President Donald Trump is giving it his all—if by “it” we mean “wrecking the stock market and/or economy.” Despite a rally on Friday, the S&P 500 has tumbled 410 points and the Dow Jones Industrial Average has plummeted 2,537 points since Trump took office. And that pain springs from his nonsensical, reactionary tariff policy, which he is both backing off of and doubling down on at random.
And Americans are not happy.
A new poll from SSRS conducted for CNN finds Trump with his lowest net approval rating on the economy ever. Just 44 percent of Americans approve of how he’s handling the economy, while 56 percent disapprove. That puts him 12 percentage points underwater.
His worst result before this in the same poll? Five points underwater, in December 2017.
Worse for Trump, this survey was finished fielding on March 9, meaning it was conducted before this past week’s stock sell-off. And Americans are largely aware of that market chaos: 41 percent correctly say stock prices have generally fallen since Trump took office, according to a YouGov poll fielded on Tuesday, amid the sell-off. Another 22 percent say they're about the same (wrong), while 15 percent say they're higher (wrong-er). But many of those folks might’ve had their minds changed since last Tuesday.
Naturally, Trump and his lackeys are blaming former President Joe Biden for the mess they created. And it is true that only 44 percent of Americans think Trump is more responsible than Biden for the state of the economy, while 34 percent blame Biden, according to a fresh YouGov poll for The Economist. However, that number will get worse for Trump the longer he is in office and pursuing this destructive trade war.
After all, nearly one-half of registered voters (46 percent) think Trump’s economic policies are hurting the economy, according to a new Emerson College poll largely fielded before the stock sell-off. That includes 81 percent of Democrats, 44 percent of independents, and 15 percent of Republicans. A mere 28 percent of voters think his policies are making the economy better, including just 55 percent of Republicans.
Another bad number for Trump? About one in four Republicans in Emerson’s poll think his tariff policies will hurt the U.S. economy, a view also held by four in five Democrats and more than one in two independents.
Given that Democrats’ and Republicans’ feelings about the economy tend to swing abruptly depending on who’s in the White House, those are pretty weak showings for Trump.
That said, while the Dow may be down 2,537 points, you can’t blame Trump. He’s been golfing a lot lately. He must think a negative number is a good one.
Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris delivered a concession on Wednesday at her alma mater, Howard University. The vice president said she had called President-elect Donald Trump earlier in the day to congratulate him on his victory.
On Sunday night, President Joe Biden addressed the nation from the Oval Office regarding the attempted assassination of Donald Trump at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, on Saturday. Biden previously made public remarks on the shooting on Sunday afternoon and on Saturday evening.
Following the attack—in which Trump’s ear was reportedly grazed by a bullet, a former fire chief was fatally shot, and two others were critically wounded—Biden returned to the White House for a briefing in the White House Situation Room with his security team.
In his Sunday afternoon address, Biden announced that he had ordered the review of security measures for the Republican National Convention, which starts Monday. He also ordered an “independent review” of the security at Saturday’s rally, the results of which he vowed to share with the public.
Biden also called on Americans to “unite as one nation to demonstrate who we are.”
On Sunday night, Biden began by speaking about “the need for us to lower the temperature in our politics and to remember, while we may disagree, we are not enemies, we’re neighbors. We’re friends. Coworkers. Citizens. And mostly importantly, we are fellow Americans. We must stand together.”
Biden mentioned that he had spoken with Trump and extended his condolences to the family of the victim who was killed.
“A former president was shot, an American citizen killed while simply exercising his freedom to support the candidate of his choosing. We cannot, we must not, go down this road in America,” Biden continued.
“We’ve traveled it before throughout our history. Violence has never been the answer. Whether it’s members of Congress in both parties being targeted and shot, or a violent mob attacking the Capitol on Jan. 6, or a brutal attack on the spouse of former Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi. Or intimidation on election officials. Or the kidnapping plot against a sitting governor. Or an attempted assassination on Donald Trump. “There’s no place in America for this kind of violence, for any violence, ever. Period. No exceptions. We can’t allow this violence to be normalized.”
Biden emphasized the stakes in the coming election and acknowledged that Americans do not agree on the direction the country should take.
“Disagreement is inevitable in American democracy,” he continued. “It’s part of human nature. But politics must never be a little battlefield or, god forbid, a killing field. I believe politics ought to be an arena for peaceful debate. To pursue justice. To make decisions guided by the Declaration of Independence and our Constitution. We stand for an America not of extremism and fury but of decency and grace.”
