“Football legend-turned-activist Herschel Walker is calling for CNN to fire Don Lemon after the “CNN Tonight” host laughed when rapper Kanye West was referred to as “the token negro of the Trump administration” during a segment that aired Tuesday night.
The segment — which has been slammed as “racist” — began with Lemon asking if President Donald Trump is simply “using Kanye as a prop to win over black voters before the midterms.”
CNN political commentator Bakari Sellers responded with a jab at West.
“Anti-intellectualism simply isn’t cool,” Sellers said. “Kanye West is what happens when Negros don’t read.”
Sellers’ remark prompted laughter from Lemon and fellow panelist Tara Setmayer, who followed up by saying West is “the token negro of the Trump administration.”
Walker, who has openly supported Trump, is also an outspoken advocate for mental health issues – which were also mocked during the segment. Walker took to Twitter to express his disbelief.
“Went to bed appalled over Don Lemon’s despicable behavior laughing at Tara Setmayer and Bakari Sellers’ awful remarks about Kanye West’s visit with [Trump]! Woke up wondering why CNN doesn’t take all three off the air?” Walker tweeted, adding the hashtag “#Shameful.”
“As Twitchy reported earlier, celebrity lawyer and 2020 hopeful Michael Avenatti perhaps gave Beto O’Rourke’s candidacy the kiss of death when he came out an endorsed him on Twitter, saying he’d make “an exceptional senator for Texas.”
But Avenatti wasn’t through: later he tweeted a link asking people to chip in to O’Rourke’s campaign to help send “Lyin’ Ted Cruz” back to Canada.
__________________
Lyin’ Ted Cruz is attacking me because I am supporting Beto. Help us send the liar back home to Canada (sorry Canada) – chip in for Beto now.https://t.co/TPICbyHqMq
— Michael Avenatti (@MichaelAvenatti) October 11, 2018
__________________
One thing Avenatti doesn’t mention is his tweet that can be found in the fine print at the link: “NOTE: Your contribution will be divided evenly between Beto O’Rourke and The Fight PAC.”
As Twitchy reported, the Fight PAC “was founded in the fall of 2018 by Democrat, Attorney, and Fighter for Good Michael Avenatti, who represents Davids vs. Goliaths and has for nearly 20 years.” In other words, he set it up himself, for himself.
So, Democrats could donate directly to O’Rourke’s campaign, or go with Avenatti and have his PAC take half off the top.”
“Vladimir Putin was getting ahead of himself when he declared, at the infamous Helsinki press conference in July with President Donald Trump, that charges brought by special counsel Robert Mueller’s team against Concord Management and Consulting “just fell apart in a U.S. court.” The Russian company is accused of running a campaign of social-media trolling to meddle in the 2016 U.S. election with bogus tweets and phony Facebook posts.
Concord hired a first-rate legal team to defend itself in D.C. district court. As a company rather than an individual, Concord can contest the charges without any of its Russian personnel showing up in the courtroom. Much of the summer was spent in procedural wrangling over discovery and other legal niceties. If Putin thinks that merely getting to challenge charges in open court means those charges are crumbling, his perspective may be skewed by the habits of his own country’s justice system. The Russian president isn’t exactly famous for being a rule-of-law kind of guy. Still, that doesn’t mean he’s wrong when he says it’s important to “look at what happens in the American courts. This is what you should base your view on, not on rumors.”
The next thing scheduled to happen in an American court with Concord Management is a hearing slated for October 15. Concord’s lawyers have filed a motion to have the charges dropped on the grounds that “the Special Counsel found a set of alleged facts for which there is no crime. Instead of conceding that truth, however, the Special Counsel attempts to create a make-believe crime that is in fact no crime at all.”
This isn’t just the standard sort of criminal-mouthpiece motion, ticking off boxes in hopes of a longshot dismissal. It’s significant enough that, after an initial hearing in which the special counsel was represented by U.S. attorney Jeannie Rhee, Mueller sent in his big guns. At a June 15 status hearing, Mueller’s side was argued by one of the government’s top appellate lawyers, deputy solicitor general Michael Dreeben. Concord’s D.C. lawyer Eric Dubelier took note: “Well, I guess if anyone thought for a second there wasn’t anything unusual about this case,” he cracked, “it’s the first time in my career that I’ve seen the deputy solicitor general of the United States down here with us common folk in district court.”
Why does Mueller need an appellate heavyweight—someone usually brought in after a trial—for the preliminary sparring? Perhaps it is because the legal theory of the case is a bit tendentious.”
“Remember, back in August, 2016, when Peter Strzok and Lisa Page were obsessively texting one another? One exchange went something like, well, exactly like this:
“[Trump’s] not ever going to become president, right? Right?!” Page texted Strzok.
“No. No he won’t. We’ll stop it,” Strzok responded.
Fast forward a couple of years and here we are in October, 2018, just about two years after Trump’s electoral triumph, and for reasons best known to themselves Ben Rhodes and Jen Psaki have decided to reveal to New York Magazine that the Russia Hoax was a key part of the Obama Administration’s — and presumably the Clinton campaign’s — contingency plan to, well, steal an election: Obama Had a Secret Plan in Case Trump Rejected 2016 Election Results. We’re all adults — right? — so there’s no need to quibble over the meaning of words like “results.” Here’s what Rhodes and Psaki are saying:
The Obama White House plan, according to interviews with Rhodes and Jen Psaki, Obama’s communications director, called for congressional Republicans, former presidents, and former Cabinet-level officials including Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice, to try and forestall a political crisis by validating the election result. In the event that Trump tried to dispute a Clinton victory, they would affirm the result as well as the conclusions reached by the U.S. intelligence community that Russian interference in the election sought to favor Trump, and not Clinton. Some Republicans were already aware of Russian interference from intelligence briefings given to leaders from both parties during the chaotic months before the election. “We wanted to handle the Russia information in a way that was as bipartisan as possible,” Rhodes said.
