Tag: Donald Trump

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Report: Donald Trump Personally Ordered Bannon To Curtail His House Intel Committee Testimony

Donald Trump (L), Steve Bannon (R)

According to Foreign Policy, Donald Trump himself ordered Steve Bannon to refuse to answer questions before a House Intelligence Committee on Tuesday:

Trump acted to limit Bannon’s testimony based on legal advice provided by Uttam Dhillon, a deputy White House counsel, who concluded that the administration might have legitimate executive privilege claims to restrict testimony by Bannon and other current and former aides to the president, according to these same sources.

But Dhillon has also concluded that Bannon and other current and former Trump administration officials do not have legitimate claims to executive privilege when it comes to providing information or testimony to special counsel Robert Mueller, according to the sources.

Personally, I’m not sure executive privilege really applies to any questions from the campaign or the transition period after the election since Trump was not president yet. If you’re not the “executive,” then you have no executive privilege.

Several outlets have reported that Bannon has agreed to be open and transparent with Robert Mueller’s investigators in exchange for avoiding testimony before a grand jury.

We shall see…

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Donald Trump Now Says Parts Of Mexican Border Wall Were Always Meant To Be “See Through”

Donald Trump used his morning “Executive Time” today on Twitter to assert that he never promised one long solid wall along the U.S./Mexican border, and that parts of the barrier were always meant to be “see through.”

Does anyone remember Trump talking about a “see through” wall on the campaign trail?

This comes a day after White House Chief of Staff John Kelly told reporters that Donald Trump was “uninformed” about the realities of building an actual wall across the U.S./Mexican border from sea to shining sea,

Via CNN:

“The Wall is the Wall, it has never changed or evolved from the first day I conceived of it. Parts will be, of necessity, see through and it was never intended to be built in areas where there is natural protection such as mountains, wastelands or tough rivers or water,” the President tweeted.

Appearing on Fox News Wednesday evening, Kelly pointed to the border wall as an example of how the President has adjusted his views after being briefed by experts. “He has evolved in the way he’s looked at things,” Kelly said, adding, “Campaign to governing are two different things, and this President has been very, very flexible in terms of what is within the realm of the possible.”

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Donald Trump Announces His “Fake News Awards;” Washington Post Fact-Checks Each One

Donald Trump finally announced his much-hyped “Fake News Awards” last night on the Republican National Committee’s website.

There was a sense of irony in that the posting and subsequent traffic caused the website to crash.

In any case, if you’re wondering what’s really bothering Donald Trump these days, here are his biggest pet peeves in terms of “news” from his first year in the White House.

1. The New York Times’ Paul Krugman claimed on the day of President Trump’s historic, landslide victory that the economy would never recover.

2. ABC News’ Brian Ross CHOKES and sends markets in a downward spiral with false report.

3. CNN FALSELY reported that candidate Donald Trump and his son Donald J. Trump, Jr. had access to hacked documents from WikiLeaks.

4. TIME FALSELY reported that President Trump removed a bust of Martin Luther King, Jr. from the Oval Office.

5. Washington Post FALSELY reported the President’s massive sold-out rally in Pensacola, Florida was empty. Dishonest reporter showed picture of empty arena HOURS before crowd started pouring in.

6. CNN FALSELY edited a video to make it appear President Trump defiantly overfed fish during a visit with the Japanese prime minister. Japanese prime minister actually led the way with the feeding.

7. CNN FALSELY reported about Anthony Scaramucci’s meeting with a Russian, but retracted it due to a ‘significant breakdown in process.’

8. Newsweek FALSELY reported that Polish First Lady Agata Kornhauser-Duda did not shake President Trump’s hand.

9. CNN FALSELY reported that former FBI Director James Comey would dispute President Trump’s claim that he was told he is not under investigation.

10. The New York Times FALSELY claimed on the front page that the Trump administration had hidden a climate report.

11. And last, but not least: “RUSSIA COLLUSION!” Russian collusion is perhaps the greatest hoax perpetrated on the American people. THERE IS NO COLLUSION!

On that last issue, it is well known that no final report has been filed by Special Counsel Robert Mueller, so Trump’s assertion that “there is no collusion” is merely his own used-car salesman hyperbole.

Sane folks should wait for the conclusion of the investigation to determine whether or not someone from Team Trump somehow cooperated with Russian agents during the 2016 election.

The Washington Post has taken the time to actually delve into the reality behind each of these. I encourage you to read the brief details behind them all here.

Here’s the WaPo’s summary:

To sum up, at least eight of the “Fake News” winners resulted in corrections, with two reports prompting suspensions or resignations.

Two of the winners were simply tweets that were quickly corrected and never resulted in news articles.

One was an opinion article in which the author later retracted his prediction.