Biden closed his remarks by calling on Americans to “never lose sight of who we are.”
“There is nothing—nothing, nothing—beyond our capacity,” he said, “when we do it together.”
Ben Carson, who achieved outsized fame in the ‘80s as the first brain surgeon in history to accidentally leave a pair of forceps in his own head, is back on television. Whether he knows it or not is an open question, but he is saying things. Weird things. Outrageous things. Things that only Ben Carson could—or would—say.
Carson endorsed Donald Trump at a speech in Iowa on Sunday (for president, in case you were wondering), and CNN’s Abby Phillip invited him on air this week to explain himself. It was eye-opening for everyone but Carson, who nearly always looks like someone who’s gotten up in the middle of the night to pee and is only marginally aware of where the toilet is.
Carson served as Trump’s Housing and Urban Development secretary for four years and left on good terms with his boss, which is just one indication of how incompetent he was. Another clue is the four years previous to that, when he was “doing” his “job.”
At one point during the interview, Phillip asked how supporting Trump, who tried to overthrow democracy and has called for terminating portions of the Constitution so he can be reinstated as president/dictator-for-life, was compatible with defending democracy. It didn’t go great.
Watch:
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PHILLIP: “I also just want to raise to you, you know, former President Trump has openly mused on his social media platform about terminating the Constitution. How does that factor into defending American democracy?”
CARSON: “Well, I think you have to look at the context of what things were said, how they were said, and which parts of the Constitution are you talking about.”
PHILLIP: [Visibly surprised] “Are there any parts of the Constitution that should be terminated?”
CARSON: “There are no parts of it that should be terminated, but they need to be well interpreted. They need to be looked at in the right way. For instance, you have people who are trying to take away people’s right to bear arms. They say that part should be terminated. That’s not true. But, you know, you can make strong arguments. But the key thing that we have to do as a nation at this point, we have some very major differences. We have one group of individuals who feels that our country should be people-centric, and we have another who feels that it should be government-centric. They need to be able to sit down at the table, put the facts in the middle of the table, and resolve their differences by discussing the facts and how they can both use those things in an appropriate way.”
That said, it’s one thing to disagree over how the Constitution should be interpreted. It’s quite another to claim parts of it should be unilaterally tossed in the rubbish so we can get our wannabe strongman dictator back. Something tells me Ben hasn’t thought this through. Give him a few minutes while the Plinko chips settle in his head. He’ll get there. Eventually. Maybe.
Or maybe not, judging by this exchange from the same interview:
— (@)
PHILLIP: “The question really is why aren’t there more people like you who actually worked with, served under Donald Trump, who are willing to actually endorse him? I want to read for you some quotes from your former colleagues. John Kelly says ‘God help us’ at the thought of another Trump term. Mark Milley: ‘We don’t take an oath to a wannabe dictator.’ Mark Esper: ‘Unfit for office.’ Dan Coats: ‘To him, a lie is not a lie.’ Gina Haspel: ‘A 6-year-old with a tantrum’ is how she described her former boss. What are they seeing that you’re not seeing?”
CARSON: “I think the better question is what are they not seeing? And they are not seeing the big picture. If, as I said, we allow our Justice Department to be weaponized, we will have lost something very precious and important. We will become like a banana republic, and that is incredibly important. We would have lost the republic that Benjamin Franklin talked about.”
PHILLIP: “But what evidence do you have, Dr. Carson, that the Justice Department has been weaponized, against Trump specifically? There’s no evidence of that.”
CARSON: “Well, let’s put it this way. Al Capone, who was a notorious killer, had one indictment, and Donald Trump has four indictments. That would tell you something right there ...”
PHILLIP: “I don’t think that’s evidence of anything except that Donald Trump allegedly has committed conduct that has resulted in indictments.”
CARSON: “It’s evidence that you have a group of people, a system, that is out to get this president, and they feel that he’s an existential threat to their existence. America was designed for the people, it wasn't designed for the government.”
Got that? Because Donald Trump has been indicted four times as often as Al Capone, he must be innocent. It’s just common sense. Just because two of the prosecutors who’ve indicted him have nothing to do with the U.S. Department of Justice doesn’t mean it’s not the DOJ doing all the weaponizing! Also, why are you asking these questions? They never ask these questions on Fox News. It takes Ben days to come up with these rehearsed answers! Don’t be rude.
