Lincoln Project still swinging

Here's how he hopes to get his poll numbers up

Despicable.

Story at The Guardian.

Fauci is going to get canned

Dr Anthony Fauci, the top US infectious disease expert, has said the country could see 100,000 new coronavirus cases daily unless action is taken to reverse the epidemic.

Appearing before the Senate health, education, labor and pensions committee on Tuesday, Fauci warned that the US is “going in the wrong direction” over handling the coronavirus, and said the death toll “is going to be very disturbing”.

He appeared a day after the White House insisted the outbreak had been reduced to “embers” but the principal deputy director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Dr Anne Schuchat, insisted: “This is really the beginning.”

  Guardian

She's going to get her own set of nasty tweets.

Speaking on Capitol Hill, Fauci was asked about the increase in new cases of coronavirus – the US last week reported 40,000 in one day – and whether the pandemic was under control.

“The numbers speak for themselves,” he said. “I’m very concerned, I’m not satisfied with what’s going on, because we’re going in the wrong direction.

“Clearly we’re not in total control.”

We're not in ANY kind of control.

“I would not be surprised if we go up to 100,000 a day if this does not turn around,” he said.

Fauci said he could not provide an estimated death toll, but said: “It is going to be very disturbing, I guarantee you that.”

It's already disturbing.

[Deputy director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Dr Anne Schuchat,] added that there was “a lot of wishful thinking around the country” that the pandemic would be over by the summer.

Gee, I wonder where anybody got that idea.

“We are not even beginning to be over this,” Schuchat said. “There are a lot of worrisome factors about the last week or so.

“We’re not in the situation of New Zealand or Singapore or Korea, where a new case is rapidly identified and all the contacts are traced, and people are isolated who are sick, and people who are exposed are quarantined and they can keep things under control.”

[...]

The US represents 4% of the world’s population, but accounts for 25% of all cases and deaths from Covid-19. The US has recorded more than 2.5m cases, with some states seeing record rises.

[...]

Responding to widely shared images of people not following guidelines – including not wearing a mask and gathering in large groups – and especially young people, Fauci said better messaging was required.

Fauci said: “We’ve got to get that message out that we are all in this together and if we’re going to contain this, we’ve gotta contain it together.”

Speak to your president.

The Senate committee chair, the Republican Lamar Alexander, urged Trump to wear a mask and to depoliticize the topic. He said: “This small, life-saving practice has become part of the political debate that says, if you are for Trump you don’t wear a mask and if you are against Trump you do.”

Wow. Lamar Alexander! I'm impressed.

Alexander continued: “That’s why I’ve suggested that the president occasionally wear a mask. The president has plenty of admirers, they would follow his lead and it would help in this political debate; the stakes are too high for this to continue.”

I'll believe it when I see it. And he would only do it if he were convinced he can't win reelection if he doesn't.

New daily cases are rising in 38 states, according to NPR’s pandemic tracker, but the White House continues its attempts to downplay the severity of Covid-19. At a briefing on Monday, press secretary Kayleigh McEnany ignored the surge.

[...]

Fauci said on Sunday the US was unlikely to achieve herd immunity to the coronavirus even with a vaccine, given a third of Americans say they would not receive it.

They will when their whole families start dying.

“There is a general anti-science, anti-authority, anti-vaccine feeling among some people in this country – an alarmingly large percentage of people, relatively speaking,” Fauci said, adding that the government has “a lot of work to do” to educate people about vaccines.

As I said, speak to your president.

Even states where the rate of new infections has decreased are rethinking plans to allow businesses to reopen. New Jersey has postponed plans to allow indoor dining, while the governor of New York, Andrew Cuomo, said he may reverse plans to allow restaurants and bars to reopen.

Because they can't win if they don't have foreign help

The Senate will incorporate the annual intelligence policy legislation into the National Defense Authorization Act -- but only after stripping language from the intelligence bill that would have required presidential campaigns to report offers of foreign election help.

Sen. Mark Warner of Virginia, the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, said Tuesday that Senate Republicans forced the removal of the election reporting provision as a condition to include the intelligence bill on the must-pass defense policy legislation.

  CNN

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

What in god's name is he on about now?

Diverting your attention (hopefully) from the fact that he didn't do anything about the Russian-Taliban bribe to kill American soldiers issue.

The ugly face I'm seeing is his.  I don't know what the fuck he's "feeling", but I'm pretty sure he's riling up his base to attack Chinese-Americans - or rather, any orientals, because his base can't tell the difference.

Talk about your excessive penalties!

There's a special statute for vandalizing certain statues.

Welcome to America.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

UPDATE:

It's Teddy to him, and you can't convince him otherwise.

