What does a TRUMP presidency look like?

[CountDeMoney]

I just don't get it.  I mean....they're the bad guys.

[HVC]

I just don't get it.  I mean....they're the bad guys.

[Valmy]

God I love that sketch. I also love the one they did when Karl Doenitz becomes the new Fuhrer and is so excited until he discovers all he gets to do is surrender. 'Could you give me a Heil Doenitz just so I could say I had one?'

[HVC]

UWhen he goes on about the rats anus I think of the imperial insignia

[CountDeMoney]

Here is General Eisenhower's telephone number, English for "we give up", and an analysis of our military situation in one rude word. 

[Ed Anger]

That was some weird shit."

— Former President George W. Bush, quoted by New York Magazine, at Donald Trump's inauguration in January.

[Razgovory]

I think it's fucking retarded thinking, but whatever floats your boat. 

You're like Hungary in WW2.  You know what they did?  What they always do.  BEET BEET BEET BEET BEET

[citizen k]

So anti-Hillary means pro putin? AWESOME.

SEND ME A BLONDE CHICK AGE 20, MR. PUTIN. MY LIFE FOR YOOOOOOOOOU!

Anti-Hillary means not wanting to lose again in 2020.

[Syt]

http://edition.cnn.com/2017/03/29/politics/ivanka-trump-white-house-job/index.html

Ivanka Trump is making her White House job official

Washington (CNN)Ivanka Trump is changing course and will become a government employee in the coming days, a White House official told CNN Wednesday.

President Donald Trump's eldest daughter will be an unpaid employee working in the West Wing.

"I have heard the concerns some have with my advising the President in my personal capacity while voluntarily complying with all ethics rules, and I will instead serve as an unpaid employee in the White House Office, subject to all of the same rules as other federal employees," Ivanka Trump said in a statement. "Throughout this process I have been working closely and in good faith with the White House counsel and my personal counsel to address the unprecedented nature of my role."

A source with knowledge of the decision told CNN's Gloria Borger the decision was made after the "unease" expressed by people about the nature of her voluntary role, and ethics advocates Norm Eisen and Fred Wertheimer had sent White House counsel Don McGhan a letter last Friday.

Power couple

Now, Ivanka Trump will be an "adviser" to the President, and will file her own Form 278, which means she is legally bound by the ethics rules.

An unsigned statement from the White House said: "We are pleased that Ivanka Trump has chosen to take this step in her unprecedented role as first daughter and in support of the President."

Trump's attorney, Jamie S. Gorelick, said: "Ivanka's decision reflects both her commitment to compliance with federal ethics standards and her openness to opposing points of view. She will file the financial disclosure forms required of federal employees and be bound by the same ethics rules that she had planned to comply with voluntarily."

Jared Kushner, Ivanka's husband and a top Trump aide, is also serving the White House as an unpaid government employee.

News of Trump's new title was first reported by The New York Times.

A White House official confirmed last week that, after a few months settling into Washington, Trump was officially moving into a West Wing office and would obtain top-secret security clearance. She will also receive government-provided communications devices, per the official.

Nepotism?

Ivanka Trump's elevation has prompted critics to note the potential violation of the nepotism law, passed in 1967, that says no public official -- from the President down to a low-level manager at a federal agency -- may hire or promote a relative.

But the law states that any appointee found to have violated the law is "not entitled to pay" by the federal government, which appears to offer the opportunity for Trump and Kushner to forgo paychecks while still serving the administration.

When Kushner officially joined Trump's team in January, the Justice Department concluded that his post as senior adviser was not in violation of federal anti-nepotism laws.

"In choosing his personal staff, the President enjoys an unusual degree of freedom, which Congress found suitable to the demands of his office," wrote Daniel Koffsky, deputy assistant attorney general in the DOJ Office of Legal Counsel, which serves as interpreter of federal law for the White House.

Koffsky reasoned in January that the anti-nepotism law covers only appointments in an "executive" agency and that the White House Office is not an executive agency within the law. He cited a separate law that gives the President broad powers to hire his staff.

That law authorizes the President to appoint "employees in the White House office without regard to any other provision of law regulating the employment or compensation of persons in the government service."

Ivanka Trump took a formal leave of absence from her eponymous apparel and accessories brand, as well as the Trump Organization, in January. She has long been a key trusted adviser to her father, through her young adulthood to her time as executive vice president of real estate development and acquisition at the Trump Organization, and, ultimately, to his 2016 presidential campaign.

