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Trump always puts Trump first, not America, and this will never change.

Trump saying he should not talk to them if they don’t “treat you right.

Anyone who has been following Trump the past few years might still be shocked by this but I am not. To quote Adam Serwer in the Atlantic:

There are not many Trump scandals. There is one Trump scandal. Singular: the corruption of the American government by the president and his associates, who are using their official power for personal and financial gain rather than for the welfare of the American people, and their attempts to shield that corruption from political consequences, public scrutiny, or legal accountability.

I call this the Single Scandal Theory. This is just the most recent instance of the scandal. This is exactly the same as the attempted shakedown of Ukraine he was impeached for. This is exactly how he plans on running the post COVID-19 stimulus.  It’s all the same, it never changes.

From Trump admits telling Pence not to call governors – CNN Video

https://www.cnn.com/videos/politics/2020/03/27/trump-pence-governors-call-coronavirus-sot-vpx.cnn

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They never thought it would effect their lives. So Foxlandia dismissed as a hoax. Now that it may effect them, they call it a crisis.

“Fox News personalities such as Sean Hannity and Laura In­graham accused the news media of whipping up “mass hysteria” and being “panic pushers.” Fox Business host Trish Regan called the alleged media-Democratic alliance “yet another attempt to impeach the president.”

But that was then.

With Trump’s declaration on Friday that the virus constitutes a national emergency, the tone on Fox News has quickly shifted.”

If you don’t understand why the GOP base was able to flip the script from hoax to crisis it is because you don’t one of the most basic truth about the right. Problems that do not effect them, do not exist. They never thought COVID-19 would effect their lives, so Foxlandia dismissed as a hoax. Now that it may effect them, they call it a crisis.

From: washingtonpost.com

https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/media/on-fox-news-suddenly-a-very-different-tune-about-the-coronavirus/2020/03/16/7a7637cc-678f-11ea-9923-57073adce27c_story.html

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NPR Story on botched COVID-19 demonstrates the Single Scandal Theory of the Trump Administration

From NPR’s Fresh Air

“Secretary Azar has not always given the president the worst-case scenario of what could happen. My understanding is he did not push to do aggressive additional testing in recent weeks, and that’s partly because more testing might have led to more cases being discovered of coronavirus outbreak, and the president had made clear – the lower the numbers on coronavirus, the better for the president, the better for his potential reelection this fall.

Meanwhile, Seema Verma, since being added to the team, has announced all kinds of actions that could be seen as cracking down on the problem – dispatching a team of investigators to Washington state, where there has been a major outbreak of corona virus, predominantly in local nursing homes. But I’ve talked to officials who say that Seema Verma, in an effort to show that she’s cracking down, may actually be creating more problems by having her investigators demanding paperwork, demanding answers at a moment when these nursing home officials are just trying to provide basic patient care to people who have been infected by coronavirus.”

This isn’t a new Trump scandal. There isn’t a string of unrelated scandals with a new one piled on each news cycle. There is only one which has been going on for three years now. To quote Adam Serwer in the Atlantic:

There are not many Trump scandals. There is one Trump scandal. Singular: the corruption of the American government by the president and his associates, who are using their official power for personal and financial gain rather than for the welfare of the American people, and their attempts to shield that corruption from political consequences, public scrutiny, or legal accountability.

I call this the Single Scandal Theory.

From: npr.org

https://www.npr.org/2020/03/12/814881355/white-house-knew-coronavirus-would-be-a-major-threat-but-response-fell-short

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Rubio's Statement on the President’s Impeachment Trial is Incoherent Nonsense

“ultimately, voters themselves can hold the President accountable in an election, including the one just nine months from now.”

If Rubio really wanted to voters to hold the president accountable he would have asked for documents and witnesses so the voters could get the full story and make their choice as informed citizens.

By allowing the president to block all documents and block all first hand testimony, Rubio is actively preventing the voters from making informed decisions. Instead, the voters will hear a he said she said debate without all the relevant facts and be unable to hold the president accountable for his actions.

Let’s apply this simple test: If Rubio’s goal was to get voters to vote without knowing what the president did thereby being unable to hold the president accountable; is there anything Rubio would have to do differently?

From: medium.com

View at Medium.com

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I think I know why 70% of Republicans want Bolton to testify.

The gap between GOP voters who want John Bolton to testify (70%) and GOP senators who want witnesses (somewhere between zero and 4/51) can be completely explained once you consider that GOP voters think Trump is innocent because they believe the Fox news version of events and GOP senators know he is guilty because they actually know the actual truth.

This also explains why right wing media has turned on Bolton.