Batten down the hatches

Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell stressed the importance of keeping the coronavirus contagion contained as the U.S. economy bounces back from its deepest contraction in decades.

[...]

The Fed and Treasury have worked together to launch nine emergency lending programs aimed at providing backstop credit to everything from municipalities to medium-sized businesses. Those actions helped lower borrowing costs and keep the financial system liquid in a time of stress.

The Fed chair struck an optimistic note on what he is seeing as economic activity resumes. Hiring is picking up, he noted, and spending is increasing, though 20 million Americans have lost their jobs.

"The path forward for the economy is extraordinarily uncertain and will depend in large part on our success in containing the virus," he said.

  alJazeera

That barn door should have been closed a long time ago. It's too late now.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

UPDATE:

Reports that they've known about the Russian bounties for over a year

Top officials in the White House were aware in early 2019 of classified intelligence indicating Russia was secretly offering bounties to the Taliban for the deaths of Americans, a full year earlier than has been previously reported, according to United States officials with direct knowledge of the intelligence.

The information came out overnight from White House officials who reiterated the president was unaware, according to the Associated Press news agency (AP).

The assessment was included in at least one of President Donald Trump's written daily intelligence briefings at the time, according to the officials. Then-National Security Adviser John Bolton also told colleagues at the time that he briefed Trump on the intelligence assessment in March 2019.

[...]

The White House has said Trump wasn't - and still hasn't been - briefed on the intelligence assessments because they have not been fully verified. However, it is rare for intelligence to be confirmed without a shadow of a doubt before it is presented to top officials.

[...]

On Sunday, [former NSA John Bolton] suggested to NBC that Trump was claiming ignorance of Russia's provocations to justify his administration's lack of response.

"He can disown everything if nobody ever told him about it," Bolton said.

[...]

Officials said they did not consider the intelligence assessments in 2019 to be particularly urgent, given Russian meddling in Afghanistan is not a new occurrence.

The officials with knowledge of Bolton's apparent briefing for Trump said it contained no "actionable intelligence", meaning the intelligence community did not have enough information to form a strategic plan or response. However, the classified assessment of Russian bounties was the sole purpose of the meeting.

[...]

The National Security Council (NSC) and the undersecretary of defense for intelligence held meetings regarding the intelligence. The NSC didn't respond to questions about the meetings.

[...]

Late Monday, the Pentagon issued a statement saying it was evaluating the intelligence but so far had "no corroborating evidence to validate the recent allegations".

"Regardless, we always take the safety and security of our forces in Afghanistan - and around the world - most seriously and therefore continuously adopt measures to prevent harm from potential threats," said Pentagon spokesman Jonathan Hoffman.

[...]

The intelligence in 2019 and 2020 surrounding Russian bounties was derived in part from debriefings of captured Taliban militants. Officials with knowledge of the matter told the AP that Taliban operatives from opposite ends of the country and from separate tribes offered similar accounts.

[...]

Concerns about Russian bounties flared anew this year after members of the elite Naval Special Warfare Development Group, known to the public as SEAL Team Six, raided a Taliban outpost and recovered roughly $500,000 in US currency.

[...]

The White House contends the president was unaware of this development, too.
  alJazeera

JFC. "Nobody tells me anything" is a great defense for a president.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

UPDATE:

UPDATE:

Insult to injury

"Officials" are not taking the blame

American officials provided a written briefing in late February to President Trump laying out their conclusion that a Russian military intelligence unit offered and paid bounties to Taliban-linked militants to kill U.S. and coalition troops in Afghanistan, two officials familiar with the matter said.

The investigation into the suspected Russian covert operation to incentivize such killings has focused in part on an April 2019 car bombing that killed three Marines as one such potential attack, according to multiple officials familiar with the matter.

[...]

The assessments pointing to a Russian scheme to offer bounties to Taliban-linked militants and criminals were based on information collected in raids and interrogations on the ground in Afghanistan, where American military commanders came to believe Russia was behind the plot, as well as more sensitive and unspecified intelligence that came in over time, an American official said.

[...]

One of the officials said the item appeared in Mr. Trump’s brief in late February; the other cited Feb. 27, specifically.

Moreover, a description of the intelligence assessment that the Russian unit had carried out the bounties plot was also seen as serious and solid enough to disseminate more broadly across the intelligence community in a May 4 article in the C.I.A.’s World Intelligence Review, a classified compendium commonly referred to as The Wire, two officials said.

  NYT

And nobody blew the whistle.

The White House press secretary, Kayleigh McEnany, did not answer when pressed by reporters on Monday whether the intelligence was included in the written President’s Daily Brief, and the National Security Council spokesman pointed to her comments when asked later about the February written briefing.

Late Monday, John Ratcliffe, the recently confirmed director of national intelligence, issued a statement warning that leaks about the matter were a crime.