Then again, maybe Republicans should at least consider the possibility that Trump has been indicted four times because he’s a criminal who commits lots of crimes. Maybe that’s occurred to Dr. Carson, maybe not.
Let’s just hope Ben finally gets some sleep. After all, tomorrow will be another long day of trying to wake up in the morning.
These days, there's a pretty crowded field in the race for "worst member of Congress," but Rep. Paul Gosar showed over the weekend why he is firmly among the top contenders. As Senate Republicans blocked the January 6 commission, the Arizona Republican got the bright idea to pay tribute to a January 6 insurrectionist.
See for yourself.
Um, Doctor? Babbitt is no hero and no patriot.
Babbitt was a retired senior airman turned pool supply company owner and full-on QAnon supporter from San Diego. In her final moments, captured by live-streamers, the 35-year-old was seen trying to climb through a broken window in the Speaker's Lobby with a mob behind her, demanding that Capitol Police officers let them through. She then yelled "Go! Go!" to two men, who hoisted her through the window. A plainclothes officer shot her, mortally wounding her. Prosecutors rightly recommended not charging the officer who shot her.
It cannot be stated enough. A member of the U.S. House of Representatives saw fit to celebrate a woman who was taking part in an illegal and unconstitutional coup attempt.
Unsurprisingly, Gosar is getting pummeled for the tweet.
1) She was in the act of committing domestic terrorism.\n\n2) You\u2019re a domestic terrorist for supporting her.\n\n3) How dare you quote Bono out of context like this?\n\n4) Resign now.
The lyrics in Gosar's tweet, of course, are from U2's 1984 hit "Pride (In the Name of Love)." The song is a tribute to Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., not traitors trying to overthrow democracy.
Daily Kos Community Contributor SemDem had some choice words for the deranged dentist.
"They" means the Capitol Police, who were stopping the terrorists from breaking into where the legislators were hiding--including you. You fucking white supremacist insurrectionist supporting asshole. No wonder your family disowned you.
\u201cThey\u201d...as in the Capitol Police who were protecting you and your fellow lawmakers from an angry mob that set up a gallows outside and wanted to hang the Vice President?
Paul you\u2019ve lost your mind. Side note to anyone watching, don\u2019t breach the house floor illegally, especially after warned.https://twitter.com/drpaulgosar/status/1398335859166912514\u00a0\u2026
This is but a tiny sample. This is how Gosar's feed looked when I saw this garbage last night.
Oh, the ratio.
We already knew Gosar's moral compass was severely warped, of course. This is a guy who spoke at a white supremacist gathering, and whose own role in the events leading up to the insurrection unnerved him enough that he actually tried to get his orange messiah to pardon him. But this is a staggering failure to read the room, even for him.
Gosar may think he can avoid accountability for this. After all, he represents what is easily the most Republican district in the Mountain Time Zone that doesn't cover an entire state. It has a PVI of R+22, and Trump took 68% of the vote in both of his bids.
News flash, Paul: You're not going to get away with this thumb in the nose of every officer who had to endure that day's horror. The nation knows: If the party allows people like you to be empowered, then the GOP is unfit to govern.
The Trump campaign deliberately arranged for Trump's recent rally in Tulsa Oklahoma to be as dangerous a venue for the spread of Covid-19 as possible, even as they required those who did attend the now-infamous event to sign away their right to sue if they became infected.
In the hours before his rally in Tulsa, President Donald Trump's campaign directed the removal of thousands of "Do Not Sit Here, Please!" stickers from seats in the arena that were intended to establish social distance between rallygoers, according to video and photos obtained by The Washington Post and a person familiar with the event.
Significantly, this action by the Trump campaign reversed social distancing measures already instituted by the BOK center management for the rally.
As part of its safety plan, arena management had purchased 12,000 do-not-sit stickers for Trump's rally, intended to keep people apart by leaving open seats between attendees. On the day of the rally, event staff had already affixed them on nearly every other seat in the arena when Trump's campaign told event management to stop and then began removing the stickers, hours before the president's arrival, according to a person familiar with the event who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal matters.
The Trump campaign also specified that no references to social distancing such as warning signs or placards should be displayed, according to Doug Thornton, an executive vice-president for ASM Global, the venue's management, interviewed for Billboard Magazine.
