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Francisco 2.0

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Posts posted by Francisco 2.0

  1. All Rudy can dredge up is a former intern + some lackeys for legal counsel now.

     

    https://www.nytimes.com/2019/11/06/nyregion/giuliani-trump-impeachment-lawyers.html

     

    Quote

    President Trump’s personal lawyer, Rudolph W. Giuliani, said on Wednesday that he had assembled a legal team to represent him in the criminal investigation into his activities related to Ukraine, an announcement that came after weeks of sputtered attempts to find a lawyer willing to take him on as a client. 

    Mr. Giuliani said on Twitter that he would be represented by three lawyers, including his longtime friend, Robert J. Costello. The hires show how serious Mr. Giuliani is treating the inquiry by federal prosectors in Manhattan, who are investigating whether he violated lobbying laws in his efforts to dig up damaging information about Mr. Trump’s rivals.

     

    Quote

    The hires came after a weekslong search to find a lawyer who would represent Mr. Giuliani, who rose to prominence as the United States attorney for the Southern District of New York, the same office that is now investigating him. He has a wide range of close associates — including former prosecutors and judges — who could have taken him on as a client.

     

    Quote

    But at least four prominent attorneys declined for various reasons, according to people familiar with the matter. They included Mary Jo White, who also once led the United States attorney’s office for the Southern District, as well as Theodore V. Wells Jr., a trial lawyer at Paul, Weiss, according to people familiar with those discussions.

     

    Quote

    Another was Daniel L. Stein, a former senior prosecutor who recently held top posts in the Southern District, where he oversaw the prosecutions of public officials including Sheldon Silver, the former speaker of the New York State Assembly, and Dean Skelos, the State Senate majority leader.

     

    Quote

    Mr. Giuliani’s trouble in hiring a lawyer mirrored Mr. Trump’s own difficulties attracting a top law firm to represent him as the probe by the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, dragged into a second year. That difficulty — and Mr. Trump’s desire for a more vocal representative — was how the president ended up hiring Mr. Giuliani.

    Mr. Costello and Mr. Giuliani’s relationship dates to their time in the United States attorney’s office in Manhattan, where Mr. Costello was Mr. Giuliani’s intern.

     

  2. https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/trump-wanted-barr-to-hold-news-conference-saying-the-president-broke-no-laws-in-call-with-ukrainian-leader/2019/11/06/16d541ec-ff55-11e9-8bab-0fc209e065a8_story.html

     

    Quote

    President Trump wanted Attorney General William P. Barr to hold a news conference declaring that the commander in chief had broken no laws during a phone call in which he pressed his Ukrainian counterpart to investigate a political rival, though Barr ultimately declined to do so, people familiar with the matter said.

     

    Quote

    The request from Trump traveled from the president to other White House officials and eventually to the Justice Department. The president has mentioned Barr’s declination to associates in recent weeks, saying he wished Barr would have held the news conference, Trump advisers say.

     

    Quote

    In recent weeks, the Justice Department has sought some distance from the White House, particularly on matters relating to the burgeoning controversy over Trump’s dealings on Ukraine and the impeachment inquiry they sparked.

    People close to the administration say Barr and Trump remain on good terms. A senior administration official said Trump praised the attorney general publicly and privately Wednesday, and deputy White House press secretary Hogan Gidley said in a statement: “The President has nothing but respect for AG Barr and greatly appreciates the work he’s done on behalf of the country — and no amount of shady sources with clear intent to divide, smear, and slander will change that.”

     

    Spoiler

    But those close to the administration also concede that the department has made several recent maneuvers putting it at odds with the White House at a particularly precarious time for the president. Like others, they spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the politically fraught situation.

    The request for the news conference came sometime around Sept. 25, when the administration released a rough transcript of the president’s July phone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. The document showed that Trump urged Zelensky to investigate former vice president Joe Biden and his son Hunter — while dangling a possible White House visit for the foreign leader.

    By then, a whistleblower complaint about the call had moved congressional Democrats to launch the impeachment inquiry, and the administration was on the defensive. As the rough transcript was released, a Justice Department spokeswoman said officials had evaluated it and the whistleblower complaint to see whether campaign finance laws had been broken, determined that none had been and decided “no further action was warranted.”

    It was not immediately clear why Barr would not go beyond that statement with a televised assertion that the president broke no laws, nor was it clear how forcefully the president’s desire was communicated. A Justice Department spokeswoman declined to comment. A senior administration official said, “The DOJ did in fact release a statement about the call, and the claim that it resulted in tension because it wasn’t a news conference is completely false.”

    From the moment the administration released the rough transcript, Barr made clear that whatever the president was up to, he was not a party to it.

    Though the rough transcript shows Trump offering Zelensky the services of his attorney general to aid investigations of Biden and his son, a Barr spokeswoman said that Barr and Trump had never discussed that.

    “The President has not spoken with the Attorney General about having Ukraine investigate anything relating to former vice president Biden or his son,” spokeswoman Kerri Kupec said in a statement released at the same time as the rough transcript. “The President has not asked the Attorney General to contact Ukraine — on this or any other matter. The Attorney General has not communicated with Ukraine — on this or any other subject.”