But allowing the Russians to bribe Taliban fighters to kill Americans without a word, and lying about it, isn't.

“We are still investigating the alleged intelligence referenced in recent media reporting, and we will brief the president and congressional leaders at the appropriate time,” he said.

The appropriate time to brief Congress was March.

The disclosures came amid a growing furor in Washington over the revelations in recent days that the Trump administration had known for months about the intelligence conclusion but the White House had authorized no response to Russia.

[...]

“This is the analytic process working the way it should. Unfortunately, unauthorized disclosures now jeopardize our ability to ever find out the full story with respect to these allegations[,” Ratcliffe said.]

Sure.

Top Democrats in the House and Senate demanded that all members of Congress be briefed, and the White House summoned a small group of House Republicans friendly to the president to begin explaining its position.

Let me fix that: The White House summoned a small group of House Republicans friendly to the president to give them their marching orders on what to say. There's no other reason to talk to only Republicans. And particularly only to "Republicans friendly to the president."

Mark Meadows, the White House chief of staff; Mr. Ratcliffe, the director of national intelligence; and Mr. O’Brien briefed a handful of invited House Republicans. A group of House Democrats was scheduled to go to the White House on Tuesday morning to receive a similar briefing.

And what could be the reason - other than giving Republicans their ass-covering orders - to have a separate briefing for Democrats?

The [Republican] lawmakers emerged saying that they were told the administration was reviewing reporting about the suspected Russian plot to assess its credibility.

Thay've had four months to do that.

[T]wo of the Republicans — Representatives Liz Cheney of Wyoming and Mac Thornberry of Texas — said that they “remain concerned about Russian activity in Afghanistan, including reports that they have targeted U.S. forces” and would need additional briefings.

“It has been clear for some time that Russia does not wish us well in Afghanistan,” they said in a joint statement. “We believe it is important to vigorously pursue any information related to Russia or any other country targeting our forces.”

You think?

Other Republicans who attended the briefing were more sanguine. In an interview, Representative Chris Stewart of Utah said he saw nothing unusual about the purported decision not to orally inform Mr. Trump, particularly when the situation did not require the president to take immediate action.

Stewart took his marching orders seriously. But please note: the "decision not to orally inform Mr. Trump" implies that the ass-coverers do not deny that the information was in the daily briefing. They know there are copies. It's harder to prove he was told "orally", which should not matter even if he weren't, which he no doubt was.

“It just didn’t reach the level of credibility to bring it to the president’s attention,” he said, adding that military and intelligence agencies should continue to scrutinize Russia’s activities.

That's their story, and they're sticking to it.

They also said the underlying intelligence was conflicting, echoing comments from Ms. McEnany that the information in the assessment had not been “verified” because, she said without detail, there were “dissenting opinions” among analysts or agencies. [...] “And, in fact, there were dissenting opinions within the intelligence community, and it would not be elevated to the president until it was verified.”

A bald faced lie. The president was briefed four months ago.

But in denying that Mr. Trump was briefed, administration officials have been coy about how it is defining that concept and whether it includes both oral briefings and the President’s Daily Brief. “He was not personally briefed on the matter,” Ms. McEnany told reporters when asked specifically about the written briefing. “That is all I can share with you today.”

Total bullshit. Him ignoring it does not mean it didn't happen.

Officials said there was disagreement among intelligence officials about the strength of the evidence about the suspected Russian plot and the evidence linking the attack on the Marines to the suspected Russian plot, but they did not detail those disputes.

Notably, the National Security Agency, which specializes in hacking and electronic surveillance, has been more skeptical about interrogations and other human intelligence, officials said.

Which doesn't negate the fact that they gave Trump the information and he lied about it when confronted.

David Priess, a former C.I.A. daily intelligence briefer and the author of “The President’s Book of Secrets: The Untold Story of Intelligence Briefings to America’s Presidents,” said: “Many intelligence judgments in history have not had the consensus of every analyst who worked on it. That’s the nature of intelligence. It’s inherently dealing with uncertainty.”

[...]

Mr. Priess said previous presidents received assessments on issues of potentially vital importance even if they had dissents from some analysts or agencies.

Of course they did. And this president did, too.

Mr. Trump is said to often neglect reading that document, preferring instead to receive an oral briefing summarizing highlights every few days. Even in those face-to-face meetings, he is particularly difficult to brief on national security matters. He often relies instead on conservative media and friends for information, current and former intelligence officials have said.

And he has ony been focused on his reelection efforts and need to have rallies.

American intelligence officers and Special Operations forces in Afghanistan began raising alarms as early as January, and the National Security Council convened an interagency meeting to discuss the problem and what to do about it in late March, The New York Times has previously reported. But despite being presented with options, including a diplomatic protest and sanctions, the White House authorized no response.