The existence of the postelection plan has not been previously reported. A July 2017 op-ed by Obama’s chief of staff, Denis McDonough, refers to Obama directing his staff to “prepare possible responses” to claims of Russian interference in the election.”
———————
“They feared a squeaker, a cliff hanger. Or, two years on, that’s their story. So let’s try a thought experiment of sorts. By dispensing with some of the coded language or doublespeak we come up with this more succinct version of what Rhodes and Psaki are saying:
The Obama plan called for prominent NeverTrump Republicans to try and forestall a Trump victory or — God forbid! — a Trump inauguration by throwing the election to Clinton based on claims — and, no, I swear I’m not plagiarizing The Onion — that Russia had interfered on behalf of Trump. This Russia Hoax narrative had already been floated among some NeverTrump Republicans, and they liked this “bipartisan” approach — they would provide the cover needed for a coup. Planning had already gotten so far that Obama had directed his staff to develop an action plan for the event of a Hillary loss — the rejection of continued Progressive rule would be “historically unprecedented (in their minds) and thus invalid.
As we know so well, in the event, Trump spoiled it all by posting an electoral landslide. The plotters had failed, in Strzok’s words, to “stop it.” Or had they? After all, an election is one thing, but the inauguration of a new president doesn’t take place for two and a half months afterwards. Time enough to throw a whole smorgasbord of crackpot theories at Trump, and see whether any of it would stick! But the key to it all, right from the start, was the Russia Hoax:”
———————–
“It turns out that John Podesta didn’t just pull the Russia Hoax out of thin air right after the election. It was a key part of a contingency plan that was already in place. When Podesta spoke, he was in effect saying: “Alright, it’s time to implement the contingency plan, with some modification because Hillary lost.”
And finally, we know what Peter Strzok meant when he texted his paramour Lisa Page on August 16, 2016, about an “insurance policy ” in case Trump got elected:”
—————————
Here is the actual clip from CNN. It is very funny, especially if you like Dave Chappelle. The one white guy on the panel did a very good job of keeping his poise.
WATCH:
Don Lemon laughs while guest Bakari Sellers says Kanye West "is what happens when negros don’t read"
Later on CNN contributor Tara Setmayer calls Kanye a "token negro of the Trump administration” pic.twitter.com/9UOMqsjk0p
Pure gold from the heart of the matter regarding conservatism at National Review :
Convenience and comfort can’t hold us together forever.
It is not unusual to hear of a feuding middle-aged couple that has struck a quiet accord between themselves to stay together and keep their differences relatively private until their children reach a certain age. It is even possible, in a limited way, to admire such a couple. If the relationship has so deteriorated that the plausible options are a rancorous divorce and tearing children between homes and families or a tense peace secured through a relational form of mutually assured destruction, you might argue that the latter is the superior option.
This seems to me the most charitable way of reading Jay Cost’s recent article about the future health of the United States: Our union is fragile and marked by conflict, but ultimately we can work toward a détente due to fear of the alternative — an economic form of mutually assured destruction. In a limited way, it’s possible that Cost is right. The society in Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World is held together not by any sort of patriotic affection between citizens but simply by a fear of losing the material comforts offered by modern society. Comfort, which is ultimately what Cost’s argument cashes out to, may well be sufficient grounds to hold our fragile republic together for a time.
But let’s return to our unhappy couple for a moment. No one, I think, would argue that their relationship is healthy. While the couple may have arrived at a solution that minimizes the damage their broken relationship will do to their children, no one would suggest that the couple are living up to their wedding vows, that their relationship is a healthy picture of “my life for yours,” or that their children will benefit from growing up in such a home. Nor, I hope, would anyone suggest that living in a permanent state of unhealth is wise, sustainable, or good. And this is the problem with Cost’s column.
Material comfort, which is provided by a market economy that serves as the only true place of shared life in our republic, might be enough to preserve a polity for a time, but it is not sufficient to shape citizens capable of maintaining that economic order. Indeed, if we wish to quote Founding Fathers to support our arguments, we would do well to consider the words of John Adams, who, writing to the Massachusetts militia in 1798, remarked that our nation’s Constitution presupposes a “moral and religious” population. “It is wholly inadequate [to govern] any other,” the nation’s second president said.
It is not sufficient, then, to simply find something that both of the feuding parties dislike — poverty, in this case — and hope that their shared fear will bind them together in a lasting union. Ultimately all human communities, whether they are a family, a neighborhood, or a nation, will long to order their life together according to truth.
The Left, to its credit, is beginning to understand this. Their vision of America, deficient and dangerous though it is, is united around common objects of love. They want an inclusive society that recognizes and protects the right of every individual to narrate his own meaning, to “define one’s own concept of existence.” They believe that this vision of life is true, and they work toward its accomplishment.
Cost’s article, viewed through this lens, is an ineffective, timid response. And this is a pity. Conservatism at its best is concerned with conserving all that is good and beautiful, with recognizing the beauty inherent in the givenness of the world and wishing to protect it from those that would crush it. But this attempt to live according to truth (to borrow from Harvard Law professor Adrian Vermeule) has fewer and fewer adherents amongst today’s conservatives. The vision of political life put forward by many on the American right seems largely indifferent to these great human questions and may well bottom out into a virtue-free nihilism in which there is no possibility of a common life organized around truth.