    It would not be the last time the Justice Department would have to distance itself from the White House on a matter relevant to the impeachment inquiry. After acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney said at a televised briefing last month that Ukraine’s cooperation in the investigations Trump wanted was tied to hundreds of millions of dollars of aid that the United States had withheld from Kyiv, a Justice Department official quickly made clear to reporters that the department did not endorse that position.

    “If the White House was withholding aid in regards to the cooperation of any investigation at the Department of Justice, that is news to us,” the official said.

    The department — and Barr in particular — has similarly sought separation from Rudolph W. Giuliani, the president’s personal lawyer who was leading the effort to investigate the Bidens.

    In addition to asserting that Barr and Trump had never discussed investigating the Bidens, Kupec said in her statement that the attorney general had not “discussed this matter, or anything relating to Ukraine, with Rudy Giuliani.” Barr’s allies had previously confided to reporters that the attorney general was unhappy with Giuliani, particularly over his going outside of normal channels to pursue investigations of interest to the president.

    Last month, after the department arrested two Giuliani associates who had worked on investigating the Bidens’ activities in Ukraine, the New York Times reported that Giuliani had participated in a meeting about a separate case with Brian A. Benczkowski, the head of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division, and lawyers in the department’s fraud section.

    The day after that report, the department issued an unusual statement saying those in the meeting were unaware of the case that led to charges against Giuliani’s associates for alleged campaign finance violations. Giuliani also is being investigated as a part of the case, though he has said he has not been told of that.

    “When Mr. Benczkowski and fraud section lawyers met with Mr. Giuliani, they were not aware of any investigation of Mr. Giuliani’s associates in the Southern District of New York and would not have met with him had they known,” Peter Carr, a department spokesman, told the Times.

    People close to Barr assert that while Barr is a strong believer in the power of the presidency, he has always recognized there might be times when he has to preserve the Justice Department’s independence.

    AD“My take is that Barr hasn’t changed one bit, that he has had a healthy distance from the beginning,” one person close to the administration said, speaking on the condition of anonymity to candidly describe Barr’s relationship with Trump. “He knows the parameters of the relationship between a president and an AG.”

    Trump had a famously dysfunctional relationship with his first Senate-confirmed attorney general, Jeff Sessions. The president blamed Sessions for special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s investigation into whether his campaign coordinated with Russia to influence the 2016 election because — in the president’s view — Sessions’s recusal from that case allowed for Mueller’s appointment and everything that followed. Mueller, though, was appointed by the deputy attorney general at the time, Rod J. Rosenstein, weeks after Sessions recused himself.

    Trump publicly and privately attacked Sessions for virtually Sessions’s entire tenure in the top law enforcement job and toyed constantly with firing him. He finally did so after the 2018 midterm elections and nominated Barr as his permanent replacement. His resentment lingers to this day, as Sessions is expected to announce a run for his old Senate seat.

    Though Barr was a relative outsider to Trumpworld when the president picked him as attorney general, he quickly won the president’s affection. In announcing Mueller’s principal conclusions — before Mueller’s final report had been issued — Barr declared that the special counsel had found insufficient evidence to allege coordination between Russia and the Trump campaign. And while Mueller had not reached a determination on whether the president had obstructed justice, Barr said he had reviewed the case himself and determined Trump had not.

    Barr’s descriptions so agitated Mueller that the special counsel sent a letter to the attorney general complaining that Barr “did not fully capture the context, nature, and substance” of the special counsel’s work. Barr ultimately would release Mueller’s final report — which painted a far more damning picture for Trump — but even as he did so, he held a news conference and endorsed one of the president’s famed talking points.

    “As he said from the beginning,” Barr declared, referring to Trump, “there was, in fact, no collusion.”

    Detractors have criticized the attorney general as eroding the Justice Department’s independence, though Trump has generally been pleased. Most recently, allies say he has been heartened as Barr has sought to investigate those involved in the Russia case, tapping U.S. Attorney John Durham to lead an inquiry into the origins of the Mueller investigation and whether the U.S. government’s “intelligence collection activities” related to the Trump campaign were “lawful and appropriate.”

    Barr’s review of Russia investigation wins Trump’s favor. Those facing scrutiny suspect he’s chasing conspiracy theories.

    On Ukraine, though, the White House and Justice Department have been somewhat out of sync.

    Some time after The Washington Post began reporting on the nature of the whistleblower’s complaint about Trump’s phone call, the Justice Department pushed to release the rough transcript. Leaders there believed — perhaps misguidedly — that doing so could quell the budding controversy, because in his conversation with Zelensky, Trump did not explicitly push for a quid pro quo tying U.S. aid for Ukraine to the politically beneficial investigations he sought. The White House was initially resistant.

    The Justice Department had not always been on the side of full transparency, blocking transmission of the whistleblower complaint to Congress — even though the intelligence community inspector general felt the law required it to be handed over. Unbeknown to the public, the department weighed whether to investigate a potential campaign finance crime, though ultimately concluded there was not sufficient basis to do so after an inquiry limited essentially to reviewing the rough transcript of the Trump-Zelensky call.

    Though Barr did not hold a news conference clearing Trump of any wrongdoing, the Justice Department did issue its statement saying it would not investigate the matter — at least for campaign finance violations. While that was a partial win for Trump, it has allowed Congress to expedite its impeachment inquiry without fear of impeding law enforcement — and make public unflattering testimony about the president and his allies’ dealings in Ukraine.