The administration’s explanations on Monday, in public and in private, appeared to be an attempt to placate lawmakers, particularly Mr. Trump’s fellow Republicans, alarmed by news reports in recent days revealing the existence of the intelligence assessment and Mr. Trump’s insistence he had not been warned of the suspected Russian plot.

[...]

“This is a time to focus on the two things Congress should be asking and looking at: No. 1, who knew what, when, and did the commander in chief know? And if not, how the hell not?” said Senator Ben Sasse, Republican of Nebraska and a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee.

He knew, Ben. And you know he knew. It's going to be a shame when someone in the intel agencies loses his or her job to cover the president's very large ass.

The Taliban have denied involvement. And a spokesman for President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia, Dmitry Peskov, told NBC News on Monday that reports of the Russian scheme were incorrect. He said that “none of the American representatives have ever raised this question” with their Russian counterparts through government or diplomatic channels.

Of course not. That's the point.




...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

25th amendment now

In hundreds of highly classified phone calls with foreign heads of state, President Donald Trump was so consistently unprepared for discussion of serious issues, so often outplayed in his conversations with powerful leaders like Russian President Vladimir Putin and Turkish President Recep Erdogan, and so abusive to leaders of America's principal allies, that the calls helped convince some senior US officials -- including his former secretaries of state and defense, two national security advisers and his longest-serving chief of staff -- that the President himself posed a danger to the national security of the United States, according to White House and intelligence officials intimately familiar with the contents of the conversations.

  CNN

And yet, they all covered for him, until they got fired at least. There are a lot of people to share the blame for this.

The calls caused former top Trump deputies -- including national security advisers H.R. McMaster and John Bolton, Defense Secretary James Mattis, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, and White House chief of staff John Kelly, as well as intelligence officials -- to conclude that the President was often "delusional," as two sources put it, in his dealings with foreign leaders. The sources said there was little evidence that the President became more skillful or competent in his telephone conversations with most heads of state over time. Rather, he continued to believe that he could either charm, jawbone or bully almost any foreign leader into capitulating to his will, and often pursued goals more attuned to his own agenda than what many of his senior advisers considered the national interest.

And yet, they all covered for him.  Or just kept their mouths shut.

CNN's sources said there were calls between Putin and Trump about Trump's desire to end the American military presence in Afghanistan but they mentioned no discussion of the supposed Taliban bounties.

You don't think Putin was going to tell him they were doing it. Do you? Shit, I'd believe anything at this point. Except, the calls were listened to, so they wouldn't be talking about them over the phone. Of course, we don't know that Trump doesn't have a back channel to the Kremlin.

By far the greatest number of Trump's telephone discussions with an individual head of state were with Erdogan, who sometimes phoned the White House at least twice a week and was put through directly to the President on standing orders from Trump. [...] Meanwhile, the President regularly bullied and demeaned the leaders of America's principal allies, especially two women: telling Prime Minister Theresa May of the United Kingdom she was weak and lacked courage; and telling German Chancellor Angela Merkel that she was "stupid."

I bet that went over big.

Trump incessantly boasted to his fellow heads of state, including Saudi Arabia's autocratic royal heir Mohammed bin Salman and North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un, about his own wealth, genius, "great" accomplishments as President, and the "idiocy" of his Oval Office predecessors, according to the sources.

Of course he did. He says those things to anyone he's talking to.

In his conversations with both Putin and Erdogan, Trump took special delight in trashing former Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama and suggested that dealing directly with him -- Trump -- would be far more fruitful than during previous administrations.

[...]

Like Bolton, CNN's sources said that the President seemed to continually conflate his own personal interests -- especially for purposes of re-election and revenge against perceived critics and political enemies -- with the national interest.

There's no conflating going on. He's simply pursuing his own personal interests. He doesn't give a shit about the national interests.

The sources did cite some instances in which they said Trump acted responsibly and in the national interest during telephone discussions with some foreign leaders.

Only if it coincided with his own.

The White House did not respond to a request for comment before this story published. After publication, White House deputy press secretary Sarah Matthews said, "President Trump is a world class negotiator who has consistently furthered America's interests on the world stage. From negotiating the phase one China deal and the USMCA to NATO allies contributing more and defeating ISIS, President Trump has shown his ability to advance America's strategic interests."

One person familiar with almost all the conversations with the leaders of Russia, Turkey, Canada, Australia and western Europe described the calls cumulatively as 'abominations' so grievous to US national security interests that if members of Congress heard from witnesses to the actual conversations or read the texts and contemporaneous notes, even many senior Republican members would no longer be able to retain confidence in the President.

Then why the fuck is this person still working for Trump and will he/she be brought up on charges of aiding and abetting abominations grievous to US national security interests?

