The Many Faces of US Politics...

[Gabriel_Hurl]

WASHINGTON — President Trump asked the F.B.I. director, James B. Comey, to shut down the federal investigation into Mr. Trump's former national security adviser, Michael T. Flynn, in an Oval Office meeting in February, according to a memo that Mr. Comey wrote shortly after the meeting.

"I hope you can let this go," the president told Mr. Comey, according to the memo.

The existence of Mr. Trump's request is the clearest evidence that the president has tried to directly influence the Justice Department and F.B.I. investigation into links between Mr. Trump's associates and Russia.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/16/us/politics/james-comey-trump-flynn-russia-investigation.html


Nothing to see here folks ................ nothing at all

[seafoid]

WASHINGTON — President Trump asked the F.B.I. director, James B. Comey, to shut down the federal investigation into Mr. Trump's former national security adviser, Michael T. Flynn, in an Oval Office meeting in February, according to a memo that Mr. Comey wrote shortly after the meeting.

"I hope you can let this go," the president told Mr. Comey, according to the memo.

The existence of Mr. Trump's request is the clearest evidence that the president has tried to directly influence the Justice Department and F.B.I. investigation into links between Mr. Trump's associates and Russia.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/16/us/politics/james-comey-trump-flynn-russia-investigation.html


Nothing to see here folks ................ nothing at all

Fake news

[mrdeeds]

Is it not better if Trump stays? Pence is a scarier alternative.

[foxcommander]

I'm not furnishing you with anything. If you want to argue that endorsements across international lines started in 2017 with Obama, knock yourself out.

As for the why, I suspect that it was obviously because Obama, like many of us, didn't like the the views of LePen and the National Front, which she led until a couple of weeks ago. Do you think everyone who endorsed Donald Trump knew him well?? Do you think Ted Cruz, who endorsed him, even likes Trump?

I don't know why you're whining about free speech. More red herrings?

You can't provide examples, especially of this scale. Just be honest and say you can't.

The why bit is important, especially if you read macron's background. Couldn't take a chance that he could fail like Hillary did which is why obama was rolled out.

How is democrat protestors stopping free speech a red herring? Should be ashamed of themselves for promoting the idea.
Democrats are easy to program and bleat out the same mantra. I'm not sure they're able to think for themselves any more.
Should rename themselves The Kardashian party.

J70, why do you dignify this troll with a response. He spouts nonsense ... just read the last paragraph and it makes no sense.. It's Charlie Brown Wha,Wha, Wha, Wha.....
He is always demanding answers and never answers a question. You are a kind man to devote time to trying to talk sense to a "Birther" who is so invested in belittling democracy, decency and facts.

+1. I've been surprised that J70 keeps engaging with that character. In my opinion, to respond to the moronic but vicious nonsense he spouts seems to lend it some kind of legitimacy. When you use the ignore button the temptation to respond is non-existent. There's nothing to respond to. If everyone had him and his ilk on ignore, their narrow-minded ranting would be just shouting at the mirror.

Then again, who am I to talk? I've been known to respond to Tony Fearon.

Hardly - Please please please put me on ignore - then I can call you a co******er like Rossfanny as many times as I like without you knowing.

The typical hysterical democrat position that we've come to expect, call someone a racist, fascist, sexist etc if you don't like someones point of view.
I'm debating with J70 about the term interference, not you. I disagree with him but I haven't resorted to your tactics because I don't believe he's right.

GAAboard imitating american politics. Sad.

[Carmen Stateside]

Fox news is comedy gold tonight.  Tucker just doesn't seem himself

[sid waddell]

I'm not furnishing you with anything. If you want to argue that endorsements across international lines started in 2017 with Obama, knock yourself out.

As for the why, I suspect that it was obviously because Obama, like many of us, didn't like the the views of LePen and the National Front, which she led until a couple of weeks ago. Do you think everyone who endorsed Donald Trump knew him well?? Do you think Ted Cruz, who endorsed him, even likes Trump?

I don't know why you're whining about free speech. More red herrings?

You can't provide examples, especially of this scale. Just be honest and say you can't.

The why bit is important, especially if you read macron's background. Couldn't take a chance that he could fail like Hillary did which is why obama was rolled out.

How is democrat protestors stopping free speech a red herring? Should be ashamed of themselves for promoting the idea.
Democrats are easy to program and bleat out the same mantra. I'm not sure they're able to think for themselves any more.
Should rename themselves The Kardashian party.

