I had a flowery intro written all about how united we all are and how inspired I am by our movement and how we are going to save this country.
And I still mean every word that I wrote. And I will share it with you some other time.
But today I just feel like yelling.
Not at all of you.
At that Narcissistic Idiotic Failed Reality TV Host masquerading as an American.
And at every Republican thug more interested in protecting their own necks than in protecting our country.
FU. F every single one of you. FU for having a sacred duty to protect our country and ignoring it. FU for lining your damn pockets at our expense. FU for lying to us. FU for tricking honest Americans into thinking you care about anyone but your selfish lying asses.
FU for your racism and hatred and your stoking of the very worst part of human nature for your own gain.
FU for inciting violence against the hard working men and women who risk their lives defending our country by reporting the news.
FU for giving your grifting friends jobs and letting them treat our country like a going out of business sale.
FU for those kids you locked up in cages. You better hope your evangelical pals are wrong, because if there is a hell you are all going in for that.
FU for raping our planet. See above re: hell.
FU for all of it.
FU for degrading the beauty that is America and our constitution and our amazing promise.
FU on behalf of our founding fathers. FU on behalf of Abraham Lincoln. Even MLK would want to tell you to FU (I think).
FU for stressing out my friends and the people I love. FU for the 10 pounds we each gained (or lost) due to the stress of your incompetent evil. FU for the sleepless nights.
FU FU FU FU. And then FU some more.
Oh, and you know what? History is also going to give you a big FU. All our children and grand-kids. They will all be reading about you in history books and be like “F that guy!”
And they will also laugh at you. Because in addition to evil, you are also idiots who are going to lose and lose big.
Because we are the majority and we are strong and we are motivated and we have allies everywhere who are going to help us defeat you.
Which brings us to the good news:
Russia Russia Russia
Mueller probe indicts 12 Russians for hacking Democrats in 2016
A dozen Russian intelligence officers have been charged with conspiring to hack Democrats during the 2016 presidential campaign, according to a new indictment in the probe led by special counsel Robert S. Mueller III.
The 12 were members of a Russian military intelligence agency known as the GRU and are accused of engaging in a sustained effort to hack the computer networks of Democratic organizations and the Hillary Clinton campaign.
This is a BIG deal. Yes, no Americans were indicted in this batch, but these are not just ordinary Russians — these are members of the military intelligence agency. We all knew this went all the way to Putin, but this is Mueller putting it out there officially that it did. Big deal!
This also undercuts the ridiculous witch hunt narrative:
If this is a ‘witch hunt,’ it sure is finding a lot of witches
So for the benefit of those who continue to claim that the Russia investigation is a great big witch hunt with nothing to show for its efforts, let’s remind ourselves of what it has produced to date:
- Trump’s campaign chairman, Paul Manafort, is currently in jail awaiting trial on multiple charges relating to his relationships with a Russian oligarch close to Putin and the former leader of Ukraine, widely considered a Putin puppet.
- Trump’s deputy campaign chairman, Rick Gates, pled guilty to lying to the FBI and conspiracy to defraud the United States, and is now cooperating with Mueller.
- Trump’s first national security adviser, Michael Flynn, pled guilty to lying to the FBI about his contacts with Russian officials, and is now cooperating with Mueller.
- A Trump foreign policy adviser, George Papadopoulos, pled guilty to lying to the FBI about his contacts with various Kremlin-connected figures and is now cooperating with Mueller.
- Konstantin Kilimnik, a Russian associate of Manafort, was indicted on obstruction of justice charges.
- Richard Pinedo pled guilty to identity fraud for selling stolen identities to Russians connected to the Mueller probe.
- Alex Van Der Zwaan, a Dutch banker and son-in-law of a Russian oligarch, pled guilty to lying to the FBI about his work with Manafort and Gates, and was jailed briefly and then deported.