The insidious effect of the conversations comes from Trump's tone, his raging outbursts at allies while fawning over authoritarian strongmen, his ignorance of history and lack of preparation as much as it does from the troubling substance, according to the sources. While in office, then- Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats expressed worry to subordinates that Trump's telephone discussions were undermining the coherent conduct of foreign relations and American objectives around the globe, one of CNN's sources said.

And why was Coats not filing a whistleblower claim?

And in recent weeks, former chief of staff Kelly has mentioned the damaging impact of the President's calls on US national security to several individuals in private.

And, fuck you, too, John Kelly. You're an accomplice for not reporting it to Congress.

In addition to Merkel and May, the sources said, Trump regularly bullied and disparaged other leaders of the western alliance during his phone conversations -- including French President Emmanuel Macron, Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, and Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison -- in the same hostile and aggressive way he discussed the coronavirus with some of America's governors.

Of course he did. He's an asshole.

But his most vicious attacks, said the sources, were aimed at women heads of state. In conversations with both May and Merkel, the President demeaned and denigrated them in diatribes described as "near-sadistic" by one of the sources and confirmed by others. "Some of the things he said to Angela Merkel are just unbelievable: he called her 'stupid,' and accused her of being in the pocket of the Russians.

Typical narcissistic projection.

The calls "are so unusual," confirmed a German official, that special measures were taken in Berlin to ensure that their contents remained secret.

[...]

Merkel remained calm and outwardly unruffled in the face of Trump's attacks —"like water off a duck's back," in the words of one source -- and she regularly countered his bluster with recitations of fact.

[...]

The official described Trump's behavior with Merkel in the calls as "very aggressive" and said that the circle of German officials involved in monitoring Merkel's calls with Trump has shrunk: "It's just a small circle of people who are involved and the reason, the main reason, is that they are indeed problematic."

Publish them!

Trump's conversations with May, the UK Prime Minister from 2016 to 2019, were described as "humiliating and bullying," with Trump attacking her as "a fool" and spineless in her approach to Brexit, NATO and immigration matters.

"He'd get agitated about something with Theresa May, then he'd get nasty with her on the phone call," One source said. "It's the same interaction in every setting -- coronavirus or Brexit -- with just no filter applied."

I have to say, her fawning and kowtowing did not help her situation vis a vis Trump.

Prime Minister May, in contrast [to Merkel], became "flustered and nervous" in her conversations with the President. "He clearly intimidated her and meant to," said one of CNN's sources.

The man is a misogynist. Always has been. In addition to being an asshole and a narcissist.

The calls with Putin and Erdogan were particularly egregious in terms of Trump almost never being prepared substantively and thus leaving him susceptible to being taken advantage of in various ways, according to the sources -- in part because those conversations (as with most heads of state), were almost certainly recorded by the security services and other agencies of their countries.

In his phone exchanges with Putin, the sources reported, the President talked mostly about himself, frequently in over-the-top, self-aggrandizing terms: touting his "unprecedented" success in building the US economy; asserting in derisive language how much smarter and "stronger" he is than "the imbeciles" and "weaklings" who came before him in the presidency (especially Obama); reveling in his experience running the Miss Universe Pageant in Moscow, and obsequiously courting Putin's admiration and approval. Putin "just outplays" him, said a high-level administration official.

Any other country's leader could outplay him if they weren't afraid of US power.

While Putin "destabilizes the West," said this source, the President of the United States "sits there and thinks he can build himself up enough as a businessman and tough guy that Putin will respect him."

[...]

"He [Trump] gives away the advantage that was hard won in the Cold War," said one of the officials -- in part by "giving Putin and Russia a legitimacy they never had," the official said. "He's given Russia a lifeline -- because there is no doubt that they're a declining power ... He's playing with something he doesn't understand and he's giving them power that they would use [aggressively]."

While they pay Taliban soldiers to kill American soldiers.

The frequency of the calls with Erdogan -- in which the Turkish president continually pressed Trump for policy concessions and other favors -- was especially worrisome to McMaster, Bolton and Kelly, the more so because of the ease with which Erdogan bypassed normal National Security Council protocols and procedures to reach the President, said two of the sources.

[...]

Two sources described the President as woefully uninformed about the history of the Syrian conflict and the Middle East generally, and said he was often caught off guard, and lacked sufficient knowledge to engage on equal terms in nuanced policy discussion with Erdogan. "Erdogan took him to the cleaners," said one of the sources.

[...]

Despite the lack of advance notice for many of Erdogan's calls, full sets of contemporaneous notes from designated notetakers at the White House exist, as well as rough voice-generated computer texts of the conversations, the sources said.

Locked up with that "perfect" phone call to the president of Ukraine?

