The Smoking Gun: Trump, The Least Charitable Billionaire

Compared to Trump even he's a breath of fresh air.

Bush's full speech annotated

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news...p-manifesto-annotated/?utm_term=.4fb9d5e88ce2

https://www.newyorker.com/humor/bor...e-to-console-them-about-trump-being-president
"WASHINGTON (The Borowitz Report)—Former President Barack Obama has started calling every person in America to offer consolation about Donald Trump being President, Obama has confirmed."

Or Manafort

Barack Obama returns to campaign trail with Dem New Jersey gubernatorial nom Phil Murphy



To jump to the segment with Obama, skip the first 12 minutes.

Obama delivers veiled but withering rebuke of Trump, urging a return to hope | The Guardian

Back in the public fray at a rally in Virginia, the former president delivered his views on the current political climate in his strongest terms yet

Excerpts:

“You’ll notice I haven’t been commenting a lot on politics lately,” Obama told thousands of supporters in Richmond. “But here’s one thing I know: if you have to win a campaign by dividing people, you’re not going to be able to govern them. You won’t be able to unite them later if that’s how you start.”

<snipped>

“Instead of our politics reflecting our values, we’ve got politics infecting our communities,” said Obama, looking relaxed in a tieless blue shirt and suit. “Instead of looking for ways to work together to get things done in a practical way, we’ve got folks who are deliberately trying to make folks angry, to demonise people who have different ideas, to get the base all riled up because it provides a short term tactical advantage.”

He continued: “The question now, at a time when our politics seem so divided and so angry and so nasty, is whether we can recapture that spirit, whether we support and embrace somebody who wants to bring people together,” Obama said. “Yes, we can.”

<snipped>

“If we’re going to talk about our history then we should do it in a way that heals, not in a way that wounds, not in a way that divides. We shouldn’t use the most painful parts of our history just to score political points. We saw what happened in Charlottesville but we also saw what happened after Charlottesville when the biggest gatherings of all rejected fear and rejected hate and the decency and goodwill of the American people came out.

“That’s how we rise. We don’t rise up by repeating the past. We rise up by learning from the past and listening to each other.”

His voice growing with emotion matched by the crowd, Obama continued: “We can acknowledge that Thomas Jefferson, one of Virginia’s most famous sons, owned and sold slaves – that’s not disputable. And we can also acknowledge that he also wrote those words: ‘We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights; that among these are life and liberty and the pursuit of happiness.’

“And we can recognize that even if our past is not perfect we can honor the constitutional ideals that have allowed us to come this far and to keep moving toward a more perfect union. That’s what America is. That’s who we are.”

<snipped>

In an NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll in August, 51% of Americans said they have a favourable opinion of Obama, while 35% had a negative opinion. The same survey found that 36% said they had a positive opinion of Trump and 52% had a negative opinion. The pair are not thought to have spoken to each other since Trump’s inauguration.

More at https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/oct/19/barack-obama-trump-attack-speech-virginia-hope

General John Kelly Fucks Self With Donald Trump’s Sword

By Evan Hurst, Wonkette

Quote:

America, we have just witnessed something truly disgusting. General John Kelly, Donald Trump’s chief of staff, whose son’s death Donald Trump politicized this week when he doubled down on his bullshit lie that Presidents Obama and Bush never called families of fallen troops, walked up to the podium in the White House briefing room and threw himself on Donald Fucking Trump’s sword, essentially taking all responsibility for the giant fuck-up that happened when the child president called the families of troops killed in Niger. In so doing, he stabbed his own credibility to death.

Here’s video. Kelly starts about 35 minutes in.

<snipped>

It started nicely enough. Kelly told the reporters what actually happens when a soldier dies — what happens to the body, how it’s transported, the protocol for notifying the family. Here’s a transcript of that:

<snipped>

Kelly then said he recommended Donald Trump not call families of the fallen. (And he obviously shouldn’t.) He said he told Trump that Barack Obama didn’t call his family when his son died, but that he didn’t mean it as a criticism, just stating a fact that not all presidents call all families every time a soldier dies. Trump, of course, decided to politicize the issue, by using that information to shit on Barack Obama at a press conference.