Comments
Certainly, it’s possible that life together in today’s America cannot be sustained on the basis of anything beyond the lowest common denominator. If that is the case, then perhaps you can argue that Cost’s argument is simply the political version of the couple that has agreed to tolerate each other until the kids are older. But a single household, unlike a nation, has a fixed lifespan. It will be dissolved at one point or another. Nations, in contrast, can be sustained if they live under a story that is true and if they can rally their citizenry around that story. The Left is trying to do that. They are telling a bad story, but it is a story that resonates with many. The Right, with some notable exceptions, seems to have given up all attempts at cultural storytelling.
Ultimately, human beings aspire to truth. “You have made us for yourself,” Augustine prays in his Confessions, “and our hearts are restless till they rest in you.” We long to order our lives, including our political lives, to truth. The Right can choose to acknowledge this, or they can choose to ignore it. But if they do the latter, they won’t just be losing the narrative battle to the Left; they’ll be fighting against human nature — an odd posture, indeed, for a movement that aspires to be conservative.
Texas doesn’t fit with either the liberal West Coast or New England or the Trumpkin Rust Belt.
An economic calamity is coming. It will drive us apart or pull us together. A wise leader like Sasse might be able to remind us of “our bonds of affection”. If the calamity comes under Trump, we may dissolve into as many pieces as did the old Soviet Union.
Speaking of Sasse and division, he identifies the true split in the country:
“2016 was the 10th consecutive yr when 40% of American children were born outside of marriage. America has two almost entirely different cultures: Under 10% of births to college-educated women are outside of marriage, compared to 70% of births to women with H.S. diplomas or less” https://t.co/YAy2DrmoqI
The lines are clearly drawn already Ricky. They’re called borders–internal and external. If we are unable to respect external borders, we will not respect internal ones. Neither Sasse nor any other Never Trumper seems likely to be convincing on “bonds of affection”. ” Bonds of affection” will not be generated or re-generated without a degree of loyalty and concern—not spite, hostility, belittling, namecalling…..
I wonder if the reason only “under 10% of births to college-educated women are outside of marriage” is because those women are more likely to have abortions. (I don’t know that this is necessarily so, but am wondering if that might be the case, or at least part of it.)
I am not a fan of our Senator Blumenthal at all, but President Trump has been greatly exaggerating (lying) about what Blumenthal has said about his military experience during the Vietnam War.
AJ – The Snopes article pretty much agrees with the NBC article. Yes, Blumenthal lied when he said things that made it seem that he had been fighting in Vietnam, but he didn’t claim some of the things Trump says he did.
Among other things the president has said,
“. . . the president falsely claimed Blumenthal “went around telling war stories,” claimed he “fought in Da Nang Province” and talked of “soldiers dying left and right as we battled up the hill.” Blumenthal never said any of those things.”
The Snopes article does not mention Blumenthal saying those things, either.
“Glenn Simpson Invokes Fifth Amendment Right Not To Testify Before House Judiciary Committee”
“Attorneys representing Glenn Simpson sent a letter to House Judiciary Chairman Bob Goodlatte saying their client plans to invoke his Fifth Amendment right not to participate in a confidential deposition and asking that he be excused from the scheduled meeting next week.”
———————–
“Simpson is the former journalist who founded Fusion GPS, the company that was hired by the DNC and the Clinton campaign to dig up dirt on Donald Trump. Fusion hired former British spy Christopher Steele and then did its best to get his allegations into the mainstream before Election Day 2016. Most reporters didn’t bite on the so-called dossier but Mother Jones magazine did and published a story containing quotes from Steele, albeit without naming him. Meanwhile, Steele was also talking to his contacts at the FBI and encouraging them to investigate the dossier. One of Fusion GPS’ employees working on the Trump investigation was Nellie Ohr, wife of Justice Department Official Bruce Ohr.
So Simpson’s approach is that this isn’t a real investigation, which is more than a bit ironic given that he’s the person behind the Steele dossier which takes the form of an investigation but is full of uncorroborated accusations which were eventually published by Buzzfeed not on the grounds that they were reliable but on the grounds that Trump had been briefed on them.
GOP Rep. Mark Meadows told the Hill, “It is very telling when Glenn Simpson has talked to multiple reporters and multiple individuals at the Department of Justice over the last two years. When the day of reckoning is on the horizon, he chooses to lose his voice.”
———————–
“Either Donald Trump got his deal, or this is a remarkable coincidence. After two years of imprisonment over charges of abetting terrorism — and at the center of an international battle between two supposed allies — a court in Turkey convicted Pastor Andrew Brunson on the charges. And then they let him go:
A Turkish court effectively freed American pastor Andrew Brunson on Friday after he spent nearly two years in jail and more time under house arrest on charges related to terrorism and espionage. Brunson had become entangled in a diplomatic dispute between Turkey and the United States and American officials had hoped that the fourth hearing in Turkey’s case against him would result in his release.
The court in the city of Aliaga found Brunson guilty and sentenced him to three years in prison, but released him on time served, based on a prosecutor’s recommendation. That move will allow him to leave the country.
Turkey’s government had faced threats of further U.S. sanctions over its treatment of the pastor, who denies all charges against him, but President Recep Tayyip Erdogan had insisted that the Turkish judicial system be allowed to proceed.”
“As Twitchy reported, CNN’s Don Lemon already did himself proud Thursday during “The Situation Room” by going on another racist rant against “token negro” Kanye West, calling his conversation with President Trump in the Oval Office a “minstrel show.”
“This has nothing to do with being liberal or a conservative,” he added. Yeah, right.
Apparently out of racist things to say about West, Lemon decided to invoke West’s mother, who died in 2007, saying she was “rolling over in her grave” today.”