According to one high-level source, there are also existing summaries and conversation-readouts of the President's discussions with Erdogan that might reinforce Bolton's allegations against Trump in the so-called "Halkbank case," involving a major Turkish bank with suspected ties to Erdogan and his family. That source said the matter was raised in more than one telephone conversation between Erdogan and Trump.

Bolton wrote in his book that in December 2018, at Erdogan's urging, Trump offered to interfere in an investigation by then-US Attorney for the Southern District of New York Geoffrey Berman into the Turkish bank, which was accused of violating US sanctions on Iran.

And he finally did.

Berman's office eventually brought an indictment against the bank in October 2019 for fraud, money laundering and other offenses related to participation in a multibillion-dollar scheme to evade the US sanctions on Iran. On June 20, Trump fired Berman -- whose office is also investigating Rudy Giuliani, the President's personal lawyer.

[...]

In addition to rough, voice-generated software transcription, almost all of Trump's telephone conversations with Putin, Erdogan and leaders of the western alliance were supplemented and documented by extensive contemporaneous note-taking (and, often, summaries) prepared by Fiona Hill, deputy assistant to the President and senior NSC director for Europe and Russia until her resignation last year. Hill listened to most of the President's calls with Putin, Erdogan and the European leaders, according to her closed-door testimony before the House Intelligence Committee last November.

[...]

White House and intelligence officials familiar with the voice-generated transcriptions and underlying documents agreed that their contents could be devastating to the President's standing with members of the Congress of both parties -- and the public -- if revealed in great detail. (There is little doubt that Trump would invoke executive privilege to keep the conversations private. However, some former officials with detailed knowledge of many of the conversations might be willing to testify about them, sources said.)

I won't hold my breath.

In one of the earliest calls between Putin and Trump, the President's son-in-law Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump were in the room to listen — joining McMaster, Tillerson, Hill, and a State Department aide to Tillerson.

"The call was all over the place," said an NSC deputy who read a detailed summary of the conversation -- with Putin speaking substantively and at length, and Trump propping himself up in short autobiographical bursts of bragging, self-congratulation and flattery toward Putin. As described to CNN, Kushner and Ivanka Trump were immediately effusive in their praise of how Trump had handled the call -- while Tillerson (who knew Putin well from his years in Russia as an oil executive), Hill and McMaster were skeptical.

Hill — author of a definitive biography of Putin -- started to explain some of the nuances she perceived from the call, according to CNN's sources — offering insight into Putin's psychology, his typical "smooth-talking" and linear approach and what the Russian leader was trying to achieve in the call. Hill was cut off by Trump, and the President continued discussing the call with Jared and Ivanka, making clear he wanted to hear the congratulatory evaluation of his daughter and her husband, rather than how Hill, Tillerson or McMaster judged the conversation.

[...]

The Kushners were also present for other important calls with foreign leaders and made their primacy apparent, encouraged by the President even on matters of foreign policy in which his daughter and her husband had no experience. Almost never, according to CNN's sources, would Trump read the briefing materials prepared for him by the CIA and NSC staff in advance of his calls with heads of state.

"He won't consult them, he won't even get their wisdom," said one of the sources, who cited Saudi Arabia's bin Salman as near the top of a list of leaders whom Trump "picks up and calls without anybody being prepared," a scenario that frequently confronted NSC and intelligence aides. The source added that the aides' helpless reaction "would frequently be, 'Oh my God, don't make that phone call.'"

Our government is broken. Perhaps irrevocably.

The common, overwhelming dynamic that characterizes Trump's conversations with both authoritarian dictators and leaders of the world's greatest democracies is his consistent assertion of himself as the defining subject and subtext of the calls -- almost never the United States and its historic place and leadership in the world, according to sources intimately familiar with the calls.

[...]

"Everything was always personalized, with everybody doing terrible things to rip us off — which meant ripping 'me' — Trump — off. He couldn't -- or wouldn't -- see or focus on the larger picture," said one US official.

[...]

"With almost every problem, all it takes [in his phone calls] is someone asking him to do something as President on behalf of the United States and he doesn't see it that way; he goes to being ripped off; he's not interested in cooperative issues or working on them together; instead he's deflecting things or pushing real issues off into a corner," said a US official.

[...]

It was like the United States had disappeared. It was always 'Just me'."

What a surprise.

Can't wait for Project Lincoln's next ad.

UPDATE:

It's worse than unpatriotic.

Because they can't win if they don't cheat

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Can it get any worse?

You know it can.

The coronavirus is spreading too rapidly and too broadly for the U.S. to bring it under control, Dr. Anne Schuchat, principal deputy director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said Monday.

  CNBC

Thanks, Mr. President!