Trump will continue in that capacity, serving as the President's "eyes and ears," per Gorelick.

"She will not be his only source of input and insight, obviously, but she may be able to provide insights into the concerns of people whom he might not meet as President," Gorelick told CNN via email last week.

Already at work

In the first several weeks of the administration, she's already been on hand for key happenings, including roundtable discussions with German Chancellor Angela Merkel and Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, a Florida school visit with her father and Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, an Oval Office bill signing encouraging women in STEM, a visit to the National African American Museum of History and Culture and West Wing meetings on human trafficking and manufacturing, among others. She took an even higher profile this week, making formal remarks at an event encouraging women in STEM at Smithsonian's Air and Space museum on Tuesday.

The broadening of Trump's role in her father's administration is unprecedented by any modern member of a first family.

President George W. Bush, who worked on his father's campaign, is the most recent parallel to Ivanka Trump, said Kate Andersen Brower, author of "First Women: The Grace and Power of America's Modern First Ladies" and a CNN contributor.

"But even he wasn't sitting in on high-level policy meetings when his father was in the White House. It definitely complicates matters when someone who can't be fired -- aka a family member -- is this involved in an administration," she said.

[garbon]

I like how they keep using "unprecedented" as a positive.

[The Brain]

Ivanka Trump's elevation has prompted critics to note the potential violation of the nepotism law, passed in 1967, that says no public official -- from the President down to a low-level manager at a federal agency -- may hire or promote a relative.

But the law states that any appointee found to have violated the law is "not entitled to pay" by the federal government, which appears to offer the opportunity for Trump and Kushner to forgo paychecks while still serving the administration.

This reasoning appears bizarre. Is this some US way of thought?

[Syt]

I like how they keep using "unprecedented" as a positive.

It's one of the words they seem to like. Unprecedented, tremendous, constant use of superlatives ...

[Syt]

http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2017/03/what-george-w-bush-really-thought-of-trumps-inauguration.html?mid=facebook_nymag&mid=facebook_nymag

The inauguration of Donald Trump was a surreal experience for pretty much everyone who witnessed it, whether or not they were at the event and regardless of who they supported in the election. On the dais, the stoic presence of Hillary Clinton — whom candidate Trump had said he would send to prison if he took office — underlined the strangeness of the moment. George W. Bush, also savaged by Trump during the campaign, was there too. He gave the same reason for attending that Bill and Hillary Clinton did: to honor the peaceful transfer of power.

Bush's endearing struggle with his poncho at the event quickly became a meme, prompting many Democrats on social media to admit that they already pined for the relative normalcy of his administration. Following Trump's short and dire speech, Bush departed the scene and never offered public comment on the ceremony.

But, according to three people who were present, Bush gave a brief assessment of Trump's inaugural after leaving the dais: "That was some weird shit." All three heard him say it.

A spokesman for Bush declined to comment.

[jimmy olsen]

Woah

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-39435786

Trump Russia dossier key claim 'verified'
By Paul Wood

BBC News, Washington

30 March 2017

The BBC has learned that US officials "verified" a key claim in a report about Kremlin involvement in Donald Trump's election - that a Russian diplomat in Washington was in fact a spy.

So far, no single piece of evidence has been made public proving that the Trump campaign joined with Russia to steal the US presidency - nothing.

But the FBI Director, James Comey, told a hushed committee room in Congress last week that this is precisely what his agents are investigating.

Stop to let that thought reverberate for a moment.

"Investigation is not proof," said the president's spokesman.

Trump's supporters are entitled to ask why - with the FBI's powers to subpoena witnesses and threaten charges of obstructing justice - nothing damning has emerged.

Perhaps there is nothing to find. But some former senior officials say it is because of failings in the inquiry, of which more later.

The roadmap for the investigation, publicly acknowledged now for the first time, comes from Christopher Steele, once of Britain's secret intelligence service MI6.
He wrote a series of reports for political opponents of Donald Trump about Trump and Russia.

Steele's "dossier", as the material came to be known, contains a number of highly contested claims.

At one point he wrote: "A leading Russian diplomat, Mikhail KULAGIN, had been withdrawn from Washington at short notice because Moscow feared his heavy involvement in the US presidential election operation... would be exposed in the media there."

There was no diplomat called Kulagin in the Russian embassy; there was a Kalugin. One of Trump's allies, Roger Stone, said to me of Steele, scornfully: "If 007 wants to be taken seriously, he ought to learn how to spell."