     

  3. 11 minutes ago, Message Board User said:

    Chances this happens next year?  50%?  70%?  99.9%?

     

    Shit, it's happening today.

    Not only will it be called patriotic, it will be called constitutional, and most of all, Christian.  

     

     

    • Like 1
  4. FYI; those of you with an 11 or 11 Pro (Max as well) and like Apple cases, well, this is your lucky day.  Amazon has every color, in silicon and leather, at a significant savings:

     

    https://9to5toys.com/2019/11/04/amazon-iphone-11-case-sale/

     

    Quote

    Amazon is now offering all-time low prices on Apple’s latest iPhone 11/Pro/Max cases from $23.99. Free shipping is available for Prime members or in orders of $25+. There are multiple colors available in nearly every instance, so be sure to check out all of the listings at each link below. Here’s a full breakdown of pricing:

    iPhone 11:

    Clear Case: $24 (Reg. $35)

    Silicone Cases: $24 (Reg. $39)

    iPhone 11 Pro:

    Clear Case: $24 (Reg. $39)

    Silicone Cases: $24 (Reg. $39)

    Leather Cases: $30 (Reg. $49)

    Leather Folios: $78 (Reg. $129)

    iPhone 11 Pro Max:

    Clear Case: $24 (Reg. $39)

    Silicone Cases: $24 (Reg. $39)

    Leather Cases: $30 (Reg. $49)

    Leather Folios: $78 (Reg. $129)

    Best Buy is matching select listings at this time, marking a return to the lowest prices we’ve tracked to date. This is a rare chance to save on Apple’s first-party accessories, and frankly, a rather unheard of discount just a few after these products were announced at September’s keynote event.

     

  5. https://www.politico.com/news/2019/11/03/trumps-impeachment-inbox-065058

     

    Quote

    President Trump doesn’t think House Democrats’ impeachment inquiry should get any media coverage. 

    Meanwhile, he’s ravenously consuming news about the subject — primarily through a friendly lens. From the Oval Office to the White House residence to Air Force One, he’s closely tracking how Republican members of Congress are digesting the latest revelations on his handling of Ukraine, and monitoring their statements for any sign of hesitation or perceived disloyalty

     

    Quote

    “We’re getting fucking killed,” Trump often gripes — a complaint about media coverage that is escalating in volume and frequency amid the impeachment probe, according to a Republican close to the White House. “He does make that comment literally every day.” 

    Trump is especially frustrated that the depositions by current and former officials — which have taken place behind closed doors, but nonetheless have leaked in some detail to reporters — “have to be covered at all,” according to a senior White House official.

     

    Quote

    “We should have no speculative coverage of what’s going on inside these private briefings, according to the very people who keep it private,” said another White House official. “Either let everybody see what’s happening as it happens or keep your mouth shut.” 

    Trump tells White House aides in private that he sees no need for leaks from the depositions because everyone can read the transcript of his call with the president of Ukraine, which he has repeatedly called “perfect.” He also is critical of witnesses he accuses of “pretending they know what he meant” on the call.

     

    Spoiler

    To get news on impeachment, Trump often relies on his favorite Fox shows: Sean Hannity, Lou Dobbs, “Fox and Friends,” Tucker Carlson, Laura Ingraham and Jeanine Pirro, because he thinks they provide an alternative to the narrative many journalists in the more down-the-middle press are giving. He has grown especially enamored lately with Carlson’s show, according to a Republican close to the White House, though he has complained publicly about some of the more critical news coverage on Fox. 

    He is also a fan of John Solomon, the conservative journalist who first disseminated the unsubstantiated reporting about Joe Biden and Ukraine, as well as Solomon’s fellow Fox News contributor Sara Carter, according to a former White House official. 

    “He likes all these guys on Hannity who are beating the shit out of the left,” this person said. 

    Trump will also sometimes consume news from conservative outlets Newsmax and One America News Network, which tend to take a more uniformly pro-Trump line than Fox News. In private, he has erupted at Fox for bringing on former DNC chair Donna Brazile as a contributor, and has railed against its weekend hosts on Twitter. 

    Trump usually watches TV in the morning and at night in the residence, where he has a DVR-like device to record shows he can’t watch live. When he’s in the Oval Office, according to a former White House official, he’ll often watch impeachment news in the nearby private dining room. 

    When leaving the Oval Office, he will usually stop to look at a nearby television showing Fox News, Fox Business, CNN and MSNBC to check the news of the day and headlines on the stock market, according to an administration official. 

    His tweets often track closely with the programs he’s watching, and he’ll often quote snippets of dialogue or political arguments that favor his narrative. 

    On Oct. 23, a particularly prolific day for Trump, he tweeted or retweeted 9 tweets that had Fox content, including a retweet of RNC Chair Ronna McDaniel of a clip of a Trump interview with Sean Hannity, a Stephen Moore article onFoxBusiness.com, tweets related to appearances by Reps. Lee Zeldin (R-N.Y.) and John Ratcliffe (R-Texas) on Fox, a Sean Hannity tweet on Ukraine and corruption, two tweets related to a Matt Whitaker appearance on Fox and twotweets with Fox News clips of Trump’s Syria announcement. 

    To stay current on impeachment, Trump also gets regular in-person briefings from different parts of the White House, including the counsel’s office, the legislative affairs shop and the press office, all dealing with their specific aspects of impeachment. In those briefings, Trump asks questions like “Who’s up this week?” — meaning who is giving depositions — and “What does that mean?” 