The U.S. has set records for daily new infections in recent days as outbreaks surge mostly across the South and West. The recent spike in new cases has outpaced daily infections in April when the virus rocked Washington state and the northeast.

[...]

“We’re not in the situation of New Zealand or Singapore or Korea where a new case is rapidly identified and all the contacts are traced and people are isolated who are sick and people who are exposed are quarantined and they can keep things under control,” she said in an interview with The Journal of the American Medical Association’s Dr. Howard Bauchner.

Thanks, Mr. President!

“We have way too much virus across the country for that right now, so it’s very discouraging.”

She'll be getting some nasty tweets.

The sheer size of the U.S. and the fact that the virus is hitting different parts of the country at different times complicates the public response here compared with other countries, Schuchat said.

[...]

The U.S. [...] continues to report over 30,000 new infections per day.

“This is really the beginning,” Schuchat said of the U.S.’s recent surge in new cases. “I think there was a lot of wishful thinking around the country that, hey it’s summer. Everything’s going to be fine. We’re over this and we are not even beginning to be over this. There are a lot of worrisome factors about the last week or so.”

[...]

With the current level of spread, Schuchat said the U.S. public should “expect this virus to continue to circulate.” She added that people can help to curb the spread of infection by practicing social distancing, wearing a mask and washing their hands, but no one should count on any kind of relief to stop the virus until there’s a vaccine.

“We can affect it, but in terms of the weather or the season helping us, I don’t think we can count on that,” she said.

25th amendment now

President Donald Trump set off a "five-alarm fire" in the White House on Sunday morning after he retweeted a video of one of his supporters saying "white power," according to two White House officials.

The video remained on the president's Twitter page, where he has 82 million followers, for more than three hours because White House officials couldn't reach him to ask him to delete it, the two officials said. The president was at his golf club in Virginia and had put his phone down, the officials said.

  NBC

And they didn't try to get in touch with him through someone who was with him? I guess they didn't think it was an emergency.

Aides also tried unsuccessfully to reach deputy chief of staff Dan Scavino to ask him to delete the retweet, officials said.

WTF? Where was he? I'm thinking they didn't try to reach either one of them. They're just trying to cover their asses now.

Sen. Tim Scott, R-S.C., added to the urgency when he called the tweet "indefensible" and demanded that the president take it down during an interview on CNN, the officials said.

Yeah, that's when they started covering.

In April, the president retweeted a posting that included the hashtag "#FireFauci." When asked at the time whether he had noticed the hashtag when he retweeted it, the president said, "Yeah, I notice everything."

Have you noticed your poll numbers lately?

Here it comes

There's always a tweet...

UPDATE:

Now that is just plain bizarre.  Where did he get that?  Was he foreseeing his own presidency?  Obama was always on top of the intel briefings. 

These shithead racists are getting worse by the minute

And I'm sure they're nowhere near as bad as they're going to get.

What do you want to bet little Hitler here runs for president in 2024?

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Racist America is a travesty

I swear, those two look like they were cast in a parody movie.

Also...this is happening in Trump's America.  Joe Biden isn't president.

Can Trump appear any more guilty?

Will Republicans be warned to toe the line and repeat the lie that Pence and Trump weren't notified of the Russian bribe of the Taliban to target American soldiers in Afghanistan?  Or will they be trotting out a new defense?

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

UPDATE:

Amen.

So....he DID hear it?

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Countdown

I want to see this picture again in three weeks with circles around the faces of the people who test positive.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

UPDATE:

Trump's going to be rage-tweeting at John Roberts

In its first big abortion ruling of the Trump era, the United States Supreme Court on Monday struck down a Louisiana law regulating abortion clinics, reasserting a commitment to abortion rights over fierce opposition from dissenting conservative justices.

Chief Justice John Roberts joined with his four more liberal colleagues in ruling that a Lousiana law that imposes restrictions on doctors who perform abortions violates a right the court first announced in the landmark Roe v Wade decision in 1973.

In two previous abortion cases, Roberts had favoured more restrictions on the procedure.

[...]

The presence of the new justices is what fueled hopes among abortion opponents, and fears on the other side, that the Supreme Court would be more likely to uphold restrictions.

The Republican-backed Louisiana law included a requirement that doctors who perform abortions have a difficult-to-obtain arrangement called "admitting privileges" at a hospital within 48km (30 miles) of the abortion clinic.

Abortion opponents called the ruling a "bitter disappointment".

  alJazeera

Especially if they voted for Trump only to get a conservative SCOTUS to do their bidding on abortion rights.

The Louisiana law is virtually identical to one in Texas that the court struck down in 2016, when conservative Justice Anthony Kennedy joined the four liberal justices to defend abortion rights, but Kennedy retired in 2018 and Republican President Donald Trump replaced him with conservative Justice Brett Kavanaugh, moving the court further to the right.

