for the first 40 days of his presidency. The streak didn’t end until March 1.

Since then, he has said something untrue on at least 74 of 113 days. On days without an untrue statement, he is often absent from Twitter, vacationing at Mar-a-Lago in Florida, or busy golfing.

The end of May was another period of relative public veracity-- or at least public quiet-- for the president. He seems to have been otherwise occupied, dealing with internal discussions about the Russia investigation and then embarking on a trip through the Middle East and Europe.

Trump’s Public Lies Sometimes Changed With Repetition

Sometimes, Trump can’t even keep his untruths straight. After he reversed a campaign pledge and declined to label China a currency manipulator, he kept changing his description of when China had stopped the bad behavior. Initially, he said it stopped once he took office. He then changed the turning point to the election, then to since he started talking about it, and then to some uncertain point in the distant past.

The Public’s Mistrust of Trump Grows

Trump has retained the support of most of his voters as well as the Republican leadership in Congress. But he has still paid some price for his lies. Nearly 60 percent of Americans say the president is not honest, polls show, up from about 53 percent when he took office.

I’m curious… in your heart of hearts do you think people who voted for Trump should forfeit their right to vote? I know its terribly politically incorrect to think this way but… how about if they get to earn back the right to vote by taking a basic junior high school level civics class? Oh, neither junior nor señor high schools teach civics any longer? How about listening to a Linkin Park song every day for a month instead?

Is Trump More A Fool Or More A Knave? More Putin-Gate

Trump with the 2 Russian spies

American allies are alarmed. And so are American intelligence officials. Trump revealing highly classified material to his Kremlin buddies-- spies-- is freaking everyone out. Greg Miller's Washington Post scoop, as tepid and punch-pulling as it was, set off alarm bells all over the world. Months ago the top Israeli newspapers were reporting that the Israeli government was warned by U.S. intelligence to be careful about what they say to Trump because it could wind up in Russian hands and from the Russians to their allies in Tehran.

Israeli intelligence officials are concerned that the exposure of classified information to their American counterparts under a Trump administration could lead to their being leaked to Russia and onward to Iran... American intelligence officials expressed despair at the election of Trump during a recent meeting with their Israeli counterparts, Bergman reported. They said that they believed that Putin had “leverages of pressure” over Trump, though they did not elaborate.

As you read Miller's report, keep in mind that hours after it came out, BuzzFeed reported that the Post downplayed how bad Trump's revelations to Kremlin spymasters Sergei Kislyak and Sergey Lavrov were. Jim Dalyrimple and Jason Leopold wrote that "[t]wo US officials who were briefed on Trump’s disclosures last week confirmed to BuzzFeed News the veracity of the Post report, with one official noting that 'it’s far worse than what has already been reported.' The Senate Intelligence Committee was also briefed on Trump’s disclosures, one of the officials said." (McCain immediately shook his head sadly, admitted it was a bad thing and said Trump has the legal right to share secrets with Russian spies if he wants to.)

The classified information Trump shared included intelligence on ISIS that had been passed to the US by a partner, which was not identified. But Trump's disclosure was considered a potential blow to the intelligence-sharing arrangement, and White House officials reportedly moved quickly to contain the fallout.

After news of Trump's revelations broke Monday, Sen. Bob Corker-- a Tennessee Republican and chairman of the Foreign Relations committee-- said "obviously they're in a downward spiral right now and they've got to figure out a way to come to grips with all that's happening."

"And the shame of it is, there's a really good national security team in place...but the chaos that is being created by the lack of discipline is creating an environment that I think makes-- it creates a worrisome environment," Corker told reporters in Washington, DC, Monday afternoon.

Sen. Chris Murphy, a Connecticut Democrat, told reporters on Capitol Hill that "if this story is true, it's another brick in the wall of a really, really troubling connection between Trump and the Russian government."

"I don't know when it will be enough for Republicans to understand that we need to get to the bottom of the connection between the president of the United States and the Russian government," said Murphy, who sits on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

Progressive Orange County candidate for the seat held by notorious Trump shill Mimi Walters, was as quick as Senator Murphy to demand a special prosecutor to get to the bottom of the whole Putin-Gate scandal:

Miller's article in The Post emphasized that Trumpanzee "revealed highly classified information to the Russian foreign minister and ambassador in a White House meeting last week, according to current and former U.S. officials, who said that Trump’s disclosures jeopardized a critical source of intelligence on the Islamic State."

The information Trump relayed had been provided by a U.S. partner through an intelligence-sharing arrangement considered so sensitive that details have been withheld from allies and tightly restricted even within the U.S. government, officials said.

The partner had not given the United States permission to share the material with Russia, and officials said that Trump’s decision to do so risks cooperation from an ally that has access to the inner workings of the Islamic State. After Trump’s meeting, senior White House officials took steps to contain the damage, placing calls to the CIA and National Security Agency.

“This is code-word information,” said a U.S. official familiar with the matter, using terminology that refers to one of the highest classification levels used by American spy agencies. Trump “revealed more information to the Russian ambassador than we have shared with our own allies.”

...One day after dismissing Comey, Trump welcomed Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Ambassador Sergey Kislyak-- a key figure in earlier Russia controversies-- into the Oval Office. It was during that meeting, officials said, that Trump went off script and began describing details about an Islamic State terrorist threat related to the use of laptop computers on aircraft.

...[O]fficials expressed concern with Trump’s handling of sensitive information as well as his grasp of the potential consequences. Exposure of an intelligence stream that has provided critical insight into the Islamic State, they said, could hinder the United States’ and its allies’ ability to detect future threats.