J70, why do you dignify this troll with a response. He spouts nonsense ... just read the last paragraph and it makes no sense.. It's Charlie Brown Wha,Wha, Wha, Wha.....
He is always demanding answers and never answers a question. You are a kind man to devote time to trying to talk sense to a "Birther" who is so invested in belittling democracy, decency and facts.

+1. I've been surprised that J70 keeps engaging with that character. In my opinion, to respond to the moronic but vicious nonsense he spouts seems to lend it some kind of legitimacy. When you use the ignore button the temptation to respond is non-existent. There's nothing to respond to. If everyone had him and his ilk on ignore, their narrow-minded ranting would be just shouting at the mirror.

Then again, who am I to talk? I've been known to respond to Tony Fearon.

Hardly - Please please please put me on ignore - then I can call you a co******er like Rossfanny as many times as I like without you knowing.

The typical hysterical democrat position that we've come to expect, call someone a racist, fascist, sexist etc if you don't like someones point of view.
I'm debating with J70 about the term interference, not you. I disagree with him but I haven't resorted to your tactics because I don't believe he's right.

GAAboard imitating american politics. Sad.

J70 and all the other non-Trump supporting posters quite obviously aren't racist, fascist or sexist.

You quite obviously are, as anybody with any sort of rational mind can see.

[Eamonnca1]

The typical hysterical democrat position that we've come to expect, call someone a racist, fascist, sexist etc if you don't like someones point of view.

The Democratic position is to call someone a racist, fascist, or sexist if they're a racist, fascist, sexist. The conservative response is to cry like a wounded puppy about how the big boys are picking on you.

[seafoid]

Trump reminds me of Steve  Staunton during his time as Ireland Gaffer

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-7SvqaYx9m0

[seafoid]

http://www.businessinsider.fr/us/trump-obstruction-of-justice-comey-memo-2017-5/

[seafoid]