- Thirteen individuals and three companies were indictedfor their participation in a Russian scheme to conduct “information warfare” during the 2016 election in order to push voters away from Clinton and toward Trump, as well as undermining trust in the electoral system more generally.
- And now, eleven Russian military officials have been indicted for hacking into the email systems of the Democratic National Committee and various people connected to Hillary Clinton, including her campaign chairman, then disseminating the materials in carefully timed releases meant to maximize the political damage to Clinton. One of those 11, plus another Russian official, have also been indicted for hacking into the systems of state election agencies.
And that’s just so far. If the Mueller probe is moving toward a conclusion, it’s hard to believe there won’t be more indictments to come.
The timing of these indictments is also important → Mueller Indicts 12 Russians for Hacking Democrats Just Days Before Scheduled Trump-Putin Meeting
Donald Trump is scheduled to meet with Russian president Vladimir Putin on Monday in Helsinki, Finland; Trump, of course, has suggested on numerous occasions that Putin’s intelligence services may not have in fact been responsible for the hacking campaign against Clinton. Said POTUS in November: “[Putin] said he didn’t meddle. He said he didn’t meddle. I asked him again. You can only ask so many times. Every time he sees me, he says, ‘I didn’t do that.’ And I believe, I really believe, that when he tells me that, he means it.” On Thursday, Trump said that he would raise the issue during the Helsinki meeting: “What am I going to do? He may deny it. All I can do is say, ‘Did you?’ And, ‘Don’t do it again.’ But he may deny it.”
This is shining a light on the Trump/Putin meeting and showing it for exactly what it is. The press covering it will have to cover it in light of what we know and every word they say and every single thing they do will be analyzed based on this news. This timing is genius.
Also, the fact that Guccifer 2.0 is a cover for a Russian Intelligence office sure makes it seem like the Trump team colluded. If I was Roger Stone (and thank God I am not) I would be mighty nervous today:
One individual associated with the Trump campaign was Roger Stone, who served as a campaign advisor. Stone has previously admitted to communicating with Guccifer 2.0, who has claimed to be a native Romanian speaker.
Stone has denied having advance knowledge of the publication of the hacked emails, but, in August 2016, before the emails of Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta were released by Wikileaks in October 2016, Stone tweeted that “it will soon be Podesta’s time in the barrel.” His tweet suggested that he knew that Podesta’s emails had been hacked and would be released.
Besides conspiracy, Stone or other members of the Trump campaign could be charged with aiding and abetting if they assisted or even encouraged either the hacking or the publication of the emails. Another potential charge is accessory after the fact for anyone who might have advised how or when to release the emails after they had been hacked.
hmmm…. and you know who ELSE seems to have been linked with these indicted Russians? the big guy himself…
What a coincidence that the day that trump asked the Russians to find HRCs emails they tried to find them! And what a coincidence that in writing this part of the report, Mueller mentioned the time of day that they tried to spearphish for her emails (after hours) and mentioned that it was the first time they did it. Couldn’t be that Mueller is giving us a fairly big hint here, could it????!!!!
Another giant coincidence, the other Russian linked account “DCLinks” was created on April 19th (the day Manafort became campaign manager) and launched just 24 hours before the Trump tower meeting. Nothing to see here!!! Just the Russians setting up a website to leak damaging info about HRC the day before they meet with the Trump campaign to talk about damaging info they have on HRC. Total coincidence!!!
In other recent Russia news:
It Just Got Harder to Fire Mueller
It’s just become trickier for President Trump to fire Robert Mueller anytime soon. Doing so during the Supreme Court confirmation process for Brett Kavanaugh — which is likely to last for at least two months — would create a set of problems for Trump that didn’t exist before.
I count three main reasons:
One, Trump clearly loves making Supreme Court nominations.
Two, firing Mueller could damage the Republicans’ chances of holding Congress in this year’s midterms.