“New poll says 82% of all Americans want John Bolton to testify for Trump’s removal trial, including 70% of Republicans,” Scott Dworkin, co-founder of the Democratic Coalition, tweeted Wednesday morning, using the trending hashtag. “So the GOP Senators have a choice to make. They can side with the American people, or they can be traitors for life and side with Trump.”

From Newsweek  #WeWantWitnesses Trends After Report That Mitch McConnell Doesn’t Have The Votes To Block Witnesses In Trump Impeachment Trial

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David Brook’s Stupid Opinion in The New York Times

Is David Brooks suggesting we hold random twitter commenters, late night hosts and salad bar denizens to the same high standard that we hold the president? Or did he just rush to meet the deadline and come up with the most lavy BOTH SIDES argument ever?

Democratic leadership in the House have actually had really intelligent conversations about Iran. Left leaning media has done that as well. Even the mainstream media is doing a reasonable job. You paper is doing a good job. The facts and analysis are out there.

Is he imagining some rouges gallery echo chamber the rest of can’t see?

But the events of the past week have shown that the anti-Trump echo chamber is becoming a mirror image of Trump himself — overwrought, uncalibrated and incapable of having an intelligent conversation about any complex policy problem.

Source: Opinion | Trump Has Made Us All Stupid – The New York Times

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Senate Republican blocks unanimous consent on resolution calling targeting cultural sites a war crime

Remember when Bush43’s administration argued for Waterboarding and everyone thought that was the rock bottom for the GOP? Or when all those people critical of Obama’s drone war were totally OK with Trump escalating it again? Well those same people are against calling out war crimes if it makes dear leader look like a war criminal.

 

The page-long resolution states that “attacks on cultural sites are war crimes.”

Source: Senate Republican blocks unanimous consent on resolution calling targeting cultural sites a war crime | TheHill

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We already know they are willing to abuse national security for partisan politics.

Since long before he was a politician, he’s lied frequently and even written in multiple books about his profound belief in the value of lying as a means to get ahead. And he’s good at it. After his Atlantic City casinos went bust, he successfully duped a bunch of mom-and-pop equity investors out of their money to get out of debt and had them pay him a salary for the privilege. He then got himself elected president and immediately started bullshitting about everything from the size of his inaugural crowds to the way NATO works to Chinese currency manipulation.When someone has proven over and over again that they are not trustworthy, you can, and in important situations should, stop trusting them

Matt Yglesias is right here but the bigger point is that they have shown themselves willing to make this exact kind of lie, as so has the Republican party. The GOP has made it clear they are OK with abusing national security for partisan politics when they lied us into a disastrous Iraq war. They outed Valerie Plame. They lied about the Iran treaty. They pardoned everyone involved in Iran Contra. It just keeps happening.

You can’t trust Trump not to abuse national security for partisan gain because you can not trust the Republican party not to abuse national security for partisan gain.

Source: Trump and Pompeo are untrustworthy on Iran – Vox

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The president who is escaping indictment appointed the guy escaping 83 ethics charges.

The story not being told here is that Brett was facing 83 ethics charges and they went away when he became a Justice of the Supreme Court.  This was brought up during his confirmation hearing and somehow the story was all about the he-said she-said allegation and not the mountain of ethical problems that Brett had. The mystery mortgage payments? His role in the Brook’s Brothers riot in Florida? He public meltdown and unhinges ranting about conspiracies targeting him went mostly unremarked. The president who is escaping indictment appointed the guy escaping 83 ethics charges.

100k pages of his time in the Bush white house were withheld from congress. Somehow that wasn’t a story. Even while the NY Times covered it.

The bulk of the records being withheld “reflect deliberations and candid advice concerning the selection and nomination of judicial candidates, the confidentiality of which is critical to any president’s ability to carry out this core constitutional executive function,” wrote Mr. Bush’s lawyer, William A. Burck.

Looking at the WaPo fact check of the reasons why the Republicans didn’t care about those documents reveals some odd excuses.

Kavanaugh was a trusted adviser to Bush, said Paul C. Light, a New York University professor and expert on the White House

 

“Both groups concluded that Kavanaugh is no longer subject to the federal judiciary’s internal ethics review process because he is now a member of the Supreme Court. He became immune the moment he was confirmed on Oct. 6, a process that followed a congressional testimony about sexual misconduct allegations against him.”

The president who is escaping indictment appointed the guy escaping 83 ethics charges

From: huffpost.com

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/brett-kavanaugh-ethics-complaints-dismissed_n_5d4442a1e4b0acb57fcb6356