It is especially horrible, as it was a known fact, that Kanye suffered, greatly, over the sudden, unexpected loss of his mother. It was quite public. Lemon knows no base.
The Senate has confirmed President Trump’s judicial nominees at a historic pace – 84 total, including Brett Kavanaugh and Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court, 29 circuit judges, and 53 district court judges.
Some Never Trumpers are now on board for 2020. Others are leaving the Republican Party for good. One way or the other, it’s all about you know who.”
“Resistance is futile. Long on life-support, the Never Trump “resistance” movement within the Republican Party was finished off by the Brett Kavanaugh confirmation fight.
Consider the dichotomy that has emerged in the last week: We saw people like Erick Erickson, who once wrote a piece headlined “I Will Not Vote For Donald Trump. Ever,” suggesting they will vote for Trump in 2020, and people like Tom Nichols, formerly of The Federalist, saying Kavanaugh’s confirmation was the final straw (he quit the GOP).
Nichols and Erickson reacted to the exact same news in exactly opposite ways.
The Kavanaugh hearing essentially radicalized Never Trumpers. Some—as part of the GOP base’s backlash against the left’s attacks—are coming home and supporting Trump. Others—perhaps because their hatred of Trump has only intensified—were pushed completely from the fold. This process has been going on for a long time, but one gets the sense that the fight over Kavanaugh was the end of the road.”
———
““It turns out that shared dislike for Donald Trump does not a political cause make.””
————
So how could West’s incoherent babbling at 8:08 be labeled “liberal or conservative”? Same question for Trump’s verbal diarrhea @ 8:11. They are Dueling Imbeciles.
And why would they talk to him? It’s not like he’d listen.
He’s beyond that at this point. The TDS is too advanced. It’s all collapsing for him now, the Russia fraud is collapsing, Kavanaugh’s been approved along with dozens of others, R poll numbers are up everywhere, along with job gains, finally standing up to China and the left, half his NT gang has joined The Cult now, and all the other good news. This is worst case scenario for him, so he lashes out at minutiae, because the big picture is not to his liking.
But at least there’ll only be 6 more years of this. 🙂
True. I will not listen to incoherent babbling. What is most humorous about The Cult is that it will not only listen to the babbling, but aggressively defend the babbling and the babbler at every turn.
John MacArthur would note the Charasmatic analogy instantly.
And yet Trump is well on his way to proving them wrong. Manufacturing in the US still has a long way to go, but this is a good start to making a comeback.
“The U.S. government reported that the manufacturing sector added 37,000 jobs during July, pushing the industry to the best annual job gain in more than 20 years.
Over the past year through July, U.S. manufacturing added 327,000 jobs, the most of any 12-month period since April 1995.
The sector received a boost from President Donald Trump’s corporate tax cut and a lift in overall economic activity.
“With 157,000 jobs created in July, including 37,000 in manufacturing, this report shows tax reform and regulatory relief are continuing to deliver for America’s manufacturing workers,” Carolyn Lee, executive director of the National Association of Manufacturers’ Manufacturing Institute, said in an emailed statement.
“Congress and the administration have taken important steps in recent weeks to tackle this challenge, but this jobs report is a reminder that more work needs to be done through partnerships with the private sector to solve the workforce crisis facing manufacturing in the United States,” she added.
Indeed, economic data shows that U.S. manufacturers are producing near record levels.
Last year, U.S. manufacturers produced about $6 trillion in gross output, according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis. The biggest categories were food, beverages and tobacco products ($1 trillion), chemical products ($837 billion) and motor vehicles and parts ($701 billion).”
I’m not sure what response from me you were looking for. I think NBC wants to soft pedal Blumenthal’s misdeeds and make a bigger deal out of what Trump said. As Snopes indictaed, he’s clearly lied and mislead. And it’s happened more often that what NBC and Snopes allege or care to report. While Trump clearly exaggerates when he’s ribbing Blumenthal, I don’t find that nearly as offensive as Blumenthal’s cowardly attempt at “stolen valor.” I hold him in the utmost contempt.
AJ – My aim was merely to point out that what Trump has been saying is an exaggeration and embellishment of what Blumenthal has actually said. I wouldn’t want people to judge Blumenthal on misinformation. Yes, judge him for what he actually said, but not for the what has been said he said.
Did you happen to read the two articles I shared several days ago about the 9th commandment? They were pretty challenging. One of the things pointed out is that the Bible teaches that our reputations are of great importance, and that is one of the reasons why bearing false witness is particularly egregious to God.
Even before I read those articles, I have found that many of my comments, especially on Facebook, are defending people – even those I disagree with – against false accusations, and it often gets me in trouble. It is sad that people often automatically assume that pointing out that a hated politician or public figure didn’t say or do what a Facebook meme says they did means I support that hated person. (And, BTW, I have also defended President Trump at times, too, against false stories.)
@7:56 I strongly urge you to read the book, Ricky. If it has any good ideas you should commit them to memory and begin to practice them. Immediately. ;–)
If you will elect him as President, I will read the book. As long as people are going to defend stuff like 8:08 and 8:11, we might as well just laugh along with Setmayer, Sellers and the white guy who is named Scott something or other.
Debra, My wife and I were discussing your point at 10:02 on the drive between Thai Chili and Chick-Fil-A (for ice cream) tonight. Twenty years ago we would have agreed with you that international borders were a firmer line than the cultural line Sasse defined @ 9:40.
However, both of us learned better as we spent years teaching young people on both sides of Sasse’s line in Sunday School. Modern young people will date and even marry someone of a different race or nationality whom they met at college. College-bound young people will not date and would never marry someone not headed for college.
