Say what?
Courtesy of The Independent:
A former White House ethics director has claimed Donald Trump is “laying the groundwork” to interfere with the November election results after the president went on a Twitter rampage against California’s voting process.
Walter Shaub was the director of the United States Office of Government Ethics in both the Obama and Trump administrations, but has lately been outspoken against Mr. Trump and how he treats the presidency.
Mr. Shaub said the president was preparing to ignore the upcoming presidential election results after a tweet storm on Saturday.
“So in California, the Democrats, who fought like crazy to get all mail-in only ballots, and succeeded, have just opened a voting booth in the most Democrat area in the State,” Mr. Trump tweeted. “They are trying to steal another election. It’s all rigged out there. These votes must not count. SCAM!”
Mr. Shaub responded to the tweet, writing: “… and right on cue, here he is laying the groundwork for a refusal to leave office.”
Previous tweets from the former ethics director showed other examples that he believed proved Mr. Trump was working to discredit the upcoming election in case he lost, including consistently tweeting about the “rigged” system.
You know I have been pooh-poohing this for months now, but something about Trump’s most recent tweets and the fact that Bill Barr just made the DOJ drop the criminal case against Michael Flynn that suddenly makes this seem all too possible.
I don’t think that Trump can totally defy the results of the 2020 vote, but he certainly could insist that his DOJ investigates it and refuse to leave the White House until that investigation is complete, and I absolutely see him doing something like that.
If Trump is able to drive home the idea that mail-in ballots are. by definition, rife with fraud I can even see the Republicans in Washington backing him up, just to retain power for a few weeks longer.
Shit, we are literally living in the middle of a Constitutional crisis.
https://www.rawstory.com/2020/05/trump-spent-weekend-tweeting-like-a-deeply-disturbed-senior-citizen-while-people-died-morning-joe/
…death toll passed 80,000…
https://news.yahoo.com/trump-news-live-president-lashes-072300760.html
… sending out more than 100 conspiracy-minded tweets on a variety of themes on Sunday…
Euthanasia. The best solution to the problem.
https://www.rawstory.com/2020/05/trump-hammered-for-tweet-pimping-his-re-opened-golf-course-as-covid-19-death-toll-breaks-80000/
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/trump-golf-course-coronavirus_n_5eb8c594c5b6399f48040c77
@realDonaldTrump
COVID-19 Endorses Donald J. Trump for President!
@realDonaldTrump
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https://www.vox.com/2020/5/11/21254398/trump-tweets-mothers-day-obamagate-coronavirus
Trump’s latest Twitter meltdown features QAnon, accidental self-owns, and a lot of “OBAMAGATE”
In any previous era, the tweets would be a major national scandal. In Trump’s America, it was Sunday.
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/trump-60-minutes-coronavirus-peter-daszak-ecohealth-alliance_n_5eb90fd7c5b6d34558af9ce4
@realDonaldTrump
.@CBS and their show, @60Minutes, are doing everything within their power, which is far less today than it was in the past, to defend China and the horrible Virus pandemic that was inflicted on the USA and the rest of the World. I guess they want to do business in China!
This is why it’s not really the Lamestream Media, it’s the Rigged Media….and it is what I’m up against. It was corrupt in 2016. Now it is much more corrupt, and what you are seeing is the least of it….but WE WILL WIN AGAIN!
Great credit being given for our Coronavirus response, except in the Fake News. They are a disgrace to America!
Coronavirus numbers are looking MUCH better, going down almost everywhere. Big progress being made!
https://www.cbs.com/shows/60_minutes/video/e1VScfzvWE9MRYrWKJJzq2GAF6Qm_c2h/pandemic-politics-amazon-ghost-guns/
Pandemic Politics
Ghost Guns
What’s-his-name, The Fixer, said in his testimony that if Trump were not re-elected, he would not leave quietly. The damage he’s done to our Country already is beyond alarming. I’m having a hard time imagining what he will be willing to do to ensure a second term.
Michael Cohen is the fixer currently sitting in jail for doing what Trump ordered him to do.
Indeed, once wet let the rot, AKA Trump, in our government, we won’t get him out until he consumes and destroys a substantial portion of it.
Hopefully once he is gone, we will take a long, hard look at ourselves and what we have become. And we’ll build something better.
https://news.yahoo.com/fight-over-viruss-death-toll-162445594.html
“What is the primary benefit to keep public in mass-hysteria re: COVID-19? Think voting. Are you awake yet?” a Qanon follower known as John the White wrote on Twitter, saying the pandemic was being used to manipulate the electorate.
“In late April, as the toll approached 60,000, Trump retweeted a post by a former New York City police official that claimed the number was being inflated by the same people behind the “failed coup attempts” of the Mueller investigation and Trump’s impeachment.
“Do you really think these lunatics wouldn’t inflate the mortality rates by underreporting the infection rates in an attempt to steal the election?” the post said.”
“Few of those who tacked from climate skepticism to COVID-19 denialism have any real expertise in tracking pandemics. But several are funded by industries that have long sought to question the work of scientists, such as big oil companies like Exxon Mobil and tobacco companies like Philip Morris. They are also backed by conservative groups like the Mercer Family Foundation that hold immense sway inside the Trump White House and are deeply invested in the president’s political future.