    White House aides who share the president’s frustration with the entire impeachment process say he often vents his irritation with the House probe because, as one put it, he believes it is all just “so distracting.” 

    “He didn’t do anything wrong, so he’s rightfully frustrated,” this person added. 

    But Trump is also closely monitoring Republicans on Capitol Hill in near real time, looking to stamp out any signs of an incipient revolt and intervening when he deems it necessary. 

    “He keeps track of everything that’s going on up there from who’s going up there [to] who’s at these various basement events [to] what people are saying in hallway conversations, in media interviews, in floor statements, all that sort of stuff,” said a White House official. 

    Trump also will sometimes direct staffers to send printouts of news stories, such as articles he particularly enjoyed, and other material on all sorts of issues, including impeachment, to members up on the Hill via email, hand delivery and in person through meetings and visits to the Hill. 

    Trump’s impeachment media diet isn’t all television shows and clips. Besides the Wall Street Journal and the New York Post, which are still delivered to the White House residence every day before dawn, Trump also gets various printouts and Twitter reactions related to impeachment and other topics in the news in a daily briefing book put together from the staff secretary’s office that goes back to the private residence every night. 

    “They don’t discriminate with good, bad or otherwise,” said a former official, describing the process of putting together the briefing book. Aides make sure to include news on what “hot-button topics” are getting traction in major media outlets. 

    When he reads newspapers, Trump will sometimes circle stories that he believes are wrong and tell staffers to “call this reporter” or “get this reporter on the line,” said a former White House official. 

    On a more personal level, Trump relies on his closest GOP allies, such as Sens. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) and Rand Paul (R-Ky.) and Rep. Mark Meadows (R-N.C.) for news and insights into how impeachment is unfolding on Capitol Hill — and they don’t just give him positive spin, according to an administration official. 

    Trump is in frequent touch with House members who are in the deposition room with witnesses, noted one Republican familiar with his conversations, who stressed that members of Congress are barred from sharing details of the testimony. 

    Last Sunday, Trump brought Graham, Meadows and a number of other members with him, including House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy and Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-Fla.), to Game 5 of the World Series, where Trump and the members touched on impeachment but also discussed baseball, according to a Republican familiar with the conversations. 

    The outreach extends beyond the president. 

    “The entire White House is on a charm offensive with the members,” said another White House official, noting efforts to bring Republican members to Camp David, invite them to lunches and briefings, and try to keep them abreast of the White House’s perspective. These encounters are an opportunity for Trump’s team to “hear from them and what they think, what they hear and what they expect and give them an opportunity to ask questions,” the official said. 

    Trump also has been retweeting many Republican members as part of his strategy to keep them loyal. “It’s different from Mueller in that the main audience is them, and it’s important that he’s reflecting and retweeting what they’re saying on the Twitter feed,” said the official. 

    Although the White House has canceled its subscriptions to the New York Times and the Washington Post, current and former White House officials say he’s likely still reading those papers in some fashion. People close to Trump, including aides, are still printing out Times and Post articles on the news of the day, including impeachment, and giving them to him, according to an administration official. They’ll also often mention articles to him and if he hasn’t already seen a particular story, he’ll ask for it to be printed out and given to him, said the official. 

    While he’s very unhappy with the coverage of impeachment, Trump believes Republicans’ complaints about the process are starting to draw blood, according to the senior White House official: “When CNN is even saying this stuff shouldn’t be done behind closed doors that’s something. So in that way, we’re all recognizing that at least that’s pushing through a little bit.” 

    But Trump also thinks the mainstream media doesn’t even bother to work his perspective into stories on impeachment. 

    “Nothing about the process has been fair, and nothing about the coverage has been fair,” is what he tells aides, according to a senior White House official. Trump also thinks the media is “looking for any excuse possible to highlight efforts to unseat him,” said an administration official. 

    He has also insisted that White House Press Secretary Stephanie Grisham go on television more to defend him, according to two Republicans close to the White House, seeing that as a vital part of her duties. Grisham has appeared on television several times in recent weeks, and Trump has privately praised her fiery performances. 

    But the president is also frustrated that more of his allies aren’t defending him and his governing record every day on TV. 

    “Why aren’t there more surrogates talking about the achievements that have been taking place?” he has told people, according to a Republican who has discussed the matter with him. “He feels that maybe only he can do it himself, or gets frustrated at previous staff or previous surrogates at not being out there enough.” 

    Mercedes Schlapp, the former director of strategic communications in the White House, recently was put in charge of surrogates for the Trump campaign, where she is a senior adviser, according to a person familiar with the matter. She’s tried to ensure the campaign is prioritizing surrogates and getting them the campaign’s talking points, including on impeachment, this person said. 

    Trump’s frustration with impeachment echoes that of former President Bill Clinton, who also voraciously followed the news about his political plight. 

    Back then, White House staffers provided Clinton with clips and summaries of the latest impeachment stories each day, but he also got information from his lawyers as well as from periodically watching TV news coverage. 

    “I never held anything back from him” in terms of bad news, said former Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel, who was a senior adviser for Clinton, including during part of impeachment. 

    “I think you can imagine” what the president’s reaction was to bad news days, Emanuel said, alluding to Clinton’s famously volcanic temper. 