Campaign staff quickly radioed over to an executive at ASM Global and asked the arena to stop labeling the seats. In fact, "they also told us that they didn't want any signs posted saying we should social distance in the venue," says Doug Thornton, executive vp for ASM Global…[.]
ASM was told by Tulsa's Republican mayor to proceed exactly how the Trump campaign specified. From the Billboard article:
[E]ven if ASM Global had wanted to cancel the rally, Thornton didn't think the company had the legal authority to block the President from using the publicly-owned arena. Oklahoma state law was clear, Thornton says: Since the state had entered phase 3 of its reactivation plan, full capacity events like the Trump campaign rally were allowed, and the city's public safety agencies had already signed off on the event. "We would never make a call on an event like this without contacting the local officials, to get their approval," he explains. "An ASM executive even reached out to the mayor's office and asked, 'Are you OK with us going forward with this?' Their response was, 'Yeah, proceed to the fullest extent that the President has requested,'" Thornton says.
As reported by the Post, Trump campaign spokesman, Tim Murtaugh, did not address the sticker removal but pointed to the fact that attendees were (purportedly) provided with hand sanitizer and masks, should they have elected to use them. Given the fact that Trump himself has pointedly refused to wear any type of mask in public, the result of such token measures was doubtlessly as expected: very few attending the rally wore them.
The Post article notes that Trump "wanted every seat packed." Of course, the rally's embarrassingly dismal attendance is now forever enshrined in history, but for those who were present, it appears that beyond doing the bare minimum to provide a veneer of deniability, little if any effort was made to ensure either their protection or to prevent them from infecting others. In fact, quite the reverse: it appears the intent was to fill as many seats as possible, as closely as possible, whatever the consequences to the attendees or the people they came into contact with afterwards, long after Trump's pointless exercise in ego-gratification had concluded.
The Washington Post has published this short film based on video footage, audio of police communications and other records in what is undoubtedly "the most complete account to date of the June 1 crackdown on protesters in Washington D.C."
Watch the meticulously compiled 12-minute video below to see what transpired in the hours before the Trump walk of shame to St. Johns Episcopal Church on June 1.
Contrary to claims by Barr and others in the administration, physical assault, tear gas, exploding pepper balls, and grenades containing rubber pellets were used on what clearly look like peaceful protesters, most of them young, a mix of whites and blacks and every shade in between, protesting and making noise. There is no evidence of violence by protesters. There is no evidence of bricks or corrosive liquids thrown by protesters, except for a few water bottles, candy bars, and eggs flung at Robocop-like personnel ready to do battle.
Late in the day on June 1, demonstrators gathered near the White House, on the edge of Lafayette Square, to protest police abuse following the death in custody of Minneapolis resident George Floyd. Similar protests had erupted across the country. Many were peaceful, but some included property destruction and clashes with police. At about 6:30 p.m., just north of the White House, federal police in riot gear fired gas canisters and used grenades containing rubber pellets to scatter the largely peaceful demonstrators. Their actions cleared the way for the president, surrounded by the nation's top law enforcement and military leaders, to walk to the historic St. John's Church for a three-minute photo op. Drawing on footage captured from dozens of cameras, as well as police radio communications and other records, The Washington Post reconstructed the events of this latest remarkable hour of Trump's presidency, including of the roles of the agencies involved and the tactics and weaponry they used.
Hopefully this video will go viral. People need to see how callous and mendacious this administration is.
As of 48 hours ago, few people knew that Kentucky was the nation's leading recipient of federal largess, and certainly had no clue just how much the state received compared to the rest of the country. Then, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, Republican from Kentucky, started whining about "Blue state bailouts," and the shit has hit the fan.
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Looks like it's time to reexamine Kentucky's privileged status.
Blue states have been happy to carry the burden of funding red states for … kinda forever. California, New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut, in particular, have pumped untold hundreds of billions over the last several decades into mostly rural red states.
That dynamic carries forth in states themselves, with large urban centers paying for rural regions, like the upstate-downstate divisions in Illinois and New York, or Philly-central Pennsylvania.
And that would be fine! Liberals are okay with helping out those that are less well off. Liberals have no problem with the federal government subsidizing telephone and mail service to rural areas—services that would not be justified by capitalistic math. We're okay subsidizing rural health care. We're okay subsidizing rural education, or opioid treatments, or transportation networks (e.g. roads).