I questioned and pushed hard against their views, since this class stratification was unknown in most of Texas in the 60s and 70s. However, in 21st Century Texas that cultural line is as hard as the black/white line was in Mississippi in the 50s.
Wandering Views 
We got a runner!
Can’t have folks escapin’ the plantation, now can we Boss?
https://www.foxnews.com/entertainment/herschel-walker-calls-for-cnn-to-fire-don-lemon-over-racist-kanye-west-criticism
“Football legend-turned-activist Herschel Walker is calling for CNN to fire Don Lemon after the “CNN Tonight” host laughed when rapper Kanye West was referred to as “the token negro of the Trump administration” during a segment that aired Tuesday night.
The segment — which has been slammed as “racist” — began with Lemon asking if President Donald Trump is simply “using Kanye as a prop to win over black voters before the midterms.”
CNN political commentator Bakari Sellers responded with a jab at West.
“Anti-intellectualism simply isn’t cool,” Sellers said. “Kanye West is what happens when Negros don’t read.”
Sellers’ remark prompted laughter from Lemon and fellow panelist Tara Setmayer, who followed up by saying West is “the token negro of the Trump administration.”
Walker, who has openly supported Trump, is also an outspoken advocate for mental health issues – which were also mocked during the segment. Walker took to Twitter to express his disbelief.
“Went to bed appalled over Don Lemon’s despicable behavior laughing at Tara Setmayer and Bakari Sellers’ awful remarks about Kanye West’s visit with [Trump]! Woke up wondering why CNN doesn’t take all three off the air?” Walker tweeted, adding the hashtag “#Shameful.”
——————————-
LikeLiked by 2 people
Always read the fine print when dealing with creepy porn lawyers.
https://twitchy.com/brettt-3136/2018/10/11/celebrity-lawyer-michael-avenatti-doesnt-mention-in-his-beto-fundraising-tweet-that-his-pac-gets-half/
“As Twitchy reported earlier, celebrity lawyer and 2020 hopeful Michael Avenatti perhaps gave Beto O’Rourke’s candidacy the kiss of death when he came out an endorsed him on Twitter, saying he’d make “an exceptional senator for Texas.”
But Avenatti wasn’t through: later he tweeted a link asking people to chip in to O’Rourke’s campaign to help send “Lyin’ Ted Cruz” back to Canada.
__________________
Lyin’ Ted Cruz is attacking me because I am supporting Beto. Help us send the liar back home to Canada (sorry Canada) – chip in for Beto now.https://t.co/TPICbyHqMq
— Michael Avenatti (@MichaelAvenatti) October 11, 2018
__________________
One thing Avenatti doesn’t mention is his tweet that can be found in the fine print at the link: “NOTE: Your contribution will be divided evenly between Beto O’Rourke and The Fight PAC.”
As Twitchy reported, the Fight PAC “was founded in the fall of 2018 by Democrat, Attorney, and Fighter for Good Michael Avenatti, who represents Davids vs. Goliaths and has for nearly 20 years.” In other words, he set it up himself, for himself.
So, Democrats could donate directly to O’Rourke’s campaign, or go with Avenatti and have his PAC take half off the top.”
LikeLike
A conspiracy so vast….
And yet where’s the crime?
https://www.weeklystandard.com/eric-felten/a-conspiracy-so-vast
“Vladimir Putin was getting ahead of himself when he declared, at the infamous Helsinki press conference in July with President Donald Trump, that charges brought by special counsel Robert Mueller’s team against Concord Management and Consulting “just fell apart in a U.S. court.” The Russian company is accused of running a campaign of social-media trolling to meddle in the 2016 U.S. election with bogus tweets and phony Facebook posts.
Concord hired a first-rate legal team to defend itself in D.C. district court. As a company rather than an individual, Concord can contest the charges without any of its Russian personnel showing up in the courtroom. Much of the summer was spent in procedural wrangling over discovery and other legal niceties. If Putin thinks that merely getting to challenge charges in open court means those charges are crumbling, his perspective may be skewed by the habits of his own country’s justice system. The Russian president isn’t exactly famous for being a rule-of-law kind of guy. Still, that doesn’t mean he’s wrong when he says it’s important to “look at what happens in the American courts. This is what you should base your view on, not on rumors.”
The next thing scheduled to happen in an American court with Concord Management is a hearing slated for October 15. Concord’s lawyers have filed a motion to have the charges dropped on the grounds that “the Special Counsel found a set of alleged facts for which there is no crime. Instead of conceding that truth, however, the Special Counsel attempts to create a make-believe crime that is in fact no crime at all.”
This isn’t just the standard sort of criminal-mouthpiece motion, ticking off boxes in hopes of a longshot dismissal. It’s significant enough that, after an initial hearing in which the special counsel was represented by U.S. attorney Jeannie Rhee, Mueller sent in his big guns. At a June 15 status hearing, Mueller’s side was argued by one of the government’s top appellate lawyers, deputy solicitor general Michael Dreeben. Concord’s D.C. lawyer Eric Dubelier took note: “Well, I guess if anyone thought for a second there wasn’t anything unusual about this case,” he cracked, “it’s the first time in my career that I’ve seen the deputy solicitor general of the United States down here with us common folk in district court.”
Why does Mueller need an appellate heavyweight—someone usually brought in after a trial—for the preliminary sparring? Perhaps it is because the legal theory of the case is a bit tendentious.”
LikeLike
Dirty little co-conspirators, traitors, if you will…..
https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2018/10/the_russia_hoax_as_contingency_plan.html
“Remember, back in August, 2016, when Peter Strzok and Lisa Page were obsessively texting one another? One exchange went something like, well, exactly like this:
“[Trump’s] not ever going to become president, right? Right?!” Page texted Strzok.