    But he also said that it was important for staffers to give the president news about domestic and foreign policy issues to prevent Clinton from being “absorbed” too much by his impeachment. 

    For similar reasons, some Trump advisers try to steer clear of impeachment news altogether, according to a senior administration official, who said he purposefully doesn’t read any news about the subject. 

    “I scan news clips each day related to my file and nothing more,” the official said. “I don’t track the impeachment news at all, and avoid reading the newspapers.”

     

  6. 30 minutes ago, RPM said:

    I flipped over to see the crowd size at TMS today. It was about 30% full and that's with no backstretch seats.

    No joke; they blame F1 for having an event in Austin on the same day. Despite having roughly the same attendance as the other 2019 date at TMS.

     

  7. 1 hour ago, Dbeasy said:

     


    Why is this happening?

     

    There's no one single reason; but those crowds are never going to come back.

    NASCAR is much like the modern day GOP.  They don't feel like they need to make any changes, because what they have is working, in spite of the rest of the world changing around them on a daily basis.  Of course, Nascar has made some changes with their rules and scheduling, but they have turned off the very fan base they need to survive.  Once the current TV contracts expire in 2024 I suspect things will really be different.  

    Not wanting to derail the thread any more than I have, but ChiTown's comment of having the president attend a Nascar race I wanted to point out this isn't the NASCAR of 10 years ago.  He would be welcomed, but the optics of a President attending an event with a seating capacity of 120K and maybe a quarter of that in attendance would be stark.

     

     

    • Like 2
  8. 10 hours ago, ChiTownDoc said:

    The dumbass needs a roaring crowd after he was embarrassed in DC.  Getting warmer you fat fuck...Why hasn't anyone directed his ass to the Nascar race at TMS this weekend?  That's a home run for this son of a bitch. 

    Nascar has lost its fastball, and attendance is dwindling.  Hell, there might as been as many people at MSG as there was at the spring Bristol race:

    Screen-Shot-2019-04-08-at-12.46.22-PM-75

     

    Not sure when this pic was taken at Texas, but it's like this at every track Nascar visits now.  Most venues have been removing seats for years now:

    TexasMotorSpeedway_2019_magazine_2.jpg?i

     

    The 2018 Indy Nascar race.  You can go on and on with pics like these. 

    960x0.jpg%3Ffit=scale

     

     

    Edit.  One more example of the Spring Bristol race (capacity somewhere around 150,000):

     

    wxigmuoroyq21.jpg?width=640&crop=smart&a

    • Like 2
  9. Brutal.

    https://theathletic.com/1345622/2019/11/02/nebraska-huskers-football-grasping-answers-face-lost-season/

     

    Quote

    I’m not trying to sound overly dramatic; the reality is dramatic enough. But as I stood in the shadow of the north end zone Saturday at Ross-Ade Stadium and watched Nebraska’s feeble attempt to mount a winning drive, it hit me like a cold blast of November air in the face.

    There appears to be no bottom for Nebraska.

     

    Quote

    We saw what looked like the bottom in 2017 when the Huskers were blown out four times in the second half of the season with a lame-duck coaching staff. Coach Scott Frost thought he saw the bottom last year at Michigan. I thought the loss three weeks ago at Minnesota was even more inexcusable.

     

    Quote

    But what happened Saturday likely topped it all. Purdue, without All-America playmaker Rondale Moore and down to a third-string, walk-on quarterback whose name is misspelled in his bio on the school website, drove 82 yards in 12 plays to finish the scoring with two-and-a-half minutes left.

    Purdue, with two wins in eight games before Nebraska visited and the worst running attack in the Big Ten, beat the Huskers 31-27. Purdue, which looked overmatched and lucky not to be facing a four-score deficit in the first half, owned the second and fourth quarters.

     

     

  10. 6 minutes ago, JimmyJames said:

    Did the kids get to choose which brown kids got seperated from their parents too? Boy that would be some fun. 

    They would have to be in brown face, since I really doubt there are any shades of brown people* working in the West Wing.

     

     

    *Cue someone posting a pic of some staffer the public has never heard of that works in the Trump administration.

     

     

  11. Color me (not) surprised.

     

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/growing-number-of-gop-senators-consider-acknowledgingtrumps-quid-pro-quo-on-ukraine/2019/11/01/72084a3e-fcc4-11e9-9534-e0dbcc9f5683_story.html

     

    Quote

    A growing number of Senate Republicans are ready to acknowledge that President Trump used U.S. military aid as leverage to force Ukraine to investigate former vice president Joe Biden and his family as the president repeatedly denies a quid pro quo.

    In this shift in strategy to defend Trump, these Republicans are insisting that the president’s action was not illegal and does not rise to the level of an impeachable offense as the Democratic-led House moves forward with the open phase of its probe.

     

    Quote

    But the shift among Senate Republicans could complicate the message coming from Trump as he furiously fights the claim that he had withheld U.S. aid from Ukraine to pressure it to dig up dirt on a political rival, even as an increasing number of Republicans wonder how long they can continue to argue that no quid pro quo was at play in the matter. 

     

    Quote

    The pivot was the main topic during a private Senate GOP lunch on Wednesday, according to multiple people familiar with the session who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe the meeting. Sen. John Neely Kennedy (R-La.) argued that there may have been a quid pro quo but said that the U.S. government often attaches conditions to foreign aid and that nothing was amiss in Trump’s doing so in the case of aid to Ukraine, these individuals said.