Finally, firing Mueller could damage Kavanaugh’s chances of confirmation
If you buy this logic, it means Mueller’s chances of remaining on the job through at least Labor Day have risen. And Labor Day is traditionally considered the start of the most intense period of a fall campaign, which would be another bad time for Trump to make a radical power grab.
Majority want Mueller to take his time on probe, do it right
Fifty-five percent of voters want special counsel Robert Mueller to take his time on his probe into Russian election interference and "do it right," according to a new Fox News poll released Thursday.
Republicans Thought Peter Strzok Would Be a Punching Bag. He Just Knocked Them Out.
Those who forget the lessons of televised congressional hearings are doomed to repeat them, which is why the morning segment of the Capitol Hill show trial of veteran FBI agent and former head of the Bureau’s Counterespionage division Peter Strzok turned into a disaster for Republicans.
Donald Trump’s congressional enablers, sycophants, and political suck-ups wanted a punching bag, but Strzok instead delivered one of the rarest of moments: the full Joseph N. Welch.
Dems say new emails show Cohen ‘selling access’ to White House
Senate Democrats said Friday that President Trump's former longtime attorney Michael Cohen had a more extensive relationship with the drug company Novartis than previously reported and that Cohen was "selling a line of access" to the White House.
Democrats on two Senate committees released a report Friday detailing Cohen's extended relationship with Novartis, which they called "longer and more detailed" than what Novartis had reported in a public statement.
Jared Kushner lacks security clearance level to review some of the nation’s most sensitive intelligence in White House role
Jared Kushner, a senior White House adviser and President Trump’s son-in-law, lacks the security clearance level required to review some of the government’s most sensitive secrets, according to two people familiar with his access.
For the first year of the Trump administration, Kushner had nearly blanket access to highly classified intelligence, even as he held an interim security clearance and awaited the completion of his background investigation.
But when White House security officials granted him a permanent clearance in late May, he was granted only “top secret” status — a level that does not allow him to see some of the country’s most closely guarded intelligence, said the people, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss security issues.
I added the Kushner thing since I know so many of you were upset about him getting full access.
And please don’t stress too much about the impeachment of Rosenstein. It is unlikely to even make it out of the house and it is definitely not making it out of the Senate. It is just more evidence of obstruction for Mueller.
Although this Russia stuff is of the utmost importance, our focus needs to remain on the midterms.
And there is a ton of good news there, all due to hard work!!
Good Election News
Democrats are campaigning in poetry again
Abolish ICE” is the progressive response. Democrats are adopting the line as a signal to voters that they reject Trump’s vision of a closed America, one that separates children from parents as they seek asylum. They aren’t offering a 17-point plan to restructure immigration enforcement.
Democrats are following in Trump’s footsteps by prioritizing emotionally resonant constructs over detailed, practical agendas for action. Other popular progressive rallying cries of the moment, from “Medicare-for-all” to “free college” to “guaranteed jobs,” are incredibly ambiguous as policies. The activists and elected officials promoting them often seem more focused on building support for the slogans than for a particular vision of what they mean. It’s striking, for example, that most “Medicare-for-all” proposals would enroll people in programs that are very different from existing Medicare.
This is an aspect in which Trump very much is normal. What’s abnormal was the fad for most of the Obama years for very literal campaigning. An old saying about American politics holds that you campaign in poetry and govern in prose. In the Trump era, it’s back to poetry. And all of us — perhaps especially the literal-minded among us — had better get used to it.
Campaigning in poetry is important. It is how we win. People want to be inspired.
More good election news:
Trump’s delusions are about to blow up in his own voters’ faces
Numbers provided to me by the Brookings Institution suggest that those consequences will most directly impact the counties that voted for Trump. Indeed, the numbers show that China has taken aggressive steps to sharpen its targeting of Trump counties in the latest round of retaliatory tariffs it just announced.