“No. No he won’t. We’ll stop it,” Strzok responded.
Fast forward a couple of years and here we are in October, 2018, just about two years after Trump’s electoral triumph, and for reasons best known to themselves Ben Rhodes and Jen Psaki have decided to reveal to New York Magazine that the Russia Hoax was a key part of the Obama Administration’s — and presumably the Clinton campaign’s — contingency plan to, well, steal an election: Obama Had a Secret Plan in Case Trump Rejected 2016 Election Results. We’re all adults — right? — so there’s no need to quibble over the meaning of words like “results.” Here’s what Rhodes and Psaki are saying:
The Obama White House plan, according to interviews with Rhodes and Jen Psaki, Obama’s communications director, called for congressional Republicans, former presidents, and former Cabinet-level officials including Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice, to try and forestall a political crisis by validating the election result. In the event that Trump tried to dispute a Clinton victory, they would affirm the result as well as the conclusions reached by the U.S. intelligence community that Russian interference in the election sought to favor Trump, and not Clinton. Some Republicans were already aware of Russian interference from intelligence briefings given to leaders from both parties during the chaotic months before the election. “We wanted to handle the Russia information in a way that was as bipartisan as possible,” Rhodes said.
The existence of the postelection plan has not been previously reported. A July 2017 op-ed by Obama’s chief of staff, Denis McDonough, refers to Obama directing his staff to “prepare possible responses” to claims of Russian interference in the election.”
———————
“They feared a squeaker, a cliff hanger. Or, two years on, that’s their story. So let’s try a thought experiment of sorts. By dispensing with some of the coded language or doublespeak we come up with this more succinct version of what Rhodes and Psaki are saying:
The Obama plan called for prominent NeverTrump Republicans to try and forestall a Trump victory or — God forbid! — a Trump inauguration by throwing the election to Clinton based on claims — and, no, I swear I’m not plagiarizing The Onion — that Russia had interfered on behalf of Trump. This Russia Hoax narrative had already been floated among some NeverTrump Republicans, and they liked this “bipartisan” approach — they would provide the cover needed for a coup. Planning had already gotten so far that Obama had directed his staff to develop an action plan for the event of a Hillary loss — the rejection of continued Progressive rule would be “historically unprecedented (in their minds) and thus invalid.
As we know so well, in the event, Trump spoiled it all by posting an electoral landslide. The plotters had failed, in Strzok’s words, to “stop it.” Or had they? After all, an election is one thing, but the inauguration of a new president doesn’t take place for two and a half months afterwards. Time enough to throw a whole smorgasbord of crackpot theories at Trump, and see whether any of it would stick! But the key to it all, right from the start, was the Russia Hoax:”
———————–
More….
https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2018/10/now_we_known_what_strzok_meant_in_that_insurance_policy_text_to_page.html
“It turns out that John Podesta didn’t just pull the Russia Hoax out of thin air right after the election. It was a key part of a contingency plan that was already in place. When Podesta spoke, he was in effect saying: “Alright, it’s time to implement the contingency plan, with some modification because Hillary lost.”
And finally, we know what Peter Strzok meant when he texted his paramour Lisa Page on August 16, 2016, about an “insurance policy ” in case Trump got elected:”
—————————
He lied under oath.
LikeLiked by 1 person
He didn’t escape from a plantation. He escaped from an insane asylum:
http://time.com/5422270/kanye-west-trump-speech/
LikeLike
Speaking of ridiculous monologues in the White House, this is also pretty funny.
Go back and rewatch Idiocracy. Compared to Trump and West, President Camacho and his cabinet were rational and coherent.
LikeLike
Here is the actual clip from CNN. It is very funny, especially if you like Dave Chappelle. The one white guy on the panel did a very good job of keeping his poise.
LikeLike
Pure gold from the heart of the matter regarding conservatism at National Review :
LikeLike
Sorry, forgot the link.
https://www.nationalreview.com/2018/10/a-unified-nation-must-rest-on-something-real/
LikeLike
So Debra, Where do we draw the lines?
Texas doesn’t fit with either the liberal West Coast or New England or the Trumpkin Rust Belt.
An economic calamity is coming. It will drive us apart or pull us together. A wise leader like Sasse might be able to remind us of “our bonds of affection”. If the calamity comes under Trump, we may dissolve into as many pieces as did the old Soviet Union.
LikeLike
Speaking of Sasse and division, he identifies the true split in the country:
LikeLike
The lines are clearly drawn already Ricky. They’re called borders–internal and external. If we are unable to respect external borders, we will not respect internal ones. Neither Sasse nor any other Never Trumper seems likely to be convincing on “bonds of affection”. ” Bonds of affection” will not be generated or re-generated without a degree of loyalty and concern—not spite, hostility, belittling, namecalling…..
LikeLiked by 1 person
I wonder if the reason only “under 10% of births to college-educated women are outside of marriage” is because those women are more likely to have abortions. (I don’t know that this is necessarily so, but am wondering if that might be the case, or at least part of it.)
LikeLiked by 1 person
I am not a fan of our Senator Blumenthal at all, but President Trump has been greatly exaggerating (lying) about what Blumenthal has said about his military experience during the Vietnam War.
https://www.nbcconnecticut.com/news/politics/Fact-Check-Trumps-Escalating-Exaggerations-on-Blumenthal-496011471.html?_osource=newsletter_news_WVIT
LikeLiked by 1 person
Kizzie,
Snopes disagrees with NBC’s water carrying for Blumenthal.