The Russian Foreign Ministry said Kalugin was head of the embassy's economics section.

He had gone home in August 2016 at the end of a six-year posting.
The man himself emailed journalists to complain about a "stream of lies and fake news about my person".

If anyone looks like a harmless economist, rather than a tough, arrogant KGB man, it is the bland-faced Kalugin.

But sources I know and trust have told me the US government identified Kalugin as a spy while he was still at the embassy.

It is not clear if the American intelligence agencies already believed this when they got Steele's report on the "diplomat", as early as May 2016.

But it is a judgment they made using their own methods, outside the dossier.
A retired member of a US intelligence agency told me that Kalugin was being kept under surveillance before he left the US.

In addition, State Department staff who dealt with Russia did not come across Kalugin, as would have been expected with a simple diplomat.

"Nobody had met him," one former official said. "It's classic. Just classic [of Russian intelligence]."

Last month, the McClatchy news website said he was under "scrutiny" by the FBI as he left the US. They did not report, as my sources say, that he was a member of one of Russia's spying organisations, the SVR or GRU.

Steele's work remains fiercely controversial, to some a "dodgy dossier" concocted by President Trump's enemies.

But on this vitally important point - Kalugin's status as a "spy under diplomatic cover" - people who saw the intelligence agree with the dossier, adding weight to Steele's other claims.

But then they knew him already.

I understand - from former officials - that from 2013-16, Steele gave the US government extensive information on Russia and Ukraine.

This was work done for private clients, but which Steele wanted the US authorities to see.

One former senior official who saw these reports told me: "It was found to be of value by the people whose job it was to look at Russia every day.

"They said things like, 'How can he get this so quickly? This fits exactly with what we have.' It was validated many times."

Another who dealt with this material in government said: "Sometimes he would get spun by somebody. [But] it was always 80% there."

None of these reports touched on the nature of Trump's relationship with Russia.
But last June, Steele began sending pages of what would later be called his dossier.
In light of his earlier work, the US intelligence community saw him as "credible" (their highest praise).

The FBI thought the same; they had worked with Steele going back to his days in MI6.

He flew to Rome in August to talk to the FBI.

Then in early October, he came to the US and was extensively debriefed by them, over a week.

He gave the FBI the names of some of his informants, the so-called "key" to the dossier.

But the CIA never interviewed him, and never sought to.

This comes from several people who are in a position to know.

They are alarmed at how the investigation is going, and worry it is being fumbled.
One said: "The FBI doesn't know about Russia, the CIA knows about Russia.

"Any sources Steele has in Russia, the FBI doesn't know how to evaluate.

"The Agency does... Who's running this thing from Moscow? The FBI just aren't capable on that side, of even understanding what Chris has."

Another reflected growing frustration with the inquiry among some who served in the Obama administration: "We used to call them the Feebs. They would make the simple cases, but never see, let alone understand and go after, the bigger picture."

(My editors have asked me to explain, for readers outside North America, that feeb is slang for someone feeble-minded, used above as a contraction of the initials FBI.)

I understand that Steele himself did not ask to brief the CIA because he had a long-standing relationship with the FBI.

The Russia people at the CIA had moved on and he felt he did not have the personal contacts he would need.

The CIA and the FBI would not comment on any of this. But the FBI is said to have a large presence at the US embassy in Moscow and has long experience of investigating Russian organised crime in the US.

The FBI director, Comey, also said in his testimony to Congress: "This investigation began in late July, so for counter-intelligence investigation that's a fairly short period of time."

Several sources have told me that late last year Steele himself grew increasingly disillusioned with the FBI's progress.

"He really thought that what he had would sway the election," said one.

So in October, pages from his reports were given to a few journalists, including me.
Most news organisations that got this material decided it was not solid enough to publish.

These pages from the dossier were not handed over directly by Steele himself, but came from the political research company that paid him.

In early December, the whole thing, 35 pages, was sent to Senator John McCain, who pressed the FBI director to investigate exhaustively.

The following month, the intelligence agencies briefed both then-President Barack Obama and Trump about the dossier - and the entire contents were published by Buzzfeed.

In the report, Steele spoke of an "established operational liaison between the TRUMP team and the Kremlin... an intelligence exchange had been running between them for at least 8 years."

Members of the Obama administration believe, based on analysis they saw from the intelligence community, that the information exchange claimed by Steele continued into the election.

