ScottFromWyoming wrote: 
Various committees in both houses of Congress have been wanting this stuff before Mueller ever entered the picture.  What does hiding the "Scope" memo do to any investigation ?  We now have two federal judges as well as several committees wanting it.  There is no reason good enough for holding it back.  Its the key to this whole flippin mess.

Seems that Trump is only good at exiting agreements... not entering into new ones. Entering new agreements takes work and negotiating skills that Trump doesn’t possess

I‘m anxious to see how the North Korea talks pan out but I’m not expecting much to come from it. He will walk in uninformed and unprepared because... when you are your own best council... it’s what you do. He will walk out without having accomplished anything and will be laying all the blame on the other side for the lack of results.

 kurtster wrote: 

You want to talk about Russians? Here ya go!


Michael Cohen did business with company linked to Russian oligarch, AT&T

Michael Cohen, President Donald Trump’s longtime personal attorney, faced explosive claims about his business dealings on Tuesday, prompting AT&T and a company with ties to a Russian oligarch to acknowledge retaining him after the 2016 election.

The companies disclosed the business relationships after lawyer Michael Avenatti claimed they made payments to Essential Consultants, a company he said was also used to make a hush-money payment to his client, porn actress Stormy Daniels, just weeks before the 2016 presidential election.

POLITICO could not independently confirm all of Avenatti’s allegations, but if they prove true, they could show links between the Daniels affair, which is under investigation by prosecutors in New York, and special counsel Robert Mueller’s probe of Russian meddling in the 2016 campaign. They also appear to show businesses seeking intelligence on how to operate under a Trump administration.

 ScottFromWyoming wrote: 

 

Yessiree! Andy releases all that information every day so he and Stormy's cousin can go...picknicking an' such.

 Red_Dragon wrote:
A.k.a. Bibi, Bolton & Bombeo.

 kurtster wrote: 
As you may have read below, Stormy and Russia are not necessarily separate. 
 
And you can go on and keep wishing for an active investigation to release evidence to the public before the investigation is complete. Happens every day in Mayberry.

Am I the only one here who has a problem with the DOJ and FBI refusing to release documents pertinent to the 2016 Election and all that entails ?

I want Sessions and Rosenstein found in contempt of Congress and even better would be to impeach both of them.  This is just plain nuts.

Or is all that matters Stormy Daniels ?  Must be, because we aren't even talking about Russia anymore.

While I was on the road today driving down Michigan's western shore, our big giant orange stable genius leader Donald Trump took America out of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA), AKA: The Iran Deal.

Hardly a surprise, if you've been paying attention.

Trump justified his decision by saying, "The Iran Deal is defective at its core. If we do nothing, we know what will happen. In just a short time, the world’s leading state sponsor of terror will be on the cusp of acquiring the world’s most dangerous weapons...."

On the cusp. Right?

Of acquiring nuclear weapons.

Which — according to pundits, politicians, poltroons, and various and assorted other pudknockers — Iran has been on the "cusp" of acquiring for pretty much the last three or four decades.

But this time, they are potentially right on possibly the very imaginable cusp, probably, soon, in a short time, somewhere in the future, maybe, for sure. Potentially.

OMG!

As always, Trump didn't define "cusp" in any fashion whatsoever, and left how his brilliant no-deal-of any-kind will prevent Iran's achievement of that cusp as an exercise for the MAGA hat wearers.

The fallout began immediately.

Bloomberg financial reporter Saleha Mohsin announced this afternoon that Boeing's license to do business with Iran will be revoked as a result of Trump's new sanctions on Iran.

What?

Oh, you missed that part?

Yeah. See, as part of the deal, in exchange for signing the agreement and renouncing the development of nuclear weapons, America would return Iran's money (you remember the outraged howling about THAT, right?) we've been holding for the last 30 years AND American industry would be allowed to do business in Iran.

Let me repeat that: AND American industry would be allowed to do business in Iran.

As such, Boeing last year signed a $3 BILLION deal with Iran Aseman Airline for THIRTY 737 Max jets.

Three billion dollars. That's a lot, right?

... AND a $16.6 BILLION deal with Iran's national carrier Iran Air for an additional 80 aircraft.

That's $20 BILLION, for an American company.

That's federal tax revenue on $20 BILLION.

That's thousands of American jobs for decades to come, and all the tax revenue on those jobs.