     

    Quote

    Inside the lunch, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.), who ran against Trump in 2016, said a quid pro quo is not illegal unless there is “corrupt intent” and echoed Kennedy’s argument that such conditions are a tool of foreign policy.

    “To me, this entire issue is gonna come down to, why did the president ask for an investigation,” Kennedy, who worked as a lawyer, said in an interview. “To me, it all turns on intent, motive. ... Did the president have a culpable state of mind? … Based on the evidence that I see, that I’ve been allowed to see, the president does not have a culpable state of mind.”

    The discussion underscores the dilemma for congressional Republicans as a cadre of current and former Trump administration officials paint a consistent picture of a president wiling to use foreign policy to undercut a potential domestic political adversary. On Thursday, Trump appointee and longtime Republican aide-turned-National Security Council adviser Tim Morrison became the latest official to testify that nearly $400 million of congressionally appropriated military aid for Ukraine was frozen to increase pressure on President Volodymyr Zelensky to investigate Biden, a 2020 presidential contender.

    And with the House Democrats voting Thursday to open the closed-door impeachment investigation, undermining the GOP’s complaints about a secretive process, Republicans are frantically seeking a new strategy and talking points to defend the president.

    Meanwhile, the president has frustrated Senate Republicans by seeming to change his messaging strategy every day rather than present a coherent defense of his actions, said multiple Senate GOP officials who spoke on the condition of anonymity to comment frankly.

    On Thursday, Trump told the Washington Examiner that he wanted to do a series of “fireside chats” — as President Franklin Delano Roosevelt famously did during the Great Depression and the early part of World War II — to defend himself. He said he perhaps would read aloud the transcript of the July 25 telephone call in which he asked Zelensky to do him a “favor.”

    The willingness of some Senate Republicans to acknowledge a quid pro quo while dismissing the offense comes just two weeks after acting White House chief of staff Mick Mulvaney had to walk back a similar assertion. Mulvaney argued in a long-winded news conference on Oct. 17 that quid pro quos are a common feature of foreign policy and that the media should “get over it.”

    Indeed, a strategy that includes acknowledging a particular kind of reciprocity with a foreign government would almost certainly unnerve moderate Republicans such as Sen. Susan Collins (Maine), who faces reelection next year in a Democratic-leaning state and has said it was “completely inappropriate” for Trump to invite China to investigate Joe Biden, which the president did after the Ukraine controversy began. Collins has repeatedly declined to comment on Ukraine, arguing that she probably would be a juror in a Senate trial of the president.

    One senior Republican aide cautioned that acknowledging a quid pro quo is unlikely as a strategy for the Senate GOP, even if some conservatives like the idea.

    Such a step would also undercut Trump’s central talking point on impeachment — and would clash with House Republicans’ strategy. Trump’s Capitol Hill allies and Republican leaders, including House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (Calif.) and House Minority Whip Steve Scalise (La.), are sticking with Trump’s line that there was no proposed trade-off with Ukraine.

    “You can’t have been in [the impeachment depositions] with 10 different witnesses and come out with any credible belief that there was a quid pro quo for aid. … It’s just not accurate,” said top Trump ally Rep. Mark Meadows (R-N.C.) “I’ve heard people say, ‘Well even if he did it, it’s fine.’ The problem with that is: I know that he didn’t do it.”

    In the Senate, however, some Republicans aren’t as confident and have expressed concerns about the endless drip of embarrassing headlines from daily witness testimony that the U.S. aid and a White House visit for Zelensky hinged on the Biden probe.

    The Senate lunch, according to those in attendance, also focused on how best to rally to Trump’s defense if he is impeached. Under the constitutional process, the Senate would hold a trial, with conviction requiring the votes of two-thirds of the senators present.

    While some Senate Republicans have argued for a quick trial, most other senators believe that moving quickly could backfire. Senate Republicans, especially those up for reelection next year in Democratic-leaning or swing states, could face criticism that they did not take the charges seriously.

    During last year’s contentious battle to confirm now-Supreme Court Justice Brett M. Kavanaugh, Republicans thought that the more thorough process, including a new FBI investigation in the final days of the confirmation fight, arguably helped to win more support, including that of Collins and then-Sen. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.).

    Some Republicans suggested a longer trial could help the president by giving the GOP the opportunity to try to poke holes in the Democrats’ case. Among those who made a case for thorough proceedings was Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah), who responded to a remark from Sen. Kevin Cramer (R-N.D.) that while, in theory, White House attorneys could move every day to try to dismiss the case, the administration would be advised not to do that.

    Cramer appeared to agree with that argument.

    “This may be his only opportunity to change what the public sees and hears if they’re gonna continue with their very one-sided process over in the House,” Cramer said, later adding: “In my view, [it is] in the president’s best interest to have the whole thing played out. I don’t mean five weeks, but at least the case so at least the public gets to hear his case.”

    Cramer also subscribed to the idea that “there’s lots of quid pro quos” in U.S. foreign policy, pointing to stipulations on assistance for Venezuela and other nations.

    “We’ve done quid pro quos a lot of times,” he said. “... The question isn’t whether it was quid pro quo; the question is: Was it corruption?”

