<    -------     https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/trump-must-be-wondering-who-else-is-talk...









By Eugene Robinson


" After Monday’s legal shock and awe, one thing is certain: The Mueller investigation poses a serious and perhaps existential threat to the Trump administration.

Apologists for the president can yell “nothing burger” until they’re blue in the face. Former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort and his associate Rick Gates — now under home confinement and charged with offenses that carry long prison terms — would likely disagree. Campaign adviser George Papadopoulos, whom special counsel Robert S. Mueller III has “flipped” into cooperating with the probe, also might attest that Monday’s acts and revelations are a very big deal.

President Trump had good reason to spend that morning upstairs in the White House residence, brooding and fuming. Regarding Manafort and Gates, Trump perhaps could argue that Mueller has made no allegation — thus far — of collusion with the Russians to boost Trump’s prospects in the election. But the Papadopoulos case, according to court documents, is all about Russian mischief — and what the Trump campaign may have known about it.

Perhaps the nastiest surprise for Trump and those close to him is that Papadopoulos, who was on the campaign’s foreign policy team, was arrested July 27 and became a “proactive cooperator” with the Mueller probe. Papadopoulos pleaded guilty Oct. 5 to making false statements, in an interview with the FBI earlier this year, regarding his contacts with foreigners about obtaining Russian help for the campaign.

That is ominous news on every level. First, while there had been speculation that Mueller might go after Manafort and Gates, no one outside of Mueller’s team appears to have known anything about Papadopoulos. How long has he been cooperating with the investigation? And what might that cooperation have entailed?

Anyone who had a conversation with Papadopoulos since his July arrest has to wonder whether he was wearing a wire. That’s what a “proactive cooperator” often does. Gulp.

Equally unsettling for the White House is the fact that Mueller and his all-star squad of prosecutors managed to keep their engagement with Papadopoulos secret for so long. That took real discipline and sense of purpose. It also signals to Trump and his attorneys that they don’t have anything close to a full picture of what Mueller is up to.

Have others connected with the Trump campaign been squeezed for information in a similar way? Is more proactive cooperating presently taking place? Speak clearly into my tie pin, please.

So what, exactly, did Papadopoulos do? He had a series of meetings with a London-based professor who has connections with the Russian government, and in an April 2016 encounter this professor claimed the Russians had “dirt” on Hillary Clinton that included “thousands of emails.”

This was after Russian hackers had broken into the email system of the Democratic National Committee and also managed to steal the private emails of Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta. It is reasonable to assume that these are the emails that the professor was talking about to Papadopoulos, who made repeated attempts to set up meetings between the Trump campaign and Russian officials — even suggesting, at one point, a meeting between Trump and Vladimir Putin.

No such get-together took place. But in June 2016, there was that meeting at Trump Tower at which senior figures in the Trump campaign — Manafort, Donald Trump Jr., and Jared Kushner, Trump’s son-in-law — met with a well-connected Russian lawyer in hopes of receiving “dirt” on Clinton.

Were the Russians exploring various avenues that might lead to a meaningful connection with the Trump campaign? Did they find one? As it happened, the DNC and Podesta emails were eventually released through WikiLeaks in a manner clearly designed to do maximum damage to the Clinton campaign.

We also know that the Russians flooded social media with pro-Trump fake news. In many instances, this propaganda campaign targeted voters at such a granular level that one has to wonder where the Russians got such sophisticated and detailed data. Mueller will be wondering the same thing.

Trump must have noticed that one important name was not prominently mentioned Monday: that of Michael Flynn, his short-lived national security adviser. Flynn faces potential legal jeopardy for his alleged representation of foreign interests without properly registering to do so. Trump has consistently gone out of his way to protect and defend Flynn, even to the point of asking then-FBI Director James B. Comey to go easy on him. Why such uncharacteristic compassion?

If I were Trump, I’d have to wonder if Flynn could be cooperating with Mueller. I’d worry about what he might say. And if I spoke with Flynn, I’d choose my words very carefully.  "

There he is.  A dying breed.  An American with wisdom, insight, fear of god/J.Christ and unchallengeable patriotism.  This man is guaranteed a place in The Kingdom of the Heaven for all eternity worshipping J. Christ.

Who amongst us?  Hmmmm?  Who?  Who amongst us can live up to this high standard of real American?  Looks deep in your shallow hearts.  Because no one knows when

HIM

come calling . . . . .