That's millions, maybe billions, more in spare parts, maintenance, training, service contracts (and tariffs, taxes, and various fees).

And that's just ONE company.

All of which is now forfeit (though I'm sure there's great cheering in the various offices of Europe's Airbus at the moment).

All indications show Iran was complying with the JCPOA.

But, because the US has now broken the agreement, Iran is now free to do so as well.

And while the various other members of the JCPOA may or may not continue to adhere to the agreement, the United States of America no longer has any say in the matter. Trump has dealt us out of the game and we no longer have a seat at the table.

And in less than a day it has already cost America BILLIONS.

On the other hand, once Bolton gets his war with Iran, Boeing is likely to make up their losses from US military sales.

So, you know, glass half full.

~Jim Wright

Trump withdraws from the Iran nuclear deal. What now?

(...) During his truculent presentation, Trump asserted that the Iran nuclear deal—known officially as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, or JCPOA—was “horrible” and “one-sided.” Even if Iran complied with the terms of the “decaying and rotten structure” of the JCPOA, the president claimed, it could move to the verge of creating nuclear weapons in “a very short time” even as it continued to build nuclear-capable missiles and support terrorism across the Middle East and the world. (The president's claims run counter to the assessments of the numerous international security experts who note that the JCPOA’s intrusive inspection regime and other components would prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons indefinitely.)

As he announced US withdrawal from the Iran deal, Trump threatened dire consequences for Iran if it resumed work toward nuclear weapons. At the same time, he asserted that his administration would work with allies toward a new deal that he was “ready, willing and able” to negotiate with Iran. Iran has previously insisted it will not renegotiate the JCPOA.

In the immediate aftermath of Trump’s decision, however, it was unclear how Iran, the other five countries that agreed to the JCPOA—Russia, China, the UK, France, and Germany—and the rest of the world would respond over the long term. The Bulletin invited a wide variety of top international security experts for their comments on Trump’s decision and its potentially wide-ranging ramifications. Their responses are published below, in hopes they can help the international community to find the best possible path forward. (...)

 haresfur wrote: 
“Today’s action sends a critical message: the US no longer makes empty threats. When I make promises, I keep them”

Someone should ask him again about his tax returns/paperwork...

PS: As long as nonproliferation treaties can be ignored by some players, they don't add up to much.

 R_P wrote: 
I've always considered the Democrats much better for business than Republicans, but it really shouldn't be the major concern in a nuclear nonproliferation deal. One person, who's opinion I respect, thinks it was a bad deal because it allowed Iranian rocket scientists to continue to work with North Korea on ICBMs. And he though that Iran would have agreed if limiting that was part of the deal. But, hey, we have peace in Korea now, right?

Overall I think it was a good deal and it is really dumb to break it. Look what happened to Muammar Gaddafi after he ended his nuke program and allowed the US to take all his enriched uranium away.  Look what happens when you sign a treaty with the US. But I suppose the Native American tribes could have told them that.

I believe the world's best hope is to make international trade and peace deals that exclude the USA. I'm not quite ready to impose sanctions on you yet, though.

#fuckingidiot

Regime change over biz...
Trump’s Iran-Deal Decision Will Hurt American Businesses and American Workers

Donald Trump’s decision to pull the United States out of the Iranian nuclear agreement—which he made official on Tuesday—has been coming since at least September 9, 2015, when he appeared at a rally in Washington, D.C., alongside Senator Ted Cruz, of Texas, and Phil Robertson, of “Duck Dynasty.” That was the occasion on which Trump said, “Never, ever, ever in my life have I seen any transaction so incompetently negotiated as our deal with Iran.”

His remarks that day were mostly focussed on the thing that Trump is almost always focussed on: money. He talked about the money that Iran would get access to because of sanctions relief, and the money that would flow to America’s partners in the agreement—Britain, France, Germany, China, and Russia—thanks to trade deals. “All of these countries are going to do business with Iran,” Trump said. “They are going to make lots of money . . . . And we’re going to get nothing. We are led by very, very stupid people.” And yet, what he didn’t mention was that, as a result of the deal, U.S. companies would be allowed to do business in Iran. They’d make money, too.