And so soon after they handed Trump a defeat on DACA and protections for the LGBTQ community.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

We'll be there to stymie it

The US is to join with other major powers including China, India and the EU in formulating plans for a global green recovery from the coronavirus crisis, in the only major international summit on the climate emergency this year.

[...]

Next week, the International Energy Agency (IEA) will host an online summit for the world’s biggest economies as well as developing countries, covering 80% of global emissions. It aims to set out plans for boosting renewable energy, energy efficiency and other emissions-cutting projects that would generate tens of millions of “shovel-ready” green jobs around the world to replace those lost in the pandemic.

[...]

The idea of a green recovery to prevent a dangerous rebound in greenhouse gas emissions to above pre-Covid-19 levels has been gathering steam, but few governments have yet committed to plans.

If they fail to do so in the next few months, the economic recovery from the Covid-19 crisis risks locking in high carbon emissions that would lead to climate catastrophe.

[...]

The IEA summit on 9 July will be the only major meeting of governments to discuss the climate crisis this year, because the UN Cop26 summit has been postponed to next year due to the pandemic. US participation is crucial, because the White House is pulling out of the Paris agreement, with effect from 4 November, the day after the presidential election.

[...]

Birol fears a rerun of the recovery after the financial crisis of 2008, when emissions declined sharply in the recession but quickly returned to levels much higher than before, as governments invested in coal-fired power plants, constructed inefficient buildings, and rolled out road-building schemes.

[...]

Research has already found that pursuing a green recovery would create more jobs and a greater return on investment in both the short and the long term than a return to business as usual.

  Guardian

Surely it's a liberal hoax.

What will his response be?

Iran issues arrest warrant for Donald Trump over Qassem Suleimani killing

Iran has issued an arrest warrant for Donald Trump and 35 others over the killing of top general Qassem Suleimani and has asked Interpol for help, Tehran prosecutor Ali Alqasimehr said on Monday, according to the Fars news agency.

The United States killed Suleimani, leader of the Revolutionary Guards’ Quds Force, with a drone strike in Iraq on 3 January. Washington accused Suleimani of masterminding attacks by Iranian-aligned militias on US forces in the region.

Alqasimehr said the warrants had been issued on charges of murder and terrorist action.

[...]

He said Iran would continue to pursue the matter after Trump’s time in office ended.

  Guardian

I don't think he was planning on visiting Iran at any time in the near future, but you never know.

Trump is going out openly racist

First he retweets a video of a supporter yelling "white power". The next day, he retweeted a white couple brandishing guns pointed at protesters. Republicans, you own this. Impeach him with the 25th. Imagine what four more years would bring.

Donald Trump courted controversy on Monday – and perhaps sought to deflect attention from reports about Russia placing bounties on US soldiers in Afghanistan – by retweeting news footage of a white couple in St Louis, Missouri who pointed guns at protesters marching for police reform.

The president’s action came a day after he retweeted footage of protesters clashing in Florida in which a Trump supporter could be heard to say “White power! White power!”

[...]

The protesters in St Louis were marching to the mayor’s home to demand her resignation. In a Facebook live briefing on Friday, Lyda Krewson read the names and addresses of several residents who wrote letters suggesting she defund the police department.

The video was removed from Facebook and Krewson apologized on Friday, stating she did not “intend to cause distress”.

On Sunday a group of at least 500 people headed towards the mayor’s home, chanting, “Resign Lyda, take the cops with you.”

A social media video showed the unidentified armed white couple standing outside their home on Sunday evening in the Central West End neighbourhood, shouting at protesters. People in the march moved the crowd forward, urging participants to ignore them.

[...]

Trump’s retweet also came after a gunman in Louisville, Kentucky, shot dead a photographer during protests over the death of Breonna Taylor, an African American woman killed by police in her own home.

[...]

On Monday morning, Trump also retweeted a series of messages seeking to identify protesters involved in attempts to remove statues of figures from American history.

  Guardian

Here's the post Trump retweeted:

UPDATE:

So...he DID hear it.  We knew it.

Reopened a bit too soon?

I don't a recommendation is going to cut it.  People will be coming from the closed counties.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

Mississippi will redesign its racist state flag

To be sure, that's excellent, but it's a disgrace that they've had it this long

Police state of America

Further on the report.

Bullshit

It's Ratcliffe, FFS.  He's lying.

It worked for Reagan.  That, and "I forgot."

It's here.

And what?  They didn't tell Pence either?  Bullshit.  He was briefed.  he didn't want to do anything about it.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.

UPDATE:

And by "intel" does he mean Ratcliffe?

He has people trained.  They tell him what he wans to hear.

UPDATE:

Amen.