Kelly said he coached Donald Trump on what to say, and he made sure to emphasize that HE told Trump to tell Myeshia Johnson, the wife of Army Sgt. La David T. Johnson, that her husband “knew what he was signing up for.” Some transcript:

He called four people the other day and expressed his condolences in the best way he could. And he said to me, “What do I say?” […] Let me tell you what I tell them. […] “He was doing exactly what he wanted to do when he was killed. He knew what he was getting into by joining [the military]. He knew what the possibilities were, because we’re at war. And when he died … he was surrounded by the best men on this earth, his friends.” That’s what the president tried to say to … the four families the other day.

Well hell, it sounds better when John Kelly says it, but that doesn’t change the fact that Trump obviously delivered those words to Myeshia Johnson without feeling or compassion. Indeed, Congresswoman Frederica Wilson said it came across as “almost like joking.”

THEN Kelly put on his best Donald Trump Rage Twitter face and attacked Frederica Wilson. Oh holy shit, this is fucked up:

I was stunned when I came to work yesterday morning, and broken-hearted, at what I saw a member of Congress doing. A member of Congress who listened in on a phone call from the president of the United States to a young wife. […] He knew what he was getting into, because he enlisted. […] That was the message … that was transmitted.

It STUNS me that a member of Congress would have listened in on that conversation. Absolutely stuns me. And I thought AT LEAST that was sacred.

FAKE NEWS, John Kelly, but Congresswoman Wilson had mentored Sgt. Johnson for YEARS and it was the family that put the phone on speaker. THEY WERE RIDING IN THE CAR TOGETHER TO RECEIVE HIS BODY.

It gets worse.

Kelly then lamented all the things that aren’t sacred anymore, apparently because Rep. Frederica Wilson “politicized” the issue by saying the president had hurt this family.

When I was a kid growing up, a lot of things were sacred in our country. Women were sacred, looked upon with great honor. That’s obviously not the case anymore, as we see from recent cases.

OH LIKE MAYBE THE CASE OF DONALD “GRAB THEM BY THE PUSSY” TRUMP, YOUR FUCKING BOSS? IS THAT WHAT YOU ARE TALKING ABOUT, GENERAL?

Gold Star families, I think [the sacredness of those families] left at the convention over the summer.

Which convention, John Kelly? Was it when at the Democratic Convention, a Gold Star family that happens to be Muslim spoke out against DONALD “MUSLIM BAN” TRUMP and asked if their son, who gave his life for this country, would even be welcome in Donald Trump’s America? And then Donald Fucking Trump proceeded to ATTACK THAT FAMILY FOR DAYS ON END, because their comments got under his pussy thin skin? Was it Khizr and Ghazala Khan who took away the “sacredness” of Gold Star families, or was it YOUR FUCKING BOSS, GENERAL?

Kelly said when he heard what Congresswoman Wilson was saying on TV, he was so upset he had to go to Arlington National Cemetery to collect his thoughts, because this is all her fault, and not Donald Trump’s fault. Indeed, Kelly said the sacredness of our troops dying in war “eroded a great deal yesterday” because of the “selfish behavior of a member of Congress.”

Never mind that the family straight-up confirmed that Donald Trump had disrespected them and hurt them, just as the congresswoman said. Never mind that Donald Trump was the one who took a giant shit all over those families, by lying and saying Barack Obama and other presidents weren’t near as tremendously wonderful to the families of the fallen as he is. Never mind that Donald Trump spent a month of his presidential campaign shitting on another Gold Star family.

At the end, Kelly only took questions from journalists who had met a Gold Star family before, because that’s how a free press works.

Go fuck yourself, John Kelly. We still respect your service and the sacrifice your family made, but our respect for you as a human just took a nosedive.

And that makes us very sad.

More at https://wonkette.com/624558/general-john-kelly-fucks-self-with-donald-trumps-sword