“It is all kind of shocking,” said a former senior U.S. official close to current administration officials. “Trump seems to be very reckless, and doesn’t grasp the gravity of the things he’s dealing with, especially when it comes to intelligence and national security. And it’s all clouded because of this problem he has with Russia.”

In his meeting with Lavrov, Trump seemed to be boasting about his inside knowledge of the looming threat. “I get great intel. I have people brief me on great intel every day,” Trump said, according to an official with knowledge of the exchange.

Trump went on to discuss aspects of the threat that the United States only learned through the espionage capabilities of a key partner. He did not reveal the specific intelligence gathering method, but described how the Islamic State was pursuing elements of a specific plot and how much harm such an attack could cause under varying circumstances. Most alarmingly, officials said, Trump revealed the city in the Islamic State’s territory where the U.S. intelligence partner detected the threat.

The Washington Post is withholding most plot details, including the name of the city, at the urging of officials who warned that revealing them would jeopardize important intelligence capabilities.

“Everyone knows this stream is very sensitive and the idea of sharing it at this level of granularity with the Russians is troubling,” said a former senior U.S. counterterrorism official who also worked closely with members of the Trump national security team. He and others spoke on condition of anonymity, citing the sensitivity of the subject.

The identification of the location was seen as particularly problematic, officials said, because Russia could use that detail to help identify the U.S. ally or intelligence capability involved. Officials said that the capability could be useful for other purposes, possibly providing intelligence on Russia’s presence in Syria. Moscow and would be keenly interested in identifying that source and possibly disrupting it.

Russia and the United States both regard the Islamic State as an enemy and share limited information about terrorist threats. But the two nations have competing agendas in Syria, where Moscow has deployed military assets and personnel to support Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

“Russia could identify our sources or techniques,” the senior U.S. official said. A former intelligence official who handled high-level intelligence on Russia said that given the clues Trump provided, “I don’t think that it would be that hard [for Russian spy services] to figure this out.”

At a more fundamental level, the information wasn’t the United States’ to provide to others. Under the rules of espionage, governments-- and even individual agencies-- are given significant control over whether and how the information they gather is disseminated even after it has been shared. Violating that practice undercuts trust considered essential to sharing secrets.

...Senior White House officials appeared to recognize quickly that Trump had overstepped and moved to contain the potential fallout.

Thomas P. Bossert, assistant to the president for homeland security and counterterrorism, placed calls to the directors of the CIA and the NSA, services most directly involved in the intelligence-sharing arrangement with the partner.

One of Bossert’s subordinates also called for the problematic portion of Trump’s discussion to be stricken from internal memos and for the full transcript to be limited to a small circle of recipients, efforts to prevent sensitive details from being disseminated further or leaked.

Trump has repeatedly gone off-script in his dealings with high-ranking foreign officials, most notably in his contentious introductory conversation with the Australian Prime Minister earlier this year. He has also faced criticism for lax attention to security at his Florida retreat Mar-a-Lago, where he appeared to field preliminary reports of a North Korea missile launch in full view of casual diners.

U.S. officials said that the National Security Council continues to prepare multi-page briefings for Trump to guide him through conversations with foreign leaders but that he has insisted that the guidance be distilled to a single page of bullet points, and often ignores those. “He seems to get in the room or on the phone and just goes with it-- and that has big downsides,” the second former official said. “Does he understand what’s classified and what’s not? That’s what worries me.”

Last night, the White House said it was "totally false," but, as Amanda Carpenter quipped this morning, "Trump's twitter account is a weapon of mass self destruction"

This morning Trump humiliated McMaster, Tillerson, Powell and everyone else-- like Tucker Carlson and Sean Hannity-- who came to his defense and said the whole Post story was fake news and that the incident never happened. Look at that idiot's morning tweet above. Even as the Kremlin was claiming that Trump never passed their spies any classified information, Trump was tweeting an admission of guilt. I bet McMaster doesn't resign today-- even though his credibility is completely shot now. A friend of mine is friends with Señor Trumpanzee's bankruptcy attorney. The attorney would be going with Trump to court, saying to Trump, "No matter what happens, under no circumstance, say 'xyz.'" The prosecutor would begin the proceedings by saying, "Please state your name." Señor would say "Donald J. Trump and I want to skip all the bullcrap preliminaries and get right to the heart of the matter: xyz."

The way the NY Times reported the story indicated "serious folks" in DC are worried about Trump's capacity as a leader. Republican Senator Bob Corker (TN), chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee: "The White House has got to do something soon to bring itself under control and in order. It’s got to happen. Obviously they’re in a downward spiral right now and they’ve got to figure out a way to come to grips with all that’s happening... To compromise a source is something that you just don’t do, and that’s why we keep the information that we get from intelligence sources so close as to prevent that from happening."

Pramila Jayapal (D-WA) told her constituents after she read the Post story that "There's something sinister going on between the Trump administration and one of our nation's oldest adversaries. And we need to get to the bottom of it... According to a U.S. official quoted in the Washington Post: 'Trump revealed more information to the Russian ambassador than we have shared with our own allies.' This should concern us all. With each action, Donald Trump puts us all at risk-- and further strengthens the argument for his administration's possible ties to the Russians. This news, paired with the firing of former FBI Director James Comey, should be cause for deep concern."

She has been "vehemently calling for an independent, nonpartisan investigation into Trump's ties to Russia [and] wants to know what investments are clouding Trump's judgment, what business ties he has to Russia, and-- most importantly-- who he owes, and what... There's much more to this story than meets the eye, and the American people deserve to know the truth."