The problem here isn't our willingness as liberals to help our disproportionately rural Conservative brothers and sisters. The problem is twofold: 1) the bullshit pretense that these same people are "anti-government" and that urban liberals are somehow feeding off the government trough, and 2) the refusal of these same assholes to help when blue states get hit with catastrophe. Instead, Mitch McConnells and his asshole buddies suddenly discover the evils of the budget deficit—a deficit that wouldn't be so large if Kentucky wasn't bleeding the country dry.
Still, once upon a time, liberals and Blue states were like "whatever, we've got it good, we're the United States of America. We'll help." But McConnell's toxic brew of greed and cruelty has shattered that pretense.
Conservatives have pretended for far too long that it is they, the "heartland," the "real America," that supposedly makes this country great, and it is the cities, the Brown and Black people, the feminists, the liberals, who are dragging it down. Yet it is us paying for their infrastructure, for their health care, for their Medicare and Medicaid and food stamps and aircraft carriers and all the things that make their society functional.
They wouldn't last a week without our assistance. Yet not only is there zero appreciation, but they act like they're the ones being screwed over.
If Republicans want to finally acknowledge that we are all in this thing together, that we are a United States of America, then great, we can continue being generous.
And so now, Kentucky's largess is firmly in the sights of Democratic lawmakers. No more flying under the radar. No more free ride. I'm going to embed this tweet one more time for effect:
No more red-state bailouts.
So every time Mitch McConnell mentions the deficit? Kentucky first.
Mitch McConnell doesn't want state bailouts? Kentucky first. Return the $148 billion in extra money it received the last five years.
Mitch McConnell wants to rail against the evil federal government? Then by all means, Kentucky, return that evil tainted federal cash.
Mitch McConnell wants to rail against New York or California? Return the money paid by New York and California taxpayers.
The red-state anti-government scam is fully exposed. No more.
On ABC’s This Week, House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff confirmed a grim report that surface last week: The nation’s top intelligence officials are pushing Congress to cancel their usual annual testimony to Congress on the nation’s top national security threats because they don’t want to publicly contradict Donald Trump’s false intelligence claims.
“Unfortunately, I think those reports are all too accurate. The intelligence community is reluctant to have an open hearing, something that we had done every year prior to the Trump administration, because they’re worried about angering the president,” Schiff responded.
It isn’t an idle concern, from intelligence officials. Director of National Intelligence Dan Coats was forced out of his position shortly after confirming to Congress that despite Trump’s claims to the contrary, the U.S. had no evidence Iran had an active nuclear weapons program. Trump had a public meltdown, which is a now-daily occurrence, and Coats was given the boot; in the latest degradation of this nation into a kleptocratic and autocratic state, government officials are now reluctant to testify in public about the true dangers facing the nation because if their pronouncements do not match Dear Leader’s political claims, Dear Leader will mark them as personal enemies.
Schiff’s follow-up, if possible, sounded worse: He also asserted that this nation’s intelligence agencies are now also withholding documents pertaining to the impeachment charges now filed against Trump.
“And I’ll say something even more concerning to me, and that is the intelligence community is beginning to withhold documents from Congress on the issue of Ukraine. The NSA, in particular, is withholding what are potentially relevant documents to our oversight responsibilities on Ukraine, but also withholding documents potentially relevant that the senators might want to see during the trial. There are signs that the CIA may be on the same tragic course.”
While Rep. Schiff was intentionally opaque on what Ukraine-related documents were being withheld from lawmakers, there does seem to be a new effort to withhold documents that the agencies had originally been expected to produce. Politico reports an unnamed Intelligence Committee “official” as saying: “Both the NSA and CIA initially pledged cooperation, and it appears now that the White House has interceded before production of documents could begin.”
We have long been told that Congress had, in cases of impeachment, necessarily sweeping oversight powers. Again we are learning that these powers can simply be taken away, so long as sufficient numbers in the president’s own party are willing to sign their own names to that act.
Following on the heels of a USAToday/Ipsos poll that came out January 9th, ABC News/Ipsos has another, newer poll up regarding Americans attitudes towards Donald Trump’s recent military actions against Iran that, viewed in a historical context, is rather extraordinary.