On the plus side there's this,

http://
Trump's Renoir painting is not real, Chicago museum says

• 19 October 2017
  
• From the sectionUS & Canada

Image copyrightART INSTITUTE OF CHICAGOImage captionPierre-Auguste Renoir's Two Sisters (On The Terrace)
A US museum says an Impressionist painting which President Donald Trump reportedly claims to own is a fake.
In a recent interview, Trump biographer Tim O'Brien said he was once told by the future president that his artwork was an original.
But the Chicago Institute of Art says the real painting, Two Sisters (On The Terrace) by Pierre-Auguste Renoir, has hung in its gallery for 80 years.
A museum spokesperson said it is "satisfied that our version is real".
The painting was gifted to the institute in 1933, spokeswoman Amanda Hicks told the Chicago Tribune.
The donor acquired it for $100,000 (£76,000) from an art dealer who bought it directly from the French Impressionist painter in 1881, she added.
But O'Brien said during a recent interview with Vanity Fair's Hive podcast that Mr Trump has repeatedly claimed to him that his version of the painting was authentic.
During a flight on Mr Trump's private jet while he was writing his 2005 book, TrumpNation: The Art of Being The Donald, O'Brien said he spotted the painting and asked about it.
"You know, that's an original Renoir," the author said Mr Trump had told him, adding that the property tycoon repeated the claim the following day.
"Donald, it's not," he recalled telling Trump. "I grew up in Chicago, that Renoir is called Two Sisters on the Terrace, and it's hanging on a wall at the Art Institute of Chicago.
"That's not an original."
The artwork was later apparently moved to Trump Tower, the author said, saying it was visible in the background of a CBS 60 Minutes interview that Mr Trump gave shortly after his election.
"I'm sure he's still telling people who come into the apartment, 'It's an original, it's an original,'" O'Brien said on the podcast.
Mr Trump sued O'Brien for $5bn because the author wrote in TrumpNation that rather than being a billionaire, his net worth was actually as low as $150m.
The defamation lawsuit was dismissed.
/news/world-us-canada-41686623

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-41686623

Source for Trump news about FAKE painting

It was only a matter of time before Trump corrupted this very straight general. Only a matter of time. Next we will see Kelly at press conferences praising God because he gets to work with holy Trump. Corruption is ugly.

http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-41695667
Anger over Donald Trump's UK crime tweet
And described by Commons Home Affairs chairperson MP as " inflammatory and ignorant"

She's got that right.

Trump dissed the black guy !

Arpaio is Still Guilty: Despite Pardon, Judge Declines to Vacate Verdict | Phoenix New Times

Quote:

Joe Arpaio remains a marked man. Despite the former sheriff’s best efforts, a U.S. district judge denied his motion to vacate a guilty verdict from earlier this year, which found Arpaio in criminal contempt of court.

In the decision late yesterday, U.S. District Judge Susan R. Bolton smacked down Arpaio's argument that his pardon should erase the court's underlying finding of the guilty verdict. She went as far as to note that accepting a pardon carries a confession of guilt.

In a brief ruling, Bolton argued that although President Trump granted Arpaio a pardon, ending his criminal case and sparing him a sentencing hearing, the presidential act of mercy doesn't rid him of the guilty verdict.

A presidential pardon “does not erase a judgment of conviction, or its underlying legal and factual findings,” Bolton wrote. She then quoted a Supreme Court decision on the scope of a presidential pardon: “Indeed, a pardon ‘carries an imputation of guilt; acceptance a confession of it.’”

Wasting no time, on Thursday evening Arpaio’s attorneys prepared to file the necessary paperwork to appeal the decision to the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.

Continued at http://www.phoenixnewtimes.com/news...rdon-judge-declines-to-vacate-verdict-9799935

That Fake Photo of Trump’s Phoenix Rally? The Work of Russian Trolls | Phoenix New Times

Quote:

Remember that photo supposedly showing a massive crowd for Trump’s rally in downtown Phoenix? As it turns out, the account was run by a Russian organization with ties to the Kremlin that's known for spreading fake news and propaganda.

While the hoax gained attention when it was posted (and subsequently deleted), we now know a little bit more about who was behind the account.

As first reported in an investigation by Russian newspaper RBC and then confirmed by BuzzFeed, the Twitter account behind the viral shot of not-Phoenix was run by the Internet Research Agency, an organization in Russia that traffics in a new breed of &quot;information warfare.&quot;

According to a 2015 investigation, employees at the Internet Research Agency pretend to be regular people on social-media sites. In reality, these accounts exist solely to spread pro-Russian posts to an unsuspecting public on networks like Twitter and Facebook. Because of these bogus accounts, the agency is commonly referred to as a &quot;troll farm.&quot;

The photo that purported to show people filling the street for Trump's August 22 rally at the Phoenix Convention Center was actually taken at the Cleveland Cavaliers' victory parade in 2016.

The account, @TEN_GOP, used an avatar of the seal of the state of Tennessee and claimed to be an &quot;unofficial&quot; account of Tennessee Republicans.