In December, 2016, just a few weeks after Trump’s election, Boeing announced a seventeen-billion-dollar deal to supply eighty American-built jetliners—fifty single-aisle 737s and thirty double-aisle 777s—to Iran Air, the government-run carrier that is based in Tehran. “Today’s agreement will support tens of thousands of U.S. jobs directly . . . and nearly 100,000 U.S. jobs in the U.S. aerospace value stream for the full course of deliveries,” the aerospace company, whose headquarters are in Chicago, said in a statement.

Four months later, Boeing reached a sales agreement with another Iranian airline. This time, it agreed to supply thirty 737s to Aseman Airlines, a privately owned carrier that also operates out of Tehran. In both cases, Boeing said that the deals were a direct result of the 2015 nuclear agreement. In April, 2017, when it confirmed the deal with Aseman, the company said, “Boeing continues to follow the lead of the U.S. government with regards to working with Iran’s airlines, and any and all contracts with Iran’s airlines are contingent upon U.S. government approval.”

Boeing wasn’t alone. In the wake of the Iran deal, Schlumberger, the Houston-based oil driller, reached preliminary agreements to reënter Iran, which is among the world’s largest oil producers. So did General Electric, which also has a big energy division. Other U.S. companies saw their own opportunities. Last year, for example, U.S. and European firms that make household appliances met with Iranian officials about the possibility of investing in Iran. (...)

"America will not be held hostage to nuclear blackmail."

 pigtail wrote: 
John Oliver sadly neglected to mention Rudy's penchant during the 2008 campaign for calling his wife Judith Nathan on his cellphone right in the middle of speeches and press conferences he was giving.

Rudy is one creepy-goofy sleazeball.

Copy and paste...
Melania Trump faces new plagiarism row over cyber-safety booklet

 Red_Dragon wrote: 
  Did you see the John Oliver bit on Sunday?  Giuliani is a perfect Trump flunkee.

https://www.rollingstone.com/tv/news/john-oliver-on-rudy-giulianis-career-of-bizarre-media-moments-w519870

Trump considers benching Giuliani from doing TV interviews

 miamizsun wrote: 

"i'm not quite sure but are you concerned that libertarianism philosophy applied to politics will lead to expanding and or wasteful government programs? (and yes we could move it over to that thread and continue as time allows)

disclaimer: i haven’t always agreed with the aclu but  am a supporter"

 
I should have written more clearly—my goof. My take is that voters of all persuasions, libertarian and otherwise, should guard against letting government programs expand or survive if they've outlived their usefulness or have morphed away from their original missions. I don't think libertarianism encourages expansion of government, but instead tries to fight that expansion. In general I believe most national governments aren't trying to actively suppress individual rights and freedoms but tend to infringe on them if those governments don't face public scrutiny and pushback.

I think that libertarians fail to recognize and yield to the need for collective action that may curtail individual freedoms. I was appalled when I watched a video of  Gary Johnson (the Libertarian Party candidate in '16 and I think in '12 as well) stating that global warming is inevitable since the sun will eventually burn too brightly for the survival of life on earth. He was trying to imply that we shouldn't do anything collectively about global warming, but he couldn't be bothered to add that the life-killing brightening won't happen for a billion years.

Honestly: there may be some good things to say about libertarianism, but Gary Johnson is a complete idiot.

I do believe that libertariansim could have positive, forceful things to say about the preservation of individual privacy and individual rights, especially when an individual is pitted against government forces. Our legal system is failing people who can't afford good legal representation and is allowing prosecutorial misconduct (such as the failure to turn over exculpatory evidence to defense counsel) to go unpunished on a large scale. However, I don't see the state as a hostile force intent on seizing and holding power for power's sake.

Also, I think Silverglate is hysterical and unbalanced when he claims that the "permanent law enforcement bureaucracy" will seek to remove any leader who gets in the bureacracy's way as "an assertion of power." That is a deeply irresponsible accusation. I also don't believe that Mueller's investigation into Trump is corrupt, illegal or outside the bound of the law. As I pointed out in an earlier post, Mueller and former special prosecutors work within the framework of our legal system and under judicial oversight.

If Silverglate and/or Dershowitz can provide real evidence of excessive or illegal actions taken by Mueller and Co., I would read the two lawyers' statements with real interest. I have no time for baseless conspiracy thinking about "the Deep State" working to remove Trump from office.

I support the ACLU although I have disagreed with positions taken by some of its employees, such as opposition to CCTV surveillance of public areas.