American forces acting at the direction of Donald Trump assassinated Iranian General Qasem Soleimani on January 3. As many Americans will forever recall, as they sat aghast in front of their television sets, Iran “retaliated” on January 8 by launching ballistic missiles at two US bases in Iraq. It was not until the next day that reporting suggested that Iran deliberately “missed” US troops with a view towards avoiding a wider war; this has been confirmed now by the Iraqis who revealed they were informed in advance of the attacks and immediately advised the U.S. As a result, U.S. troops were moved to secure bunkers at the bases hours before the Iranian missiles were actually launched.
The initial January 9 poll was unique because it revealed that, even in the face of a hostile nation launching missiles at us (the sample taken for that poll included some respondents who would have witnessed Iran’s “retaliation,” but not the news that they Iran deliberately acted to avoid inflicting casualties on the U.S.), a bare plurality of Americans approved of Trump’s military action. Again, as noted here, this poll was taken after the Administration had trotted out Mike Pompeo to assure Americans that Qasem Soleimani was one of the most evil human beings ever to walk the earth, and that he had planned innumerable “imminent” terror attacks that this air strike had heroically foiled in the nick of time.
What that poll showed was that Americans, by and large didn’t buy it. By a 2-1 margin they felt that Trump had made us less safe. And a clear majority also believed he was “wagging the dog,” i.e., that he launched the strikes to distract from his impeachment.
In historical terms, that is extraordinary. In my lifetime there has never been a military action launched by the U.S. that did not immediately garner clear approval by the general population, even across both parties. In this instance, however, a bare plurality of Americans initially approved this president’s action in killing Soleimani, with a relatively huge number undecided.
Now that the dust has settled, here are the numbers from the new poll:
A majority of respondents in a new poll say they disapprove of the way President Trump is handling Iran amid heightened tensions between Washington and Tehran.
Fifty-six percent said they disapprove of Trump’s actions toward Iran, compared to 43 percent who approve, according to the ABC News/Ipsos poll released early Sunday.
***
Fifty-two percent of respondents also said the U.S. airstrike that killed Iranian Gen. Qassem Soleimani in Iraq earlier this month has made the U.S. less safe. One-quarter said the U.S. is more safe and 22 percent said the drone strike hasn’t had much effect one way or the other.
This poll shows approval of Trump’s action towards Iran divided squarely by party lines, with almost equivalent percentages from the GOP and the Democratic party registering their approval, and disapproval, respectively. That in itself is not surprising since reflects the polarization in the country (with which everyone is quite familiar). What appears to be unique are the overall approval/disapproval numbers for military action by this president.
For comparison, from Gallup, here are historical numbers reflecting Americans’ approval/disapproval of military interventions, taken by prior administrations:
Syria
2017 Apr 7-8
50
41
Iraq and Syria
2014 Sep 20-21
60
31
Libya
2011 Mar 21
47
37
Iraq
2003 Mar 20
76
20
Afghanistan
2001 Oct 7
90
5
Kosovo/The Balkans
1999 Apr 30-May 2
51
45
Afghanistan and Sudan
1998 Aug 20
66
19
Haiti
1994 Sep 23-25
54
45
Somalia
1993 Jun 18-21
65
23
Iraq
1993 Jan 13
83
9
Libya
1986 Apr 17-18
71
21
Grenada
1983 Oct 26-27
53
34
All of the above reflect clear majority approval by the American public of an administration’s actions.
Again, the disapproval/approval ratio applicable to Trump’s handling of Iran reveals a 13 point margin of disapproval. Here are ABC News/IPSOS’ conclusions as to what that means.
Washington, DC, January 12th, 2020 – New public opinion data from ABC News and Ipsos shows that the American public continues to disapprove of President Trump’s handing of the situation with Iran and feel it has made the country less safe, even after both sides appear to have stepped back from the conflict.
***
This suggests that despite Iran appearing to deescalate after a rocket strike on U.S. bases in Iraq caused no fatalities, this has not been a “win” for the President, nor has the American public’s view on the crisis softened.
Again, this poll comes after vice-president Pence lied hysterically about Iran’s non-existent connection to 9/11, and after Pompeo upped the lying ante to suggest that four embassies were under imminent threat from Iran. None of their lies seem to have made much of an impression on the American public.
With all the demonization of Iran that the Republican Party has tried to churn up over the past decade, even with a drone strike killing an alleged “imminent threat” to our safety, Americans by a very large margin are not buying Trump’s story on Iran. They do not believe Trump’s action made them any safer—in fact, quite the reverse, by a 2-1 margin Americans believe Trump has made them less safe. This continues to be true even though the attack on Soleimani has had (thus far) no serious repercussions on U.S. troops.