The real office of the Tennessee Republican Party had asked Twitter to take down the account on three occasions, to no avail. Twitter finally suspended the account in August, but not before false and misleading tweets like this one were shared by the account, which boasted 136,000 followers. It also gained some prominent fans who shared the pro-Trump content, including Kellyanne Conway, Donald Trump Jr., and the president himself.

Continued at http://www.phoenixnewtimes.com/news/fake-trump-in-phoenix-photo-from-russian-troll-farm-9795263

Join Us | Tom Steyer



Quote:

Donald Trump has taken money from foreign governments, obstructed justice at the FBI, and even brought us to the brink of nuclear war. We need to impeach this dangerous president.

Sign the Petition: https://www.needtoimpeach.com/

Megadonor Tom Steyer launches TV ad campaign for Trump impeachment

By David Weigel, The Washington Post

Quote:

Political mega-donor Tom Steyer is funding an eight-figure TV ad campaign to “demand that elected officials take a stand” on impeaching President Trump.

“A Republican Congress once impeached a president for far less, and today people in Congress and his own administration know that this president is a clear and present danger,” Steyer says in the ad, which directs viewers to a new NeedToImpeach website.

The TV spot will be supplemented by a seven-figure social media buy.

The campaign, which was previewed last week by the New York Times, is not a project of Steyer’s political organization, NextGen America. It is funded directly by Steyer, a donor who has not ruled out a run for office himself and who has built relationships with think tanks and elected Democrats in California and Washington.

Visitors to Steyer’s new website see a compilation of news articles about Trump’s decisions, and a long open letter from Steyer, with a litany of reasons for politicians to remove Trump from office. Finally, there is an offer to sign up with the campaign.

“He is repealing clean air protections and unleashing polluters, even as increasingly catastrophic natural disasters supercharged by our warming planet ravaged the country throughout the summer,” Steyer writes. “He has threatened to reduce aid for millions of American citizens in Puerto Rico who are struggling to survive without drinkable water or electricity — a move that would be a total dereliction of his duty. And every day, Americans are left bracing for a Twitter screed that could set off a nuclear war.”

Continued at https://www.washingtonpost.com/news...aunches-tv-ad-campaign-for-trump-impeachment/

Donald J. Trump‏ @realDonaldTrump 12 minutes ago
I hope the Fake News Media keeps talking about Wacky Congresswoman Wilson in that she, as a representative, is killing the Democrat Party!

How every investor lost money on Trump Tower Toronto (but Donald Trump made millions anyway) | Toronto Star

Donald Trump called himself a “genius” for investing in Toronto’s Trump Tower. Behind the scenes, he had no money on the line. The inside story of an unlikely bankruptcy, and the investors who lost everything when they bet on the Trump brand.

https://www.thestar.com/news/world/...to-but-donald-trump-made-millions-anyway.html

https://www.theatlantic.com/politic...ping-condolences-to-military-families/543606/
Trump's aides are rush shipping condolence letters to families hos loved one died in June.

They are trying to fix Trump's lie about calling the families of most of those slain. One more lie with a retrofit.

He is a skinflint, the only reason he is giving to lawyers for his underlings is to protect himself from defections.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news...r-aides-legal-costs-related-to-russia-probes/

slate.me/2yGqyNW

A Grown Man Mooned the President’s Motorcade Today Because We All Have a Role to Play

Young subscribers flock to old media

Shunning Trump, the millennial generation does what it once resisted: pay for news.

By Jason Schwartz, Politico

Quote:

As President Donald Trump wages daily war against the press, millennials are subscribing to legacy news publications in record numbers — and at a growth rate, data suggests, far outpacing any other age group.

Since November's election, the New Yorker, for instance, has seen its number of new millennial subscribers more than double from over the same period a year earlier. According to the magazine's figures, it has 106 percent more new subscribers in the 18-34 age range and 129 percent more from 25-34.

The Atlantic has a similar story: since the election, its number of new subscribers aged 18-24 jumped 130 percent for print and digital subscriptions combined over the same period a year earlier, while 18-44 went up 70 percent.

Newspapers like The Washington Post and The New York Times typically do not share specific subscriber data, but according to a Post spokesperson, its subscriber growth rate is highest among millennials. A New York Times representative relayed that the paper was “seeing similar trends” in subscriptions and pointed to public data on digital traffic that showed its online reach among millennials to be up 9 percent from the same period a year ago.

Even The Wall Street Journal — not a paper usually known for being left around dorm rooms — said that it has doubled its student subscribers in the last year. And a spokesperson for the famously staid Economist reported, “We are seeing that the 18-24 and 25-34 age groups have been key drivers of new subscriptions.”