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/richard-blumenthal-vietnam/
LikeLike
AJ – The Snopes article pretty much agrees with the NBC article. Yes, Blumenthal lied when he said things that made it seem that he had been fighting in Vietnam, but he didn’t claim some of the things Trump says he did.
Among other things the president has said,
“. . . the president falsely claimed Blumenthal “went around telling war stories,” claimed he “fought in Da Nang Province” and talked of “soldiers dying left and right as we battled up the hill.” Blumenthal never said any of those things.”
The Snopes article does not mention Blumenthal saying those things, either.
LikeLike
Oh look, another liar pleads the 5th.
So much for the Russia, Russia, Russia, lie.
https://hotair.com/archives/2018/10/11/glenn-simpson-invokes-right-not-testify-house-judiciary-committee/
“Glenn Simpson Invokes Fifth Amendment Right Not To Testify Before House Judiciary Committee”
“Attorneys representing Glenn Simpson sent a letter to House Judiciary Chairman Bob Goodlatte saying their client plans to invoke his Fifth Amendment right not to participate in a confidential deposition and asking that he be excused from the scheduled meeting next week.”
———————–
“Simpson is the former journalist who founded Fusion GPS, the company that was hired by the DNC and the Clinton campaign to dig up dirt on Donald Trump. Fusion hired former British spy Christopher Steele and then did its best to get his allegations into the mainstream before Election Day 2016. Most reporters didn’t bite on the so-called dossier but Mother Jones magazine did and published a story containing quotes from Steele, albeit without naming him. Meanwhile, Steele was also talking to his contacts at the FBI and encouraging them to investigate the dossier. One of Fusion GPS’ employees working on the Trump investigation was Nellie Ohr, wife of Justice Department Official Bruce Ohr.
So Simpson’s approach is that this isn’t a real investigation, which is more than a bit ironic given that he’s the person behind the Steele dossier which takes the form of an investigation but is full of uncorroborated accusations which were eventually published by Buzzfeed not on the grounds that they were reliable but on the grounds that Trump had been briefed on them.
GOP Rep. Mark Meadows told the Hill, “It is very telling when Glenn Simpson has talked to multiple reporters and multiple individuals at the Department of Justice over the last two years. When the day of reckoning is on the horizon, he chooses to lose his voice.”
———————–
Because that’s what lying cowards do.
LikeLike
Either Trump got his deal, or this is a remarkable coincidence.
https://hotair.com/archives/2018/10/12/done-deal-turkey-court-springs-brunson-time-served/
“Either Donald Trump got his deal, or this is a remarkable coincidence. After two years of imprisonment over charges of abetting terrorism — and at the center of an international battle between two supposed allies — a court in Turkey convicted Pastor Andrew Brunson on the charges. And then they let him go:
A Turkish court effectively freed American pastor Andrew Brunson on Friday after he spent nearly two years in jail and more time under house arrest on charges related to terrorism and espionage. Brunson had become entangled in a diplomatic dispute between Turkey and the United States and American officials had hoped that the fourth hearing in Turkey’s case against him would result in his release.
The court in the city of Aliaga found Brunson guilty and sentenced him to three years in prison, but released him on time served, based on a prosecutor’s recommendation. That move will allow him to leave the country.
Turkey’s government had faced threats of further U.S. sanctions over its treatment of the pastor, who denies all charges against him, but President Recep Tayyip Erdogan had insisted that the Turkish judicial system be allowed to proceed.”
LikeLiked by 1 person
Good.
https://www.thedailybeast.com/teacher-who-claimed-stephen-miller-ate-glue-as-a-kid-has-been-suspended
LikeLike
Huh.
I don’t see what Ricky finds amusing.
https://twitchy.com/brettt-3136/2018/10/11/cnns-don-lemon-pounded-for-invoking-kanye-wests-dead-mother-rolling-over-in-her-grave/
“As Twitchy reported, CNN’s Don Lemon already did himself proud Thursday during “The Situation Room” by going on another racist rant against “token negro” Kanye West, calling his conversation with President Trump in the Oval Office a “minstrel show.”
“This has nothing to do with being liberal or a conservative,” he added. Yeah, right.
Apparently out of racist things to say about West, Lemon decided to invoke West’s mother, who died in 2007, saying she was “rolling over in her grave” today.”
LikeLike
Bam.
Winning.
———————
LikeLike
Bam.
Losing for some, winning for the rest of us. 🙂
https://www.thedailybeast.com/kavanaugh-killed-the-never-trump-movement
“Kavanaugh Killed the ‘Never Trump’ Movement
Some Never Trumpers are now on board for 2020. Others are leaving the Republican Party for good. One way or the other, it’s all about you know who.”
“Resistance is futile. Long on life-support, the Never Trump “resistance” movement within the Republican Party was finished off by the Brett Kavanaugh confirmation fight.
Consider the dichotomy that has emerged in the last week: We saw people like Erick Erickson, who once wrote a piece headlined “I Will Not Vote For Donald Trump. Ever,” suggesting they will vote for Trump in 2020, and people like Tom Nichols, formerly of The Federalist, saying Kavanaugh’s confirmation was the final straw (he quit the GOP).
Nichols and Erickson reacted to the exact same news in exactly opposite ways.
The Kavanaugh hearing essentially radicalized Never Trumpers. Some—as part of the GOP base’s backlash against the left’s attacks—are coming home and supporting Trump. Others—perhaps because their hatred of Trump has only intensified—were pushed completely from the fold. This process has been going on for a long time, but one gets the sense that the fight over Kavanaugh was the end of the road.”
———
““It turns out that shared dislike for Donald Trump does not a political cause make.””