“It’s the same individuals. It’s the same modus operandi, the same organizations and the same backers,” said Michael Mann, who directs the Earth System Science Center at Pennsylvania State University. “Right-wing conservative interests that are benefiting from the Trump presidency obviously want to see a continuation with the Trump presidency.””
“Last month, after his most ardent supporters had attacked the worst-case death estimates for weeks as evidence of hysteria, Trump began calling attention to the 2 million figure — as a bench mark against which to judge his handling of the crisis.
Then he went further, pointing to 100,000 deaths as the number against which to judge him.
“We will be lower than that number,” Trump told reporters as the death count kept by Johns Hopkins University approached 38,000. “But I really believe it could have been millions of people had we not done what we did.” “If we didn’t do it, the minimum we would have lost was a million two, a million four, a million five, that’s the minimum. We would have lost probably higher. It’s possible higher than 2.2.”
https://www.cnn.com/2020/05/11/politics/donald-trump-coronavirus-quarantine/index.html
It’s obvious what he is doing. Cherry-picking {or popping someone’s cherry} a jaw-dropping number — 2.2 million!
the 2.2 million number was never, ever a realistic projection. Never. (Neil Ferguson acknowledged as much!) Again, Trump either doesn’t know that or doesn’t care. Because citing the big number helps him say he saved “millions” of lives — pushing back against the increasing criticism he and his administration are receiving on how they have handled the coronavirus crisis from the start.
That’s simply not accurate, however. No matter how many times Trump says it.
Send in the military and haul his ass off to prison. I am sure the Democrats are working on a legal plan to haul him out of the WH if necessary.
Isn’t a firing squad the end result of treason?
I have been predicting this since his comments concerning President Xi in 2018.
https://www.rawstory.com/2020/05/yale-fascism-expert-pandemic-offers-trump-a-dangerous-opportunity-to-rule-by-decree-and-consolidate-his-power/
Authoritarians like Trump love disasters. Because they can only destroy and not create, authoritarians use such moments of misery and fear to expand their power.
Social Darwinism. Kill or be killed. “You are a killer, you are a king.” <Fred Trump
Propaganda is the denial of reality.
With Trump’s purge of inspector generals there is really no independent oversight of his administration.
This coalition of the business elite, right-wing Christian evangelicals, and white nationalists and other white supremacists is very dangerous. Fascism is ultimately a death cult.
Fascism involves the typed of paramilitary forces we have seen in Michigan and elsewhere during Trump’s time in office, and before as well. Trump has constantly called for his supporters to use force against their and his “enemies.” Trump is trying to organize armed paramilitary groups on his behalf if there is a contested 2020 presidential election or some other outcome he does not like.
Right now, we are seeing how many men with guns can be called out on to the street by Donald Trump and his administration. The United States military is controlled by civilians. But with Trump’s paramilitary forces and other armed groups, he can give them orders and then claim some type of plausible deniability. These types of armed militias and paramilitaries are given license to act by Donald Trump and other authoritarians.
The official leaders in a full-on authoritarian regime or failing democracy then deny responsibility for the violence. The history of fascism repeatedly shows that leaders such as Donald Trump inspire these militias and paramilitaries to act, and then Trump can say, “No, that violence and those groups have nothing to do with me. They’re not the government. Those are some random people on the street!”
https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/will-the-supreme-court-finally-force-trumps-tax-returns-to-be-released/?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=facebook
Congress would still have one card to play: It could exercise its “inherent contempt” power, which involves physically detaining anyone who ignores its subpoenas. But that power hasn’t been exercised since the 1930s, and House Democrats haven’t used it so far on other noncompliant witnesses in the Trump administration, signaling that they’d be unlikely to use it in this case, too — leaving Congress with functionally no power to enforce its subpoenas.
The stakes are high in the short term for Trump, but they’re arguably even higher for Congress.
https://weeklysift.com/2020/05/11/this-week-in-corruption/?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=facebook
From the day he was born…June 14, 1946…
Corruption is an ongoing story in the Trump administration, dating way back to Trump’s refusal to release his tax returns or distance himself from his business empire…
Big fat baby man gonna kick and scream for sure. His father made him into a winner only Donald is a big baby loser. He is the whiner in chief. He want to do more for our country. Like for instance jet us back into the Puritan days when men were men and women just stayed shut up. He wants us to be back when we had no thinking country but a superstitious one that bought snake oil from the charlatans. And with his base he may make that happen if asshole democrats stop acting like they have a choice of wonders not to vote and fight for a sane leader on the next round. In 4 years Donald Trump turned our country into a fascist cesspool. We need that shit drained so play it right democrats. Dont turn down Rinos, never Trumpers, whoever else is wanting to put the check and balances back into place. I gaurantee Trump and his cohorts will use Putin, or visa versa, to put the final nail on democracies coffinl oh and please get rid of Mitch while your at it. Tired of such a chinless man acting like he has the cream.
Fuck Donald J Trump in the ASS, just as he has done to every Americans.
Both Bill Maher and Michael Moore believe Trump will not go quietly when he loses in November.
And remember, Michael Moore called Trump winning in 2016 when very few people believed it.