Oft derided as pampered, avocado-toast-eating layabouts, millennials have long been seen as unlikely to pay for news.

“Information wants to be free,” the cliché went, and, not long ago, headlines like, “Why Millennials Still Won't Pay Much For The News” were easy enough to find. But according to Nic Newman, the lead author of the 2017 edition of the Reuters Institute’s Digital News Report, two major things have changed.

The first is that subscription streaming services like Netflix, Hulu and Spotify have conditioned young people to be more willing to pay for quality content.

The second is Trump.

According to the Reuters Institute report, which surveyed more than 70,000 people in 36 countries and was published last summer, the United States was the only country studied that over the last year saw a major increase in the proportion of people who paid for online news, jumping from 9 percent in 2016 to 16 percent in 2017 — and millennials were a big part of the reason.

Between 2016 and 2017, the share of Americans aged 18-24 who paid for online news vaulted from 4 percent to 18 percent, the study said; the age group 25-34 rose from 8 percent to 20 percent. Those two age groups, Newman said, collectively represent about 30 percent of the market.

To be sure, the “Trump bump” has existed across all age groups — the New Yorker reports 100 percent year-over-year increases in new subscribers for every demographic — but, in the Reuters Institute study, the millennial age brackets grew at a rate three times greater than any others, and no other age group boasted as high a percentage of people paying for news online.

“The big boost we saw in subscriptions in the U.S.,” Newman said, “is driven by people on the left and younger people are more likely to be on the left. That is really a lot of what’s driving it: young people who don’t like Trump who subscribe to news organizations that they see as being a bulwark against him.”

Newman said that 29 percent of Americans responded to the survey that their reason for paying for news was, “wanting to help support or fund journalism,” which was twice the average for all countries included in the study. Americans on the political left were four times more likely than those on the right to cite supporting journalism as their reason for paying, Newman said.

Continued at http://www.politico.com/story/2017/10/21/millennials-trump-paying-for-news-244001

We were here where were you ?


http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-41711576


Former US presidents gather for hurricanes fundraiser

• 5 hours ago
  
• From the sectionUS & Canada

Media captionThe five living former US presidents unite
The five living former US presidents have gathered for a concert in aid of victims of the hurricanes which ravaged the US this year.
Barack Obama, George W Bush, Bill Clinton, George HW Bush and Jimmy Carter appeared in Texas on Saturday.
The three Democrats and two Republicans came together behind The One America Appeal, set up to help those caught up in the devastating trails of Hurricanes Harvey, Irma and Maria.
It has raised $31m (£23.5m) so far.

• Watch: Why Hurricane Maria hit Puerto Rico so hard
• Who cleans up after hurricanes?
• Irma: How dangerous is the devastating storm?

The politicians launched the appeal in the aftermath of Hurricane Harvey, which caused billions in damage after it made landfall in Texas in August.
Image copyrightREUTERSImage captionLady Gaga gave a surprise performance
However, it has since been expanded to include the communities in Florida, Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands which were hit by the storms which followed.
"As former presidents, we wanted to help our fellow Americans begin to recover," Mr Obama explained to concertgoers in a pre-recorded message.
His immediate predecessor added: "People are hurting down here but as one Texan put it, we've got more love in Texas than water."
All five presidents appeared on stage for the anthem, before taking their seats to watch acts including Lee Greenwood, who opened with Proud to be an American, and Lady Gaga.
Image copyrightREUTERSImage captionThe One America Appeal was launched after Hurricane Harvey
They were not joined by sitting President Donald Trump, who sent a message ahead of the show praising their "wonderful" work and expressing his "deep gratitude".
Both Mr Obama and the younger Mr Bush have made speeches in the last week which have been seen as veiled criticism of the former reality TV star's tenure in the White House.

#Send an aubergine to Trump.

Adam Hills says so.

Donald J. Trump‏ @realDonaldTrump 6 hours ago
It is finally sinking through. 46% OF PEOPLE BELIEVE MAJOR NATIONAL NEWS ORGS FABRICATE STORIES ABOUT ME. FAKE NEWS, even worse! Lost cred.

TRUMP PROMISSING TO PAY LEGAL FEES FOR WHITE HOUSE AIDES OUT OF HIS OWN POCKET IS OBSTRUCTION OF JUSTICE.