There may be multiple explanations for these results, and the polling questions from prior historical military actions may have been slightly different, but in this case the most likely reason for the disparity is probably the most obvious one—even on the most hair-trigger, hot button issue where Americans have historically leaped to support their president—here, military conflict with a proven enemy–Americans do not trust what comes out of Trump’s mouth, or what his administration says.
Donald Trump was in particularly odious form over the weekend. His primary non-appearance appearance was on Saturday night, when he spoke at a secret no-phones, no-reporters fundraising event for the Florida Republican Party. But he didn’t just speak: The Miami Herald reports that Trump also took the opportunity to fete two of the military war criminals he recently pardoned, bringing the two out onstage with him.
There is no report of how the audience of Republican Party bigwigs, which included Jared Kushner, Reps. Jim Jordan and Mike Waltz and many of the state’s top Republican officeholders, responded to Trump’s presentation of two pardoned war criminals. We can only assume the Republicans present cheered and applauded the men, since there have been zero condemnations of Trump offering the two up for Republican celebration. (The sight of Jim Jordan or Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis giving military war criminals an ovation is, one presumes, why absolutely no recording device were permitted.)
From that well-received and, according to the Herald‘s queried attendees, “hilarious” hour-long private speech involving both war criminals and “impressions” of other political figures, No-Thumbs Hitler moved to a more public setting, giving an address to the Israeli American Council.
That appearance gave a more robust view of what top Republican officials claimed to find “hilarious”, in Trump’s prior appearance. Noting that he knew some of the attendees at the Sheldon Adelson-sponsored event from his real estate dealings, Trump declared them “not nice people at all, but you have to vote for me. You have no choice. You’re not going to vote for Pocahontas, I can tell you that. [Laughter] You’re not going to vote for the wealth tax!”
“Yeah, let’s take 100 percent of your wealth away! No, no. Even if you don’t like me, some of you don’t, some of you I don’t like at all actually. [Laughter] And you’re going to be my biggest supporters because you’ll be out of business in about 15 minutes if they get in.”
Whether Trump’s declaration that his audience of hard-right Jewish Americans love money too much to vote for his opponent strikes you as anti-Semitic is up to you; his continued obsession with referring to Sen. Elizabeth Warren with a racial slur is even blunter. Trump also invoked the “dual loyalty” tropes directed at Jewish Americans, and in fact not just invoked them but presumed and demanded them. “You have people that are Jewish people, that are great people, they don’t love Israel enough. You know that.”
After shaky weeks, Trump appears to be in a better mood than he has been in some time. The White House and Senate Republicans appear to have settled on a strategy for pushing an impeachment trial through the Senate as quickly and insincerely as possible, as “lawyer” Rudy Giuliani begins production of an anti-Biden “documentary” relying on the same corrupt forced-from-power pro-Russian Ukrainian grifters and thugs that successfully removed an anti-corruption U.S. ambassador in a previous smear campaign. He appears to believe he is on the cusp of not just getting away with his extortion scheme, but that with the Republican Senate’s help he will soon be able to advance it to its planned next stages.
Trump, speaking to the Israeli American Council: "You're not nice people at all, but you have to vote for me. You have no choice. You're not going to vote for Pocahontas, I can tell you that. You're not going to vote for the wealth tax!" pic.twitter.com/IXoaVUw6MU
The boss of Donald Trump’s personal banker at Deutsche Bank died by suicide last week on Tuesday.
Our servers are having a hard time. Here’s a backup.
1/ Thomas Bowers, a former Deutsche Bank who was the head of the American wealth-management division, killed himself in Malibu, California on Tuesday, November 19th according to the coronor’s initial report.
2/ First reports of his death were filed by the New York Times‘ David Enrich.
3/ Bowers was the boss of Trump’s personal banker Rosemary Vrablic, according to a New York Times article in early 2019. Vrablic reportedly attended the Trump inauguration in the VIP section and expects to get called before congress regarding Trump’s relationship with the bank.
4/ The Los Angeles County Medical Examiner/Coroner reported that Bowers died by suicide by hanging at his residence on the 19th.
5/ One source who has direct knowledge of the FBI’s investigation into Deutsche Bank said that federal investigators haved asked about Bowers and what documents he might have.