Free Advice to Trump Aides: Quit While You Can
By MICHELLE GOLDBERGMAY 16, 2017
On Monday night, Lt. Gen. H. R. McMaster, President Trump's widely admired national security adviser, held a hastily convened news conference to try to knock down reports that Mr. Trump had shared highly classified information with Russia — only to have Mr. Trump appear to confirm the reports in two Tuesday morning tweets.
"General McMaster spent decades defending this nation, earning his integrity and honor. Trump squandered it in less than 12 hours," responded the Republican strategist John Weaver in a tweet. The journalist and former speechwriter for George W. Bush, David Frum, asked: "How does McMaster not resign today? That thing he said 'did not happen' the president has just defended doing."
General McMaster may find a way of avoiding that conclusion for now, but — if the yelling from the inmates of the West Wing is anything to go by — the moral and intellectual contortions now required of those who serve in the White House are extracting a heavy cost. It is tempting to believe, for instance, that the president's press spokesman Sean Spicer will forever be remembered for the evening Mr. Trump fired the F.B.I. director, James Comey, when Mr. Spicer cowered among the bushes on the White House grounds to avoid journalists. But in all likelihood, Mr. Spicer will soon find himself at the center of yet another humiliating tableau, one that will supplant that last one in the public consciousness.
After all, before people started decorating their shrubbery with Sean Spicer lawn ornaments, he was best known for the petulant, hectoring and surreally dishonest press briefings that Melissa McCarthy immortalized on "Saturday Night Live." No one knows the next national joke that will have Mr. Spicer as a punch line, but one thing is clear. As long as he works for this president, he is unlikely to recover his dignity.
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The same is true of most people in Mr. Trump's orbit. To serve this president is to be diminished.
It took Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein a mere two weeks in the administration to trash his sterling reputation through his involvement in Mr. Comey's firing. Trump associates have tried to pin the blame for the president's manifold displays of incompetence on the White House chief of staff, Reince Priebus — whose internal nickname, according to The Week, is Rancid — but the truth is that Mr. Trump is ruining Mr. Priebus's reputation, not vice versa. Lesser-known figures will also probably find that their time in the administration has hindered, rather than helped, their career prospects.
"You don't find people who mentioned they worked at the Nixon White House unless they were high enough and conspicuous and had to admit it," John Dean, former White House counsel to Richard Nixon, told me.
Certainly, some who are serving should stay put for the good of the nation. We need sane and competent people like Secretary of Defense James Mattis to remain in government and dissuade the president from cavalierly starting a nuclear war. It's understandable why career officials in the Justice Department or the State Department would want to hunker down and try to preserve their institutions from Mr. Trump's wrecking ball. But there are a great many other people, both famous names and faceless officials, whose jobs have nothing to do with safeguarding the republic.
Mr. Trump's entire communications staff could resign tomorrow without imperiling the citizenry. And for their own good, as well as the good of the nation, they should.
Out in America, Mr. Trump still has plenty of genuine admirers, people who view him as a brilliant, iconoclastic businessman. But there is scant evidence of such respect among the people who actually work with him in Washington. The New York Times recently reported that there are "deep resentments among his scarred staff," and The Washington Post writes of aides "bewildered and alarmed by how Trump arrives at his decisions." These men and women are suffering personally while propping up a presidency they appear to hold in contempt. They are allowing themselves to be permanently tarnished through their association with a man whose name is destined to become the root of a political epithet signifying disgrace, like McCarthyite or Nixonian.
They aren't just selling out their country. They're selling out themselves.
Great prizes await the first few people to break ranks and tell the country what they know about this corrupt and degenerate presidency. The majority of Americans who fear and disdain Mr. Trump will hail them as patriots. There are book and movie deals to be had and cable contracts to sign.
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The political tell-all can be a lucrative career move. Scott McClellan, a press secretary for George W. Bush, had a No. 1 New York Times best seller with his scathing memoir of the Bush White House, "What Happened: Inside the Bush White House and Washington's Culture of Deceit." George Stephanopoulos, a former senior aide to Bill Clinton, wrote a best-selling account of his White House disillusionment, "All Too Human: A Political Education," which served as part of his transformation from politico to highly paid TV journalist. Mr. Dean, who basically invented the form of White House confessional with his 1976 book "Blind Ambition: The White House Years," continues to enjoy a successful career as an author and pundit.
Thanks to copious leaks, we already know a lot more about the internal workings of the Trump White House than we do about past administrations, but there is still immense interest in what is really going on and how the major players feel about it. It would be worth the price of a hardcover just to learn how Kellyanne Conway — who, according to the "Morning Joe" hosts Joe Scarborough and Mika Brzezinski, said she needed to shower after defending Mr. Trump during the campaign — sleeps at night.
"There are going to be a lot more best-selling authors coming out of the Trump administration than out of the Obama administration," said Eric Nelson, the editorial director of Broadside Books, the conservative imprint at HarperCollins. "Trump makes everybody he touches a national story."
Those who stick around, however, will discover that in politics, being part of a national story can be ruinous. Members of Mr. Clinton's administration had to shoulder huge legal bills, some running into hundreds of thousands of dollars, after being forced to testify before congressional committees and grand juries. As Mr. Stephanopoulos noted in 1998, "A single trip to the grand jury can cost you $10,000."
Congressional and legal investigations into Mr. Trump's presidency — including his ties to Russia, his firing of Mr. Comey and the overlap of his business interests and his governing responsibilities — are likely to be even more extensive than those Mr. Clinton faced, particularly if Democrats take back either house of Congress next year.
"Anybody who is there now, if they're anywhere close to the problems, they're probably going to need an attorney, and it's going to get expensive," Mr. Dean warned. "I think a lot of people are going to get hurt."
Allies of the Clintons set up legal defense funds to pay off some of their aides' bills. People working for this administration should ask themselves whether they are confident that anyone close to Mr. Trump, a man notorious for stiffing his contractors, would do the same.
Ordinarily, whistle-blowers have to decide between following the moral course of action and looking out for their own material security. For officials contemplating jumping off the sinking ship of the Trump presidency, however, ethical and venal incentives are in unusual alignment. The time is ripe to get out.

[screenexile]

Jesus did anyone see the video footage of Erdogans goons having a go at protesters outside the Turkish Embassy? Kicking women in the head while they lied on the ground and everything it's harrowing you can only imagine what people are going through in Turkey itself!!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CcuCZemRo84

[Denn Forever]

you know that if Trump goes, next  is Pence.

[Eamonnca1]

Pence might be another evil sumbitch but at least he know what he's doing. The current president is a complete loose cannon.

[mrdeeds]

Trump just boasted to US Coast Guard cadets about how much he's 'saved them' on the F-35 and Ford class carriers. The Coast Guard operates neither.

[Gabriel_Hurl]

http://www.nbcnews.com/politics/politics-news/special-counsel-will-take-over-fbi-russia-campaign-interference-investigation-n761271

Former FBI Director appointed as Special Counsel