And also: Self-described Nazis and white supremacists are running as Republicans across the country. The GOP is terrified.
in a year when the left is energized in opposition to Trump, particularly by his policies toward minority groups and immigrants, and as the GOP tries to hang on to their majorities in Congress and state houses around the country, state party officials say they do not need racist fringe candidates running for office. None of these candidates is expected to win in the general election this fall, but they are going to give liberals on the hunt for examples of simmering neo-Nazi and neo-Confederate rhetoric at least five places to point.
Is the G.O.P. Following Jim Jordan Over a Cliff?
Republican lawmakers’ combative defense of the Ohio congressman could cost them.
Congressional Republicans are playing a dangerous game in their rush to defend Jim Jordan, the Ohio congressman facing accusations that, as an assistant wrestling coach at Ohio State University, he ignored athletes’ complaints of sexual abuse by the team doctor.
By attacking Mr. Jordan’s accusers, dismissing the accusers as politically motivated and spinning deep-state conspiracy theories — even as the accusations pile up and Mr. Jordan’s denials grow more dubious — lawmakers are opting for tribal loyalty over concern for the public good. While this kind of blind partisanship may feel like a necessity to Republicans in the age of Donald Trump, it has real potential to come back and bite them on their backsides. Also, it’s morally wrong.
Knee-jerk, belligerent, circle-the-wagons, we’re-the-real-victims-here defiance has become the default attitude in Donald Trump’s Republican Party. It may in fact have become the party’s defining characteristic.
But while it plays well with angry, resentful elements of the Republican base, it’s unlikely to prove an enduringly popular message for the broader electorate. Roy Moore showed as much when he handed Democrats a Senate seat in blood-red Alabama. Lawmakers continue down this path at their own peril.
And please, do not worry about all the inevitable “Democrats are in disarray” articles. First, no we we are not. If there is one thing our hatred of trump has done it is unite us in ways I have never seen before, but even if we were, it wouldn’t hurt us → No, Democrats Aren’t Ruining Their Midterm Chances
Will Democratic gains in the November midterm elections be squandered by an inopportune bout of party infighting? The upset by the first-time candidate Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez over the 10-term incumbent and House Democratic Caucus chairman Joseph Crowley in New York’s 14th Congressional District primary has reinvigorated this debate.
American history demonstrates that party unity is not a necessary condition for electoral success. Democrats repeatedly won presidential and congressional elections by landslide margins in the decades between the 1930s and 1960s even as the national party was deeply split between Northern and Southern wings that disagreed on issues ranging from civil rights to the Vietnam War — much more fundamental rifts than any current divide within the party.
More recently, the growth of the Tea Party movement during the presidency of Barack Obama produced notably sharp fractures among Republicans that ended the careers of several leading politicians, but it did not prevent Republican candidates from netting 70 House seats and 14 Senate seats between 2010 and 2014.
oh, and even MORE races have been moved to our column!!!
Cook shifts House race of lawmaker who bought multi-million dollar yacht away from GOP
The nonpartisan Cook Political Report has shifted its prediction for Florida Republican Rep. Vern Buchanan's congressional seat toward Democrats after a report that he bought a yacht on the same day the GOP's tax cuts passed the House.
Cook, a popular elections handicapper, shifted Buchanan's race from a "likely Republican" seat to a "lean Republican" seat on Friday. The analysts also moved four other congressional races in favor of Democrats.
We don’t know what the Russians will throw at us in the fall, but we do know that we will do all we can to counteract it. We will fight attempts to discredit our candidates. We will make sure that our margins are big enough that suppression and messing with registrations can’t affect the outcome.
No one is doubting that the odds are stacked against us. But the numbers are with us. And the enthusiasm. And the right side of history. If we can keep up what we are doing we will win in November! Keep up the hard work everyone!
The Silver Lining in the Supreme Court Fiasco
We are all still recovering from the Kennedy retirement and what a blow it is. Here are a few articles arguing, in different ways, that there may be silver linings.
First, there is the argument that Kavanaugh faces a tougher path to confirmation than Gorsuch. Here’s why.