    Kennedy argued that there are two views on Trump’s actions: that he pushed for an investigation of a political rival; or that he pushed for an investigation of corruption in a country that has a history of missteps — and the request just happened to include the Bidens. Kennedy, an ally of Trump’s, said he expects the president’s lawyers to argue the latter during a Senate trial.

    Trump asked Zelensky in the call to look into the Bidens, referring to allegations that Joe Biden pressured Ukrainian officials to fire a prosecutor who was probing the company where Hunter Biden served as a director. Former Ukrainian and U.S. officials say the prosecutor’s investigation into the company was dormant.

    “He honestly believes that there may have been corruption in Ukraine, and before he turns over $400 million of American taxpayer money, he’s entitled to ask,” Kennedy said, later adding, “The issue to be litigated … is going to be: Did the president have a good-faith reason to believe that Hunter Biden may have been involved in corruption? And if I’m correct in my analysis, then there will be a lot of time spent on what Mr. Biden did for the money.”

    Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.), who has been heavily involved in the Ukraine saga and is chairman of the Foreign Relations subcommittee on Europe and regional security cooperation, argued that the United States often puts conditions on foreign aid. 

    Johnson also said that Trump would not allow him to promise Ukrainian officials military aid earlier this year because of other reasons, including concerns about corruption and the desire for European nations to do more to help Ukraine.

    “My point is those are legitimate reservations,” he said. “There’s nothing wrong with that. … That’s not impeachable.”

     

  12. 7 minutes ago, jimmyjazz said:

    That's a damn bargain.  We sent my mom and her sister to game 6 of the 2011 World Series, and they sat in left field for ~ $550 a seat.

    Yeah.  I have no quibbles with what they paid (price set by MLB) but for as much money as Trump brags about having, surely he could have sprung for this, right?

     

  13. On 10/31/2019 at 11:19 AM, kmac30 said:

    TCL 4 series 50 inch for 279 at Best Buy. 55 inch is 299. I bought this for our kids’ playroom and have been really happy with it.

    https://www.bestbuy.com/site/tcl-50-class-led-4-series-2160p-smart-4k-uhd-tv-with-hdr-roku-tv/6313062.p?skuId=6313062

    Picked up a 55" at Sams just before Labor Day as a secondary set for the den for Saturday game watching; it was $259 (or $279?) on sale.

    For the intended purpose here it's perfect.

     

  14. Paying $14,000 to get heckled and booed to own the libs.

     

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/rnc-pays-face-value-for-trump-partys-luxury-seats-at-world-series-game/2019/11/01/db3c5cf4-fc09-11e9-9534-e0dbcc9f5683_story.html

     

    Quote

    The Republican National Committee paid $465 per seat in a luxury suite for President Trump, 11 members of Congress and senior White House staff to attend Sunday night’s World Series game after the president said he wanted to attend, two officials with knowledge of the arrangement said Friday.

    The rate meant that Major League Baseball charged the RNC for about 30 seats at a total cost of about $14,000, according to one of the officials, who was involved in the payment. The suite was located along the third-base line near home plate.

     

    Quote

    The seats were much cheaper than even standing-room-only seats in Nationals Park, many of which were going for $1,000 or more on the secondary market before the Series came to Washington for games three through five. 

    One of the Republican officials, who along with others spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal RNC matters, said MLB charged face value for box seats and sent an invoice to the committee. A White House official said it would have been impossible for the president to sit anywhere other than a secure box because of Secret Service safety requirements. 

     

    Quote

    Spokespeople for MLB and the Nationals did not respond to requests for comment.

    Members did not receive a ticket for the game and were whisked in with the president, according to people familiar with the arrangement — going through a tunnel, into a freight elevator and into the luxury box about eight minutes before the first pitch. 

     

    Spoiler

    Both House and Senate ethics rules generally allow members to attend events free if they are legitimate fundraisers. But Republican officials said the game was not considered a fundraiser and the Trump campaign did not play a role, leading to questions among some members about whether they needed to pay for tickets.

    “We paid for the box because the president was there,” a senior Republican official said. The official said that it was valuable for members to discuss issues with the president about their districts and the national political landscape. 

    Trump decided which members of Congress to invite largely based on their perceived loyalty to him, and invited some members from Texas because the Astros were in the World Series, a person familiar with the event said. The Astros won the game that night, 7-1.

    The members Trump brought to the game included Sens. Lindsey O. Graham (S.C.) and David Perdue (Ga.); House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (Calif.); and Reps. Andy Biggs (Ariz.), Kevin Brady (Tex.), Liz Cheney (Wyo.), Matt Gaetz (Fla.), Kay Granger (Tex.), Mark Meadows (N.C.), John Ratcliffe (Tex.), Steve Scalise (La.) and Mac Thornberry (Tex.).

    Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), who also spent time with Trump during the game, did not come with the group and was in a nearby box, according to an adviser.

    After the game, there was confusion among some offices on whether they were on the hook for the cost. Cheney’s chief of staff asked the White House at least four times on how to pay for the ticket but did not get a response, according to records reviewed by The Washington Post.

    “Congresswoman Cheney will provide whatever reimbursement is necessary,” said Jeremy Adler, a spokesman.

    “The Leader was honored to attend the game with the President, and follows any and all federal ethics guidelines applying to this event,” McCarthy spokesman Matt Sparks said in a statement. 