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In Touch Weekly To Run Porn Star’s “Textbook Generic Sex” Affair With Donald Trump

Rumors have again been swirling about an alleged consensual sexual relationship between Donald Trump and porn star Stormy Daniels (aka Stephanie Clifford).

According to the Wall Street Journal , Daniels was in negotiations to publicly discuss her affair with Trump, which allegedly took place in 2006, right before election day in 2016.

But says she was paid $130,000 in hush money right before spilling the beans.

Now In Touch Weekly has announced it will print an unedited 5,500 word interview with Daniels from 2011 (before she allegedly signed a non-disclosure agreement) which details the affair.

The magazine says two other sources corroborated the story and Daniels passed a polygraph test at the time regarding the details.

According to Daniels, the relationship began just months after Melania Trump gave birth to Trump scion, Barron.

Here’s an excerpt released today:

Stormy told In Touch, “[The sex] was textbook generic,” while discussing the fling they had less than four months after Donald’s wife, Melania, gave birth to their son, Barron. “I actually don’t even know why I did it, but I do remember while we were having sex, I was like, ‘Please, don’t try to pay me.’”

It all started at the American Century celebrity golf tournament in July 2006. “[Trump] was introduced to everybody. He kept looking at me and then we ended up riding to another hole on the same golf cart together,” Stormy recalled, adding that the business mogul later came to the gift lounge her adult-film company, Wicked Pictures, sponsored and asked for her number, which she gave him, before they posed for a photo together.

“Then he asked me if I wanted to have dinner that night. And I was like, ‘Yeah, of course!’” she told In Touch. Stormy, dressed up to go out on the town, arrived at Trump’s hotel room, where she says she was greeted by a bodyguard named Keith, who let her inside. Stormy claims Trump was sprawled on the couch watching TV, wearing pajama pants. “We ended up having dinner in the room,” she revealed to In Touch.

At one point, Stormy told In Touch, she excused herself to go to the bathroom. “When I came out, he was sitting on the bed and he was like, ‘Come here.’ And I was like, ‘Ugh, here we go.’ And we started kissing.” After having sex, Stormy said, “We hung out for a little while and he just kept saying, ‘I’m gonna call you, I’m gonna call you. I have to see you again. You’re amazing. We have to get you on The Apprentice.’”

The promised appearance on Trump’s The Apprentice series never happened.

According to The Daily Beast, other media outlets – including Fox News – were prepping their own coverage of the alleged affair before the election but chose not to run the story.

Trump has flatly denied the allegations.

Daniels refuses to comment today presumably due to the NDA she is alleged to have signed.

As I’ve written in the past, It’s not of interest to me what two consenting adults do in private. But, if true, this just adds to the list of lies Donald Trump has told.

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Girther Movement: Raised Eye-Brows At Donald Trump’s Ht/Wt Stats After Physical

Donald Trump recently underwent his first full physical since arriving at the White House.

And according to Dr. Ronny L. Jackson, a rear admiral in the Navy and the White House physician, Trump is in “excellent” health.

But eyebrows were raised when Jackson released his report saying the Trumpster, who is 6’3″ tall, clocks in at 239 pounds.

From The New York Times:

Overall, Dr. Jackson said, Mr. Trump’s health was “excellent,” with mostly normal results on a battery of tests and examinations. He said Mr. Trump, 71, has remarkably good cardiac health, probably because he does not smoke or drink alcohol.

But he did say that Mr. Trump’s weight is 239 pounds and that he is too sedentary. His cholesterol is too high, despite medicine to lower it, and Dr. Jackson said Mr. Trump would be increasing the 10-milligram dosage of Crestor to better control it.

At 6 feet 3 inches tall, Mr. Trump has a body mass index of 29.9, which is just shy of officially being obese.

Folks were not buying that the Donald’s impressive girth would yield a weight of only 239 lbs.

I personally couldn’t care less what he weighs, but it is just one more lie generated by Trump’s fragile ego to throw on the pile.

Guardians of the Galaxy writer-director James Gunn is offering $100K if Trump will stand on an accurate scale with an inpartial medical professional:

Dr. Jackson also announced he performed a cognitive test on Trump at Trump’s request. Jackson said Trump received a perfect score on the test.

Via to Matt Rettenmund of Boy Culture, below is the cognitive test Trump apparently aced.

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Poll: 35% Of Voters Give Donald Trump An “F” For His First Year As President

A new poll by Morning Consult/Politico shows 35% of those surveyed give Donald Trump an “F” for his efforts after his first year in office.

From The Washington Examiner:

Thirty-five percent of voters asked give Trump an “F” after his first year in office, while about half of that, 18 percent, gave him an “A,” according to a Morning Consult/Politico poll released Tuesday.

The Jan. 4-5 survey found that 17 percent said Trump was worthy of a “B,” 14 percent gave him a “C,” and 11 percent thought he earned a “D” grade.