Less than a day after President Trump nominated federal judge Brett M. Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court, it’s too soon to know what kind of fight Trump has on his hands: what battles about the timing of Senate consideration, the availability of George W. Bush administration documents, Kavanaugh’s role in the Kenneth Starr investigation of President Bill Clinton and more, lie ahead of an uncertain vote on the nominee’s confirmation. But one thing is already clear: If Trump thinks this is going to be “Gorsuch 2.0” — a relatively smooth process that inured to the president’s political benefit on the way to an inevitable confirmation — he is sadly mistaken. There are five reasons the Kavanaugh confirmation battle will diverge from Justice Neil M. Gorsuch’s path to the court.
First, the stakes are so much higher.
Second, Trump picked the only potential high court candidate who assures that the confirmation hearings will be dominated by a discussion of Trump’s vulnerability to criminal proceedings as a sitting president.
Third, Trump picked the only finalist with judicial writings on the two biggest issues Democrats want to elevate during the confirmation process: a woman’s right to choose and the status of the Affordable Care Act.
Fourth, senators will also demand to see a treasure trove of documents that may unlock previously hidden aspects of Kavanaugh’s views — the hundreds of memos he wrote as a senior aide to President George W. Bush, and all memos and materials he prepared for Starr.
And finally, Democrats are fired up and ready for the fight.
Second, there is the argument that this should further energize us to fight: DON’T DESPAIR OVER THE SUPREME COURT—GET MAD, THEN EVEN
the loss of the Supreme Court under these circumstances doesn’t signify permanent defeat for liberals—it illustrates anti-democratic flaws in our system of government that liberals can and must make a high priority of fixing. Liberals have been radicalized by Trump’s contempt for democratic norms, and in many cases for good reasons. If Trump were to fire Special Counsel Robert Mueller, for instance, people would rightly take to the streets. They should channel similar energy and passion into promoting a positive vision of a more democratic America, and mobilizing against the broader right-wing assault on democracy—even when it falls within “normal” bounds, like a president nominating a Supreme Court justice.
Trump has hastened democratic backsliding in the U.S., but he is also a symptom of it, as is the Kavanaugh nomination. It is frightening to imagine the consequences of it, and maddening to know Republicans will likely confirm him no matter how hard or cleverly Democrats fight it. But it should also be galvanizing. Today should be a reminder to liberals not that all hope is lost, but that we’re living through a moment where democracy is on the line and we have an opportunity to save it.
Third, there is the argument that Kavanaugh may not be all bad: Trump Supreme Court Pick Brett Kavanaugh in 1998: Presidents Must Obey Subpoenas
when it comes to presidential power, a closer look at Kavanaugh’s work yields the exact opposite conclusion: that he could end up being Trump’s worst nightmare.
In fact, Kavanaugh expressed a highly limited view of executive privilege in a 1998 article published in the Georgetown Law Review. The article was based on Kavanaugh’s experience working for independent counsel Kenneth Starr and helping to write the Starr Report that detailed President Clinton’s alleged crimes and sexual relationship with Monica Lewinsky.
In that article, Kavanaugh decried the flaws in the independent counsel law (which was allowed to lapse a year later) but strongly supported the importance of an outside prosecutors such as Mueller. Noting that special counsels have been appointed since the days of President Grant, Kavanaugh wrote that “American legal history has clearly demonstrated the necessity of a mechanism to appoint an outside prosecutor to conduct certain sensitive investigations of executive branch officials.”
He also made a radical proposal to sharply limit presidential privilege, limiting it purely to national security.
“Government officials, even government attorneys, are public officials who work for the people,” he wrote. “Any claim to confidentiality against the United States stands on a radically different footing than a claim made by a private party.”
To that end, Kavanaugh wrote that “Congress should codify the current law of executive privilege available in criminal litigation to the effect that the President may not maintain any executive privilege, other than a national security privilege, in response to a grand jury or criminal trial subpoena sought by the United States.”