    A senior White House official said MLB agreed to let the president use the luxury box, which was reserved for league use. Some baseball officials were also present for the game, and commissioner Rob Manfred played golf with Trump the day before. 

    When Trump went to the national football championship in Atlanta last year, the Republican National Committee paid for a luxury box for the president and his guests, according to an official involved in the planning of the event. 

    A senior Republican official said the party also pays for events at the White House such as the Easter Egg Roll and Christmas parties. 

    The owners of the Nationals did not want Trump to visit their box, according to people familiar with the matter. The president was overwhelmingly booed during the game in Democrat-heavy Washington. 

    Ari Fleischer, a former a spokesman for President Bush, said he was never asked who paid for Bush’s trips to games. 

    “The RNC pays for whatever portion of a trip is political,” he said. 

     

  15. 22 minutes ago, JimmyJames said:

    Nope. He’s headed to a Russian embassy.

    Wherever he goes, it ain't NYC:

     

    https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/31/us/politics/trump-new-york-florida-primary-residence.html

     

    Quote

    He came of age in Queens, built Trump Tower, starred in “The Apprentice,” bankrupted his businesses six times, and drew cheering crowds and angry protesters to Fifth Avenue after his election. Through it all, President Trump — rich, bombastic and to many Americans the epitome of a New Yorker — was intertwined with the city he called his lifelong home.

    No longer.

     

    Quote

    In late September, Mr. Trump changed his primary residence from Manhattan to Palm Beach, Fla., according to documents filed with the Palm Beach County Circuit Court. Melania Trump, the first lady, also changed her residence to Palm Beach in an identical document.

    Each of the Trumps filed a “declaration of domicile” saying that the Mar-a-Lago Club, Mr. Trump’s resort in Palm Beach, will be their permanent residence.

     

    Quote

    “If I maintain another place or places of abode in some other state or states, I hereby declare that my above-described residence and abode in the State of Florida constitutes my predominant and principal home, and I intend to continue it permanently as such,” reads the document that Mr. Trump filed.

    “I formerly resided at 721 Fifth Avenue,” the document says, referring to Trump Tower, which has been his primary residence since he moved into the skyscraper off 57th Street in Midtown Manhattan in 1983.

     

    Quote

    An attachment lists his “other places of abode” as 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, the address for the White House, and his private golf club in Bedminster, N.J., where he spends warm-weather weekends and a few weeks every summer.

     

     

  16. 28 minutes ago, UpperWestside said:

    SIAP, but David Roth, probably the writer who continues to describe Dotard the most accurately, posted this. Definitely well worth reading and he nailed it. Deadspin had so many great writers and this guy is probably the best. His first sentence is so damn funny.

    https://deadspin.com/its-absolutely-fine-that-donald-trump-got-booed-at-the-1839425624

     

    Fixd.

     

    https://www.cnn.com/2019/10/30/media/deadspin-staffers-quit/index.html

     

    Quote

    At least seven Deadspin staffers quit on Wednesday in response to recent mandates related to editorial policy from the site's parent company G/O Media.

    Employees announced their decisions to quit on Twitter. Among the departures are Kelsey McKinney, Laura Wagner, Tom Ley, Lauren Theisen, Patrick Redford, Chris Thompson and Albert Burneko. These resignations follow the firing of Barry Petchesky, who was serving as interim editor-in-chief.

     

  17. 47 minutes ago, High Plains Drifter said:

    Over/under on how long before some tard starts yelling about free speech?

    Or before some campaign files a lawsuit seeking an injunction against the policy.

     

    Edit.  Loophole.  The President just tweets whatever imagery his campaign wishes to provide him.  It's not a paid political account, but it might as well be one at that point.

     

     

     

  18. 16 minutes ago, Aqua Buddha said:

    Yes, because that's the real crisis facing America right now.

    Well, you see....I can't put a finger on it exactly, but the sports that generate revenue and have more recognizable athletes have a fair amount of students of a race that's "non-white".

     

    I really hate being cynical as fuck, but damn, what other motivation would Richard Burr have over this?

  19. https://www.wusa9.com/article/sports/mlb/nationals-owner-didnt-want-to-respond-to-request-to-sit-with-trump/65-3df9f284-1de7-414e-84a2-ac277f14e0e8

     

    Quote

    WUSA9 has learned that the family who owns the Washington Nationals, the Lerners, asked Major League Baseball that they not be put in a position to respond to any requests that President Trump sit with them during Game 5 of the World Series at Nationals Park in Washington, DC.

    Mired in Congressional gridlock, polarized by partisan politics, Washington has served as a window into a divided America for much of the past decade. But along came these Washington Nationals late this summer, galvanizing red and blue, winning the wildcard, knocking off the Los Angeles Dodgers and then the St. Louis Cardinals in the National League Championship Series. 

     

     

    Quote

    A representative of the Lerner family, the principal owners of the Nationals, had a special request of the MLB last week: that they had no desire to be put in a position of turning down a request from the White House for President Trump to sit with Theodore Lerner, 94, the family patriarch, or any other member of the ownership group, a person familiar with the family's thinking told WUSA9 on condition of anonymity.

    That person made it clear that at no time was a direct request made that the President not be seated next to the Lerner family, but it was made clear that the family did not want to be put in the awkward position of having to respond to a request. 

     

     

    Quote

    Trump instead sat in a suite in Section 119. The idea to attend the game was Trump's, according to a team official.

     

     

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