Some Guy wrote on Nov 1^st, 2017 at 4:02pm:

<  ------------ Some Guy   .... ?!  ...  !!!!!   :




https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/the-democrats-are-in-crisis-too/2017/10/...

" The Democrats are in crisis, too   "

By Eugene Robinson


" President Trump is not the disease that afflicts our politics. He’s a symptom, like nausea or an embarrassing rash.

Both major parties are in crisis, and I believe the reason is that the ground has shifted beneath them in ways they do not understand. Until the contours of the new political landscape become clear and the parties reshape themselves accordingly, I fear that chaos and turmoil will reign as the new normal.

Let me be clear: I am not postulating any sort of false equivalency. It was the Republican Party that nominated Trump for president, and it consequently must be blamed for this horror show of an administration. The party that loves to grandly invoke the name of Abraham Lincoln sent to the White House a crass egomaniac who cynically heightens racial animosities — a man who, by temperament and ability, is patently unfit for high office. You did that, Republicans.

Now the GOP is engaged in a great civil war — or at least that’s the narrative Republican optimists would have us believe. So far, I’ve seen nothing more than a few skirmishes. After all that Trump has said and done, just three GOP senators have had the guts to take him on: Bob Corker (Tenn.) and Jeff Flake (Ariz.), who are retiring, and John McCain (Ariz.), who is seriously ill. When the other 49 come out from their hidey-holes, I’ll believe there’s a war.

Trump is large and in charge of the Republican Party because he’s more in touch with the base than the GOP establishment is — which means the party’s leaders have lost contact with the country.

But meanwhile, where are the Democrats? Basically nowhere.

The Democratic leaders in the House and Senate, Nancy Pelosi (Calif.) and Charles E. Schumer (N.Y.), are better at politics and basic arithmetic than their Republican counterparts. This fact has given Democrats more power in Congress than they deserve.

But the party managed to lose a presidential election to a man who had never been elected to public office, who slandered Mexican immigrants as rapists, who used African Americans and Latinos as foils to help him stoke feelings of grievance among whites, and who bragged about sexually harassing and assaulting random women. You lost to that guy, Democrats.

The party of Franklin Roosevelt allowed the GOP to pretend to champion the interests of the working class. Failure to connect with white voters in the Rust Belt is only part of the story of last year’s defeat, and maybe not the most important part. Democrats failed to sufficiently energize their core constituencies — urbanites, African Americans, Latinos, women, young people.

If the Trump blitzkrieg hadn’t happened, the big political story of the year would have been the rise of Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), an aging socialist with no national profile, to rock-star status. Sanders gave Hillary Clinton a run for her money and demonstrated that the Democratic Party also has factions and fissures. They’re just not as important as the cracks in the Republican Party right now since the Democrats have so little power.

I believe the reason both parties are struggling is that a broad political realignment of some kind is under way.

We all have a mental image of the political spectrum. On the right, there is the Republican Party with a set of conservative policies — cut taxes, shrink government, limit entitlements, deregulate, etc. On the left, there is the Democratic Party with a set of liberal policies — expand health care, raise wages, regulate Wall Street, promote fairness and so on.

The rise of Trump and Sanders and the fact that some of their campaign positions were identical — we should have health care for all, free-trade pacts have harmed U.S. workers, the “system” is rigged to favor the rich and powerful at the expense of the middle class — suggest to me that the familiar left-right spectrum is no longer an accurate schematic of public opinion.

Today’s key fault lines may be between metropolitan areas and the exurbs and small towns strung along the interstates; between those who have gone to college and those who have not; between families who have benefited from the globalized economy and those who have not; and between an anxious, shrinking white majority and the minority groups that within a couple of decades will constitute more than half the population.

My advice to Democrats is to say the word “opportunity” so often that it becomes the party’s trademark, then frame progressive policies in that context. My advice to Republicans, who are stuck with Trump, is to pray. "

Some Guy?

Edith Grove wrote on Nov 3^rd, 2017 at 9:38am:

FAKE NEWS ALERT

Poor Melania. She had sex with that.

I still don't get what Safe, Sane and Consensual has to do with this thread.

sirmoonie wrote on Nov 5^th, 2017 at 10:35am:


You spew more crap than Sara Huckabee and Kelly Conway combined. You make me laugh out loud Moonie!