Finally, there is the argument that trump played this all wrong: Trump’s Low-Energy Supreme Court Play Is a Lost Opportunity for Republicans
Midterm elections are largely about exciting your base. The liberal base is already excited to provide checks and balances against Trump, a man they see as an authoritarian. How can Republicans counter this enthusiasm gap? Having gotten tax cuts and another Supreme Court justice on the bench, Republican voters might be very pleased with where things are but contentment does not equal excitement. Picking a fight over Amy Barrett—especially if she had been attacked politically—would have provided that sort of energy.
The problem with Kavanaugh—again, assuming no skeletons emerge—is that these vulnerable Democrats now have a very obvious move: Reluctantly vote for Kavanaugh. Yes, supporting Trump’s nominee won’t sit well with a lot of progressives, but Kavanaugh doesn’t troll the libs to the same degree. As The New York Times’ Jonathan Martin tweeted, “Barring unexpected land mines, red-state Senate Dems suggest the 3 of em who voted for Gorsuch will also vote for Kavanaugh. And [Alabama Sen. Doug] Jones may join.”
Talk about a missed opportunity. For a president who likes to pick culture-war fights over random and pointless things before breakfast, he missed an excellent opportunity to pick a fight that might have been worth the fighting for.
IMHO, the silver lining comes because fighting this during the confirmation process gives us the opportunity to show that we fight for healthcare for all and a woman’s right to choose and voting rights (all things most Americans support).
If we manage to push the confirmation past the midterms AWESOME. If we defeat them AWESOME. If they get him appointed then we wake up America to the importance of having Democrats in charge and we take away their main motivation for voting. Not as awesome, but still good.
No matter how you think of it, or which arguments speak to you, we keep fighting! And we don’t fight alone:
We Have Great Allies
A Family Of Woodchucks Ate Paul Ryan's Car
House Speaker Paul Ryan explained Thursday that a family of woodchucks moved into his Chevy Suburban recently, eating the wiring and rendering the car useless.
"My car was eaten by animals," Ryan said, to laughs from an audience at an event hosted by The Economic Club of Washington D.C. "It's just dead."
Pentagon goes into 'damage control' mode to reassure NATO allies
Hours after President Donald Trump departed NATO headquarters Thursday, U.S. military leaders embarked on a full-scale “damage control” operation with calls to their counterparts across Europe to reassure them that America will abide by its defense commitments in the region.
The outreach, directed by the Pentagon leadership, came after Trump threatened to reassess those commitments during a gathering with NATO allies in Brussels, according to multiple current and former diplomatic and military officials familiar with the calls.
The overall message from senior military officials in a series of phone calls to members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization has been that U.S. military bases in their countries will remain open and American troop levels in the region will not be reduced.
The Chicago man shown in a viral video berating a woman for wearing a Puerto Rican flag T-shirt has been charged with a felony hate crime.
“After a review of the case, we approved felony hate crimes charges,” said Robert Foley, spokesman for the Cook County State’s Attorney’s Office.
Trump says 'baby' blimp makes him feel unwelcome in London
Although Trump is staying at the U.S. ambassador's London mansion during his two-day trip to London, all of his scheduled public events are outside the city.
“I used to love London as a city. I haven’t been there in a long time. But when they make you feel unwelcome, why would I stay there?" he said "I guess when they put out blimps to make me feel unwelcome, no reason for me to go to London."
Trump was referring to the 20-foot "Trump Baby" balloon floating above protests in London.
That is it for today. Lots right?!
Keep fighting! Keep making all your calls. Keep donating. Keep your eyes on November.
This diary has an amazing lists of things you can do for November. Read it over, pick something that sounds up your alley, and get working ❤️ We can and will win this if we stay focused and work together.
As always, I am so lucky and proud to be in this with all of you ✊ ❤️ ✊