The pollster also found Trump’s disapproval rating had jumped 14 percent from 37 percent in a Jan. 20-22 poll last year, to 51 percent last week at the conclusion of his first full year in office.

Meanwhile, the Gallup Daily Tracking poll shows Trump in his usual neighborhood of 38% job approval and disapproval at 57%.

According to Gallup, Trump’s average approval rating for his first year was 39%. That’s the lowest of any modern president.

The previous “lowest approval” average for a first year president was Bill Clinton, and he well outpaced Trump with a 49% average.

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Donald Trump Observes MLK Day

As America observes Martin Luther King Jr. Day, an occasion Donald Trump says should be observed by doing acts of community service, the Trumpster arrived at his golf course for the third day in a row.

This is his 94th day as president at one of his golf courses.

By the way, “Donald Trump’s racism” is currently trending on Twitter. This is not normal.

#MAGA

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Donald Trump Covers “Der Spiegel”

Germany’s leading magazine, Der Spiegel, asks the question: “Humanity as a whole is being set back just because of one single Person. Where is the world supposed to start again if it manages to survive Donald Trump?”

Our latest cover story explains how “Fire and Fury” came to be and whether, and the extent to which, it approaches the truth.

Most importantly, however, it delves into the consequences for an America and a world that have been confronted with a nuclear-armed fool who is likely to remain in office for some time to come, who is neither mentally nor psychologically suited for the job – apparently also not physically, either, given how late he starts the working day and how early he ends it.

That, unfortunately, is precisely the point: Humanity as a whole is being set back just because of one single person. The achievements of decades – the fight against a climate disaster, against the nuclear threat, for equality between men and women, between blacks and whites and so on and so on.

Where is the world supposed to start again if it manages to survive Donald Trump?

Remember, Donald Trump would have you believe the world somehow has more respect for us after his election…?

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Donald Trump Rants Against WSJ Report “I Probably Have A Good Relationship With Kim Jong Un”

Donald Trump took to Twitter this morning to rant against the Wall Street Journal’s article that Trump reportedly said he “I probably have a good relationship” with North Korean dictator Lim Jong Un.

The Trumpster says he was “misquoted.”

From The Washington Post:

The White House is disputing the newspaper’s story from an interview last week in which Trump claimed some success in countering the nuclear threat from North Korea and said he could be open to talks under the right conditions. He claimed good relationships with other Asian leaders dealing with North Korea. The Journal quoted Trump as then saying, “I probably have a good relationship with Kim Jong Un.”

“Obviously I didn’t say that,” Trump wrote on Twitter on Sunday morning. “I said ‘I’d have a good relationship with Kim Jong Un,’ a big difference,” Trump continued. “Fortunately we now record conversations with reporters…”

In a second tweet, Trump finished the thought. “…and they knew exactly what I said and meant,” Trump wrote. “They just wanted a story. FAKE NEWS!”

Trump’s press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders also tried to defend the statement, repeating “I’d. I’d. I’d.”

Here’s the audio below. I don’t hear the Donald’s “D” he’s insisting is there.

Maybe he’s a lazy talker…?

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Wall Street Journal: Porn Star Paid $130K Before Election To Stay Quiet On

The Wall Street Journal (a conservative newspaper I shall note) is reporting Stephanie Clifford, an adult film performer whose stage name is Stormy Daniels, agreed to a $130,000 payment to keep quiet about an alleged sexual encounter.

A lawyer for President Donald Trump arranged a $130,000 payment to a former adult-film star a month before the 2016 election as part of an agreement that precluded her from publicly discussing an alleged sexual encounter with Mr. Trump, according to people familiar with the matter.

Michael Cohen, who spent nearly a decade as a top attorney at the Trump Organization, arranged payment to the woman, Stephanie Clifford, in October 2016 after her lawyer negotiated the nondisclosure agreement with Mr. Cohen, these people said.

Ms. Clifford, whose stage name is Stormy Daniels, has privately alleged the encounter with Mr. Trump took place after they met at a July 2006 celebrity golf tournament in Lake Tahoe, these people said. Mr. Trump married Melania Trump in 2005.

Mr. Trump faced other allegations during his campaign of inappropriate behavior with women, and vehemently denied them. In this matter, there is no allegation of a nonconsensual interaction.

I wonder if Trump calls the WSJ “fake news?”

The White House dismissed the story calling it “recycled.”

Trump lawyer Michael Cohen did not address the payment, but did deny there was any sexual encounter with Ms. Daniels.

According to the report, the payment to Daniels was made through the company that owns the National Enquirer. It’s well-known the owner is a friend of Donald Trump.

The company claims she was paid to write “fitness columns.”

It does cross my mind that this could be a diversion from Trump’s woeful racist comments of late…?