"This is a three-headed operation," said one former official, setting out the case, based on the intelligence: Firstly, hackers steal damaging emails from senior
Democrats. Secondly, the stories based on this hacked information appear on Twitter and Facebook, posted by thousands of automated "bots", then on Russia's English-language outlets, RT and Sputnik, then right-wing US "news" sites such as Infowars and Breitbart, then Fox and the mainstream media. Thirdly, Russia downloads the online voter rolls.

The voter rolls are said to fit into this because of "microtargeting". Using email, Facebook and Twitter, political advertising can be tailored very precisely: individual messaging for individual voters.

"You are stealing the stuff and pushing it back into the US body politic," said the former official, "you know where to target that stuff when you're pushing it back."
This would take co-operation with the Trump campaign, it is claimed.


"If you need to ensure that white women in Pennsylvania don't vote or independents get pissed in Michigan so they stay home: that's voter suppression. You can figure what your target demographics and locations are from the voter rolls. Then you can use that to target your bot."

This is the "big picture" some accuse the FBI of failing to see.

It is, so far, all allegation - and not just the parts concerning Donald Trump and his people.

For instance, the US intelligence agencies said last October that the voter rolls had been "scanned and probed" from a server in Russia.

But the Russian government was never shown to have been responsible.
There are either a series of coincidences or there is a conspiracy of such reach and sophistication that it may take years to unravel.

"I hear a lot of people comparing this to Watergate," said Congressman Eric Swalwell, a Democrat who sits on the House Intelligence Committee.

"Let me just tell you, the complexity of this case is unlike anything we've ever seen.
"Watergate doesn't even come close. That was a burglary in the Metro section of the Washington Post.

"It doesn't have the international waypoints [of this]. Russia's M.O. is to avoid attribution. This investigation is going to take time."

In his testimony, the FBI director gave away nothing of the details of the inquiry. As I wrote in January, it is being done by a "counter-intelligence taskforce" that includes the CIA, with the FBI leading.

I wrote then that the secret US intelligence court had granted an order, a so-called Fisa warrant, to intercept the electronic records of two Russian banks.

The White House cited this report several times as evidence for President Trump's tweets that "Obama had my 'wires tapped' in Trump Tower... This is Nixon/Watergate. Bad (or sick) guy!"

It isn't.

Since Watergate, no president can simply order the CIA or FBI to tap someone's phone.

I wrote that: "Neither Trump nor his associates are named in the Fisa order."
If they were, the court would have to see "probable cause" that they were agents of a foreign power.

It is possible that the communications of Trump associates were picked up in monitoring of foreign entities, such as the Russian banks, so-called "incidental collection".

This is presumably what the White House spokesman, Sean Spicer, is talking about when he asks Congress to investigate an "abuse of power" by the Obama administration.

Comey was careful in his testimony to say the investigation was into "co-ordination" rather than collusion.

"Collusion is not a term, a legal term of art," he said, "and it's one I haven't used here today, as we're investigating to see whether there was any co-ordination..."

"Explicit or implicit coordination?" a Congressman asked.

"Knowing or unknowing," Comey replied.

The investigation, then, is into a range of possibilities: at one end, unwitting co-operation with Russia by members of the Trump campaign; at the other conscious "co-ordination".

Hillary Clinton's former campaign manager, Robby Mook, said that if Trump's aides knew of Russia's plans, there should be charges of treason.

Trump's enemies ask us to believe that some of his people were either traitors or dupes.

The president himself has another version of events: there was no "co-ordination"; the whole thing is a monstrous lie created by the Obama administration, fed by the intelligence community and amplified by the "dishonest" media, billowing black clouds of smoke but no fire.

When the dossier was released, he tweeted: "Are we living in Nazi Germany?"
These two stories cannot be reconciled.

With each new drip of information, option three - the chance that this is all a giant mistake, an improbable series of coincidences - seems further out of reach.

Increasingly, the American people are being asked to choose between two unpalatable versions of events: abuse of power by one president or treason that put another in the White House.

It cannot be both.

[celedhring]

This seems a bit too slate-ish for the BBC 

You don't need to steal the voter rolls to spam white people in Michigan with stuff. A bunch of 400-pound Ivans in a Moscow basement going through social media profiles would suffice. You can probably program a bot for that, even.

It could be even easier if they could just buy browsing and search histories off American ISP-- OH WAI.