Korea isn't Russia

I think that the trumpster in the dumpster, out of pure desperation, is jinning up the North Korea thing.

Federal investigators sought cooperation from Paul Manafort’s son-in-law in an effort to increase pressure on President Donald Trump’s former campaign chairman, according to three people familiar with the probe.

Investigators approached Jeffrey Yohai, who has partnered in business deals with Manafort, earlier this summer, setting off “real waves” in Manafort’s orbit, one of these people said. Another of these people said investigators are trying to get “into Manafort’s head.”

You remember "PizzaGate."

Alex Jones apologized over the hoax.

But to trumpsters, it stuck! (And the press is helpless...)

Russia probe closing in: Why Trump should be panicking over the Manafort raid.

In short, what Trump keeps calling a “witch hunt” is now a fast-moving investigation, which has now convinced a federal judge that there is critical evidence that must be preserved. What is the white house press room telling us?

President Trump on Thursday sharply amplified his criticism of the Senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, raising the possibility that Mr. McConnell should relinquish his position if he cannot deliver on top legislative priorities.

Trump couldn’t have picked a dumber fight!

“Attacking Mitch McConnell is the dumbest thing the president has done yet. And that’s saying quite a bit.” That’s how Michael Steel, former spokesman for ex-House speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio), described President Trump’s attack on the Senate majority leader. Trump on Wednesday had taunted McConnell on Twitter for not delivering the votes for Trumpcare.

Poll: Trump finances fair game in Russia investigation

Seventy percent of Americans believe the federal investigation into Russia's efforts to influence the 2016 presidential election in the US should look into Trump's finances!

Hits Balls, Shows Meat...

President Donald Trump is set to breeze past Barack Obama—when it comes to playing golf while in office.

When Trump hit the six-month mark, folks noticed that not many of his 181 days were actually spent in the White House. Quite a few have been spent playing golf.

It's tough to calculate exactly how much golf Trump has played since in winning the presidency.

Trump frequently slips out to one of his golf courses and disappears for about, oh, four hours or so.

(Coincidently, that's how long it takes to play 18 holes of golf for an obese duffer like Trump.)

The Trump administration keeps the president's golfing schedule a secret.

That might be because Trump used to bully and slam Obama about golfing while in office.

But despite the secrecy, news of the president hitting his balls does get out.

Sometimes the press learns Trump is hitting his balls—like when he showed up to one of his Florida courses on Mother's Day wearing golf shoes and a golf glove—while other times he's captured playing by an onlooker’s cell phone through the trees.

Sometimes Trump makes his obesity known at a golf course by driving his golf cart across the green—an unthinkable breach of etiquette for normal people.

But we still don't really have a reliable count.

It is known, however, that the president has spent 40+ of his first 181 days away from the office at a Trump-branded golf course (at taxpayer expense).

That's roughly 1 out of every 5 days since he’s been in office.

He has been to Trump National Bedminster in New Jersey.

He has been to Trump International West Palm Beach in Florida.

He has been to Trump National Potomac Falls near Washington, D.C.

He has been to Trump National Jupiter in Florida (where he once showed off his meat).

If a picture speaks a thousand words, what does THIS picture tell you? (Fear, and loathing)

JUPITER, Fla. (AP) — After winning the day's two biggest prizes in the Republican race for president, Donald Trump was in the mood to celebrate. (so he whipped out his meat!)

A federal judge has ordered Donald Trump's Jupiter National Golf Club to pay more than $5 million to former members who sued to get refunds of their deposits and dues after they were barred from the facilities while waiting for their resignations to be accepted.

https://www.pathtojustice.com/blog/members-of-trump-national-jupiter-seek-refund-of-deposits/
https://therealdeal.com/miami/2016/08/17/eric-trump-testifies-in-federal-court-case-over-jupiter-golf-course-dispute/
http://postoncourts.blog.palmbeachpost.com/2017/02/01/trump-ordered-to-pay-5-74-million-to-members-of-jupiter-club/

The website TrumpGolfCount.com has community-sourced a rough tracker of the president's rounds of golf and estimates he has been spotted playing golf at least 44 times.

Despite Trump bullying the previous president, Obama spent very few days on the golf course – especially in the early days of his presidency.

And, over eight years Obama visited a golf course about 11 percent of his days as president. So, at about 22 percent, Trump is well ahead of Obama's pace on the links.

to hell with the shell

When Donald Trump won the presidency, our vocabularies could not accommodate the reality that this ignorant geyser of hate had ascended to a position of leadership.

We’re paradoxically left reminded: This is not normal.

In an essay for the New York Times Magazine, Teju Cole wrote, “All around were the unmistakable signs of normalization in progress. Many were falling into line without being pushed. It was happening at tremendous speed, like a contagion.”

David Remnick told CNN, “Less than a week after the election is over, suddenly Washington is going about its business talking about who’s going to get what jobs. You would think that Mitt Romney had won. It’s a hallucination.”

With each new twist in the Trump saga—the uptick in hate crimes, the Twitter rants against the First Amendment, the seeking of security clearances for family members—we hear the same plea.

“He is not normal,” insisted John Oliver.

We’re missing an opportunity to make a strong statement. Trump himself aims to center poor uneducated white men as “normal” and push everyone else out of frame.

Trump won the electoral college vote. Our system chose him. To more than 60 million of our fellow countrymen, Donald Trump is normal.

Trump resembles Richard Nixon, who petitioned a “silent majority” of Americans to reassert their values during the turmoil of the late 1960s.

Both carried within them a rejection of the upheavals changing and reshaping society. They were conservative anthems, hostile to the changing demographics.

In conversations about social justice, normalization often exists in opposition to intolerance or bigotry.

But to de-normalizing Trump, the normative is defamiliarizing. It presumes there’s an in-crowd to be venerated and an out-crowd to be shunned.

And it makes that veneration of Trump and shunning of liberals a matter of dogmatic principle.

We have excellent cause to shun Trump. He is a racist, sexist, Islamophobic, and liar.

Trump’s cornucopia of hatred and incompetence place him well outside our accepted social norms. But railing against Trump just plays into his grubby hands.

We want our fellow citizens to know and understand that Donald Trump is aberrant, just as we want countries to interact peacefully, and we want each person to have the same rights as everyone else.

But we can’t dream Trump away. We can’t deny that the United States drank his poison.

The problem with Trump isn’t that he’s only abnormal. He’s also abominable.

(text by Katy Waldman)