————
LikeLike
So how could West’s incoherent babbling at 8:08 be labeled “liberal or conservative”? Same question for Trump’s verbal diarrhea @ 8:11. They are Dueling Imbeciles.
LikeLike
They’re not talking to you—Kanya is talking to the rap audience ( so he’s not really talking my language either). :–)
Debra
LikeLiked by 1 person
And why would they talk to him? It’s not like he’d listen.
He’s beyond that at this point. The TDS is too advanced. It’s all collapsing for him now, the Russia fraud is collapsing, Kavanaugh’s been approved along with dozens of others, R poll numbers are up everywhere, along with job gains, finally standing up to China and the left, half his NT gang has joined The Cult now, and all the other good news. This is worst case scenario for him, so he lashes out at minutiae, because the big picture is not to his liking.
But at least there’ll only be 6 more years of this. 🙂
Trump 2020!
LikeLike
True. I will not listen to incoherent babbling. What is most humorous about The Cult is that it will not only listen to the babbling, but aggressively defend the babbling and the babbler at every turn.
John MacArthur would note the Charasmatic analogy instantly.
LikeLike
AJ – Did you see my reply (at 10:44am) about the Snopes and NBC articles?
LikeLike
Not yet, but I will Kizzie.
LikeLiked by 1 person
The ads practically write themselves….
LikeLike
They (the globalists) said it couldn’t be done….
And yet Trump is well on his way to proving them wrong. Manufacturing in the US still has a long way to go, but this is a good start to making a comeback.
https://www.cnbc.com/2018/08/03/job-gains-for-the-manufacturing-industry-are-the-most-since-1995.html
“The U.S. government reported that the manufacturing sector added 37,000 jobs during July, pushing the industry to the best annual job gain in more than 20 years.
Over the past year through July, U.S. manufacturing added 327,000 jobs, the most of any 12-month period since April 1995.
The sector received a boost from President Donald Trump’s corporate tax cut and a lift in overall economic activity.
“With 157,000 jobs created in July, including 37,000 in manufacturing, this report shows tax reform and regulatory relief are continuing to deliver for America’s manufacturing workers,” Carolyn Lee, executive director of the National Association of Manufacturers’ Manufacturing Institute, said in an emailed statement.
“Congress and the administration have taken important steps in recent weeks to tackle this challenge, but this jobs report is a reminder that more work needs to be done through partnerships with the private sector to solve the workforce crisis facing manufacturing in the United States,” she added.
Indeed, economic data shows that U.S. manufacturers are producing near record levels.
Last year, U.S. manufacturers produced about $6 trillion in gross output, according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis. The biggest categories were food, beverages and tobacco products ($1 trillion), chemical products ($837 billion) and motor vehicles and parts ($701 billion).”
LikeLike
Pretty remarkable, actually.
https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/washington-secrets/trumps-list-289-accomplishments-in-just-20-months-relentless-promise-keeping
LikeLiked by 1 person
Kizzie,
I’m not sure what response from me you were looking for. I think NBC wants to soft pedal Blumenthal’s misdeeds and make a bigger deal out of what Trump said. As Snopes indictaed, he’s clearly lied and mislead. And it’s happened more often that what NBC and Snopes allege or care to report. While Trump clearly exaggerates when he’s ribbing Blumenthal, I don’t find that nearly as offensive as Blumenthal’s cowardly attempt at “stolen valor.” I hold him in the utmost contempt.
LikeLike
AJ – My aim was merely to point out that what Trump has been saying is an exaggeration and embellishment of what Blumenthal has actually said. I wouldn’t want people to judge Blumenthal on misinformation. Yes, judge him for what he actually said, but not for the what has been said he said.
Did you happen to read the two articles I shared several days ago about the 9th commandment? They were pretty challenging. One of the things pointed out is that the Bible teaches that our reputations are of great importance, and that is one of the reasons why bearing false witness is particularly egregious to God.
Even before I read those articles, I have found that many of my comments, especially on Facebook, are defending people – even those I disagree with – against false accusations, and it often gets me in trouble. It is sad that people often automatically assume that pointing out that a hated politician or public figure didn’t say or do what a Facebook meme says they did means I support that hated person. (And, BTW, I have also defended President Trump at times, too, against false stories.)
LikeLiked by 1 person
Hmm. This was actually predicted yesterday. That almost looks suspicious.
LikeLike
Fresh off her performance last night, Tara Setmayer is really making me miss the Old Dominion.
LikeLiked by 1 person
@7:56 I strongly urge you to read the book, Ricky. If it has any good ideas you should commit them to memory and begin to practice them. Immediately. ;–)
LikeLike
If you will elect him as President, I will read the book. As long as people are going to defend stuff like 8:08 and 8:11, we might as well just laugh along with Setmayer, Sellers and the white guy who is named Scott something or other.
LikeLike
Then your guy may have a future hawking his book, far, far from the White House. Enjoy the laugh. ;–)
LikeLike
Debra, My wife and I were discussing your point at 10:02 on the drive between Thai Chili and Chick-Fil-A (for ice cream) tonight. Twenty years ago we would have agreed with you that international borders were a firmer line than the cultural line Sasse defined @ 9:40.
However, both of us learned better as we spent years teaching young people on both sides of Sasse’s line in Sunday School. Modern young people will date and even marry someone of a different race or nationality whom they met at college. College-bound young people will not date and would never marry someone not headed for college.
I questioned and pushed hard against their views, since this class stratification was unknown in most of Texas in the 60s and 70s. However, in 21st Century Texas that cultural line is as hard as the black/white line was in Mississippi in the 50s.
LikeLiked by 1 person