6/end/ Another source who has knowledge of Deutsche Bank’s internal structure said that Bowers would have been the gatekeeper for financial documents for the bank’s wealthiest customers.
Forensic News has ordered the full coroner report.
“Bowers was the boss of Trump’s personal banker Rosemary Vrablic, according to a New York Times article in early 2019. Vrablic reportedly attended the Trump inauguration in the VIP section and expects to get called before congress regarding Trump’s relationship with the bank. ”
Rosemary Vrablic has been Trump’s personal banker.[6] Trump began working with Deutsche Bank in 1998, securing a loan for renovations at 40 Wall Street and a $300 million loan for Trump World Tower.[7] Trump borrowed $640 million from the bank for Trump International Hotel and Tower in Chicago, offering a $40 million personal guarantee.[7] After the 2008 financial crisis Trump was unable to make loan payments, so he sued the lender for $3 billion in damages, alleging “Deutsche Bank is one of the banks primarily responsible for the economic dysfunction we are currently facing”.[7] Deutsche Bank responded by suing Trump to collect on the loan.[7]
Vrablic’s wealth management unit at Deutsche Bank then loaned Trump the money he needed to pay the bank’s real estate division.[7] She then gave him another loan on the Chicago project.[7]
Vrablic was relatively unknown on Wall Street outside of the private banking sector until Trump mentioned her in early 2016,[8] when he inaccurately described her as “the head of Deutsche Bank” and “the boss”.[9][10] Vrablic sat in the VIP section at Trump’s swearing-in ceremony.[11] After Trump’s election, Deutsche Bank attempted to restructure about $300 million in loan debt originated primarily by Vrablic, in an attempt to avoid potential conflicts of interest.[12]
In 2013, Vrablic was managing assets valued at $5.5 billion on behalf of about 50 clients, 40% of whom had made their money in real estate.[2] Her clients include Herbert Simon, the billionaire owner of the Indiana Pacers.[2]
The relationship had paid off. Mr. Trump used loans from Deutsche Bank to finance skyscrapers and other high-end properties, and repeatedly cited his relationship with the bank to deflect political attacks on his business acumen. Deutsche Bank used Mr. Trump’s projects to build its investment-banking business, reaped fees from the assets he put in its custody and leveraged his celebrity to lure clients.
Then Mr. Trump won the 2016 election, and the German bank shifted into damage-control mode, bracing for an onslaught of public scrutiny, according to several people involved in the internal response.
In the weeks before Ms. Vrablic attended his swearing-in, the bank commissioned reports to figure out how it had gotten in so deep with Mr. Trump. It issued an unusual edict to its Wall Street employees: Do not publicly utter the word “Trump.”
More than two years later, Mr. Trump’s financial ties with Deutsche Bank are the subject of investigations by two congressional committees and the New York attorney general. Investigators hope to use Deutsche Bank as a window into Mr. Trump’s personal and business finances. www.nytimes.com/…
During a live press conference in Turkey on Thursday, Vice President Mike Pence announced a “deal” with Turkish President Recep Erdogan to give Turkey … everything it wanted.
With great pride and voluminous sucking-up, Pence announced a 120-hour “cease-fire” agreement with Turkey, during which time the United States will “assist” Turkey’s Kurdish targets in fleeing the region Turkey is attacking. In other words, Kurdish forces, their families, and others have five days to withdraw from their own homes, after which Turkey will control the region. It is unclear where those forces are expected to retreat to. Pence’s announcement amounts to an agreement for Turkey to ethnically cleanse a Turkish-demanded “safe zone” with the United States’ approval, and possibly its assistance.
In “exchange” for a cease-fire agreement—an ultimatum to Turkey’s Kurdish targets to withdraw, or else—Pence announced that the United States “will not impose further sanctions” on Turkey for its assault.
In other words, it’s a complete capitulation. Donald Trump’s team agreed to “assist” Turkey in removing Kurdish forces and civilians from the “safe zone” in northern Syria that Turkey is now claiming, and simultaneously promises no further repercussions for Turkey.
Pence went out of his way to praise Donald Trump many, many times for his leadership as he proudly announced the administration’s complete buckling to Syrian demands. He also confirmed that United States forces would indeed be withdrawing, leaving the remainder of the Syrian conflict to be resolved by Turkish forces in the north and the Russian-assisted forces of Assad in the south.
Oh, the ratio.
